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'Lorenzo's Oil' breakthrough: Newfound mechanism could prevent or treat deadly peroxisome diseasesMedical researchers have made a major breakthrough in understanding a group of deadly disorders that includes the disease made famous in the movie "Lorenzo's Oil."Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Airport full-body scanners expose passengers to less harmful radiation than most flights, experts sayAmid concerns regarding terrorists targeting airliners using weapons less detectable by traditional means, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is ramping up deployment of whole body scanners at security checkpoints in US airports. These systems produce anatomically accurate images of the body and can detect objects and substances concealed by clothing.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm H1N1 virus spreads easily by planeResearchers have developed a novel mathematical model that predicts the spread of the H1N1 virus on long airplane flights could be significant, particularly if the infected individual travels in economy class.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Mozart therapy: A sonata a day keeps the doctor awayResearchers have found that pre-term infants exposed to thirty minutes of Mozart's music in one session, once per day expend less energy -- and therefore need fewer calories to grow rapidly -- than when they are not "listening" to the music.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Old antidepressant offers promise in treating heart failureResearchers have found in animal experiments that an antidepressant developed over 40 years ago can blunt and even reverse the muscle enlargement and weakened pumping function associated with heart failure.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Evolutionary surprise: Eight percent of human genetic material comes from a virusAbout eight percent of human genetic material comes from a virus and not from our ancestors, according to a new study. The research shows that the genomes of humans and other mammals contain DNA derived from the insertion of bornaviruses, RNA viruses whose replication and transcription takes place in the nucleus.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Research on rarely studied cell-receptor regions opens door to eliminating drugs' side effectsResearchers have taken an early step toward identifying a new approach to drug discovery that may eventually yield drugs with fewer side effects.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am Biologists develop efficient genetic modification of human embryonic stem cellsBiologists have developed an efficient way to genetically modify human embryonic stem cells. Their approach, which uses bacterial artificial chromosomes to swap in defective copies of genes, will make possible the rapid development of stem cell lines that can both serve as models for human genetic diseases and as testbeds on which to screen potential treatments, they say.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am Discovery opens door to new treatments for prostate, brain and skin cancersResearchers have discovered a previously unsuspected link between two different genetic pathways which suppress the growth of cancer tumors. This breakthrough, they say, could lead to new treatments for some of the deadliest and most intractable forms of cancer; including prostate cancer, brain cancer and melanoma.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am Fossil footprints give land vertebrates a much longer historyThe discovery of fossil footprints from early backboned land animals in Poland leads to the sensational conclusion that our ancestors left the water at least 18 million years earlier than previously thought.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 9:00 am New smog rule could be a surprise to some counties (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 2:48 am County breakdown on proposed smog standards (AP)AP - County breakdown on proposed smog standardsSource: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 2:46 am Fla.'s Big Chill: Iguanas drop, manatees huddle (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 1:46 am Toyota's Prius top-selling car in Japan last year (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 8 Jan 2010 | 12:30 am Turner bid for Yellowstone bison draws protest (AP)AP - Ted Turner's bid to get 74 wild bison from Yellowstone National Park is drawing stiff opposition from those who say the animals are being given up for private profit instead of conservation.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jan 2010 | 10:30 pm Streamlined Stem Cell Procedure May Speed Up Research (HealthDay)HealthDay - THURSDAY, Jan. 7 (HealthDay News) -- A new way of genetically modifying human embryonic stem cells would enable rapid development of stem cell lines that could be used for research into genetic diseases, say U.S. scientists.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jan 2010 | 9:49 pm 'Shorter' get more lung diseasePeople who develop chronic lung disease are more likely to be shorter in height than the general population, Nottingham researchers say.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jan 2010 | 6:09 pm Report calls for research on nanoparticles in foodLONDON (Reuters) - A global scarcity of scientific research on using nanotechnology in foods means food safety authorities are unable to properly regulate products that may be beneficial or harmful, a British science panel said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 7 Jan 2010 | 5:33 pm Cocaine changes how genes work in brainCHICAGO (Reuters) - Prolonged exposure to cocaine can cause permanent changes in the way genes are switched on and off in the brain, a finding that may lead to more effective treatments for many kinds of addiction, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 7 Jan 2010 | 5:19 pm Cocaine changes how genes work in brain (Reuters)Reuters - Prolonged exposure to cocaine can cause permanent changes in the way genes are switched on and off in the brain, a finding that may lead to more effective treatments for many kinds of addiction, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jan 2010 | 5:19 pm Food industry is 'too secretive'A Parliamentary report calls the food industry "secretive" in its use of and research into nanotechnology.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jan 2010 | 5:16 pm Peers criticise food industry secrecy on nanotechnologyLord committee calls for more checks on use of nanomaterials in food and the dangers posed to the human body The UK food industry comes under attack from peers today for being secretive over its development of nanotechnology in food and drink. The Lords science and technology committee is urging the government and research councils to carry out more checks into the use of nanomaterials in food and in particular the dangers for the human body. Nanotechnology involves whittling common materials down to the size of microscopic particles, allowing them to acquire unusual properties. Nanoparticles have been used in cosmetics and sun-cream products. They can help create foods which taste the same as conventional alternatives but have lower fat, salt or sugar levels, or enrich foods with supplements, or even be used in packaging to extend products' shelf-life. Nanotechnology is also being seen as a successor to genetically modified (GM) techniques. This week Professor John Beddington, the government's chief scientist, said GM crops and developments such as nanotechnology must be embraced to avoid catastrophic food shortages and future climate change. But today's warning from eminent scientists including Lord Krebs – the former chairman of the Food Standards Agency – is the third in two years, after calls from the Royal Society and the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution for more stringent safety checks. Research has shown that nanoparticles can penetrate into places larger particles cannot go, such as through the "blood-brain barrier", which stops toxic molecules passing from the blood into the brain. They find their way into vital organs including the kidneys and liver, but precisely what they do in them has yet to be fully investigated. In a 112-page report, Nanotechnologies and Food, the Lords committee says transparency is key to ensuring public trust in food safety but warns that the food companies' failure to publish details of their research in this area is "unhelpful". It warns the industry that appearing to be secretive about its research "is the type of behaviour which may bring about the public reaction it is trying to avert". The report recommends that the Food Standards Agency watchdog should keep a public register of food and food packaging containing nanomaterials. But Julian Hunt, of the Food and Drink Federation, said: "Given that nanotechnology is in its infancy in the food and drink sector and that bringing new innovations to market is a long and complex process, we are surprised that the report seems to criticise the food industry for an apparent reluctance to communicate extensively on this subject." Which? chief policy adviser Sue Davies said: "We must fill in the significant gaps in our knowledge about how nanomaterials behave in the human body to ensure that there are no safety concerns in this rapidly developing area." Peter Melchett, the policy director of the Soil Association, added: "The report is good in drawing attention to the huge risks and uncertainties of nanotechnology. This is a ticking time-bomb." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm The abolition of the Milk Marketing Board did not help us dairy farmersThousands of farmers were ruined by Mrs Thatcher and rising supermarket power Your leader column was an interesting if rose-tinted take on the last 30 years of the British dairy industry (In praise of... British cheeses, 31 December). One cannot argue with Juliet Harbutt, the organiser of the British Cheese Awards, that having a choice of over 700 British cheeses is a cause for celebration – "the poor French have only 600" – especially as sales are still robust despite the recession. It is a testament to the resilience and entrepreneurial flair of many farm businesses. But there was a cost. You asked: "What brought about the change?" and cited "1980s EU milk quotas, which forced dairy farms to diversify, followed by the breaking in the 1990s of the buying power of the old Milk Marketing Board". But this isn't the whole story. Twenty-seven years ago I returned from university to the family farm, in the Yorkshire Dales, and milking cows. My brother and I were the fifth generation to farm there. When quotas arrived, business growth was in fact more difficult, because to produce more milk meant buying or leasing more quota. This felt particularly iniquitous as Britain only had quota for 80% of our demand, to allow the continued import of New Zealand butter. Then Mrs Thatcher decided to abolish the Milk Marketing Board. In the 1930s our grandad could remember putting milk and butter on the train and sending it to Bradford or Leeds. But some days it was sent back, without payment, and the family pig had a large meal. This abuse of market power, made worse by dealing with a perishable product, was one of the reasons the board was established. It took the uncertainty out of the market and allowed farmers to plan. This was vital, as a cow cannot be switched off when your milk buyer changes their mind. The MMB pooled all the milk and then marketed it together. The modern twist has been the emergence of the supermarkets, which dictate the price they will pay for commodities like milk. With no MMB as the counterbalance, in 2000 our farm's milk price began a drop of 40% in 18 months. To a medium-sized family farm like ours, £50,000 per annum effectively walked off the farm. To really rub it in, as we were tenants our balance sheet was largely made up of cattle, whose value dropped with the milk price. That was the end for us as dairy farmers. This little story from Yorkshire was repeated around the country around 30,000 times – that's three-quarters of all dairy farms that were milking cows in 1983, when quotas were introduced. The personal cost in many cases was depression and even suicide. There are several ironies that flow from this. This country no longer has enough cows to fill our quota, never mind fulfil national demand. Those farmers who are still dairying have often intensified their systems and are feeding their cows with soya grown on land that was formerly the rainforest of South America. The supreme irony is that as farmers we now receive environmental payments to maintain the biodiversity of our farms. This includes schemes to encourage the grazing of, yes, cattle. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 5:05 pm Distant Planet is Second Smallest Super-Earth (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - A newly discovered planet light-years from Earth is just four times the mass of our home planet, making the second smallest extrasolar planet to be found to date.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jan 2010 | 4:16 pm NASA Chief Calls for More International Cooperation in Space (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - WASHINGTON — The United States must reach out to other countries to increase international cooperation in space, NASA chief Charles Bolden told an audience of astronomers this week.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jan 2010 | 3:46 pm US sunshine state shivers in arctic spell (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jan 2010 | 3:24 pm Human Genome Is Part Bornavirus
People may not be quite the humans they think they are. Or so suggests new research showing that the human genome is part bornavirus.
“Our whole notion of ourselves as a species is slightly misconceived,” says Robert Gifford, a paleovirologist at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, affiliated with Rockefeller University in New York City. Human DNA includes genetic contributions from bacteria and other organisms, and humans have even come to rely on some of these genes for basic functions like fighting infections. In the new study, Japanese researchers found copies of the bornavirus N (for nucleoprotein) gene inserted in at least four separate locations in the human genome. Searches of other mammalian genomes also showed that the gene has hitched rides in a wide variety of species for millions of years. “Clearly they provide a fossil record of bornavirus that was previously only available for retroviruses,” says John Coffin, a virologist at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston who coauthored the study. “It tells us that virus evolution doesn’t proceed the way many people have viewed it.”
Other RNA “viruses all look like they are relatively young, which doesn’t make any sense,” says Michael Emerman, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Estimations of viral ages are calculated from mutation rates. RNA viruses’ high mutation rates make it seem as if the viruses’ molecular clocks are ticking faster than those of other viruses. “The high mutation rate doesn’t allow us to see far into the past,” Emerman says. Many virologists suspected that RNA viruses were much older than molecular clock estimates suggested, “but it’s nice to see direct evidence,” he says. In the new study, researchers led by Keizo Tomonaga of Osaka University found that two human genes are similar to the bornavirus N gene. These two genes, now called EBLN-1 and EBLN-2 for endogenous Borna-like N, are molecular fossils of an ancient bornavirus. Retroviruses make up about 8 percent of the human genome. When these viruses insert into the genome, the result is usually bad for the host. But not always: Some retrovirus proteins can help fight off infection with other retroviruses. And at least twice in primate evolution retrovirus insertions have added genes to the host genome that aid in making the placenta. Now those proteins are essential for placenta development, says Cédric Feschotte, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Texas at Arlington. It is not clear what role, if any, the EBLN-1 and EBLN-2 genes play in humans. Other mammals, including chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, macaques, mouse lemur, African elephant, Cape hyrax and 13-lined ground squirrels all carry N gene insertions in their genomes, Tomonaga and colleagues found. The insertion in the ground squirrel genome was probably a relatively recent event, occurring not more than 10 million years ago, the researchers report. But bornavirus insertion isn’t all ancient history. In laboratory experiments, Tomonaga’s team found that modern bornavirus can integrate into the DNA of human, monkey, rat and dog cells. And mice with bornavirus infections were shown to have new insertions in brain cell DNA. Modern bornaviruses are known to infect nerve cells, but the new study shows that the viruses are capable of infecting and inserting genes into many other types of cells. For the inserted virus sequences to pass to the next generation, the ancient infection must have happened in tissues that give rise to eggs or sperm. Scientists call these tissues the germ line. “The fact that these viruses were able to get into the germ line, which requires many chance events, implies that they may insert at some appreciable frequency,” Gifford says. Feschotte agrees. “That, to me, is a revelation,” he says. He speculates that bornavirus could be another source of human mutations, especially in neurons. Some studies have linked infection with the virus to psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. Feschotte thinks modern bornaviruses may worm their way into human DNA in the neurons, creating mutations in genes that could lead to schizophrenia. Tomonaga says the schizophrenia link is “not likely.” Because bornavirus genes insert randomly in the genome, “it is not conceivable that mutations [caused] by the integration lead to the specific brain disorders, such as schizophrenia,” he says. Images: 1)Bornavirus Model. Wikimedia Commons/M.Eickmann. 2) Bornavirus in horse tissue/CDC. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 7 Jan 2010 | 3:11 pm Arthur C. Clarke - To Plan For A CenturyIn his own words, Sir Arthur's inspirational launch of International Space University Credit: 1987 ISU / Dave BrodySource: Livescience.com | 7 Jan 2010 | 2:19 pm Escape Pods: Rescue and Survival in SpaceIf you love science fiction, there's a good chance you love escape pods. Just try and tell a space opera without one. But what about the real-life space escape and rescue vehicles? Let's abandon ship together, shall we?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 2:05 pm As Elvis Turns 75, Celebrity Worship Alive and WellElvis Presley would be 75 Friday, at a time when celebrity worship is soaring.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jan 2010 | 1:10 pm The proliferation of nuclear panic is politics at its most ghoulish | Simon JenkinsThe risk from radiation is exaggerated. Worst-case scenario fantasies are used to justify wars that cause many more deaths Some books are written to be read, others to be put in a cannon and blasted at the seat of power. Two such blasts have just crossed my desk, from academics on either side of the Atlantic. Both are on the same subject, the consequence of the irrational fear of radiation. The first book, Radiation and Reason, is by an Oxford professor of physics, Wade Allison. It narrates the history and nature of nuclear radiation, culminating in an attack on the obsessive safety levels governing nuclear energy. These overstate the true risk, in Allison's view, by up to 500 times, thus rendering nuclear prohibitively expensive and endangering the combat of global warming. The second is Atomic Obsession by John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University. Mueller describes the toxic fear associated with radiation from nuclear weapons. It distorts the balance of international relations and senselessly makes enemies of friends. The books jointly undermine conventional wisdom on the two greatest political challenges of the day, in the fields of energy and defence. As such, they are sensational. Radiation, says Allison, is nothing like as dangerous as the anti-nuclear lobby and its paranoid regulators claim. The permitted radiation level in the waste storage hall at Sellafield is so low (1 mSv per hour) as to be negligible, a figure achieved at vast cost in construction and inspection. This compares with the 100 mSv threshold for even remote cancer risk and 5,500 for radiation sickness. According to Allison, someone would have to live for a million hours in Sellafield to absorb the same radiation as is administered in a hospital radiotherapy suite. Higher doses are permitted in food processing and even in medicinal resorts, with supposed beneficial or at least harmless effects. Only yesterday research suggested that mobile phone radiation may relieve Alzheimer's. Allison analyses successive studies into the only serious nuclear accident since Hiroshima, the Chernobyl fire, which killed no more than 60 people, all in close contact with the fire. Other than some thyroid cancers caused chiefly by a failure to distribute iodine tablets, long-term cancers in survivors were below the regional average. The truth is that low-dose radiation effects wear off quickly. In some parts of India and Brazil people live happily with ambient radiation of 200-300 mSv. Yet the mere word, Chernobyl, induces such terror in regulators as to lead to the unnecessary sterilisation of thousands of acres (with now thriving wildlife) and the continued slaughter of Cumbrian sheep, despite the risk to lamb-eaters being negligible. The trouble is that nobody makes money by downplaying risk. Nuclear inspectors need work, and contractors can claim astronomical safety costs, assuming that governments will pay. The losers are the public and life on earth. Meanwhile, over in Ohio, Mueller describes the same terror infecting reaction to nuclear weapons. He points out that nuclear bombs are extremely hard to make, let alone deploy, and their destructive power and radiological aftermath are grossly overstated. The devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was largely the result of the buildings bombed being made of wood. Numbers killed were similar to those dying in conventional bomb attacks at the time. Yet we memorialise Hiroshima but not Tokyo, where 100,000 were killed in March 1945. Subsequent diseases from exposure to low-level radiation were harder to detect. Modern nuclear weapons are obviously more powerful, but again their blast areas would remain limited and their likely contamination, says Mueller, much exaggerated. I used to believe that, for all their horror, atom bombs brought an end to the war in Japan – which other bombs had failed to do. After that war, they stabilised the nervous confrontation between east and west, deterring Soviets and Americans from going jointly berserk at such flashpoints as Berlin, Hungary or Cuba. Deterrence sort of worked. History may be moot on those points, but what is surely clear is that nuclear weapons are now virtually useless. Like Allison, Mueller goes beyond the two iconic incidents of Hiroshima and Chernobyl to show how special interests have hijacked the nuclear mystique to exploit public fear. The risk of anyone exploding a nuclear weapon, even in politically charged regions such as the Middle East, is infinitesimally small. Whoever did so would be too mad to be deterred by an enemy possessing nuclear weapons, any more than Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam, Argentina's Galtieri or Iraq's Saddam Hussein were deterred by America and Britain. Nor, says Mueller, would the consequence of even a serious bomb attack be as horrible as is claimed. Cities recover with remarkable alacrity, as even Hiroshima did from contamination. The second world war and many American bombing campaigns since have shown that human settlements are resilient to aerial bombardment. As for the much-vaunted risk of a terrorist getting a nuclear weapon – the "1% chance" that kept poor Dick Cheney awake at night – Mueller points out that the chance must be not one in a hundred but one in millions. Cheney would have done better worrying about the proliferation of AK47s. Even were a "dirty" bomb somehow to be assembled and deployed, its radiological contamination is exaggerated by defence contractors and lobbyists frantic for contracts. The billions of dollars being devoted to countering "cataclysmic" terrorism, in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Yemen, and to confronting such proto-nuclear states as Iran or North Korea, is not just disproportionate to the risk. The money would be better spent on other ways of reducing terrorism. In a futile pursuit of nuclear non-proliferation, America and Britain are combing the world accusing states of threatening somehow to destroy their civilisations when the risk of this happening is near meaningless. As Mueller notes, it is not only ghoulish science and ghoulish journalism that sells, ghoulish politics does too. He has nothing against negotiating nuclear non-proliferation, but pleads "to avoid policies that can lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people under the obsessive sway of worst-case scenario fantasies", as is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is these fantasies that line the streets of Wootton Bassett each week. It is a monumental irony that rightwing politicians who rearm against the tiny risk to humanity from nuclear weapons are often the same as deny the risk to humanity from global warming. Both are risks. Both may be improbable, but the risk from radiation is minimal and containable, while the worst-case scenario from global warming is truly cataclysmic. Nor is such hypocrisy confined to the right. Many of those who claim global warming as the "greatest threat to the planet" tend also to be those who oppose nuclear energy as "too risky", or even too expensive. This is all a massive failure of science to pierce the carapace of public ignorance. As Allison and Mueller argue, nothing is as potent as the politics of fear, and there is no fear as blind as that which comes from a bomb and a death ray. So what is science doing? The world is in the grip of a prejudice from which nothing seems able to free it. At least these books try. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 1:00 pm Coral reefs are evolution hotspotCoral reefs give rise to many more new species than other tropical marine habitats, say scientists.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:43 pm Video: Wild Sumatran tiger cubs caught on filmWWF footage shows two cubs and their mother approaching and sniffing camera before moving on Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:31 pm Male fish that nibble parasites punish females that get 'greedy'Male fish that nibble parasites off larger fish punish females of the species when they bite and drive off the bigger fish.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:28 pm TigerCam: First-Ever Video of Sumatran Tigress and Cubs in the Wild
A Sumatran tigress and her cubs took a special interest in a World Wildlife Federation camera, sniffing and possibly licking it during a brief sequence released in late December.
The video was released as a prelude to the WWF’s Tx2: Double or Nothing campaign to call attention to plight of the tiger species. There are as few as 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild, and they remain vulnerable to poachers and the destruction of their habitat on the Indonesian island. WWF’s field crew has been using the “wildlife-activated” cameras for five years, but this is the first time that a mother and her cubs have been recorded. Tiger cubs sniff WWF camera trap from WWF on Vimeo. See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:23 pm Fish Punish Fish For Bad Mannerscleaner fish will punish females when the females misbehave at mealtime, a new study finds.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:05 pm Coral Reefs Generate LifeRecords show that reefs are key sources for the appearance of new species.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:01 pm Diamond Asteroid Chiseled by SunlightThis diamond in the sky could help scientists to deflect future asteroids on a collision course with Earth.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:01 pm Chinese Coal Formed During Earth’s Greatest Extinction Is Deadly
A seam of coal formed 250 million years ago during the worst extinction event on record appears to be responsible for the anomalously high lung cancer death rates among women in the rural Chinese county of Xuan Wei in Yunnan Province. It’s long been known that the lung cancer mortality rates in the region were the worst in the world among female nonsmokers and some anomaly in the coal had been suspected. Lung cancer mortality in the region is up to 20 times the Chinese average. But it’s only in recent years that scientists have focused in on silica in the form of very fine quartz as the mineral that makes burning the stuff so deadly. Now, in a paper published in December in Environmental Science and Technology, Chinese, British and American researchers have proposed a link between the silica in the coal and the massive event that nearly wiped out life at the Permian-Triassic boundary. “What we’re saying is that the geologic and climatic events that nearly extinguished life 250 million years ago is still having an impact because its imprint is in the coals that the people are using,” said Bob Finkelman, a geologist at the University of Texas, Dallas. “They are inhaling this material with nanoquartz that was precipitated 250 million years ago and in a sense it’s extinguishing life in the community.”
Throughout the early 20th century, the inefficient combustion of soft, bituminous coals smoked up the emerging industrial cities of the world. Similar problems now plague the developing world, both in cities and the hinterlands, where the coal is often used for heating and cooking. The inhalation of the particulates, trace minerals and other substances contained in smoke can lead to a variety of health complications: The World Health Organization estimates that 1.6 million people die each year as a result of indoor air pollution. The new study underscores the variability between coals in the world. Some coals are particularly smoky, sooty or otherwise undesirable, while others burn cleaner. Coals formed at different times in the earth’s history, so even though the dominant component is carbon, each seam has a very particular chemistry. “Even when you look at coal from a small region, there’s enough variation in the properties that you can’t just call it all coal and expect it to have the same health effects when you burn it,” said Donald Lucas, a physical chemist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Lucas co-authored a paper on the nanoquartz in Xuan Wei’s coal with geologist Linwei Tian of Chinese University of Hong Kong who did pioneering work on the subject. What Finkelman’s work provides is a plausible account of why this particular coal may be enriched with silica. While there are several hypotheses for what caused the mass die-off at the Permian-Triassic boundary 250 million years ago, a major volcanic episode is likely to have contributed to the phenomenon. Massive amounts of gases leaving Siberian basalts are believed to have radically altered the geochemistry of the atmosphere. “It lead to highly acidic rain which denuded life on the surface of the earth and acidified the rivers and the oceans,” Finkelman explained. “It was so intense that they believe it actually dissolved a lot of the rocks on the surface, mobilizing the silica.” That silica was carried by groundwater into peat that over geological time became the coal the Chinese residents in the region use as a fuel source for cooking. Coal from this time period is not known to be used for indoor cooking elsewhere. In Xuan Wei, the direct combustion of coal for cooking has waned in recent years, but basic cookstoves, sometimes without ventilation, have long been employed. Epidemiological studies as far back as 1991 found that the more time you spent cooking, the more likely you were to get lung cancer (.pdf). Now, residents have been getting better stoves or moving into apartments, where they have electricity, Finkelman said, but the local coal still presents a problem for thousands. Public health biologist Joseph Bunnell of the U.S. Geological Survey, who was not involved with the work, said the next step will be to try to determine exactly how the tiny silica particles could combine with other carcinogens in coal smoke to be so deadly. “What needs to be done from an epidemiological point of view is to establish biological plausibility,” Bunnell said. Image: 1) Pushing coal in Sichuan Province/AP. 2) BMC Public Health. Citation: “Silica−Volatile Interaction and the Geological Cause of the Xuan Wei Lung Cancer Epidemic” by David J. Large, Shona Kelly, Baruch Spiro, Linwei Tian, Longyi Shao, Robert Finkelman, Mingquan Zhang, Chris Somerfield, Steve Plint, Yasmin Ali, and Yiping Zhou WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook. See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Call for ban on mountaintop miningAnalysis of damage done leaves Obama no choice but to ban the highly destructive practice, say the authors of a new study Mountaintop mining should be banned for causing vast and permanent destruction to US environment and exposing its people to serious health consequences such as birth defects, a new study says today. An article in the journal Science, by a team of 12 ecologists, hydrologists, and engineers, provides the most comprehensive analysis so far of the damage done by the controversial mining practice. The process involves shaving off up to 1,000 vertical feet of mountain peak – including ancient forests – to expose thin, but highly prized, seams of coal. Margaret Palmer, an ecologist at the University of Maryland Centre for Environmental Science, who led the study, said the science left no excuse for the Obama administration not to ban the highly destructive practice. "Scientists are not usually that comfortable coming out with policy recommendations," she said, "but this time the results were overwhelming." The article described river and forest systems that have been disrupted well downstream from the original dumping spot of mining debris. It also said there was virtually no chance of restoring mountain, forests or streams once the mining companies have moved on to new seams. "There is a lot of evidence suggesting that there is significant degradation, and there just isn't the evidence at all that they can reverse this," said Emily Bernhardt, an environmental biologist at Duke University, who was another co-author. She said there were signs that contamination from the mining debris was spilling into drinking water and wells. The debris is already killing off fish. In heavily mined southern countries, 50- 60% of young fish were deformed because of high concentrations of selenium. "That was quite an eye-opener," said Dennis Lemly, a biologist at Wake Forest University and one of the authors. He warned the fish population could soon be wiped out. "The deformed young fish – that is really the red flag. You can see right away that you are over a serious threshold." Selenium concentrations in fish caught in some of West Virginia's rivers were twice as high as in other states that had declared them unfit for human consumption. West Virginia authorities issued a health warning – but not a ban. "To put it quite bluntly, my jaw dropped because right away I saw concentrations that were far above toxic thresholds," added Lemly. The authors also logged significant dangers to human health, including lung cancer, and chronic heart lung and kidney disease, as well as birth defects. Today's report – reinforced by the rare demand from scientists for specific government action – deepens the pressure on the Obama administration from environmentalists and liberal supporters to ban mountaintop mining. Obama administration officials had promised to toughen the lax environmental regulations of the George Bush era. But grassroots activists in West Virginia accuse the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of continuing to greenlight new projects – albeit with some additional restrictions on the mining companies. Earlier this week, the EPA outraged activists by giving the go-ahead to two new mines. EPA officials argued that the new conditions imposed on the mining operator, Patriot Coal, would bury only three miles of mountain stream – instead of the six miles of waterways that would have been filled with debris under the company's original plan. Until today's article, Mountaintop mining consequences, much of the research on the effects of mountaintop removal had been left to government scientists, and there was little understanding in the broader academic community of the sheer scale of destruction. As many as 500 mountaintops across West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky have already been replaced by dry flat plateau, and 1,200 mountain streams have been buried beneath dumped rock and dirt. By 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 2,200 square miles of Appalachian forest will disappear. At some sites, the mining companies have tried to rebuild the silhouette of the old mountain, or replant. But mostly they leave the mountain missing its crest. In any event, there is no undoing the damage, and the scientists said the seriousness of the environmental and public health impacts compelled the EPA to ban mining. "I think it is very clear. It is very compelling, and it would be a disservice to the people who live there to say we just have to study it more," said Michael Hendryx, a community medicine professor at the University of West Virginia. "The monetary costs of the industry in terms of premature mortality and other impacts far outweighs any benefits." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm Coral reefs crucial to origin of new marine speciesNew research provides a new incentive to protect reefs, overturning ideas that coral sealife originated elsewhere Coral reefs give birth to a dazzling number of new species of sea creatures, according to a study that highlights their critical role in marine ecosystems. Scientists have found that the reefs not only harbour amazing biodiversity, but are actively involved in the generation of new life forms. The study overturns conventional thinking that much of the sea life in coral reefs originated elsewhere. Wolfgang Kiessling of the Humboldt University of Berlin, who led the study, said: "We found that coral reefs are very active at generating biodiversity in the oceans, and that they export biodiversity to other ecosystems. This was a surprise because many people had assumed that reefs were ecological attracters – that species go there from other places." He and colleagues in Germany and the US studied a database of fossil organisms that lived on the sea floor from the Cambrian period, about 500m years ago. They compared the number of new genera that first appeared in coral reefs with those in other shallow-water environments and found the reefs were responsible for about 50% more. The results are published tomorrow in the journal Science. The team looked at fossils of so-called benthic organisms, such as starfish, clams and corals that live on the seabed. They ignored fossils of fish, which do not offer clues to where they evolve, because after they die their remains can float elsewhere. Kiessling said the study offered extra incentive to protect coral reefs. "If we lose the coral reefs we lose the ability for marine ecosystems to generate new species in the future. I suspect that new species evolve every single day, but unfortunately not as fast as they go extinct." Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere damages coral as seas become warmer, which causes the coral to bleach, and become more acidic, which makes it hard for the tiny animals to repair their exoskeletons. Experts say the world has already passed the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for coral reefs, and even the most ambitious carbon cuts planned for coming decades will fail to save them. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm How Earth Survived BirthEarth should have fallen into the sun shortly after it formed 4.6 billion years ago. But here we are.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jan 2010 | 11:59 am Killer Whales Splitting into Two Species?Killer Whales in the in the North Atlantic Ocean come in two different flavors, and could be in the process of splitting into two species, according to new research by a team of European scientists. Orcas in different regions like ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 11:54 am Mining Brown Gold for Dairy FarmersA new dairy in Texas promises to green the farming process and put more money in farmers' pockets at a time when they are feeling the greatest pinch. The demonstration dairy facility under construction at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 11:11 am Earth WatchDoes conservation need a rare dose of the common touch?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jan 2010 | 11:00 am Feeling chilly?Spare a thought for some of the coldest places on EarthSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jan 2010 | 10:51 am Running Barefoot Better than Running with ShoesIf you're thinking about taking up running to burn off those holiday pounds, you might want to set aside the running shoes. A study published in American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation reports that average running shoes mess up ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 10:45 am Some "Non-Avian Feathered Dinosaurs" May Have Been BirdsSo called "non-avian theropod" dinosaurs from the Cretaceous had feathers, nests, laid eggs and roosted like birds. If they were so much like birds, why don't we just say they were birds? A paper in the February issue of Medical ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 10:43 am Starfish Suck Carbon From the SeaIt's just like the movie "Avatar" -- well, sort of. Starfish, sea urchins, and their brethren are rising up to fight humanity's greatest wrong to the Earth: global warming. Together they are sucking around 100 million tons of carbon from ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 10:39 am Shuttered Polaroid Factory Turns to Solar PanelsIn New Bedford, Mass., a shuttered plant that once rolled out Polaroid film is up and running again. Except this time, the plant isn't producing film -- it's making extremely thin flexible solar panels. Back in 2008, the factory got ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 10:33 am Plans for British 'GM food revolution' come under fireHi-tech vision of food production advocated by the UK government's chief scientific adviser is unnecessary and potentially damaging, says conference of farmers, academics and environmental groups The vision of hi-tech British farming outlined this week by the UK government's chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, has been dismissed as unnecessary and potentially damaging by environmental groups and organic farmers. In a speech to British farmers and the food industry on Wednesday, Beddington claimed there was a need for "a new and greener revolution" to increase food production. He urged that genetic modification (GM) of crops and nanotechnology needed to be mobilised if catastrophic food shortages were to be avoided in the face of rising temperatures and global population. "Techniques and technologies from many disciplines, ranging from biotechnology and engineering to newer fields such as nanotechnology will be needed," he told the Oxford farming conference. But the hi-tech strategy, known to be favoured by the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, and the government, came under attack by organisers of the Oxford Real Farming Conference, meeting in the city at the same time. Here, academics, environment groups and others concluded that farmers were well able to feed the world without novel and untried technologies - but to do so would require governments to operate in line with biological principles and not solely economic ones. "For decades politicians have starved agriculture of resources on the mistaken notion that the market would deliver a secure food supply," said biologist and writer Colin Tudge. "As a result tens of thousands of farmers have gone to the wall and Britain has been robbed of the skills it needs to feed the people." "The government has recognised that we're now in trouble and are desperately pinning their hopes on untried GM technology to save us. But scientists who truly understand agriculture know that this can't solve our food supply problems. The real answer is to redesign agriculture from first principles. But this time our prime objective must be feeding people, not making profits for large business corporations as now," said Tudge. Emma Hockridge, policy manager of the Soil Association, said Prof Beddington's approach was not the best way forward. "GM is not going to feed a growing world population sustainably, now or in the future. We need far-reaching changes to our food and farming systems, rather than GM technology, which, despite millions in public and private research expenditure, has consistently failed to deliver food security." Martin Wolfe, the research director of Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm, said there were still many unanswered questions about GM crops and the monoculture systems they were designed for. The only realistic way to maximise productivity was through "polycultures" in which a wide variety of crops and animals are integrated. "The first priority for research and development should be for ecological agriculture," he said. "The dangerous obsession with GM crops must end," said Helen Rimmer, of Friends of the Earth. "The most comprehensive farming report ever conducted found no conclusive evidence that GM increases yields and called for a move away from damaging industrial farming. The majority of GM crops are grown for animal feed, many on massive plantations that have replaced South American rainforests. GM crops don't feed the world - they simply make record profits for the big businesses that sell the patented seeds and chemicals needed to grow them." The chief scientific adviser for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Bob Watson, has called for UK trials of GM foods, arguing that the government needs to be more open with the public about the risks and benefits of genetically modified foods. "Over the next 20 to 50 years, the population is going to increase from 6.5 to 9 billion. There will be more extreme weather, more demand for food, meat, and water, a changing climate," said Watson in November. "We have to look at all the technologies, policies and practices, all forms of bio-tech, including GM." Critics of GM point out that a UN-sponsored four-year review, involving more than 400 international scientists and chaired by Watson, concluded in 2007 that GM technologies were unlikely to have more than a limited role in tackling global hunger. According to the Watson-led review, the scientific evidence on the claimed benefits of GM suggests they are variable, with increases in yield in some areas but decreases in others, and both greater and lesser pesticide use in different contexts. The report concluded that global hunger is as much to do with power and control of the food system as with growing enough food. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 10:10 am Deforestation Unveils Lost Amazon CivilizationWho would've thought deforestation had an upside? Satellite flyovers of newly cleared land in the Amazon have uncovered a vanished civilization that could rival the Incans or Aztecs in sophistication. Researchers found mysterious geometric trenches and other earthworks carved into ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 Jan 2010 | 9:38 am Sea stars suck up carbonMuch more carbon is sequestered by echinoderms than previously thought.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/mjBQD2xjOow" height="1" width="1"/>Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 7 Jan 2010 | 9:34 am Wild Sumatran tiger cubs caught on filmWWF says the images of Sumatran tiger cubs in the Indonesian jungle show the need for habitat protection A video camera in the Indonesian jungle has captured the first known footage of Sumatran tiger cubs in the wild, boosting efforts to conserve the endangered species, WWF said today. The video, shot in October on the island of Sumatra, shows two, one-year-old cubs and their mother approaching and sniffing the camera before moving on. WWF's tiger research team set up four video camera traps along known tiger routes that allow the animals to move between two protected areas in central Sumatra - the Rimbang Baling wildlife reserve and Bukit Tigapuluh national park. Ian Kosasih, WWF Indonesia's forest programme director, said the images showed the need to turn the corridor into a protected area and for paper and palm oil companies in the area to shield what he called high-value forest. "When these cubs are old enough to leave their mother ... they will have to find their own territory," Kosasih said. "Where will they go? As tiger habitats shrink with so much of the surrounding area having been cleared, the tigers will have a very hard time avoiding encounters with people. That will then be very dangerous for everyone involved." Sumatran tigers are on the brink of extinction because of rapid deforestation, poaching and clashes with humans. Their numbers have dwindled to about 400 from about 1,000 in the 1970s, the WWF estimates. The infrared-triggered camera traps, which are activated upon sensing body heat in their path, have become an important tool to monitor the population and identify which areas of forest are used by tigers, WWF said. WWF operates dozens of cameras throughout the central Sumatran province of Riau. Karmila Parakkasi, the leader of WWF Indonesia's Sumatran tiger research team, said her crew first captured still images of the tigress and a cub in July 2009 using still camera traps. The photos, however, were not clear. Video camera traps were then installed in September at the same location. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 9:34 am Rare Wild Tiger and Cubs Captured on VideoScientists capture first video of elusive Sumatran tiger with cubs.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jan 2010 | 9:25 am Tiger Mom and Cubs in Sumatran JungleFor the first time, scientists capture video of a mother tiger and her cubs stopping to sniff and check out a camera trap in the Sumatran jungle.Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jan 2010 | 8:56 am Super-Earth 'began as gas giant'The smallest known planet outside our solar system started its life as a Saturn-sized gas-rich planet, researchers say.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jan 2010 | 7:58 am Vampires Among Us: From Bats to PsychicsVampires are very popular in books and movies, but are they real?Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jan 2010 | 7:50 am Can a Person Freeze to Death?The recent cold weather might have you wondering what happens to your body at these temperatures, and could you really freeze to death?Source: Livescience.com | 7 Jan 2010 | 7:08 am Help! I've fallen for a much younger manThe Guardian's Evolutionary Agony Aunt Carole Jahme shines the cold light of evolutionary psychology on readers' problems He's young and fitFrom Nicola, age 37 I don't know if I am more rattled about our ages than I want to be (I am 37, he is 22). Would I be foolish to invest energy in a relationship with a guy who is potentially going to change a lot and the attraction of an older female wear off? Carole replies The evolution of empathy probably contributed to the development of Homo sapiens' large and complex brain. From your description your boyfriend sounds empathic – if he were faking empathy you should have discovered this by now. Empathic humans are hard-wired to care for others, which is why females are attracted to males like this: they make good parents and committed long-term partners. At 37, perhaps you should seize the day and discuss with your boyfriend whether you want to have children together. Dickins, TE, et al (2006) Aggression, empathy and sexual orientation in males. Personality and Individual Differences; 40: 475-486. Baron-Cohen, S, Wheelwright, S (2004) The empathy quotient: an investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, vol 34, issue 2, April. Blaffer Hrdy, S (2006) The optimal number of fathers. Evolution, demography and history in the shaping of female mate preferences. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol 907, issue 0, pages 75-96. It's a vicious cycleFrom David, age 39 Is this likely to be a symptom of longer-term depression or alternatively addiction to exercise? I am worried that with the imminent arrival of our second child my time is going to be so limited that I am going to end up unable to manage myself and end up a mess. Carole replies As a cyclist you may be experiencing the "runner's high", where endorphins are produced in large amounts to help the body cope with the stress of vigorous exercise, which in turn produces a euphoric effect that can become addictive, known as "exercise-dependence syndrome". Humans and chimpanzees have at least 98% of their DNA sequences in common, but recent research on the evolution of gene regulation has shown that humans differ from other apes in the amount of endorphins produced. The expression of an endorphin gene was favoured in human evolution and various mutations have been selected for. Humans may produce 20% more endorphins than chimps, indicating that over the past seven million years, through natural selection, the human lineage has been significantly influenced by increased production of these molecules. In addition, recent research has shown that when compared to lone experiences, such as cycling, greater amounts of endorphin are produced in humans when groups of people collectively experience intense, shared events, such as competitive rowing. One might hypothesise that team-building exercises, such as constructing shelters and hunting game, or culturally shared experiences in large groups such as laughing and dancing are activities humans are driven to do. If you are indeed suffering from exercise-dependence syndrome, you could try to slowly cut down on the amount of cycling and access endorphins via other experiences. How about team sports? Or you could squeeze your progeny into a baby sling and go speed-walking with them, which would also give their mum a break. By organising allomaternal care (a babysitter) the two of you could set aside more time for mutual grooming and attending shared events such as aromatherapy massage, comedy clubs and dancing classes. Sex and the consumption of chocolate have also been linked to the production of endorphins ... Boecker, H, et al (2008) The runner's high: opioidergic mechanisms in the human brain. Cerebral Cortex; 18: 2523. Dunbar, RIM, et al. (2009) Rowers' high: behavioural synchrony is correlated with elevated pain thresholds. Biology Letters. Wray, GA (2007) The evolutionary significance of cis-regulatory mutations. Nature Reviews Genetics; 8: 206-216. Terms and conditions We regret that Carole cannot answer all the mails we receive. We cannot provide urgent advice and suggest that if you need such advice you seek it immediately without waiting for a response from Carole. With regards to legal, medical or financial issues, we recommend seeking the advice of a listed professional. We will not be held liable for any loss, damage or injury you incur as a result of using this site or as a result of any advice given. We will not enter into personal correspondence via email. Carole is UK-based and as such any advice she gives is intended for a UK audience only. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 5:55 am Contracts for Galileo sat-navContracts worth one billion euros are awarded to build an operational satellite-navigation system for Europe.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jan 2010 | 4:31 am A brief history of snowBritain's recent cold snap is nothing on the 16th century's Little Ice Age, or even New York's notorious 1888 blizzard, but we could learn a lot from past snow events The early 20th-century Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson relates a salutory technique used by the Inuit to deal with a blizzard, a common phenomenon in the Canadian north. When an Inuit becomes lost, he will make himself comfortable and conserve energy, perhaps building an igloo, perhaps sitting with his back to the wind, moving around only occasionally to keep himself from freezing, sleeping if possible. Then, when the storm has passed and he can see again, he will carry on to his destination. A European, by contrast, will instinctively thrash on, building up a sweat with his exertions. As he exhausts himself, the sweat generated will turn to ice, which in all likelihood will kill him. I like Stefansson's story for what it says about the Inuit, but also because the blizzard reveals something of the nature of the person stuck within it. I think of it often when a snowstorm strikes Britain, when there is chaos on the railways and the roads, a shortage of salt and grit and gas, and a lack of foresight by whomever it was. As schools shut, the recriminations begin about slack attitudes, the cost to society and things not being what they were. In the long history in which humans have been getting caught in snowstorms, the way we have reacted to snow and interpreted it has shifted radically from place to place and era to era. For the Impressionists and the Japanese ukiyo-e artists, it was a force for beauty and contemplation. For the inhabitants of the Alps in the middle ages and after, it was associated with evil and witchcraft. Each society has interpreted the unusual and often spectacular event of a snowfall in a different way. Perhaps the best way to track the cultural significance of snow is through art. Until the 16th century, artists showed little interest except where it had a religious context. Then came the shocking winter of 1564-5, the longest and most severe for more than a hundred years, and the first great winter of the intensely cold period in northern Europe that we now call the Little Ice Age. For the next 150 years, the winters in Europe were extremely cold. It was the most sustained period of low temperatures in Europe since the last major ice age: crops failed, winter snowfall increased and Alpine glaciers advanced down the moutainsides, swallowing pastures, eradicating communities and gouging ever deeper features in the landscape. The inhabitants of the Alpine Chamonix valley petitioned their lords to do something to alleviate the effects of the climate: "We are terrified of the glaciers . . . which are moving forward all the time and have just buried two of our villages and destroyed a third." The talk in the inns and the pulpits and the government would have been of the changing climate. It was early in this exceptional winter of 1565 that Pieter Bruegel the Elder created what is regarded as the first winter landscape painting, The Hunters in the Snow. What did he see in this, the earliest detailed account of people's reaction to snow? He saw the pleasure of snow as much as the pain. These are lean days, as the huntsmen's meagre bag attests, but they are also days of fun and leisure. Apart from the business of hunting and gathering wood, work has largely stopped. People have come out to enjoy themselves on this clear, special day, when snowfall has made the landscape new; they are skating and playing a precursor of ice hockey. It is also a time for children, for innocence and play, romance and games. Once Bruegel had found snow as a subject, he couldn't stop. Among a number of paintings of ice and snow that survive, he created the first scene with falling snow and the first nativity scene to include snow, The Adoration of the Magi. He also started a vogue for Netherlandish snow painting that endured for a century and a half. But the largely benign manifestation of snow was not to last. In the growing romantic tradition of the late 18th century, in which nature was employed to dramatise and heighten human emotions, snow was assigned a range of sinister and dangerous roles. No longer suitable for children to be seen playing with, it was more likely to be shown freezing people to death, crushing them under its weight, or drowning horse-drawn carriages in its hungry depths. In part, this reinterpretation of snow was the result of a new period of extremely cold weather. After a relatively warm period that coincided with the end of the Dutch Golden Age, the temperature began to dip after 1775, heading for a trough that bottomed out in the second decade of the 19th century. In 1809, a series of major volcanic eruptions heralded the arrival of a particularly cold period as the clouds of ash partially blocked out the sun. The decade from 1810 to 1819 was the coldest in England since the 17th century. In 1812, the French Grand Armée was chased from Moscow by the advancing winter – known to the Russians as General Snow. The new coldness seeped into literature and music as well as art. Dickens experienced six white Christmases in the first nine years of his life (he was born in 1812), which may account for the vivid snowscapes in Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. The snow in Franz Schubert's Winterreise is the symbol of misery and heartbreak. For the painter Caspar David Friedrich, snow symbolised death. JMW Turner, meanwhile, painted some of snow's most terrifying images. He had witnessed the full violence of snow and ice in his journeys to the Alps: at least twice his carriage was overturned by snow. In 1810, he painted The Fall of an Avalanche in the Grisons, in which a chalet is obliterated by a white wave of snow. Avalanches are the most extreme manifestations of terrifying snow, but in the early 19th century they were little understood even in the Alps. A mythology had grown up around them: they were widely believed to be the result of witchcraft. A Swiss legend told of an old woman dressed in black who was seen riding the first wave of an avalanche while quietly turning her spinning wheel. She was grabbed by four men and burned alive. Alpine residents would protect themselves by burying eggs marked with the sign of a cross at the foot of known avalanche slopes. The avalanche historian Colin Fraser recounts an Alpine adage that sums up the mountain-dwellers' fear of snow: "What flies without wings, strikes without hand and ses without eyes? The avalanche beast!" Britain's most disastrous avalanche occurred in 1836 in the unlikely town of Lewes in East Sussex, after a phenomenal Christmas storm. It is recounted in a painting by Thomas Henwood now held by the Lewes museum; the Snowdrop Inn stands at the scene of the tragedy. A violent gale on Christmas night blew the snowfall into a cornice on a cliff's edge 100m above Boulder Row, which had been built for the families of poor workers. The heavy snow and strong winds left the streets 10ft deep, with drifts up to 20ft deep. However, even when a portion of the snow fell from the clifftop into a nearby timber yard, the cottages' transfixed residents refused to leave their homes, and on 27 December, the cornice dropped. One eyewitness said the snow appeared to hit the houses at the base, heaving them upwards, then breaking over them like a gigantic wave to dash them bodily into the road. When the mist cleared off, there was nothing to see but an enormous mound of pure white. Eight people were killed. The lesson of the Lewes snow drop, and of other great snowstorms in history, is that the human desire to carry on is foolish. As urban societies grew increasingly complex during the 19th century, they became more vulnerable to snow. Nowhere was this more evident than in New York in March 1888. The Blizzard of 1888 ranks among the most notorious snowstorms in history. It struck on a Monday – crucially, as cities are always most vulnerable during the working week. The storm dropped 50in in all, but instead of staying at home and sitting out the storm, New Yorkers jumped out of their windows into the drifts in order to get to work. This was later interpreted as hubris. The result is the stuff of New York folklore. The elevated railways, a new innovation, became blocked with snow and the telegraph cables that kept the stations in contact with controllers broke down. The trains crashed into one another and passengers were stranded. Despite the strong winds, some tried to crawl along the tracks. The railroads leading into the city were blocked by drifts that were sometimes deeper than the trains were high. Commuters, who were trapped for days, were forced to chop up the train seats and tables to use as firewood while the wind whistled through the cracks in the coachwork. Those who abandoned the trains to walk home found themselves struggling for hours through drifts up to their armpits and suffered forstbite. In the city centre, the horse-cars found the drifts impassable, and many were abandoned by their drivers. People came across horses that had frozen solid in their harnesses and whose heads stuck up out of the drifting snow. The wind was so strong that unlucky pedestrians were blown into the drifts and found they couldn't dig themselves out. Women, in billowing dresses and high heels, were particularly susceptible. The bodies of men and women who had been pushed by the wind into drifts were discovered hours or days later by an arm or leg protruding from the snow. At the end of the week 400 people had been killed, 198 ships sunk or damaged in or around New York harbour, and 800 bodies were waiting to be buried in the city's cemeteries. The newspapers blamed late 19th-century New York's advances in infrastructure and engineering for the city's catastrophic exposure to the weather: the city's transport system simply hadn't been designed to function in the extreme conditions of the storm. One newspaper, the Hartford Courant, ran an editorial that captured the public mood: "It is the boasting and progressive 19th century that is paralyzed, while the slow-going 18th would have taken such an experience without a ruffle . . . There comes a snowstorm – there is no railroad, no telegraph, no horse-car, no milk, no delivery of food at the door. We starve in the midst of plenty . . . it is only a snowstorm, but it has downed us." Britain has had its deep-frozen winters in the last 100 years – 1940, 1947, 1963 and 1979 among them. In 1979, I recall being driven through the Scottish borders and seeing the drifts left by the snowplough stretch way above our heads. At the start of the 21st century, however, the principal meaning of the succession of paltry British snowfalls has been as an indicator of the warming climate. Not long ago, in early summer, I walked deep into the Cairngorm mountains on the shoulder of Braeriach to see the last patches of perennial snow in the country. Here, in a secluded gully, lie two very special snow patches, known by the rock formations above them: Pinnacles and Sphinx. These patches contain the longest-lasting snow in Britain, with the Sphinx patch having melted completely just five times since the mid-1800s. Three of those occasions were after 1995: in 1996, 2003 and 2006. Perhaps this year we will be lucky, and the Sphinx patch will last through to next winter – as it used to. But this week, with Basingstoke cut off and our motorways turning into car parks, it is perhaps worth reflecting on New York's experience in 1888 – as it is on Stefansson's story about the Inuit in the blizzard. We have become accustomed, in our millions, to travelling long distances each day in cars and trains and planes, come rain or shine or snow. It is only a snowstorm, but we should not be surprised that it has downed us again. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 7 Jan 2010 | 2:00 am
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Scientists have long had direct evidence of retroviruses’ ancient origins: Molecular fossils of those viruses persist in the genomes of species infected long ago.
