|
|
|
|
Women more affected than men by air pollution when running marathonsFindings come from a comprehensive study that evaluated marathon race results, weather data, and air pollutant concentrations in seven marathons over a period of 8 to 28 years. The top three male and female finishing times were compared with the course record and contrasted with air pollutant levels, taking high temperatures that were detrimental to performance into consideration.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:00 pm Popular nanoparticle causes toxicity in fish, study showsA nanoparticle growing in popularity as a bactericidal agent has been shown to be toxic to fish, according to a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:00 pm No consensus in definitions of 'had sex,' study findsWhen people say they "had sex," what transpired is anyone's guess. A new study found that no uniform consensus existed when a representative sample of 18- to 96-year-olds was asked what the term meant to them. More than idle gossip, the answers to questions about sex can inform -- or misinform -- research, medical advice and health education efforts.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:00 pm Snowball Earth: New evidence hints at global glaciation 716.5 million years agoGeologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a "snowball Earth" event long suspected to have taken place around that time. The new findings -- based on an analysis of ancient tropical rocks that are now found in remote northwestern Canada -- bolster the theory that our planet has, at times in the past, been ice-covered at all latitudes.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:00 pm Therapeutic effect of worm-derived proteins on experimental colitisWorms are important source of immunomodulatory proteins that could be used in the development of new drugs for the treatment of immune-mediated diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). A research group in Belgium investigated the therapeutic effect of worm-derived proteins on experimental colitis in mice. Treatment with worm proteins ameliorated motility disturbances during murine experimental colitis. This suggests that worm proteins have great potential to be used as therapeutic agents in IBD.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:00 pm Offering hope for tissue regenerationResearchers have discovered how cells communicate with each other during times of cellular injury. The findings shed new light on how the body repairs itself when organs become diseased, through small particles known as microvesicles, and offers hope for tissue regeneration.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 6:00 pm Experimental vaccine protects monkeys against mosquito-borne chikungunya virusResearchers have developed an experimental vaccine for chikungunya virus and successfully tested it in monkeys.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Computing: Heat helps in low power data storage schemeHeat is often the enemy of computing and data storage, but a new experiment shows it could help reduce the amount of power needed to store data in magnetic memory.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Trapping sunlight with silicon nanowiresResearchers have found a better way to trap light in photovoltaic cells through the use of vertical arrays of silicon nanowires. This could substantially cut the costs of solar electric power by reducing the quantity and quality of silicon needed for efficient solar panels.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Theory of single stem cell for blood components challengedComponents of the blood or hematopoietic system derive from stem cell subtypes rather than one single stem cell that gives rise to all the different kinds of blood cells equally, say scientists in a new report.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:00 pm Experts confirm asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:04 am Interior to announce sage grouse finding Friday (AP)AP - The Interior Department plans to announce whether it will pursue endangered species protection for sage grouse, a decision with major ramifications for the West's renewable energy and oil and gas industries.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 5 Mar 2010 | 2:35 am How public trust in climate scientists can be restored | Chris HuntingfordThe Met Office's review of latest climate research will strengthen the case for human-induced climate change We know from many long-term records of environmental change (for instance, analysis of bubbles of air trapped in ice cores) that planet Earth is a truly remarkable "living" entity. The climate has had both warm and cold periods in the past. But what is different about the present is the speed at which the planet is warming. Our computer simulations can only recreate this rapid warming when the addition of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from human sources is included. If this warming continues, we may reach a situation where very unwelcome changes occur to our weather patterns, which for developing nations could cause major difficulties with food and water security. So what are the potential flaws in this line of argument? First we have to completely trust the temperature measurement records, such as those developed by colleagues at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. Although their temperature numbers are very similar to those produced by other American groups, the revisiting of their analysis is in many ways to be welcomed. I cannot imagine what my colleagues at CRU are going through at the moment, but although we cannot pre-empt any form of inquiry, most climate researchers believe that their analysis will have been shown to be accurate. Second there is the question of whether major policy decisions should really be made on the basis of simulations of the climate system, as performed on a few specialised computers dotted around the world? There are compelling reasons to trust these computer models, but at the same time, more direct evidence underpinning the claim that climate is changing is needed. That is why the work by Peter Stott and colleagues is important. It looks beyond temperature to other artefacts of a changing environment. Direct measurements show decreasing amounts of Arctic sea ice, changes in rainfall patterns and associated levels of moisture in the atmosphere, rapid variations in ocean levels of saltiness. All of these things can be attributed to impacts of global warming. They are all additional strands of evidence that climate change remains a concern. The recent furore surrounding the science of climate change is difficult for those working on the subject, yet most of us do think that ultimately something good will come from this. There certainly has to be more openness about the underpinning research. To preserve public confidence, we must "buy out" the copyright from research journals of key papers so that these can be freely available to all for inspection. Datasets must also become more available for general scrutiny. Effort should also be made to avoid statements on climate change that could, inadvertently, be perceived as scare-mongering. Researchers need to calmly present their findings on climate change as an issue, among many others facing the world, on which well-considered collective thought and economic or technical action is likely to be needed. I sincerely hope we can win back the trust of the public. If we do so, then hopefully society will keep emissions on a pathway that ensures a safe climate for future generations while avoiding any damage to the global economy. • Dr Chris Huntingford is a climate change researcher working at Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. 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 | 5 Mar 2010 | 1:00 am Analysis reveals 'clear fingerprints' of man-made climate changeClimate scientists say the 100 studies of sea ice, rainfall and temperature should help the public to make up their own minds on global warming It is an "increasingly remote possibility" that human activity is not the main cause of climate change, according to a major Met Office review of more than 100 scientific studies that track the observed changes in the Earth's climate system. The research will strengthen the case for human-induced climate change against sceptics who argue that the observed changes in the Earth's climate can largely be explained by natural variability. Climate scientists and the UN's climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have come under intense pressure in recent months after the IPCC was forced to admit it had made two errors in its fourth assessment report published in 2007. Emails hacked from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in November have also sparked a series of inquiries into allegations of a lack of transparency by researchers and manipulation of the peer review process. Asked whether his study was specifically scheduled as a fightback, Peter Stott, who led the review, said that the paper was originally drafted a year ago. But he added: "I hope people will look at that evidence and make up their minds informed by the scientific evidence." Scientists matched computer models of different possible causes of climate change - both human and natural - to measured changes in factors such as air and sea temperature, Arctic sea ice cover and global rainfall patterns. This technique, called "optimal detection", showed clear fingerprints of human-induced global warming, according to Stott. "This wealth of evidence shows that there is an increasingly remote possibility that climate change is being dominated by natural factors rather than human factors." The paper reviewed numerous studies that were published since the last IPCC report. Optimal detection considers to what extent an observation can be explained by natural variability, such as changing output from the sun, volcanic eruptions or El Niño, and how much can be explained by the well-established increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to Nasa, the last decade was the warmest on record and 2009 the second warmest year. Temperatures have risen by 0.2C per decade, over the past 30 years and average global temperatures have increased by 0.8C since 1880. The evidence that the climate system is changing goes beyond measured air temperatures, with much of the newest evidence coming from the oceans. "Over 80% of the heat that's trapped in the climate system as a result of the greenhouse gases is exported into the ocean and we can see that happening," said Stott. "Another feature is that salinity is changing - as the atmosphere is warming up, there is more evaporation from the surface of the ocean [so making it more salty], which is most noticeable in the sub-tropical Atlantic." This also links into changes in the global water cycle and rainfall patterns. As the atmosphere warms, it has been getting more humid, exactly as climate modellers had predicted. "This clear fingerprint has been seen in two independent datasets. One developed in the Met Office Hadley Centre, corroborated with data from satellites." Arctic sea ice is also retreating - the summer minimum of sea ice is declining at a rate of 600,000 km² per decade, an area approximately the size of Madagascar. Again, decreasing sea ice is predicted by climate models. Rainfall is also on the rise in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere and large swaths of the southern hemisphere, while in the tropics and sub-tropics, there are decreases. "The already-wet regions are getting wetter and the dry regions are getting drier," said Stott. "We now have studies that can identify this fingerprint in the observational data." The review, published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, found that the natural causes of climate variation, including changing energy output from the sun and volcanic eruptions, could not explain the observed changes by themselves. "There hasn't been an increase in solar output for the last 50 years and solar output would not have caused cooling of the higher atmosphere and the warming of the lower atmosphere that we have seen," said Stott. If the observed climate change was entirely due to solar activity, the Earth's atmosphere would have warmed more evenly - both the troposphere and stratosphere would have been affected. Warming due to the Sun would also have meant temperatures should have increases more quickly early than late in the 20th century, which is the reverse of what was actually measured. The review is published as scientists also report a rise in methane emissions from a section of the Arctic Ocean sea floor. That study, published today in the journal Science, shows that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic shelf, once considered an safe store of methane, is leaking large amounts of the gas into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming as this is a greenhouse gase around 30 times more potent than CO2. "The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world's oceans. Sub-sea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap," said Natalia Shakhova, a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks's International Arctic Research Centre. "The release to the atmosphere of only one percent of the methane assumed to be stored in shallow hydrate deposits might alter the current atmospheric burden of methane up to three to four times. The climatic consequences of this are hard to predict." 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 | 5 Mar 2010 | 12:00 am The Private Life of Plants | Your next box setAfter so many thrilling revelations from the animal kingdom, an Attenborough programme about the botanical world might sound underwhelming - but actually, this was one of his best Throughout his long, glorious, planet-encompassing career, David Attenborough has taught us many things: how to keep calm in the company of gorillas; how high a killer whale can toss a seal; and what a mountain of bat crap looks like. But one of his most profound – and surprising – lessons came in the form of 1995's The Private Life of Plants. When it was first announced, it sounded like a bit of a let-down. After so many thrilling revelations from the animal kingdom, a focus on the botanical didn't seem the most exciting proposition. But never doubt Attenborough. As well as introducing us to ancient trees, giant waterlillies and huge fungi, The Private Life of Plants also contains a breathtaking and humbling point: that plants and humans exist on an entirely different timescale. Over the course of six episodes, stop-motion cameras translate the life-cycles of plants from across the planet into a timespan we can understand; or, as Attenborough puts it, the cameras "condense three months into 20 seconds – and the desolation of winter quickly warms into the riot of spring". Appropriately enough, it's a box set that grows on you. Attenborough's ceaseless enthusiasm – delivered in that calm, calming though clearly excited tone – is hypnotic. There's his gleeful admiration for killers like the carnivorous trumpet pitchers ("They're doomed! Where one ant goes, others are likely to follow!"); as well as his appreciation of the biggest flower on earth, the titan arum, which not only dwarfs our presenter but also "smells very strongly of bad fish". Then there is his final plea for conservation, using words that were worrying back then, but seem chilling now: "Ever since we arrived on this planet, we've cut them down, dug them up, burnt them and poisoned them. The time has now come for us to cherish our green inheritance, not to pillage it – for without it, we will surely perish." 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 | 4 Mar 2010 | 11:45 pm Missing Persons and Abductions Reveal Psychics' FailuresSeveral high-profile former missing persons have been in the news lately, including Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard. Earlier this week, Elizabeth Smart’s abductor, Brian David Mitchell, was found competent to stand trial in a Utah court. His trial is expected ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 10:35 pm Years of Exposure to Traffic Pollution Raises Blood Pressure (HealthDay)HealthDay - THURSDAY, March 4 (HealthDay News) -- Long-term exposure to the air pollution particles caused by traffic has been linked to an increase in blood pressure, U.S. researchers say.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:48 pm 'Case stronger' on climate changeThe UK Met Office says evidence that human activity is causing climate change is stronger now than in a 2007 assessment.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:19 pm Chile wants loans, focuses on aid for quake areas (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:12 pm 'Jury out' on controversial whaling deal (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 7:29 pm Can We Save the Tastiest Fish in the Sea?Bluefin tuna are delicious. Whether raw or seared, their deep red, yet light-tasting meat is magic on the tongue. They are so revered that one magnificent specimen of their species, a hulking, 512-pound giant, recently sold for $176,000 in a ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 7:22 pm Could the Tumbleweed Rover Dominate Mars?We've explored Mars with satellites, landers and rovers, could the next robotic exploration vehicle be spherical in shape and inspired by the humble wind-blown tumbleweed?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 6:22 pm NASA's high-tech GOES-P weather satellite lifts off (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 5:45 pm Dinosaurs killed off by Isle of Wight-sized asteroidAfter studying 20 years of data, panel of 41 scientists rule out volcanic explosions as cause of dinosaurs' demise A mere 65 million years after the demise of the dinosaurs, a panel of the world's most eminent scientists have finally got to the bottom of the extinction. The creatures were wiped out by a large asteroid slamming into the Earth, they insist. After studying 20 years' worth of research and data, a panel of 41 scientists came to a conclusion which will sound more than just a bit familiar to most schoolchildren who paid attention in science class. The new finding flies in the face of claims by other scientists that the extinction was caused by volcanic explosions. According to the new international study, the asteroid that did for the dinosaur struck the Earth at an angle of 90 degrees and a speed of about 12.4 miles per second – about 20 times faster than a speeding bullet. The asteroid generated a force one billion times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the close of the second world war, the scientists say. It crashed into the Earth in what is now Mexico, at Chicxulub, off the Yucatán peninsula. Dr Gareth Collins, one of the scientists from Imperial College London, said: "The asteroid was about the size of the Isle of Wight and hit Earth 20 times faster than a speeding bullet. The explosion of hot rock and gas would have looked like a huge ball of fire on the horizon, grilling any living creature in the immediate vicinity that couldn't find shelter. "While this hellish day signalled the end of the 160 million-year reign of the dinosaurs, it turned out to be a great day for mammals, who had lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs prior to this event." The effect of the strike was to create a global winter, and geological records reveal that it rapidly destroyed marine and land ecosystems. Scientists say there was an abundance of iridium in geological samples dating back to the time of extinction, which is commonly found in asteroids, but little of which is found in the Earth's crust. Joanna Morgan, of Imperial College, a co-author of the review, described the effects of the asteroid strike: "This triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale and continental landslides, which created tsunamis. "However, the final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs happened when blasted material was ejected at high velocity into the atmosphere. This shrouded the planet in darkness and caused a global winter, killing off many species that couldn't adapt to this hellish environment." 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 | 4 Mar 2010 | 5:32 pm Stalled engine?Environmental limbo threatens Thai recoverySource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 5:20 pm Heavy antimatter created in gold collisionsMost massive antimatter nucleus yet identified in particle experiments.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/news/rss/today/~4/Yp1LQlxah2A" height="1" width="1"/>Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 4 Mar 2010 | 5:00 pm Panel confirms dino crater linkAn international panel of experts has strongly endorsed the idea that an asteroid impact was responsible for killing off the dinosaurs.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 4:49 pm Woody shrubs don't slurp up waterClearing encroaching plants from savannah might make drought worse.Source: NatureNews - All articles published today - nature.com science feeds | 4 Mar 2010 | 4:45 pm Alien Plants Get New Twist in World of 'Avatar' (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - The film "Avatar" takes viewers to a fictional moon, where the plants glow, shoot poison leaf tips and communicate. None of this fits exactly with our definition of "plant," but one botanist has pieced together an ecological back-story for how plants may have evolved on this strange world.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 4:30 pm Antarctica's Tunguska EventGiant, extinction-sized asteroids hurtling into Earth may grab headlines and star in Hollywood blockbusters, but airbursts from smaller asteroids and comets are thought to occur once every 500-1,000 years, making them one of the most pressing threats to humanity from ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 3:31 pm Fears of Undersea Methane Leaks Already Coming True
Prodigious plumes of planet-warming methane are bubbling from sediments across a broad region of Arctic seafloor previously thought to be sealed by permafrost, new analyses indicate. The resulting increase of methane gas in the atmosphere may accelerate climate warming, scientists say.
Now, field studies by Shakhova and her colleagues, reported in the March 4 Science, suggest that the submarine reservoir of carbon has begun to leak. During six cruises in the region from 2003 to 2008, the researchers gathered data at more than 1,000 spots in the Greenland-sized stretch of shallow ocean. The team also took atmospheric readings of methane concentration during one helicopter survey and a wintertime excursion from shore onto the ice-covered sea, says Shakhova.
Previously, scientists presumed that the carbon trapped in sediments on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf was sealed by permafrost, as nearby deposits on land are. But there’s a big difference between the two, Shakhova says: Much of the permafrost on land remains intact because it’s exposed to bitter winter cold, whereas the seafloor permafrost is bathed in cold, yet definitely not freezing, salt water. The annual average temperature of seafloor permafrost is between 12 and 17 degrees warmer than that of nearby land-based permafrost, she notes. The warmth of the seawater, as well as heat flowing up from within the Earth, has thawed the seafloor permafrost, releasing the methane, the researchers speculate. “We don’t know how long it’s been bubbling like this,” Shakhova adds. Sonar images show plumes of methane bubbling from the seafloor, indicating that the gas originates in sediments there. Other measurements show that the methane isn’t generated in the water by microbes or brought to the seas by rivers, Shakhova says. Each year, the researchers estimate, nearly 8 million metric tons of methane make their way to the atmosphere over the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. That’s more than previous estimates for all of the world’s oceans, Shakhova notes. Siberian seafloor sediments are spewing much more methane than previously thought, but they’re providing only a small fraction of the estimated 440 million tons of that planet-warming gas emitted to the atmosphere each year, Martin Heimann, a biogeochemist at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, comments in Science. Nevertheless, he notes, release of a sizeable fraction of the carbon trapped in these sediments would lead to warmer atmospheric temperatures, which would in turn cause more methane to be released. Images: 1) Igor Semiletov, University of Alaska Fairbanks. 2) Science/AAAS.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Mar 2010 | 2:51 pm Epic Iron Beard Gives Mussels Super StrengthYou may have heard of "Epic Beard Man." Now take a closer look at this mighty mussel's iron beard.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 2:45 pm Rock Solid Link: Asteroid Doomed the Dinosaurs (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - THE WOODLANDS, Texas Scientists have debated for two decades whether a giant space rock wiped out the dinosaurs or if some other catastrophe did the deed.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 2:30 pm It's official: An asteroid wiped out the dinosaursLONDON (Reuters) - A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only plausible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 2:16 pm Mine Grows, Valleys DisappearA new pair of images from NASA shows the growth of one of the largest surface mines in West Virginia during the past 25 years.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2010 | 2:04 pm Climate emails inquiry: Energy consultant linked to physics body's submissionEvidence from Institute of Physics drawn from energy industry consultant who argues global warming is a religion Evidence from a respected scientific body to a parliamentary inquiry examining the behaviour of climate-change scientists, was drawn from an energy industry consultant who argues that global warming is a religion, the Guardian can reveal. The submission, from the Institute of Physics (IOP), suggested that scientists at the University of East Anglia had cherry-picked data to support conclusions and that key reconstructions of past temperature could not be relied upon. The evidence was given to the select committee on science and technology, which is investigating emails from climate experts at the University of East Anglia that were released online last year. The committee interviewed witnesses on Monday, including Phil Jones, the scientist from the university's climatic research unit (CRU), who is at the heart of the controversy. The Guardian has established that the institute prepared its evidence, which was highly critical of the CRU scientists, after inviting views from Peter Gill, an IOP official who is head of a company in Surrey called Crestport Services. According to Gill, Crestport offers "consultancy and management support services … particularly within the energy and energy intensive industries worldwide", and says that it has worked with "oil and gas production companies including Shell, British Gas, and Petroleum Development Oman". In an article in the newsletter of the IOP south central branch in April 2008, which attempted to downplay the role carbon dioxide plays in global warming, Gill wrote: "If you don't 'believe' in anthropogenic climate change, you risk at best ridicule, but more likely vitriolic comments or even character assassination. Unfortunately, for many people the subject has become a religion, so facts and analysis have become largely irrelevant." In November Gill commented, on the Times Higher Education website: "Poor old CRU have been seriously hacked. The emails and other files are all over the internet and include how to hide atmospheric cooling." The institute submission accused the East Anglia university scientists of "apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements". This appears to refer to an email sent by Jones in which he said he had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in a temperature series derived from tree-ring data, but which refers to a widely known feature of that data. The IOP evidence concluded that the emails had "worrying implications for the integrity of scientific research in this field". That was used by climate sceptics to bolster claims that the email affair, dubbed "climategate", showed the scientists did not behave properly and that the problem of global warming was exaggerated. The IOP has already been forced to issue a clarification that the evidence does not undermine the scientific basis for climate change. But many experts think this does not go far enough. In an open letter to the institute, Andy Russell, an IOP member who works on climate at the University of Manchester, says: "If the IOP continues to stand by this statement then I will have no other option but to reconsider my membership." He says the allegation of data suppression is "incorrect and irresponsible". The institute says its evidence was based on suggestions from the energy subcommittee of its science board. It would not reveal who sat on this sub-commitee, but confirmed that Gill was a member. A spokeswoman for the institute said Gill was not the main source of information nor did the evidence primarily reflect his views; other members of the sub-commitee were also critical of CRU. However the IOP would not reveal names because they would get "dragged into a very public and highly politicised debate". Gill told the Guardian he helped prepare the submission but many of his suggestions were not in the final document. The IOP added that the submission was approved by three members of its science board, but would not reveal their names. The Guardian contacted several members of the board, including its chairman, Denis Weaire, a physicist at Trinity College Dublin. All said that they had little direct role in the submission. The institute supplied a statement from an anonymous member of its science board, which said: "The institute should feel relaxed about the process by which it generated what is, anyway, a statement of the obvious." It added: "The points [the submission] makes are ones which we continue to support, that science should be practised openly and in an unbiased way. However much we sympathise with the way in which CRU researchers have been confronted with hostile requests for information, we believe the case for openness remains just as strong." Evan Harris, a member of the science and technology select committee, said: "Members of the Institute of Physics … may be concerned that the IOP is not as transparent as those it wishes to criticise." 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 | 4 Mar 2010 | 2:00 pm Happy People Talk More, and With More Substance (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Happy people tend to talk more than unhappy people, but when they do, it tends to be less small talk and more substance, a new study finds.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 1:31 pm Happy People Talk More, and With More SubstanceHappy people talk more, and have deeper conversations.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2010 | 1:11 pm Violent Planet: The Forces that Shape EarthEarth is a violent planet, with blasts and explosions a pivotal throughout Earth's history, shaping and reshaping our planet.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2010 | 1:01 pm Methane bubbles in Arctic seas stir warming fearsOSLO (Reuters) - Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:26 pm New Cell Phone Charger Turns Water into ElectricityA palm-sized fuel cell that turns water into power aims to make wall outlets a thing of the past for charging up your cell phone.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:23 pm Senator Proposes Shuttle-Extension Hail Mary
The turmoil and political maneuvering over the future of NASA continues in the wake of the Obama administration’s cancellation of the Constellation program. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) proposed adding $3.4 billion to the agency’s budget between 2010 and 2012 to extend operation of the shuttle until NASA is confident that a replacement vehicle is available. When NASA scoped out a similar Shuttle extension plan (.pdf) in April 2009, they determined that a shuttle extension through fiscal year 2012 would require at least $4.6 billion. The new bill, S. 3068, which was read in the Senate Wednesday, has not been added to the publicly available database of legislation (THOMAS). Its introduction comes as NASA itself gropes around for a politically viable path. While the Constellation program was widely seen as unable to meet the goals laid out for it by President Bush in the Vision for Space Exploration, it had been providing the direction for the agency since 2004. An internal NASA e-mail obtained by Space.com laid out Administrator Charles Bolden’s call for a compromise “Plan B” that could garner support in Congress. The proposed set of new ideas would include the “development of a manned spacecraft, heavy-lift launch vehicle and launch-vehicle test program.” It’s not clear if such moves will satisfy pro-Constellation congressional leaders, who have reacted negatively to the Obama plan, which would place low-Earth orbit human spaceflight in the hands of commercial space companies. See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Tumblr, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:10 pm Gut Bacteria Cause Overeating in Mice
The connection between gut bacteria and obesity has gained some weight, with new findings demonstrating links in mice among immune-system malfunction, bacterial imbalance and increased appetite. Mice with altered immune systems developed metabolic disorders and were prone to overeating. When microbes from their stomachs were transplanted into other mice, they also become obese. “This supports the notion that some of the increase in obesity may be because of changes to gut bacteria,” said Andrew Gewirtz, an Emory University immunologist and co-author of the study, published March 4 in Science. The findings are the latest in a growing body of research about the long-unappreciated role of bacteria in our bodies. Bacterial cells actually outnumber human cells in the body: From an outside perspective, people are not so much individual organisms as symbiotic human-bacteria collectives.
Disturbances to internal bacteria have been linked to asthma, cancer and many autoimmune diseases. Gut flora have also been linked to obesity. In 2006, researchers led by Washington University microbiologist Jeffrey Gordon documented bacterial changes in the stomachs of mice who became obese on high-fat diets. When transplanted, their gut bugs turned other mice obese, suggesting that altered bacteria were not only an effect of weight gain, but a cause. The Science findings complement those, but also emphasize the immune system’s role and the possibility of appetite change. “The reason why people are eating too much may not simply be because unhealthy food is cheap and available, but that their appetites may be driven by changes in gut bacteria,” said Gewirtz, In the Science study, Gewirtz and Emery microbiologist Matam Vijay-Kumar studied a strain of mice deficient in TLR-5, a gene that’s required for immune systems to recognize many types of bacteria. They found that TLR-5–deficient mice are about 20 percent heavier than regular mice. They overeat, have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and are insulin-resistant. In humans, that constellation of conditions is known as metabolic syndrome, and in both people and mice leads to obesity and diabetes. Earlier research had found unusual patterns of bacteria in the guts of those mice. When the researchers transferred bacteria from the stomachs of TLR-5–deficient mice to mice without gut bacteria, the recipients started to eat more, and soon developed metabolic syndrome. “It’s a really exciting paper. It confirms and supports a lot of the findings we’ve had, and adds in the interaction between gut bacteria and the immune system,” said Peter Turnbaugh, a systems biologist who moved from Jeffrey Gordon’s lab to Harvard University. “It’s been thought for a long time that maybe the immune system is an important regulator of what’s in the gut.” How gut bacteria produce metabolic changes isn’t known. They may process nutrients directly, or alter the activity of metabolism-regulating genes. Mice used in the research are not considered exact models of bacteria and obesity in humans. Instead they’re models of these sorts of relationships likely to exist in people. Gewirtz’s team is now investigating whether people with metabolic syndrome have unusual gut bacteria. The findings don’t suggest obesity is literally contagious, said Turnbaugh. But they do raise the possibility of altering the composition of gut bacteria, either directly or — more realistically — by learning what sort of environmental and lifestyle factors produce obesity-causing bugs. One possible culprit is the ubiquitous presence of antibiotics, both prescribed and in the environment, said Gewirtz. “It may be that an unintended consequence of this has been the upset of bacterial populations that are promoting obesity and metabolic syndrome,” he said. Image: Left, regular and TLR-5–knockout mice. Right, a comparison of their insulin-producing islet cells./Andrew Gewirtz See Also:
Citation: “Metabolic Syndrome and Altered Gut Microbiota in Mice Lacking Toll-Like Receptor-5.” By Matam Vijay-Kumar, Jesse D. Aitken, Frederic A. Carvalho, Tyler C. Cullender, Simon Mwangi, Shanthi Srinivasan, Shanthi V. Sitaraman, Rob Knight, Ruth E. Ley, Andrew T. Gewirtz. Science, Vol. 327, No. 5970, March 4, 2010. Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecological tipping points.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:04 pm Lizards Control the Gender of Their OffspringThe larger the male lizard, the more likely he is to father sons, suggests a new study on brown anole lizards that also determined smaller males tend to sire daughters. Adult females, however, help to control the process. Female lizards ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:04 pm Earth Raised Magnetic Shield Earlier than ThoughtUnderstanding the conditions of early Earth could aid our search for life elsewhere in the universe.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:01 pm Researchers reassert that impact killed dinosaurs (AP)AP - An all-star panel of researchers says it was the crash of a giant asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 12:00 pm Nuclear Plant Put to the TestFollowing years of questions and debate, the Vermont Senate recently voted to block a license extension for a 38-year-old nuclear power plant in the state, essentially closing it down. Now comes the hard part. There are 104 operational nuclear power ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 11:40 am Testing time zones ESTTesting time zones ESTSource: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2010 | 11:13 am Pharma Watchdog Needs Your Help With Incriminating Documents
Overwhelmed by thousands of documents describing the inner workings of pharmaceutical companies, the Drug Industry Document Archive wants to enlist the help of crowds. Documents uncovered during lawsuits against drug companies could be made searchable to the public, just like documents from tobacco company lawsuits. The problem is that there are more files than DIDA’s own workers can handle. Until they’re processed, they can’t be properly searched. Crowdsourcing the project could speed the database’s growth. “In the long run, it’s not feasible to get grants to add the documents, and we want to do it sooner rather than later,” said Kim Klausner, the Archive’s manager. DIDA is an offshoot of the University of California, San Francisco’s Legacy Tobacco Documents Archive, which was born from the 1998 legal settlement between tobacco companies and 46 states that sued them. As a condition of the settlement, all industry documents uncovered during the trial had to be made readily available to the public. It now contains 11 million documents numbering some 60 million pages. In 2006, two UCSF professors who had served as expert witnesses in a lawsuit against pharmaceutical company Parke-Davis, accused of illegally promoting their anticonvulsant drug Neurontin for unapproved uses, approached the Tobacco Documents Archive about setting up a similar project for drug industry information. Thus began DIDA, which has since gathered thousands of documents from attorneys and journalists involved in drug company lawsuits, and plans to gather millions more. But whereas tobacco companies had to hire people to enter document metadata — document type, authorship and other information that makes an archive usefully searchable — the drug company records still need to be indexed, evaluated and entered. Until then, they’re of limited use.
Klausner envisions an internet army of students, journalists and concerned citizens helping, in much the same way as the Guardian newspaper invited the public to catalogue records of government-expense violations and the National Library of Australia enlisted crowds to correct errors made by automated scanners. Data entry can be tedious, but it’s a chance to get a first-hand look at potentially revealing information, said Klausner. In a batch of internal AstraZeneca communications uploaded in February, for instance, a company researcher says the antipsychotic drug Seroquel is “now the responsibility of sales and marketing.” In other documents, marketing strategists give instructions on massaging unfavorable data, researchers talk about how to “spin” and “de-emphasize” weight gain caused by the drug, Astrazeneca is currently being sued for hiding the diabetes risk posed by Seroquel, which has been used by 19 million people worldwide. Before DIDA is ready for the crowds, however, its interface needs work. Programmers are welcome to help; those with experience with J2EE and Spring MVC are welcome to contact Klausner. “There are thousands, if not millions of documents that could be added as a result of these lawsuits,” she said. Image: DIDA See Also:
Brandon Keim’s Twitter stream and reportorial outtakes; Wired Science on Twitter. Brandon is currently working on a book about ecological tipping points.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 4 Mar 2010 | 10:54 am How to listen to GodAn anthropological study of charismatic Christians reveals a belief system at once childish and sophisticated I went last night to a marvellous talk by an American anthropologist who has been studying Californian charismatic Christians. Tanya Luhrmann's enquiry into how these people construct their idea of God will result in a book eventually, but in the meantime her talk on her work with the Vineyard churches was full of insight, sympathy, and deadpan humour. The Vineyard churches are a loose international network of mostly white, mostly middle class, very charismatic churches. They aren't exactly fundamentalist but they see the Holy Spirit everywhere and talk to God every day. They were the source of the "Toronto Blessing" - a craze which swept through the English charismatic network in the 90s where people fell on the floor and made animal noises. Luhrmann is interested in how you get to talk to God like this. After all, most churches for most of history, haven't done anything like that. Her answer is that you need a certain kind of temperament, one which makes you good at make-believe, and then you need to work at it. The personality traits which make it easiest to talk to God are those measured on the Tellegen absorption scale, which she summarises as the ability to focus attention on a non-instrumental subject: in other words, some thought interesting for its own sake, whether or not it is obviously useful. It's the facility you need to construct compelling daydreams. If you have this talent, or temperament, in the first place, these churches will nourish it. By treating God as real, you come to detect his presence more easily; and the God for whom the are searching is one just like another person. "People learn about God by mapping onto Him what they know about persons; then they map back what they suppose about God onto the world around them." All this activity is the subject of tremendous social reinforcement. These are not Sunday only churches. Members can fill their lives with meetings with other members – and with God. "They pay constant attention to what's going on in their minds. They are constantly looking at their thoughts and images. It's a social shaping of what you would imagine to be a private space in their minds. "It is striking", she said "Just how explicit is the invitation to suspend belief". Some churches urge people to pour a second cup of coffee for God at the breakfast table; some members would invite God for dinner, and lay a place for him. One woman would have "Date nights" with God, where she would go into the park and sit on a bench with him, eating a sandwich. All this takes time, and effort, and it doesn't work for everyone. She said that in her own participation in a prayer circle ("I hoped to get a book out of it; they hoped to get a soul") her own, agnostic experience was not that different from that of the believers around her. "These things are very powerful, and very real, but it is very very hard to have god come close. Still, there is no question that if you can walk this walk it will make you happier and more cheerful." Related to this is the interesting point that their faith in God, and their experience of him, is often actually strengthened by the failure of prayer. The members of these churches believe two things about God: that he can give you anything he wants, and that he stands beside you in your disappointments. So the failure of prayer can lead to a deeper experience of God, and this is more valuable than the success of the haircut you prayed for. All this sounds like reasons entirely to dismiss the experience as obvious make-believe or hallucination which anyone could be reasoned out of. There are two parts to her story which make that more difficult. She herself says it's not her job, as an anthropologist, to comment on the truth of the beliefs she studies, but that she is perfectly comfortable with the possible reality of the supernatural. A friend you can see only in your imagination need not be an imaginary friend. But what is clear is first that the voices people hear, and the sights they sometimes see from God are very different to the delusions of psychotics. The sudden quiet voice, interpreted as that of God, is very common – about half of the students in her classes have heard them at least once (as I have, for what it's worth). But they are brief, rare, and, though startling, not disturbing. The voices that people here in psychosis are none of those things. They talk a lot, and often, and their content is often upsetting and hostile. The second point is that "This kind of god that seems so primitive is in fact the product of a plural, sceptical, society." For many people the liberal god who works no miracles has failed. These practices make the personal god of the Vineyard churches immediately present and available. The concentration on experience invites derision but disarms it at the same time: "God is special and more real than real, so that their experience is in some sense protected from the scepticism which members of these churches encounter every day." 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 | 4 Mar 2010 | 10:17 am An 'extinct' frog species is sighted in farmland in AustraliaA frog species thought to have been extinct for more than three decades has been sighted in farmland in Australia.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 10:16 am 'Skinput' Turns Your Body Into Touchscreen InterfaceA new technology can turn your own body into a touchscreen interface.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2010 | 10:11 am Europe's Mars Express probe makes its closest flyby of PhobosThe European Mars Express probe makes its closest flyby of the Martian moon Phobos.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 10:03 am A little way on libel reform | Simon SinghJack Straw's cutting of lawyers' bonus fees is welcome, but the public interest demands greater protection from wealthy litigants Everyone supporting the libel reform campaign let out a little cheer this week when justice secretary Jack Straw announced he was going reduce no-win-no-fee bonuses from 100% to 10%. The costs of libel, like the law of libel itself, is an absurdly complicated matter – I have a PhD in particle physics and trying to understand either leaves me with a terrible headache – but the bottom line is that Jack Straw has effectively halved the potential cost of defending a libel case. This is good news, because the Ministry of Justice has taken a clear step towards reforming England's libel laws, which are generally accepted to be the most expensive and anti-free speech laws in the democratic world. The bad news, however, is that it will have no impact on my libel case. I am currently being sued by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for an article published in the Guardian two years ago, and the case could continue for another two years. The total bill for whoever loses could be £1m, and whoever wins will probably lose at least £100,000 in unrecovered costs. The bad news more generally is that there is a great deal more than just costs that needs overhauling if we are to achieve a fair libel system. For example, we currently lack a robust public interest defence, which would offer some level of protection for those writing about matters of public concern. Scientists, doctors, academic journals, human rights activists, investigative journalists and others in this country currently live in fear of the libel laws. This means that we cannot write what needs to be written, so you cannot read what needs to be read. By contrast, the public interest defence plays a major role in guaranteeing the security of responsible journalism in the US, where it enables public debate of health issues and criticism of giant corporations. Another problem is "libel tourism", whereby overseas claimants sue overseas journalists in London, simply because our laws are so hostile to free speech. This means that English justice crushes free speech and criticism around the world. It would be relatively easy to tweak libel law to block such overseas claims, but a better option would be to radically overhaul English libel law to include, for example, a public interest defence. This alone would have a major impact in deterring overseas libel claims. Finally, it is worth noting that there is still a long way to go in reducing libel costs. An Oxford University report published last year estimated that libel trials in England cost 140 times more than the average in mainland Europe. Therefore, this week's announcement does indeed halve the cost of libel, but it still means that we are still 70 times more expensive than the rest of Europe. The cost of the libel process continue to be wholly disproportionate to the damages involved. The risk of financial disaster is still so huge that writers will back down and apologise rather than standing by the words they believe to be true and in the public interest. However, the opportunity for further change is still very real. Over 200 MPs have signed an early day motion asking for libel reform and the Ministry of Justice has set up a working group on libel. It meets for the final time next week and will be announcing conclusions by the end of March. You can encourage the working group to be bold and the politicians to act decisively by joining Dara O Briain, Stephen Fry, the Astronomer Royal, the Poet Laureate and 38,000 others who have signed the petition for libel reform. • This article was amended at 17:10 on 4 March 2010 to restore the final paragraph, which an editorial error had led to being missed from the original version 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 | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:30 am Is Antarctica Falling Apart?While it might seem like Antarctica is falling apart, recent news of huge icebergs breaking off is just a normal part of nature, scientists say.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:25 am Clever Octopus Mimics a FishA clever octopus disguises itself as a flounder to avoid predators.Source: Livescience.com | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:22 am Your best diet? It might be in your genesWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Can't lose weight on a low-fat diet? Maybe you need to cut carbs instead, and a new genetic test may point the way, maker Interleukin Genetics Inc reported on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:52 am Huge Methane Leak in Arctic DetectedMethane is leaking into the atmosphere from permafrost in the Arctic Ocean and could accelerate global warming.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:29 am Coyotes Love New York TooWall Street may have its human bulls and bears, but Manhattan has become very popular these days with a real wild animal visitor: coyotes. (Coyote pounds the pavement; Credit: marya) Surprised onlookers have recently spotted these wolf relatives in Chelsea, ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Mar 2010 | 7:56 am Spell-covered burial chamber found in Egypt's SaqqaraCAIRO (Reuters) - Archaeologists have unearthed the intact sarcophagus of Egypt's Queen Behenu inside her 4,000-year-old burial chamber near her pyramid in Saqqara, chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass announced Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 7:45 am Elephant research 'washed away'A major research station in Kenya used to study African elephants is destroyed by flash floods.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 7:31 am Glacier melting a key clue to tracking climate changeSINGAPORE/ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - The world has become far too hot for the aptly named Exit Glacier in Alaska.Source: Reuters: Science News | 4 Mar 2010 | 7:18 am Climate scientists must be absolutely honest about data | David ColquhounIf we want the public to continue to trust us as scientists, we must be absolutely open and never resort to spin or PR I'm not a climate scientist, but I am concerned about the reputation of science and scientists. One motive for going into science for me was that it is one of the few jobs where you get rewarded for telling the truth. So it was painful to watch the trust of the public in science, already dented, taking another crushing blow when the emails stolen from the University of East Anglia were revealed. We'll probably never know exactly what the emails meant, but we can say that the matter was handled very badly indeed. Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit, should have been immediately on every TV station, explaining what he meant. By going to ground, and by denying Freedom of Information Act requests, the university gave the impression of guilt, quite regardless of whether there is really anything to hide. That brings the university into disrepute: it is a matter for resignations. I have never come across anything in my own field that would qualify as fraud, or even dishonesty (well just once it was close), and I have never been asked by an editor to come to a particular decision when reviewing a paper. Our analysis programs are free, on the web. That is why I was deeply shocked when Jones told the Commons science and technology committee that practices like keeping original data, and analysis programs, secret were "standard practice" among climate scientists. "Maybe it [openness] should be, but it's not." The Institute of Physics submission to the parliamentary inquiry which spoke of "worrying implications ... for the integrity of scientific research in this field" was damning but spot on, and a credit to science. A recent analysis of verified cases of misconduct in the US suggested that one in 100,000 scientists per year are guilty, but other ways of counting give larger numbers. For example, if asked, around two in 100 scientists claim to be aware of misconduct by someone else. The numbers aren't huge but they are much bigger than they should be. Anyone can be wrong with no trace of dishonesty. But when that happens, others soon find the mistake. It is that self-correcting characteristic of science that keeps it honest in the long run. What gives rise to dishonesty? One motive is money. Grants depend on publication and studies funded by industry tend to be biased in favour of the result the sponsor wants. The other reason is presumably the human desire to win fame and promotion. It is no excuse, but it is perhaps a reason, for misconduct that the pressure to publish and produce results is now enormous in academia. Even in good universities people are judged by the numbers (rather than the quality) of papers they produce and by what journal they happen to be published in. Bibliometrists are the curse of our age. Vice-chancellors and research councils provide a strong incentive to do poor, over-hurried and occasionally dishonest science. Perhaps the surprising thing in the circumstances is that there is so little fraud. The very measures that aim to improve science actually have just the opposite effect. Application of Thatcherite principles to science results in dishonesty, just as it does among bankers. That is what happens when science is run by people who don't do it. Public relations is not the answerIt is not uncommon to read that science needs better PR. That is precisely not what is needed. PR exists to put only one side of the story, which makes it an essentially dishonest occupation. Its aims are the very opposite of those of science. The public aren't stupid: they often recognise when they are getting half the story. It is particularly unfortunate that many universities have developed departments with names like "corporate communications". Externally they are seen as giving information about science, and indeed some of the things they do successfully increase public engagement in science. Only too often, though, it is made clear internally that an important aim of these departments is to improve the image of the university. But you have to choose. You can engage the public in science or you can be a PR image-builder. You can't be both. The answer for climate science and indeed science in general has to be total openness. There is a growing trend for researchers in a variety of fields to place all original data and analysis methods openly on the web. That trend does not yet seem to have reached all of climate science yet, but it is the only way forward. Some people object to total openness on the grounds that the other side tells lies. In the case of climate change (and in the case of junk medicine too) that is undoubtedly true. The opponents are ruthlessly dishonest about facts. The only way to counter that is by being ruthlessly and visibly honest about what you know, and why. • Prof David Colquhoun is a pharmocologist at University College London. He also writes DC's Improbable Science blog where there is a longer version of this blog. 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 | 4 Mar 2010 | 5:53 am Promise made on UK physics woesThe government is promising to put in place measures to protect the future funding of physics and astronomy in the UK.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 5:51 am Deep sea fish 'eat their greens'Fish are seen eating plants that have sunk to the seafloor, changing our understanding of ocean food webs.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 4:40 am 'Dead zones'Pigs' bodies and cameras are used to probe the seafloorSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 4 Mar 2010 | 2:13 am
|
The researchers found unexpectedly high amounts of methane dissolved in seafloor waters across 80 percent of the area they studied. In some spots, methane concentrations during those six years averaged more than 80 times normal. Because the water over the shelf is relatively shallow — average depth in the region is about 45 meters, Shakhova notes — much of the methane reaches the ocean surface and then wafts into the atmosphere.
