Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
This week's featured story comes from MSNBC's Cosmic Log.
THE YEAR IN SCIENCE
Alan Boyle
Why would anyone want to create diseased cells in the lab? Because that's the best way to learn how to cure those diseases. The ability to transform a patient's ordinary skin cells into virtually any kind of tissue - including the cells that caused the illness in the first place - ranks as this year's biggest breakthrough in the journal Science's annual roundup.
The other stars of this year's scientific show include the gene-decoders who are figuring out the instructions for making a woolly mammoth, or even a Neanderthal. Then there are the astronomers who, for the first time, spotted what appear to be planets circling alien stars. And let's not forget the biggest science experiment on the planet, the Large Hadron Collider, which started up this year (and almost immediately broke down).
More science, space, and environment news after the jump.
Slideshows/Videos
New Scientist Video on YouTube: Top 5 videos of 2008
Watch our countdown of the most viewed videos of the year.
National Geographic: TOP TEN PHOTO GALLERIES: Most Viewed of 2008
See National Geographic News's most popular photo galleries of 2008, starring an "alien" squid with "elbows," an electric eruption, a welcoming whale, and other natural wonders.
National Geographic: TOP TEN PHOTOS: Most Viewed of 2008
See National Geographic News's most popular individual photos of 2008, including pictures of a giant stingray, a "smiling" sky, a lizard-snake standoff, and more.
Discovery Networks: 10 Discoveries You May Have Missed in 2008
Biggest stories aside, 2008 was a year of surprise discoveries. Join us for a second run.
CNet: Images: NASA looks back on 2008
As 2008 comes to a close, NASA has published a short retrospective of the year's biggest advances and discoveries. Here's a look at the highlights.
National Geographic: TOP TEN SPACE PHOTOS: Most Viewed of 2008
See National Geographic News's most popular astronomy photos of 2008, including stunning supernova remains, exoplanet firsts, and a rare celestial smiley face.
Bad Astronomy Blog on Discover.com: Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2008
Phil Plait
Every year, more and more images become available of astronomical objects. And every year I try to pick my favorite ten to post here at the year’s end (check out 2007 and 2006). This year, the ten I have chosen have a significant distance bias; they lean toward being very close. But don’t fret: they range in distance literally from the closest to the farthest objects we can see.
This list is mine, and has my bias. I choose the pictures for beauty, for scientific interest, for both or for neither. Sometimes they’re just cool, and sometimes they are a little frightening, but I hope they all will make you think, and move you in some way. Under most images is a link to embiggen them quite cromulently.
Ready? Strap yourself in. We’re traveling from here to eternity!
Discover Magazine: The 10 Most Amazing Things the Sky Can Do
Rainbows, mirages, halos, and more: Tim Herd explains the gamut of visual wonders in the book Kaleidoscope Sky.
Discovery Networks on YouTube: Top 5 Science Animal Videos
Discovery-News.com: Animals look great on video - James Williams shows you five reasons why.
Wired: Top 10 New Organisms of 2008
By Brandon Keim
The world's smallest snake, a prehistoric ant and microbes that may be 120,000 years old: These are just a few of the species revealed to the world in the last 12 months.
With animals going extinct at rates unseen since the dinosaurs disappeared, it's nice to be reminded that some species haven't even been discovered.
As Smithsonian Institute ornithologist Brian Schmidt said after finding the olive-backed forest robin: "It is definitely a reminder that the world still holds surprises for us."
MSNBC: 10 gifts of science for Christmas
Frankincense, mistletoe and why a shot of brandy is good for you (really!)
Also mentioned are the science of climate change and White Christmas, virgin birth in sharks, the Star of Bethelehem, Christmas trees, tracking Santa, the strategy of solving jigsaw puzzles, and the Christmas Bird Count.
Scientific American: Top 10 Places Already Affected by Climate Change
By Stephan Faris
Catastrophic effects of global warming are being felt from the deserts of Darfur to the island nation of Kiribati
Cities deep underwater, frozen continents, the collapse of global agriculture: so far, much of the discussion about climate change has focused on these distant, catastrophic effects of a superheated world. What's less talked about is how global warming is making itself felt already. Even the modest temperature rise we've already experienced has set in motion fundamental shifts—and the further warming we can expect in the next few decades has the potential to set off dramatic changes.
View Slideshow: Top 10 Places Affected by Climate Change
Scientific American: Grad School for Gadgeteers: 10 Ways to Fuse Technology and Art
Slide show from the N.Y.U. Interactive Telecommunications Program 2008 winter show
NPR: A Day At The Museum
A Century Of Museum Field Trips
Discovery Networks on YouTube: Study Sheds Light On Dark Energy
Discovery-News.com: New findings bolster the argument that dark energy is the reason our universe is expanding. James Williams explores the evidence.
NovaOnline on YouTube: Greetings from Mars
Produced by Melissa Salpietra
What is the weather like on Mars? Is it like the weather on Earth? Planetary Scientist, Vicky Hipkin, explains the similarities and differences between the two planets.
...
NOVA goes behind the scenes of the latest NASA missions to the Red Planet to reveal new clues and challenges on the road to answering this ultimate question. Is There Life on Mars? premieres on NOVA Tuesday, December 30 at 8pm ET on PBS (check local listings).
Scientific American: The Voyage of Apollo 8: The 40th Anniversary of Mankind's First Trip to the Moon [Slide Show]
When three U.S. astronauts became the first humans to leave Earth's gravity field, some NASA experts gave them a 50-50 chance of making it home alive
This slideshow accompanies a special report, The 40th Anniversary of Apollo 8's Journey to the Moon, the other articles of which are included in Astronomy and Space.
Discovery Networks on YouTube: New Species Thrive in Mekong
Discovery-News.com: The Mekong region in Southeast Asia is home to more than a thousand new plant and animal species, says the World Wildlife Fund. But challenges are ahead in balancing conservation and growth.
Jorge Ribas reports.
Astronomy/Space
MSNBC's Cosmic Log: THE YEAR IN SPACE
Alan Boyle
The top space stories of 2008 include, from left: the Phoenix Mars Lander
mission; the direct sighting of planets in the dusty disks around Fomalhaut and other stars; and SpaceX's successful orbital launch of the Falcon 1 rocket.
What is to be done about the space shuttle fleet and the shuttle’s troubled successor? Who will the next NASA administrator be? Will a new generation of spaceships actually take flight in 2009? Will shifts in the economic climate dim the prospects for space entrepreneurs, just as they did eight years ago? Or will pioneering ventures actually prove that space sightseeing isn't just for millionaires anymore?
The questions about our future in space far outnumber the answers as 2008 morphs into 2009. But the developments of the past year suggest the likely directions for the year ahead.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to vote for top story and top trend.
Wired: Jupiter's Moon Plays Peekaboo With Hubble
By Clara Moskowitz
The Hubble Space Telescope recently caught this shot of Jupiter's moon Ganymede just before it ducked behind the giant planet. The largest moon in our solar system, Ganymede is an icy rock even bigger than Mercury.
It's a gorgeous shot, but the image also reveals important information about Jupiter's atmosphere. As Ganymede passes behind the gas giant, light from the planet bounces off the moon, carrying with it clues about the chemicals that make up the haze above the Jovian clouds.
The press release from the official Hubble site is here.
Scientific American: Apollo 8: When Mankind First Shook Earth's Kindly Bounds
By Andrew Chaikin
Imagine getting to sit down with Columbus and ask him what he thought and felt as he first set eyes on the New World. That's pretty much how it was for me when I interviewed Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, the crew of Apollo 8, who made the first manned voyage around the moon in December 1968. The stories I heard from Borman, Lovell and Anders about their historic voyage were postcards from the edge of human experience. Before Apollo 8, "space travel" was just a figure of speech; they were the first astronauts to actually go somewhere. But as they fired the third stage of their Saturn 5 booster and headed out of Earth orbit, it was the leaving that had the greatest impact.
Scientific American: Apollo 8: Flying into Space History during a Moment of Public Enthusiasm
By Kenneth Silber
Apollo 8 flew barely a decade into the Space Age. It was a moment when public enthusiasm for human space exploration ran high—but also was poised to decline. And it was a time when space technology was starting to transform everyday life.
"Apollo 8 was the high-water mark of public interest in human spaceflight," says Howard McCurdy, author of Space and the American Imagination and a public affairs professor at American University in Washington, D.C. He notes polls from the era showing people saying the U.S. government should "do more" in space peaked in late 1968, right around the time the moon-orbiting mission flew.
Indeed, that was the only time in the late 1960s that "do more" and "do less" responses were essentially even, at about 30 percent. (The polls also gave a third choice, of maintaining the same level of space activity.) In 1969, even before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the "do more" responses fell sharply to near the 20 percent level, and "do less" resumed being the favored answer, garnering around 40 percent.
Here's something I found interesting about the author.
Kenneth Silber writes about science, economics and politics. He blogs at QuickSilber (quicksilber.blogspot.com)
He's a blogger, just like us.
Scientific American: Moon Lust: Will International Competition or Cooperation Return Humans to the Moon?
By John Matson
When Apollo 8 launched for the moon in 1968, the heavens were primarily the domain of the two superpowers. Today space has been opened to myriad nations by vast technological advances and increased international cooperation. A telling example of the new celestial order came two months ago when India launched its first moon mission, the unmanned Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft. The satellite, now in lunar orbit, carried Indian instruments as well as those from the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA and Bulgaria—an arrangement far removed from the nationalist striving of the U.S.–Soviet space race.
As the world's numerous space agencies turn their attention back to manned space exploration of the moon and beyond, the future taking shape reflects space's democratization over the past 40 years. It is not clear whether the next country to land humans on the moon, a feat that has not been accomplished since 1972, will be the U.S., China, Russia or some other nation. Perhaps it will be a collaboration among nations or even a private firm operating outside the usual constraints of a nationalized space program. Although the specifics of manned lunar exploration over the coming decades are unclear, many experts see vast opportunities for space-faring bodies to work in concert toward loftier goals.
Reuters: Spacewalkers install probe outside space station
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) -- A U.S. astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut completed a 5-1/2-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Tuesday to install a device that monitors conditions around the orbital outpost.
Engineers believe electrical charges triggered glitches that caused Russian space capsules returning from the station to land hard and off-course during two consecutive homecomings in October 2007 and April 2008.
Flight controllers staged a spacewalk in July to disconnect suspect equipment on the last Soyuz capsule, circumventing the problem for its landing in October.
Reuters: Ariane rocket launches satellites for Eutelsat
By Laurent Marot
KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) - A European Ariane-5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana on Saturday putting into orbit two satellites for Europe's telecoms operator Eutelsat, officials said.
The rocket was launched from Europe's space base in Kourou on the northeast coast of South America at 7.35 p.m. (5:35 p.m. EST).
Billed as a cost effective launcher for large satellites, the Ariane-5 is capable of launching payloads of up to 10 tonnes.
Wired: SpaceShipTwo Mothership Makes First Test Flight
By Clara Moskowitz
Most of us can hardly afford plane tickets right now, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be saving up for our first spaceship ride.
WhiteKnightTwo, the carrier ship for the commercial space plane SpaceShipTwo, made its first test flight Sunday. The distinctive double plane flew from Mojave Air and Space Port in California for about an hour, taking off around 8:15 a.m. PST. The 79-foot-long behemoth is powered by four Pratt and Whitney PW308A turbofan engines. The spaceship is a joint project of the Scaled Composites company and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.
"The maiden flight went perfectly," Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, told Wired.com. "With these aircraft, nothing is ever a foregone conclusion. It's not like pulling another AirBus off the line and putting it into the air. This was a big moment. I think it was a big milestone for the whole industry."
Space.com via MSNBC: NASA awards $3.5 billion for space deliveries
By Tariq Malik and Turner Brinton
NASA has awarded a pair of contracts worth $3.5 billion through 2016 to two private aerospace firms seeking to haul vital supplies to and from the international space station, the space agency announced late Tuesday.
The Hawthorne, Calif.-based firm Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corp., of Dulles, Va., beat a third competitor for NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contracts with their proposals to privately develop and launch spacecraft capable of delivering cargo to the space station and returning supplies back to Earth.
"This is a contract that we really need to keep space station flying, and to service space station," NASA's space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters in a teleconference. "I think it's exciting we're doing this from a commercial side."
Evolution/Paleontology
National Geographic: TOP TEN DINOSAUR & FOSSIL FINDS: Most Read of 2008
Bizarre prehistoric creatures—sea monsters, gargantuan rodents, a redheaded Neanderthal—are among the stars of the most read stories on dinosaurs and fossils covered by National Geographic News in 2008.
Wired: Life on Earth Not Getting Much Bigger
By Brandon Keim
On the off chance that your darkest nightmares involve house-sized gerbils, rest easy: the scale of life on Earth won't likely expand beyond its present limits.
Analysis of the fossil record shows that life has undergone two profound jumps in size — from bacteria to eukaryotic cells, and from single-celled to multi-celled organisms.
In each case, possible body size increased by a factor of one to two million. After the second jump, say comparative zoologists, bodies hit the limits of Earthly possibility.
Biodiversity
National Geographic:
A vampire moth, a gremlin-like primate, and an "alien" squid were among the discoveries that haunted the animal kingdom in the most read stories about creatures covered by National Geographic News in 2008.
Wired: Finding Chemo: Scanning the Sea Floor for New Drugs
By Wired Science
SANTA CRUZ, California — Seafaring microbes and a room full of robots may be the key to the next big pharmaceutical breakthrough.
Two new compounds, one that kills the parasites that cause African sleeping sickness and one that destroys breast cancer cells, have surfaced in an automated lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A direct pipeline from the ocean to chemical-scanning robots makes it possible for researchers to screen thousands of unstudied chemicals each day.
"These marine sediments could contain the next big anti-cancer drug," said chemist Scott Lokey, who runs the UC Santa Cruz Chemical Screening Center.
National Geographic: Bizarre Squid Sex Techniques Revealed
James Owen
for National Geographic News
A new investigation into the tangled sex lives of deep-sea squid has uncovered a range of bizarre mating techniques.
The cephalopods' intimate encounters include cutting holes into their partners for sex, swapping genders, and deploying flesh-burrowing sperm.
These and other previously unknown reproductive strategies were documented in a survey of ten squid species living worldwide at depths of between 984 and 3,937 feet (300 and 1,200 meters).
LiveScience via MSNBC: Spiders have some seriously creepy sex habits
By Amelia Tomas
Spiders are bizarre sex freaks.
But it’s all harmless fun ... no wait, actually it’s very harmful. Girl kills guy or guy kills girl — there’s shrill crying, plugged orifices, torn-off genitals, eaten body parts, and psychedelic rituals.
And you thought humans had crazy sex lives? Mounting evidence in recent years shows just how crazy spider sex is.
Reuters: Japan whalers out of Australia-claimed area
Editing by Sami Aboudi
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has said it achieved its aim of forcing Japan's whaling fleet out of Antarctic waters claimed by Australia.
In a statement on its website (www.seashepherd.org), the U.S.-based group said its ship, the Steve Irwin, had forced the fleet into waters off the Ross Dependency, which is a New Zealand possession.
Australia has declared an 'economic exclusion zone', known by the letters "EEZ," in waters off the coast of its Antarctic territories, and an Australian court order bans whaling there.
Reuters: Panda diplomacy: China's goodwill gift to Taiwan
Additional reporting by Ralph Jennings in Taipei; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jeremy Laurence
CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - A Taiwanese plane arrived in the Chinese city of Chengdu on Monday to pick up a pair of giant pandas, a goodwill gift from Beijing and the latest sign of improving ties between the political rivals.
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, whose names said together mean "unite," will be flown to Taiwan on Tuesday with steamed corn buns and fresh bamboo in their luggage and a standby supply of air-sickness pills.
China had offered the pandas as a goodwill gift in 2006 as part of a charm offensive after decades of saber rattling. Taiwan's then anti-China president declined the gift.
Biotechnology/Health
Technology Review: The Year in Biomedicine
Brain trauma among soldiers, a $5,000 genome, cellular switches, and insight into the brain's beauty.
L.A. Times: The danger of DNA: It isn't perfect
By Maura Dolan and Jason Felch
In 2004, a New Jersey prosecutor announced that DNA had solved the mystery of who killed Jane Durrua, an eighth-grader who was raped, beaten and strangled 36 years earlier.
"Through DNA, we put a face to the killer of Jane Durrua, and that face belongs to Jerry Bellamy," prosecutor John Kaye said.
The killer, however, turned out to be someone else.
This is part of a long running series "The promise and perils of DNA evidence."
Wired: King of Bionic Ag Uses Turbocharged Seeds, Precision Chemistry, and a Little TLC
By Bill Donahue
They came over the prairie in their pickup trucks, in the cool, quiet hours before dawn. They rolled through the gentle foothills of the Ozarks in air-conditioned tour buses with paintings of stagecoaches airbrushed on the black-lacquered side panels. They came wearing mud-smudged 10-gallon hats and frayed John Deere baseball caps. And then they stepped down out of their vehicles, each one of these farmers, and set foot on holy ground.
It is here, on the rust-colored loam of Stark City, Missouri (population 156), that Kip Cullers became the soybean king of the world. In 2007, Cullers harvested 155 bushels of soybeans per acre from a small plot—eclipsing his own world record of 139. (The US average is 40.) It is also here, on another section of his 11,000-acre farm in 2007, that Cullers grew 329 bushels of corn per acre—not a world record but enough for a top prize at the National Corn Yield Contest.
Cullers is 44. He is a devout Baptist who named his two sons Noah and Naaman after people in the Old Testament. He is thin—rail thin—and carries the twitchy, antic vibe of an early David Byrne. He blinks constantly and has a habit of furrowing his brow. When he takes a dip of chewing tobacco, he taps his tin of Copenhagen twice, quickly. The farmers have come here from Nebraska and Minnesota and Arkansas to behold his work. Cullers' success has made him a celebrity in the farming world. At conferences and conventions across the US and Canada, he gives speeches to crowds of thousands. He has taken his road show to Argentina and Chile. Missouri governor Matt Blunt has sonorously proclaimed him "the Babe Ruth" of soybean production. Cullers calls himself "an ignorant hillbilly," but there's no doubt he's a genius in the science of yield—and, some argue, a frontline warrior in the burgeoning global food crisis.
Wired: Synthetic Biology in One Easy Step
By Aaron Rowe
The oldest tool in biotechnology just got a major promotion, from beer brewer and bread maker to the creator of drugs and artificial life.
For the first time, scientists were able to paste an entire set of genetic codes into yeast in just one step. Using the same techniques, scientists could transform the microbes into living factories, which produce expensive chemicals in an earth-friendly manner.
Yeast are remarkably good at stitching long segments of foreign DNA together, and then reading them. But those stringy molecules must be prepared and inserted correctly. Scientists at the University of Illinois pioneered an extremely-efficient way to slip new genetic material into yeast, reported in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.
Reuters: Blood sugar loss may trigger Alzheimer's: study
Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Michael Roddy
LONDON (Reuters) - A slow, chronic reduction of blood sugar to the brain could trigger some forms of Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
The study of human and mice brains suggests a reduction of blood flow deprives energy to the brain, setting off a process that ultimately produces the sticky clumps of protein researchers believe is a cause of the disease, they said.
The finding could lead to strategies such as exercise, reducing cholesterol and managing blood pressure to keep Alzheimer's at bay, Robert Vassar and colleagues at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago reported.
Reuters: Scientists recreate nerve disease to study it
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. scientists have created the first human model for studying a devastating nerve disease, which allows them to watch how the disease develops and could help researchers find a way to treat it.
Using skin cells from a child with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease that attacks motor neurons in the spinal cord, researchers grew batches of nerve cells with the same genetic defects. The finding allowed scientists to watch the nerve cells die off.
"Now we can start from the beginning of development and replay the disease process in the lab dish," Clive Svendsen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said in a telephone interview.
Reuters: Experts identify gene variants linked to lung cancer
Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Jeremy Laurence
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Researchers in China and the United States have identified mutations of two genes which appear to make ethnic Chinese more susceptible to lung cancer, they wrote in the journal Cancer.
Their finding involves two genes, ABCB1 and ABCC1, which were previously thought to be linked to eliminating carcinogens from the lungs and protecting them against inhaled toxins.
In their study, the researchers analyzed the genes of 500 patients with lung cancer and 517 cancer-free participants in southeastern China.
"The investigators found that certain (gene) variants were found much more often in individuals with lung cancer than in cancer-free controls," they wrote in a statement.
Climate/Environment
Reuters: Ancient water source vital for Australia
By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An ancient underground water basin the size of Libya holds the key to Australia avoiding a water crisis as climate change bites the drought-hit nation.
Australia's Great Artesian Basin is one of the largest artesian groundwater basins in the world, covering 1.7 million sq kms (656,370 sq miles) and lying beneath one-fifth of Australia.
The basin holds 65 million gigaliters of water, about 820 times the amount of surface water in Australia, and enough to cover the Earth's land mass under half a meter of water, says the Great Artesian Basin Coordinating Committee.
Reuters: Active 2009 Atlantic hurricane season predicted
Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Doina Chiacu
MIAMI (Reuters) - Another forecaster predicted an active 2009 Atlantic hurricane season on Tuesday, six months ahead of the tropical cyclone period that begins on June 1.
WSI Corp. predicted 13 tropical storms in the 2009 season and said seven would develop into hurricanes.
The long-term average during the six-month season is for 10 or 11 tropical storms and six hurricanes.
Reuters: Seawater science can help climate change forecasts
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A team of scientists has come up with a new definition of seawater which is set to boost the accuracy of projections for oceans and climate.
Oceans help regulate the planet's weather by shifting heat from the equator to the poles. Changes in salinity and temperature are major forces driving global currents as well as circulation patterns from the surface to the seabed.
Understanding exactly how much heat the ocean can absorb and accounting for tiny differences in salinity are crucial for scientists to figure how oceans affect climate and how that interaction could change because of global warming.
Reuters: Warming could doom "white Christmas"
By Erik Kirschbaum
BERLIN (Reuters) - The odds of a "white Christmas" in temperate parts of the northern hemisphere have diminished in the last century due to climate change and will likely decline further by 2100, climate and meteorology experts said.
Even though heavy snow this year will guarantee a white Christmas in many parts of Asia, Europe and North America, an 0.7-degree Celsius (1.3 Fahrenheit) rise in world temperatures since 1900 and projected bigger rises by 2100 suggest an inexorable trend.
"The probability of snow on the ground at Christmas is already lower than it was even 50 years ago but it will become an even greater rarity many places by the latter half of the century," said Friedrich-Wilhelm Gerstengarber, climate researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. In the northern German city of Berlin, for instance, the chances of snow on the ground on December 24, 25 and 26 have fallen from 20 percent a century ago to approximately 15 percent in 2008, he said. By 2100 the odds will be less than 5 percent.
Geology/Geophysics
Reuters: No damage reported from 6.2 magnitude Japan quake
Reporting by Linda Sieg; Editing by David Fox
TOKYO (Reuters) - An earthquake with preliminary magnitude of 6.2 occurred off the coast of northeastern Japan on Sunday, the Japanese Meteorological Agency said, but there were no reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued.
Reuters: Chile says Chaiten volcano still poses danger
Report Antonio de la Jara and Bianca Frigiani, writing by Lisa Yulkowski, Editing by Sandra Maler
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile's government said on Friday the area surrounding the Chaiten Volcano, which erupted in May for the first time in thousands of years, was still not safe and that a decision regarding the future of the town of Chaiten would be made in coming days.
The Volcano, only six miles from the town, started spewing ash, gas and molten rock on May 2, forcing the evacuation of about 7,000 residents.
A cloud of debris that soared as high as 20 miles into the air was kept aloft by the pressure of constant eruptions for weeks, and even covered towns in neighboring Argentina with volcanic ash.
Psychology/Behavior
N.Y. Times: A Highly Evolved Propensity for Deceit
By NATALIE ANGIER
When considering the behavior of putative scam operators like Bernard "Ponzi scheme" Madoff or Rod "Potty Mouth" Blagojevich, feel free to express a sense of outrage, indignation, disgust, despair, amusement, schadenfreude. But surprise? Don’t make me laugh.
Sure, Mr. Madoff may have bilked his clients of $50 billion, and Governor Blagojevich, of Illinois, stands accused of seeking personal gain through the illicit sale of public property — a United States Senate seat. Yet while the scale of their maneuvers may have been exceptional, their apparent willingness to lie, cheat, bluff and deceive most emphatically was not.
Deceitful behavior has a long and storied history in the evolution of social life, and the more sophisticated the animal, it seems, the more commonplace the con games, the more cunning their contours.
LiveScience: Your Brain Sees $$$ More Clearly Than You Know
By LiveScience Staff
When you see something of value, your brain essentially sees dollar signs, a new study finds.
The effect occurs even if you don't consciously realize the object's worth.
LiveScience: The Perfect Mate: What We Really Want
By Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Columnist
For years, the evolutionary psychologists have been saying that men want young pretty women for their mates and women want older men with money.
This party line was recently underscored when scientists from the University of Gothenburg and the University of Oxford analyzed 400 personal ads in newspapers and Web sites and found that, indeed, men want attractive young women and women want older men with resources. But the big news in this study was that women stated in their ads that they also wanted nice-looking partners.
We eat this stuff up because the biggest mystery in everyone's life is why in the world we are attracted to one person and not another.
Scientific American: One World, Many Minds: Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom
By Paul Patton
Despite cartoons you may have seen showing a straight line of fish emerging on land to become primates and then humans, evolution is not so linear. The brains of other animals are not merely previous stages that led directly to human intelligence.
Instead—as is the case with many traits—complex brains and sophisticated cognition have arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the earth’s evolutionary history.
With this new understanding comes a new appreciation for intelligence in its many forms. So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab.
Sidney Morning Herald: Octopuses give eight thumbs up for high-def TV
Richard Macey
Sharing a movie with an insensitive eight-armed animal may not be every woman's perfect date.
Renata Pronk did it for science, and made two significant discoveries.
Her unsettling news for Christmas revellers preparing to tuck into seafood platters is that octopuses can watch television and understand at least some of what they see. Discriminating viewers, however, they enjoy only high-definition programs.
Wired: Cocaine Turns Honeybees Into Liars
By Brandon Keim
Cocaine is a terrible drug — not just for humans, but for honeybees as well, whom it turns into exaggerating liars.
When researchers applied a drop of cocaine to the backs of feeding bees, they returned to their hive and gave a waggle dance — the stepping pattern by which bees communicate food location, and the one thing I retained from my 8 a.m. Biology 101 class — that described the pollen as being far better than it was.
Archeology/Anthropology
Columbus Dispatch: Ancient footprints, once dismissed, may be from first people of Ontario
By Bradley T. Lepper
The Toronto Star recently reported an old discovery of very old human footprints.
In 1908, construction workers came across a clay layer near Hanlan's Point in Toronto Bay in which they found 100 impressions of what appeared to be moccasin-clad feet. The claim was dismissed at the time, because the clay was thought to be more than 100,000 years old, and it is exceedingly unlikely that people lived on this continent so long ago.
The footprints are being reconsidered, however, in the light of recent evidence that the clay is only 11,000 years old. Canadian archaeologist Ronald Williamson said this could make them the "footprints of the first people of Ontario."
The Epoch Times: Newgrange, Older Than Pyramids and Stonehenge, Still Subject to Irish Weather
By Martin Murphy
Epoch Times Staff
On the shortest day of each year during the winter solstice, sunlight enters through the roof box above the main entrance to Newgrange and slowly makes its way up the passage to the main burial chamber where it hits the back wall and thus illuminates the tomb.
Nowadays the phenomena can be witnessed live on the internet.
Annually a group of media and a lottery selected party of visitors wait inside the monument to witness the event. This year the "lucky" winners from a list of over 34,000 people were unfortunately disappointed because the cloudy sky blocked the light which failed to enter the chamber.
Agencie France Presse via Discovery Networks: 4,300-Year-Old Tombs Unveiled Near Cairo
Dec. 23, 2008 -- A pair of 4,300-year-old pharaonic tombs discovered at the burial grounds of Saqqara indicate that the sprawling necropolis south of Cairo is even larger than previously thought, Egypt's top archaeologist said Monday.
The rock-cut tombs were built for high officials -- one responsible for the quarries used to build the nearby pyramids and another for a woman in charge of procuring entertainers for the pharaohs.
"We announce today a major, important discovery at Saqqara, the discovery of two new tombs dating back to 4,300 years ago," said Zahi Hawass, as he showed reporters around the site Monday. "The discovery of the two tombs are the beginning of a big, large cemetery."
Agencie France Presse via Inquirer.net of the Philippines: Roman battlefield unearthed in Germany
KALEFELD -- Archaeologists have unearthed remains of a battle fought in Germany between Roman legionnaires and Germanic tribes 200 years after Romans were believed to have retreated behind the Rhine.
Until now, the Teutoburg Forest defeat of three Roman legions by Germanic tribes, 2,000 years ago next year, was thought to have ended Rome's expansion into northeastern Europe and set the limits of the empire at the Rhine.
The latest archaeological find was originally made by amateurs using metal detectors who discovered a number of Roman weapons in a hilly pine-wooded region between Hanover and Kassel.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
National Geographic: TOP TEN ARCHAEOLOGY FINDS: Most Read of 2008
Lost cities, baffling pyramids, and ancient graveyards are just some of the mysteries covered in National Geographic News's most viewed archaeology stories of 2008.
Physics
New Scientist: A year in the quantum world
by Michael Marshall
If successful scientific theories can be thought of as cures for stubborn problems, quantum physics was the wonder drug of the 20th century. It successfully explained phenomena such as radioactivity and antimatter, and no other theory can match its description of how light and particles behave on small scales.
The quantum world is now one of the most closely scrutinised areas of science, and throughout 2008 new discoveries have poured in.
Since its redesign in November, NewScientist.com is making the last 12 months' of articles free for everyone to read. Here, in case you missed them, are the year's top 10 in-depth articles about the quantum world.
Chemistry
Wired: Science Behind Mysterious 'Fifth Taste' Revealed
By Brandon Keim
It's appetizing news for anyone who's ever wanted the savory taste of meats and cheeses without actually having to eat them: chemists have identified molecular mechanisms underlying the sensation of umami, also known as the fifth taste.
The much-loved but historically unappreciated taste is produced by two interacting sets of molecules, each of which is needed to trigger cellular receptors on a tongue's surface.
"This opens the door to designing better, more potent and more selective umami enhancers," said Xiaodong Li, a chemist at San Diego-based food-additive company Senomyx. Li co-authored the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Wired: Science We Can Believe In: How President Obama Can Recharge US Research
By David Goldston
Back in September, when the presidential election seemed up for grabs, a group of more than 60 Nobel Prize-winning scientists endorsed Barack Obama. One important reason: his plan to increase federal funding for research, which they argued would result in "new ways to provide energy ... and improve our economy." Fund science, goes the logic, because basic research always yields economic benefits.
Now, with the economy in tumult and a deficit that could reach $1 trillion this year, the question is not whether research and development should be a priority but whether Obama will be able to deliver. And even if he can still manage to increase funding, simply putting more cash into the same old research priorities won't help invent the future. Obama will surely aim to spend more than George W. Bush (but not enough to make everyone happy). More important, he'll have to create policies that ensure good ideas make it out of the lab.
Take energy. While campaigning, Obama promised to shell out $150 billion over 10 years on energy R&D, several times what the government allots now. But he based his pledge on the assumption that industry would buy permits from the government to continue to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse pollutants. This in turn would drive the demand for technologies that minimize greenhouse gases. But without auctioning carbon credits, which would require congressional approval—far from guaranteed—Obama would be able to afford only a fraction of that $150 billion. And no amount of money will matter without policies that foster a market for alternative sources of energy and energy-efficient products.
Reuters: Court reinstates EPA power plant pollution rule
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a Bush administration rule to reduce air pollution from power plants and help states downwind from the facilities meet federal clean air standards.
A top broker in emissions allowances said trading in some pollutants soared on the news. One environmental advocate called the ruling a "holiday gift to breathers."
Tuesday's ruling reversed a decision the same court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, made in July to reject the so-called Clean Air Interstate Rule, known as CAIR.
Reuters: Obama team primed to push climate change agenda
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama's new "green dream team" is committed to battling climate change and ready to push for big policy reforms, in stark contrast with the Bush administration, environmental advocates said on Monday.
"If this team can't advance strong national policy on global warming, then no one can," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to Obama's picks for the top energy and environment jobs in his administration, which takes office on January 20.
"This caliber of scientists in any administration would be a major headline," Knobloch said by telephone on Monday. "But in contrast to the eight years of the Bush administration, where political appointees ran roughshod over science at a terrible cost to the truth, they stand out even more."
Reuters: Tough climate goals may be easier than feared
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - Tough targets for avoiding dangerous global warming may be easier to achieve than widely believed, according to a study that could ease fears of a prohibitive long-term surge in costs.
The report, by scientists in the Netherlands and Germany, indicated that initial investments needed to be high to have any impact in slowing temperature rises. Beyond a certain threshold, however, extra spending would have clear returns on warming.
Until now, most governments have worried that costs may start low and then soar -- suggesting that ambitious targets will become too expensive for tackling threats such as extinctions, droughts, floods and rising seas.
Reuters: Obama picks climate specialist as science adviser
By Ross Colvin
CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama underscored on Saturday his intent to push initiatives on climate change by naming John Holdren, an energy and climate specialist, as the new White House science adviser.
Holdren is a Harvard University physicist who has focused on the causes and consequences of climate change and advocated policies aimed at sustainable development. He has also done extensive research on the dangers of nuclear weapons.
Obama pledged to put a priority on encouraging scientific breakthroughs in areas such as alternative energy solutions and finding cures to diseases, as he announced the pick of Holdren and other top science advisers in the Democratic weekly radio and video address.
Reuters: Japan to bring back solar power subsidy for homes
Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Hugh Lawson
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan plans to bring back subsidies for solar panel equipment from January, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said on Wednesday, as the world's fifth-biggest emitter struggles to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.
METI said the government would offer 9 billion yen ($99.6 million) in the first quarter of 2009 and possibly more in the fiscal year starting next April to foster use of solar panel equipment in homes.
To meet its long-term goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80 percent from current levels by 2050, the government aims to have more than 70 percent of newly built houses equipped with solar panels by 2020.
Reuters: Green jobs really on the way? New U.S. solar plants announced this week
Posted by: Nichola Groom
Are those green jobs Obama has been promising already on their way? Really?
Despite a weak global economy and all the gloom that has brought to the solar industry of late, two solar companies this week quietly bucked the trend by announcing new manufacturing plants here in the United States.
On Monday, Hemlock Semiconductor said it would invest up to $3 billion to expand U.S. production of polysilicon, the key raw material used to make solar cells and semiconductors. That will include $1.2 billion to build a new facility in Clarksville, Tennesee, and up to $1 billion to expand its current operations in Hemlock, Michigan. The company said the investment will create 800 permanent positions at the plants (and a few hundred more once Clarksville is expanded) and 1,800 construction jobs.
Wired: Before the Levees Break: A Plan to Save the Netherlands
By David Wolman
On a late fall afternoon on the western edge of the Netherlands, coastal engineer Marcel Stive stands atop a 40-foot dune. He stares out beyond the posse of wet-suit-clad surfers wading into the breakers of the North Sea. Where the surfers see inviting waves, Stive sees dry land—and a distant storm. He points south toward Rotterdam, Europe's busiest port. Arm outstretched, Stive rotates 180 degrees to face the shoreline running north. "As far as you can see, in both directions, we're going to push the coast out 3, maybe 4, kilometers," he says. "We have to—to keep the water out."
The dunes here alongside the village of Ter Heijde are among the weakest links in the complex network of natural barriers, dams, levees, canals, pumps, and storm-surge barricades that keep this lowest of low countries dry. More than half of the Netherlands sits below sea level, and if a megastorm were to break through these not-so-formidable dunes, the water could inundate Rotterdam and surrounding cities within 24 hours, flooding thousands of square miles, paralyzing the nation's economy, and devastating an area inhabited by more than 2 million people.
...
Yet the chance of a breach at Ter Heijde is actually quite low, about 1 in 10,000 in any given year. (In the lingo of storm protection, that's known as a 10,000-year flood.) The coastline and river deltas of the Netherlands are arguably the best-protected lowlands in the world, and the Dutch are a little miffed at Al Gore for suggesting in An Inconvenient Truth that their homeland is as vulnerable to rising seas as far less protected places like Bangladesh and Florida.
Reuters: EU seeks WTO case to test hormone-treated beef rules
By Jonathan Lynn
GENEVA (Reuters) - The European Union launched a case at the World Trade Organization on Monday to test whether its restrictions on beef treated with growth hormones comply with global trade rules.
The move by Brussels is the latest twist in a complex case which has stretched WTO jurisprudence to the limits.
"We are convinced that our legislation on hormones is fully in line with WTO law: the restrictions on hormone-treated beef are based on solid scientific evidence showing risks for human health," EU trade spokesman Peter Power said in a statement.
SwissInfo Swiss halt work on controversial dam project
The government is suspending its financial guarantee for Swiss companies involved in the controversial Ilisu hydro-power plant in southeastern Turkey.
Non-governmental organisations have welcomed the decision announced in a joint statement by the Swiss, Austrian and German authorities on Tuesday.
The three governments agreed that the dam project must meet around 150 conditions relating to impacts on the environment, cultural heritage sites, neighbouring states and the relocation of people in flood zones.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above policy-related article.
Wired: Cousin Marriage OK by Science
By Brandon Keim
In an age of sexual liberation, marriage between cousins remains taboo, at least in the United States — and from a scientific perspective, laws against the unions are a socially legitimized form of genetic and sexual discrimination.
That argument, raised Monday in an editorial in Public Library of Science Biology, may turn the stomachs of people raised to disapprove of any form of incest. But dispassioned analysis suggests that cousin marriage is no more troubling than childbearing by middle-aged women.
"Women over the age of 40 are not prevented from childbearing, nor is anyone suggesting they should be, despite an equivalent risk of birth defects," write zoologists Hamish Spencer and Diane Paul. Bans against cousin marriage, they say, should be repealed, "because neither the scientific nor social assumptions that informed them are any longer defensible."
Science Education
Nature: Downturn hits Chicago's natural history museum
Rex Dalton
The venerable Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago is cutting its budget by 15% — laying off staff, paring salaries and cancelling projects — after being hit by the economic recession. The value of the museum's endowment has plunged by nearly US$100 million (31%) in the past six months.
Employees at the 115-year-old institution, known for its historic collection of 25 million specimens, were notified in a memo on 19 December of plans for weathering the financial downturn. "We are trying to hold everything together on the scientific side," says museum president John McCarter. "But who knows where the bottom of the downturn is."
Early retirement packages with emeritus status have been offered to 68 museum employees, including 27 scientists, and more staff departures are expected. Members of the museums 564 staff who earn more than $75,000 per year may face salary cuts of 3-5%, and McCarter's own $450,000 base salary has been chopped by 20%. The science operating budget for 2009 will end up being sliced by $1.7 million, down to $7.4 million.
For one of the reasons revenue is down, read the next story. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is partly to blame as well.
National Public Radio: Museum Field Trips Tailored To Teach To The Test
by Elizabeth Blair
All Things Considered, December 22, 2008 · Many children visit museums for the first time with their classmates on school-organized field trips. But as school districts face budget cuts and teachers feel pressure to prepare students for a battery of standardized tests, museum field trips are falling off of the curriculum.
It's hard to quantify on a national level exactly how much the number of museum field trips is decreasing, but for many teachers, several hours at the museum is starting to feel like a luxury.
Elizabeth Babcock, director of education at the Field Museum, says the natural history museum in Chicago used to welcome more than 300,000 students every year. But that number has dropped considerably; she says that a few years back, the number was below 200,000.
As you can see, NCLB is no friend to museums--yet another reason to end it. Luckily for me, I teach college, so NCLB doesn't interfere with my teaching. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I include field trips to local resources in all my classes. The students love them--and they're adults!
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Science is Cool
New Scientist: Science heroes and villains of 2008
by Rowan Hooper
The collective brain of New Scientist has come up with 8 scientist heroes of the year and people to look out for in 2009, 3 non-scientists who deserve special mention - and two possible bad guys.