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 the Berthoud Recorder.
Earthsky Tonight —The 2010 equinox comes on March 20
by Deborah Byrd
The March equinox marks that special moment when the sun crosses celestial equator, going from south to north. It happens today at 17:32 Universal Time, or 11:32 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. The March equinox signals the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern hemisphere.
The equinox is a hallmark in Earth’s orbit, but it is also an event that happens on the imaginary dome of Earth’s sky. The imaginary celestial equator is a great circle dividing the imaginary celestial sphere into its northern and southern hemispheres. The celestial equator wraps the sky directly above Earth’s equator, and at the equinox today, the sun crosses the celestial equator, to enter the sky’s northern hemisphere.
More science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Watch this space!
DarkSyde: This Week in Science
jamess: DESERTEC gets serious -- Teams up with First Solar
JanF: All Things Being Equal: A Pootie and Woozle Equinox
tc59: OMG! Global Warming Gone Crazy! w/Update 2x
Slideshows/Videos
Scientific American: Big Question: Is Earth Past Its Tipping Point?
By Mark Fischetti
Biodiversity loss. Land use. Freshwater use. Nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. Stratospheric ozone. Ocean acidification. Climate change. Chemical Pollution. Aerosol loading in the atmosphere.
A team of 30 scientists across the globe have determined that the nine environmental processes named above must remain within specific limits, otherwise the "safe operating space" within which humankind can exist on Earth will be threatened. Amid some controversy, the group has set numeric limits for seven of the nine so far (chemical pollution and aerosol loading are still being pinned down). And the researchers have determined that the world has already crossed the boundary in three cases: biodiversity loss, the nitrogen cycle and climate change.
Mother News Network: Infographic: Top 20 countries with most endangered species
Astronomy/Space
Daily Galaxy: The New Strange & Violent Saturn: Gigantic Polar Vortex & Rings as High as the Rocky Mountains
Casey Kazan
The image of a classical serene zen-like Saturn is an illusion: new findings by NASA's Cassini spacecraft show a gas giant with extraordinary patterns of charged particles and violent roller derbies for rings.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been shadowing the gas giant long enough to see that the rings are a rough and tumble roller derby. It has also revealed that the planet itself roils with strange weather and shifting patterns of charged particles.
"This rambunctious system gives us a new feel for how an early solar system might have behaved," said Linda Spilker, a planetary scientist and the new Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This kind of deep, rich data can only be collected by an orbiting spacecraft, and we look forward to the next seven years around Saturn bringing even more surprises."
Hat/Tip to palantir for this story.
L.A. Times: Big Bang project may delay space shuttle's final flight
By Mark K. Matthews and Robert Block
Reporting from Washington and Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Possible problems with a $2-billion physics experiment could delay the space shuttle's final flight and further complicate White House plans to retire the orbiter fleet this year.
At issue is a van-sized device called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which scientists hope will tell them more about the universe and its beginnings. The AMS is scheduled to fly aboard Endeavour in July to be installed aboard the International Space Station, but a potential design flaw has forced NASA to consider postponing the mission.
The trouble lies with the experiment's magnets, which are designed to work within a few degrees of absolute zero. The magnets will bend interstellar particles as they flow through the middle of the tube-shaped device; scientists will be able to identify the electronic charge of the particles by how they curve.
Evolution/Paleontology
L.A. Times: Farm chickens' DNA traced back to red jungle fowl
By Karen Kaplan
Hundreds of genetic mutations accumulated over thousands of years have transformed the red jungle fowl of South Asia into the domesticated chickens that are a fixture on farms -- and dining tables -- worldwide, according to a scientific analysis of poultry DNA published this week in the journal Nature.
Swedish and American scientists identified about 7.5 million genetic variations between domesticated chickens and the jungle fowl, their primary wild ancestor. Then the scientists zeroed in on a few dozen differences that seemed particularly important based on their frequent prevalence in eight distinct populations of birds raised for meat or eggs.
One of the key genetic changes was in the DNA that carries the code for the thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor.
Biodiversity
Mother Nature Network via Yahoo! Green: The world's only immortal animal
By Bryan Nelson, Mother Nature Network
The Turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.
Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).
Hat/Tip to Dump Terry McAuliffe for this story.
L.A. Times: Bacterial trail may be next forensic clue
By Amina Khan
Forget fingerprint dusting. Crime-scene drama fans might soon see a new forensic technique debut on their favorite TV series: hand-germ testing.
According to a study published online Monday, bacteria that live on a person's hands could one day accurately identify that individual. This could come in handy to track down a criminal who has worn gloves, removed prints and other personal physical evidence, or touched surfaces such as fabric on which a fingerprint wouldn't show up, the researchers said.
The concept, outlined in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, relies upon the fact that human beings leave a trail of bacteria on objects they touch and that the mix of microbes on each person's hand is highly individualized.
L.A. Times: Monarch butterflies suffer population loss
By Bill Hanna
Reporting from Fort Worth, Texas
Monarch butterflies, devastated by storms at their winter home in Mexico, have dwindled to their lowest population levels in decades as they begin to return to the United States and Canada.
The monarch loss is estimated at 50% to 60%, which means the breeding population is expected to be the smallest since the Mexican overwintering colonies were discovered in 1975, said Chip Taylor, a professor of entomology and director of Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas.
"I think it is very clear that the butterflies lost more than half of the population," Taylor said. "I'm hoping it wasn't as high as 70% or 80%. We've never seen it this bad before."
L.A. Times: Santa Monica sushi restaurant to close after serving whale meat
By Tony Barboza
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
A Santa Monica sushi restaurant facing federal charges for serving endangered whale meat appears set to close its doors Saturday, according to a statement posted to The Hump's website Friday which called the decision a "self-imposed punishment."
"The Hump hopes that by closing its doors, it will help bring awareness to the detrimental effect that illegal whaling has on the preservation of our ocean ecosystems and species," read the statement on the restaurant's longstanding website.
Phone calls to the restaurant and its attorney were not answered late Friday.
Biotechnology/Health
L.A. Times: TB rate down in U.S., but drug-resistant cases rise elsewhere
By Thomas H. Maugh II
Even with tuberculosis cases falling sharply in the United States to historic lows, strains of drug-resistant disease are gaining ground elsewhere in the world.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that TB prevalence in this country dropped 11.8% last year, the largest yearly decline since the government began monitoring the disease in 1953. But on the same day, the World Health Organization reported that an estimated 440,000 people worldwide had multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in 2008, and a third of them died.
Nearly half of the cases were in China and India, which have been hit hardest by the outbreak. But in some areas of the world, especially three provinces in Russia, more than 1 in every 4 cases of tuberculosis result from the hard-to-treat strain.
L.A. Times: http://www.latimes.com/...
By Thomas H. Maugh II
For the first time, researchers have shown that erectile dysfunction is a strong predictor of the likelihood that men will die of heart disease.
Men who suffer from the problem, which some consider more an emotional than a physical issue, are twice as likely to succumb to cardiovascular disease or heart attacks as those who do not have the problem, German researchers reported Monday in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Assn.
Researchers have known for years that there is a link between erectile dysfunction, commonly abbreviated as ED, and heart disease, said Dr. Sahil Parikh, an interventional cardiologist from University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland who was not involved in the study. "But now there is pretty clear evidence that there is a substantially increased risk of heart attack and death when patients have erectile dysfunction."
L.A. Times: Vitamin D linked to lower heart disease risk
By Shari Roan
Raising the amount of vitamin D in the blood appears to help some people -- at least those deficient in the vitamin -- reduce their risk of heart disease by about 30%, researchers announced Monday. The findings, though preliminary, support further investigation of the interplay between vitamin D and heart health.
Observational studies have linked heart disease with low vitamin D levels in the blood. In recent years, studies have shown that as many as three-quarters of Americans have a concentration in their blood that is under the normal level of 30 nanograms per milliliter.
But it has been unclear if people with low vitamin D have more heart disease because of the vitamin deficiency or for other reasons, such as lack of exercise, said Dr. J. Brent Muhlestein, the lead author of the new study and director of cardiovascular research at Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.
L.A. Times: Aggressive measures to treat diabetics make many of them worse, studies show
By Thomas H. Maugh II
It seemed like a good idea. Diabetics are at an unusually high risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke, so sharply reducing their blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar should be highly beneficial. But a decade of studies of thousands of patients show that is not the case.
Two new reports from a major nationwide trial called ACCORD released Sunday show that lowering either blood pressure or cholesterol below current guidelines does not provide additional benefit and, in fact, increases the risk of side effects. A third arm of the study, released two years ago, shows that excessively lowering blood sugar levels actually increases the risk of heart disease.
The results are disappointing, researchers say, because they suggest that clinicians may have reached the limit of what they can do for diabetic patients without developing new therapeutic approaches.
Climate/Environment
Reuters: China's urban elite fights trash wars
by Emma Graham-Harrison and Beijing Newsroom
(Reuters) - Thousands of China's urban elite took to the streets last year in protest against expanding garbage incinerators, angered by the threat to both their health and the value of their homes, a report launched on Friday said.
The stability-obsessed government fears growing public anger among the country's middle class, who once focused largely on securing jobs and homes but are becoming increasingly assertive -- sometimes forcing authorities to back down on unpopular plans.
City residents in the capital Beijing and the relatively well-off coastal provinces of Jiangsu and Guangdong all came out in 2009 to try and block new constructions or expansions of incinerators, an annual review by one of China's oldest and best known environmental groups, Friends of Nature, said.
Reuters: Massive sandstorm turns Beijing's streets yellow
(Reuters) - Tons of sand from deserts in China's interior blew into Beijing Saturday, shrouding China's capital in a yellow-orange haze that authorities warned made the air quality "hazardous."
There were few people out on streets where pedestrians could taste the dust. Many of those who had ventured from their homes were wearing facemasks, and some left footprints in the yellow film that had settled on the city's streets.
Beijing's weather forecasting bureau gave the air quality a rare "5," or hazardous, rating and added that it was "not suitable for morning exercises." Parks and open spaces are usually packed from early in the day with enthusiasts doing martial arts, ballroom dancing and other activities.
Reuters: China says drought now affecting 50 million people
by Ben Blanchard
(Reuters) - A severe drought across a large swathe of southwest China is now affecting more than 50 million people, and forecasters see no signs of it abating in the short term, state media said on Friday.
The drought began last autumn, and is the result not only of less rainfall but also unseasonably high temperatures, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing a central government meeting on the situation.
It is affecting the provinces and regions of Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan and the municipality of Chongqing. These parts of China are known for their sugar and rubber plantations.
Geology
L.A. Times: Did you feel that quake? Online survey helps USGS seismologists
By Amina Khan
When a magnitude 4.4 earthquake shook Southern Californians awake in the predawn hours Tuesday, many rushed to their computers to learn about it from the U.S. Geological Survey website.
Those bleary-eyed Web surfers may not have realized they were giving information as well as getting it.
The "Did You Feel It?" online questionnaire, which asks people to detail the intensity of the shaking and report any damage, received more than 17,800 responses after Tuesday's relatively minor shaker. In operation since 1999, it is helping experts learn more about the nature of earthquakes, how people react to them and -- in places without earthquake-sensing equipment -- where emergency efforts should be focused.
L.A. Times: Earthquake in Chile gives engineers some pointers
By Karen Kaplan
When structural engineer Anuj Bansal designs systems for hospitals, university libraries and apartment complexes, seismic safety is a key consideration. But the best way to find out what it takes for a building to withstand a massive earthquake is to analyze the aftermath of an actual event.
That's why Bansal, who heads the Los Angeles office of Degenkolb Engineers, traveled to Chile with three colleagues to survey the damage resulting from last month's 8.8 quake that killed 497 people, caused $30 billion in damage and shifted the city of Concepcion 10 feet to the west.
The engineers blogged during their 10-day trip at www.degenkolb.com/blog.
Bansal returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday and shared his observations.
Psychology/Behavior
L.A. Times: Of males, females -- and, in a way, the scientists fascinated by them
-- Tami Dennis
Male skateboarders are more willing to risk falls when being watched by an attractive woman. Crude sexism doesn't do much for men's general reputations. And female pipefish wanting to spread their genes successfully better hope that the male pipefish look back on their time together with a certain fondness or pride or whatever it is pipefish feel.
- First up, the skateboarders. Australian researchers approached 96 young men at skateboarding parks and asked them to perform an easy trick and a difficult trick in front of either a male researcher (run-of-the-mill, we assume) or a female researcher bordering on babe-dom. They were also asked to give saliva samples and have their pulses checked.
Just as researchers expected: The skateboarders performing for the female researcher were more likely to take greater risks than those performing for their male researcher -- and they had higher testosterone levels during the experiment too.
Archeology/Anthropology
Scientific American: Human ancestors walked comfortably upright 3.6 million years ago, new footprint study says
By Katherine Harmon
A comparison of ancient and contemporary footprints reveals that our ancestors were strolling much like we do some 3.6 million years ago, a time when they were still quite comfortable spending time in trees, according to a study which will be published in the March 22 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.
Anatomical fossils have given scant confirmation about when our ancestors developed a fully modern gait. Although some researchers have argued that the 4.4 million-year-old ancient human Ardipithecus ramidus ("Ardi") described in October 2009 was adept at walking on her hind legs, many disagree.
So rather than quibbling over badly crushed—and often missing—fossil bones, the researchers behind the new study turned much of their focus back to the famous Laetoli footprints, which were discovered more than 30 years ago in what is now Tanzania. Likely left by Australopithecus afarensis, the same species as "Lucy," these prints show an upright gait, but it has remained controversial just how fluid and modern this creature's walk would have been.
Hat/Tip to palantir for this story.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Early humans in Indonesia for 1 million years
By David Mark
Scientists have discovered evidence that early humans were living on the Indonesian island of Flores at least one million years ago.
An archaeological dig has discovered stone tools that have pushed back the age that hominins were living on the island.
Now scientists are speculating that this mystery human may have evolved into the now famous hobbit of Flores.
EDP24 (UK): How discovery off the Norfolk coast holds the key to Norway's past
SARAH BREALEY
It is just eight inches long, but its discovery changed what we know about prehistoric Europe and our ancestors.
The harpoon, which was found by a Lowestoft fishing trawler in 1931, was yesterday under the lens of a Norwegian television crew, who are making a documentary on the origins of Norway.
It is 14,000 years old, but in perfect condition, the points carved into it still sharp. It would have been used for hunting by modern man in late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic times; a time before written records when people lived in hunter-gatherer communities.
Physorg.com: Probing Question: How and why was Stonehenge built?
By Jesse Hicks
From the grassy deserted plains of southern England rises a circle of standing stones, some of them up to 24 feet tall. For centuries they have towered over visitors, offering tantalizing hints about their prehistoric past. For centuries, everyone who has stood before them has wondered the same thing: Who built this mysterious rock monument? And why?
"Since Stonehenge was built and rebuilt over a period of centuries, no one group has sole credit for its construction, but the main building seems to have been done by a people known as the ‘Beaker Folk,’" says Benjamin Hudson, professor of history and medieval studies at Penn State. The Beaker Folk (who earned their name from the distinctive inverted bell-shaped pottery drinking vessels they made) scattered throughout prehistoric western Europe.
RedOrbit: A Blue Mystery
Sometimes a professional favor takes you down an interesting side street
Jennifer Smith, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was belly crawling her way to the end of a long, narrow tunnel carved in the rock at a desert oasis by Egyptians who lived in the time of the pharaohs.
"I was crawling along when suddenly I felt stabbed in the chest," she says. "I looked down and saw that I was pressing against the broken end of a long bone. That freaked me out because at first I thought I was crawling over bodies, but I looked up and saw a sheep skull not too far away, so I calmed down. At least the bones weren’t human."
What was she doing in the tunnel?
The answer: seeking an uncontaminated sample of a mineral that might have been the key ingredient in the blue used to decorate "blue painted pottery" popular among the Egyptian elite during the New Kingdom (1550 to 1079 BCE).
Camarillo Acorn: Trio arrested for allegedly looting Chumash burial site
By Daniel Wolowicz
Three men were arrested earlier this month for allegedly stealing Chumash Indian artifacts from a burial ground in a rural area between Camarillo and the Pacific Coast Highway.
John Watson, 37, Frederick Villela, 40, and Noah Erickson, 23, were arrested March 1 around 10 p.m. in an unincorporated area of Ventura County on multiple charges, including grand theft, trespassing on private property and willful injury to archaeological or historical interest.
Deputies made the arrests in connection with a trespassing call they received from a private property near where the men were arrested.
Sgt. Joe Devorick with the Camarillo Police Department said deputies caught the men in possession of various Chumash Indian artifacts.
Missoula Independent via Big Sky Press: Stealing History
by Alex Sakariassen
Looters ransack archaeological sites throughout the West, but Montana officials notice a surprising lack of in-state incidents. A Missoula specialist says they're just not digging deep enough.
At 2 a.m. on Dec. 22, 1977, Martin McAllister received a phone call from law enforcement officers with the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. Several armed men were suspected of raiding a pre-historic pueblo site in a remote portion of Yavapai County and McAllister's expertise in archaeological fieldwork was needed to collect evidence and assess the damage. McAllister gathered his crew of U.S. Forest Service archaeologists and prepared to meet with officials for an investigation at dawn.
That morning McAllister watched from a ridge as local sheriff's deputies and Forest Service officers apprehended Thayde Jones and Robert Gevara (a third man, Kyle Jones, fled on foot but was caught later in the day walking along a nearby dirt road). McAllister and his crew waited for the all clear, then set to work assessing the site and cataloging an impressive collection of disturbed artifacts, including 16 ornate pots and a complete human skull. The job took all afternoon. When McAllister was finished, the evidence completely filled the flatbed of a quarter-ton pickup.
Maktoob.com (Jordan): Seventh century Arab palace found in Israel
JERUSALEM - Ruins in northern Israel previously thought to have been a synagogue have now been identified as a 7th century palace used by the Umayyad caliph who started construction of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, archaeologists said on Tuesday.
The site on the shores of the Sea of Galilee is that of the Al-Sinnabra palace, which was described by early Arab historians but whose precise location had long been unknown, according to Tel Aviv University, whose Institute of Archaeology led the recent excavations.
Archaeologists dug up the site in the early 1950s but identified it as the ruins of an ancient synagogue, a theory that was questioned in 2002 by a University of Chicago expert who identified the site as that of the Al-Sinnabra palace.
United Press International: http://www.upi.com/...
NORFOLK, Va., March 17 (UPI) -- Winter storms on the Outer Banks have uncovered the remains of what may be the oldest shipwreck on the North Carolina coast, experts say.
Investigators from the North Carolina Underwater Archaeology Branch came to Corolla, N.C., to document the estimated 400-year-old wreck before it disappears, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Wednesday.
The wreck has already drifted two miles since storms uncovered it in December.
Free Internet Press: Saving Moon Trash - Urine Containers, 'Space Boots' And Artifacts Aren't Just Junk, Argue Archaeologists
Posted By: Intellpuke
California has named the remains of the Apollo 11 mission a state historical resource - to the delight of the young profession of space archaeologists. They fear that the trash and equipment left behind by the United States' journeys to the moon could someday wind up for sale on eBay if they aren't protected.
There is an unwritten law in America's national parks: Carry out what you bring in.
When they visited the moon, though, the Americans weren't nearly as considerate or in touch with nature. Astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong left behind more than 100 items when they left the moon on July 21, 1969, at 5:54 p.m., Earth Time. The items included four urine containers, several air sickness bags, a Hasselblad camera, lunar overshoes and a complete moon-landing step.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
Physorg.com: For One Tiny Instant, Physicists May Have Broken a Law of Nature
By Suzanne Taylor Muzzin
(PhysOrg.com) -- For a brief instant, it appears, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island recently discovered a law of nature had been broken.
For a brief instant, it appears, scientists at Brook haven National Laboratory on Long Island recently discovered a law of nature had been broken.
Action still resulted in an equal and opposite reaction, gravity kept the Earth circling the Sun, and conservation of energy remained intact. But for the tiniest fraction of a second at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), physicists created a symmetry-breaking bubble of space where parity no longer existed.
The article neglects to note that symmetry had to have been broken during the first minutes of the universe, or else there would have been no matter. Equal amounts of matter and antimatter would have been created and would then have annihilated each other, leaving only energy in the universe. The discovery above might be useful for explaining how this happened.
Hat/Tip to palantir for this story.
Chemistry
Physorg.com: Mastery of rare-earth elements vital to America's security
Karl A. Gschneidner Jr., a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, today cautioned members of a Congressional panel that "rare-earth research in the USA on mineral extraction, rare-earth separation, processing of the oxides into metallic alloys and other useful forms, substitution, and recycling is virtually zero."
Rare-earth elements are critical components in the great majority of America's high-tech commercial and military products. Their vital role in our nation's economic and national security was underscored by today's hearing of the Investigations & Oversight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology, which was devoted entirely to the topic.
To optimize the use of rare earths in current and future products, scientists combine rare earths with other elements to create alloys intended for specific purposes. Yet the United States and other nations have ceded much of this alloying knowledge to China, Gschneidner said.
Energy
Physorg.com: Researchers to test renewable-energy system at local treatment plant
A successful University of Nevada, Reno renewable energy research project is moving from the lab to the real world in a demonstration-scale system to turn wastewater sludge into electricity.
The new patent-pending, low-cost, energy-efficient technology is scheduled to be set up in the Truckee Meadows Water Reclamation Facility next month following the recent signing of an interlocal agreement with the cities of Reno and Sparks.
"Our plan is to test the unit by about May 15," Chuck Coronella, principle investigator for the research project and an associate professor of chemical engineering, said. "We're designing, building and assembling a continuous-feed system that will ultimately be used to generate electricity. We'll run experiments throughout the summer, creating a usable dried product from the sludge."
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
EDP24 (UK): Illegal metal detecting crackdown
SHAUN LOWTHORPE
Archaeologists are to team up with police in a bid to crack down on illegal metal detecting in Norfolk.
Norfolk has the highest number of recovered artefacts in the country declared treasure and a successful long-established working relationship with legitimate metal- detecting enthusiasts.
There were 109 cases of items found in Norfolk being declared treasure in 2008-09. Recent finds include a hoard of 24 Henry III short-cross pennies in Breckland, and an early Saxon gold spangle from south Norfolk.
But illegal metal detecting, known as "night-hawking", is a big problem and Norfolk Archaeology Unit (NAU) is to prepare a briefing note for police safer neighbourhood teams outlining some of the worst affected areas.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Reuters: Senate climate bill to give free permits: sources
Richard Cowan and Timothy Gardner
(Reuters) - U.S. power generating companies would get free pollution permits, at least initially, as part of a compromise climate change bill being written in the Senate that also would give the coal industry $10 billion to develop "clean" technology, sources said on Friday.
Democratic Senator John Kerry is trying to push a bill through a skeptical Senate this year that would address global warming by reducing the 6.4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions the U.S. puts into the atmosphere annually, mostly by burning fossil fuels.
While the bill is not yet ready to be introduced in the Senate, Kerry has held a series of briefings for lawmakers, industry groups and environmentalists to preview the proposal.
Reuters: US states sue EPA to stop greenhouse gas rules
By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) - At least 15 U.S. states have sued the Environmental Protection Agency seeking to stop it from issuing rules controlling greenhouse gas emissions until it reexamines whether the pollution harms human health.
Florida, Indiana, South Carolina and at least nine other states filed the petitions in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, states said.
They joined petitions filed last month by Virginia, Texas and Alabama.
The Obama administration has long said it would attack greenhouse gas emissions with EPA regulation if Congress failed to pass a climate bill.
L.A. Times: Scientists side with smelt, salmon protections
By Bettina Boxall
A National Academy of Sciences panel has concluded that the much-disputed fish protections that have curbed water deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California are scientifically justified.
The findings, contained in a report that will be released Friday, largely validate environmental actions taken by two federal agencies to save the imperiled delta smelt and protect declining populations of salmon that migrate through the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta.
The protections, imposed under the federal Endangered Species Act, have recently grown stricter, compounding water shortages stemming from the state's three-year drought.
L.A. Times: Fishing ban? No way, officials say
By Jim Tankersley
Reporting from Washington
Despite Internet reports to the contrary, White House officials say a federal task force will in no way, shape or form suggest that President Obama restrict sportfishing off America's coasts and in the Great Lakes.
In recent weeks, fishing groups and bloggers across the country have raised concerns that the president's was set to impose new restrictions, or even an outright ban, on a treasured national pastime.
How did this get started?
The outcry was spawned by an opinion column on ESPNoutdoors.com, since clarified by the site's editors, which claimed the largely obscure task force was drafting a "federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters."
Is that the case?
Administration officials say no.
Apparently, Tea Partiers will believe anything.
Science Education
The Heath Tech's Blog on Radiology Technician Schools: 50 Best Blogs for Archaeology Students
Anatomy and physiology, psychology, sociology, literature, religion, geology, and a multitude of other subjects all filter into a degree in archaeology. Because of this, students may understandably grow to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they have to process. Fortunately, many blogs exist to help guide them through their educations, rife with information on a wide number of philosophies, theories, discoveries, and research. The following resources can act as a few of these great guides for anyone considering archaeology as a degree and career path.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
L.A. Times: Exploring ecosystems at science center
-- Yvonne Villarreal
"Whoa! That's so cool!" Julian Guzman shrieked as he spotted an image of wingless midge larvae.
Guzman, 9, was joined Tuesday by his fellow third-grade classmates from 32nd Street School for a sneak peak at the new permanent exhibition wing, Ecosystems, at the California Science Center in Exposition Park.
"We're encouraging people to notice the science that exists all around them -- to look beyond these walls to notice and explore out in the real world," said Jeffrey N. Rudolph, president and chief executive of the California Science Center. "It's about engaging people -- particularly kids -- with the wonders of science."
Science is Cool
Physorg.com: Soviet space dogs blast-off to animated immortality
by Anna Malpas
In space, no one can hear you bark. Two mongrels named Belka and Strelka made history in 1960 when they went into orbit in a Soviet space ship and then returned to Earth -- the first animals ever to survive the trip.
Half a century on, the two dogs are the stars of a full-length Russian cartoon feature, "Belka and Strelka: Star Dogs," which tells the true story of their iconic space mission in 3-D.
Wired: Seminal ’70s Environmental TV Series Now Online
By Alexis Madrigal
Every episode of what was probably the environmental movement’s first television series is now available on the web.
Our Vanishing Wilderness first aired almost 40 years ago. The eight half-hour episodes were broadcast by the PBS precursor, National Educational Television beginning in October of 1970. They are now available on a website created by another NET descendant, the New York public channelThirteen.
The production values of the show are a far cry from the ultra-slow-mo, high-definition extravaganzas epitomized by the BBC’s Planet Earth. The series was created by nature writer Mary Louise Grossman and her husband Shelly, a nature photographer. It is low-resolution and grainy. The tone is groovy in that slow, Saganish way but tinged with deep sadness over the loss of American biodiversity.
New Scientist: The predictioneer: Using games to see the future
by Sanjida O'Connell
MY HOROSCOPE this week says that now is the perfect time to relocate, or at least de-clutter. I know it's nonsense, but I can't help wishing there was a genuine way to predict the future.
Perhaps there is. One self-styled "predictioneer" believes he has found the answer. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a professor of politics at New York University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. In his new book, The Predictioneer (The Predictioneer's Game in the US), he describes a computer model based on game theory which he - and others - claim can predict the future with remarkable accuracy.
Over the past 30 years, Bueno de Mesquita has made thousands of predictions about hundreds of issues from geopolitics to personal problems. Overall, he claims, his hit rate is about 90 per cent. So how does he do it?
If Dr. Mesquita's name seems familiar, perhaps it's because Nate Silver invoked him and his technique in a recent post on FiveThirtyEight.
Recently, I've had several conversations with NYU political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita in preparation for my book project. Bruce, in addition to being a Silver family friend, is a really brilliant guy who is trying to lend some much-needed rigor to the political science community. He is best known for a model he designed (as documented in his book, The Predictioneer's Game) to predict the outcomes of complex negotiations from relatively simple inputs. There is a scaled-down version of his model available at his website; I decided to run the numbers for health care and see what it came up with.
...
When I ran the negotiation the first time through, it came up with a score of ... 52. That is, it predicted an outcome just slightly to the left of the Senate Finance Committee's bill, but which would probably lack even a weak public option. That actually looks like a very good prediction, given what is likely to come out of the reconciliation process (if the Democrats get a bill at all).
Isn't that cool?
Hat/Tip to palantir for these stories.