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 Daily Telegraph (UK).
Happy Carl Sagan Day, everybody
By Tom Chivers
It would have been Carl Sagan’s 76th birthday on Tuesday, and his army of nerdish fans around the world have dedicated a day to his memory. It’s today, for some reason, so go and celebrate.
There’s a lot to love about Sagan: a great scientist and great author, a genuine thinker and an excellent populariser. His book and TV series "Cosmos" remain some of the greatest works of popular science of all time. And, of course, he is one of the most quotable men in history.
Hat/Tip to Inspired By Nature for this topic.
More on this and other science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Watch this space!
DarkSyde: This week in science
davidseth: Haiti: After The Storm
Devsd: A Massacre and blood trade in Dolphins
DWG: Karl Rove tells the truth: "Climate is gone"
Jill Richardson: Scary Evidence of Climate Crisis I Saw With My Own Eyes
Slideshows/Videos
Discovery Networks on YouTube: Rocket Launch DIY Films Edge of Space
When hobbyist rocket designer Curt Newport launched his latest project towards space, it had a camera attached. James Williams takes a look at the journey from the rocket's point of view.
BBC: Virus breakthrough raises hope over ending common cold
Medical Research Council animation shows how the body fights viruses
Scientists say they have made a landmark discovery which could pave the way for new drugs to beat illnesses like the common cold.
Until now experts had thought that antibodies could only tackle viral infections by blocking or attacking viruses outside cells.
But work done by the Medical Research Council shows antibodies can pass into cells and fight viruses from within.
Discovery News: http://news.discovery.com/...
The Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt are hitting salesrooms soon, but what's next?
Astronomy/Space
Examiner.com: Launch of shuttle Discovery delayed by hydrogen leak
By Hank Lacey, Denver Science News Examiner
The last flight of one of the nation's space shuttles was delayed for several weeks Friday after technicians discovered hydrogen leaks.
The crew returned to the Johnson Space Center in Houston Friday afternoon.
Discovery, which was scheduled for its 39th launch Friday morning, will not be sent to space until at least Nov. 30.
Evolution/Paleontology
Physorg.com: Ancient shrimp monster not so fierce after all
A Cambrian sea creature, Anomalocaris canadensis, had long been thought to be a fearsome predator of trilobites, equipped as it was with barbed feelers and an armor-plated mouth, but new research suggests it was incapable of eating adult trilobites and probably survived by dining on "mush."
Anomalocaris was a meter-long shrimp-like creature with lobed wings that lived around 500 million years ago. It is often illustrated in the act of devouring trilobites or other shelled animals, and has been dubbed the first "super predator" because of its supposed ability to swoop down and attack trilobites on the sea bed.
The Post-Independent via the Aspen Times: ‘Huge' skull the latest find at Snowmass fossil site
Janet Urquhart
The Aspen Times
Post Independent
SNOWMASS VILLAGE — A volunteer paleontologist discovered a large skull, believed to be that of a mastodon, Wednesday morning at the reservoir site near Snowmass Village where the remains of several prehistoric animals have been discovered.
Volunteers were also working to encase a 7-foot tusk in a plaster cast so it can be removed from the mud. The tusk could be from a mastodon, or it could be part of what would be the second mammoth discovered at the site, according to Dr. Steve Holen, curator of archaeology for the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
Wednesday was the second day of work at Ziegler Reservoir for a crew assembled by the museum. One volunteer, working where a bulldozer had previously turned up two tusks, began digging around what turned out to be the top of "huge" skull, the museum reported. The bulldozer had apparently grazed the top of the skull, which is difficult to distinguish from the mud around it.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Examiner.com: Fossilized tracks of baby sauropod dinosaurs found near Morrison
By Hank Lacey, Denver Science News Examiner
Researchers have discovered fossilized footprints of infant sauropod dinosaurs in the foothills west of Denver.
The apatosaur tracks date from the late Jurassic period, about 148 million years ago, and each of the footprints is about the size of a coffee mug.
They are roughly oval-shaped and, based on their size, would likely have been left by individual dinosaurs that were about approximately the same size as a small dog.
The distribution of the fossilized tracks indicates that some of the young sauropods were running, though most likely at a slow speed, and that it is possible those animals were running only on their hind legs.
BBC: 'Balloon head' dolphin discovered
A new type of dolphin with a short, spoon-shaped nose and high, bulbous forehead has been identified from a fossil found in the North Sea.
The Platalearostrum hoekmani was named after Albert Hoekman, the Dutch fisherman who in 2008 trawled up a bone from the creature's skull.
Up to six metres in length, the dolphin lived two to three million years ago.
Biodiversity
BBC: Snake gives 'virgin birth' to extraordinary babies
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
A female boa constrictor snake has given birth to two litters of extraordinary offspring.
Evidence suggests the mother snake has had multiple virgin births, producing 22 baby snakes that have no father.
More than that, the genetic make-up of the baby snakes is unlike any previously recorded among vertebrates, the group which includes almost all animals with a backbone.
Details are published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
The Age (Australia): Russia's hungry bears dig up graves
Famished bears in northern Russia have resorted to digging up graves in cemeteries - and reportedly eating at least one body - after a scorching summer destroyed their natural food sources of forest berries and mushrooms, officials say.
The brown bears' grisly habit is forcing locals in the Arctic Circle region of Komi to mount 24-hour patrols, protecting their families and livestock out of concern that the bears might get a taste for fresher human flesh, said Pyotr Lobanov, a regional spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry.
Last summer was Russia's hottest on record, with raging forest fires and droughts wiping out woodland and crops, forcing the bears to forage closer and closer to human settlements as the winter hibernation period approaches.
Biotechnology/Health
N.Y. Times: Europe’s Plagues Came From China, Study Finds
By NICHOLAS WADE
The great waves of plague that twice devastated Europe and changed the course of history had their origins in China, a team of medical geneticists reported Sunday, as did a third plague outbreak that struck less harmfully in the 19th century.
And in separate research, a team of biologists reported conclusively this month that the causative agent of the most deadly plague, the Black Death, was the bacterium known as Yersinia pestis. This agent had always been the favored cause, but a vigorous minority of biologists and historians have argued the Black Death differed from modern cases of plague studied in India, and therefore must have had a different cause.
...
One team of biologists, led by Barbara Bramanti of the Institut Pasteur in Paris and Stephanie Haensch of Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, analyzed ancient DNA and proteins from plague pits, the mass burial grounds across Europe in which the dead were interred. Writing in the journal PLoS Pathogens this month, they say their findings put beyond doubt that the Black Death was brought about by Yersinia pestis.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
University of Bristol: Possible new twist in GM safety debate
Scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered a previously unknown route by which GM genes may escape into the natural environment.
By studying plant-fungi-bacteria interactions at plant wound sites, the team have identified a natural process stimulated by a hormone released by the wounded plant that would allow synthetic genes to move across organisms and out into the wild.
The bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens transforms plant tissue as part of its infection process. This natural process provides an important toolbox for scientists to genetically manipulate many species of plants. Recently this technology has been developed for non-plant organisms including fungi by the Bailey & Foster Group in Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences.
Hat/Tip to Creosote for this story.
Climate/Environment
Penn State University: Scientists Discover Dying Corals and Creatures Near Deep Water Horizon Oil-Spill Site in the Gulf
Barbara K. Kennedy
5 November 2010—On a research ship in the Gulf of Mexico on Election Day this week, seven miles south-west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon oil-spill, a team of scientists discovered a community of corals that includes many recently dead colonies and others that clearly are dying. "We discovered a community of coral that has been impacted fairly recently by something very toxic," said the chief scientist on the cruise, Charles Fisher, who is a professor of biology at Penn State University and a member of the research team that selected the site for study.
Fisher said the research team encountered a colony of the hard coral species Madrepora that appeared to be unhealthy on 2 November 2010 at a depth of 1400 meters. "Although some branches of the coral colony appeared normal, other branches clearly were covered in a brown material, apparently sloughing tissue, and were producing abundant mucous," Fisher said. The scientists sampled pieces of this hard coral and of its immediate environment then, about 400 meters away, they found a seriously stricken community of soft corals.
"Within minutes of our arrival at this site, it was evident to the biologists on board that this site was unlike any others that we have seen over the course of hundreds of hours of studying the deep corals in the Gulf of Mexico over the last decade with remotely-operated-vehicles (ROVs) and submersibles," Fisher said. "We found that extensive portions of most of the coral colonies were either recently dead or were dying. Most of the soft coral sea fans had extensive areas that were bare of tissue, covered with brown material, and/or had tissue falling off the skeleton. Many of the colonies appeared recently dead, with no living coral tissue, still covered with decaying material, and also with a notable lack of colonization by other marine life, as would be expected on coral skeletons that had been dead for long periods of time," Fisher said.
Hat/Tip to Inspired By Nature for this story.
Geology
Discovery News via MSNBC: Pacific Northwest overdue for big one, sediments show
6,500-year record pieced together of megathrust earthquakes
By Larry O'Hanlon
A new 6,500-year record of megathrust earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest pieced together from lost coastal marshes and offshore sediments is providing the clearest picture yet of the quake and tsunami dangers for along the 750-mile long Cascadia subduction zone from Northern California to British Columbia.
By bringing together the data from the ocean and coastal marshes into a geophysical model that takes into account how the crust bows upwards between quakes, the researchers have confirmed that the northern portion ruptures violently on the average of once every 480 years. The southern portion along Oregon and California breaks every 230 years on average.
The last rupture was a Sumatra-style, simultaneous unzipping along entire length of the hazardous subduction zone in 1700.
I may be boycotting MSNBC on TV until Keith's suspension is over, but not MSNBC's science reporting on the net.
Psychology/Behavior
University of Bristol via Physorg.com: Poor children twice as likely to begin school with behavior problems
November 2, 2010
Behavior problems are significantly more common among children from disadvantaged backgrounds and are strongly apparent in the pre-school years, according to the preliminary findings of new research carried out by the University of Bristol, commissioned by The Sutton Trust.
The study, which drew on data of several thousand children, found that 35 per cent of boys from the poorest fifth of households had clinical-level symptoms of behavior problems at age three, compared with 15 per cent of those in the higher four-fifths of the income distribution. By age seven, 22 per cent still experienced behavior problems, compared with 10 per cent of those from wealthier homes. Rates were lower amongst girls in general, but nevertheless 29 per cent and 20 per cent of girls from low-income homes at ages three and seven respectively exhibited behavior problems.
The research also finds that, according to most measures, inequalities in behavior across socio-economic groups have widened over the last ten years, even though the overall picture has improved. For example, girls from low-income homes born in the early 1990s were twice as likely as their better-off peers to record behavioral issues at age seven – but this had risen to three-and-a-half times as likely for those born around the Millennium. In general the widening socio-economic gap reflects the fact that behavior problems fell among better-off groups of children, while problems among the lowest income groups remained constant or fell only slightly.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
New Scientist: Children really do see things differently
CHILDREN do not see objects in a fully grown-up way until the age of 13, a new study suggests.
When judging whether shaded images are convex or concave, adult brains assume that light comes from above unless there is reason to think otherwise. Young children have to learn this ability.
MSNBC: Want to be a math whiz? Try a touch of electric shock
By Linda Carroll
The electricity generated by a 9-volt battery might be all there is between you and the mathematical brilliance of a Newton or an Einstein.
OK, we can’t guarantee you’ll be that smart, but, amazingly, British scientists have now shown that low voltage current applied to the right part of the scalp can spark changes that boost the brain’s math abilities. What's more, that mild jolt can lock in your improved mathematical prowess for as long as six month, according to new research published in this month’s issue of Current Biology.
The findings come too late for those of us who already suffered through middle school algebra, but maybe future generations will benefit.
Archeology/Anthropology
Imperial London College via Science Daily: Stone Age Humans Needed More Brain Power to Make Big Leap in Tool Design
Stone Age humans were only able to develop relatively advanced tools after their brains evolved a greater capacity for complex thought, according to a new study that investigates why it took early humans almost two million years to move from razor-sharp stones to a hand-held stone axe.
Researchers used computer modelling and tiny sensors embedded in gloves to assess the complex hand skills that early humans needed in order to make two types of tools during the Lower Palaeolithic period, which began around 2.5 million years ago. The cross-disciplinary team, involving researchers from Imperial College London, employed a craftsperson called a flintnapper to faithfully replicate ancient tool-making techniques.
The Daily Telegraph (UK): Neanderthals really were sex-obsessed thugs
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Scientists examining fossils have discovered that Neanderthals were exposed to more testosterone during development which is likely to make them more unreconstructed in their behaviour.
That means they were more likely to start fights over mates and hierarchy in the group and more likely top have multiple partners.
Agence France Presse via Physorg.com: World's oldest axe found in Australia
Archaeologists revealed they have found a piece of a stone axe dated as 35,500 years old on sacred Aboriginal land in Australia, the oldest object of its type ever found.
The shard of stone, found in Australia's lush and remote far northern reaches in May, has marks that prove it comes from a ground-edge stone axe, Monash University's Bruno David said on Friday.
"We could see with the angled light that the rock itself has all these marks on it from people having rubbed it in order to create the ground-edge axe," he told the ABC.
"The person who was using the axe was grinding it against a sandstone surface in order to make it a smoother surface."
China People's Daily: Excavation site of China's first dragon-shaped art object identified
The excavation site of a half-circle dragon-shaped topaz object, the first dragon-shaped art object in China, was recently identified by archaeologists from the Ongniud Banner Museum and the Inner Mongolia Archaeological Team from the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) after two years of field investigations. The academic question as to where the topaz object was unearthed was finally answered after puzzling archaeologists for more than 20 years.
The topaz object was donated to the Ongniud Banner Museum in 1987, and later listed among Class A relics under state protection. Generally regarded as the first dragon-shaped art object in China, the object has been the subject of great attention from domestic and foreign archaeologists who are interested in Hongshan Culture.
LiveScience via MSNBC: Scientists unearth protective walls around Sphinx
Mud walls were likely built to keep sand away from monument; construction may have been prompted by pharaoh's dream
A routine excavation has uncovered ancient walls surrounding the Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities announced. The walls were likely built to protect the Sphinx from blowing sand, said Zahi Hawass, who is overseeing the excavation as head of the council.
During routine digging, researchers found two segments of mud wall on the Giza Plateau, where the pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx stand. Both walls stand just under 3 feet (1 meter). One runs north-south and is 282 feet (86 meters) long, while the other runs east-west and is 151 feet (46 meters) long.
The walls are part of a larger enclosure previously found north of the Sphinx, according to Hawass. As told in ancient Egyptian texts, King Thutmose IV once went on a hunting trip near the Sphinx. After the trip, he dreamt that the Sphinx wanted him to clear the sand surrounding its body. According to Thutmose, the Sphinx promised that if he restored the statue, he'd become king of Egypt.
York Press (UK): Was death of Iron Age man at Heslington East a ritual killing?
11:45am Monday 1st November 2010
By Stephen Lewis
IT was a moment of violence and savagery that has been shrouded in the mists of time.
Roughly 2,500 years ago, about where the University of York’s new campus is taking shape at Heslington East, a man in his early middle age suffered a sudden and ugly death.
He was hanged, then decapitated, his skull separated from his body. The skull was quickly buried in a small pit. There may well have been an element of ritual to the killing.
China People's Daily: Villager refuses bonuses for discovered pottery
08:42, November 05, 2010
A Shandong villager unearthed 36 pieces of ancient pottery and gave them all to a local state-run museum and refused bonus the museum offered him. He said: "Cultural relics belong to our country, and not even one single cent belongs to me."
The villager, named Zheng Bo, was digging earth for a brick factory with other villagers in his village at Longkou City of Shandong Province one day in last April. Suddenly, they found lots of pottery and fragments from earth. After seeing other people take lots of pottery, Zheng also put more than 200 of them on his truck and drove home.
Harvard University via Physorg.com: Sifting through the past
November 5, 2010
By Alvin Powell
The Chengdu Plain lies flat and fertile in central China’s Sichuan Basin. Cut by tributaries of one of China’s most important rivers, the mighty Yangtze, the plain is something of a rarity in the hilly region, making it ideal for agriculture, now and in antiquity.
Harvard archaeologists are at work there, plumbing the roots of some of China’s early civilizations. The world’s most-populous country traces its past to the Qin dynasty, the first to unify large parts of the nation. The Qin arose just north of Chengdu, and its fertile fields made it their first target of expansion.
"The first region conquered outside of their homeland was the Sichuan Basin," said Rowan Flad, an associate professor of anthropological archaeology who is leading an international team of researchers working in the region. "It was the breadbasket for the Qin army as they conquered."
National Geographic: Pompeiians Flash-Heated to Death—"No Time to Suffocate"
Maria Cristina Valsecchi in Rome
The famous lifelike poses of many victims at Pompeii—seated with face in hands, crawling, kneeling on a mother's lap—are helping to lead scientists toward a new interpretation of how these ancient Romans died in the A.D. 79 eruptions of Italy's Mount Vesuvius.
Until now it's been widely assumed that most of the victims were asphyxiated by volcanic ash and gas. But a recent study says most died instantly of extreme heat, with many casualties shocked into a sort of instant rigor mortis.
I've included the destruction of Pompeii in my lectures about volcanic eruptions since 1997, when I first started teaching about geology at the college level. I've always attributed the deaths to being burned, not being suffocated. Looks like I was right.
I know rfall included this in Thursday's OND. I thought it was worth repeating.
Belleville News-Democrat: Why did American Indians leave East St. Louis more than 800 years ago?
BY TERI MADDOX - News-Democrat
You've heard of the ancient city of Cahokia, but did you know several thousand American Indians occupied a village in the vicinity of East St. Louis at the same time?
People lived under similar conditions in both places, growing crops, building mounds and using rivers for transportation. So archaeologists wonder why everyone left East St. Louis about A.D. 1200.
It could have been related to a widespread fire that occurred about A.D. 1175. Or maybe residents moved to the safety of Cahokia with its 15,000 to 20,000 people and protective palisade after being threatened by unfriendly forces.
Eastern Daily Press (UK): Skeleton and firearms found at Bressingham pub
By ADAM GRETTON Wednesday, 3 November, 2010
Archaeologists and police were called to the Chequers Inn at Bressingham, near Diss, after pre-17th century human remains and second world war American guns and ammunition were found buried at the site.
Mystery surrounds the circumstances behind the two burials which were discovered by contractors rebuilding the historic pub that was destroyed last year.
The skeleton, which predates the construction of the public house more than 400 years ago, was found buried inside the listed building, near the rear wall, and is believed to have been a Christian burial.
The firearms – five Browning pistols and a semi-automatic rifle and ammunition – were made between 1942 and 1944 and were found on the outside of the pub wall.
San Francisco Chronicle: Fort Mason yields surprise historical trove
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle November 3, 2010 04:00 AM.
A pile of bones and bottles dug up the other day at historic Fort Mason has a tale to tell of the Civil War, medicine and the way San Franciscans lived as many as 150 years ago - but it may take months to decipher it.
In the meantime, archaeologists and historians are just thankful that the cache of 19th century treasure lay undiscovered for more than a century, buried just beneath the surface at a popular tourist site within view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
NPR via KUOW (WA): Big Dig Tells Nuanced Story About North Idaho Town
by Doug Nadvornick
SANDPOINT, Idaho - The Northwest is filled with towns that have their own storied histories. Sandpoint is a fashionable resort village in scenic north Idaho. But it used to be a rougher place, built around the timber and railroad industries. Today, researchers are piecing together much of that history after an unusually large archaeological dig. Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports the dig was prompted by a highway construction project.
I’m standing in downtown Sandpoint, Idaho. About a block behind me is US Highway 95. That’s Idaho’s major north-south highway. It runs through downtown Sandpoint, a bustling little downtown area.
Right across a big creek from here is a bypass road that the state of Idaho is building to move the highway out of downtown Sandpoint.
What’s significant is that the bypass is built on Sandpoint’s original town site from 1882 and that meant the state had to do an archaeological project to find whether there were cultural artifacts. And what they found was pretty significant.
The Daily Progress (VA): Forgotten cemetery found in Fluvanna
By Tasha Kates
Surveyors were looking at property lines for the firehouse located off U.S. 15 near Route 6 when they discovered the cemetery, which is partially on private land. John Robins, Fluvanna’s public works director, said the county commissioned an archaeological study in September from Rivanna Archaeological Services LLC to learn more about the site.
According to the study, the unmarked cemetery is on a large parcel once known as Petersburg. The property changed owners multiple times, the study said, and portions of it were sold off over the years. The cemetery doesn’t appear on early 20th century deeds, the study said, which suggests it may have been forgotten about by that time and therefore was used during the late 18th century and 19th century.
Regina Leader-Post via Canada.com: 'Drowned voice' of pristine phonograph found at Yukon site of sunken ship
By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News
November 3, 2010
Divers equipped with digital scanners have created a set of groundbreaking, 3-D images of the legendary Klondike-era sternwheeler A.J. Goddard, which sank in a Yukon lake in 1901 and was only discovered two years ago by a team of Canadian archeologists.
The imaging system, similar to one used recently to document the wreck of the Titanic off Newfoundland's east coast, was employed during an expedition this summer to the sunken-but-perfectly-preserved Goddard — a dive that also produced a stunning new artifact: the vintage phonograph used to entertain fortune-seekers on their long, northward steamboat voyage to the Klondike gold fields.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
MSNBC: Physicists get set for little big bangs
By Alan Boyle
The world's biggest particle collider has switched over from shooting beams of protons to shooting heavy ions -- leading to experiments that could cook up the kind of "soup" produced by the big bang. And even before those experiments have begun, critics have cooked up a fresh batch of doomsday talk as well.
For the past year, the Large Hadron Collider has been smashing protons together at progressively higher energies, 300 feet (100 meters) below ground at the French-Swiss border, in a ring-shaped tunnel that measures 17 miles (27 kilometers) around. A milestone was reached last month when the beams' luminosity hit its target for the year.
"This shows that the objective we set ourselves for this year was realistic, but tough, and it's very gratifying to see it achieved in such fine style," Rolf Heuer, director general for Europe's CERN particle physics center, said in a news release issued today. "It's a testimony to the excellent design of the machine as well as the hard work that has gone into making it succeed."
Science News: Entanglement loophole closed
Experiment rejects a challenge to quantum physics
By Laura Sanders
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for a weird effect known as entanglement, once again confirming the bizarre predictions of quantum physics.
In entanglement, two particles are inextricably linked so that measuring a property of one instantly reveals information about the other, no matter how far apart the two particles are. Many experiments have confirmed this eerie connection.
Few physicists doubt that these strange properties are real, but some skeptics still look for ways to explain the weirdness with normal, nonquantum effects. In response, experimental physicists have been working on ruling out nonquantum explanations — in other words, closing the "loopholes" in quantum theory. A recent experiment described online the week of October 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the latest in an effort to close all the proposed loopholes and definitively show that quantum mechanics can’t be brushed away with alternative explanations.
Chemistry
Science News: Building a better bomb sniffer
Handheld device detects an explosive that is easy to make but hard to detect
By Rachel Ehrenberg
A handheld device that sniffs out the same powerful explosive employed by the would-be shoe bomber may be coming soon to an airport near you. Chemists have developed a sensor that detects minute amounts of TATP, an explosive favored by terrorists because it is easy to make and difficult to detect.
The new sensor consists of a postage stamp–sized array of dyes that change color when they react with certain compounds. When air containing triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, is drawn toward the sensor, it passes over a chemical catalyst. Some of the TATP in the air reacts with the catalyst and the resulting mixture hits the dyes. The ensuing chemical reactions yield a specific color pattern that is discernable within minutes, researchers report in the Nov. 10 Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Science News: Skin is no barrier to BPA, study shows
Finding suggests handling store receipts could be significant source of internal exposure
By Janet Raloff
Bisphenol A readily passes through skin, French scientists report. Best known as an estrogen-mimicking constituent of some plastics and resins, BPA is also found in a large share of cash register receipt paper in the United States and Europe, a trio of studies recently indicated. One of the three also showed that the powdery coating easily rubs off onto the hands.
"The new study is now unequivocal in showing that yes, BPA can go through human skin," says Frederick vom Saal of the University of Missouri-Columbia.
It may also explain why a survey due to appear in an upcoming issue of Environmental Health Perspectives found that among nearly 400 pregnant Cincinnati-area women, the highest BPA concentrations were in cashiers. However, Joe M. Braun and his coauthors note, "these results should be interpreted cautiously since estimates from cashiers were based on 17 women."
Energy
Reuters: Analysis: For Dow Chemical, solar shingle a new path
By Ernest Scheyder
NEW YORK | Thu Nov 4, 2010 5:51pm EDT
As Dow Chemical prepares to launch its solar shingle in 2011, Wall Street is hopeful the product will push the largest U.S. chemical maker into an entirely new, lucrative market.
Dow expects its solar shingle, which installs on roofs like ordinary shingles but can generate electricity from sunlight, to net $1 billion in revenue by 2015 in a roughly $5 billion market.
Dow reported 2009 revenue of $44.88 billion.
More than revenue, though, is the opportunity for Dow to move beyond its image as just a chemical company, albeit the largest in the United States, and help push solar power to a broad segment of the American population that for years has eschewed it as too expensive and cumbersome.
Reuters: Dutch buyers to import only green palm oil by 2015
by Niluksi Koswanage
KUALA LUMPUR | Sat Nov 6, 2010 4:01am EDT
Dutch vegetable oil suppliers have pledged to order only eco-friendly palm oil cargoes by 2015 as consumers and green groups continue to scrutinize the sector, an industry official said.
Dubbed the Dutch Taskforce on Sustainable Palm Oil, the initiative will get local firms to pledge to buy palm oil from estates that do not clear forests or peatlands in Southeast Asia to expand, said Frans Claassen, an official with the taskforce.
"Over the next few years, we will work very hard to ensure that all palm oil used...will be sustainable," said Claassen, a director with the Dutch Product Board of Margarine, Fats and Oils (MVO) that spearheaded the initiative.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Examiner.com: Environmental positions of Kaptur, Kasich, and Porter
By Lisa Hossler, Toledo Environmental News Examiner
Marcy Kaptur won her closest election since taking office in 1984. Kaptur’s opponent Rich Iott ran on conservative principles opposed to President Obama’s policies on health care, economic stimulus, the budget deficit and the environment—policies that Miss Kaptur supports. Miss Kaptur strongly supports environmental responsibility, stewardship, heritage, and policies.
That was the good news. For the bad news, I don't have to quote any more of this article to give you an idea of what Kasich thinks. Instead, I'll quote the New York Times.
A High-Speed Derailment
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
The newly elected Republican governor of Ohio, John Kasich, who ousted Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has also reiterated a campaign pledge to kill a $400 million stimulus-funded rail project in his state.
"Passenger rail is not in Ohio’s future," Mr. Kasich said at his first news conference after the election. "That train is dead."
Mr. Kasich had previously called the high-speed rail project the "dumbest idea" he had ever heard, saying that there was too little demand to justify its construction and that the state could not afford to operate it. Like his Wisconsin counterpart, he also said the rail money should be spent on roads.
Instead, the funds will almost certainly revert to the federal government for reassignment elsewhere.
Hat/Tip to Brad Johnson at Think Progress for this story.
MSNBC: How politics will spin science
By Alan Boyle
Political shifts will produce a fresh set of skirmishes over science issues ranging from stem cells to spaceflight. And when it comes to climate change, the skirmishes could well escalate into a war over science.
"I'm not looking forward to seeing that," said Chris Mooney, who wrote "The Republican War on Science" in 2005. But based on some of the comments made during the campaign, House Republicans might well go on the offensive on climate policy.
Here's a quick rundown on the top issues:
Think Progress: GOP Climate Deniers Vie To Run House Energy Committee
By Brad Johnson on Nov 5th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
The House energy committee is seeing an intense leadership fight, as four different Republicans are vying to become take over the influential post from Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who shepherded progressive climate legislation to the House floor in 2009, before it foundered in the U.S. Senate. The four candidates — Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) — all want to reopen the floodgates for a deregulated fossil fuel industry. But precisely how reactionary the committee will become — whether investigations will be launched against climate scientists and all clean-energy efforts killed — could depend on which fossil-fueled Republican wins the intraparty fight.
The frontrunner Upton is the only candidate who doesn’t explicitly question the science of manmade global warming, though he is opposed to any policy action. It remains to be seen if the new GOP caucus — dominated by climate deniers — will accept Upton’s marginally realist stance, or if denial of science will be a litmus test.
Reuters: E.U. sees U.S. "disappearing" as partner on climate
By David Stanway and Pete Harrison
BEIJING/BRUSSELS | Fri Nov 5, 2010 2:06pm EDT
The European Union sees the United States "disappearing as a partner" in international climate talks after President Barack Obama suffered setbacks in midterm elections, the EU's top climate official said on Friday.
Obama has conceded that big Republican gains in Tuesday's elections undermined prospects for comprehensive legislation to tackle climate change.
"We're very disappointed about the United States going that way and dropping climate legislation," said Jos Delbeke, director general of the European Commission's climate team.
"We see the U.S. disappearing as a partner in achieving meaningful climate action," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Beijing.
Lovely. Thank you all for reminding me why I am glad that I quit being a Republican 10 years ago.
Meanwhile, in the country with the second largest economy in the world...
MSNBC: China: Our supercomputer is faster than yours!
China: Our supercomputer is faster than yours!
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
A leading Chinese research center has built the world's fastest supercomputer, an industry announcement said Thursday, underscoring the country's rise as a science and technology powerhouse.
The Tianhe-1A machine housed at the National Center for Supercomputing in the northern port city of Tianjin is capable of sustained computing of 2.507 petaflops, the equivalent of 2,507 trillion calculations, per second.
Put another way, the computer has 1.4 times the horsepower of the United States' speediest computer, according to Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer scientist. Dongarra maintains the official records of U.S. supercomputer rankings, with the U.S.' top machine at a national lab in Tennessee.
Science Education
NewsWales (UK): Fit your feet into Stone Age footprints
Stone Age human footprints, submerged landscapes and medieval iron production are some of the topics heading up this year’s Archaeology Day School being hosted by the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority.
The annual event is being held at Pembrokeshire College on Saturday November 20th and those attending will be sure to enjoy the five talks and question times organised over the course of what should be a very informative day.
One of the highlights will be a talk by guest lecturer, Dr Tim Young, on a recently excavated site. Dr Young’s lecture will be about the merits of experimental archaeology in Pembrokeshire related to the medieval period.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science Writing and Reporting
University of Cincinnati via Science Daily: Papyrus Research Provides Insights Into 'Modern Concerns' of Ancient World
By M. B. Reilly
A University of Cincinnati-based journal devoted to research on papyri is due out Nov. 1. That research sheds light on an ancient world with surprisingly modern concerns: including hoped-for medical cures, religious confusion and the need for financial safeguards.
What's old is new again. That's the lesson that can be taken from the University of Cincinnati-based journal Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, due out Nov. 1.
The annually produced journal, edited since 2006 by Peter van Minnen, UC associate professor of classics, features the most prestigious global research on papyri, a field of study known as papyrology. (Papyrology is formally known as the study of texts on papyrus and other materials, mainly from ancient Egypt and mainly from the period of Greek and Roman rule.)
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science is Cool
N.Y. Times: National Parks Reach Out to Blacks Who Aren’t Visiting
By MIREYA NAVARRO
Published: November 2, 2010
When Shelton Johnson was 5, his family took him to Berchtesgaden National Park in the Bavarian Alps. To this day, he remembers his sense of awe.
"The mountains, the sky being so close — it affected me profoundly," said Mr. Johnson, who now works as a ranger at Yosemite National Park in California.
In 23 years on the job, Mr. Johnson, 52, has been equally struck by how few of his fellow African-Americans visit the national parks, Yosemite included. A few years ago, he decided to do something about it.
Reuters via MSNBC: Harry Potter die-hards threaten India's owls
NEW DELHI — Die-hard fans of the best-selling Harry Potter stories are seriously threatening India's owl population, as demands for the ultimate wizarding accessory increase, a wildlife group says.
Potter's snow-white owl Hedwig, his trusty messenger throughout the book and film series, is being blamed by animal groups and politicians for fueling the trade in Indian owls, as fans look to mimic every aspect of their young wizard hero.
A report released this week in New Delhi by wildlife group TRAFFIC-India, which found that 15 of the country's 30 species were for sale in markets, also blames the demand for owl parts in ancient rituals for driving the illegal trade.