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 Democracy Now! via Alternet.
BP Oil Spill Confirmed as Worst in US History
By Amy Goodman
Although President Obama has extended the moratorium on new deepwater drilling permits for six months and halted operations at thirty-three deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico, some oil rigs are continuing their operations. The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a lawsuit to halt forty-nine offshore drilling plans in the Gulf of Mexico that were approved without full environmental review. Meanwhile, the group Food & Water Watch is leading an effort to shut down the Atlantis, another BP oil rig in the Gulf. The group warns an oil spill from the Atlantis could be many times larger than the current spill and even harder to stop.
More science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
A weird HTML error is preventing me from posting this diary. Let's see if cutting all but the first story will work.
It has. Now I'll add one section at a time to see if it will publish.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
WATCH THIS SPACE!
DarkSyde: This Week in Science
Mark Sumner aka Devilstower: SEGO: Paper Soldiers
jamess: Something has Changed in the Climate Change Game -- the CIA
Rei: Some Terrifying News About The Oil Spill
Slideshows/Videos
National Geographic: Top Ten New Species
From a psychedelic fish to a "phallic" fungus, see some of the most unusual species described in 2009, as chosen by taxonomists.
National Geographic: Pictures: Nine Fish With "Hands" Found to Be New Species
Nine fish that use handlike fins to walk, rather than swim, off Australia have been identified as new species.
So far, so good.
Astronomy/Space
Examiner.com: Space shuttle Atlantis lands safely for the last time in its career (VIDEO)
Anna Sanclement - Ft. Lauderdale Science News Examiner
Space Shuttle Atlantis landed safely and "as smooth as silk" for the last time in its flight career. The crew of STS-132 touched down at 8:48 a.m. EDT after a successful mission to deliver the Russian-built Mini Research Module-1, also called Rassvet, to the International Space Station.
"It was smooth as silk. We were clearly riding in the middle of a fireball, and it was spectacular. The windows, all of them, were bright, brilliant orange. One of the neatest things was when we flew right into orbital sunrise." Commander Ken Ham said referring to the entry of Atlantis.
This flight was the last for Atlantis, which has more than 120 million miles under its belt, along with 25 years of service.
Evolution/Paleontology
Salt Lake Tribune: New ceratopsid wielded the longest horns of any known dinosaur
By Brian Maffly
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 05/28/2010 10:53:07 PM MDT
Ceratopsids, the horned dinosaurs that roamed western North America as the reign of dinosaurs approached its sudden end, had the largest heads of any land animal that ever lived, although their brains were the size of baseballs.
A new species unveiled Friday by University of Utah paleontologists grabbed another superlative: longest horns of any dinosaur. Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna, among 10 new species identified in a book published next month by Indiana University Press, sprouted four-foot horns over each eye.
Coahuilaceratops, named for the Mexican state where the specimen was recovered by Utah teams in 2002 and 2003, inhabited the southern tip of what was an island continent 72 million years ago, said Mark Loewen, of the Utah Museum of Natural History, lead author of the chapter. This plant-eating creature was 22 feet long and weighed four to five tons. Like other ceratopsids, it had a ridged skull plate, called the frill, sweeping behind its head and a parrot-beaked mouth.
Hat/Tip to jlms qkw for this story.
Biodiversity
Alternet: Beeline to Extinction: Saving Our Threatened Pollinators Is Key to Global Food Security
By Naomi Starkman
According to the recently released annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), more than a third of U.S. managed honeybee colonies—those set up for intensified pollination of commercial crops—failed to survive this past winter. Since 2006, the decline of the U.S.’s estimated 2.4 million beehives—commonly referred to as colony collapse disorder (CCD)—has led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies: Hives are found empty with honey, larvae, and the queen intact, but with no bees and no trail left behind. The cause remains unknown, but appears to be a combination of factors impacting bee health and increasing their susceptibility to disease. Heavy losses associated with CCD have been found mainly with larger migratory commercial beekeepers, some of whom have lost 50-90 percent of their colonies.
A "keystone" species—one that has a disproportionate effect on the environment relative to its biomass—bees are our key to global food security and a critical part of the food chain. Flowering plants that produce our food depend on insects for pollination. There are other pollinators—butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, and birds—but the honeybee is the most effective, pollinating over 100 commercial crops nationwide, including most fruit, vegetables, and nuts, as well as alfalfa for cattle feed and cotton, with a value estimated between $15-$20 billion annually. As much as one of every three bites of food we eat comes from food pollinated by insects. Without honeybees, our diet would be mostly meatless, consisting of rice and cereals, and we would have no cotton for textiles. The entire ecosystem and the global food economy potentially rests on their wings.
National Geographic: Oil Spill to Wipe Out Gulf's Sperm Whales?
Ker Than
If the Gulf of Mexico oil spill kills just three sperm whales, it could seriously endanger the long-term survival of the Gulf's native whale population, scientists say.
Right now between 1,400 and 1,660 sperm whales live year-round in the Gulf of Mexico, making up a distinct population from other Atlantic Ocean groups, in which males make yearly migrations.
All sperm whales are considered endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. But the Gulf of Mexico population is thought to be especially vulnerable due to its relatively small size.
Biotechnology/Health
Examiner.com: First retina made from human embryonic stem cells
Paul Hamaker - Birmingham Science News Examiner
Researchers at the University of California at Irvine announced the creation of an eight layer, early stage retina from embryonic stem cells. This is the first three dimensional body part to be made from stem cells.
The Keirstead team had previously developed a methodology called differentiation in their work on spinal cord development from stem cells. Differentiation causes stem cells to develop into different types of cells by altering the chemical environment of the stem cells.
The differentiation method was used to develop the multi-layered retina.
Examiner.com: Stem cell first - tooth regeneration
Paul Hamaker - Birmingham Science News Examiner
Dr. Jeremy Mao, the Edward V. Zegarelli Professor of Dental Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, working in the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory has reported his development of stem cell mitigated tooth regeneration in the ‘Journal of Dental Research’ on May 24, 2010.
The technique uses a three-dimensional scaffold infused with growth factor that attracts and stimulates stem cells to regenerate missing teeth in as little as nine weeks.
Examiner.com: University of Alabama at Birmingham - Kudzu cures Metabolic Syndrome
Paul Hamaker - Birmingham Science News Examiner
J. Michael Wyss, Ph.D., Neuroscientist with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has proven that kudzu is an effective supplement in treating Metabolic Syndrome.
The reason is isoflavones. One particularly important isoflavone is puerarin that is found only in kudzu.
The Chinese have used kudzu as an alternative medicine for centuries.
Climate/Environment
Alternet: 10 Things You Need (But Don't Want) To Know About the BP Oil Spill
By Daniela Perdomo
It's been 37 days since BP's offshore oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, crude oil has been hemorrhaging into ocean waters and wreaking unknown havoc on our ecosystem -- unknown because there is no accurate estimate of how many barrels of oil are contaminating the Gulf.
Though BP officially admits to only a few thousand barrels spilled each day, expert estimates peg the damage at 60,000 barrels or over 2.5 million gallons daily. (Perhaps we'd know more if BP hadn't barred independent engineers from inspecting the breach.) Measures to quell the gusher have proved lackluster at best, and unlike the country's last big oil spill -- Exxon-Valdez in 1989 -- the oil is coming from the ground, not a tanker, so we have no idea how much more oil could continue to pollute the Gulf's waters.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster reminds us what can happen -- and will continue to happen -- when corporate malfeasance and neglect meet governmental regulatory failure.
The corporate media is tracking the disaster with front-page articles and nightly news headlines every day (if it bleeds, or spills, it leads!), but the under-reported aspects to this nightmarish tale paint the most chilling picture of the actors and actions behind the catastrophe. In no particular order, here are 10 things about the BP spill you may not know and may not want to know -- but you should.
Alternet: How an Ingredient Found in Everything from Chocolate to Chips Is Causing Massive Environmental Destruction
By Sarah Newman
The aisles of any American grocery store, whether it's a big-box behemoth or a cramped urban bodega, are filled with enough packaged goods to satiate nearly every consumer demand and impulse. But behind the neatly stocked shelves and cheery in-store commercials lurks a dirty secret concerning the dramatic and harmful global impact of the products we buy.
The common ingredient in an astounding number of products -- from laundry detergent and chips to soap, candy and makeup -- is palm oil. Grown primarily in Indonesia, palm farms are causing alarming rates of deforestation and displacement of indigenous peoples, and are posing a serious threat to local biodiversity. Far from a localized problem, the consequences of palm oil production are international in scope; according to the World Bank, Indonesia is the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, with a whopping 80 percent of its emissions being due to deforestation. And while six million hectares of land in the country have already been converted to palm plantations, a fight is now raging to protect the remaining forests, mainly on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
Geology
Examiner.com: Two volcanos erupt in Central and South America; one dead as thousands flee homes
Hank Lacey - Denver Science News Examiner
Volcanos in Ecuador and Guatemala erupted Friday, dislocating thousands of people from their homes and causing chaos in the region's air transportation system.
In Guatemala, the Pacaya volcano began erupting Thursday afternoon, covering Guatemala City in ash. At least one person, a television reporter, was killed and nearly 2,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Authorities in Guatemala said that at least 65 people were injured and that 3 children are missing.
Ash resulted in the closure of La Aurora airport until at least Saturday.
Psychology/Behavior
Science Daily: Dopamine System in Highly Creative People Similar to That Seen in Schizophrenics, Study Finds
New research shows a possible explanation for the link between mental health and creativity. By studying receptors in the brain, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have managed to show that the dopamine system in healthy, highly creative people is similar in some respects to that seen in people with schizophrenia.
High creative skills have been shown to be somewhat more common in people who have mental illness in the family. Creativity is also linked to a slightly higher risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Certain psychological traits, such as the ability to make unusual pr bizarre associations are also shared by schizophrenics and healthy, highly creative people. And now the correlation between creativity and mental health has scientific backing.
"We have studied the brain and the dopamine D2 receptors, and have shown that the dopamine system of healthy, highly creative people is similar to that found in people with schizophrenia," says associate professor Fredrik Ullén from Karolinska Institutet's Department of Women's and Children's Health, co-author of the study that appears in the journal PLoS ONE.
Examiner.com: Looks mean everything in courts gender bias - research proof
Paul Hamaker - Birmingham Science News Examiner
Looks mean everything in courts gender bias - research proof
Judges, lawyers, juries, prosecutors, and all personnel associated with court systems have been shown to have a gender bias by Angela S. Ahola, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University.
In her dissertation published on May 25, 2010, Ahola examined three hundred simulated short criminal cases.
Archeology/Anthropology
National Geographic: Oldest Human Species Found: May Have Been Cannibal?
James Owen
There's a good chance it was a cannibalistic tree swinger, but the newly identified Homo gautengensis is family, according to a new study.
Thought to have used tools—and possibly fire—the creature is the oldest named species in the human genus, Homo, study author Darren Curnoe says.
The new-species designation is based on two-million- to 800,000-year-old fossil-skull pieces, jaws, teeth, and other bones found at the Sterkfontein caves complex in South Africa's Gauteng Province.
Physics
Science Daily: Surprising New Evidence for Asymmetry Between Matter and Antimatter
Why is there matter in the universe and not antimatter, its opposite?
Physicists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, including John Ellison, a professor of physics at UC Riverside, have announced that they have found evidence for a significant violation of matter-antimatter symmetry in decays of B-mesons, which are exotic particles produced in high energy particle collisions.
To arrive at their result, the research team, known as the DZero collaboration, analyzed billions of proton-antiproton collisions at Fermilab's Tevatron particle collider, and found a 1 percent excess of pairs of muons over pairs of antimuons produced in the decays of B-mesons. Muons, which occur naturally in cosmic rays, are fundamental particles similar to electrons but 200 times heavier.
Chemistry
Science Daily: Outstanding in Their Field Effect: Researchers Print Field-Effect Transistors With Nano-Infused Ink
Rice University researchers have discovered thin films of nanotubes created with ink-jet printers offer a new way to make field-effect transistors (FET), the basic element in integrated circuits.
While the technique doesn't exactly scale down to the levels required for modern microprocessors, Rice's Robert Vajtai hopes it will be useful to inventors who wish to print transistors on materials of any kind, especially on flexible substrates.
In results reported in the online edition of ACS Nano, Rice scientists working with researchers in Finland, Spain and Mexico have created nanotube-based circuitry using high-end ink-jet printers and custom inks.
Energy
Science Daily: Chemists Report Promising Advance in Fuel-Cell Technology
Creating catalysts that can operate efficiently and last a long time is a big barrier to taking fuel-cell technology from the lab bench to the assembly line. The precious metal platinum has been the choice for many researchers, but platinum has two major downsides: It is expensive, and it breaks down over time in fuel-cell reactions.
In a new study, chemists at Brown University report a promising advance. They have created a unique core and shell nanoparticle that uses far less platinum yet performs more efficiently and lasts longer than commercially available pure-platinum catalysts at the cathode end of fuel-cell reactions.
The chemistry known as oxygen reduction reaction takes place at the fuel cell's cathode, creating water as its only waste, rather than the global-warming carbon dioxide produced by internal combustion systems. The cathode is also where up to 40 percent of a fuel cell's efficiency is lost, so "this is a crucial step in making fuel cells a more competitive technology with internal combustion engines and batteries," said Shouheng Sun, professor of chemistry at Brown and co-author of the paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Earth Island Journal via Alternet: We Need an 'Emergency Mobilization' to Fight Climate Change: So Where's the Support for the Kerry-Lieberman Bill?
By Jason Mark
With global temperatures continuing their relentless climb upward (this past April was the hottest on record, according to NOAA and NASA), environmentalists say we need nothing short of a World War II-style "emergency mobilization" to address the threat of climate change.
Well, then, where’s the mobilizing?
Examiner.com: Is our American Democracy equipped to solve the energy/environmental crisis?
John Guerrerio - Energy Examiner
Things on earth look bad right now, and given human proclivity to fight against the idea of change, they don't seem like they will improve anytime soon. Under the linear thinking model of change, it is said often that humanity is at a crossroads, but it appears as though we have not changed our course and essentially have chosen our path, one that is on track to destroy our planet and our civilization.
The amount of finger pointing going on on virtually every issue, from Health to Energy to Wall Street to Immigration Reform, is a telltale sign of our times (and of lax oversight during the Bush/Cheney regime) and seems to be the new method for taking responsibility these days. It is comparable to a grade school playground fight where each party involved points the finger at someone else and says, 'they started it!' before the situation deteriorates into a yelling-insult match that erupts into another fight. The issue never gets solved, and the best we can hope for is that our neck remains intact.
Our incremental changes on a multitude of issues that we make as part of the compromise method of governing that we have adopted only get swallowed up by the larger crisis that continues on unattached to our efforts to affect them. We are operating on a linear, dualistic level when we need to be functioning on holistic one.
Examiner.com: Accepting the collateral damage of our fossil fuel addiction
John Guerrerio - Energy Examiner
As a society, we have decided collectively that our energy needs will come at a cost. We seem to be waking up to the fact, here at the beginning of the 21st century, that those costs seem to be unequally spread among the U.S. citizenry, but we can't seem to find a way to make the whole system function more fairly.
We have accepted that in order to pay for our consumer demands, that 'others' will have to be sacrificed in order to keep our economic model of business-as-usual in place. As long as those others are citizens in foreign countries where oil reserves are plenty, or they are coal miners and oil rig workers, or are impoverished people in our own country living near oil, coal, or gas reserves, U.S. government officials seem content to keep the business-as-usual model in place, so long as wealthy people's lives remain insulated from disasters that result from fossil fuels.
We are often told by some economic experts that if we were to disrupt the business-as-usual model, that our global society would come crashing down resulting in anarchy running amok; but is this really true?
Birmingham News: Alabama governor announces plan to help auto suppliers go green, be more efficient
By Dawn Kent -- The Birmingham News
May 26, 2010, 2:40PM
(Birmingham News/Hal Yeager) Gov. Bob Riley, seen here on April 22, 2010, announces a pilot program to help Alabama's auto suppliers operate more efficiently.Alabama Gov. Bob Riley today announced the launch of a pilot program intended to help the state's automotive industry suppliers reduce pollution, adopt "green" manufacturing technology and gain economic advantages.
Speaking at the Mercedes-Benz assembly plant in Vance, Riley said the program -- called Alabama E3 -- will coordinate technical assistance programs offered by federal, state and local agencies.
Examimer.com: Massive healthcare savings through human decision in imaging exams
Paul Hamaker - Birmingham Science News Examiner
Vartan M. Vartanians, M.D., clinical research associate in the Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, published a study in the journal Radiology on May 25, 2010 that recommends more human intervention in reducing medical costs by reducing unnecessary imaging exams
Instead of automatically requiring multiple imaging exams the physician or support staff were required to enter clinical information justifying the order. The tests that had a low appropriateness criteria were deleted from the schedule by human decision.
...
Massachusetts is considered the template for the National Healthcare Reform policy.
Science Education
Alternet: How California's Oil and Water Policies Are Bankrupting Higher Education
By Patrick Porgans and Seth Sandronsky
Oil and water don't usually mix -- except in California politics. Over the last couple of decades, interests representing offshore oil extraction and inland water infrastructure have teamed up, using their muscle to de-fund a once-famous system of public higher education.
On the gubernatorial watches of governors Edmund "Pat" Brown, Sr., a Democrat (1959-1967), and Ronald W. Reagan, a Republican (1967-1975), a bipartisan siphoning of tax dollars earmarked initially for higher education began to flow to the State Water Project (SWP), one of the largest water and power systems in the world. It conveys an average annual 2.4 million acre-feet of water in California through its 17 pumping plants, eight hydroelectric power plants, three pumping-generating plants, 29 dams and reservoirs, and about 675 miles of aqueducts and pipelines.
The money came from a little-known source of public funds: tidelands oil revenue. This energy source, publicly owned, lies off the California coastline, mostly near Long Beach and the state receives a share of the money made from the oil recovered in the tidelands. How this money, which was originally intended to help ensure that Californians could afford higher education, ended up being shifted to the SWP has largely occurred at the margins of the public radar screen.
Science Writing and Reporting
Alternet: 'An Edible History of Humanity': How What We Eat Has Changed the World
'An Edible History of Humanity': How What We Eat Has Changed the World
Throughout history, food has played many roles in changing the world: It has been a weapon of war, an offering for peace, a force of development and imperialism and an organizer of societies. In many cases, food and its production have had some of the most profound effects on humanity and indeed on the earth itself. Food has affected social status, social roles, empires and the outcome of wars. The roles that food has played in shaping society and the planet itself are captured in a new book by Tom Standage, titled An Edible History of Humanity.
Science is Cool
ANI via Times of India: Are Botticelli's Venus and Mars high on drugs?
LONDON: Regarded as a story of the all-conquering power of love, a scene of pastoral bliss by Botticelli is actually an illustration of the potency of hallucinogenic drugs, claims a new study.
According to experts, a fruit held by a satyr in the bottom right of ‘Venus and Mars' belongs to Datura stramonium, a plant with a history of sending people mad and making them want to bare all.