Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors ScottyUrb, Bentliberal, wader, Oke, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir and jlms qkw, guest editors maggiejean and annetteboardman, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
Between now and the end of the primary/caucus season, Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday will highlight the research stories from the public universities in each of the states having elections and caucuses during the week (or in the upcoming weeks if there is no primary or caucus that week). Tonight's edition features the science, space, environment, and energy stories from universities in Maine, Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri. The remainder of the month will feature stories from Arizona and Michigan. After that, it's Super Tuesday!
This week's featured story comes from AlterNet.
Sunday is Darwin Day. How Will You Celebrate It?
February 12 is Darwin's Birthday -- a holiday for the reality-based community
By Glenn Branch
February 10, 2012
Despite the white beard, Charles Darwin isn’t Santa Claus, but like Christmas, Darwin Day comes once a year, and when it comes it brings good cheer. Across the country and around the world, at colleges and universities, schools and libraries, museums and churches, people assemble around February 12 to commemorate the life and work of the British naturalist. But it’s not just about Darwin: it’s about engaging in—and enjoying—public outreach about science, evolution, and the importance of evolution education.
Where are they celebrating? Where aren’t they celebrating! You may not be able to make the trip to Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, to participate in a discussion of life on other planets, or to Perth, Australia, to hear a lecture on “some really odd evolutionary features in tortoises,” but no worries, mate (as they say in Dnepropetrovsk): the Darwin Day website, operated by the International Darwin Day Foundation, maintains a useful registry where you can find a Darwin Day event near you and spread the word about your own.
More stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
This week in science: Of mice and men
by DarkSyde
Slideshows/Videos
Yahoo! News: Alleged Woolly mammoth (or maybe just a bear) spotted in Siberia (Video)
By Eric Pfeiffer | The Sideshow
The British tabloids are having fun today with two videos reportedly showing mythical creatures at play in otherwise ordinary settings.
In the first video, a large creature is seen crossing a river in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia. The Sun reports that a Russian government worker shot the video and claims it shows a Woolly mammoth, a creature whose heyday passed more than 10,000 years ago. And while this is almost certainly not an actual mammoth, there is some historical evidence to tantalize cryptozoologists. It turns out that some mammoths actually did survive beyond the extinction of their brethren, living on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia until about 3,500 years ago.
...
Our second video has more arcane roots and makes an even more dubious claim.
The first is a misidentification of a bear carrying fish in its mouth. The second is an out-and-out hoax.
Fox News: Archaeologists uncover history in South Carolina backyard
Written By Mary Quinn O'Connor
Columbia, SC – When you think of an archaeological dig, your backyard probably doesn’t come to mind. And neither does an intersection in your town. But for two South Carolina archaeologists, what started out as research for a doctorate degree turned into a treasure trove of history that lay right beneath the dirt on a downtown street corner.
“We started digging, very limited digging, just to test for significance,” archaeologist Jakob Crockett told FoxNews.com. “We expanded on areas where we started to find artifacts and eventually we opened up very large block excavations.”
They hit the jackpot.
This is a follow-up to
Archaeologists discover buried chicken at historic home from WIS-TV (Channel 10) and was covered in
Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Science of Conflict edition) two weeks ago.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
WABI: Schools, Educators Encourage Students to Get Excited About Science
by Diana Bosch
February 9th 2012 09:52pm
Hampden - Middle school students are being put in the driver's seat in an effort by the University of Maine to get them excited about science.
The Reeds Brook Middle School in Hampden is one of fifty schools taking part in a UMaine pilot program for future scientists.
The students are taking a hands-on approach to learning force in motion.
Astronomy/Space
The Burbank Leader: Taken For Granted: One man's space junk is another's history
By Pat Grant
Lift off. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and I were pulling G’s and climbing toward the stars. And that’s the closest I ever got to space travel — sharing an elevator ride with this famous voyager to the moon.
I was 15 when the Russians launched the first satellite in 1957; a spindly little aluminum ball that did nothing but whirl around the Earth and beep. At night we strained our eyes to catch a glimpse of this tiny moving dot in the sky.
The first feeble efforts of the U.S. to launch a satellite were almost comical; one Redstone rocket after another crashed and burned on the launch pad. Rocket scientist Werner Von Braun became that contradiction in terms: a good Nazi. We desperately needed the knowledge he and his German rocket scientist pals had gained building the buzz bombs fired at London during World War II.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Evolution/Paleontology
University of Missouri: New Species of Ancient Crocodile, Ancestor of Today’s Species, Discovered by MU Researcher
By Brad Fischer
January 31, 2012
COLUMBIA, Mo. – A University of Missouri researcher has identified a new species of prehistoric crocodile. The extinct creature, nicknamed “Shieldcroc” due to a thick-skinned shield on its head, is an ancestor of today’s crocodiles. Its discovery provides scientists with additional information about the evolution of crocodiles and how scientists can gain insight into ways to protect the species’ environment and help prevent extinction. The discovery was published this week in the journal PLoS-ONE (Public Library of Science).
“Aegisuchus witmeri or ‘Shieldcroc’ is the earliest ancestor of our modern crocodiles to be found in Africa,” said Casey Holliday, co-researcher and assistant professor of anatomy in the MU School of Medicine. “Along with other discoveries, we are finding that crocodile ancestors are far more diverse than scientists previously realized.”
Shieldcroc is the newest discovery of crocodile species dating to the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 95 million years ago. This period is part of the Mesozoic Era, which has been referred to as the “Age of the Dinosaurs;” however, numerous recent discoveries have led to some scientists calling the era the “Age of the Crocs,” Holliday said.
Biodiversity
Colorado State University: CSU professor named 2011 Aldo Leopold Memorial Award winner
February 7, 2012
The Wildlife Society's highest honor, the Aldo Leopold Memorial Award, has been awarded to Kenneth P. Burnham, professor emeritus from the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology.
The award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to wildlife conservation.
University of Minnesota: The Arboretum Asks: Which Plants Changed Minnesota Forever?
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/07/2012) —Which plants changed Minnesota and transformed how we live today? The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum wants to know and is encouraging the public to nominate specific plant(s) for a state's Top 10 list.
It's all part of "10 Plants that Changed Minnesota: Growing Solutions to How the World Lives Today," a new initiative to build awareness of the crucial role plants play in nourishing and sustaining life on Earth. The program is being spearheaded by Mary Meyer, a professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Horticultural Science. She is the former interim director of the Arboretum.
"In asking for nominations, we hope to start conversations about plants, and their role in the historic and economic factors that changed the course of our state," said Meyer, who seeks to engage students from elementary through university levels, as well as the general public.
Biotechnology/Health
University of Chicago Press via EurekAlert: Study: Breastfeeding can be tougher for women when pregnancy is unplanned
Women who did not plan to get pregnant are much more likely to stop breastfeeding within three months of giving birth, according to a study published in the journal Current Anthropology. The research suggests that women whose pregnancies were unplanned often experience more emotional and physical discomfort with breastfeeding compared to women who planned to get pregnant.
More than 40 percent of the women in the study, which focused on mothers from low-income neighborhoods in São Paulo, Brazil, had stopped exclusively breastfeeding by three months, despite the fact that all of the women had intended to breastfeed for at least that long. The World Health Organization and the Brazilian government recommend that women should breastfeed exclusively at least for a baby's first six months.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
University of Colorado, Boulder: To perform with less effort, practice beyond perfection, says new CU study
February 9, 2012
Whether you are an athlete, a musician or a stroke patient learning to walk again, practice can make perfect, but more practice may make you more efficient, according to a surprising new University of Colorado Boulder study.
The study, led by CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Alaa Ahmed, looked at how test subjects learned particular arm-reaching movements using a robotic arm. The results showed that even after a reaching task had been learned and the corresponding decrease in muscle activity had reached a stable state, the overall energy costs to the test subjects continued to decrease. By the end of the task, the net metabolic cost as measured by oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide exhalation had decreased by about 20 percent, she said.
“The message from this study is that in order to perform with less effort, keep on practicing, even after it seems as if the task has been learned,” said Ahmed of CU-Boulder’s integrative physiology department. “We have shown there is an advantage to continued practice beyond any visible changes in performance.”
University of Colorado, Denver via Medical News Today: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgendered Adults Have Twice The Level Of Smoking And Half The Level Of Plans To Quit
February 10, 2012
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Coloradans who smoke are not thinking about quitting or getting ready to quit, and a quarter are uncomfortable approaching their doctors for help, report University of Colorado Cancer Center researchers in a recent article published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
These and other findings from the study may help identify new approaches to encourage GLBT smokers to quit.
"Among most smoking populations, we almost always find 20 percent getting ready to quit and another 40 percent are thinking about quitting," says Arnold Levinson, PhD, MJ, investigator at the CU Cancer Center and the paper's senior author. "But the rates from our study were half of what we expected."
University of Colorado, Denver: Breastfeeding reduces risk of childhood obesity
Lowers body mass index for children of diabetic pregnancies
2/8/2012
Breastfeeding reduces risk of childhood obesity
AURORA, Colo. - Children of diabetic pregnancies have a greater risk of childhood obesity, but new research from the Colorado School of Public Health shows breastfeeding can reduce this threat.
Epidemiologist Tessa Crume, Ph.D., MSPH, and fellow researchers tracked 94 children of diabetic pregnancies and 399 of non-diabetic pregnancies from birth to age 13. They evaluated the influence of breastfeeding on the growth of body mass index (BMI), an indicator of childhood obesity.
...
Children of diabetic pregnancies who were breast-fed had a slower BMI growth as they grew older than those who nursed less than six months. A similar pattern emerged for children of non-diabetic pregnancies.
University of Minnesota: University of Minnesota and startup to develop antidote to cyanide poisoning
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/09/2012) —Cyanide poisoning is often fatal and typically affects victims of industrial accidents, terrorist attacks, or structural fires. Based on research conducted at the Center for Drug Design at the University of Minnesota, startup Vytacera Pharma Inc. will develop and market Sulfanegen, a treatment for cyanide poisoning. Sulfanegen could be administered by first responders in the case of a mass casualty emergency, or to victims of smoke inhalation from a house fire.
Cyanide poisoning prevents the body from using oxygen. Hydrogen cyanide, a colorless gas, is released into the air when certain types of plastics and other household items burn. A victim who inhales too much experiences dizziness, rapid breathing, convulsions and respiratory failure. The key to survival for these victims is rapid and appropriate treatment, but current treatments require an intravenous injection by a medical professional and can require upward of 20 minutes to take effect.
“There is no effective cyanide antidote that can be administered rapidly,” said Steve Patterson, co-inventor and associate director of the university’s Center for Drug Design, where Sulfanegen was invented. “In the case of a mass casualty situation, the emergency responders wouldn’t be able to treat most of the victims. Sulfanegen can be administered rapidly by intra-muscular injection, so emergency responders could treat people faster. And it takes far less skill to use an auto-injector than it does for an intravenous injection.”
University of Minnesota: Hormel Institute study makes key finding in stem cell self-renewal
Institute's cancer research is published in top scientific journal
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/06/2012) —A University of Minnesota-led research team has proposed a mechanism for the control of whether embryonic stem cells continue to proliferate and stay stem cells, or differentiate into adult cells like brain, liver or skin.
The work has implications in two areas. In cancer treatment, it is desirable to inhibit cell proliferation. But to grow adult stem cells for transplantation to victims of injury or disease, it would be desirable to sustain proliferation until a sufficient number of cells have been produced to make a usable organ or tissue.
The study gives researchers a handle on how those two competing processes might be controlled. It was performed at the university's Hormel Institute in Austin, Minn., using mouse stem cells. The researchers, led by Hormel Institute Executive Director Zigang Dong and Associate Director Ann M. Bode, have published a report in the journal Nature Structure and Molecular Biology.
Climate/Environment
Environmental News Network: Tree Rings and Volcanic Eruptions
From: Andy Soos, ENN
Published February 8, 2012 11:28 AM
Counting the number of tree rings and observing the relative growth for each ting can give an age for when something happened. However, it may not be that simple. Some climate cooling caused by past volcanic eruptions may not be evident in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature change, because large enough temperature drops lead to greatly shortened or even absent growing seasons, according to climate researchers who compared tree-ring temperature reconstructions with model simulations of past temperature changes.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
University of Colorado: CU-Boulder study shows global glaciers, ice caps shedding billions of tons of mass annually
February 8, 2012
Earth’s glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
The research effort is the first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world’s melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise and indicates they are adding roughly 0.4 millimeters annually, said CU-Boulder physics Professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. The measurements are important because the melting of the world’s glaciers and ice caps, along with Greenland and Antarctica, pose the greatest threat to sea level increases in the future, Wahr said.
The researchers used satellite measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, a joint effort of NASA and Germany, to calculate that the world’s glaciers and ice caps had lost about 148 billion tons, or about 39 cubic miles of ice annually from 2003 to 2010. The total does not count the mass from individual glacier and ice caps on the fringes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets -- roughly an additional 80 billion tons.
University of Missouri: Consumers Willing to Buy Sustainable U.S. Cotton, MU Researchers Find
Studies show importance of transparency in U.S. apparel production
Feb. 06, 2012
COLUMBIA, Mo. – As the interest in environmentally responsible business practices grows globally, researchers are interested in how that interest translates into consumer sales. Researchers from the University of Missouri have found that United States consumers are more willing to buy clothing made from sustainably grown U.S. cotton than apparel produced using conventional practices in an unknown location. Jung Ha-Brookshire, an assistant professor in the textile and apparel management department in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at MU, says transparency is the key.
“It is important for the apparel industry to remain transparent about its products, especially if they are produced in a sustainable manner,” Ha-Brookshire said. “We have shown that consumers want to know where their clothes come from and would rather buy sustainably produced clothes. Many apparel companies use sustainable practices; however, they don’t promote them very well.”
Geology
io9: The Most Precise Image of a Post-Earthquake Landscape Ever Created
By Kristin Philipkoski
February 9, 2012
A new measurement tool that uses light detection and ranging (or LiDAR) can show how earthquakes have changed the landscape down to a few inches—and that can help us prepare for difficult-to-predict earthquakes.
io9: The World’s Next Supercontinent: Amasia!
By Sophie Brunswick
February 8, 2012
The United States hasn't always had the closest relationship with China or Russia. But give us a few hundred million years, and we could be a lot more unified: A new prediction for the motion of the continents suggests that the Americas and Asia will smoosh together at the north to form the supercontinent dubbed Amasia.
...
Geologists suspect that supercontinents may form, break up, and reform in cycles that last 500 to 700 million years. If so, then what supercontinent will cover Earth's surface in the future, and where will it be?
A new paper in Nature states that Amasia will form, as others have suggested previously, but the researchers have settled on a new theory for where it will be based on their new model, "orthoversion."
Psychology/Behavior
LiveScience via Discovery News: Breaking the Code: Why Yuor Barin Can Raed Tihs
Content provided by By Natalie Wolchover, LiveScience.com
Fri Feb 10, 2012 09:41 AM ET
You might not realize it, but your brain is a code-cracking machine.
For emaxlpe, it deson't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm.
S1M1L4RLY, Y0UR M1ND 15 R34D1NG 7H15 4U70M471C4LLY W17H0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17.
Passages like these have been bouncing around the Internet for years. But how do we read them? And what do our incredibly low standards for what's legible say about the way our brains work?
|-|0// 1337!
Archeology/Anthropology
The Rugby Observer (UK): Ancient cremated bodies found in field
By Dan Santy
ARCHAEOLOGISTS digging in Cawston have described the discovery of the remains of two cremated bodies dating back some 2,000 years as a major find.
Land on Calvestone Road set for a development of 129 houses by Redrow Homes is currently the subject of an archaeological dig due to its historical significance.
Until recently the dig, running until March, had uncovered only rocks and slate objects believed to date back 4,000 years to the Neolithic Age, along with evidence of ridge and furrow land used in ancient farming.
But this week saw the uncovering of bone fragments and other evidence of two cremation burials believed to date from the Iron Age.
Seacoast Online: Native American Shell Middens along the York River
Henry Chapman Mercer, recipient of numerous accolades for his work studying Native American pre-history, identified evidence that cannibalism was practiced by Indians on the banks of the York River.
Perhaps best known for his influence on the Art & Crafts Movement as the founder of Monrovian Tile Works, Mercer was a man of wide-ranging interests. He graduated from Harvard in 1879 and then went on to study law, but never practiced. The well-to-do Pennsylvanian was driven by a fascination with the antiquity of Native Americans, indeed the antiquity of man. He became a member of the newly formed Archaeological Association of the University of Pennsylvania in 1890 and was appointed curator of American and Pre-historic Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, in 1891.
American archaeology was still in its adolescence when Mercer examined stone artifacts in the Delaware Valley, explored the hill caves on the Yucatan Peninsula, and scientifically excavated, interpreted and cataloged the contents of shell middens near the mouth of the York River.
BBC: Viking axe find in Slimbridge discounted by archaeologists
An axe head found in a garden in Gloucestershire, which was claimed to be of Viking origin, is an 18th Century woodworking tool, experts have said.
It was found in 2008 by Ian Hunter Darling under a hedge at his home in Slimbridge.
Slimbridge Local History Society who said last week it was Viking have now renamed it the "Slimbridge axe head".
A meeting about the find is taking place in Slimbridge on 21 February.
The Standard-Times via Rhode Island Central: Tell Me Your Story: It wasn't a 'castle' to 17th Century black residents
By MARTHA SMITH
Special to the Standard
February 5, 2012
NORTH KINGSTOWN – They slept in the kitchen garret, high under the eaves in a room whose ceiling was so low they had to stoop.
With only two small windows, they sweltered in summer; in winter, they huddled around the stone chimney for warmth.
They were the slaves of Richard Smith Jr. – two men, one elderly woman and five children – and their existence is confirmed in a 1691 property inventory of Cocumscussoc, more commonly called Smith’s Castle.
When Daniel Updike died here in 1757, the slave population had risen to “18 Negroes and a baby.”
The lives of the slaves who passed through this house are of paramount interest to Neil Dunay.
A past president of Smith’s Castle, he has been collecting historical data from documents, seeking to understand what it was like for the slaves and indentured servants who toiled here. His goal is to obtain a grant to hire a scholar to carry out the project that, ultimately, will define the role of the Smith/Updike family in the institution of slavery.
L.A. Times: At a planned train trench, an archaeological treasure trove
A Spanish silver coin dating from 1816 is among the artifacts a 30-member team of archaeologists has unearthed next to railroad tracks in front of the San Gabriel Mission.
By Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times
February 6, 2012
Archaeologist Deanna Jones couldn't believe her eyes as she hunched over a shallow pit dug next to railroad tracks in front of the San Gabriel Mission.
She was inside the recently excavated foundation of a long-gone adobe building that once stood in the mission's 40-acre Bishop's Garden, first cultivated in the early 1780s.
As Jones scooped a trowel full of dirt from what had been the adobe floor, a silvery glint caught her attention.
The Post-Standard: Fayetteville man has an unusual hobby: Digging up World War I history
By Elizabeth Doran / The Post-Standard
Fayetteville, NY -- Ralph Whitehead knows he has an unusual hobby, one that blends history, mystery and forensic archaeology with a healthy dose of sweat.
The 57-year-old Fayetteville man helps excavate trenches found in the middle of cornfields in France and Belgium in his search for artifacts and, sometimes, bodies of World War I soldiers.
Whitehead is part of “No Man’s Land: The European Group for Great War Archaeology,” a group of about 20 to 30 people largely based in England who excavate battlefields where World War I soldiers have fought and fallen. Along with finding clothing remnants, bullet and shell fragments, mementos and more, they often discover the skeletal remains of soldiers. Whitehead is one of just two people in the group from the United States.
The Daily Telegraph (UK): German soldiers preserved in World War I shelter discovered after nearly 100 years
Twenty-one German soldiers entombed in a perfectly preserved World War One shelter have been discovered 94 years after they were killed.
9:47AM GMT 10 Feb 2012
The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when an Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918 causing it to cave in.
Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them.
Nearly a century later French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front during excavation work for a road building project.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
io9: Ancient Poop Science: Inside the Archaeology of Paleofeces
By Aladair Wilkins
February 9, 2012
In studying ancient humanity, there's no more powerful resource than preserved DNA... theoretically. While DNA has evolved to be the molecule of life, it's not built nearly as well to stick around after its organism is dead and gone. There are a few ways to preserve DNA for up to as much as a million years without complete degradation, but these mostly involve being frozen in ice or permafrost. Since most of humanity historically has stayed away from extremely cold climates, that naturally limits our sources of usable ancient human DNA.
That's where poop enters the picture. As one of the great works of Western literature once so cogently observed, everybody does it — and in the 99% or so of human history without sanitation services, humans pretty much just pooped wherever there was space. These "nonhardened fossils", as archaeologists have euphemistically referred to them, account for a shockingly high percentage of the material found in ancient cave sites. There's such a ridiculously high quantity of preserved human poop — paleofeces, if we're being technical — that being able to extract any amount of DNA would make them a massively useful resource.
...
The big breakthrough in human DNA extraction came with the arrival of Kristin Sobolik, and archaeologist at the University of Maine Orono, who proposed Poinar and his colleagues test some of the thousands of paleofeces specimens found in Hinds Cave (pictured up top), an ancient dwelling in southern Texas whose preserved poop samples date from 8,500 to just 500 years ago. Using the method outlined above, the researchers tested five small samples dating between 400 and 100 BCE.
Physics
Colorado State University: CSU Little Shop of Physics annual open house Feb. 25; program is a Google Grant recipient
February 8, 2012
Make electricity flow through your body, see blood flow under your skin, see how you look in infrared and ultraviolet. This is just a sample of the 300 hands-on experiments and seven interactive presentations available at CSU's 21st annual Little Shop of Physics open house.
Chemistry
io9: The bouncy science of toy superballs
By Esther Inglis-Markell
February 11, 2012
We all annoyed our parents with these and broke vases with these and chased these down the street into traffic and, on rainy days when we were bored, melted these in the microwave. But what actually makes superballs work?
...
It wasn't until 1965 that materials science could come up with a cheap way to get maximum bounce. As many parents suspect, the missing ingredient was something infernal: sulfur. Scientist Norman Stingley was playing around with polybutadiene, a substance made up of long strings of carbon atoms. The strings tangled together, letting polybutadiene retain its shape without shattering, but the whole concoction needed something more. Stingley added a little heat and sulfur, and something diabolical happened.
io9: The Nobel Prize-Winning Discovery that Got a Scientist Kicked Out of His Own Lab
By Esther Inglis-Markell
February 6, 2012
Almost 30 years after Daniel Shechtman noticed something weird in his lab, he finally won a Nobel Prize for chemistry. But before that, his strange discovery resulted in him being asked to leave the lab for bringing disgrace upon his colleagues.
What caused all this upheaval? An odd pattern. Nothing more. See how a seemingly minor idea blew up into a huge controversy.
Energy
University of Maine via Home Toys: New energy study launched by PowerWise, University of Maine, and Efficiency Maine
February 7, 2012
Will homeowners use less energy if they know more about their energy consumption? Efficiency Maine awarded PowerWise of Blue Hill, Maine a grant to help answer that question.
Fifty homes in Blue Peninsula communities will have electricity-monitoring systems installed at no cost to the homeowner, and homeowners will track their energy use for one year. PowerWise has enlisted a team from the University of Maine to help analyze and report on the data.
"This is the first controlled study in the United States to monitor so many residences with such detailed data," says Joanne Steenberg, Vice President of PowerWise. "This study may change how homeowners, power companies, and policy makers view energy use, and will create a treasury of information that can be used in exciting ways in education." PowerWise's proposal grew out of a plan first suggested by Steenberg for monitoring a whole community, which could then be a model for the country in reducing energy use on a wide scale.
University of Missouri: MU Scientists Receive $5.5 Million Gift from Kimmel Foundation to Search for the Next Big Thing in Alternative Energy
Gift given by Sidney Kimmel Foundation, created by founder of The Jones Group
Feb. 10, 2012
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Sustainable practices and the search for safe, environmentally friendly energy has been a priority of scientists for years. With some success, researchers across the globe are continuing the hunt for an energy source that is clean and abundant. Now, scientists at the University of Missouri are the recipients of a five-year, $5.5 million gift from the Sidney Kimmel Foundation that will help focus efforts in fundamental, physical sciences in the search for new alternative energy sources.
“We don’t know what the next big thing is because it probably hasn’t been invented yet,” said Rob Duncan, vice chancellor for research at MU. “This gift to MU’s scientists will give us the opportunity to explore new and empirical phenomena in the physical sciences, which may ultimately be transformative and could lead to a new form of alternative energy. Tomorrow’s solutions depend on scientific discoveries that are being made now, and hence, on innovations that have not yet occurred.”
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
StAugustine.com: Our view: Artifacts best prove city's history
Posted: February 5, 2012 - 12:31am
The St. Augustine City Commission has put out a kind and gentle plea to residents not to sell or exploit artifacts found on their property.
It is only a suggestion, not a mandate, to remind people to be responsible stewards of the city’s history that may be buried in their yards. It is important, we believe, that our residents cooperate with St. Augustine officials to ensure the city’s story is told as accurately as possible.
On Jan. 23, the City Commission adopted a non-binding resolution after The St. Augustine Record published two stories, one about treasure hunters around St. Johns County who find artifacts and keep them for themselves or sell them, and another about a national reality show asking for residents to allow their yards to be dug up for artifacts.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
L.A. Times: First new U.S. nuclear reactors in decades approved
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves construction and licensing of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, the first such approval in the U.S. since 1978.
By Ralph Vartabedian and Ian Duncan
February 9, 2012, 10:13 p.m.
Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington—A consortium of utilities in the South won government approval Thursday to construct two new atomic energy reactors at an estimated cost of $14 billion, the strongest signal yet that the three-decade hiatus of nuclear plant construction is finally ending.
Several new projects will test whether new technology and streamlined government licensing can help the industry avoid the economic and safety disasters that have tainted its past, nuclear experts say, though critics condemned the action by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The commission's 4-1 approval of the construction and operating license to expand the capacity of a Georgia nuclear power plant came 11 months after the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi facility left a wide swath of radioactive contamination.
I've been expecting this news since 2005.
Wired: U.S. Space Science Confronts New Economic Reality
By Adam Mann
February 10, 2012
Astronomers are worried.
It’s not some new unexplained mystery of the universe or the upcoming launch of a space telescope that is unnerving them, though. The problems they currently face are much more down-to-Earth — and the future of space exploration hangs in the balance.
The anxiety stems from the fact that astronomy, especially space-based astronomy, is just plain expensive. And with federal budgets tightening, the government will be less and less able to make huge investments in big science projects.
io9: NASA is too poor to help Europe go to Mars
By Robert Gonzales
February 6, 2012
This is devastating news. The BBC is reporting that ExoMars — a joint program between NASA and the European Space Agency with Martian missions scheduled for 2016 and 2018 — is on the ropes, owing to America's budgetary woes.
Is this the first scientific casualty of the 2013 budget cuts?
Science Education
The Journal (UK): Community archaeology project success leads to more North East digs
by Tony Henderson, The Journal
MORE digs are being planned in one of the North East’s top landscape areas after the success of a community archaeology project.
Last year more than 400 volunteers took part in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership’s Altogether Archaeology project.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has now awarded the AONB Partnership a grant to develop a programme of archaeological fieldwork and other events so that the volunteers can undertake more projects over the next three years.
Brown Daily Herald: First-years discover viruses, analyze DNA
Kate Nussenbaum
Sixteen first-years watched with excitement as their screens loaded the sequence of 59,625 nucleic acids that comprise the DNA of "Job42," the virus a student in their class had discovered, isolated and named during the fall semester.
"Each of them codes for something," said Jordan Rego, a student in the "Phage Hunters" class at Providence College, referring to the letters on his screen. "It's pretty amazing. I honestly can't wait to start" analyzing the DNA, he said.
Rego and his classmates are the first group of Providence College students to take Phage Hunters, a new introductory biology course that is entirely hands-on.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Huffington Post: Detroit Public Schools Students Show STEM Skills At White House Science Fair
By David Sands
February 8, 2012
At the science fair, President Obama announced several STEM-related policy initiatives:
- A priority on undergraduate STEM education reform in the President’s upcoming budget, including a $100 million investment by the National Science Foundation to improve undergraduate STEM education practices.
- A new K-16 education initiative jointly administered by Department of Education and the National Science Foundation to improve math education
- Commitments from private sector groups and coalitions to do more to get students excited about STEM-related
- New policies to recruit, support, retain and reward excellent STEM teachers, along with an $80 million investment in the President's upcoming budget to help prepare effective STEM teachers.
- A new $22 million investment from the philanthropic and private sector to complement the Administration's teacher preparation efforts.
Colorado State University: RecycleMania 2012
February 7, 2012
The annual collegiate recycling tournament "RecycleMania" kicks off Feb. 5 and will run through March 31. Colorado State will compete among hundreds of universities and colleges across the country and the world.
RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for colleges and universities to promote recycling and waste-reduction practices on campus.
Over an 8-week period, schools will report recycling and trash data on a weekly basis, competing in these tournament contests:
- the highest overall recycling rate (Grand Champion),
- the largest amount of recyclables per person (Per Capita Classic), and
- the least amount of trash per capita (Waste Minimization).
Nearly 550 schools from the United States and Canada are signed up for the 2012 competition.
Science Writing and Reporting
Colorado State University: In time for Valentine's Day: Your questions about love, sex, relationships answered by scientists
There's a science to sex, love and relationships, according to a new book published by a CSU psychology professor and her colleagues.
February 13, 2012
Relationship books are dime a dozen, but very few are written from the perspective of researchers using science to answer pressing questions, says Jennifer Harman, an assistant professor of applied social psychology at Colorado State.
Harman was one of 15 university researchers nationwide who wrote chapters of The Science of Relationships: Answers to Your Questions about Dating, Marriage and Family, which is available on Amazon.
...
The Science of Relationships is based on science unlike most relationship and self-help books, which are opinion-based and written by clinicians, Harman said. In this recently released book, scientists address 40 of the most common questions on such topics as attraction and relationship initiation, love, intimacy and attachment, long-term relationship processes, the dark side of relationships, sex and parenting.
Science is Cool
Huffington Post: White House Science Fair 2012: Obama Honors Amazing Teen Innovators
February 10, 2012
[T]his week amazing young guys and girls excelling in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) were honored at the second annual White House Science Fair. Over 100 students across 45 states were selected to represent more than 40 different competitions and organizations. The honorees will meet with senior administration officials and leading STEM advocates. As if that wasn't cool enough, over 30 of the student teams will have the opportunity to actually put their projects on display and meet Obama.
