Author: Discover Main Feed

While we’re on the topic of charities, it seems appropriate to note that this is a particularly opportune time to donate to an exceedingly worthwhile charity: Doctors Without Borders. They are doing amazing work around the world, and the current tragedy in Haiti is no exception.

Note that Doctors Without Borders (more generally known as Médecins Sans Frontières) is not the same as Doctors of the World (Médecins du Monde; now called HealthRight). It’s somewhat ironic, but the Doctors couldn’t agree about how to go about saving the world. So MDM split off in 1980 (and is roughly 1/40th the size). The critical issue was the degree to which “witnessing” was a part of their mission. On the one hand, if you want to be able to go anywhere that you’re needed, it’s wise to be explicitly apolitical. Your goal is simply to help the sick and relieve suffering. On the other hand, if you witness atrocities, it seems incumbent upon you to tell the world what has happened. If you are on the ground in the midst of genocide, is it really appropriate to stay silent? Both groups “bear witness” to atrocities, but MSF is more conservative, while MDM is more aggressive.

I think strong arguments can be made for both approaches, and I don’t think you can go wrong supporting either organization. As always, it makes sense to check out any intended recipient of largess on Charity Navigator. Both organizations get essentially identical, stellar scores (implying that the vast majority [~90%] of what you donate goes to people in need, and not to fatten the pay of executives, or into the pockets of Madison Avenue).

Haiti is a tragedy of epic proportions. Here is a way to help.

Just how did all the exotic mammals of Madagascar, like its unique collection of lemurs, originally reach the African island? Did they float there from the African mainland, or did nature provide a land bridge? The question has vexed biologists because both explanations have their problems. But a new study in Nature proposes an answer to the main problem posed by the floating-across-the-channel idea, suggesting that it is the most likely explanation.

Because of the narrow range of biology on Madagascar, most biologists favored the floating rafts hypothesis. But there has always been a problem with this notion: the currents swirling in the channel and the surrounding Indian Ocean would make it virtually impossible for a floating Noah’s Ark of vegetation to reach Madagascar’s shores [AFP]. Were those currents always this way, though? No, says a team led by Matthew Huber.

Huber and his colleagues employed the computer modeling techniques used in modern climate studies to predict backwards. 50 million years ago Africa and Madagascar sat about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) south of their current positions due to continental drift…. By plugging data about the ocean and atmosphere of ancient Earth into modern climate models, Huber and Ali found that ocean currents around the two land masses once flowed eastward, toward Madagascar, after all [National Geographic].

Madagascar’s four groups of land mammals would’ve arrived on the island between 60 and 20 million years ago. The peculiar set of creatures that arrived had always suggested that migration opportunities probably were scarce—otherwise (as with a land bridge) a greater mammalian variety probably would’ve arrived. The rafting hypothesis also matches the reality that none of the mainland Africa’s very large mammals made it to Madagascar. As you can see in the illustrative yet strange image above, you just can’t fit an elephant or hippo in a dinghy… or a natural raft.

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Image: Nature

If you are a normal person trying to figure out who is right and who is wrong on an issue, it can be pretty confusing. When it comes to things like global warming, there are folks out there who twist, distort, and spin the facts so grievously that it’s hard to tell the difference between what they are doing and outright lying. And when one of them does it, a slew of others pick it up, making the chorus of nonsense self-reinforcing, muddying the waters even more.

We saw this happen with the CRU emails that were hacked — a situation which was nowhere near as important as so many trumped them up to be — and of course we will see it again and again.

To help staunch that, there are two points about global warming I’ve recently come across that I want to make sure are very clear.

1) Some global warming denialists obfuscate what’s going on with Antarctica, saying the ice there is actually growing, not melting. That is patently false. Where it really matters, Antarctic ice is melting.

As you can see by this NASA graphic from the linked page, Antarctica loses over 100 billion tons of ice per year, the equivalent of about a hundred cubic kilometers (more than 20 cubic miles) of ice. That number is hard to grasp, but it’s the equivalent to the volume of a mountain about 14,000 feet high — or, if you prefer, it’s like saying that one Colorado Rocky Mountain’s worth of ice disappears every year. Just in Antarctica alone.

You may note that the line fitted to the points in that graph is changing its slope, getting steeper with time. I wouldn’t extrapolate that too much, but if true, it means the loss rate is accelerating.

2) The IPCC report in 2007 was a landmark analysis of the current GW situation. It has been attacked repeatedly by denialists, of course. As it happens, in one part of the report they said that Himalayan glaciers may melt away completely by 2035. This turns out to have been based on a report that was not peer-reviewed, and most likely incorrect.

However, this does not mean the entire report is wrong, and it certainly doesn’t even mean that Himalayan glaciers are fine! Quite the opposite, in fact. A new study of Himalayan ice using satellite data shows that the ice is disappearing, and from 2003 to 2009 shrank at a rate of 47 billion tons per year. I’ll be careful to note that the uncertainty in this measurement is about 25% (12 Gt/year) and has a short baseline in time, but even considering that, the loss of Himalayan ice is definitely large and almost certainly increasing — perhaps twice as rapidly now as it was in the past 40 years before the study.

This is supported by a ground-based study of over 600 glaciers being monitored by Chinese scientists, which showed that between 1980 and 1995, 90% of those glaciers were retreating, and in the period of 1995 – 2005, 95% retreated. In other words, the vast majority of the glaciers studied were losing ice, and in more recent years the number of glaciers losing ice increased.

This is all consistent with global loss rates of ice: it’s disappearing faster now than it was in previous decades.

Get a good look at Himalayan glaciers while you still can.

Expect to hear the antiglobal warming crowd crowing over this, and the media misreporting this to sow more doubt about global warming. But the important point to remember is this: the Himalayan ice really is shrinking, and the same thing is happening in Antarctica.

Global warming is real. It’s also getting worse. You can shout, you can scream until you’re red in the face, and you can deny the facts all you want. But facts are pesky: they exist whether you believe in them or not.

My thanks to expert glaciologists Drs. Lonnie Thompson and C. K . Shum for taking time to explain the Himalayan studies to me and for providing me with the numbers from the ground studies.

Glacier image from mckaysavage’s Flickr stream licensed under creative comons.

Anthony Lane reviews the new Darwin biopic Creation in the New Yorker. As is his habit, Lane manages to write some lovely stuff about a movie he doesn’t care much for (”at once slow and overwrought”). I have to agree with him on this, for example:

[Actor Paul] Bettany, with his jungly sideburns and smooth pate, offers a reasonable likeness of the great man, although he lacks the shaggy overhang of brow, extending far beyond the sunken eye sockets, which lent Darwin not only his solemn frown but, it must be said, his semi-simian air. I sometimes wonder if his tracing of our ancestry began not on his travels, or at his desk, but one morning when he glanced into his shaving mirror.

[Image: Wikipedia]

It’s a disconcerting thought, but somewhere out there lies a cadaver… blinking.

Beyond the fright, however, lies the hope for the suffering–scientists have found a way to make an eyelid blink using electrical charges. It’s a big development that can help people with eyelid paralysis who face the possibility of going blind.

Currently, eyelid paralysis is treated either by transferring a muscle from the leg into the face–a lengthy process that may not be suitable for elderly or sick patients–or suturing a gold weight inside the eye, which helps close the eye with the aid of gravity. But neither solution has many takers. Searching for an alternative, surgeons at the University of California at Davis experimented with artificial muscles with six donated human cadavers.

LiveScience reports:

The artificial muscle they used acts like human muscle by expanding and contracting in response to electrical input. Developed by engineers at SRI International of Palo Alto, Calif., the muscle includes a piece of soft acrylic or silicone sandwiched between carbon particle electrode layers. When a current is applied, the outer layers get pressed together and squash the soft center, expanding the artificial muscle as a whole. When the charge is removed, it contracts.

Scientists say this is the first wave of artificial muscle being used in biological systems. In the future, the procedure may be used to treat patients with facial paralysis caused by stroke, injury, or combat. The findings were reported in the January-February issue of journal Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.

Researchers say the procedure might be available for patients with eyelid paralysis over the next five years. They are now conducting their studies on live gerbils. Phew! That’s so much better than the thought of bagged, tagged, and blinking cadavers.

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Image: University of California Regents

Amputation patients only receiving Motrin for pain.

Doctors in Haiti are in critical need of medical supplies. Like so many, I am heartbroken and wish there were more I could personally do to help. Please join me in making a donation to the relief effort and encourage others to do so as well.

Organizations where you can contribute:

American Red Cross International Response Fund
AmeriCares Help For Haiti
Direct Relief International
Doctors without Borders
HaitiArise
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund
Mercy Corps
Oxfam
Partners In Health
UNICEF
Yele Haiti

This week federal officials said they want to ban the importation of nine large and exotic snake species. The move is designed to quell the spread of those slithering reptiles that have gotten loose and thrived in Florida and especially in the Everglades, and that threaten to spread further across the country.

More than a million of these snakes—including the giant Burmese python, boa constrictors, and several kinds of anaconda—have come to the United States in the last 30 years as pets. But invariably, over the years, some slithered loose — or were released by owners who found their reptile[s] more than they could handle. Today, many thousands nest wild in Florida’s suburban yards, parks and the Everglades [Science News]. At least one of the species, the northern African rock python, is considered dangerous to humans.

The importation ban is not all: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar also said the government would like to ban interstate sales of these snakes already inside the United States. That means someone couldn’t drive down to Texas and buy a baby python and then legally bring it home to Maryland. It would even become illegal to tote a long-owned boa across states lines — from New York to New Jersey, for instance — when someone moved [Science News]. Whether dedicated snake lovers would ditch their pets upon moving just because the government says so, however, remains to be seen.

Florida officials, for their part, have adopted the typical response to an animal reaching out-of-control numbers: hunting season. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission already allows licensed hunters to kill snakes they encounter during small-game and other hunting seasons in wildlife management areas. But the agency also intends to create a two-month season specifically for the troublesome snakes, said spokeswoman Gabriella Ferraro [Miami Herald].

The Interior Department hopes to formally propose the new rules in February. We’ll see whether it’s too little too late for the Everglades’ ecological balance. As conservation expert Stuart Pimm wrote for National Geographic, the Burmese python could be emerging as the top predator, displacing the famous alligators there.

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Image: flickr / benjgibbs

I make no bones about the fact that I love the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. With its 50 centimeter (18 inch) resolution, it’s returned one astonishing picture after another. I’ve picked several for my annual Top Ten Astronomy Pictures, too.

And now NASA has announced something incredibly cool: they are allowing the public to choose locations for HiRISE to image! It’s easy enough. Just go to their website, register, and then you can look at other suggested spots or suggest one yourself.

I suggested one myself: re-imaging a black pit on Mars that I featured in my Top Ten pictures of 2007:

This is a rimless pit, basically a cavern on Mars. I suggested they image it again at a different time of day, yielding three-dimensional information about it. The change in the Sun angle will allow scientists to see how steeply it’s sloped, where the rocks sit, and also possibly illuminate a different part of the pit walls. It would be very interesting to see if any of the rocks have changed as well, maybe settling downslope since the prior image was taken.

I hope they pick mine, but go there and pick your own. You can search the extensive (11,000+ images and counting) HiRISE archive for interesting things, or poke around the web. And yes, the Face has already been suggested though for some reason the person suggesting it didn’t mention the Face, and just said it was an erosional feature of interest. I think that’s pretty funny. Actually, lots of suggestion have been submitted for that region in Cydonia, unsurprisingly!

But there’s a lot of surface to map on Mars, so give it a shot. And if they do wind up picking yours, let me know! That’ll be worth a followup post.

Last week I participated in a three-day course on energy taught by Michael Webber at UTAustin. Very shortly, I’ll have more to say on the subject, but in the meantime, it’s a good opportunity to highlight an interesting new website from the National Academies called What You Need to Know About Energy. It’s a means to help visitors understand the ways we use energy, where it comes from, and how energy efficiency and alternative sources can figure into our energy future. The more we know, the better equipped we’ll be to engage in the ongoing debate about energy policy. Here are the details:

The site provides balanced and reliable information about our energy sources, uses, and options for the future. Take a quiz to see what you already know about energy. Explore “Our Energy System” for a quick and clear overview of the energy sources we depend on in the United States and how they are used, including what each source contributes to carbon dioxide emissions. Learn compelling facts about oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, and renewable sources, such as solar and wind, including the pros and cons of each source. Compare a few cars and household appliances in “Understanding Efficiency” to see which use energy more effectively. Then rely on your new understanding of the energy situation as you make decisions about energy in your daily life, or participate in discussions about our nation’s energy options for the future.

The potential for brain injury on selected surfaces used by cheerleaders.

The one-man stealth plane of the future is on the horizon–and it’s named after a conspicuously cute bird. NASA scientists will officially unveil their design for a hover-capable, electric-powered aircraft, nicknamed “the Puffin,” on Wednesday at an American Helicopter Society meeting in San Francisco.

On the ground, the Puffin is designed to stand on its tail, which splits into four legs to help serve as landing gear. As it prepares to take off, flaps on the wings would tilt to deflect air from the 2.3-meter-wide propeller rotors upward, keeping the plane on the ground until it was ready to fly and preventing errant gusts from tipping it over. The Puffin would rise, hover and then lean over to fly horizontally, with the pilot lying prone as if in a [hang] glider [Scientific American].

The Puffin stands 12 feet high and has a wingspan of 13.5 feet. In theory it can cruise at 150 miles per hour and sprint at more like 300 miles per hour [Gizmodo]. The craft is electrically propelled and runs on rechargeable lithium phosphate batteries, which would theoretically allow it to soar as high as 30,000 feet before its batteries would begin to run low and it would be forced to descend. But scientists are confident that the Puffin’s range could be increased as batteries improve over the coming years.

The Puffin has the potential to revolutionize the way we transport ourselves from place to place. With its small engines, light weight, and battery power, it could provide a way for us to take to the skies as the streets get more clogged with cars. And this electric aircraft also has military applications. The Puffin is 10 times quieter than current low-noise helicopters, making it suitable for covert military operations. The electric motors are not just quiet and efficient, they also generate less heat–making them less likely to show up on thermal sensors and also requiring significantly less cooling air flowing over them. This reduced aerodynamic drag gives the Puffin a speed boost that aircraft with internal combustion engines don’t get.

Researchers plan on finishing a one third-size, hover-capable Puffin demonstrator by March. But Brien Seeley, president of an independent flight test agency that hosts the annual Electric Aircraft Symposium, says the designers still have work to do. Said Seeley: “In my opinion, a mass-marketable version will need conventional seating, cup holders and a short runway for glide-in, view-ahead landings—but opening up people’s imagination is the first essential step” [Scientific American].

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Video: NASA

Manoj Nair of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has devised a new possible method of detecting a deadly tsuami long before the wave crests to dangerous heights. And, in a bit of good news, much of it is already in place.

In a new study in next month’s Earth, Planets, and Space, Nair modeled the massive 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and found that a tsunami picking up steam as it moves across the ocean emits a tiny electromagnetic signature of of about 500 millivolts. That’s enough to have an effect on the communication cables that stretch across the ocean floor, carrying internet messages and phone calls. The electromagnetic signal “is very small compared to a 9-volt battery, but still large enough to be distinguished from background noise on a magnetically quiet day,” said Nair [Daily Camera].

Nair says this kind of system could be a lower-cost alternative to the bottom pressure arrays that directly measure large movements of water. “What we argue is that this is such a simple system to set up and start measuring,” Nair says. “We have a system of submarine cables already existing. The only thing we probably need is a voltmeter, in theory” [Wired.com].

Oleg Godin, one of Nair’s research partners, said any small improvement could make a huge difference. “If you detect tsunamis in the deep ocean — and that’s what we’re working on — meaning far from shore, you have hours, certainly tens of minutes, to warn people,” he said. “If people are well educated, a 15-minute warning is enough to save everybody” [Daily Camera].

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Image: flickr / epugachev

As you may know, Haiti got hit with a magnitude 6+ aftershock today, so the bad news there continues. If you want to give money to help, here are some good charities:

Non-believers Giving Aid

Doctors Without Borders

International Red Cross

International Medical Corps

I’m sure there are many more, but these are good places to give your money. We’ve seen a lot of truly awful groups using tragedies to do useless things, so please make sure the money you send goes directly to help the Haitians by assisting them with medical supplies and doctors.

When your kid isn’t in class, he/she is probably listening to an iPod, flipping TV channels, or switching between tabs on their computer, which means they may be juggling between Myspace, Facebook, and YouTube–in other words, kids today are staying hyperconnected and wired through their waking hours. That reality is confirmed by a new study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which reveals that if your kids are awake, they’re probably online [The New York Times].

In the third of a series of large-scale national surveys, the Kaiser Foundation study found that kids between the ages of 8-18 years now spend an average of 7 hours, 38 minutes per day using entertainment media. That adds up to more than 53 hours of entertainment consumption in a week. And this does not include the time kids spending texting or talking on their cell phones.

Unsurprisingly, the report says that all this media consumption could be a factor in kids getting lower grades or having behavioral problems. The report notes: “About half (47 percent) of heavy media users say they usually get fair or poor grades (mostly Cs or lower), compared to about a quarter (23 percent) of light users.” Heavy users are the children and teens who devour more than 16 hours of media per day, while light users are those who take in less than 3 hours per day.

The study [also] found that young people’s media consumption grew far more in the last five years than from 1999 to 2004, as sophisticated mobile technology like iPods and smart phones brought media access into teenagers’ pockets and beds [The New York Times]. Blacks and Hispanics, said the study, were the highest consumers of media. When it comes to TV watching, black children spend nearly 6 hours, Hispanics just under 5 1/2 hours, and white youths 3 1/2 hours watching TV each day. According to the report: “The racial disparity in media use has grown substantially over the past five years: for example, the gap between White and Black youth was just over two hours (2:12) in 2004, and has grown to more than four hours today (4:23).”

The report lists the top online activities as social networking, playing games, and visiting video sites such as YouTube. It also revealed that 74 percent of all 7th-12th graders say they have a profile on a social networking site. But if you are a parent, there is no need to despair; your child can still be compelled to go play outside. Kaiser executive Victoria Rideout says that rules can be a game-changer. “I don’t think parents should feel totally disempowered,” she said. “They can still make rules, and it still makes a difference” [The New York Times].

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Image Credit: iStockphoto

I like a lot of web comics, but it’s sometimes hard to find good ones. I was recently twigged on to Calamities of Nature, which commonly has themes dealing with science and critical thinking. I particularly like this one, excerpted in the picture here. The last panel is awesome.

In the character guide, the artist describes the mole (the white guy with earmuffs) as a cynic, but I don’t think so. A cynic is in many ways a pessimist, but a skeptic can see the good in things while still asking for evidence of claims. I think Aaron is a skeptic.

Tip o’ the virtual ink to Carl Spackler.

If you have a few million lying around, and you qualify, you might want to add a Space Shuttle to your collection: NASA is selling off historic artifacts, and the Orbiters are among the lots:

NASA is inviting eligible education institutions, museums and other organizations to examine and request space program artifacts online. The items represent significant human space flight technologies, processes and accomplishments from NASA’s past and present space exploration programs.

This makes perfect sense to me. The Orbiters are large, and expensive to maintain. If NASA keeps them they’d have to find a place to house them, keep them clean, and so on. That would be a huge waste of money! By selling them to a museum or some other institution NASA gets some cash, and a museum gets just about the coolest exhibit ever. I would pay an admission fee to tour through an actual Orbiter! So this is a great idea. If you qualify, go to this page and sign up.

The NASA announcement also mentions Hubble artifacts; I suspect they mean cameras and other equipment removed from the observatory when it was serviced. The Faint Object Spectrograph already sits in the National Air and Space Museum, but several others (WFPC2, GHRS, FOC, COSTAR) may be on the auction block.

I’ll note I already own a piece of Hubble: when I worked on the camera called STIS, all the team members were given a piece of mylar insulation blanket that was removed in a 1999 servicing mission as a souvenir. The snippet is encased in plastic, but it flew on Hubble for nearly ten years.

I wonder if it’s legal for NASA to sell them? That would be a nice fundraiser too.

“Be a bunny!” That was the essence of the message coming from the South Korean Department of Health this week.

Faced with an incredibly low birth rate–lower even than that of Japan–the government has now stepped in to force its employees to make more babies. They hope to do it with a flick of the switch.

The BBC reports:

At 1900 on Wednesday, officials at the Ministry of Health will turn off all the lights in the building. They want to encourage staff to go home to their families and, well, make bigger ones. They plan to repeat the experiment every month.

South Korea’s birth rate (the average number of babies born during a woman’s lifetime) is one of the world’s lowest. In 2008 the rate was 1.19, raising fears that the population will begin shrinking within a decade.

The Ministry of Health, says the BBC, is now sometimes referred to as the Ministry of Matchmaking as it arranges social gatherings to encourage people to find love and potential partners. The government also doles out gift vouchers to encourage people to have more babies–a priority for the country as its society rapidly ages and health care costs spiral upward.

As the government scrambles to get its citizens into their bedrooms, critics say unless childcare and education costs come down, young families won’t be encouraged to have babies. The naysayers argue that it will take more than just turning off the lights to get people to act like bunnies.

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Image Credit: iStockphoto

My latest blog post over at Science Progress is a reaction to the NSF’s new Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 report, and in particular, to its famous Chapter 7, which deals with science and the public.

In essence, the new Chapter 7 gives you the choice of whether to view the glass as half full, or half empty, when it comes to the U.S. public and its relationship to the world of science. I personally lean toward “half empty,” but here’s the pro/con breakdown:

On the positive side…the report consistently shows that Americans are not so scientifically benighted as one might think, at least in comparison with the rest of the world. We go to science museums more frequently. We claim a higher level of interest in “new scientific discoveries” than citizens in South Korea, China, and many parts of Europe. And in terms of sheer factual knowledge, we perform pretty much on par with Europe, and ahead of other countries like Japan, China, and Russia.

Through such international comparisons, the latest NSF report suggests that if your preferred standard for judging a nation’s engagement with science is to see how it stacks up next to other comparable (e.g., developed) countries, then the United States really doesn’t fare so poorly. Furthermore, NSF emphasizes that Americans profess to have very positive views about science. They overwhelmingly think science makes our lives better and that it deserves federal funding. And they have an apparently abiding trust in the leaders of the scientific community.

That’s the good side. But here’s the reason I still feel pretty negative in outlook:

As Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 itself admits, seeing how the country fares on science in comparison with other nations isn’t the only possible means of judgment. If one’s standard is more ambitious—emphasizing, in the latest report’s words, “what a technologically advanced society requires (either today or in the future) to compete in the world economy and enable its citizens to better take advantage of science progress in their own lives”—then it is very hard to feel good about the current state of affairs in the United States.

For instance, just 13 percent of the public now claims to follow science and technology news “very closely,” and this number has been on a downward trend for the past decade, ending with the current low. So while Americans may profess great admiration for science in the abstract, they hardly feel compelled to pay it much attention.

Similarly, there has been little apparent improvement over time in Americans’ basic ability to answer factual questions about science correctly. Moreover, the vast majority of our citizens have scant familiarity with key emerging scientific fields that will dramatically shape the future, such as nanotechnology and biotechnology—and it is important to note that these are the only such fields that the NSF report focuses in on. Ask Americans about other coming scientific technologies or quandaries—say, geoengineering, or synthetic biology—and I imagine the responses would be even more dismal.

Anyway, there’s much more to the column, so check it out here–and decide for yourself whether, when it comes to science and the American public, you’re an optimist or pessimist.

The duets sung by male and female mosquitoes are a critical part of their mating ritual. If researchers can master mosquito music, they may be able to abort a whole generation of disease-carriers.

Are antibiotics weapons of war, or a microbial language for cooperation? In my latest podcast, I talk to Julian Davies about the history and future of antibiotics, the marvelous yet mysterious creation of microbes that changed the course of medicine. Check it out.