Top 10 Newly Discovered Species of 2015 [Life Lines]

As 2015 comes to an end, I always love to review the top newly named species of the year. Here are the top 10 (in alphabetical order) as determined by an international taxonomist committee:

LOVE the cartwheeling spider!!

Source:

State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF).



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1TsFSk8

As 2015 comes to an end, I always love to review the top newly named species of the year. Here are the top 10 (in alphabetical order) as determined by an international taxonomist committee:

LOVE the cartwheeling spider!!

Source:

State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF).



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1TsFSk8

Why Are We Made Of Matter And Not Antimatter? (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“If you see an antimatter version of yourself running towards you, think twice before embracing.” –J. Richard Gott III

Everywhere we look in the Universe, we find that planets, stars, galaxies, and even the gas between them are all made of matter and not antimatter. Yet as far as we know, the laws of nature are symmetric between matter and antimatter: you can’t create or destroy one without the other.

Image credit: Karen Teramura, UHIfA / NASA.

Image credit: Karen Teramura, UHIfA / NASA.

This question — why the Universe is full of matter and not antimatter — is one of the greatest unsolved problems in theoretical physics. Yet it’s also, conceivably, the one most likely to fall in the coming year! There are four compelling scenarios that might solve this question, that of baryogenesis, that theoretical physics has uncovered, and there’s a good chance that the LHC’s run II will be sensitive to two of them.

Image credit: E. Siegel, from his book, Beyond The Galaxy.

Image credit: E. Siegel, from his book, Beyond The Galaxy.

Come read the full story and listen to an expanded version on our podcast over at Forbes!



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1UiC9FZ

“If you see an antimatter version of yourself running towards you, think twice before embracing.” –J. Richard Gott III

Everywhere we look in the Universe, we find that planets, stars, galaxies, and even the gas between them are all made of matter and not antimatter. Yet as far as we know, the laws of nature are symmetric between matter and antimatter: you can’t create or destroy one without the other.

Image credit: Karen Teramura, UHIfA / NASA.

Image credit: Karen Teramura, UHIfA / NASA.

This question — why the Universe is full of matter and not antimatter — is one of the greatest unsolved problems in theoretical physics. Yet it’s also, conceivably, the one most likely to fall in the coming year! There are four compelling scenarios that might solve this question, that of baryogenesis, that theoretical physics has uncovered, and there’s a good chance that the LHC’s run II will be sensitive to two of them.

Image credit: E. Siegel, from his book, Beyond The Galaxy.

Image credit: E. Siegel, from his book, Beyond The Galaxy.

Come read the full story and listen to an expanded version on our podcast over at Forbes!



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1UiC9FZ

Climate change: up close and personal in Missouri [Greg Laden's Blog]

This is a guest post by Larry Lazar.

If you have had the news on the last day or two you may have seen stories and images about the Missouri floods. Many of those images are from Eureka (where we live), Pacific (where my wife Kellie works) and Valley Park (which is on my commute to work). That picture of the submerged McDonald’s you may have seen on the news is in Union, Missouri, about 20 miles to the southwest of Eureka

IMG_0563We are dry, mostly, and doing okay. The basement was flooded during the initial 3 day rain event due to a failed sump pump and a couple downspouts that came unattached from the drain pipes during the heavy downfall. The hydrostatic pressure of the ground water on the foundation was simply too much to hold back. We fixed the drain spouts and had a new sump pump installed on Sunday and that stopped any more water from coming in. We are fortunate that we returned home from visiting my family in Michigan on Saturday instead of Sunday or the water would have been much higher.

Unfortunately it doesn’t take much water to ruin carpet pads and drywall. My son and I were able to get the carpets up and the pads out the back of the house with a lot of labor but not too much trouble. There are now 14 high powered and very noisy blowers and a super-sized dehumidifier running non-stop in the basement at a cost of $30 per day per machine (disaster capitalism is quite profitable). We are told everything will be dried out in 2 to 3 days.

We have learned a painful and expensive lesson about not having a sump pump rider on our home insurance. The rider would have covered damages from the failed pump. We also would have been covered if our dishwasher had overflowed but not from ground water. Fortunately, because we acted quickly, we didn’t have any significant content damage so the only costs will be drying the place out and installing new pads under the salvaged carpets. Kellie thinks she is getting some new furniture out of the deal. I have no idea how less fortunate folks that have far more damage are going to get through this financially.

IMG_0560Flood lessons to pass along: check your sump pump, downspouts and your insurance policy. Keep important stuff up off the basement floor. Purchase a generator to keep the sump pump running when the power fails.

Downtown Eureka is a true disaster. The sand bagging effort was futile against the record water levels as most of the businesses downtown have water over their front doors. O’Dell’s, our favorite Irish pub, will be out of commission for a long time so now we have to go across the freeway to have good beer from the tap. The businesses Eureka residents depend on will be out of commission for many months.

Many homes along the river have been lost and are now downstream. These homes are built on stilts and have survived many flood events in the past but stilts can only go so high. We can no longer use the climate of the past to guide our decisions on the future. The rules for the game of life have changed and we must adapt to those rules.

Eureka has now had two 500 year floods in the last 22 years. The increasing frequency of these “500 year” (or more) type events really brings home what James Hansen wrote about in “Storms of my Grandchildren”. I’m pretty sure these frequency estimates will be a meaningless descriptor in the future. It will be interesting to see what the spring brings as the climate change fueled El Nino really kicks in.

IMG_0559All the roads out of Eureka were closed except for one and that one was a parking lot most of the time. Semi tractors on curvy and hilly two lane roads are not a good combination. Many subdivisions in the area have been isolated for a couple days now. The river crested around 6 last night so water levels, and media coverage, are quickly receding and moving downriver. We are looking forward to returning to some type of normalcy, and increased urgency for action on climate change, in the New Year.

If you want to help the best thing to do is to demand increased action on climate change from your political leaders.

We will need a price on carbon (see Citizen’s Climate Lobby), increased investment in energy efficiency, renewables and nuclear, and adaptation plans for the climate changes that are unavoidable. The American Red Cross is doing great work in helping people get through these disasters. I’m sure they could use your support.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1IGNcZ6

This is a guest post by Larry Lazar.

If you have had the news on the last day or two you may have seen stories and images about the Missouri floods. Many of those images are from Eureka (where we live), Pacific (where my wife Kellie works) and Valley Park (which is on my commute to work). That picture of the submerged McDonald’s you may have seen on the news is in Union, Missouri, about 20 miles to the southwest of Eureka

IMG_0563We are dry, mostly, and doing okay. The basement was flooded during the initial 3 day rain event due to a failed sump pump and a couple downspouts that came unattached from the drain pipes during the heavy downfall. The hydrostatic pressure of the ground water on the foundation was simply too much to hold back. We fixed the drain spouts and had a new sump pump installed on Sunday and that stopped any more water from coming in. We are fortunate that we returned home from visiting my family in Michigan on Saturday instead of Sunday or the water would have been much higher.

Unfortunately it doesn’t take much water to ruin carpet pads and drywall. My son and I were able to get the carpets up and the pads out the back of the house with a lot of labor but not too much trouble. There are now 14 high powered and very noisy blowers and a super-sized dehumidifier running non-stop in the basement at a cost of $30 per day per machine (disaster capitalism is quite profitable). We are told everything will be dried out in 2 to 3 days.

We have learned a painful and expensive lesson about not having a sump pump rider on our home insurance. The rider would have covered damages from the failed pump. We also would have been covered if our dishwasher had overflowed but not from ground water. Fortunately, because we acted quickly, we didn’t have any significant content damage so the only costs will be drying the place out and installing new pads under the salvaged carpets. Kellie thinks she is getting some new furniture out of the deal. I have no idea how less fortunate folks that have far more damage are going to get through this financially.

IMG_0560Flood lessons to pass along: check your sump pump, downspouts and your insurance policy. Keep important stuff up off the basement floor. Purchase a generator to keep the sump pump running when the power fails.

Downtown Eureka is a true disaster. The sand bagging effort was futile against the record water levels as most of the businesses downtown have water over their front doors. O’Dell’s, our favorite Irish pub, will be out of commission for a long time so now we have to go across the freeway to have good beer from the tap. The businesses Eureka residents depend on will be out of commission for many months.

Many homes along the river have been lost and are now downstream. These homes are built on stilts and have survived many flood events in the past but stilts can only go so high. We can no longer use the climate of the past to guide our decisions on the future. The rules for the game of life have changed and we must adapt to those rules.

Eureka has now had two 500 year floods in the last 22 years. The increasing frequency of these “500 year” (or more) type events really brings home what James Hansen wrote about in “Storms of my Grandchildren”. I’m pretty sure these frequency estimates will be a meaningless descriptor in the future. It will be interesting to see what the spring brings as the climate change fueled El Nino really kicks in.

IMG_0559All the roads out of Eureka were closed except for one and that one was a parking lot most of the time. Semi tractors on curvy and hilly two lane roads are not a good combination. Many subdivisions in the area have been isolated for a couple days now. The river crested around 6 last night so water levels, and media coverage, are quickly receding and moving downriver. We are looking forward to returning to some type of normalcy, and increased urgency for action on climate change, in the New Year.

If you want to help the best thing to do is to demand increased action on climate change from your political leaders.

We will need a price on carbon (see Citizen’s Climate Lobby), increased investment in energy efficiency, renewables and nuclear, and adaptation plans for the climate changes that are unavoidable. The American Red Cross is doing great work in helping people get through these disasters. I’m sure they could use your support.



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The year in stoats: 2015 [Stoat]

A follow up to the brilliantly successful the year in stoats: 2014. There can be no doubt about the picture of the year:

stoat

If you’re looking for a review of the climate-type events of the year then something like ATTP’s will be of use. This is one post per month from me, chosen without specific criteria. There was more science than I expected in the past year, but the march of politics continues inexorably.

posts

* Jan: Greg Craven’s viral climate ‘decision grid’ video
* Feb: Stories from the history of science: the discovery of the stratosphere; although the knockabout comedy with Willie Soon was tempting. No-one cared much when Pachi left.
* Mar: Stoat-tastic of course.
* Apr: Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity. The Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Humanity? (reprised in June as Laudato Si versus the Ecomodernists and again).

DSC_5070

* May: Agricultural land value as a percentage of GDP
* Jun: no review of 2015 would be complete without something about the Death of the pause, a somewhat shameful episode in the history of climatology, distinguished by short-termism, panic, and grubby chasing of cheap papers in Nature.
* Jul: Greek PM drops trousers again; see-also yield curves
* Aug: Me on P. Thorne on Hansen et al.; see-also Hansen et al.: RIP or maybe not

* Sep: Episode IV: The Evil Empire strikes back: Exxon, part n; see-also Peabody and Exxon and carbon tax.
Oct: Force F from outer space
Nov: The UK should not bomb Syria
Dec: Paris Pow Wow Heap Good

2015-08-23 08.19.31

Refs

* 2014
* 2013
* 2012
* 2010
* 2009



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1UifN7y

A follow up to the brilliantly successful the year in stoats: 2014. There can be no doubt about the picture of the year:

stoat

If you’re looking for a review of the climate-type events of the year then something like ATTP’s will be of use. This is one post per month from me, chosen without specific criteria. There was more science than I expected in the past year, but the march of politics continues inexorably.

posts

* Jan: Greg Craven’s viral climate ‘decision grid’ video
* Feb: Stories from the history of science: the discovery of the stratosphere; although the knockabout comedy with Willie Soon was tempting. No-one cared much when Pachi left.
* Mar: Stoat-tastic of course.
* Apr: Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity. The Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Humanity? (reprised in June as Laudato Si versus the Ecomodernists and again).

DSC_5070

* May: Agricultural land value as a percentage of GDP
* Jun: no review of 2015 would be complete without something about the Death of the pause, a somewhat shameful episode in the history of climatology, distinguished by short-termism, panic, and grubby chasing of cheap papers in Nature.
* Jul: Greek PM drops trousers again; see-also yield curves
* Aug: Me on P. Thorne on Hansen et al.; see-also Hansen et al.: RIP or maybe not

* Sep: Episode IV: The Evil Empire strikes back: Exxon, part n; see-also Peabody and Exxon and carbon tax.
Oct: Force F from outer space
Nov: The UK should not bomb Syria
Dec: Paris Pow Wow Heap Good

2015-08-23 08.19.31

Refs

* 2014
* 2013
* 2012
* 2010
* 2009



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BERGMAN. [Pharyngula]

Over on Twitter, I was startled by the assertion that many scientists convert from evolution to creationism, convinced by the evidence.

What was startling about it was that I’m getting used to mainly hearing from atheists calling me a mangina or such on that medium, so it was a break from the usual. On a lark I took a look at the video.

It’s Jerry Bergman. I’ve debated that loon.

How anyone can be convinced by that babbling incompetent is a mystery — I guess he just tells them what they want to hear.

He has written a “book”, he says, titled Darwin Skeptics: A Select List of Science Academics, Scientists, and Scholars Who are Skeptical of Darwinism. It is what it says it is, a list of people with advanced degrees who are some form of creationist. There are 3000 names on it. I browsed it briefly before sending it off to the Science Inquisition (I lie — there is no science inquisition, and no one really gives a damn what nonsense you believe, as long as it doesn’t poison your teaching or research) and was unimpressed. Most of the people on it are not biologists, and most of those who are are antiquated emeritus professors. You will find cranks in every field of endeavor, and you quickly learn to ignore the noise and drill down to the substance.

He also says something interesting, and I even agreed with Bergman, briefly, which says that you’ll always find something. He quotes an Ernst Mayr article.

First, Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations. The theory of evolution by natural selection explains the adaptedness and diversity of the world solely materialistically. It no longer requires God as creator or designer (although one is certainly still free to believe in God even if one accepts evolution). Darwin pointed out that creation, as described in the Bible and the origin accounts of other cultures, was contradicted by almost any aspect of the natural world. Every aspect of the “wonderful design” so admired by the natural theologians could be explained by natural selection. (A closer look also reveals that design is often not so wonderful—see “Evolution and the Origins of Disease,” by Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams; Scientific American, November 1998.) Eliminating God from science made room for strictly scientific explanations of all natural phenomena; it gave rise to positivism; it produced a powerful intellectual and spiritual revolution, the effects of which have lasted to this day.

I don’t think that’s at all true — we don’t exclude explanations a priori. I’m reminded of a famous Isaac Asimov quote: “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’ but ‘That’s funny…'” We’re always on the lookout for odd result that doesn’t fit our expectations, and when we get one, we’re going to take the whole system apart looking for an explanation. The thing is that “god” is not a particularly useful hypothesis, and it’s always going to be down near the bottom of any list of explanations, and in particular, the lack of any defined characters of this “god” being makes it awfully hard to test.

Remember the “neutrinos travel faster than light” anomaly? That was a good example. Nobody expected that neutrinos will travel faster than light, but they didn’t just reject results that suggested they did — they published them. Then they took everything apart trying to figure out what was going on, and eventually discovered an equipment error. “Faulty synchronization” turned out to be a more productive hypothesis than “God did it,” and so far that latter hypothesis has been a useless dud on every occasion it comes up. It’s not that scientists have a prior commitment to rejecting religious hypotheses, but that the theologians have given us such crappy definitions of their gods’ actions that we can’t evaluate them.

So it’s your fault, Jerry Bergman. Also, Mayr is often annoyingly wrong.

But my favorite part of the video starts at about 20 minutes and 20 seconds in. That’s where Bergman announces that everything, except subatomic particles, is irreducibly complex, and then spends the rest of the video explaining his brilliant idea that carbon is an example of an irreducibly complex molecule. He doesn’t even understand the concept he’s talking about!

Here’s Behe’s definition of the phrase:

An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.

Notice that he’s talking about “evolutionary pathways” and selected vs. unselected steps. Carbon was not produced by an evolutionary pathway, and every step in the process of nucleosynthesis (the reactions in stars that produce heavier atoms from hydrogen and helium) was unselected. Irreducible complexity simply doesn’t apply.

It also destroys the utility of the idea to creationists. They’re out to baffle people with elaborate analyses of molecular machines, remember; it’s just not as bewildering to lay people if you just point at an enzyme and say, Well, it’s got carbon in it, therefore god made it. Oooh, look, nitrogen. Well that does it — it’s just too complex for my mind to grasp.

What you need for the creationist concept of irreducible complexity is something complex, first of all; then it needs to be a collection of interacting parts, like a flagellum or a blood clotting pathway; and finally you need to be able to point to one piece of that complexity and say that you can’t imagine how it got there, and the whole thing falls apart if it’s not there. Carbon doesn’t fit that paradigm.

Where IC fails is in that word “selected”. Selection is important in generating functionality, but most of the features in any pathway will have arisen by chance processes — that is, they were initially unselected — and some of them will be shaped by selection into greater functionality. There will also be attributes that slip through the sieve of natural selection but do have functions. There is such a thing as constructive neutral evolution, and simple pathways tend to become more complex by the action of Muller’s Ratchet. Behe’s hypothesis can only be made in the complete absence of knowledge about how evolution actually works, relying on little more than a folk idea about how evolution operates only by natural selection. (Mayr also seemed to share that vision of evolutionary mechanisms, unfortunately.)

I’ve dealt with this bogus concept of irreducible complexity before, and I kind of expect I’ll have to do it off and on again until the day I drop dead.

At least I’m never going to share a stage with Jerry Bergman again. That guy is total fruit loops.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1mllur0

Over on Twitter, I was startled by the assertion that many scientists convert from evolution to creationism, convinced by the evidence.

What was startling about it was that I’m getting used to mainly hearing from atheists calling me a mangina or such on that medium, so it was a break from the usual. On a lark I took a look at the video.

It’s Jerry Bergman. I’ve debated that loon.

How anyone can be convinced by that babbling incompetent is a mystery — I guess he just tells them what they want to hear.

He has written a “book”, he says, titled Darwin Skeptics: A Select List of Science Academics, Scientists, and Scholars Who are Skeptical of Darwinism. It is what it says it is, a list of people with advanced degrees who are some form of creationist. There are 3000 names on it. I browsed it briefly before sending it off to the Science Inquisition (I lie — there is no science inquisition, and no one really gives a damn what nonsense you believe, as long as it doesn’t poison your teaching or research) and was unimpressed. Most of the people on it are not biologists, and most of those who are are antiquated emeritus professors. You will find cranks in every field of endeavor, and you quickly learn to ignore the noise and drill down to the substance.

He also says something interesting, and I even agreed with Bergman, briefly, which says that you’ll always find something. He quotes an Ernst Mayr article.

First, Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations. The theory of evolution by natural selection explains the adaptedness and diversity of the world solely materialistically. It no longer requires God as creator or designer (although one is certainly still free to believe in God even if one accepts evolution). Darwin pointed out that creation, as described in the Bible and the origin accounts of other cultures, was contradicted by almost any aspect of the natural world. Every aspect of the “wonderful design” so admired by the natural theologians could be explained by natural selection. (A closer look also reveals that design is often not so wonderful—see “Evolution and the Origins of Disease,” by Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams; Scientific American, November 1998.) Eliminating God from science made room for strictly scientific explanations of all natural phenomena; it gave rise to positivism; it produced a powerful intellectual and spiritual revolution, the effects of which have lasted to this day.

I don’t think that’s at all true — we don’t exclude explanations a priori. I’m reminded of a famous Isaac Asimov quote: “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’ but ‘That’s funny…'” We’re always on the lookout for odd result that doesn’t fit our expectations, and when we get one, we’re going to take the whole system apart looking for an explanation. The thing is that “god” is not a particularly useful hypothesis, and it’s always going to be down near the bottom of any list of explanations, and in particular, the lack of any defined characters of this “god” being makes it awfully hard to test.

Remember the “neutrinos travel faster than light” anomaly? That was a good example. Nobody expected that neutrinos will travel faster than light, but they didn’t just reject results that suggested they did — they published them. Then they took everything apart trying to figure out what was going on, and eventually discovered an equipment error. “Faulty synchronization” turned out to be a more productive hypothesis than “God did it,” and so far that latter hypothesis has been a useless dud on every occasion it comes up. It’s not that scientists have a prior commitment to rejecting religious hypotheses, but that the theologians have given us such crappy definitions of their gods’ actions that we can’t evaluate them.

So it’s your fault, Jerry Bergman. Also, Mayr is often annoyingly wrong.

But my favorite part of the video starts at about 20 minutes and 20 seconds in. That’s where Bergman announces that everything, except subatomic particles, is irreducibly complex, and then spends the rest of the video explaining his brilliant idea that carbon is an example of an irreducibly complex molecule. He doesn’t even understand the concept he’s talking about!

Here’s Behe’s definition of the phrase:

An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.

Notice that he’s talking about “evolutionary pathways” and selected vs. unselected steps. Carbon was not produced by an evolutionary pathway, and every step in the process of nucleosynthesis (the reactions in stars that produce heavier atoms from hydrogen and helium) was unselected. Irreducible complexity simply doesn’t apply.

It also destroys the utility of the idea to creationists. They’re out to baffle people with elaborate analyses of molecular machines, remember; it’s just not as bewildering to lay people if you just point at an enzyme and say, Well, it’s got carbon in it, therefore god made it. Oooh, look, nitrogen. Well that does it — it’s just too complex for my mind to grasp.

What you need for the creationist concept of irreducible complexity is something complex, first of all; then it needs to be a collection of interacting parts, like a flagellum or a blood clotting pathway; and finally you need to be able to point to one piece of that complexity and say that you can’t imagine how it got there, and the whole thing falls apart if it’s not there. Carbon doesn’t fit that paradigm.

Where IC fails is in that word “selected”. Selection is important in generating functionality, but most of the features in any pathway will have arisen by chance processes — that is, they were initially unselected — and some of them will be shaped by selection into greater functionality. There will also be attributes that slip through the sieve of natural selection but do have functions. There is such a thing as constructive neutral evolution, and simple pathways tend to become more complex by the action of Muller’s Ratchet. Behe’s hypothesis can only be made in the complete absence of knowledge about how evolution actually works, relying on little more than a folk idea about how evolution operates only by natural selection. (Mayr also seemed to share that vision of evolutionary mechanisms, unfortunately.)

I’ve dealt with this bogus concept of irreducible complexity before, and I kind of expect I’ll have to do it off and on again until the day I drop dead.

At least I’m never going to share a stage with Jerry Bergman again. That guy is total fruit loops.



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Out with the old year, in with the new…with Insolence [Respectful Insolence]

As 2015 draws to a close today, all I can think is: Another year in the can. Since my family is here, and it’s a holiday, I’m going to keep this one brief and wish everyone a Happy New Year.

In addition, I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen in 2016. Who could have predicted that last year would begin with a measles outbreak centered at Disneyland that would end up inspiring a law in California that I never would have thought possible, namely SB 277, which eliminates nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. Who could have predicted that the antivaccine movement, in particular Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., would get all chummy with the Nation of Islam? Knowing that predictions are a fool’s errand, I still can’t resist making a few before I retire to my parents’ house to see sisters and my nephews. So here goes. Most predictions will be painfully obvious; some not. In 2016, I predict:

  1. As the 2016-2017 school year approaches, which is the first year nonmedical exemptions will be banned, the antivaccine movement in California will get even crazier. (I know, I know. This is obvious, but I thought I’d start with low hanging fruit.)
  2. Stanislaw Burzynski will slither away from justice yet again. (I really hope I’m mistaken about this one, but fear that I am not.)
  3. Robert O. Young will also slither away from justice. (Again, I hope I’m wrong, but I’m in a pessimistic mood.)
  4. There will be more measles and pertussis outbreaks, thanks to antivaccine loons. (Yes, this is a no-brainer.)
  5. I will be depressed in May because, due to a conflict with my real job, I will not be able to speak at the Science-Based Medicine day of NECSS.
  6. We will finally see the documents that the “CDC whistleblower” William Thompson gave to Rep. Bill Posey and that Ben Swann currently has. There will be no evidence in them that the CDC covered up a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in African-American boys, but antivaccine loons will do their best to spin it that way. (Some readers know that I’m cheating a bit on this one.)
  7. The sham that is right-to-try will spread to most of the remaining states that haven’t passed it yet.
  8. More academic medical centers will embrace quackademic medicine.
  9. Finally, because of all these pessimistic predictions, there will be much Insolence in 2016.

Oh, and maybe I’ll have to attend one of these Michigan Psychic Fairs. They’re all over southeast Michigan, a couple of locations pretty close to where I live.

What are your predictions, my minions?



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1R1rVw0

As 2015 draws to a close today, all I can think is: Another year in the can. Since my family is here, and it’s a holiday, I’m going to keep this one brief and wish everyone a Happy New Year.

In addition, I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen in 2016. Who could have predicted that last year would begin with a measles outbreak centered at Disneyland that would end up inspiring a law in California that I never would have thought possible, namely SB 277, which eliminates nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. Who could have predicted that the antivaccine movement, in particular Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., would get all chummy with the Nation of Islam? Knowing that predictions are a fool’s errand, I still can’t resist making a few before I retire to my parents’ house to see sisters and my nephews. So here goes. Most predictions will be painfully obvious; some not. In 2016, I predict:

  1. As the 2016-2017 school year approaches, which is the first year nonmedical exemptions will be banned, the antivaccine movement in California will get even crazier. (I know, I know. This is obvious, but I thought I’d start with low hanging fruit.)
  2. Stanislaw Burzynski will slither away from justice yet again. (I really hope I’m mistaken about this one, but fear that I am not.)
  3. Robert O. Young will also slither away from justice. (Again, I hope I’m wrong, but I’m in a pessimistic mood.)
  4. There will be more measles and pertussis outbreaks, thanks to antivaccine loons. (Yes, this is a no-brainer.)
  5. I will be depressed in May because, due to a conflict with my real job, I will not be able to speak at the Science-Based Medicine day of NECSS.
  6. We will finally see the documents that the “CDC whistleblower” William Thompson gave to Rep. Bill Posey and that Ben Swann currently has. There will be no evidence in them that the CDC covered up a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in African-American boys, but antivaccine loons will do their best to spin it that way. (Some readers know that I’m cheating a bit on this one.)
  7. The sham that is right-to-try will spread to most of the remaining states that haven’t passed it yet.
  8. More academic medical centers will embrace quackademic medicine.
  9. Finally, because of all these pessimistic predictions, there will be much Insolence in 2016.

Oh, and maybe I’ll have to attend one of these Michigan Psychic Fairs. They’re all over southeast Michigan, a couple of locations pretty close to where I live.

What are your predictions, my minions?



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Donald Rasmussen: Coal miners’ physician, humble man [The Pump Handle]

During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging.  We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on July 27, 2015:

by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH

The occupational health community, coal miners, their families and labor advocates are mourning the loss of physician Donald Rasmussen, 87.

For more than 50 years, he diagnosed and treated coal miners with work-related lung disease, first at the then Miners Memorial Hospital in Beckley, WV and later at his own black lung clinic. A lengthy story by John Blankenship in Beckley’s Register-Herald written two years ago profiledDr. Rasmussen’s career.

“ In 1962, a young doctor from Manassa, Colorado, saw a help wanted advertisement in a medical journal needing doctors in Beckley at the then Miners Memorial Hospital. ‘I was looking for a place to set up practice after getting out of the Army,’ Rasmussen recalled. ‘I had never been to West Virginia and was a little skeptical about the move.’ But when the doctor arrived in Beckley he was impressed with what he saw. ‘The scenic beauty of the area, the wonderful people who lived here and the staff and the work going on at the Miners hospital were simply amazing.’”

“Rasmussen began working with coal miners, which would become his life’s mission. ‘Before I came here, I really had no exposure or knowledge about coal miner’s lung disease, known today as black lung,’ he said. Rasmussen says he began to see many miners who experienced shortness of breath and other trouble with their lungs and breathing. ‘I was asked to evaluate some of the miners.’”

“…For coal miners and their families, Rasmussen became known as the ‘doctor with a heart.’ But Rasmussen said he was just doing his job. “I wasn’t trying to take one side over another,” he explained. ‘But I saw a lot of injustice being done to coal miners and their families.’”

Evan Smith with the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center writes:

“There is no single source that can catch the breadth of his work, but any account of the black lung movement and the current state of the disease must include his name. In the early days of the black lung movement, Dr. Rasmussen was one of the key players in the group called Physicians for the Miners’ Health and Safety that provided medical support for miners’ experiences with black lung—a disease that most of the medical community refused to acknowledge at the time.

Dr. Rasmussen’s evidence-based approach and detailed research helped to prove that coal-mine dust causes breathing problems that may not show up on x-ray and may not show up without quality exercise testing. Dr. Rasmussen’s advocacy contributed to the passage of the landmark 1969 Coal Act which set the first federal limits on miners’ exposure to coal-mine dust and created the federal black lung benefits system for miners disabled by the disease.

The Charleston (WV) Gazette’s Paul J. Nyden explains Rasmussen’s role in the larger fight for worker health and safety:

“Rasmussen, Dr. Isadore E. Buff and Dr. Hawey Wells helped spark growing concerns about black lung disease throughout the coalfields, when they spoke in union halls, schools and churches. The black lung issue came to statewide and national attention after a Nov. 20, 1968, methane and coal dust explosion killed 78 miners in Consolidation Coal’s No. 9 Mine between Mannington and Fairmont in Marion County. “

“In the wake of that tragedy, miners at the East Gulf Mine near Rhodell walked out on strike on Feb. 18, 1969, protesting the failure of the state Legislature to pass black lung legislation. By March 5, when the state Senate began debating the bill, more than 40,000 of the state’s 43,000 miners were on strike. Rasmussen, Buff and Wells played a central role in backing the strike and pressuring the state Legislature to pass its first black lung law. They helped counter many medical professionals who continued to deny that black lung was a serious health threat. After then-Gov. Arch Moore signed the bill on March 11, miners returned to work the next morning. “

Rasmussen’s early papers include “Pulmonary impairment in southern West Virginia coal miners” (Am Rev Respir Dis (1968)), “Respiratory function in southern Appalachian coal miners (Am Rev Respir Dis (1971)), “Patterns of physiological impairment in coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” (Ann N Y Acad Sci (1972)), and “Impairment of oxygen transfer in dyspneic, nonsmoking soft coal miners (J Occup Med (1971)).

Physicians who worked with Dr. Rasmussen are offering their own tributes. Karen Mulloy, an occupational medicine physician at Case Western Reserve University told me:

“He was an exceptional human being. I had the privilege of working for him for 5 years from 1970 to
1975. It was my first job in the medical field, as a cardio-pulmonary technician, testing the miners in his lab for Black Lung. His compassion for the miners and his righteous anger over the inequities that faced them and the coal companies refusal to make the coal mines safe was more than inspiring. His example of how a doctor of the people could be was the reason I went to medical school and has been the guiding principle of my life.”

Robert Cohen, MD, an expert in pulmonary medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told me:

“I first met Don in 1994 at a Black Lung clinics conference and have been in touch with him, advised by him, and mentored by him ever since. He was a gentle, soft spoken man with a huge heart, who worked tirelessly to merge science and clinical medicine with his passion for social justice, and in this case, to give coal miners a fair shake in the battle to be compensated for their occupational illness.”

“His early work on the exercise physiology of black lung disease lead to the inclusion of exercise testing with arterial blood gases in the black lung disability evaluation regulations. “

J. Davitt McAteer, one of the nation’s leading experts on miners’ health and safety, added this:

“When the definitive history of the black lung issue is written, Dr. Donald Rasmussen will be recognized as the central figure. By bringing scientific evidence to the debate, he created the momentum which resulted in the passage of state and federal laws to protect miners’ health.”

McAteer attended Dr. Rasmussen’s memorial service and sent along a copy of a eulogy. It was offered by Craig Robinson who was a VISTA volunteer in the 1960’s when he first met Dr. Rasmussen. Robinson remarks on a recent meeting of Rasmussen and former ABC anchor Ted Koppel.

Joe Main, the assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, and former H&S director for the United Mine Workers issued a statement saying:

“The coal mining community has lost one of its most passionate advocates. …Dr. Rasmussen was a humble man, and he would say he was merely a physician performing his duty to his patients. But for so many of us who shared his vision, he was a hero. He will be greatly missed by miners and their families across the country whose lives he touched.”

Dr. Rasmussen passed away on July 23. He continued to see patients in his clinic until May 2015 when he suffered a fall. His family says “he’s now moved his offices upstairs.”

[Update (8/3/15): The New York Times’ published on 8/2/15 an obituary about Dr. Rasmussenentitled “Crusader for Coal Miners’ Health.”]



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During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging.  We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on July 27, 2015:

by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH

The occupational health community, coal miners, their families and labor advocates are mourning the loss of physician Donald Rasmussen, 87.

For more than 50 years, he diagnosed and treated coal miners with work-related lung disease, first at the then Miners Memorial Hospital in Beckley, WV and later at his own black lung clinic. A lengthy story by John Blankenship in Beckley’s Register-Herald written two years ago profiledDr. Rasmussen’s career.

“ In 1962, a young doctor from Manassa, Colorado, saw a help wanted advertisement in a medical journal needing doctors in Beckley at the then Miners Memorial Hospital. ‘I was looking for a place to set up practice after getting out of the Army,’ Rasmussen recalled. ‘I had never been to West Virginia and was a little skeptical about the move.’ But when the doctor arrived in Beckley he was impressed with what he saw. ‘The scenic beauty of the area, the wonderful people who lived here and the staff and the work going on at the Miners hospital were simply amazing.’”

“Rasmussen began working with coal miners, which would become his life’s mission. ‘Before I came here, I really had no exposure or knowledge about coal miner’s lung disease, known today as black lung,’ he said. Rasmussen says he began to see many miners who experienced shortness of breath and other trouble with their lungs and breathing. ‘I was asked to evaluate some of the miners.’”

“…For coal miners and their families, Rasmussen became known as the ‘doctor with a heart.’ But Rasmussen said he was just doing his job. “I wasn’t trying to take one side over another,” he explained. ‘But I saw a lot of injustice being done to coal miners and their families.’”

Evan Smith with the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center writes:

“There is no single source that can catch the breadth of his work, but any account of the black lung movement and the current state of the disease must include his name. In the early days of the black lung movement, Dr. Rasmussen was one of the key players in the group called Physicians for the Miners’ Health and Safety that provided medical support for miners’ experiences with black lung—a disease that most of the medical community refused to acknowledge at the time.

Dr. Rasmussen’s evidence-based approach and detailed research helped to prove that coal-mine dust causes breathing problems that may not show up on x-ray and may not show up without quality exercise testing. Dr. Rasmussen’s advocacy contributed to the passage of the landmark 1969 Coal Act which set the first federal limits on miners’ exposure to coal-mine dust and created the federal black lung benefits system for miners disabled by the disease.

The Charleston (WV) Gazette’s Paul J. Nyden explains Rasmussen’s role in the larger fight for worker health and safety:

“Rasmussen, Dr. Isadore E. Buff and Dr. Hawey Wells helped spark growing concerns about black lung disease throughout the coalfields, when they spoke in union halls, schools and churches. The black lung issue came to statewide and national attention after a Nov. 20, 1968, methane and coal dust explosion killed 78 miners in Consolidation Coal’s No. 9 Mine between Mannington and Fairmont in Marion County. “

“In the wake of that tragedy, miners at the East Gulf Mine near Rhodell walked out on strike on Feb. 18, 1969, protesting the failure of the state Legislature to pass black lung legislation. By March 5, when the state Senate began debating the bill, more than 40,000 of the state’s 43,000 miners were on strike. Rasmussen, Buff and Wells played a central role in backing the strike and pressuring the state Legislature to pass its first black lung law. They helped counter many medical professionals who continued to deny that black lung was a serious health threat. After then-Gov. Arch Moore signed the bill on March 11, miners returned to work the next morning. “

Rasmussen’s early papers include “Pulmonary impairment in southern West Virginia coal miners” (Am Rev Respir Dis (1968)), “Respiratory function in southern Appalachian coal miners (Am Rev Respir Dis (1971)), “Patterns of physiological impairment in coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” (Ann N Y Acad Sci (1972)), and “Impairment of oxygen transfer in dyspneic, nonsmoking soft coal miners (J Occup Med (1971)).

Physicians who worked with Dr. Rasmussen are offering their own tributes. Karen Mulloy, an occupational medicine physician at Case Western Reserve University told me:

“He was an exceptional human being. I had the privilege of working for him for 5 years from 1970 to
1975. It was my first job in the medical field, as a cardio-pulmonary technician, testing the miners in his lab for Black Lung. His compassion for the miners and his righteous anger over the inequities that faced them and the coal companies refusal to make the coal mines safe was more than inspiring. His example of how a doctor of the people could be was the reason I went to medical school and has been the guiding principle of my life.”

Robert Cohen, MD, an expert in pulmonary medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told me:

“I first met Don in 1994 at a Black Lung clinics conference and have been in touch with him, advised by him, and mentored by him ever since. He was a gentle, soft spoken man with a huge heart, who worked tirelessly to merge science and clinical medicine with his passion for social justice, and in this case, to give coal miners a fair shake in the battle to be compensated for their occupational illness.”

“His early work on the exercise physiology of black lung disease lead to the inclusion of exercise testing with arterial blood gases in the black lung disability evaluation regulations. “

J. Davitt McAteer, one of the nation’s leading experts on miners’ health and safety, added this:

“When the definitive history of the black lung issue is written, Dr. Donald Rasmussen will be recognized as the central figure. By bringing scientific evidence to the debate, he created the momentum which resulted in the passage of state and federal laws to protect miners’ health.”

McAteer attended Dr. Rasmussen’s memorial service and sent along a copy of a eulogy. It was offered by Craig Robinson who was a VISTA volunteer in the 1960’s when he first met Dr. Rasmussen. Robinson remarks on a recent meeting of Rasmussen and former ABC anchor Ted Koppel.

Joe Main, the assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, and former H&S director for the United Mine Workers issued a statement saying:

“The coal mining community has lost one of its most passionate advocates. …Dr. Rasmussen was a humble man, and he would say he was merely a physician performing his duty to his patients. But for so many of us who shared his vision, he was a hero. He will be greatly missed by miners and their families across the country whose lives he touched.”

Dr. Rasmussen passed away on July 23. He continued to see patients in his clinic until May 2015 when he suffered a fall. His family says “he’s now moved his offices upstairs.”

[Update (8/3/15): The New York Times’ published on 8/2/15 an obituary about Dr. Rasmussenentitled “Crusader for Coal Miners’ Health.”]



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Protecting waterways, one lasagna pan at a time

by Jennie Saxe

Safer choiceHow can a mundane task, like washing dishes, protect local waterways like the Delaware River? It’s simple! When you roll up your sleeves to scrub that lasagna pan, reach for a dish soap with EPA’s Safer Choice label. Formerly known as EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE) program, the Safer Choice label indicates products that have safer chemical ingredients and meet quality and performance standards.

Products with the Safer Choice label have been reviewed to make sure they use chemicals from EPA’s Safer Chemicals Ingredients List that do their specific job (for example, as solvents – needed to dissolve substances – or antimicrobials that limit or prevent bacterial growth) and are safer for aquatic life after they go down the drain. Safer Choice labeled products, like laundry detergent and dish soap, are reviewed to make sure that their ingredients and the break-down products (or “degradates” for the chemists out there) are not carcinogens, toxics, or persistent in the environment.

If the products are “greener” when they go down the drain, they’ll have less of an impact on aquatic life if they do happen to make their way through the wastewater treatment process. There is even a subset of Safer Choice products that are labeled for use in situations, such as cleaning your boat, where they could be directly released to the environment.

Check out the list of products that have received the Safer Choice label, and look for them at a store near you!

 

About the author: Dr. Jennie Saxe joined EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region in 2003 and works in the Water Protection Division on sustainability programs.

 



from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1TrVjJw

by Jennie Saxe

Safer choiceHow can a mundane task, like washing dishes, protect local waterways like the Delaware River? It’s simple! When you roll up your sleeves to scrub that lasagna pan, reach for a dish soap with EPA’s Safer Choice label. Formerly known as EPA’s Design for the Environment (DfE) program, the Safer Choice label indicates products that have safer chemical ingredients and meet quality and performance standards.

Products with the Safer Choice label have been reviewed to make sure they use chemicals from EPA’s Safer Chemicals Ingredients List that do their specific job (for example, as solvents – needed to dissolve substances – or antimicrobials that limit or prevent bacterial growth) and are safer for aquatic life after they go down the drain. Safer Choice labeled products, like laundry detergent and dish soap, are reviewed to make sure that their ingredients and the break-down products (or “degradates” for the chemists out there) are not carcinogens, toxics, or persistent in the environment.

If the products are “greener” when they go down the drain, they’ll have less of an impact on aquatic life if they do happen to make their way through the wastewater treatment process. There is even a subset of Safer Choice products that are labeled for use in situations, such as cleaning your boat, where they could be directly released to the environment.

Check out the list of products that have received the Safer Choice label, and look for them at a store near you!

 

About the author: Dr. Jennie Saxe joined EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region in 2003 and works in the Water Protection Division on sustainability programs.

 



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Are the December solstice and January perihelion related?

Earth comes closest to the sun on January 2, 2016 at around 23 UTC. This event is called Earth’s perihelion. Meanwhile, the December solstice took place on December 22. At perihelion in January, Earth is about 147 million kilometers from the sun, in contrast to about 152 million kilometers in July. At the solstice, Earth’s Southern Hemisphere is tilted most toward the sun; it’s the height of summer in that hemisphere. Are the December solstice and January perihelion related? No. It’s just a coincidence that they come so close together.

The date of Earth’s perihelion drifts as the centuries pass. These two astronomical events are separated by about two weeks for us. But they were closer a few centuries ago – and in fact happened at the same time in 1246 AD.

As the centuries continue to pass, these events will drift even farther apart. On the average, one revolution of the Earth relative to perihelion is about 25 minutes longer than one revolution relative to the December solstice. Perihelion advances one full calendar date every 60 or so years.

Earth’s perihelion – or closest point to the sun – will happen at the same time as the March equinox in about 6000 AD.

Earth and sun via ISS Expedition 13 / NASA.

Earth and sun via ISS Expedition 13 / NASA.

Bottom line: December solstice 2015 was December 22. Earth is closest to the sun in 2016 on January 2. Despite their nearness in time, these two events are not related.

Earth closest to the sun on January 2, 2016

Everything you need to know: December solstice

Why does the New Year begin on January 1?



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1BsSUVq

Earth comes closest to the sun on January 2, 2016 at around 23 UTC. This event is called Earth’s perihelion. Meanwhile, the December solstice took place on December 22. At perihelion in January, Earth is about 147 million kilometers from the sun, in contrast to about 152 million kilometers in July. At the solstice, Earth’s Southern Hemisphere is tilted most toward the sun; it’s the height of summer in that hemisphere. Are the December solstice and January perihelion related? No. It’s just a coincidence that they come so close together.

The date of Earth’s perihelion drifts as the centuries pass. These two astronomical events are separated by about two weeks for us. But they were closer a few centuries ago – and in fact happened at the same time in 1246 AD.

As the centuries continue to pass, these events will drift even farther apart. On the average, one revolution of the Earth relative to perihelion is about 25 minutes longer than one revolution relative to the December solstice. Perihelion advances one full calendar date every 60 or so years.

Earth’s perihelion – or closest point to the sun – will happen at the same time as the March equinox in about 6000 AD.

Earth and sun via ISS Expedition 13 / NASA.

Earth and sun via ISS Expedition 13 / NASA.

Bottom line: December solstice 2015 was December 22. Earth is closest to the sun in 2016 on January 2. Despite their nearness in time, these two events are not related.

Earth closest to the sun on January 2, 2016

Everything you need to know: December solstice

Why does the New Year begin on January 1?



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1BsSUVq

Why does the new year begin on January 1?

Photo credit: Daniel Moile

The date of New Year’s Day seems so fundamental that it’s almost as though nature ordained it. But New Year’s Day is a civil event. Its date isn’t precisely fixed by any natural seasonal marker.

Our modern celebration of New Year’s Day stems from an ancient Roman custom, the feast of the Roman god Janus – god of doorways and beginnings. The name for the month of January also comes from Janus, who was depicted as having two faces. One face of Janus looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.

For us in the Northern Hemisphere, early January is a logical time for new beginnings. At the December solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, we had the shortest day of the year. By early January, our days are obviously lengthening again. This return of longer hours of daylight had a profound effect on cultures that were tied to agricultural cycles. It has an emotional effect on people even in cities today.

Everything you need to know: December solstice

The early calendar-makers didn’t know it, but today we know there is another bit of astronomical logic behind beginning the year on January 1. Earth is always closest to the sun in its yearly orbit around this time. This event is called Earth’s perihelion.

People didn’t always celebrate the new year on January 1. The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, circa 2000 B.C. That celebration – and many other ancient celebrations of the new year following it – were celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, around March 20. Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new year with the autumnal equinox around September 20. And the ancient Greeks celebrated on the winter solstice, around December 20.

By the Middle Ages, though, in many places the new year began in March. Around the 16th century, a movement developed to restore January 1 as New Year’s Day. In the New Style or Gregorian calendar, the New Year begins on the first of January.

Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Bottom line: There’s no astronomical reason to celebrate New Year’s Day on January 1. Instead, our modern New Year’s celebration stems from the ancient, two-faced, Roman god Janus – for whom the month of January is also named. One face of Janus looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1vdAyn3

Photo credit: Daniel Moile

The date of New Year’s Day seems so fundamental that it’s almost as though nature ordained it. But New Year’s Day is a civil event. Its date isn’t precisely fixed by any natural seasonal marker.

Our modern celebration of New Year’s Day stems from an ancient Roman custom, the feast of the Roman god Janus – god of doorways and beginnings. The name for the month of January also comes from Janus, who was depicted as having two faces. One face of Janus looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.

For us in the Northern Hemisphere, early January is a logical time for new beginnings. At the December solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, we had the shortest day of the year. By early January, our days are obviously lengthening again. This return of longer hours of daylight had a profound effect on cultures that were tied to agricultural cycles. It has an emotional effect on people even in cities today.

Everything you need to know: December solstice

The early calendar-makers didn’t know it, but today we know there is another bit of astronomical logic behind beginning the year on January 1. Earth is always closest to the sun in its yearly orbit around this time. This event is called Earth’s perihelion.

People didn’t always celebrate the new year on January 1. The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, circa 2000 B.C. That celebration – and many other ancient celebrations of the new year following it – were celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, around March 20. Meanwhile, the ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new year with the autumnal equinox around September 20. And the ancient Greeks celebrated on the winter solstice, around December 20.

By the Middle Ages, though, in many places the new year began in March. Around the 16th century, a movement developed to restore January 1 as New Year’s Day. In the New Style or Gregorian calendar, the New Year begins on the first of January.

Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Bottom line: There’s no astronomical reason to celebrate New Year’s Day on January 1. Instead, our modern New Year’s celebration stems from the ancient, two-faced, Roman god Janus – for whom the month of January is also named. One face of Janus looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1vdAyn3

Sirius midnight culmination New Years Eve

Tonight – December 31, 2015 – look up for the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major. This star is up in the evening every year at this time, and – from all parts of Earth (except those far-southern realms in continuous daylight now) – Sirius is easy to identify. December 31 is a special night, the end of a calendar year. And it’s a special night for Sirius, too. This star’s official midnight culmination – when it’s highest in the sky at midnight – comes only once every year. And tonight’s the night.

The New Year always begins with Sirius’ culmination at the midnight hour. It’s a fun sky event to watch for, if you happen to be outside at midnight on this night.

From the Northern Hemisphere … look toward the south, and you’ll easily notice Sirius shining there.

From the Southern Hemisphere … look overhead or high in the north.

This star is so bright that you might notice it twinkling fiercely, especially from northerly latitudes, where the star stays closer to the horizon.

You might even see it flashing different colors – just hints of colors from red to blue – like the celestial counterpart to an earthly diamond.

The three stars of Orion’s Belt always point to the sky’s brightest star, Sirius. This photo comes from EarthSky Facebook friend Susan Jensen in Odessa, Washington. Thank you, Susan!

By the way, by midnight, we mean the middle of the night, midway between sunset and sunrise.

The midnight culmination of Sirius by the clock may be off by as much as one-half hour or so, depending on how far east or west you live from the meridian that governs your time zone.

Transit (midnight culmination) times for Sirius in your sky

Bottom line: If you’re celebrating the New Year tonight, and you happen to gaze up at the sky, look for Sirius – and take a moment to celebrate the sky’s brightest star.

Donate: Your support means the world to us



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1B0cJDP

Tonight – December 31, 2015 – look up for the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major. This star is up in the evening every year at this time, and – from all parts of Earth (except those far-southern realms in continuous daylight now) – Sirius is easy to identify. December 31 is a special night, the end of a calendar year. And it’s a special night for Sirius, too. This star’s official midnight culmination – when it’s highest in the sky at midnight – comes only once every year. And tonight’s the night.

The New Year always begins with Sirius’ culmination at the midnight hour. It’s a fun sky event to watch for, if you happen to be outside at midnight on this night.

From the Northern Hemisphere … look toward the south, and you’ll easily notice Sirius shining there.

From the Southern Hemisphere … look overhead or high in the north.

This star is so bright that you might notice it twinkling fiercely, especially from northerly latitudes, where the star stays closer to the horizon.

You might even see it flashing different colors – just hints of colors from red to blue – like the celestial counterpart to an earthly diamond.

The three stars of Orion’s Belt always point to the sky’s brightest star, Sirius. This photo comes from EarthSky Facebook friend Susan Jensen in Odessa, Washington. Thank you, Susan!

By the way, by midnight, we mean the middle of the night, midway between sunset and sunrise.

The midnight culmination of Sirius by the clock may be off by as much as one-half hour or so, depending on how far east or west you live from the meridian that governs your time zone.

Transit (midnight culmination) times for Sirius in your sky

Bottom line: If you’re celebrating the New Year tonight, and you happen to gaze up at the sky, look for Sirius – and take a moment to celebrate the sky’s brightest star.

Donate: Your support means the world to us



from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1B0cJDP

Protein modeling and the Siamese cat [Discovering Biology in a Digital World]

By night all cats are gray”  – Miguel Cervantes in Don Quixote

 

I’ve always liked Siamese cats.   Students do, too.  “Why Siamese cats wear masks” is always a favorite story in genetics class.  So, when I opened my January copy of The Science Teacher, I was thrilled to see an article on Siamese cat colors and proteins AND molecular genetics (1).

In the article, the authors (Todd and Kenyon) provide some background information on the enzymatic activity of tyrosinase and compare it to the catechol oxidase that causes fruit to brown, especially apples.  Tyrosinase catalyzes the first step of a biochemical pathway where tyrosine is converted to dopaquinone and then to the dark colored substance, melanin.  Melanin is responsible for the brown color in the ears, paws, tail, and face of Siamese cats.

Melanin in Molecule World

Melanin in Molecule World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fun part of the story is that some versions of the tyrosinase gene have a mutation that makes this enzyme less stable at warmer temperatures.  In warmer areas of the cat’s body, less melanin is produced, giving the cat a lighter colored body.

I love the story of the coat coloring  and I think this activity has the potential to interest students.

I also like the approach that the authors take with discussing proteins and the associated phenotypes first before getting into DNA and the central dogma.  I use this same order in my bioinformatics class.

There are, however, a few things that I would change with this activity.

Too many hydroxyl groups

First, the article and the teacher guide have the structure of tyrosine wrong.  Tyrosine only has one hydroxyl group attached to the six-carbon ring, as shown below, not two hydroxyl groups as shown in the article and the teachers’ guide.

Tyrosinase reaction from Teachers' Guide. The extra hydroxyl group is marked.

Tyrosinase reaction from Teachers’ Guide. The extra hydroxyl group is marked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Space-filling models of Tyrosine and Dopaquinone downloaded from the NCBI’s PubChem database are shown below.

Tyrosine and dopaquinone

Tyrosine and dopaquinone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too many proteins in too short a time

Second, I think the authors include way too many different protein stories and different explanations for why a protein might be inactivated.  Todd and Kenyon have done quite a bit of work creating activities with several different proteins. But I think the plan to have students cover all eight proteins in six days would be too confusing for many students.  The activity has students read about or work with:  lactase, cellulase, tyrosinase, catechol oxidase, proteases, kinesin, galactosyl transferase, and tyrosine kinase, not to mention Gleevec and the way it interacts with the BCR-ABL fusion protein.  I teach a college bioinformatics course and even the best of my students would get confused by looking at eight different proteins without some kind of common thread.  The take home lesson that denaturation negatively impacts tyrosinase activity is easy to lose among all the unrelated activities.

Where are the 3D models?

My greatest disappointment though was that the article talked about having students look at 3D models and how students could look at molecules and see how they changed when they were denatured by heat or pH. I completely misinterpreted that description. If I were teaching this class, I would rather have students work first-hand with structure models instead the authors provide a link where students can watch a video on denaturation.

This is my bias, but I think an active learning approach, where students actually look at 3D protein and chemical models and identify chemical interactions, would be better in long run and better equip students for future learning. I think the common practice of hiding the biochemistry makes genetics much harder to understand and far less straightforward than it should be.

And, as it turns out there are 3D models of tyrosinase that students could use.  They’re from Bacillus megatherium, but that’s how biology works.  If an enzyme activity is beneficial, evolutionary processes tend to keep it around.

Using 3D Models to look at albino cats

No models exist from the Siamese cat protein with the brown ear point mutation, but it is possible to make 3D protein models that show the affect of a different mutation, in tyrosinase, that leads to albino cats. This mutation occurs when a cytosine is deleted at nucleotide 975, creating a frameshift (2).  To simulate the mutation’s effect, we can hide the amino acids that would be lost.  This model isn’t perfect because the shorter protein might fold somewhat differently, but this does provide a satisfying explanation for an inactive enzyme.

Here’s what to do:

  1. Open Molecule World on the iPad (*).
  2. Download 4P6R.
  3. Color the protein chains by molecule.
  4. Open the sequence viewer and touch the name of the last row to select it.  This row contains tyrosine, the substrate for the enzyme, and for each chain, two atoms of zinc.
  5. Change the coloring style to element.

Now, you can see the substrate bound in the active site.  Notice this protein has two identical subunits.  Each one is bound to tyrosine and zinc.

Tyrosinase with tyrosine and zinc in the active site.

Tyrosinase with tyrosine and zinc in the active site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may want to change the atom visibility to show all the atoms or just the core backbone, like I have here, to see how the tyrosine is positioned.

*Many of the things I describe here can be done in Cn3D, but it’s a bit more complicated.

 

Modeling the mutation’s affect

This next part is a little more complicated because I had to split the protein sequence into three parts to avoid introducing spaces.

  1. Carry out the following process in three steps. First, copy the sequence below.KYRVRKNVLHLTDTEKRDFVRTVLIKEKGIYDRYIAWHGAAGKFHTPPGSDRNA
  2. Touch the Selection button and paste the sequence below in the Select pattern window.
  3. Start the search.  The pasted sequence will be highlighted in the protein sequence.
  4. Copy the next part of the sequence (below).  Touch the Selection button again and search for this pattern as before.
    AHMSSAFLPWHREYLLRFERDQSINPEVTLPYWEWETDAQMQDPSQSQIWSADFMGGN
  5. Copy the next part of the sequence (below).  Touch the Selection button again and search for this pattern as before.

    GNPIKDFIVDTGPFAAGRWTTIDEQGNPSGGLKRNFGATKAPTLPTRDDVL

  6. When you’re done highlighting sequences, you’ll see each subunit has a region that appears brighter and a region in the center that appears more dim. The bright colored residues are incorporated into the protein before ribosomes encounter the frame shift mutation and a stop codon shortly afterwards. This portion of the protein can be produced in the albino cat.
  7. Look at the dim areas of each subunit.  These amino acids would be lost when the frameshift mutation is present.  Notice where the tyrosine is located.
Residues that would be lost because of the frameshift mutant are shown in gray.

Residues that would be lost because of the frameshift mutant are shown in gray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.  To make the mutations affect on the protein even more clear, open the Show/Hide button and choose “Hide unselected.”  The amino acid residues that would be lost because of the mutation disappear.

Residues that would be lost because of the frame shift mutation are hidden.

Residues that would be lost because of the frame shift mutation are hidden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, it’s really clear.  If the residues that bind tyrosine and modify it’s structure are gone, the enzyme is unable to function.  If we don’t have tyrosinase working to help make melanin, we get white cats.

 

References:

  1. Amber Todd and Lisa Kenyon, How do Siamese cats get their color? The Science Teacher. 2016;83(1):29-36
  2. Imes D, Geary L, Grahn R, Lyons L. Albinism in the domestic cat (Felis catus) is associated with a tyrosinase (TYR) mutation. Animal Genetics. 2006;37(2):175-178. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2052.2005.01409.x.


from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1mr5yCU

By night all cats are gray”  – Miguel Cervantes in Don Quixote

 

I’ve always liked Siamese cats.   Students do, too.  “Why Siamese cats wear masks” is always a favorite story in genetics class.  So, when I opened my January copy of The Science Teacher, I was thrilled to see an article on Siamese cat colors and proteins AND molecular genetics (1).

In the article, the authors (Todd and Kenyon) provide some background information on the enzymatic activity of tyrosinase and compare it to the catechol oxidase that causes fruit to brown, especially apples.  Tyrosinase catalyzes the first step of a biochemical pathway where tyrosine is converted to dopaquinone and then to the dark colored substance, melanin.  Melanin is responsible for the brown color in the ears, paws, tail, and face of Siamese cats.

Melanin in Molecule World

Melanin in Molecule World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fun part of the story is that some versions of the tyrosinase gene have a mutation that makes this enzyme less stable at warmer temperatures.  In warmer areas of the cat’s body, less melanin is produced, giving the cat a lighter colored body.

I love the story of the coat coloring  and I think this activity has the potential to interest students.

I also like the approach that the authors take with discussing proteins and the associated phenotypes first before getting into DNA and the central dogma.  I use this same order in my bioinformatics class.

There are, however, a few things that I would change with this activity.

Too many hydroxyl groups

First, the article and the teacher guide have the structure of tyrosine wrong.  Tyrosine only has one hydroxyl group attached to the six-carbon ring, as shown below, not two hydroxyl groups as shown in the article and the teachers’ guide.

Tyrosinase reaction from Teachers' Guide. The extra hydroxyl group is marked.

Tyrosinase reaction from Teachers’ Guide. The extra hydroxyl group is marked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Space-filling models of Tyrosine and Dopaquinone downloaded from the NCBI’s PubChem database are shown below.

Tyrosine and dopaquinone

Tyrosine and dopaquinone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too many proteins in too short a time

Second, I think the authors include way too many different protein stories and different explanations for why a protein might be inactivated.  Todd and Kenyon have done quite a bit of work creating activities with several different proteins. But I think the plan to have students cover all eight proteins in six days would be too confusing for many students.  The activity has students read about or work with:  lactase, cellulase, tyrosinase, catechol oxidase, proteases, kinesin, galactosyl transferase, and tyrosine kinase, not to mention Gleevec and the way it interacts with the BCR-ABL fusion protein.  I teach a college bioinformatics course and even the best of my students would get confused by looking at eight different proteins without some kind of common thread.  The take home lesson that denaturation negatively impacts tyrosinase activity is easy to lose among all the unrelated activities.

Where are the 3D models?

My greatest disappointment though was that the article talked about having students look at 3D models and how students could look at molecules and see how they changed when they were denatured by heat or pH. I completely misinterpreted that description. If I were teaching this class, I would rather have students work first-hand with structure models instead the authors provide a link where students can watch a video on denaturation.

This is my bias, but I think an active learning approach, where students actually look at 3D protein and chemical models and identify chemical interactions, would be better in long run and better equip students for future learning. I think the common practice of hiding the biochemistry makes genetics much harder to understand and far less straightforward than it should be.

And, as it turns out there are 3D models of tyrosinase that students could use.  They’re from Bacillus megatherium, but that’s how biology works.  If an enzyme activity is beneficial, evolutionary processes tend to keep it around.

Using 3D Models to look at albino cats

No models exist from the Siamese cat protein with the brown ear point mutation, but it is possible to make 3D protein models that show the affect of a different mutation, in tyrosinase, that leads to albino cats. This mutation occurs when a cytosine is deleted at nucleotide 975, creating a frameshift (2).  To simulate the mutation’s effect, we can hide the amino acids that would be lost.  This model isn’t perfect because the shorter protein might fold somewhat differently, but this does provide a satisfying explanation for an inactive enzyme.

Here’s what to do:

  1. Open Molecule World on the iPad (*).
  2. Download 4P6R.
  3. Color the protein chains by molecule.
  4. Open the sequence viewer and touch the name of the last row to select it.  This row contains tyrosine, the substrate for the enzyme, and for each chain, two atoms of zinc.
  5. Change the coloring style to element.

Now, you can see the substrate bound in the active site.  Notice this protein has two identical subunits.  Each one is bound to tyrosine and zinc.

Tyrosinase with tyrosine and zinc in the active site.

Tyrosinase with tyrosine and zinc in the active site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may want to change the atom visibility to show all the atoms or just the core backbone, like I have here, to see how the tyrosine is positioned.

*Many of the things I describe here can be done in Cn3D, but it’s a bit more complicated.

 

Modeling the mutation’s affect

This next part is a little more complicated because I had to split the protein sequence into three parts to avoid introducing spaces.

  1. Carry out the following process in three steps. First, copy the sequence below.KYRVRKNVLHLTDTEKRDFVRTVLIKEKGIYDRYIAWHGAAGKFHTPPGSDRNA
  2. Touch the Selection button and paste the sequence below in the Select pattern window.
  3. Start the search.  The pasted sequence will be highlighted in the protein sequence.
  4. Copy the next part of the sequence (below).  Touch the Selection button again and search for this pattern as before.
    AHMSSAFLPWHREYLLRFERDQSINPEVTLPYWEWETDAQMQDPSQSQIWSADFMGGN
  5. Copy the next part of the sequence (below).  Touch the Selection button again and search for this pattern as before.

    GNPIKDFIVDTGPFAAGRWTTIDEQGNPSGGLKRNFGATKAPTLPTRDDVL

  6. When you’re done highlighting sequences, you’ll see each subunit has a region that appears brighter and a region in the center that appears more dim. The bright colored residues are incorporated into the protein before ribosomes encounter the frame shift mutation and a stop codon shortly afterwards. This portion of the protein can be produced in the albino cat.
  7. Look at the dim areas of each subunit.  These amino acids would be lost when the frameshift mutation is present.  Notice where the tyrosine is located.
Residues that would be lost because of the frameshift mutant are shown in gray.

Residues that would be lost because of the frameshift mutant are shown in gray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.  To make the mutations affect on the protein even more clear, open the Show/Hide button and choose “Hide unselected.”  The amino acid residues that would be lost because of the mutation disappear.

Residues that would be lost because of the frame shift mutation are hidden.

Residues that would be lost because of the frame shift mutation are hidden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, it’s really clear.  If the residues that bind tyrosine and modify it’s structure are gone, the enzyme is unable to function.  If we don’t have tyrosinase working to help make melanin, we get white cats.

 

References:

  1. Amber Todd and Lisa Kenyon, How do Siamese cats get their color? The Science Teacher. 2016;83(1):29-36
  2. Imes D, Geary L, Grahn R, Lyons L. Albinism in the domestic cat (Felis catus) is associated with a tyrosinase (TYR) mutation. Animal Genetics. 2006;37(2):175-178. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2052.2005.01409.x.


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Our Engineering Stories of 2015

From $1 microscopes to shape-shifting robots, we covered some pretty awesome engineering stories in 2015. Here’s a look back at those stories.

Engineering Is Bringing Fish Up from the Deep
We began the year diving deep into the ocean and showing how scientists at the California Academy of Sciences engineered a device that safely brings fish up from the twilight zone, a region of the ocean so deep that light barely reaches it. Fish living at these depths are accustomed to life at a higher pressure, and because many fish have a gas-filled organ called a swim bladder, they are super sensitive to fast changes in pressure. If scientists want to bring the fish up to study them at sea level, their swim bladders can expand and crush other vital organs– killing the fish. So scientists at the California Academy of Sciences engineered a portable device that maintains high ocean pressures, so they can collect the fish and bring them safely to the surface.

For an even deeper learning experience check out our collection of associated resources about this project, including science and career spotlight videos, a hands-on activity, a Do Now activity and an e-book.

Engineering Is Diagnosing Diseases with Origami Microscopes
Next, we got an up-close look at how Manu Prakash, a bioengineer at Stanford University created the Foldscope, a $1 paper microscope. This nifty invention could one day help diagnose diseases in remote or resource-poor areas throughout the world. In fact, these microscopes are currently in validation studies and clinical trials to be used as diagnostic tools for malaria, African sleeping sickness and schistosomiasis. In addition to diagnosing diseases, he hopes these microscopes will be used by students, teachers and life-long learners to explore their own world. Through the Ten Thousand Microscope Project, Prakash has shipped approximately 50,000 Foldscopes to students and lifelong learners in more than 130 countries who submitted ideas for experiments or questions that they would like to answer using the Foldscopes.

To get a closer look at this project, check out our collection of associated resources including a science and career spotlight video, a Do Now activity and an e-book.

Engineering Is Cleaning Poop from Drinking Water
In this story, we travel to Dhaka, Bangladesh, the tenth largest city in the world where travel by boat and Rickshaw is a common way to get around town. While the waterways are an inviting lure to this populated city, water is also the source of many diseases, particularly in Dhaka’s crowded slums. Here, sewage can seep into low-pressure, old, leaky pipes that transport the town’s drinking water, exposing residents to harmful bacteria and viruses. But, researchers at Stanford University have engineered a cheap device that can clean drinking water where it is collected, at communal hand-pumps.


For more resources about this project, check out our collection, which includes a science and career spotlight video and an e-book.

Engineering Is Exploring Space with Shape-Shifting Robots
A fan favorite of 2015, this engineering story is out of this world, (or, it might be one day). Researchers at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA have teamed up with researchers at University of California, Berkeley to design and engineer what might be the next generation of space-exploring robots. These robots are wildly different than traditional rovers, which are super expensive, really heavy and hard to land. The new robots are based on a type of structure known as a “tensegrity” structure.


For more resources about this project check out our collection, which includes a science and career spotlight video, classroom activities and an e-book.

Engineering Is 3-D Mapping Your World with a Backpack
For this next story we got the inside scoop from Avideh Zakhor, a UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering, about her 3-D mapping backpack which can be used to map the interior of buildings. This technology has a lot of potential applications including aiding with search and rescue, commercial real estate, building construction and energy audits. Some companies are even putting consumer grade versions of this technology in smartphones, so users can create their own 3-D maps of interior buildings.


Check out our collection of resources for this engineering story which includes a science and career spotlight video and classroom activities.

Engineering Is Converting Buses into Mobile Showers
Our most recent engineering story, this one describes how Lava Mae, a non-profit organization recycles retired public transportation buses and converts them into mobile showers for San Francisco’s homeless population. Check out how these shower buses work, and the thoughtful design that went into them.


More resources about this project coming soon.



from QUEST http://ift.tt/1NSEw0L

From $1 microscopes to shape-shifting robots, we covered some pretty awesome engineering stories in 2015. Here’s a look back at those stories.

Engineering Is Bringing Fish Up from the Deep
We began the year diving deep into the ocean and showing how scientists at the California Academy of Sciences engineered a device that safely brings fish up from the twilight zone, a region of the ocean so deep that light barely reaches it. Fish living at these depths are accustomed to life at a higher pressure, and because many fish have a gas-filled organ called a swim bladder, they are super sensitive to fast changes in pressure. If scientists want to bring the fish up to study them at sea level, their swim bladders can expand and crush other vital organs– killing the fish. So scientists at the California Academy of Sciences engineered a portable device that maintains high ocean pressures, so they can collect the fish and bring them safely to the surface.

For an even deeper learning experience check out our collection of associated resources about this project, including science and career spotlight videos, a hands-on activity, a Do Now activity and an e-book.

Engineering Is Diagnosing Diseases with Origami Microscopes
Next, we got an up-close look at how Manu Prakash, a bioengineer at Stanford University created the Foldscope, a $1 paper microscope. This nifty invention could one day help diagnose diseases in remote or resource-poor areas throughout the world. In fact, these microscopes are currently in validation studies and clinical trials to be used as diagnostic tools for malaria, African sleeping sickness and schistosomiasis. In addition to diagnosing diseases, he hopes these microscopes will be used by students, teachers and life-long learners to explore their own world. Through the Ten Thousand Microscope Project, Prakash has shipped approximately 50,000 Foldscopes to students and lifelong learners in more than 130 countries who submitted ideas for experiments or questions that they would like to answer using the Foldscopes.

To get a closer look at this project, check out our collection of associated resources including a science and career spotlight video, a Do Now activity and an e-book.

Engineering Is Cleaning Poop from Drinking Water
In this story, we travel to Dhaka, Bangladesh, the tenth largest city in the world where travel by boat and Rickshaw is a common way to get around town. While the waterways are an inviting lure to this populated city, water is also the source of many diseases, particularly in Dhaka’s crowded slums. Here, sewage can seep into low-pressure, old, leaky pipes that transport the town’s drinking water, exposing residents to harmful bacteria and viruses. But, researchers at Stanford University have engineered a cheap device that can clean drinking water where it is collected, at communal hand-pumps.


For more resources about this project, check out our collection, which includes a science and career spotlight video and an e-book.

Engineering Is Exploring Space with Shape-Shifting Robots
A fan favorite of 2015, this engineering story is out of this world, (or, it might be one day). Researchers at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA have teamed up with researchers at University of California, Berkeley to design and engineer what might be the next generation of space-exploring robots. These robots are wildly different than traditional rovers, which are super expensive, really heavy and hard to land. The new robots are based on a type of structure known as a “tensegrity” structure.


For more resources about this project check out our collection, which includes a science and career spotlight video, classroom activities and an e-book.

Engineering Is 3-D Mapping Your World with a Backpack
For this next story we got the inside scoop from Avideh Zakhor, a UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering, about her 3-D mapping backpack which can be used to map the interior of buildings. This technology has a lot of potential applications including aiding with search and rescue, commercial real estate, building construction and energy audits. Some companies are even putting consumer grade versions of this technology in smartphones, so users can create their own 3-D maps of interior buildings.


Check out our collection of resources for this engineering story which includes a science and career spotlight video and classroom activities.

Engineering Is Converting Buses into Mobile Showers
Our most recent engineering story, this one describes how Lava Mae, a non-profit organization recycles retired public transportation buses and converts them into mobile showers for San Francisco’s homeless population. Check out how these shower buses work, and the thoughtful design that went into them.


More resources about this project coming soon.



from QUEST http://ift.tt/1NSEw0L

“Surprised and deeply honoured” – our chief executive receives a knighthood

HarpalKumar

We’ve had some great news today – our chief executive Harpal Kumar has received a knighthood for services to cancer research.

This wonderful announcement acknowledges the significant impact he has had at Cancer Research UK during more than a decade at the charity.

Under his tenure, we’ve funded breakthrough scientific discoveries and secured a range of life-saving policy changes – most recently, the charity’s campaigning has been instrumental in the introduction of standardised cigarette packaging.

And there are many other life-saving advances he has overseen, with just a few listed here:

Cancer Research UK co-funded a trial of Bowel Scope Screening (also called flexi-scope or flexible sigmoidoscopy), which could save thousands of lives a year when fully rolled out in 2016. Pilots of Bowel Scope are underway in England, and soon everyone in England should be offered Bowel Scope Screening at 55, as well as the Faecal Occult Blood Test at 60.

Our scientists have played a key role in developing drugs called PARP inhibitors to target cancers carrying certain genetic faults. Olaparib is the first of these drugs to be approved for treating certain ovarian cancer patients.

Harpal has overseen the launch in 2013 of the world’s largest study of lung cancer patients. This trial is helping understand how tumours respond to treatment and change over time.

And in October this year, we launched the world’s largest clinical trial aiming to find out if aspirin can prevent some of the most common cancers coming back.

Cancer Research UK has also played a vital role in making sure more patients can have innovative radiotherapy treatments. For example, the number of patients in England who are able to have a modern type of radiotherapy called Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) has substantially increased thanks to the Radiotherapy Innovation Fund that we helped establish and deliver.

Harpal chaired the Independent Cancer Taskforce, an exceptional opportunity to oversee the development of the new NHS strategy for cancer in England. The strategy set out what needs to be done to transform cancer services in England over the next five years, from improving prevention, early diagnosis and access to treatments to ensuring patients have a experience of their care. Although it was only published less than 6 months ago, numerous changes are already being put in place.

And following on from his role with the Cancer Taskforce, Harpal will now chair an Independent Advisory Group to advise and oversee progress of the new strategy.

Harpal is dedicated to ensuring that patients are at the heart of everything we do. This can be clearly seen in our most recent research strategy, where he set out the ambition that three-quarters of people with cancer will survive the disease by 2034.

And under his leadership the amount of money the charity spends on life-saving cancer research has increased to £464 million in the last year.

“I am very surprised and deeply honoured,” Harpal tells us. “It is a privilege to lead Cancer Research UK.

“More than anything, this Honour recognises the extraordinary innovation and dedication of our scientists and clinicians to beating cancer, the creativity and passion of our fundraisers and amazing volunteers – with their commitment to maintaining the highest standards – and the tenacity and belief of our policy and information professionals in driving change at all levels, and in providing outstanding support for cancer patients and their families.

“I hope this Honour helps to both mark how far we have come in cancer, whilst also raising awareness of how far we have to go.”

Sir Harpal became Cancer Research UK’s chief executive in 2007, following on from his role as chief operating officer of the charity, to which he was appointed in 2004. He was previously chief executive of Cancer Research UK’s commercial arm, Cancer Research Technology, in 2002.

He is also a Trustee of the Francis Crick Institute, and chairs the National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative.



from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/22z4uhm
HarpalKumar

We’ve had some great news today – our chief executive Harpal Kumar has received a knighthood for services to cancer research.

This wonderful announcement acknowledges the significant impact he has had at Cancer Research UK during more than a decade at the charity.

Under his tenure, we’ve funded breakthrough scientific discoveries and secured a range of life-saving policy changes – most recently, the charity’s campaigning has been instrumental in the introduction of standardised cigarette packaging.

And there are many other life-saving advances he has overseen, with just a few listed here:

Cancer Research UK co-funded a trial of Bowel Scope Screening (also called flexi-scope or flexible sigmoidoscopy), which could save thousands of lives a year when fully rolled out in 2016. Pilots of Bowel Scope are underway in England, and soon everyone in England should be offered Bowel Scope Screening at 55, as well as the Faecal Occult Blood Test at 60.

Our scientists have played a key role in developing drugs called PARP inhibitors to target cancers carrying certain genetic faults. Olaparib is the first of these drugs to be approved for treating certain ovarian cancer patients.

Harpal has overseen the launch in 2013 of the world’s largest study of lung cancer patients. This trial is helping understand how tumours respond to treatment and change over time.

And in October this year, we launched the world’s largest clinical trial aiming to find out if aspirin can prevent some of the most common cancers coming back.

Cancer Research UK has also played a vital role in making sure more patients can have innovative radiotherapy treatments. For example, the number of patients in England who are able to have a modern type of radiotherapy called Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) has substantially increased thanks to the Radiotherapy Innovation Fund that we helped establish and deliver.

Harpal chaired the Independent Cancer Taskforce, an exceptional opportunity to oversee the development of the new NHS strategy for cancer in England. The strategy set out what needs to be done to transform cancer services in England over the next five years, from improving prevention, early diagnosis and access to treatments to ensuring patients have a experience of their care. Although it was only published less than 6 months ago, numerous changes are already being put in place.

And following on from his role with the Cancer Taskforce, Harpal will now chair an Independent Advisory Group to advise and oversee progress of the new strategy.

Harpal is dedicated to ensuring that patients are at the heart of everything we do. This can be clearly seen in our most recent research strategy, where he set out the ambition that three-quarters of people with cancer will survive the disease by 2034.

And under his leadership the amount of money the charity spends on life-saving cancer research has increased to £464 million in the last year.

“I am very surprised and deeply honoured,” Harpal tells us. “It is a privilege to lead Cancer Research UK.

“More than anything, this Honour recognises the extraordinary innovation and dedication of our scientists and clinicians to beating cancer, the creativity and passion of our fundraisers and amazing volunteers – with their commitment to maintaining the highest standards – and the tenacity and belief of our policy and information professionals in driving change at all levels, and in providing outstanding support for cancer patients and their families.

“I hope this Honour helps to both mark how far we have come in cancer, whilst also raising awareness of how far we have to go.”

Sir Harpal became Cancer Research UK’s chief executive in 2007, following on from his role as chief operating officer of the charity, to which he was appointed in 2004. He was previously chief executive of Cancer Research UK’s commercial arm, Cancer Research Technology, in 2002.

He is also a Trustee of the Francis Crick Institute, and chairs the National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative.



from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/22z4uhm

A spectacular auroral show to ring in the New Year (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.” -James Thomson

When the Sun emits a flare or a mass ejection in the direction of Earth, these fast moving particles are when Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere are of the utmost importance for shielding us. The magnetic field bends these ions harmlessly away from our planet, only funneling a small fraction down into a ring surrounding the poles. The atmosphere absorbs the impact, shielding all living creatures below from this radiation, while simultaneously putting on a show.

Image credit: public domain photo from Pixabay user skeeze, via http://ift.tt/1Oy5P3H.

Image credit: public domain photo from Pixabay user skeeze, via http://ift.tt/1Oy5P3H.

Thanks to a coronal mass ejection on the 28th, the northern and southern lights will put on quite a display on the night of the 30th for all skywatchers at or above 50 degrees latitude, with chances that observers further towards the equator might have something to see, too. But the best views of all will belong to the unshielded astronauts aboard the ISS, who will pass around the Earth a full 7 times during our “night,” and at the peak of the storm.

Image credit: NOAA, of the Planetary K-index, courtesy of VE3EN at http://ift.tt/1rTfoZI.

Image credit: NOAA, of the Planetary K-index, courtesy of VE3EN at http://ift.tt/1rTfoZI.

Go get the whole pre-new-year’s story over at Forbes!



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1ktYLXW

“You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.” -James Thomson

When the Sun emits a flare or a mass ejection in the direction of Earth, these fast moving particles are when Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere are of the utmost importance for shielding us. The magnetic field bends these ions harmlessly away from our planet, only funneling a small fraction down into a ring surrounding the poles. The atmosphere absorbs the impact, shielding all living creatures below from this radiation, while simultaneously putting on a show.

Image credit: public domain photo from Pixabay user skeeze, via http://ift.tt/1Oy5P3H.

Image credit: public domain photo from Pixabay user skeeze, via http://ift.tt/1Oy5P3H.

Thanks to a coronal mass ejection on the 28th, the northern and southern lights will put on quite a display on the night of the 30th for all skywatchers at or above 50 degrees latitude, with chances that observers further towards the equator might have something to see, too. But the best views of all will belong to the unshielded astronauts aboard the ISS, who will pass around the Earth a full 7 times during our “night,” and at the peak of the storm.

Image credit: NOAA, of the Planetary K-index, courtesy of VE3EN at http://ift.tt/1rTfoZI.

Image credit: NOAA, of the Planetary K-index, courtesy of VE3EN at http://ift.tt/1rTfoZI.

Go get the whole pre-new-year’s story over at Forbes!



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Protecting kids is another reason that OSHA regulations are important [The Pump Handle]

During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging.  We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on August 12, 2015:

by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH

“It’s just like the paper we read in class.” That was the email message I received last week from a former undergraduate student from a class I used to teach called “Health and the Environment.” She was referring to a report of two young children from the Cincinnati, OH area who were lead poisoned because the toxic metal wasn’t controlled at their father’s workplace. He worked at a facility that recycles electronic waste (e-scrap.)

My former student read about the case in the July 17, 2015 edition of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The 2 year-old girl and 1 year-old boy had elevated blood-lead levels (BLL) of 14 µg/dL and 18 µg/dL, respectively. (CDC recommends that public health authorities take action when a child’s BLL is 5 µg/dL or greater.)

The authors of the MMWR case note that the children’s primary care physician diagnosed the lead poisoning in 2010. The physician referred the family to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units (PEHSU) which triggered an evaluation of the family’s home by the Cincinnati Health Department’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. The Health Department’s investigators determined there was no lead paint in the home or at the children’s daycare facility. That led to inquiries about possible work-related take-home contamination.

“The father worked at an e-scrap recycler company, crushing cathode ray tubes. …The family reported there was frequently visible dust in his hair, and the children often touched his hair. The father’s BLL was 25 µg/dL.”

The “it’s just like the paper we read in class” was one published in 2005 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. That paper describes an individual with severe, recurring gastrointestinal symptoms and fatigue, and the round-about way he was ultimately diagnosed with work-related lead poisoning. His BLL, taken one week apart, were 159 and 164 µg/dL.

The gentleman worked as a “compounder” at a plant that manufactured customized PVC pellets. The authors described his job this way:

“This small employer custom compounds vinyl pellets from raw ingredients (powdered PVC resin, powdered stabilizer, and liquid lubricant). Lead sulfate was added as a stabilizer when formulating plastics for manufacturers of products such as insulated electrical wiring.”

The compounders “frequently (often daily) mixed batches that used pure lead sulfate as the stabilizer. Fifty-pound bags of lead sulfate were cut open and left unsealed in the production area; for each batch, a compounder hand-scooped six to eight pounds of pure lead sulfate powder and dumped it into a large mixing vat while wearing a paper dust mask.”

Investigators with the California Department of Public Health identified two co-workers at the plant who had BLL of about 110 µg/dL. They also noted:

“The employer was unaware that lead sulfate posed a serious health hazard or of his responsibilities under the OSHA lead standard. He had relied on the product Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for information on health effects and guidance on protecting his workers. The MSDS for this product did not mention the effects of lead on the central nervous system, blood-forming [or other health effects]… “and had inadequate information on appropriate respiratory protection.

The incomplete information on the MSDS, which was required to be prepared by the manufacturer of the lead sulfate, and the employer’s failure to comply with a whole host of precautions for lead-exposed workers, were violations of OSHA standards.

The case report was rich with information and was why I used it in my class. The paper also had a one-sentence bonus:

“Follow-up BLL testing of workers’ children identified one child, a 3-month-old infant, with an elevated BLL (10 µg/dL).”

That was the line that triggered my former student’s email to me: “It’s just like the paper we read in class.”

It was because of the bonus line— “a 3-month old infant with and elevated BLL”—that I especially liked using the paper in my class. It was a way for my students to recognize how toxic exposures in workplaces don’t necessarily stay there. It’s why OSHA regulations are not just about workers, but about the health and safety of families and communities.

The lead poisoning case reported in the July 17 MMWR has a second part of the story. The authors, researchers with CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), note that they didn’t know about the 2010 children’s lead poisoning cases. They learned about it in 2012 as part of their agency’s special initiative to learn more about hazards in the electronic waste-recycling industry. The NIOSH researchers happened to be evaluating the exact facility where the children’s father had worked. They write:

“The PEHSU investigator became aware of the NIOSH evaluation through a notification to a local affiliated occupational medicine training program.”

Among NIOSH’s findings about the lead hazards in the father’s e-scrap recycling workplace:

  • “The local exhaust ventilation system at the cathode ray tubes crushing operation recirculated potentially contaminated air back into the production area. …(Cathode ray tubes are made from leaded glass, with lead concentrations in the funnel glass up to 25% and in the frit (where the panel glass joins the funnel glass) up to 85%.)”
  • “There were no showers in facility A, and employees used brooms to sweep the work area, creating airborne dust.””…The changing area for employees who broke cathode ray tubes was not adjacent to the cathode ray tubes work area…. Employees could track lead-containing dust through the facility. Personal items, food, and work clothing and equipment were stored together in the changing area.”
  • Lead (in lower concentrations) were found, among other places: the break room (e.g., floor, tables, and refrigerator handle), and the water fountain near the restrooms.
  • “The hands of eight of 12 employees tested positive for lead, even though they had washed their hands with soap and water before testing. NIOSH also took a wipe sample from uniforms of employees’ front shoulder area. Twelve of 13 uniforms tested positive for lead.”

Had the employer been following OSHA’s lead standard, the workplace would not have been so contaminated with the toxic metal. More details on NIOSH’s findings are in the July 17 MMWR.  NIOSH published last year its assessment of hazards in the e-scrap recycling industry, with a special focus on lead and cadmium exposures.

It’s not the only time that parallel reports have been published on toxic exposures in the workplace and lead-poisoned children. NIOSH also published last year an evaluation of take-home lead contamination from a battery recycling plant in Puerto Rico. Investigators identified elevated BLL in children of the workers. Of 68 children aged <6 years who were tested, 39 (57%) had BLL ≥5 µg/dL. In this case, the company was violating OSHA standards, as well as EPA regulations.

There are plenty of lawmakers who disparage government regulations as burdensome and unnecessary. OSHA is often the target of their criticism. Maybe some of them might think twice if they realized the importance of workplace safety regulations for children’s health.



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During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging.  We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on August 12, 2015:

by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH

“It’s just like the paper we read in class.” That was the email message I received last week from a former undergraduate student from a class I used to teach called “Health and the Environment.” She was referring to a report of two young children from the Cincinnati, OH area who were lead poisoned because the toxic metal wasn’t controlled at their father’s workplace. He worked at a facility that recycles electronic waste (e-scrap.)

My former student read about the case in the July 17, 2015 edition of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The 2 year-old girl and 1 year-old boy had elevated blood-lead levels (BLL) of 14 µg/dL and 18 µg/dL, respectively. (CDC recommends that public health authorities take action when a child’s BLL is 5 µg/dL or greater.)

The authors of the MMWR case note that the children’s primary care physician diagnosed the lead poisoning in 2010. The physician referred the family to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units (PEHSU) which triggered an evaluation of the family’s home by the Cincinnati Health Department’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. The Health Department’s investigators determined there was no lead paint in the home or at the children’s daycare facility. That led to inquiries about possible work-related take-home contamination.

“The father worked at an e-scrap recycler company, crushing cathode ray tubes. …The family reported there was frequently visible dust in his hair, and the children often touched his hair. The father’s BLL was 25 µg/dL.”

The “it’s just like the paper we read in class” was one published in 2005 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. That paper describes an individual with severe, recurring gastrointestinal symptoms and fatigue, and the round-about way he was ultimately diagnosed with work-related lead poisoning. His BLL, taken one week apart, were 159 and 164 µg/dL.

The gentleman worked as a “compounder” at a plant that manufactured customized PVC pellets. The authors described his job this way:

“This small employer custom compounds vinyl pellets from raw ingredients (powdered PVC resin, powdered stabilizer, and liquid lubricant). Lead sulfate was added as a stabilizer when formulating plastics for manufacturers of products such as insulated electrical wiring.”

The compounders “frequently (often daily) mixed batches that used pure lead sulfate as the stabilizer. Fifty-pound bags of lead sulfate were cut open and left unsealed in the production area; for each batch, a compounder hand-scooped six to eight pounds of pure lead sulfate powder and dumped it into a large mixing vat while wearing a paper dust mask.”

Investigators with the California Department of Public Health identified two co-workers at the plant who had BLL of about 110 µg/dL. They also noted:

“The employer was unaware that lead sulfate posed a serious health hazard or of his responsibilities under the OSHA lead standard. He had relied on the product Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for information on health effects and guidance on protecting his workers. The MSDS for this product did not mention the effects of lead on the central nervous system, blood-forming [or other health effects]… “and had inadequate information on appropriate respiratory protection.

The incomplete information on the MSDS, which was required to be prepared by the manufacturer of the lead sulfate, and the employer’s failure to comply with a whole host of precautions for lead-exposed workers, were violations of OSHA standards.

The case report was rich with information and was why I used it in my class. The paper also had a one-sentence bonus:

“Follow-up BLL testing of workers’ children identified one child, a 3-month-old infant, with an elevated BLL (10 µg/dL).”

That was the line that triggered my former student’s email to me: “It’s just like the paper we read in class.”

It was because of the bonus line— “a 3-month old infant with and elevated BLL”—that I especially liked using the paper in my class. It was a way for my students to recognize how toxic exposures in workplaces don’t necessarily stay there. It’s why OSHA regulations are not just about workers, but about the health and safety of families and communities.

The lead poisoning case reported in the July 17 MMWR has a second part of the story. The authors, researchers with CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), note that they didn’t know about the 2010 children’s lead poisoning cases. They learned about it in 2012 as part of their agency’s special initiative to learn more about hazards in the electronic waste-recycling industry. The NIOSH researchers happened to be evaluating the exact facility where the children’s father had worked. They write:

“The PEHSU investigator became aware of the NIOSH evaluation through a notification to a local affiliated occupational medicine training program.”

Among NIOSH’s findings about the lead hazards in the father’s e-scrap recycling workplace:

  • “The local exhaust ventilation system at the cathode ray tubes crushing operation recirculated potentially contaminated air back into the production area. …(Cathode ray tubes are made from leaded glass, with lead concentrations in the funnel glass up to 25% and in the frit (where the panel glass joins the funnel glass) up to 85%.)”
  • “There were no showers in facility A, and employees used brooms to sweep the work area, creating airborne dust.””…The changing area for employees who broke cathode ray tubes was not adjacent to the cathode ray tubes work area…. Employees could track lead-containing dust through the facility. Personal items, food, and work clothing and equipment were stored together in the changing area.”
  • Lead (in lower concentrations) were found, among other places: the break room (e.g., floor, tables, and refrigerator handle), and the water fountain near the restrooms.
  • “The hands of eight of 12 employees tested positive for lead, even though they had washed their hands with soap and water before testing. NIOSH also took a wipe sample from uniforms of employees’ front shoulder area. Twelve of 13 uniforms tested positive for lead.”

Had the employer been following OSHA’s lead standard, the workplace would not have been so contaminated with the toxic metal. More details on NIOSH’s findings are in the July 17 MMWR.  NIOSH published last year its assessment of hazards in the e-scrap recycling industry, with a special focus on lead and cadmium exposures.

It’s not the only time that parallel reports have been published on toxic exposures in the workplace and lead-poisoned children. NIOSH also published last year an evaluation of take-home lead contamination from a battery recycling plant in Puerto Rico. Investigators identified elevated BLL in children of the workers. Of 68 children aged <6 years who were tested, 39 (57%) had BLL ≥5 µg/dL. In this case, the company was violating OSHA standards, as well as EPA regulations.

There are plenty of lawmakers who disparage government regulations as burdensome and unnecessary. OSHA is often the target of their criticism. Maybe some of them might think twice if they realized the importance of workplace safety regulations for children’s health.



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Mapping technique reveals spatial clustering of workplace injuries and potential new venues for outreach [The Pump Handle]

During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on June 26, 2015:

By Kim Krisberg

A common hurdle in the field of occupational health and safety is delivering what can sometimes be life-saving information to the people who need it most. After all, not all employers are amenable to workplace health and safety education. But what if safety advocates could find and connect with the most at-risk workers out in the community? Perhaps even reach vulnerable workers with safety education before they experience an injury at work?

New research from the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health could help safety advocates do just that. Linda Forst, director of the school’s Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, knew Hispanic and immigrant workers often face a higher risk of experiencing a severe work-related injury. She also knew that many such workers tend to live in the same communities. And so she wondered if one could map reported occupational injuries to certain neighborhoods. In other words, could researchers pinpoint geographic clusters of severe work-related injuries in a way that could provide insight into which communities are most in need of health and safety outreach?

“How do you reach workers who are difficult to reach in the workplace,” Forst told me. “People who work for small businesses, people who are employed in the cash economy, people employed as temporary workers — how do you reach them with prevention?”

To help answer that question, Forst and her colleagues cross-matched health care and publicly available databases by home ZIP code with incidences of work-related traumatic injuries reported to the Illinois state trauma registry between 2000 and 2009. The registry receives reports from level 1 and level 2 trauma centers. (Forst noted: “These are people hospitalized in a trauma unit for more than 24 hours — short of death, these are some of the worst injuries.”) In their study, which was published in the July supplement of the American Journal of Public Health, the researchers found that among the 23,200 occupational injuries reported, 80 percent of the cases were located in just 20 percent of ZIP codes and clustered in 10 locations. In addition, the numbers and clusters of injuries were associated with immigrant communities. Forst, Lee Friedman, Brian Chin and Dana Madigan write:

Adults generally live where there are opportunities for employment and housing. Low wage, immigrant, and minority workers and other persons employed in dangerous jobs are likely to cluster in areas with similar sociodemographic characteristics, influenced by the need for affordable housing, the familiarity of neighbors who are ethnically and linguistically similar, and services that cater to their cultural preferences. Because segments of low wage, minority, immigrant, and contingent workforces, small business employees and others who are at high risk for injury are difficult to reach in their workplaces, we sought to determine whether the need for occupational health and safety interventions could be identified at the community level.

In mapping the data, researchers found that within the 20 percent of ZIP codes with the highest rates of work-related injuries, nearly 2,750 injuries occurred. The study revealed 10 significant spatial clusters made up of 265 ZIP codes — nearly one-fifth of all ZIP codes in the state of Illinois — and within those clusters, about 8,300 traumatic work-related injuries occurred between 2000 and 2009. Researchers found an inverse relationship between occupational injuries and home ownership, a positive relationship between total employment and injuries, and a strong relationship between injuries and communities where immigrants tend to live.

Spatial clusters were typically found in mid-sized towns, outside of cities. Urban poverty levels were inversely related to work-related injury rates and the spatial clustering of injuries — in other words, the higher the poverty, the lower the injury rate. (Forst noted that this last finding was likely a result of high unemployment.) The study also reported that among the more than 23,000 workplace injuries studied, surgical intervention was required in nearly 51 percent of cases and more than 14 percent were treated in the intensive care unit.

“I wasn’t exactly sure what we would find with the study,” said Forst, who noted that to her knowledge, this was the first study to map the incidence of occupational injuries. “I suspected we would find a greater percentage of occupational injuries in immigrant communities, but I didn’t really know how clearly it would be demonstrated.”

Forst told me the study’s findings and its mapping technique could form the basis of interventions that offer education, occupational health and safety training, and information about labor and wage rights in the community setting, as opposed to the workplace setting. And in fact, because OSHA often struggles with tight budgets — and is now facing even more funding cuts— Forst said the mapping technique could help the agency more precisely target its prevention efforts and perhaps, get a bigger bang for its buck.

“Our investigation, which used existing health surveillance data, suggests that some neighborhoods might be disproportionately affected by traumatic occupational injuries,” the study stated. “On a practical level, predictors of vulnerability to workplace injury at a community level allow public health practitioners to reach at-risk workers in their neighborhoods.”

With growing public health interest in the association between a person’s health and where she or he lives, Forst told me the “relationship between place and work is clearly demonstrated in this project, and work really needs to be taken into account as a determinant in health.”

She noted that while the community-based interventions that could stem from the mapping technique certainly shouldn’t take away from workplace oversight — indeed, the high numbers of traumatic injuries make the case for such oversight even stronger — they could help workers take steps to protect their health and safety.

“I think awareness of labor issues, awareness of the existence of OSHA and workers’ rights, and awareness of some simple steps people can take to protect themselves at work can be transmitted in a community setting,” Forst said. “A lot of injuries don’t take a lot of equipment or a lot of power to prevent, so simple awareness can be very important.”

To read the full study, visit the American Journal of Public Health.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.



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During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on June 26, 2015:

By Kim Krisberg

A common hurdle in the field of occupational health and safety is delivering what can sometimes be life-saving information to the people who need it most. After all, not all employers are amenable to workplace health and safety education. But what if safety advocates could find and connect with the most at-risk workers out in the community? Perhaps even reach vulnerable workers with safety education before they experience an injury at work?

New research from the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health could help safety advocates do just that. Linda Forst, director of the school’s Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, knew Hispanic and immigrant workers often face a higher risk of experiencing a severe work-related injury. She also knew that many such workers tend to live in the same communities. And so she wondered if one could map reported occupational injuries to certain neighborhoods. In other words, could researchers pinpoint geographic clusters of severe work-related injuries in a way that could provide insight into which communities are most in need of health and safety outreach?

“How do you reach workers who are difficult to reach in the workplace,” Forst told me. “People who work for small businesses, people who are employed in the cash economy, people employed as temporary workers — how do you reach them with prevention?”

To help answer that question, Forst and her colleagues cross-matched health care and publicly available databases by home ZIP code with incidences of work-related traumatic injuries reported to the Illinois state trauma registry between 2000 and 2009. The registry receives reports from level 1 and level 2 trauma centers. (Forst noted: “These are people hospitalized in a trauma unit for more than 24 hours — short of death, these are some of the worst injuries.”) In their study, which was published in the July supplement of the American Journal of Public Health, the researchers found that among the 23,200 occupational injuries reported, 80 percent of the cases were located in just 20 percent of ZIP codes and clustered in 10 locations. In addition, the numbers and clusters of injuries were associated with immigrant communities. Forst, Lee Friedman, Brian Chin and Dana Madigan write:

Adults generally live where there are opportunities for employment and housing. Low wage, immigrant, and minority workers and other persons employed in dangerous jobs are likely to cluster in areas with similar sociodemographic characteristics, influenced by the need for affordable housing, the familiarity of neighbors who are ethnically and linguistically similar, and services that cater to their cultural preferences. Because segments of low wage, minority, immigrant, and contingent workforces, small business employees and others who are at high risk for injury are difficult to reach in their workplaces, we sought to determine whether the need for occupational health and safety interventions could be identified at the community level.

In mapping the data, researchers found that within the 20 percent of ZIP codes with the highest rates of work-related injuries, nearly 2,750 injuries occurred. The study revealed 10 significant spatial clusters made up of 265 ZIP codes — nearly one-fifth of all ZIP codes in the state of Illinois — and within those clusters, about 8,300 traumatic work-related injuries occurred between 2000 and 2009. Researchers found an inverse relationship between occupational injuries and home ownership, a positive relationship between total employment and injuries, and a strong relationship between injuries and communities where immigrants tend to live.

Spatial clusters were typically found in mid-sized towns, outside of cities. Urban poverty levels were inversely related to work-related injury rates and the spatial clustering of injuries — in other words, the higher the poverty, the lower the injury rate. (Forst noted that this last finding was likely a result of high unemployment.) The study also reported that among the more than 23,000 workplace injuries studied, surgical intervention was required in nearly 51 percent of cases and more than 14 percent were treated in the intensive care unit.

“I wasn’t exactly sure what we would find with the study,” said Forst, who noted that to her knowledge, this was the first study to map the incidence of occupational injuries. “I suspected we would find a greater percentage of occupational injuries in immigrant communities, but I didn’t really know how clearly it would be demonstrated.”

Forst told me the study’s findings and its mapping technique could form the basis of interventions that offer education, occupational health and safety training, and information about labor and wage rights in the community setting, as opposed to the workplace setting. And in fact, because OSHA often struggles with tight budgets — and is now facing even more funding cuts— Forst said the mapping technique could help the agency more precisely target its prevention efforts and perhaps, get a bigger bang for its buck.

“Our investigation, which used existing health surveillance data, suggests that some neighborhoods might be disproportionately affected by traumatic occupational injuries,” the study stated. “On a practical level, predictors of vulnerability to workplace injury at a community level allow public health practitioners to reach at-risk workers in their neighborhoods.”

With growing public health interest in the association between a person’s health and where she or he lives, Forst told me the “relationship between place and work is clearly demonstrated in this project, and work really needs to be taken into account as a determinant in health.”

She noted that while the community-based interventions that could stem from the mapping technique certainly shouldn’t take away from workplace oversight — indeed, the high numbers of traumatic injuries make the case for such oversight even stronger — they could help workers take steps to protect their health and safety.

“I think awareness of labor issues, awareness of the existence of OSHA and workers’ rights, and awareness of some simple steps people can take to protect themselves at work can be transmitted in a community setting,” Forst said. “A lot of injuries don’t take a lot of equipment or a lot of power to prevent, so simple awareness can be very important.”

To read the full study, visit the American Journal of Public Health.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.



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London’s congestion charge and Seattle’s affordable transit [The Pump Handle]

During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on March 16, 2015:

by Liz Borkowski, MPH

In 2003, the city of London took a dramatic step in the battle against traffic congestion: It implemented a congestion charge of £5 for those driving private vehicles into an eight-square-mile central congestion zone on weekdays between 7am and 6:30pm. The fees were increased twice, and since 2011 have stood at £10. Drivers purchase day passes online, and a camera network and a license-plate-recognition system allow for enforcement and penalty collection. Motorcycles, bicycles, taxis, and buses are exempt from the charges.

An essential aspect of London’s system is that it invests the revenue fees in public transportation — helping to make transit more attractive as driving downtown has become more expensive. And even without spending on more buses or drivers, the fee system helped. After the congestion charge began, bus congestion delays dropped 50%, while ridership increased 14%.

While the program has certainly succeeded in reducing traffic congestion, safety advocates have raised concerns about the possibility of faster traffic speeds resulting in more crashes. Now, theWashington Post’s Emily Badger reports on new research with an encouraging finding: Central London’s roads have actually become safer since the congestion charge began.

Colin Green, John Heywood, and Maria Navarro of the Lancaster University Management School analyzed crash data, and find a “substantial and significant” decline in serious and fatal crashes both within the congestion zone and in the surrounding areas following the system’s implementation. Badger summarizes the findings:

In total, the researchers conclude that congestion pricing in Central London has been associated with 30 fewer crashes a month in the area, a drop of about 40 percent. Meanwhile, they estimate that the policy has led to about 46 fewer serious and fatal collisions a year — and 4.6 fewer deaths.

This wasn’t an obvious result when the city began this experiment a decade ago. Buses, taxis, motorcycles and bikes are exempt from the charge, which now costs £10 a day (it’s enforced through a series of video cameras and license plate readers). It’s possible that any safety gains from having fewer cars on the road might have been wiped out by other changes created by the policy — if, for instance, faster travel turned fender-benders into major crashes, or if more taxis and bikes flooded the roads, or if cars simply changed when and where they drive to skirt the congestion fee.

A system that reduces both pollution and congestion benefits public health. If a city is going to expect a large portion of its workers and residents to switch from driving to riding the bus, though, it had better have a high-quality, affordable bus system. Congestion reductions can make for a faster bus trip, but that’s little help if the bus doesn’t stop near your home or workplace, or if it’s not sufficiently usable for parents with small children or people with disabilities. Congestion fees can fund expansions in transit service, but voters are likely to be skeptical of new service that won’t materialize until a congestion-charge system is implemented.

As far as making transit more financially attractive than driving, Seattle recently began discounting fares for lower-income residents — specifically, those whose household incomes are at or below 200% of the federal poverty level ($47,700 for a family of four in 2014). Rides are now $1.50 — a discount of more than 50% off peak fares — when riders use an ORCA smart card. King County transit officials anticipate getting ORCA cards to 100,000 qualified people, in part by relying on an outreach network developed to enroll people in health plans that recently became available under the Affordable Care Act. One driving force behind Seattle’s program is concern for the region’s economy, explains the New York Times’ Kirk Johnson:

The problem it addresses is that many commuters from places like SeaTac, an outlying suburb, are too poor to live in Seattle, where prices and rents are soaring in a technology-driven boom. If they are pushed out so far that they cannot afford to get to work or give up on doing so, backers of the project said, Seattle’s economy could choke.

“I would characterize this as a safety valve,” said Dow Constantine, the King County executive and chairman of Sound Transit, a transportation agency serving multiple counties in the region. From 1999 to 2012, Mr. Constantine said, 95 percent of the new households in King County have been either rich or poor, earning more than $125,000 a year or less than $33,000, with hardly anything in between.

It’s in everyone’s interest for people to be able to get where they need to go without spending hours sitting in traffic. Studying outcomes in cities like London and Seattle that try bold new approaches to transportation gives us important data to inform future transportation policies.



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During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on March 16, 2015:

by Liz Borkowski, MPH

In 2003, the city of London took a dramatic step in the battle against traffic congestion: It implemented a congestion charge of £5 for those driving private vehicles into an eight-square-mile central congestion zone on weekdays between 7am and 6:30pm. The fees were increased twice, and since 2011 have stood at £10. Drivers purchase day passes online, and a camera network and a license-plate-recognition system allow for enforcement and penalty collection. Motorcycles, bicycles, taxis, and buses are exempt from the charges.

An essential aspect of London’s system is that it invests the revenue fees in public transportation — helping to make transit more attractive as driving downtown has become more expensive. And even without spending on more buses or drivers, the fee system helped. After the congestion charge began, bus congestion delays dropped 50%, while ridership increased 14%.

While the program has certainly succeeded in reducing traffic congestion, safety advocates have raised concerns about the possibility of faster traffic speeds resulting in more crashes. Now, theWashington Post’s Emily Badger reports on new research with an encouraging finding: Central London’s roads have actually become safer since the congestion charge began.

Colin Green, John Heywood, and Maria Navarro of the Lancaster University Management School analyzed crash data, and find a “substantial and significant” decline in serious and fatal crashes both within the congestion zone and in the surrounding areas following the system’s implementation. Badger summarizes the findings:

In total, the researchers conclude that congestion pricing in Central London has been associated with 30 fewer crashes a month in the area, a drop of about 40 percent. Meanwhile, they estimate that the policy has led to about 46 fewer serious and fatal collisions a year — and 4.6 fewer deaths.

This wasn’t an obvious result when the city began this experiment a decade ago. Buses, taxis, motorcycles and bikes are exempt from the charge, which now costs £10 a day (it’s enforced through a series of video cameras and license plate readers). It’s possible that any safety gains from having fewer cars on the road might have been wiped out by other changes created by the policy — if, for instance, faster travel turned fender-benders into major crashes, or if more taxis and bikes flooded the roads, or if cars simply changed when and where they drive to skirt the congestion fee.

A system that reduces both pollution and congestion benefits public health. If a city is going to expect a large portion of its workers and residents to switch from driving to riding the bus, though, it had better have a high-quality, affordable bus system. Congestion reductions can make for a faster bus trip, but that’s little help if the bus doesn’t stop near your home or workplace, or if it’s not sufficiently usable for parents with small children or people with disabilities. Congestion fees can fund expansions in transit service, but voters are likely to be skeptical of new service that won’t materialize until a congestion-charge system is implemented.

As far as making transit more financially attractive than driving, Seattle recently began discounting fares for lower-income residents — specifically, those whose household incomes are at or below 200% of the federal poverty level ($47,700 for a family of four in 2014). Rides are now $1.50 — a discount of more than 50% off peak fares — when riders use an ORCA smart card. King County transit officials anticipate getting ORCA cards to 100,000 qualified people, in part by relying on an outreach network developed to enroll people in health plans that recently became available under the Affordable Care Act. One driving force behind Seattle’s program is concern for the region’s economy, explains the New York Times’ Kirk Johnson:

The problem it addresses is that many commuters from places like SeaTac, an outlying suburb, are too poor to live in Seattle, where prices and rents are soaring in a technology-driven boom. If they are pushed out so far that they cannot afford to get to work or give up on doing so, backers of the project said, Seattle’s economy could choke.

“I would characterize this as a safety valve,” said Dow Constantine, the King County executive and chairman of Sound Transit, a transportation agency serving multiple counties in the region. From 1999 to 2012, Mr. Constantine said, 95 percent of the new households in King County have been either rich or poor, earning more than $125,000 a year or less than $33,000, with hardly anything in between.

It’s in everyone’s interest for people to be able to get where they need to go without spending hours sitting in traffic. Studying outcomes in cities like London and Seattle that try bold new approaches to transportation gives us important data to inform future transportation policies.



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1ktM7bp

This Year in EPA Science

By Kacey FitzpatrickResearch Recap with Happy New Year message

Our EPA researchers were hard at work in 2015—so to highlight that effort, we’ve put together a list of the ten most popular blogs from this year.

Happy New Year!

  1. Bridging the Gap: EPA’s Report on the Environment
    Read about EPA’s Report on the Environment, an interactive resource that shows how the condition of the environment and human health in the United States is changing over time. It can be used by anyone interested in environmental trends and presents the best available indicators of national trends in five theme areas: AirWaterLand, Human Exposure and Health, and Ecological Condition.
  1. Release of Community Air Monitoring Training Videos
    Small, hand-held air quality sensors are now commercially available and provide citizens the ability to plan, conduct, and understand local environmental air quality as never before. Learn about how to use these tools yourself or educate interested groups and individuals about best practices for successful air monitoring projects.
  2. Training Citizen Scientists to Monitor Air Quality
    Read about when Administrator Gina McCarthy joined New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, and other community members at Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood Family Success Center to launch an EPA-Ironbound partnership for community air monitoring that is a first of its kind citizen science project.
  3. Seeding Environmental Innovation
    Read about when EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) team attended a national conference and met with environmental entrepreneurs and successful SBIR awardees who have gone from an innovative seedling to a growing green business.
  4. Moving Away From “High Risk”
    This year the Government Accountability Office released their biennial High Risk Report, which included EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System Program. Read the blog by EPA’s Lou D’Amico and Samantha Jones discussing the program’s progress.
  5. Visit a Unique Air Monitoring Bench this Summer
    Read about how EPA has developed an air-monitoring system that can be incorporated into a park bench. The Village Green bench provides real-time air quality measurements on two air pollutants – ozone and particle pollution – and weather conditions. The data is streamed to a website and can be obtained at the benches using a smart phone. There are several benches throughout the country that you can visit!
  1. Swimming with the Sharks
    Through Small Business Innovation Research contracts, EPA helps many great, environmentally-minded business ventures with potential, get the funding they need to get started. Read about some of our success stories—one of which was recently on the show Shark Tank—in this blog.
  1. When Cooking Can Harm
    The process of cooking is one of the greatest health threats for the three billion people throughout the world who use biomass or coal-fed cookstoves to cook their meals and heat their homes. Read about how EPA supports research for cleaner technologies and fuels for cooking, lighting and heating in homes that have limited or no access to electricity or gas lines.
  1. Are Some People at Greater Risk from Air Pollution?
    Read about how researchers at EPA and Duke University are using a database called CATHGEN to see how factors like age, sex, race, disease status, genetic makeup, socioeconomic status, and where a person lives can put someone at greater risk from the health effects of air pollution.
  2. Indoor Air Quality in Schools – Concerns and Need for Low-Cost Solutions.
    Evidence has mounted regarding the contributions of poor indoor air quality and inadequate classroom ventilation toward student illnesses, absenteeism, and decreases in academic performance. Read about how a new EPA Science to Achieve Results grant will focus on high schools, a relatively under-studied school environment with numerous data gaps.

 

About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.



from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1SmOc6I

By Kacey FitzpatrickResearch Recap with Happy New Year message

Our EPA researchers were hard at work in 2015—so to highlight that effort, we’ve put together a list of the ten most popular blogs from this year.

Happy New Year!

  1. Bridging the Gap: EPA’s Report on the Environment
    Read about EPA’s Report on the Environment, an interactive resource that shows how the condition of the environment and human health in the United States is changing over time. It can be used by anyone interested in environmental trends and presents the best available indicators of national trends in five theme areas: AirWaterLand, Human Exposure and Health, and Ecological Condition.
  1. Release of Community Air Monitoring Training Videos
    Small, hand-held air quality sensors are now commercially available and provide citizens the ability to plan, conduct, and understand local environmental air quality as never before. Learn about how to use these tools yourself or educate interested groups and individuals about best practices for successful air monitoring projects.
  2. Training Citizen Scientists to Monitor Air Quality
    Read about when Administrator Gina McCarthy joined New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, and other community members at Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood Family Success Center to launch an EPA-Ironbound partnership for community air monitoring that is a first of its kind citizen science project.
  3. Seeding Environmental Innovation
    Read about when EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) team attended a national conference and met with environmental entrepreneurs and successful SBIR awardees who have gone from an innovative seedling to a growing green business.
  4. Moving Away From “High Risk”
    This year the Government Accountability Office released their biennial High Risk Report, which included EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System Program. Read the blog by EPA’s Lou D’Amico and Samantha Jones discussing the program’s progress.
  5. Visit a Unique Air Monitoring Bench this Summer
    Read about how EPA has developed an air-monitoring system that can be incorporated into a park bench. The Village Green bench provides real-time air quality measurements on two air pollutants – ozone and particle pollution – and weather conditions. The data is streamed to a website and can be obtained at the benches using a smart phone. There are several benches throughout the country that you can visit!
  1. Swimming with the Sharks
    Through Small Business Innovation Research contracts, EPA helps many great, environmentally-minded business ventures with potential, get the funding they need to get started. Read about some of our success stories—one of which was recently on the show Shark Tank—in this blog.
  1. When Cooking Can Harm
    The process of cooking is one of the greatest health threats for the three billion people throughout the world who use biomass or coal-fed cookstoves to cook their meals and heat their homes. Read about how EPA supports research for cleaner technologies and fuels for cooking, lighting and heating in homes that have limited or no access to electricity or gas lines.
  1. Are Some People at Greater Risk from Air Pollution?
    Read about how researchers at EPA and Duke University are using a database called CATHGEN to see how factors like age, sex, race, disease status, genetic makeup, socioeconomic status, and where a person lives can put someone at greater risk from the health effects of air pollution.
  2. Indoor Air Quality in Schools – Concerns and Need for Low-Cost Solutions.
    Evidence has mounted regarding the contributions of poor indoor air quality and inadequate classroom ventilation toward student illnesses, absenteeism, and decreases in academic performance. Read about how a new EPA Science to Achieve Results grant will focus on high schools, a relatively under-studied school environment with numerous data gaps.

 

About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.



from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1SmOc6I

Why we need the next-to-impossible 1.5°C temperature target

Simon Donner is an Associate Professor of Climatology at the University of British Columbia. For the past decade, he has researched climate change impacts and the adaptation challenges facing the Pacific island countries.

The agreement signed at the United Nations climate summit in Paris has been hailed as historic, ground-breaking, and unprecedented.

At the same time, the targets are so ambitious that many climate analysts are rolling their eyes. The agreement aims to limit warming to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and recognizes that avoiding 1.5°C of warming “would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.”

The emissions reduction commitments made by the participating countries are not close to sufficient to achieve these targets. Carbon budget analyses show it will be next to impossible to avoid the 1.5°C limit without “negative emissions” – sucking carbon dioxide out of the air, using technologies that are unproven or not yet in existence. 

It is therefore understandable that Oliver Geden of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs would argue in his article, “Paris climate deal: the trouble with targetism,” that the temperature targets in the agreement are the height of hypocrisy. 

Yet Mr. Gedden and other critics of the Paris Agreement are missing the point of the climate negotiations. The issue facing international negotiators is not the statistical odds of staying within stated temperature limits. The issue is what happens if we do not.

After all, this is a global climate agreement. And to many countries, passing those temperature limits could be a disaster.

The temperature targets were included in the agreement out of respect for developing countries and small island states like the Republic of Kiribati, where I have conducted climate research over the past decade. In particular, the lower 1.5°C target is a signal to these countries that the world recognizes the existential threat that comes with more warming.

There is no scientifically definable “safe” amount of climate change. Science can provide us with a guide to the impacts of different levels of warming. The amount of warming we deem as “safe,” however, depends on our values and our perception of risk.

The 2°C target was informed by science, but it was chosen by developed countries – the same countries that are historically most responsible for climate change.

If you live in a small island nation in the tropics, more than 1.5°C of global warming certainly seems dangerous. With more than 1 meter of sea-level rise, around 90% of countries like Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, and Kiribati could become so prone to flooding as to be uninhabitable. While there’s large uncertainty about the rate of future sea-level rise, evidence from the distant past suggests that every 1°C of warming will eventually cause 2.3 meters of sea-level rise.

There’s even greater concern among larger countries like Fiji about coral reefs, a key source of food, income, and coastal protection in tropical countries. The world’s coral reefs are already in trouble due to warming and acidifying ocean waters. Research led by my colleague Dr. Katja Frieler shows that if warming can be kept to less than 1.5°C, two-thirds of the world’s coral reefs could be spared from serious degradation this century. With 2°C or more of warming, reefs covered with living corals could become an artifact of history.

The critics are correct in arguing that the world is unlikely to avoid 1.5°C of warming, or even 2°C of warming. Yet to dismiss the targets entirely is to dismiss the needs of countries that are full members of the international climate negotiations.

By agreeing on the temperature limits, we are officially recognizing the scientific evidence that harm will come with more warming. This helps ensure that countries like Kiribati which are most at risk will receive the needed international assistance, a key tenet of international climate policy since the creation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. Though they have not received much attention in the international media, the adaptation, capacity-building, and finance sections are as central to the Paris climate agreement as the sections on emissions and temperature targets.

Click here to read the rest



from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1RRqYq4

Simon Donner is an Associate Professor of Climatology at the University of British Columbia. For the past decade, he has researched climate change impacts and the adaptation challenges facing the Pacific island countries.

The agreement signed at the United Nations climate summit in Paris has been hailed as historic, ground-breaking, and unprecedented.

At the same time, the targets are so ambitious that many climate analysts are rolling their eyes. The agreement aims to limit warming to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and recognizes that avoiding 1.5°C of warming “would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.”

The emissions reduction commitments made by the participating countries are not close to sufficient to achieve these targets. Carbon budget analyses show it will be next to impossible to avoid the 1.5°C limit without “negative emissions” – sucking carbon dioxide out of the air, using technologies that are unproven or not yet in existence. 

It is therefore understandable that Oliver Geden of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs would argue in his article, “Paris climate deal: the trouble with targetism,” that the temperature targets in the agreement are the height of hypocrisy. 

Yet Mr. Gedden and other critics of the Paris Agreement are missing the point of the climate negotiations. The issue facing international negotiators is not the statistical odds of staying within stated temperature limits. The issue is what happens if we do not.

After all, this is a global climate agreement. And to many countries, passing those temperature limits could be a disaster.

The temperature targets were included in the agreement out of respect for developing countries and small island states like the Republic of Kiribati, where I have conducted climate research over the past decade. In particular, the lower 1.5°C target is a signal to these countries that the world recognizes the existential threat that comes with more warming.

There is no scientifically definable “safe” amount of climate change. Science can provide us with a guide to the impacts of different levels of warming. The amount of warming we deem as “safe,” however, depends on our values and our perception of risk.

The 2°C target was informed by science, but it was chosen by developed countries – the same countries that are historically most responsible for climate change.

If you live in a small island nation in the tropics, more than 1.5°C of global warming certainly seems dangerous. With more than 1 meter of sea-level rise, around 90% of countries like Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, and Kiribati could become so prone to flooding as to be uninhabitable. While there’s large uncertainty about the rate of future sea-level rise, evidence from the distant past suggests that every 1°C of warming will eventually cause 2.3 meters of sea-level rise.

There’s even greater concern among larger countries like Fiji about coral reefs, a key source of food, income, and coastal protection in tropical countries. The world’s coral reefs are already in trouble due to warming and acidifying ocean waters. Research led by my colleague Dr. Katja Frieler shows that if warming can be kept to less than 1.5°C, two-thirds of the world’s coral reefs could be spared from serious degradation this century. With 2°C or more of warming, reefs covered with living corals could become an artifact of history.

The critics are correct in arguing that the world is unlikely to avoid 1.5°C of warming, or even 2°C of warming. Yet to dismiss the targets entirely is to dismiss the needs of countries that are full members of the international climate negotiations.

By agreeing on the temperature limits, we are officially recognizing the scientific evidence that harm will come with more warming. This helps ensure that countries like Kiribati which are most at risk will receive the needed international assistance, a key tenet of international climate policy since the creation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. Though they have not received much attention in the international media, the adaptation, capacity-building, and finance sections are as central to the Paris climate agreement as the sections on emissions and temperature targets.

Click here to read the rest



from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1RRqYq4