The things one can do with light – and messages in the dark [The Weizmann Wave]

 

 

One day in the future, we may be treating our ailments with microbiotic combinations designed specifically to correct imbalances in our personal microbiomes. We’ll bring our prescriptions on rewritable paper and pay using shimmery optical chips embedded in our cell phone cases or maybe our jewelry. Or we’ll be waiting in our doctor’s office for a simple test of our microbiogenome to see if a light-based nanoparticle delivery treatment is working, while watching iridescent optical displays that change as we move…

These future scenarios (and many more) are all imaginary, but they are imminently feasible, given today’s new stories on basic research at the Weizmann Institute. These are about several things one can do with light, including a disappearing trick or two, and messages hidden in deep, dark places.

Dr. Rafal Klajn’s messages are written with light. Printed images on a unique surface disappear within a few minutes. This system, made of nanoparticles in a gel-like medium, can be rewritten over and over again, so it could, one day, be the basis of rewritable paper. Klajn’s innovation is to put light-sensitive molecules into the medium (rather than engineering the nanoparticles); light exposure turns the gel acidic and leads to a fairly simple chemical reaction with the nanoparticles that causes them to disperse. The molecules Klajn uses, by the way, were developed back in the day (1950s) at the Weizmann Institute, and they have been used, among other things for photosensitive coatings on glasses.

Lighting the medium causes nanoparticles to disperse. Image: lab of Dr. Rafal Klajn

A different trick of the light is that of a tiny marine creature commonly known as a sea sapphire. Only a millimeter or so in length, the males of several species flash in brilliant colors ranging from purple to green for a second or so, and in the next they appear to completely vanish from sight. Though we still don’t know if the colors are meant to attract females or warn other males, thanks to Profs. Lia Addadi, Steve Weiner and Dan Oron, and their students Dvir Gur and Ben Leshem, we now know exactly how they perform the trick. Thin, clear crystals on the sea sapphires’ backs are stacked in precise arrays with “spacers” of cellular material holding them in place. It is the tuning of the spaces between the crystals that cause light to be directed in very specific wavelengths. In some species, this creates a glitzy blue iridescence when the light hits them full-on, from above. But when the sea sapphire performs an evasive corkscrew maneuver in the water, the angles are foreshortened as it turns sideways and the reflected light is shifted into the ultraviolet – effectively creating a sort of temporary invisibility cloak.

The precise stacking of the crystals, say the researchers, could lead to the design of artificial nanophotonic structures that would have numerous applications.

Finally, a study that brings to light a signal hidden in a place that daylight never reaches – deep inside our intestinal tracts. We know by now that the thousands of different types of bacteria living there are writing their own messages, which our immune systems interpret to our benefit or detriment. Type 2 diabetes, for example, and inflammatory bowel disease are mediated by the mix of microorganisms in our guts. Today we can work out the makeup of a person’s gut microbiome, but its message is mostly still too faint to read.

Computer scientist Prof. Eran Segal and his research students, working together with the group of Dr. Eran Elinav, an immunologist, have come up with a way of identifying a sort of communiqué within the broad picture. The idea is to sequence all of the DNA in a single sample, a task that is already available today with advanced sequencing techniques. Such techniques break the DNA into pieces and then reassemble the short sequences into long ones. But the group showed that this information can tell you not just quantities each kind of bacterium, but how fast each is reproducing. That’s because many of them are in the process of copying out their genomes in preparation for splitting into daughter cells; thus an overall sequencing will turn up lots of partial genomes. Since each kind of bacterium conveniently starts copying at the same point in its circular genome, one can figure out the first and last sequences to be copied and compute the ratio between the two. That will tell you, from a single sample, how fast each is replicating.

And changes in growth rates, according to the team’s further analysis, is a better indicator of the above-mentioned disorders than any other attempt to read our microbiomic messages, so far.

Three different studies – all basic research – in departments ranging from physics to computer science to chemistry and biology. The future possibilities are endless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LPUw56

 

 

One day in the future, we may be treating our ailments with microbiotic combinations designed specifically to correct imbalances in our personal microbiomes. We’ll bring our prescriptions on rewritable paper and pay using shimmery optical chips embedded in our cell phone cases or maybe our jewelry. Or we’ll be waiting in our doctor’s office for a simple test of our microbiogenome to see if a light-based nanoparticle delivery treatment is working, while watching iridescent optical displays that change as we move…

These future scenarios (and many more) are all imaginary, but they are imminently feasible, given today’s new stories on basic research at the Weizmann Institute. These are about several things one can do with light, including a disappearing trick or two, and messages hidden in deep, dark places.

Dr. Rafal Klajn’s messages are written with light. Printed images on a unique surface disappear within a few minutes. This system, made of nanoparticles in a gel-like medium, can be rewritten over and over again, so it could, one day, be the basis of rewritable paper. Klajn’s innovation is to put light-sensitive molecules into the medium (rather than engineering the nanoparticles); light exposure turns the gel acidic and leads to a fairly simple chemical reaction with the nanoparticles that causes them to disperse. The molecules Klajn uses, by the way, were developed back in the day (1950s) at the Weizmann Institute, and they have been used, among other things for photosensitive coatings on glasses.

Lighting the medium causes nanoparticles to disperse. Image: lab of Dr. Rafal Klajn

A different trick of the light is that of a tiny marine creature commonly known as a sea sapphire. Only a millimeter or so in length, the males of several species flash in brilliant colors ranging from purple to green for a second or so, and in the next they appear to completely vanish from sight. Though we still don’t know if the colors are meant to attract females or warn other males, thanks to Profs. Lia Addadi, Steve Weiner and Dan Oron, and their students Dvir Gur and Ben Leshem, we now know exactly how they perform the trick. Thin, clear crystals on the sea sapphires’ backs are stacked in precise arrays with “spacers” of cellular material holding them in place. It is the tuning of the spaces between the crystals that cause light to be directed in very specific wavelengths. In some species, this creates a glitzy blue iridescence when the light hits them full-on, from above. But when the sea sapphire performs an evasive corkscrew maneuver in the water, the angles are foreshortened as it turns sideways and the reflected light is shifted into the ultraviolet – effectively creating a sort of temporary invisibility cloak.

The precise stacking of the crystals, say the researchers, could lead to the design of artificial nanophotonic structures that would have numerous applications.

Finally, a study that brings to light a signal hidden in a place that daylight never reaches – deep inside our intestinal tracts. We know by now that the thousands of different types of bacteria living there are writing their own messages, which our immune systems interpret to our benefit or detriment. Type 2 diabetes, for example, and inflammatory bowel disease are mediated by the mix of microorganisms in our guts. Today we can work out the makeup of a person’s gut microbiome, but its message is mostly still too faint to read.

Computer scientist Prof. Eran Segal and his research students, working together with the group of Dr. Eran Elinav, an immunologist, have come up with a way of identifying a sort of communiqué within the broad picture. The idea is to sequence all of the DNA in a single sample, a task that is already available today with advanced sequencing techniques. Such techniques break the DNA into pieces and then reassemble the short sequences into long ones. But the group showed that this information can tell you not just quantities each kind of bacterium, but how fast each is reproducing. That’s because many of them are in the process of copying out their genomes in preparation for splitting into daughter cells; thus an overall sequencing will turn up lots of partial genomes. Since each kind of bacterium conveniently starts copying at the same point in its circular genome, one can figure out the first and last sequences to be copied and compute the ratio between the two. That will tell you, from a single sample, how fast each is replicating.

And changes in growth rates, according to the team’s further analysis, is a better indicator of the above-mentioned disorders than any other attempt to read our microbiomic messages, so far.

Three different studies – all basic research – in departments ranging from physics to computer science to chemistry and biology. The future possibilities are endless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LPUw56

Career Spotlight: Environmental Health Engineer

 

Amy Pickering is an environmental health engineer and works as a research associate at Stanford University in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and at the Woods Institute for the Environment.  She combines social science, microbiology and engineering to study ways people in low-income countries can access safer water and better sanitation. People living in the developing world are often exposed to higher levels of bacteria and other germs, usually because of contaminated water and poor sanitation conditions. Pickering tries to reduce the spread of disease by  travelling to areas with poor water quality and studying why people are getting sick and coming up with low-cost and low-tech solutions that can help minimize illnesses. She also runs research studies to test and evaluate how effective various interventions are at preventing the spread of disease. Pickering spends about 20% of her time in the countries in which she works and the rest at Stanford.

Pickering did not always know she wanted to do this type of work. In high school, one of her math teachers suggested that she go into a career involving numbers.

"I knew that I loved the outdoors and the environment so I decided to do engineering, and specifically environmental engineering. And I also wanted to do something that challenged me and I thought that engineering would provide that challenge," explains Pickering.

After she graduated from college with an undergraduate degree in biological and environmental engineering from Cornell University, she went on to get a masters in environmental engineering with an emphasis on water quality from University of California, Berkeley. There, she worked on a low cost UV water disinfection device, which was being implemented in Mexico to help clean contaminated water. After she graduated with a masters degree, Pickering wanted to work at the intersection of science and policy so she began working at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  in Washington DC.

"I liked working at the EPA a lot, but I was in a cubicle and I quickly became restless just sitting in a cubicle all day," says Pickering.

As Pickering was growing restless with cubicle work, a tsunami struck and destroyed large parts of South Asia.  She and some colleagues from graduate school decided to go to Sri Lanka to help with the tsunami relief effort. To provide residents with clean drinking water, they installed the UV water disinfection devices that they had worked on at UC-Berkeley. She loved this type of work and that's when she knew she wanted to work on global water quality.  She then received a Fulbright scholarship to teach English, math and photography and completed a photo essay about how people in different parts of the world interact with water. She eventually ended up completing a Ph.D in the Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University.

This video will be featured in our Engineering Is: Cleaning Poop from Drinking Water e-book. The e-book explores the science and engineering principles behind one of Amy Pickering's projects– a device that purifies drinking water in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The e-book includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities. Stay tuned for its release. You can find our other e-books at kqed.org/ebooks.

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: career, career spotlight, engineer, Engineering, environmental engineer, environmental health engineer, featured, full-image, kqed, QUEST, Stanford University, women in engineering


from QUEST http://ift.tt/1Jy33Ga

 

Amy Pickering is an environmental health engineer and works as a research associate at Stanford University in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and at the Woods Institute for the Environment.  She combines social science, microbiology and engineering to study ways people in low-income countries can access safer water and better sanitation. People living in the developing world are often exposed to higher levels of bacteria and other germs, usually because of contaminated water and poor sanitation conditions. Pickering tries to reduce the spread of disease by  travelling to areas with poor water quality and studying why people are getting sick and coming up with low-cost and low-tech solutions that can help minimize illnesses. She also runs research studies to test and evaluate how effective various interventions are at preventing the spread of disease. Pickering spends about 20% of her time in the countries in which she works and the rest at Stanford.

Pickering did not always know she wanted to do this type of work. In high school, one of her math teachers suggested that she go into a career involving numbers.

"I knew that I loved the outdoors and the environment so I decided to do engineering, and specifically environmental engineering. And I also wanted to do something that challenged me and I thought that engineering would provide that challenge," explains Pickering.

After she graduated from college with an undergraduate degree in biological and environmental engineering from Cornell University, she went on to get a masters in environmental engineering with an emphasis on water quality from University of California, Berkeley. There, she worked on a low cost UV water disinfection device, which was being implemented in Mexico to help clean contaminated water. After she graduated with a masters degree, Pickering wanted to work at the intersection of science and policy so she began working at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  in Washington DC.

"I liked working at the EPA a lot, but I was in a cubicle and I quickly became restless just sitting in a cubicle all day," says Pickering.

As Pickering was growing restless with cubicle work, a tsunami struck and destroyed large parts of South Asia.  She and some colleagues from graduate school decided to go to Sri Lanka to help with the tsunami relief effort. To provide residents with clean drinking water, they installed the UV water disinfection devices that they had worked on at UC-Berkeley. She loved this type of work and that's when she knew she wanted to work on global water quality.  She then received a Fulbright scholarship to teach English, math and photography and completed a photo essay about how people in different parts of the world interact with water. She eventually ended up completing a Ph.D in the Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University.

This video will be featured in our Engineering Is: Cleaning Poop from Drinking Water e-book. The e-book explores the science and engineering principles behind one of Amy Pickering's projects– a device that purifies drinking water in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The e-book includes videos, interactives and media making opportunities. Stay tuned for its release. You can find our other e-books at kqed.org/ebooks.

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: career, career spotlight, engineer, Engineering, environmental engineer, environmental health engineer, featured, full-image, kqed, QUEST, Stanford University, women in engineering


from QUEST http://ift.tt/1Jy33Ga

Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars

Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (GPS), a division within Citibank (America’s third-largest bank), recently published a report looking at the economic costs and benefits of a low-carbon future. The report considered two scenarios: “Inaction,” which involves continuing on a business-as-usual path, and Action scenario which involves transitioning to a low-carbon energy mix.

One of the most interesting findings in the report is that the investment costs for the two scenarios are almost identical. In fact, because of savings due to reduced fuel costs and increased energy efficiency, the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario.

What is perhaps most surprising is that looking at the potential total spend on energy over the next quarter century, on an undiscounted basis the cost of following a low carbon route at $190.2 trillion is actually cheaper than our ‘Inaction’ scenario at $192 trillion. This, as we examine in this chapter, is due to the rapidly falling costs of renewables, which combined with lower fuel usage from energy efficiency investments actually result in significantly lower long term fuel bill. Yes, we have to invest more in the early years, but we potentially save later, not to mention the liabilities of climate change that we potentially avoid.

The following figure from the Citi report breaks down the investment costs in the Action ($190.2 trillion) and Inaction ($192 trillion) scenarios.

Investment costs of climate Action and Inaction scenarios. Source: Citi GPS.

This conclusion soundly refutes the main argument against climate action – that it’s too expensive, with some contrarians even having gone so far as to claim that cutting carbon pollution will create an economic catastrophe. To the contrary, the Citi report finds that these investments will save money, before even accounting for the tremendous savings from avoiding climate damage costs.

What about those avoided climate costs? As shown in the bottom left corner of the above figure, the difference in climate damage costs between low (1.5°C) warming and high (4.5°C) warming scenarios could be as high as $50 trillion. Even moderate (2.5°C) warming could cost $30 trillion less than a business-as-usual high global warming scenario.

As a result, the Citi report concludes that taking action to cut carbon pollution and slow global warming would result in a positive return on investment.

By comparing the cost of mitigation to the avoided ‘liabilities’ of climate change, we can derive a simple ‘return on investment’. On a risk adjusted basis this implies a return of 1-4%  at the low point in 2021, rising to between 3% and 10% by 2035.

This isn’t a groundbreaking finding. Other reports have arrived at the same conclusion, and have found that a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be modestly beneficial for the economy (again, before accounting for the economic benefits of curbing global warming). This is why there’s a consensus among economists that we should be reducing carbon pollution.

Survey results of economists with climate expertise when asked under what circumstances the USA should reduce its carbon emissions. Source: New York University; Economists and Climate Change report.

The Citi report then asks the trillion-dollar question – if tackling global warming is such an economic no-brainer, what are we waiting for?

With a limited differential in the total bill of Action vs Inaction (in fact a saving on an undiscounted basis), potentially enormous liabilities avoided and the simple fact that cleaner air must be preferable to pollution, a very strong “Why would you not?” argument regarding action on climate change begins to form … Coupled with the fact the total spend is similar under both action and inaction, yet the potential liabilities of inaction are enormous, it is hard to argue against a path of action.

Dave Roberts at Vox took a stab at answering that question, and the answer is touched upon in the Citi report:

The clear loser between the scenarios is coal, which sees its total investment bill fall by some $11.5 trillion over the next quarter century. Gas investment also reduces though by a far smaller amount, $3.4 trillion in total

While the global economy would clearly benefit from climate action, it would create “stranded assets” for the fossil fuel industry, because a large percentage of known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground if we’re to avoid dangerous climate change.

Some studies suggest that globally a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80% of current coal reserves would have to remain unused from 2010 to 2050 in order to have a chance of meeting the 2°C target.

Click here to read the rest

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1N5AZxD

Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (GPS), a division within Citibank (America’s third-largest bank), recently published a report looking at the economic costs and benefits of a low-carbon future. The report considered two scenarios: “Inaction,” which involves continuing on a business-as-usual path, and Action scenario which involves transitioning to a low-carbon energy mix.

One of the most interesting findings in the report is that the investment costs for the two scenarios are almost identical. In fact, because of savings due to reduced fuel costs and increased energy efficiency, the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario.

What is perhaps most surprising is that looking at the potential total spend on energy over the next quarter century, on an undiscounted basis the cost of following a low carbon route at $190.2 trillion is actually cheaper than our ‘Inaction’ scenario at $192 trillion. This, as we examine in this chapter, is due to the rapidly falling costs of renewables, which combined with lower fuel usage from energy efficiency investments actually result in significantly lower long term fuel bill. Yes, we have to invest more in the early years, but we potentially save later, not to mention the liabilities of climate change that we potentially avoid.

The following figure from the Citi report breaks down the investment costs in the Action ($190.2 trillion) and Inaction ($192 trillion) scenarios.

Investment costs of climate Action and Inaction scenarios. Source: Citi GPS.

This conclusion soundly refutes the main argument against climate action – that it’s too expensive, with some contrarians even having gone so far as to claim that cutting carbon pollution will create an economic catastrophe. To the contrary, the Citi report finds that these investments will save money, before even accounting for the tremendous savings from avoiding climate damage costs.

What about those avoided climate costs? As shown in the bottom left corner of the above figure, the difference in climate damage costs between low (1.5°C) warming and high (4.5°C) warming scenarios could be as high as $50 trillion. Even moderate (2.5°C) warming could cost $30 trillion less than a business-as-usual high global warming scenario.

As a result, the Citi report concludes that taking action to cut carbon pollution and slow global warming would result in a positive return on investment.

By comparing the cost of mitigation to the avoided ‘liabilities’ of climate change, we can derive a simple ‘return on investment’. On a risk adjusted basis this implies a return of 1-4%  at the low point in 2021, rising to between 3% and 10% by 2035.

This isn’t a groundbreaking finding. Other reports have arrived at the same conclusion, and have found that a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be modestly beneficial for the economy (again, before accounting for the economic benefits of curbing global warming). This is why there’s a consensus among economists that we should be reducing carbon pollution.

Survey results of economists with climate expertise when asked under what circumstances the USA should reduce its carbon emissions. Source: New York University; Economists and Climate Change report.

The Citi report then asks the trillion-dollar question – if tackling global warming is such an economic no-brainer, what are we waiting for?

With a limited differential in the total bill of Action vs Inaction (in fact a saving on an undiscounted basis), potentially enormous liabilities avoided and the simple fact that cleaner air must be preferable to pollution, a very strong “Why would you not?” argument regarding action on climate change begins to form … Coupled with the fact the total spend is similar under both action and inaction, yet the potential liabilities of inaction are enormous, it is hard to argue against a path of action.

Dave Roberts at Vox took a stab at answering that question, and the answer is touched upon in the Citi report:

The clear loser between the scenarios is coal, which sees its total investment bill fall by some $11.5 trillion over the next quarter century. Gas investment also reduces though by a far smaller amount, $3.4 trillion in total

While the global economy would clearly benefit from climate action, it would create “stranded assets” for the fossil fuel industry, because a large percentage of known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground if we’re to avoid dangerous climate change.

Some studies suggest that globally a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80% of current coal reserves would have to remain unused from 2010 to 2050 in order to have a chance of meeting the 2°C target.

Click here to read the rest

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/1N5AZxD

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Lost in those eyes [Pharyngula]

Up Close with Nature

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

Up Close with Nature

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

Fireballs erupt over Hawaii as space debris hits atmosphere

Looking a lot like how Hollywood might portray an invasion by space aliens, videos began surfacing Sunday of strange fireballs streaking across the night sky over Hawaii islands.

News reports from the Honolulu TV station KHON2 and news source MauiNow.com peg the light source as space debris burning up in the atmosphere.

MauiNow reported:

According to information released by the DoD’s Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB in CA, the object was likely the Cosmos 1315 payload launched in 1981. Gene Stansbery, Program Manager for NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office confirmed the report with Maui Now this morning.

Great light show! But how do they know the source of the space junk that burned up? Well, NASA tracks as much of it as they can locate because …

More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft.

The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, but especially to the International Space Station, space shuttles and other spacecraft with humans aboard.

But, not all sources of “lights” in space are as well understood. For instance:

Video by Jake Ellison

Bright UFO paces International Space Station

On Aug. 3, ”lights” or reflections of sunlight off an unidentified flying object appeared briefly near the International Space Station and caused a stir in media around the globe. The brief appearance of the bright and colorful unidentified object was first spotted by UFO enthusiasts and declared evidence of alien life watching Earth’s activities. The Seattlepi.com investigated and found more, much clearer video footage from Aug. 23 of a similar bright object keeping pace with the ISS for minutes at a time. Space junk? Aliens? NASA hasn’t commented. So, you decide. (Note: All video footage is taken directly — unaltered but zoomed in on and sped up — from raw recordings on the Ustream account of NASA TV’s live feed from the International Space Station.)

And …

Video by Jake Ellison

‘UFO’ bombs NASA video of ISS repair

Oct. 7th started out as just another day in space with astronauts fixing things on the rickety old International Space Station … until …

Of course some of those fireballs in the sky are not as harmless as small space junk!

Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook.
If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.

from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1X6LVya

Looking a lot like how Hollywood might portray an invasion by space aliens, videos began surfacing Sunday of strange fireballs streaking across the night sky over Hawaii islands.

News reports from the Honolulu TV station KHON2 and news source MauiNow.com peg the light source as space debris burning up in the atmosphere.

MauiNow reported:

According to information released by the DoD’s Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg AFB in CA, the object was likely the Cosmos 1315 payload launched in 1981. Gene Stansbery, Program Manager for NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office confirmed the report with Maui Now this morning.

Great light show! But how do they know the source of the space junk that burned up? Well, NASA tracks as much of it as they can locate because …

More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft.

The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, but especially to the International Space Station, space shuttles and other spacecraft with humans aboard.

But, not all sources of “lights” in space are as well understood. For instance:

Video by Jake Ellison

Bright UFO paces International Space Station

On Aug. 3, ”lights” or reflections of sunlight off an unidentified flying object appeared briefly near the International Space Station and caused a stir in media around the globe. The brief appearance of the bright and colorful unidentified object was first spotted by UFO enthusiasts and declared evidence of alien life watching Earth’s activities. The Seattlepi.com investigated and found more, much clearer video footage from Aug. 23 of a similar bright object keeping pace with the ISS for minutes at a time. Space junk? Aliens? NASA hasn’t commented. So, you decide. (Note: All video footage is taken directly — unaltered but zoomed in on and sped up — from raw recordings on the Ustream account of NASA TV’s live feed from the International Space Station.)

And …

Video by Jake Ellison

‘UFO’ bombs NASA video of ISS repair

Oct. 7th started out as just another day in space with astronauts fixing things on the rickety old International Space Station … until …

Of course some of those fireballs in the sky are not as harmless as small space junk!

Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook.
If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.

from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1X6LVya

Astroquizzical: How do we know the universe is expanding evenly? (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

When it comes to the Universe, physicists say things like: it originated in a Big Bang, it’s isotropic (or the same in all directions), and it’s homogeneous (the same everywhere), save for the effects of cosmic evolution. In every direction we look, we see galaxies expanding away from us, with the expansion rate increasing the farther away we look.

Image credit: NASA / WMAP science team, via http://ift.tt/1xhgeCV.

But an expansion inherent to the fabric of space itself isn’t the only explanation; it’s conceivable that we see what we see because everything else in the Universe is speeding away from us, and that spacetime itself is static. But what does the Universe itself have to say about that?

Image credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

Jillian Scudder takes this on for this week’s Astroquizzical!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Q4dcMV

When it comes to the Universe, physicists say things like: it originated in a Big Bang, it’s isotropic (or the same in all directions), and it’s homogeneous (the same everywhere), save for the effects of cosmic evolution. In every direction we look, we see galaxies expanding away from us, with the expansion rate increasing the farther away we look.

Image credit: NASA / WMAP science team, via http://ift.tt/1xhgeCV.

But an expansion inherent to the fabric of space itself isn’t the only explanation; it’s conceivable that we see what we see because everything else in the Universe is speeding away from us, and that spacetime itself is static. But what does the Universe itself have to say about that?

Image credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

Jillian Scudder takes this on for this week’s Astroquizzical!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Q4dcMV

Me on P. Thorne on Hansen et al. [Stoat]

I previously promised to read Hansen et al., and I finally have – well, at least skimmed. It hasn’t really changed my opinions.

global CO2 emissions continue to increase… the threat posed by ice sheet instability and sea level rise

This is in accord with what I’ve said before, that the most obviously unambiguously bad physical consequence of GW is SLR (see What I think about global warming from 2010 for the rest, which I don’t see any great reason to wish to update). So H focussing on it is understandable; but this leads to a regrettable tendency to need lots of SLR earlier than is obviously likely.

But I have read P. Thorne’s review, and I find that very helpful. Eli also notes it, but appears to read it rather differently to me; I view it as substantially negative about the paper. Why?

In many senses the study should be uncontentious: this isn’t a compliment. Why are you publishing boring stuff that people aren’t going to disagree with? All the hosing stuff, for example, is passe.

The question really is how this sea level increase will occur: yes indeed; but does the paper manage to answer, or advance our knowledge of these questions? Not obviously.

during glacial to interglacial transitions, there are relatively short-lived events of rapid change… The question here is whether with an interglacial ice-sheet configuration as at present day such event types can occur… the assertion that we may lie close to… a tipping point… a period of large scale and rapid changes in sea-levels… To make this conclusion relies to an uncomfortable extent upon a causal chain… Each link in this chain is certainly plausible based upon the relatively scant evidence to hand, but is not by any stretch determinant… Given the length of the causal chain… it is far from certain that the results contended shall match what will happen in the real-world. This I think is the key problem; its the familiar long chain of connections which may be broken at any point.

The paper is of inordinate length: I see this as a warning sign of poor overall paper construction; as per previous, its like a brain-dump, which may be kinda interesting, but if H wants to publish such, well, he’s got a blog and a mailing list. PT suggests editing to avoid repetition; my skim didn’t see much of that but I would strongly argue for various sub-pieces to be hived off into separate papers; like the Bahamian sea level evidence.

there was a tendency in several places to editorialize. By that I mean that in places the paper tends to read somewhat more as a blog post or advocacy piece than a scholarly paper: see previous.

some simplified assumptions that the rate of ice sheet mass loss can be approximated by a doubling every n years… It is not in my mind sufficient to assert that recent behavior can be extrapolated forward more than a very finite time as a predictor for the future… some more physically based rationale would be warranted… I see a nice discussion in Section 7.3 but it does not directly address the realism of the model prescribed fluxes to the extent I would expect: this seems rather important.

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

I previously promised to read Hansen et al., and I finally have – well, at least skimmed. It hasn’t really changed my opinions.

global CO2 emissions continue to increase… the threat posed by ice sheet instability and sea level rise

This is in accord with what I’ve said before, that the most obviously unambiguously bad physical consequence of GW is SLR (see What I think about global warming from 2010 for the rest, which I don’t see any great reason to wish to update). So H focussing on it is understandable; but this leads to a regrettable tendency to need lots of SLR earlier than is obviously likely.

But I have read P. Thorne’s review, and I find that very helpful. Eli also notes it, but appears to read it rather differently to me; I view it as substantially negative about the paper. Why?

In many senses the study should be uncontentious: this isn’t a compliment. Why are you publishing boring stuff that people aren’t going to disagree with? All the hosing stuff, for example, is passe.

The question really is how this sea level increase will occur: yes indeed; but does the paper manage to answer, or advance our knowledge of these questions? Not obviously.

during glacial to interglacial transitions, there are relatively short-lived events of rapid change… The question here is whether with an interglacial ice-sheet configuration as at present day such event types can occur… the assertion that we may lie close to… a tipping point… a period of large scale and rapid changes in sea-levels… To make this conclusion relies to an uncomfortable extent upon a causal chain… Each link in this chain is certainly plausible based upon the relatively scant evidence to hand, but is not by any stretch determinant… Given the length of the causal chain… it is far from certain that the results contended shall match what will happen in the real-world. This I think is the key problem; its the familiar long chain of connections which may be broken at any point.

The paper is of inordinate length: I see this as a warning sign of poor overall paper construction; as per previous, its like a brain-dump, which may be kinda interesting, but if H wants to publish such, well, he’s got a blog and a mailing list. PT suggests editing to avoid repetition; my skim didn’t see much of that but I would strongly argue for various sub-pieces to be hived off into separate papers; like the Bahamian sea level evidence.

there was a tendency in several places to editorialize. By that I mean that in places the paper tends to read somewhat more as a blog post or advocacy piece than a scholarly paper: see previous.

some simplified assumptions that the rate of ice sheet mass loss can be approximated by a doubling every n years… It is not in my mind sufficient to assert that recent behavior can be extrapolated forward more than a very finite time as a predictor for the future… some more physically based rationale would be warranted… I see a nice discussion in Section 7.3 but it does not directly address the realism of the model prescribed fluxes to the extent I would expect: this seems rather important.

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

Making Hazardous Waste Regulations Work for Today’s Marketplace

The pace of technology and change in the modern world can be dizzying. As new medicines and treatments are developed, new types of waste emerge. However, our hazardous waste generator regulations were written in the 1980s and haven’t changed much over the years.
Well, today we’re taking steps toward changing that. I’m excited to announce that we are proposing two rules to provide businesses with the certainty and flexibility they need to successfully operate in today’s marketplace.

Over the last 35 years, we’ve heard from states and the regulated community that our hazardous waste generator regulations, which were designed for manufacturing, don’t fit all sectors and especially not the healthcare sector. We’ve listened and these two proposals make a number of updates and improvements to the existing regulations. We have proposed over 60 changes to the regulations to improve the effectiveness of and compliance with the hazardous waste generator program. This includes rearranging some of the generator regulations that had outgrown their original numbering system so it will be easier for facilities of all sizes that generate hazardous waste to find everything they need to know in one place.

The second rule will make it easier for healthcare providers to comply with hazardous waste rules while protecting the nation’s water. We’re proposing to remove the traditional manufacturing-based hazardous waste generator requirements and instead provide a new set of regulations designed to be workable in a healthcare setting while ensuring safe management and disposal of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals. The primary focus for nurses, doctors and pharmacists is providing healthcare – they are not experts in hazardous waste identification and management. This rule seeks to reduce the burden and increase compliance by proposing a more flexible, common sense approach for healthcare providers and the elimination of unnecessary management practices.

Pharmaceuticals entering the environment, through flushing or other means, are having a negative effect on aquatic ecosystems and on fish and animal populations. Our proposal is keeping pace with today’s environmental issues by banning the sewering, or flushing down the toilet or sink, of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals from healthcare facilities. It is projected to prevent the flushing of more than 6,400 tons of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals annually making our drinking water safer.

In order to keep our world safe and healthy, regulations should not only effectively manage sources of environmental harm, but also be flexible and clear enough for newcomers to understand. The updates and tailoring of the hazardous waste generator regulations by these two proposed rules increases compliance, which then increases environmental benefit. The new rules respond to the needs of both the environment and businesses, benefitting both sides.

Our proposals will be available for public comment online in the coming weeks once they are published in the Federal Register. We’d love to hear your thoughts. To review these proposed rules now, visit: http://ift.tt/1KXpEd1.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1X6jvVd

The pace of technology and change in the modern world can be dizzying. As new medicines and treatments are developed, new types of waste emerge. However, our hazardous waste generator regulations were written in the 1980s and haven’t changed much over the years.
Well, today we’re taking steps toward changing that. I’m excited to announce that we are proposing two rules to provide businesses with the certainty and flexibility they need to successfully operate in today’s marketplace.

Over the last 35 years, we’ve heard from states and the regulated community that our hazardous waste generator regulations, which were designed for manufacturing, don’t fit all sectors and especially not the healthcare sector. We’ve listened and these two proposals make a number of updates and improvements to the existing regulations. We have proposed over 60 changes to the regulations to improve the effectiveness of and compliance with the hazardous waste generator program. This includes rearranging some of the generator regulations that had outgrown their original numbering system so it will be easier for facilities of all sizes that generate hazardous waste to find everything they need to know in one place.

The second rule will make it easier for healthcare providers to comply with hazardous waste rules while protecting the nation’s water. We’re proposing to remove the traditional manufacturing-based hazardous waste generator requirements and instead provide a new set of regulations designed to be workable in a healthcare setting while ensuring safe management and disposal of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals. The primary focus for nurses, doctors and pharmacists is providing healthcare – they are not experts in hazardous waste identification and management. This rule seeks to reduce the burden and increase compliance by proposing a more flexible, common sense approach for healthcare providers and the elimination of unnecessary management practices.

Pharmaceuticals entering the environment, through flushing or other means, are having a negative effect on aquatic ecosystems and on fish and animal populations. Our proposal is keeping pace with today’s environmental issues by banning the sewering, or flushing down the toilet or sink, of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals from healthcare facilities. It is projected to prevent the flushing of more than 6,400 tons of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals annually making our drinking water safer.

In order to keep our world safe and healthy, regulations should not only effectively manage sources of environmental harm, but also be flexible and clear enough for newcomers to understand. The updates and tailoring of the hazardous waste generator regulations by these two proposed rules increases compliance, which then increases environmental benefit. The new rules respond to the needs of both the environment and businesses, benefitting both sides.

Our proposals will be available for public comment online in the coming weeks once they are published in the Federal Register. We’d love to hear your thoughts. To review these proposed rules now, visit: http://ift.tt/1KXpEd1.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1X6jvVd

A Plug for Trash Free Waters

By Annette Poliwka

Ocean samples collected on board the Mystic found plastic throughout the 3,000 mile journey.

My love of recycling, or better said, my hatred of trash led me to a research expedition through the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, a portion of the Atlantic Ocean that traps man-made debris.

My interest in recycling really began in the 7^th grade, when I realized how the newspaper my father read stacked up on the porch until I could carry it to my parochial grade school for recycling. Yes, those were the days when we learned about current events by reading the paper, not our tablets. And those were the days prior to curbside recycling in major cities. I knew there had to be a better way, and I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up: protect the environment. I guess you could say, I’m living my dream.

The 5 Gyres Institute sails around the world collecting samples and conducting analysis of plastic pollution in our oceans. My experience began with a flight to Bermuda where I boarded a 172 foot, three-masted schooner named the Mystic. The boat had already sailed from Miami to the Bahamas, and our final destination was back to New York City! I was in the middle of paradise, along with other “Zero Wasters,” researchers and dedicated environmentalists, collecting samples of plastic pollution and figuring out how to prevent them from getting into the water in the first place.

The research included sampling the sea surface for the 3,000 mile journey. Micro-plastics, which are smaller than a grain of rice, were found in each sample. In the middle of paradise, in the middle of the ocean, and in the middle of the New York City harbor, we were consistently finding plastics. What is often described as an “island of trash,” is more of a “plastic smog.” The sun and waves shred larger pieces of plastics into micro-plastics, which can be a variety of colors and sizes. Fish can’t distinguish between a 3mm piece of plankton and a 3mm piece of plastic. We caught a fish and dissected it, finding plastics in its stomach. This is a human health concern, as plastics can transfer toxins into fish and up the food chain.

A water sample taken this summer in the NYC Harbor contains a wide variety of plastic pollution.

As we sailed to New York City, the samples of plastics we collected were bigger and more easily identifiable than what we found in the open ocean. This makes sense, as 80 percent of the plastics in our oceans are land-based, and it takes time to break down into micro-plastics. The samples also stunk of sewage!

Our use of plastics affects our waterways, the fish we eat and the general health of our oceans. Researchers have found that experiences, rather than material consumption, make people happy. So rather than buying the next new gadget, spend time doing something interesting, with someone you love. Your wallet and our oceans will be happier, too.

We can all help prevent waste by buying less and reusing what we have. If you live in New York City, recycle with the blue and green bins. Compost with the brown bin, or bring food scraps to Green Markets all around the city, year-round.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1X6jvV5

By Annette Poliwka

Ocean samples collected on board the Mystic found plastic throughout the 3,000 mile journey.

My love of recycling, or better said, my hatred of trash led me to a research expedition through the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, a portion of the Atlantic Ocean that traps man-made debris.

My interest in recycling really began in the 7^th grade, when I realized how the newspaper my father read stacked up on the porch until I could carry it to my parochial grade school for recycling. Yes, those were the days when we learned about current events by reading the paper, not our tablets. And those were the days prior to curbside recycling in major cities. I knew there had to be a better way, and I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up: protect the environment. I guess you could say, I’m living my dream.

The 5 Gyres Institute sails around the world collecting samples and conducting analysis of plastic pollution in our oceans. My experience began with a flight to Bermuda where I boarded a 172 foot, three-masted schooner named the Mystic. The boat had already sailed from Miami to the Bahamas, and our final destination was back to New York City! I was in the middle of paradise, along with other “Zero Wasters,” researchers and dedicated environmentalists, collecting samples of plastic pollution and figuring out how to prevent them from getting into the water in the first place.

The research included sampling the sea surface for the 3,000 mile journey. Micro-plastics, which are smaller than a grain of rice, were found in each sample. In the middle of paradise, in the middle of the ocean, and in the middle of the New York City harbor, we were consistently finding plastics. What is often described as an “island of trash,” is more of a “plastic smog.” The sun and waves shred larger pieces of plastics into micro-plastics, which can be a variety of colors and sizes. Fish can’t distinguish between a 3mm piece of plankton and a 3mm piece of plastic. We caught a fish and dissected it, finding plastics in its stomach. This is a human health concern, as plastics can transfer toxins into fish and up the food chain.

A water sample taken this summer in the NYC Harbor contains a wide variety of plastic pollution.

As we sailed to New York City, the samples of plastics we collected were bigger and more easily identifiable than what we found in the open ocean. This makes sense, as 80 percent of the plastics in our oceans are land-based, and it takes time to break down into micro-plastics. The samples also stunk of sewage!

Our use of plastics affects our waterways, the fish we eat and the general health of our oceans. Researchers have found that experiences, rather than material consumption, make people happy. So rather than buying the next new gadget, spend time doing something interesting, with someone you love. Your wallet and our oceans will be happier, too.

We can all help prevent waste by buying less and reusing what we have. If you live in New York City, recycle with the blue and green bins. Compost with the brown bin, or bring food scraps to Green Markets all around the city, year-round.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1X6jvV5

Interview with John Abraham [Greg Laden's Blog]

Why women rule, and other hot science topics at the Decatur Book Festival

Illustration: Don Morris

Women can forget about equality with men, warns Emory anthropologist Mel Konner.

It’s even better than that. Why should women embrace mere equality when their movement is toward superiority? It is maleness that has Konner worried in his latest book, “Women After All: Sex, Evolution and the End of Male Supremacy,” which looks at the history and future of gender through the lens of biology.

Konner will be one of the featured authors in the ever-popular Science track of the Decatur Book Festival this weekend. He’ll take the stage at 3 pm on Saturday, September 5, at the Marriot Conference Center.

The last line of Konner’s book jacket reads: “Provocative and richly informed, ‘Women After All’ is bound to be controversial across the sexes.”

As Konner acknowledges on his personal web site, the first murmurings came about after a short adaptation of the book ran in the Wall Street Journal. Hundreds of angry men responded within a couple of days. His wife, home alone during that period, double-locked the door. Konner’s editor at the Wall Street Journal apologized for failing to instruct him not to read the comments.

For his part, Konner is hiding in plain sight, saying “Clearly, I’ve touched a nerve, and I’m happy about that.”

Konner is clearly genuine when he talks about a future that his grandson will inhabit, a “new world” that “will be better for him because women help run it.”

You can read more about Konner’s book in the latest issue of Emory Magazine.

Another provocative issue at the intersection of science and society is explored in “Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationships with Immunization,” by Emory historian Elena Conis. She will discuss her book at 4:15 pm on Saturday at the Marriott Conference Center.

from eScienceCommons http://ift.tt/1Unrxoz

Illustration: Don Morris

Women can forget about equality with men, warns Emory anthropologist Mel Konner.

It’s even better than that. Why should women embrace mere equality when their movement is toward superiority? It is maleness that has Konner worried in his latest book, “Women After All: Sex, Evolution and the End of Male Supremacy,” which looks at the history and future of gender through the lens of biology.

Konner will be one of the featured authors in the ever-popular Science track of the Decatur Book Festival this weekend. He’ll take the stage at 3 pm on Saturday, September 5, at the Marriot Conference Center.

The last line of Konner’s book jacket reads: “Provocative and richly informed, ‘Women After All’ is bound to be controversial across the sexes.”

As Konner acknowledges on his personal web site, the first murmurings came about after a short adaptation of the book ran in the Wall Street Journal. Hundreds of angry men responded within a couple of days. His wife, home alone during that period, double-locked the door. Konner’s editor at the Wall Street Journal apologized for failing to instruct him not to read the comments.

For his part, Konner is hiding in plain sight, saying “Clearly, I’ve touched a nerve, and I’m happy about that.”

Konner is clearly genuine when he talks about a future that his grandson will inhabit, a “new world” that “will be better for him because women help run it.”

You can read more about Konner’s book in the latest issue of Emory Magazine.

Another provocative issue at the intersection of science and society is explored in “Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationships with Immunization,” by Emory historian Elena Conis. She will discuss her book at 4:15 pm on Saturday at the Marriott Conference Center.

from eScienceCommons http://ift.tt/1Unrxoz

Why women rule, and other hot science topics at Decatur Book Fest

Women can forget about equality with men, warns Emory anthropologist Mel Konner.

It’s even better than that. Why should women embrace mere equality when their movement is toward superiority? It is maleness that has Konner worried in his latest book, “Women After All: Sex, Evolution and the End of Male Supremacy,” which looks at the history and future of gender through the lens of biology.

Konner will be one of the featured authors in the ever-popular Science track of the Decatur Book Festival this weekend. He’ll take the stage at 3 pm on Saturday at the Marriot Conference Center.

The last line of Konner’s book jacket reads: “Provocative and richly informed, ‘Women After All’ is bound to be controversial across the sexes.”

As Konner acknowledges on his personal web site, the first murmurings came about after a short adaptation of the book ran in the Wall Street Journal. Hundreds of angry men responded within a couple of days. His wife, home alone during that period, double-locked the door. Konner’s editor at the Wall Street Journal apologized for failing to instruct him not to read the comments.

For his part, Konner is hiding in plain sight, saying “Clearly, I’ve touched a nerve, and I’m happy about that.”

Konner is clearly genuine when he talks about a future that his grandson will inhabit, a “new world” that “will be better for him because women help run it.”

You can read more about Konner’s book in the latest issue of Emory Magazine.

Another provocative issue at the intersection of science and society is explored in “Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationships with Immunization,” by Emory historian Elena Conis. She will discuss her book at 4:15 pm on Saturday at the Marriott Conference Center.

from eScienceCommons http://ift.tt/1Unrxoz

Women can forget about equality with men, warns Emory anthropologist Mel Konner.

It’s even better than that. Why should women embrace mere equality when their movement is toward superiority? It is maleness that has Konner worried in his latest book, “Women After All: Sex, Evolution and the End of Male Supremacy,” which looks at the history and future of gender through the lens of biology.

Konner will be one of the featured authors in the ever-popular Science track of the Decatur Book Festival this weekend. He’ll take the stage at 3 pm on Saturday at the Marriot Conference Center.

The last line of Konner’s book jacket reads: “Provocative and richly informed, ‘Women After All’ is bound to be controversial across the sexes.”

As Konner acknowledges on his personal web site, the first murmurings came about after a short adaptation of the book ran in the Wall Street Journal. Hundreds of angry men responded within a couple of days. His wife, home alone during that period, double-locked the door. Konner’s editor at the Wall Street Journal apologized for failing to instruct him not to read the comments.

For his part, Konner is hiding in plain sight, saying “Clearly, I’ve touched a nerve, and I’m happy about that.”

Konner is clearly genuine when he talks about a future that his grandson will inhabit, a “new world” that “will be better for him because women help run it.”

You can read more about Konner’s book in the latest issue of Emory Magazine.

Another provocative issue at the intersection of science and society is explored in “Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationships with Immunization,” by Emory historian Elena Conis. She will discuss her book at 4:15 pm on Saturday at the Marriott Conference Center.

from eScienceCommons http://ift.tt/1Unrxoz

Lomborg is a hack [Pharyngula]

Oh, here’s a good takedown of that shill for the petroleum industry, Bjorn Lomborg.

Lomborg’s message to the newspaper readers has thus nothing to do with a fair portrayal of how much sea-level rise the scientific community expects. Rather it is a distortion and blatant attempt at downplaying future sea-level rise. Looking at Lomborg’s many other Project Syndicate columns shows that this is not a singular case but a regular pattern in his columns. This is all the more irresponsible given that Project Syndicate opinion pieces are widely reprinted by newspapers in developing nations, where reporting on the actual state of science is often poor and where people are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Earlier this year Lomborg travelled to Bangladesh to tell people there that “focusing on global warming instead of child nutrition is quite frankly almost immoral” (his standard false dichotomy).

It’s quite a thorough analysis, and exposes some of the most egregious of Lomborg’s sleights-of-hand. But here’s another very effective takedown: another long article on yet another small town in Alaska that’s disappearing into the sea.

Two decades ago, the people of this tiny village came to terms with what had become increasingly obvious: They could no longer fight back the rising waters.

Their homes perched on a low-lying, treeless tuft of land between two rivers on Alaska’s west coast, residents saw the water creeping closer every year, gobbling up fields where they used to pick berries and hunt moose. Paul and Teresa Charles watched from their blue home on stilts on Newtok’s southern side as the Ninglick River inched closer and closer, bringing with it the salt waters of the Bering Sea.

“Sometimes, we lose 100 feet a year,” Paul Charles told me, over a bowl of moose soup.

You know what’s immoral? Using one problem, child nutrition, to argue that we should ignore another problem, global climate change. Maybe we should recognize that food and climate are intertwined issues, and that you can’t make the world a better place by neglecting ongoing crises to plod through one problem at a time.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NIT8l2

Oh, here’s a good takedown of that shill for the petroleum industry, Bjorn Lomborg.

Lomborg’s message to the newspaper readers has thus nothing to do with a fair portrayal of how much sea-level rise the scientific community expects. Rather it is a distortion and blatant attempt at downplaying future sea-level rise. Looking at Lomborg’s many other Project Syndicate columns shows that this is not a singular case but a regular pattern in his columns. This is all the more irresponsible given that Project Syndicate opinion pieces are widely reprinted by newspapers in developing nations, where reporting on the actual state of science is often poor and where people are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Earlier this year Lomborg travelled to Bangladesh to tell people there that “focusing on global warming instead of child nutrition is quite frankly almost immoral” (his standard false dichotomy).

It’s quite a thorough analysis, and exposes some of the most egregious of Lomborg’s sleights-of-hand. But here’s another very effective takedown: another long article on yet another small town in Alaska that’s disappearing into the sea.

Two decades ago, the people of this tiny village came to terms with what had become increasingly obvious: They could no longer fight back the rising waters.

Their homes perched on a low-lying, treeless tuft of land between two rivers on Alaska’s west coast, residents saw the water creeping closer every year, gobbling up fields where they used to pick berries and hunt moose. Paul and Teresa Charles watched from their blue home on stilts on Newtok’s southern side as the Ninglick River inched closer and closer, bringing with it the salt waters of the Bering Sea.

“Sometimes, we lose 100 feet a year,” Paul Charles told me, over a bowl of moose soup.

You know what’s immoral? Using one problem, child nutrition, to argue that we should ignore another problem, global climate change. Maybe we should recognize that food and climate are intertwined issues, and that you can’t make the world a better place by neglecting ongoing crises to plod through one problem at a time.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NIT8l2

Private foundations fund another year of Colorado’s successful family program [The Pump Handle]

The Colorado Family Planning Initiative is a public-health success story. With funds from an anonymous foundation, Title X family planning clinics serving low-income women were able to offer IUDs and other highly effective forms of contraception for free. Rates of teen pregnancy and abortion both plummeted. When the foundation funding came to an end as scheduled, though, the state’s legislature refused to pick up the tab for this demonstrably successful program.

Now, reports Katie Kerwin McCrimmon of Health News Colorado, a group of foundations (11 are listed so far) has pledged funds to continue the progam through mid-2016. In the meantime, Governor John Hickenlooper and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Executive Director Larry Wolk will keep pushing for the public support that will make the program sustainable. Having the funds to allow it to continue in the meantime will allow the program’s substantial momentum to keep building. McCrimmon reports:

In Jefferson County, Colorado’s fourth largest, health officials started creating waiting lists earlier this summer to be sure that they would have some IUDs on hand each month.

Kelly Conroy, nurse manager for clinic services for Jefferson County Public Health, said the program’s popularity is surging.

“The word is definitely getting out. We have a lot of patients who come in and specifically ask for the devices by name. A lot of it is word of mouth, friends and family. A friend will be on Mirena (an IUD). They will know which one they want — hormonal or non-hormonal. People are coming in way more educated,” Conroy said.

Since Conroy and her colleagues knew funding from the state was in jeopardy, they started hunting for funds elsewhere to be sure they could have IUDs and other devices on hand. They worked to bill insurance companies or Medicaid for devices they were implanting so they could recoup as much money as possible to pay for other devices. On average, she said, patients were having to wait about three weeks.

Now health officials should be able to stop creating a waiting list and provide devices for those who want them right away.

“We’re absolutely thrilled,” Conroy said. “We are a safety net for a lot of clients who are uninsured and underinsured. We don’t want to put any obstacles in their way. We certainly don’t want anyone to have an unintended pregnancy.

“Our ultimate goal is empowering not just women, but families with the ability to know that they can make the choice (to have a baby) when they’re ready,” Conroy said.

Colorado’s success has inspired other states, McCrimmon notes. According to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, at least 15 states are working on programs to improve access to IUDs or contraceptive implants. At the same time, Republicans in the US House of Representatives have proposed eliminating funding for the Title X program, which supports family-planning services for millions of clients each year, and some states are trying to cut off Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive healthcare to millions of women. Some states recognize the importance of assuring that women of all income levels and insurance statuses have easy access to the full range of contraceptive options, while others seem determined to limit those options. Colorado has another year to decide which category it falls into.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LNUHh8

The Colorado Family Planning Initiative is a public-health success story. With funds from an anonymous foundation, Title X family planning clinics serving low-income women were able to offer IUDs and other highly effective forms of contraception for free. Rates of teen pregnancy and abortion both plummeted. When the foundation funding came to an end as scheduled, though, the state’s legislature refused to pick up the tab for this demonstrably successful program.

Now, reports Katie Kerwin McCrimmon of Health News Colorado, a group of foundations (11 are listed so far) has pledged funds to continue the progam through mid-2016. In the meantime, Governor John Hickenlooper and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Executive Director Larry Wolk will keep pushing for the public support that will make the program sustainable. Having the funds to allow it to continue in the meantime will allow the program’s substantial momentum to keep building. McCrimmon reports:

In Jefferson County, Colorado’s fourth largest, health officials started creating waiting lists earlier this summer to be sure that they would have some IUDs on hand each month.

Kelly Conroy, nurse manager for clinic services for Jefferson County Public Health, said the program’s popularity is surging.

“The word is definitely getting out. We have a lot of patients who come in and specifically ask for the devices by name. A lot of it is word of mouth, friends and family. A friend will be on Mirena (an IUD). They will know which one they want — hormonal or non-hormonal. People are coming in way more educated,” Conroy said.

Since Conroy and her colleagues knew funding from the state was in jeopardy, they started hunting for funds elsewhere to be sure they could have IUDs and other devices on hand. They worked to bill insurance companies or Medicaid for devices they were implanting so they could recoup as much money as possible to pay for other devices. On average, she said, patients were having to wait about three weeks.

Now health officials should be able to stop creating a waiting list and provide devices for those who want them right away.

“We’re absolutely thrilled,” Conroy said. “We are a safety net for a lot of clients who are uninsured and underinsured. We don’t want to put any obstacles in their way. We certainly don’t want anyone to have an unintended pregnancy.

“Our ultimate goal is empowering not just women, but families with the ability to know that they can make the choice (to have a baby) when they’re ready,” Conroy said.

Colorado’s success has inspired other states, McCrimmon notes. According to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, at least 15 states are working on programs to improve access to IUDs or contraceptive implants. At the same time, Republicans in the US House of Representatives have proposed eliminating funding for the Title X program, which supports family-planning services for millions of clients each year, and some states are trying to cut off Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive healthcare to millions of women. Some states recognize the importance of assuring that women of all income levels and insurance statuses have easy access to the full range of contraceptive options, while others seem determined to limit those options. Colorado has another year to decide which category it falls into.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LNUHh8

Double black hole powers nearby quasar

View larger. | Artist’s concept of a double black hole, at the heart of a quasar. Image via NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Moons orbit planets, planets orbit suns, little asteroids orbit each other, and mighty stars and galaxies orbit each other. So it’s not surprising that enigmatic black holes can orbit each other, too. Binary black holes may be the remnants of high-mass binary star systems, or – if the black holes are the super-sized, galactic-center variety – they may be the result of two galaxies that met and merged in space. Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope announced on August 27, 2015 that Markarian 231 (Mrk 231) – the nearest galaxy to Earth that hosts a quasar – is powered by two central black holes.

Since it’s relatively nearby, only about 600 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major the Greater Bear, Markarian 231 has been studied for years for astronomers. They believed already that Mrk 231 had previously merged with another galaxy. Evidence of that recent merger comes from the host galaxy’s asymmetry, and its long tidal tails of young blue stars.

What’s more, Mrk 231 was already believed to contain one supermassive black hole at its core. Now, new evidence suggests there are two.

This Hubble image shows Markarian 231 in visible light. Image via NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / Hubble Collaboration / A. Evans, University of Virginia, Charlottesville / NRAO / Stony Brook University.

The recent study showing two black holes looked at Hubble archival observations of ultraviolet radiation emitted from the center of Mrk 231. The astronomers said in their statement on August 27:

If only one black hole were present in the center of the quasar, the whole accretion disk made of surrounding hot gas would glow in ultraviolet rays. Instead, the ultraviolet glow of the dusty disk abruptly drops off towards the center. This provides observational evidence that the disk has a big donut hole encircling the central black hole.

The best explanation for the observational data, based on dynamical models, is that the center of the disk is carved out by the action of two black holes orbiting each other.

The second, smaller black hole orbits in the inner edge of the accretion disk, and has its own mini-disk with an ultraviolet glow.

They now estimate the mass of the central black hole to be 150 million times the mass of our sun. Meanwhile, the companion black hole is thought to weigh in at 4 million solar masses, about the same mass as the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. The double black hole in Mrk 231 completes a mutual orbit every 1.2 years.

The lower-mass black hole is believed to be the remnant of a smaller galaxy that merged with Mrk 231.

The binary black holes are predicted to spiral together and collide within a few hundred thousand years.

These astronomers say that their finding suggests that quasars — the brilliant cores of active galaxies — may commonly host two central supermassive black holes that fall into orbit about one another as a result of the merger between two galaxies. Youjun Lu of the National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said:

We are extremely excited about this finding because it not only shows the existence of a close binary black hole in Mrk 231, but also paves a new way to systematically search binary black holes via the nature of their ultraviolet light emission.

Co-investigator Xinyu Dai of the University of Oklahoma added:

The structure of our universe, such as those giant galaxies and clusters of galaxies, grows by merging smaller systems into larger ones, and binary black holes are natural consequences of these mergers of galaxies.

These astronomers say that the result of the merger has been to make Mrk 231 an energetic starburst galaxy with a star-formation rate 100 times greater than that of our Milky Way galaxy. The infalling gas is thought to fuel the black hole “engine,” triggering outflows and gas turbulence that incites a firestorm of star birth.

The results were published in the August 14, 2015, edition of The Astrophysical Journal.

Artist’s depiction of two black holes merging, via Wikipedia

Bottom line: A study shows that Markarian 231 (Mrk 231) – the nearest galaxy to Earth that hosts a quasar – is powered by two central black holes.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1UhFoC6

View larger. | Artist’s concept of a double black hole, at the heart of a quasar. Image via NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Moons orbit planets, planets orbit suns, little asteroids orbit each other, and mighty stars and galaxies orbit each other. So it’s not surprising that enigmatic black holes can orbit each other, too. Binary black holes may be the remnants of high-mass binary star systems, or – if the black holes are the super-sized, galactic-center variety – they may be the result of two galaxies that met and merged in space. Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope announced on August 27, 2015 that Markarian 231 (Mrk 231) – the nearest galaxy to Earth that hosts a quasar – is powered by two central black holes.

Since it’s relatively nearby, only about 600 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major the Greater Bear, Markarian 231 has been studied for years for astronomers. They believed already that Mrk 231 had previously merged with another galaxy. Evidence of that recent merger comes from the host galaxy’s asymmetry, and its long tidal tails of young blue stars.

What’s more, Mrk 231 was already believed to contain one supermassive black hole at its core. Now, new evidence suggests there are two.

This Hubble image shows Markarian 231 in visible light. Image via NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / Hubble Collaboration / A. Evans, University of Virginia, Charlottesville / NRAO / Stony Brook University.

The recent study showing two black holes looked at Hubble archival observations of ultraviolet radiation emitted from the center of Mrk 231. The astronomers said in their statement on August 27:

If only one black hole were present in the center of the quasar, the whole accretion disk made of surrounding hot gas would glow in ultraviolet rays. Instead, the ultraviolet glow of the dusty disk abruptly drops off towards the center. This provides observational evidence that the disk has a big donut hole encircling the central black hole.

The best explanation for the observational data, based on dynamical models, is that the center of the disk is carved out by the action of two black holes orbiting each other.

The second, smaller black hole orbits in the inner edge of the accretion disk, and has its own mini-disk with an ultraviolet glow.

They now estimate the mass of the central black hole to be 150 million times the mass of our sun. Meanwhile, the companion black hole is thought to weigh in at 4 million solar masses, about the same mass as the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. The double black hole in Mrk 231 completes a mutual orbit every 1.2 years.

The lower-mass black hole is believed to be the remnant of a smaller galaxy that merged with Mrk 231.

The binary black holes are predicted to spiral together and collide within a few hundred thousand years.

These astronomers say that their finding suggests that quasars — the brilliant cores of active galaxies — may commonly host two central supermassive black holes that fall into orbit about one another as a result of the merger between two galaxies. Youjun Lu of the National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said:

We are extremely excited about this finding because it not only shows the existence of a close binary black hole in Mrk 231, but also paves a new way to systematically search binary black holes via the nature of their ultraviolet light emission.

Co-investigator Xinyu Dai of the University of Oklahoma added:

The structure of our universe, such as those giant galaxies and clusters of galaxies, grows by merging smaller systems into larger ones, and binary black holes are natural consequences of these mergers of galaxies.

These astronomers say that the result of the merger has been to make Mrk 231 an energetic starburst galaxy with a star-formation rate 100 times greater than that of our Milky Way galaxy. The infalling gas is thought to fuel the black hole “engine,” triggering outflows and gas turbulence that incites a firestorm of star birth.

The results were published in the August 14, 2015, edition of The Astrophysical Journal.

Artist’s depiction of two black holes merging, via Wikipedia

Bottom line: A study shows that Markarian 231 (Mrk 231) – the nearest galaxy to Earth that hosts a quasar – is powered by two central black holes.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1UhFoC6

Mostly Mute Monday: See Inside The Swirling Storms Of Saturn (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create ‘one world.’ Instead of one world, we have ‘star wars,’ and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.” –Gore Vidal

And yet, it isn’t just the rings of Saturn that fascinate us, nor can we simply “watch them on television,” as Gore Vidal sadly declared. Every twenty years or so, Saturn develops a tremendous storm, streaking white across its surface and eventually encircling the entire globe, lapping itself.

Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute, of Saturn (during its storm) in false-color.

The 2010-2011 storm outdid itself, lasting more than eight months and becoming the largest storm since telescope technology advanced to the point where we could view them. Four years after it ended, we finally figured out the secret to what causes them, and why they only emerge every 20-to-30 years.

Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute, of a one-day difference in Saturn’s great 2011 storm.

Come find out the story and the secret in pictures and no more than 200 words on Mostly Mute Monday!

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

“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create ‘one world.’ Instead of one world, we have ‘star wars,’ and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.” –Gore Vidal

And yet, it isn’t just the rings of Saturn that fascinate us, nor can we simply “watch them on television,” as Gore Vidal sadly declared. Every twenty years or so, Saturn develops a tremendous storm, streaking white across its surface and eventually encircling the entire globe, lapping itself.

Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute, of Saturn (during its storm) in false-color.

The 2010-2011 storm outdid itself, lasting more than eight months and becoming the largest storm since telescope technology advanced to the point where we could view them. Four years after it ended, we finally figured out the secret to what causes them, and why they only emerge every 20-to-30 years.

Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute, of a one-day difference in Saturn’s great 2011 storm.

Come find out the story and the secret in pictures and no more than 200 words on Mostly Mute Monday!

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

Bjorn Lomborg’s Academic Credentials Examined [Greg Laden's Blog]

I don’t care that the director or CEO of an advocacy organization concerned with poverty is an active academic. Indeed, my view of active academics is that many are largely incompetent in areas of life other than their specialized field. If that. So really, if you told me there is this great advocacy organization out there run by a well established active academic I’d figure you had that wrong, or I’d worry a little about the organization. On the other hand, everyone should care that university positions be given to active academics with credentials. So, when the University of Western Australia got paid off (apparently) to give Bjørn Lomborg a faculty position everyone looked at the UWA and said, “WUT?”

That was a situation up with which the members of that university community would not put, to coin a phrase, and the public outcry put a quick end to it. This is appropriate, because according to a new post by Stefan Rahmstorf at RealClimate, “… apart from one paper in 1996, Lomborg has never published anything in any field of science that was interesting or useful to other scientists, or even just worth the bother of contradicting in the scientific literature.”

I’ve talked about Lomborg here before. Here I noted,

There is currently a twitter argument happening, along with a bit of a blogging swarm, over a chimera of a remark made by John Stossle and Bjorn Lomborg. They made the claim that a million electric cars would have no benefit with resect to Carbon emissions. The crux of the argument is that there is a Carbon cost to manufacturing and running electric cars. When we manufacture anything, we emit Carbon, and when we make electricity to run the cars, we emit Carbon, etc. etc.

Lomborg is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. But here I want to focus on one aspect of why he is wrong that applies generally to this sort of topic….

We also talked about how Lomborg is wrong on electric cars here. Lomborg has been stunningly wrong on climate change, which is mainly what he is known for these days (being wrong on climate change, that is). And his wrongness on sea level rise and Bangladesh is not only stunning as well, but also, downright dangerous.

Stefan’s post looks in detail at two things (and in less detail at many other things). First, is the question of whether or not Lomborg is an actual practicing academic with a good publication record and all that. He is not. Stefan’s analysis is clear.

Second, is a more detailed look at Lomborg, sea level rise, Bangladesh, and all that. This is especially interesting because Stefan is one of the world’s leading experts on sea level rise. He has two peer reviewed papers on the “top ten most cited” on the Web of Science (which has well ove 40,000 sea level rise related papers), which are heavily cited. Stefan’s post is a must-read because of Stefan’s overview of sea level rise, aside from the stuff about Lomborg. Go read it.

So go read the post, learn about Bjørn Lomborg’s academic qualifications, how wrong he has been about sea level rise, and some other good stuff.

I suspect we are not going to see much more about Bjørn going forward.

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

I don’t care that the director or CEO of an advocacy organization concerned with poverty is an active academic. Indeed, my view of active academics is that many are largely incompetent in areas of life other than their specialized field. If that. So really, if you told me there is this great advocacy organization out there run by a well established active academic I’d figure you had that wrong, or I’d worry a little about the organization. On the other hand, everyone should care that university positions be given to active academics with credentials. So, when the University of Western Australia got paid off (apparently) to give Bjørn Lomborg a faculty position everyone looked at the UWA and said, “WUT?”

That was a situation up with which the members of that university community would not put, to coin a phrase, and the public outcry put a quick end to it. This is appropriate, because according to a new post by Stefan Rahmstorf at RealClimate, “… apart from one paper in 1996, Lomborg has never published anything in any field of science that was interesting or useful to other scientists, or even just worth the bother of contradicting in the scientific literature.”

I’ve talked about Lomborg here before. Here I noted,

There is currently a twitter argument happening, along with a bit of a blogging swarm, over a chimera of a remark made by John Stossle and Bjorn Lomborg. They made the claim that a million electric cars would have no benefit with resect to Carbon emissions. The crux of the argument is that there is a Carbon cost to manufacturing and running electric cars. When we manufacture anything, we emit Carbon, and when we make electricity to run the cars, we emit Carbon, etc. etc.

Lomborg is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. But here I want to focus on one aspect of why he is wrong that applies generally to this sort of topic….

We also talked about how Lomborg is wrong on electric cars here. Lomborg has been stunningly wrong on climate change, which is mainly what he is known for these days (being wrong on climate change, that is). And his wrongness on sea level rise and Bangladesh is not only stunning as well, but also, downright dangerous.

Stefan’s post looks in detail at two things (and in less detail at many other things). First, is the question of whether or not Lomborg is an actual practicing academic with a good publication record and all that. He is not. Stefan’s analysis is clear.

Second, is a more detailed look at Lomborg, sea level rise, Bangladesh, and all that. This is especially interesting because Stefan is one of the world’s leading experts on sea level rise. He has two peer reviewed papers on the “top ten most cited” on the Web of Science (which has well ove 40,000 sea level rise related papers), which are heavily cited. Stefan’s post is a must-read because of Stefan’s overview of sea level rise, aside from the stuff about Lomborg. Go read it.

So go read the post, learn about Bjørn Lomborg’s academic qualifications, how wrong he has been about sea level rise, and some other good stuff.

I suspect we are not going to see much more about Bjørn going forward.

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

Danish Castle Road Trip [Aardvarchaeology]

I spent last week in Denmark at a friendly, informative and rather unusual conference. The thirteenth Castella Maris Baltici conference (“castles of the Baltic Sea”) was a moveable feast. In five days we slept in three different towns on Zealand and Funen and spent a sum of only two days presenting our research indoors. The rest of the time we rode a bus around the area and looked at castle sites and at fortifications, secular buildings, churches and a monastery in four towns. Our Danish hosts had planned all of this so well that the schedule never broke down. Add to this that the food and accommodation were excellent, and the price very humane, and you will understand that I was very happy with the conference.

This was my second CMB. Last year in May I attended the twelfth one in Lodz, Poland. It’s an excellent education for me as I delve into High Medieval castle studies with my ongoing project about castles in Östergötland.

You might think that within such a specialised field there would be lots of debate at the conference, but actually participants present work that is mainly of local or national relevance. Your audience takes a polite interest in what you’re doing, but nobody presents any results or methods that change the game for everybody else. I imagine that this has to do with written history’s specificity. These scholars aren’t dealing with large generalised prehistoric cultural categories. They’re dealing with specific people and events at specific castle sites. If someone has found out new stuff about the architectural phasing of a certain castle in Lithuania, then this will not change the way someone in south Jutland thinks about her subject much. But every specific case presented, and every site visited, offers a wealth of details that add up to help castle scholars contextualise their work at home.

The presentation that I found the most interesting was Christofer Herrmann’s and Felix Biermann’s about recent fieldwork at Barczewko / Alt-Wartenburg in northern Poland. This wooded area, Warmia, saw a planned colonisation effort sponsored by German lords in the 14th century. Written sources document that a settlement was founded at Barczewko in 1326 and razed to the ground by Lithuanian raiders in 1354. Attracted by a long-known but undated defensive bank-and-moat, my colleagues have now mapped the site with geophys and excavated key buildings. The geophys showed a neatly planned mini-town, with a main street, a town square and a town hall. The cellars are still full of the debris from the fires set by the attackers, on top of the goods stored in the cellars, and a few bodies of murdered inhabitants. Almost a little Pompeii, and very painstakingly excavated. The pottery is dominated by Silesian designs (from the south-west part of modern Poland), giving an idea of whence the colonists came.

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

I spent last week in Denmark at a friendly, informative and rather unusual conference. The thirteenth Castella Maris Baltici conference (“castles of the Baltic Sea”) was a moveable feast. In five days we slept in three different towns on Zealand and Funen and spent a sum of only two days presenting our research indoors. The rest of the time we rode a bus around the area and looked at castle sites and at fortifications, secular buildings, churches and a monastery in four towns. Our Danish hosts had planned all of this so well that the schedule never broke down. Add to this that the food and accommodation were excellent, and the price very humane, and you will understand that I was very happy with the conference.

This was my second CMB. Last year in May I attended the twelfth one in Lodz, Poland. It’s an excellent education for me as I delve into High Medieval castle studies with my ongoing project about castles in Östergötland.

You might think that within such a specialised field there would be lots of debate at the conference, but actually participants present work that is mainly of local or national relevance. Your audience takes a polite interest in what you’re doing, but nobody presents any results or methods that change the game for everybody else. I imagine that this has to do with written history’s specificity. These scholars aren’t dealing with large generalised prehistoric cultural categories. They’re dealing with specific people and events at specific castle sites. If someone has found out new stuff about the architectural phasing of a certain castle in Lithuania, then this will not change the way someone in south Jutland thinks about her subject much. But every specific case presented, and every site visited, offers a wealth of details that add up to help castle scholars contextualise their work at home.

The presentation that I found the most interesting was Christofer Herrmann’s and Felix Biermann’s about recent fieldwork at Barczewko / Alt-Wartenburg in northern Poland. This wooded area, Warmia, saw a planned colonisation effort sponsored by German lords in the 14th century. Written sources document that a settlement was founded at Barczewko in 1326 and razed to the ground by Lithuanian raiders in 1354. Attracted by a long-known but undated defensive bank-and-moat, my colleagues have now mapped the site with geophys and excavated key buildings. The geophys showed a neatly planned mini-town, with a main street, a town square and a town hall. The cellars are still full of the debris from the fires set by the attackers, on top of the goods stored in the cellars, and a few bodies of murdered inhabitants. Almost a little Pompeii, and very painstakingly excavated. The pottery is dominated by Silesian designs (from the south-west part of modern Poland), giving an idea of whence the colonists came.

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

September 2015 guide to the five visible planets

Use Venus to find Mars in September. Read more.

No double moon on August 27, 2015, or ever

At mid-northern latitudes, Saturn lords over the evening sky all by himself all month long! And that’s very unusual, because Saturn is the faintest and least noticeable of the bright planets. So why is Saturn top dog at northerly latitudes in September, 2015? Only because Mercury is hiding in the evening twilight for the Northern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, at southerly latitudes, two planets are visible in the evening, as Mercury presents its finest evening apparition of the year. The other three visible planets – Venus, Mars and Jupiter – are in the east before sunrise, with Venus pointing the way to Mars and Jupiter appearing in mid-month in predawn twilight. Follow the links below to learn more about September planets.

Evening planets in September 2015

Mercury in evening twilight, best from Southern Hemisphere

Saturn easily visible from nightfall until mid-to-late evening

Morning planets in September 2015

Brilliant Venus in the east before sunrise

Mars in vicinity of Venus before sunrise

Bright Jupiter appears in mid-month below Venus and Mars at dawn

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Astronomy events, star parties, festivals, workshops for September-December, 2015

Live in the Southern Hemisphere or the northern tropics? Then look for the moon and planet Mercury after sunset for several days, centered around September 15. At northerly latitudes, Mercury sits too close to the glare of sunset to be visible. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane projected onto the dome of sky.

Mercury in evening twilight, best from Southern Hemisphere. Mercury is our solar system’s innermost planet and always stays near the sun in our sky. This planet passed out of the morning sky and into the evening sky in July, 2015. It’ll remain an evening object for an unusually long time, until the very end of September, 2015.

It’s a real challenge to catch Mercury from northerly latitudes, however.

For the Southern Hemisphere, September presents Mercury’s best appearance in the evening sky for all 2015. In the first week of September, Mercury sets a whopping two hours after sunset, and the innermost planet’s great evening apparition will continue throughout the most of the month – in the Southern Hemisphere and the northern tropics.

At temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, this world actually sets after the end of evening twilight till around September 20. Look for Mercury over the sunset point on the horizon as dusk gives way to darkness. Click here for recommended almanacs. They can help you find Mercury’s setting time in your sky, and for the time at which astronomical twilight ends.

Read more: Mercury’s evening apparition in September favors Southern Hemisphere

Those residing at northerly latitudes aren’t as lucky this month. At mid-northern latitudes in early September, Mercury sets less than one hour after the sun. That’s the best it gets for us in this hemisphere this month. From northerly latitudes, the innermost planet will be hard to catch even with binoculars in the glare of evening dusk. However, binoculars are always recommended to enhance sky views!

Click here for recommended almanacs. They can help you know when Mercury sets in your sky.

Mercury will stay in the evening sky until September 30, 2015. Then it’ll pass into the morning sky, to give the Northern Hemisphere its best morning apparition of Mercury for the year in October.

Distances of the planets from the sun

Photo taken June 13, 2015 by John Nelson at Puget Sound, Washington. Thanks, John!

Look for the waxing crescent moon near Saturn and the star Antares as darkness falls for several days centered on September 18. The green line depicts the ecliptic or sun’s path in front of the constellations of the Zodiac.

Saturn easily visible from nightfall until mid-to-late evening. Throughout September 2015, the golden planet Saturn pops into view at nightfall. At northerly latitudes, Saturn sets around mid-evening. At temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Saturn sets at late evening or after midnight.

How can you recognize this wonderful planet? It’s golden in color, to the eye. It shines with a steady light. Check the chart above for dates when Saturn will appear near the moon this month. If you can identify Saturn, near the moon, and notice the stars around it, you’ll be able to spot it when the moon has moved away.

Binoculars don’t reveal Saturn’s gorgeous rings, by the way. For that, you need a small telescope. But binoculars will enhance Saturn’s golden color.

Saturn’s rings are inclined at about 24^o from edge-on in September 2015, exhibiting their northern face. A few years from now, in October 2017, the rings will open most widely, displaying a maximum inclination of 27^o. As with so much in space (and on Earth), the appearance of Saturn’s rings from Earth is cyclical. In the year 2025, the rings will appear edge-on as seen from Earth. After that, we’ll begin to see the south side of Saturn’s rings, to increase to a maximum inclination of 27^o by May, 2032.

Use the waning crescent moon to locate the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter on September 9, September 10 and September 11. The green line depicts the ecliptic – the sun’s path in front of the constellations of the Zodiac.

Brilliant Venus in the east before sunrise. Here’s a very fun observation to make this month: Venus before dawn. Venus is the brightest planet and third-brightest sky object overall, after the sun and moon. When it’s visible, it’s very, very prominent in our sky.

This month, Venus will exhibit its greatest brilliancy as the morning “star” for approximately one week, centered on September 21, 2015.

But don’t wait until then to spot the queen planet Venus. She’ll be in good view all month long, rising before dawn’s first light.

Moreover, this dazzling world will enable you to locate the fainter yet relatively nearby planet Mars in the morning sky. Be sure to use the waning crescent moon to locate Venus (plus Mars and Jupiter) in the morning sky on September 9, September 10 and September 11.

Use Venus to find Mars in September. Read more.

Mars in vicinity of Venus before sunrise. Mars officially passed into the morning sky on June 14, 2015. Earth and Mars travel in orbit at similar speeds (Earth at 18 miles per second, Mars at 15 miles per second). So it takes awhile for Mars to climb away from the glare of sunrise, and, when it finally does so, Mars tends to linger in the predawn sky. That has been especially the case in the Southern Hemisphere for these last few months.

But now that Venus is returning to the morning sky, Mars will be easier to see in September, 2015. As September progresses, Mars will rise sooner before sunrise and be higher up at dawn. Plus the dazzling planet Venus will be fairly close to Mars throughout the month, and Venus can serve as your guide to the Red Planet.

Unfortunately, this chart isn’t for September, 2015. But it is for October! It’s centered around October 26, when Venus, Mars and Jupiter will appear as a planetary trio in the predawn sky. Mark your calendars!

Bright Jupiter appears in mid-month below Venus and Mars at dawn. Jupiter shines more brilliantly than any star. It’s the second-brightest planet after Venus. Both Venus and Jupiter transitioned over into the morning sky in August, 2015. However, Jupiter lurks much closer to the glare of sunrise than does either Venus or Mars in September, 2015.

Keep watching, though, as Jupiter climbs upward, toward Mars and Venus, in September and October. It should appear in your predawn sky, very low in the east before dawn, around the middle of September. Then keep watching. Jupiter will catch up with Mars on October 17, to exhibit their closest and only conjunction until January 7, 2018.

Jupiter will finally catch up with Venus on October 26, 2015, to stage the year’s third and final conjunction of these two brilliant worlds.

In late June and early July of 2015, when Venus and Jupiter were shining in the evening sky, these two blazing beauties showcased their closest conjunction until August 27, 2016, and displayed a second – though less close – conjunction in the evening sky on July 31 – the same date as this year’s Blue Moon.

Now these two brilliant worlds are heading for their third and final conjunction of the year in the morning sky on October 26, 2015.

By a wonderful coincidence, as Venus and Jupiter show off their final conjunction of the year – on October 26 – Venus will reach its greatest western (morning) elongation from the sun.

Moreover, the year’s closest grouping of three planets – Venus, Mars and Jupiter – will also take place on October 26. That’s a big deal because the next planetary trio won’t occur again until January, 2021!

Normally, if you have binoculars or a telescope, it’s fairly easy to see Jupiter’s four major moons, which look like pinpricks of light on or near the same plane. They are often called the Galilean moons to honor Galileo, who discovered these great Jovian moons in 1610. In their order from Jupiter, these moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. In September of 2015, however, Jupiter’s moons will have a hard time competing with the sun’s glare in the morning sky.

These moons circle Jupiter around the Jovian equator. In cycles of six years, we view Jupiter’s equator edge-on. So, in 2015, we get to view a number of mutual events involving Jupiter’s moons through a high-powered telescope. Click here or here or here for more details.

Click here for a Jupiter’s moons almanac, courtesy of Sky & Telescope.

What do we mean by visible planet? By visible planet, we mean any solar system planet that is easily visible without an optical aid and that has been watched by our ancestors since time immemorial. In their outward order from the sun, the five visible planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. These planets are visible in our sky because their disks reflect sunlight, and these relatively nearby worlds tend to shine with a steadier light than the distant, twinkling stars. They tend to be bright! You can spot them, and come to know them as faithful friends, if you try.

Bottom line: In September 2015, Saturn can be seen at evening from around the world. Mercury visible at nightfall at southerly latitudes. Venus and Mars east before dawn. Jupiter still obscured in the glow of dawn.

View larger. Evening dusk on August 5: Venus at left. Mercury is climbing higher, toward Regulus (at top) and Jupiter (beneath Regulus).

By the evening of July 12, Venus and Jupiter were farther apart and lower in the western sky after sunset. Photo by Robert Kelly. Thanks, Robert!

View larger. | Photo taken in early June, 2015 by Göran Strand in Sweden. He wrote: “One of the last nights during the spring when the stars were still visible … ” Follow Fotograf Göran Strand on Facebook, or @astrofotografen on Instagram. Or visit his website.

View larger.| Venus near the setting sun on November 18, 2014 by Helio de Carvalho Vital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He wrote, “I managed to capture Venus as it is starting its return to dusk, despite the fact that it is still at a mere 6.2° distance from the sun. The photos show it a few minutes before setting behind the northern side of the 1,021-meter high Tijuca Peak, located some 6.5 km away. It was deeply immersed in the intense glare of the sun, that would set some 13 minutes later.”

Lunar eclipse on the night of October 8, 2014. The object to the left is the planet Uranus! This beautiful photo is by Janey Wing Kenyon of Story, Wyoming.

Debra Fryar in Calobreves, Texas captured this photo of the moon and Jupiter on May 31, 2014. Jupiter was close to the twilight then.

With only a modest backyard telescope, you can easily see Jupiter’s four largest moons. Here they are through a 10″ (25 cm) Meade LX200 telescope. Image credit: Jan Sandberg

Jupiter was rivaling the streetlights, when Mohamed Laaifat Photographies captured this photo in Normandy, France. Visit his page on Facebook.

Venus by Danny Crocker-Jensen

These are called star trails. It’s a long-exposure photo, which shows you how Earth is turning under the stars. The brightest object here is Jupiter, which is the second-brightest planet, after Venus. This awesome photo by EarthSky Facebook friend Mohamed Laaifat in Normandy, France. Thank you, Mohamed.

Skywatcher, by Predrag Agatonovic.

Easily locate stars and constellations with EarthSky’s planisphere.

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Use Venus to find Mars in September. Read more.

No double moon on August 27, 2015, or ever

At mid-northern latitudes, Saturn lords over the evening sky all by himself all month long! And that’s very unusual, because Saturn is the faintest and least noticeable of the bright planets. So why is Saturn top dog at northerly latitudes in September, 2015? Only because Mercury is hiding in the evening twilight for the Northern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, at southerly latitudes, two planets are visible in the evening, as Mercury presents its finest evening apparition of the year. The other three visible planets – Venus, Mars and Jupiter – are in the east before sunrise, with Venus pointing the way to Mars and Jupiter appearing in mid-month in predawn twilight. Follow the links below to learn more about September planets.

Evening planets in September 2015

Mercury in evening twilight, best from Southern Hemisphere

Saturn easily visible from nightfall until mid-to-late evening

Morning planets in September 2015

Brilliant Venus in the east before sunrise

Mars in vicinity of Venus before sunrise

Bright Jupiter appears in mid-month below Venus and Mars at dawn

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Astronomy events, star parties, festivals, workshops for September-December, 2015

Live in the Southern Hemisphere or the northern tropics? Then look for the moon and planet Mercury after sunset for several days, centered around September 15. At northerly latitudes, Mercury sits too close to the glare of sunset to be visible. The green line depicts the ecliptic – Earth’s orbital plane projected onto the dome of sky.

Mercury in evening twilight, best from Southern Hemisphere. Mercury is our solar system’s innermost planet and always stays near the sun in our sky. This planet passed out of the morning sky and into the evening sky in July, 2015. It’ll remain an evening object for an unusually long time, until the very end of September, 2015.

It’s a real challenge to catch Mercury from northerly latitudes, however.

For the Southern Hemisphere, September presents Mercury’s best appearance in the evening sky for all 2015. In the first week of September, Mercury sets a whopping two hours after sunset, and the innermost planet’s great evening apparition will continue throughout the most of the month – in the Southern Hemisphere and the northern tropics.

At temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, this world actually sets after the end of evening twilight till around September 20. Look for Mercury over the sunset point on the horizon as dusk gives way to darkness. Click here for recommended almanacs. They can help you find Mercury’s setting time in your sky, and for the time at which astronomical twilight ends.

Read more: Mercury’s evening apparition in September favors Southern Hemisphere

Those residing at northerly latitudes aren’t as lucky this month. At mid-northern latitudes in early September, Mercury sets less than one hour after the sun. That’s the best it gets for us in this hemisphere this month. From northerly latitudes, the innermost planet will be hard to catch even with binoculars in the glare of evening dusk. However, binoculars are always recommended to enhance sky views!

Click here for recommended almanacs. They can help you know when Mercury sets in your sky.

Mercury will stay in the evening sky until September 30, 2015. Then it’ll pass into the morning sky, to give the Northern Hemisphere its best morning apparition of Mercury for the year in October.

Distances of the planets from the sun

Photo taken June 13, 2015 by John Nelson at Puget Sound, Washington. Thanks, John!

Look for the waxing crescent moon near Saturn and the star Antares as darkness falls for several days centered on September 18. The green line depicts the ecliptic or sun’s path in front of the constellations of the Zodiac.

Saturn easily visible from nightfall until mid-to-late evening. Throughout September 2015, the golden planet Saturn pops into view at nightfall. At northerly latitudes, Saturn sets around mid-evening. At temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Saturn sets at late evening or after midnight.

How can you recognize this wonderful planet? It’s golden in color, to the eye. It shines with a steady light. Check the chart above for dates when Saturn will appear near the moon this month. If you can identify Saturn, near the moon, and notice the stars around it, you’ll be able to spot it when the moon has moved away.

Binoculars don’t reveal Saturn’s gorgeous rings, by the way. For that, you need a small telescope. But binoculars will enhance Saturn’s golden color.

Saturn’s rings are inclined at about 24^o from edge-on in September 2015, exhibiting their northern face. A few years from now, in October 2017, the rings will open most widely, displaying a maximum inclination of 27^o. As with so much in space (and on Earth), the appearance of Saturn’s rings from Earth is cyclical. In the year 2025, the rings will appear edge-on as seen from Earth. After that, we’ll begin to see the south side of Saturn’s rings, to increase to a maximum inclination of 27^o by May, 2032.

Use the waning crescent moon to locate the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter on September 9, September 10 and September 11. The green line depicts the ecliptic – the sun’s path in front of the constellations of the Zodiac.

Brilliant Venus in the east before sunrise. Here’s a very fun observation to make this month: Venus before dawn. Venus is the brightest planet and third-brightest sky object overall, after the sun and moon. When it’s visible, it’s very, very prominent in our sky.

This month, Venus will exhibit its greatest brilliancy as the morning “star” for approximately one week, centered on September 21, 2015.

But don’t wait until then to spot the queen planet Venus. She’ll be in good view all month long, rising before dawn’s first light.

Moreover, this dazzling world will enable you to locate the fainter yet relatively nearby planet Mars in the morning sky. Be sure to use the waning crescent moon to locate Venus (plus Mars and Jupiter) in the morning sky on September 9, September 10 and September 11.

Use Venus to find Mars in September. Read more.

Mars in vicinity of Venus before sunrise. Mars officially passed into the morning sky on June 14, 2015. Earth and Mars travel in orbit at similar speeds (Earth at 18 miles per second, Mars at 15 miles per second). So it takes awhile for Mars to climb away from the glare of sunrise, and, when it finally does so, Mars tends to linger in the predawn sky. That has been especially the case in the Southern Hemisphere for these last few months.

But now that Venus is returning to the morning sky, Mars will be easier to see in September, 2015. As September progresses, Mars will rise sooner before sunrise and be higher up at dawn. Plus the dazzling planet Venus will be fairly close to Mars throughout the month, and Venus can serve as your guide to the Red Planet.

Unfortunately, this chart isn’t for September, 2015. But it is for October! It’s centered around October 26, when Venus, Mars and Jupiter will appear as a planetary trio in the predawn sky. Mark your calendars!

Bright Jupiter appears in mid-month below Venus and Mars at dawn. Jupiter shines more brilliantly than any star. It’s the second-brightest planet after Venus. Both Venus and Jupiter transitioned over into the morning sky in August, 2015. However, Jupiter lurks much closer to the glare of sunrise than does either Venus or Mars in September, 2015.

Keep watching, though, as Jupiter climbs upward, toward Mars and Venus, in September and October. It should appear in your predawn sky, very low in the east before dawn, around the middle of September. Then keep watching. Jupiter will catch up with Mars on October 17, to exhibit their closest and only conjunction until January 7, 2018.

Jupiter will finally catch up with Venus on October 26, 2015, to stage the year’s third and final conjunction of these two brilliant worlds.

In late June and early July of 2015, when Venus and Jupiter were shining in the evening sky, these two blazing beauties showcased their closest conjunction until August 27, 2016, and displayed a second – though less close – conjunction in the evening sky on July 31 – the same date as this year’s Blue Moon.

Now these two brilliant worlds are heading for their third and final conjunction of the year in the morning sky on October 26, 2015.

By a wonderful coincidence, as Venus and Jupiter show off their final conjunction of the year – on October 26 – Venus will reach its greatest western (morning) elongation from the sun.

Moreover, the year’s closest grouping of three planets – Venus, Mars and Jupiter – will also take place on October 26. That’s a big deal because the next planetary trio won’t occur again until January, 2021!

Normally, if you have binoculars or a telescope, it’s fairly easy to see Jupiter’s four major moons, which look like pinpricks of light on or near the same plane. They are often called the Galilean moons to honor Galileo, who discovered these great Jovian moons in 1610. In their order from Jupiter, these moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. In September of 2015, however, Jupiter’s moons will have a hard time competing with the sun’s glare in the morning sky.

These moons circle Jupiter around the Jovian equator. In cycles of six years, we view Jupiter’s equator edge-on. So, in 2015, we get to view a number of mutual events involving Jupiter’s moons through a high-powered telescope. Click here or here or here for more details.

Click here for a Jupiter’s moons almanac, courtesy of Sky & Telescope.

What do we mean by visible planet? By visible planet, we mean any solar system planet that is easily visible without an optical aid and that has been watched by our ancestors since time immemorial. In their outward order from the sun, the five visible planets are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. These planets are visible in our sky because their disks reflect sunlight, and these relatively nearby worlds tend to shine with a steadier light than the distant, twinkling stars. They tend to be bright! You can spot them, and come to know them as faithful friends, if you try.

Bottom line: In September 2015, Saturn can be seen at evening from around the world. Mercury visible at nightfall at southerly latitudes. Venus and Mars east before dawn. Jupiter still obscured in the glow of dawn.

View larger. Evening dusk on August 5: Venus at left. Mercury is climbing higher, toward Regulus (at top) and Jupiter (beneath Regulus).

By the evening of July 12, Venus and Jupiter were farther apart and lower in the western sky after sunset. Photo by Robert Kelly. Thanks, Robert!

View larger. | Photo taken in early June, 2015 by Göran Strand in Sweden. He wrote: “One of the last nights during the spring when the stars were still visible … ” Follow Fotograf Göran Strand on Facebook, or @astrofotografen on Instagram. Or visit his website.

View larger.| Venus near the setting sun on November 18, 2014 by Helio de Carvalho Vital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He wrote, “I managed to capture Venus as it is starting its return to dusk, despite the fact that it is still at a mere 6.2° distance from the sun. The photos show it a few minutes before setting behind the northern side of the 1,021-meter high Tijuca Peak, located some 6.5 km away. It was deeply immersed in the intense glare of the sun, that would set some 13 minutes later.”

Lunar eclipse on the night of October 8, 2014. The object to the left is the planet Uranus! This beautiful photo is by Janey Wing Kenyon of Story, Wyoming.

Debra Fryar in Calobreves, Texas captured this photo of the moon and Jupiter on May 31, 2014. Jupiter was close to the twilight then.

With only a modest backyard telescope, you can easily see Jupiter’s four largest moons. Here they are through a 10″ (25 cm) Meade LX200 telescope. Image credit: Jan Sandberg

Jupiter was rivaling the streetlights, when Mohamed Laaifat Photographies captured this photo in Normandy, France. Visit his page on Facebook.

Venus by Danny Crocker-Jensen

These are called star trails. It’s a long-exposure photo, which shows you how Earth is turning under the stars. The brightest object here is Jupiter, which is the second-brightest planet, after Venus. This awesome photo by EarthSky Facebook friend Mohamed Laaifat in Normandy, France. Thank you, Mohamed.

Skywatcher, by Predrag Agatonovic.

Easily locate stars and constellations with EarthSky’s planisphere.

Don’t miss anything. Subscribe to EarthSky News by email

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/IJfHCr

Linked: Amazon wildfires, Atlantic hurricanes

This map of ocean surface temperatures shows how warm waters in the North Atlantic fueled Hurricane Katrina. NASA and UCI researchers have found that the same conditions heighten fire risk in the Amazon basin. Image credit: Scientific Visualization Studio, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA announced on August 24, 2015 that researchers have uncovered a remarkably strong link between high wildfire risk in the Amazon basin and devastating North Atlantic hurricanes. They say that, in addition to the well-understood east-west influence of El Niño on the Amazon, there is also a north-south control on fire activity that is set by the state of the tropical North Atlantic Ocean.

According to these researchers – from the University of California, Irvine and NASA – in years of high numbers of hurricanes and high fire risk, warm waters in the North Atlantic help hurricanes develop and gather strength and speed on their way to North American shores. They also tend to pull a large belt of tropical rainfall – known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone – to the north, the researchers said, drawing moisture away from the southern Amazon.

As a consequence, the researcher explained, ground water is not fully replenished by the end of rainy season, so coming into the next dry spell, when there is less water stored away in the soils, the plants can’t evaporate and transpire as much water out through their stems and leaves into the atmosphere. The atmosphere gets drier and drier, creating conditions where fires can spread rapidly three to six months later. Ground-clearing fires set by farmers for agriculture or new deforestation can easily jump from fields to dense forests under these conditions.

The climate scientists’ findings appeared in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on August 12, 2015, near the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s calamitous August 25, 2005 landfall at New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. James Randerson is an Earth system scientist at University of California, Irvine and senior author on the paper. Randerson said:

Hurricane Katrina is, indeed, part of this story. The ocean conditions that led to a severe hurricane season in 2005 also reduced atmospheric moisture flow to South America, contributing to a once in a century dry spell in the Amazon. The timing of these events is perfectly consistent with our research findings.

The team pored over years of historical storm and sea surface temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and fire data gathered by NASA satellites. The results showed a striking pattern, a progression over the course of several months from a warm condition in the tropical North Atlantic to a dry and fire-prone southern Amazon, and more destructive hurricane landfalls in North and Central America.

According to Randerson, the importance of this study is that it may help meteorologists develop better seasonal outlooks for drought and fire risk in the Amazon, leveraging large investments by NOAA and other agencies in understanding hurricanes. Randerson said:

The fires we see in the U.S. West are generally lightning-ignited, whereas they are mostly human-ignited in the Amazon, but climate change can have really large effects on the fire situation in both regions. Keeping fire out of the Amazon basin is critical from a carbon cycle perspective. There’s a huge amount of carbon stored in tropical forests. We really want to keep the forests intact.

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

Bottom line: A study in Geophysical Research Letters on August 12, 2015 suggests that there is a strong link between high wildfire risk in the Amazon basin and hurricanes that ravage North Atlantic shorelines.

Via NASA

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

This map of ocean surface temperatures shows how warm waters in the North Atlantic fueled Hurricane Katrina. NASA and UCI researchers have found that the same conditions heighten fire risk in the Amazon basin. Image credit: Scientific Visualization Studio, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA announced on August 24, 2015 that researchers have uncovered a remarkably strong link between high wildfire risk in the Amazon basin and devastating North Atlantic hurricanes. They say that, in addition to the well-understood east-west influence of El Niño on the Amazon, there is also a north-south control on fire activity that is set by the state of the tropical North Atlantic Ocean.

According to these researchers – from the University of California, Irvine and NASA – in years of high numbers of hurricanes and high fire risk, warm waters in the North Atlantic help hurricanes develop and gather strength and speed on their way to North American shores. They also tend to pull a large belt of tropical rainfall – known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone – to the north, the researchers said, drawing moisture away from the southern Amazon.

As a consequence, the researcher explained, ground water is not fully replenished by the end of rainy season, so coming into the next dry spell, when there is less water stored away in the soils, the plants can’t evaporate and transpire as much water out through their stems and leaves into the atmosphere. The atmosphere gets drier and drier, creating conditions where fires can spread rapidly three to six months later. Ground-clearing fires set by farmers for agriculture or new deforestation can easily jump from fields to dense forests under these conditions.

The climate scientists’ findings appeared in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on August 12, 2015, near the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s calamitous August 25, 2005 landfall at New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. James Randerson is an Earth system scientist at University of California, Irvine and senior author on the paper. Randerson said:

Hurricane Katrina is, indeed, part of this story. The ocean conditions that led to a severe hurricane season in 2005 also reduced atmospheric moisture flow to South America, contributing to a once in a century dry spell in the Amazon. The timing of these events is perfectly consistent with our research findings.

The team pored over years of historical storm and sea surface temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and fire data gathered by NASA satellites. The results showed a striking pattern, a progression over the course of several months from a warm condition in the tropical North Atlantic to a dry and fire-prone southern Amazon, and more destructive hurricane landfalls in North and Central America.

According to Randerson, the importance of this study is that it may help meteorologists develop better seasonal outlooks for drought and fire risk in the Amazon, leveraging large investments by NOAA and other agencies in understanding hurricanes. Randerson said:

The fires we see in the U.S. West are generally lightning-ignited, whereas they are mostly human-ignited in the Amazon, but climate change can have really large effects on the fire situation in both regions. Keeping fire out of the Amazon basin is critical from a carbon cycle perspective. There’s a huge amount of carbon stored in tropical forests. We really want to keep the forests intact.

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

Bottom line: A study in Geophysical Research Letters on August 12, 2015 suggests that there is a strong link between high wildfire risk in the Amazon basin and hurricanes that ravage North Atlantic shorelines.

Via NASA

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

Newly funded research – understanding cancer at the population level

Thanks to your support, we fund research into many different aspects of cancer.

To decide what to fund, we assemble panels of experts in different fields, who scrutinise applications for funds from the wider research community. And one of these committees oversees the funding of a type of science called ‘population research’.

Population research is the study of the patterns, causes and effects of cancer across large groups of people – instead of examining cells growing in a lab. The scientists are looking for things that affect our risk of developing cancer.

This ranges from invisible factors (genetics, or molecules found in our blood), to physical characteristics (like height, gender and ethnicity), our environment, lifestyle and behaviours, other health conditions or prescribed medicines, and even how well-off we are financially.

Understanding factors that contribute to cancer can influence the advice we offer, and make sure the right people have access to it. This can also determine which topics we campaign for and highlight to politicians.

It can give scientists new insights into the causes of cancer, and potential new avenues to treat it, which can translate back into laboratory research.

And it can unearth biological ‘signposts’ that could act as a warning sign that someone is at higher risk of cancer, or an early signal that cancer has developed, helping spot the disease when it’s easier to treat.

The committee meets twice a year, and is in charge of an annual budget of around £2m. Here are some of the highlights of the new population research projects we funded after the last meeting, in April 2015:

Keeping active and surviving bowel cancer

Dr Victoria Coyle

Dr Victoria Coyle, Queen’s University Belfast: applied for £750,000

Dr Coyle is leading the UK part of a large international clinical trial called CHALLENGE. The trial is finding out if taking part in a physical activity programme helps patients with bowel cancer reduce their risk of the disease coming back after treatment.

The trial is being led from Canada and will follow nearly 1000 patients – 160 from the UK – over three years.

Hormones in stomach and oesophageal cancers

Dr Amanda Cross

Dr Amanda Cross, Imperial College London: applied for £301,000

Dr Cross is looking at possible links between stomach and oesophageal cancers and hormones.  Both cancers are more common in men than women, and they’re more common among people who are obese. So Dr Cross wants to find out if differences in hormone levels are playing a role in how the diseases develop.

She is tracking information including lifestyle choices, physical factors (such as weight), and hormone levels in blood samples from more than a million people, to see if any of these factors increase peoples’ likelihood of developing stomach or oesophageal cancer.

Helping more people quit smoking

Prof Stephen Sutton

Professor Stephen Sutton, University of Cambridge applied for £408,000

Professor Sutton is studying the effectiveness of new support tools in helping people stop smoking. The new measures are web and text message based, and are tailored to people according to their needs – the trial will include 600 smokers trying to quit.

Professor Sutton aims to improve the support the NHS provides to smokers in helping thousands to quit smoking every year and consequently reduce smoking-related disease. And because so many adults in the UK smoke, even a small increase in the number of quit attempts could have a big impact.

Predicting breast cancer recurrence

Dr Charlotte Coles and Professor Judith Bliss, Institute of Cancer Research, London applied for £580,000

Dr Charlotte Coles

Dr Coles and Professor Bliss are leading a clinical trial to find out if testing for a molecule can identify women at very low risk of their breast cancer coming back after surgery. They want to find out if these women can safely avoid radiotherapy, potentially sparing them unnecessary treatment.

Around 2000 women aged 60 or under with early, very low risk breast cancer will be invited to take part in the trial.

You can see more of our recently funded population research here.

We look forward to seeing the findings from this latest batch of funded research, and how it helps us achieve our goal of preventing more cancers, and helping more people survive.

– Emma

NB: Figures given as ‘applied for’ because, although grants last for several years, the Population Research Committee funds its grants on an annual basis; subsequent funds are paid dependent on satisfactory research progress.

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1MX6bO6

Thanks to your support, we fund research into many different aspects of cancer.

To decide what to fund, we assemble panels of experts in different fields, who scrutinise applications for funds from the wider research community. And one of these committees oversees the funding of a type of science called ‘population research’.

Population research is the study of the patterns, causes and effects of cancer across large groups of people – instead of examining cells growing in a lab. The scientists are looking for things that affect our risk of developing cancer.

This ranges from invisible factors (genetics, or molecules found in our blood), to physical characteristics (like height, gender and ethnicity), our environment, lifestyle and behaviours, other health conditions or prescribed medicines, and even how well-off we are financially.

Understanding factors that contribute to cancer can influence the advice we offer, and make sure the right people have access to it. This can also determine which topics we campaign for and highlight to politicians.

It can give scientists new insights into the causes of cancer, and potential new avenues to treat it, which can translate back into laboratory research.

And it can unearth biological ‘signposts’ that could act as a warning sign that someone is at higher risk of cancer, or an early signal that cancer has developed, helping spot the disease when it’s easier to treat.

The committee meets twice a year, and is in charge of an annual budget of around £2m. Here are some of the highlights of the new population research projects we funded after the last meeting, in April 2015:

Keeping active and surviving bowel cancer

Dr Victoria Coyle

Dr Victoria Coyle, Queen’s University Belfast: applied for £750,000

Dr Coyle is leading the UK part of a large international clinical trial called CHALLENGE. The trial is finding out if taking part in a physical activity programme helps patients with bowel cancer reduce their risk of the disease coming back after treatment.

The trial is being led from Canada and will follow nearly 1000 patients – 160 from the UK – over three years.

Hormones in stomach and oesophageal cancers

Dr Amanda Cross

Dr Amanda Cross, Imperial College London: applied for £301,000

Dr Cross is looking at possible links between stomach and oesophageal cancers and hormones.  Both cancers are more common in men than women, and they’re more common among people who are obese. So Dr Cross wants to find out if differences in hormone levels are playing a role in how the diseases develop.

She is tracking information including lifestyle choices, physical factors (such as weight), and hormone levels in blood samples from more than a million people, to see if any of these factors increase peoples’ likelihood of developing stomach or oesophageal cancer.

Helping more people quit smoking

Prof Stephen Sutton

Professor Stephen Sutton, University of Cambridge applied for £408,000

Professor Sutton is studying the effectiveness of new support tools in helping people stop smoking. The new measures are web and text message based, and are tailored to people according to their needs – the trial will include 600 smokers trying to quit.

Professor Sutton aims to improve the support the NHS provides to smokers in helping thousands to quit smoking every year and consequently reduce smoking-related disease. And because so many adults in the UK smoke, even a small increase in the number of quit attempts could have a big impact.

Predicting breast cancer recurrence

Dr Charlotte Coles and Professor Judith Bliss, Institute of Cancer Research, London applied for £580,000

Dr Charlotte Coles

Dr Coles and Professor Bliss are leading a clinical trial to find out if testing for a molecule can identify women at very low risk of their breast cancer coming back after surgery. They want to find out if these women can safely avoid radiotherapy, potentially sparing them unnecessary treatment.

Around 2000 women aged 60 or under with early, very low risk breast cancer will be invited to take part in the trial.

You can see more of our recently funded population research here.

We look forward to seeing the findings from this latest batch of funded research, and how it helps us achieve our goal of preventing more cancers, and helping more people survive.

– Emma

NB: Figures given as ‘applied for’ because, although grants last for several years, the Population Research Committee funds its grants on an annual basis; subsequent funds are paid dependent on satisfactory research progress.

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1MX6bO6