60 Seconds
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60 SECONDS Mountains under the ice Working at temperatures of -40 °C, researchers will this month begin a project to survey mountains buried 4 kilometres beneath Antarctic ice. Six countries – the UK, the US, Germany, Australia, China and Japan – have joined forces to probe the Gamburtsev subglacial mountains, thought to be the birthplace of the vast East Antarctic ice sheet. Cherry solution for malaria Tanzanian children with malaria have been taking medication that tastes like cherries when dissolved in water. As the recovery rate was the same as for the conventional bitter tablet, creators of the sweet version hope it will encourage more children to complete the three-day treatment (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61492-0). Vessels’ nuclear power It looks ever more likely that the US navy will soon send nuclear-powered amphibious assault ships into battle. Some radiation protection experts worry such vessels could release radiation if damaged in combat at the shoreline. The vessels are provided for by the Bush administration’s final military funding bill, which the president was expected to sign into law on Tuesday. Mars mission survives NASA’s next Mars mission lives on. The Mars Science Laboratory has crept over budget in recent months, and had been rumoured to be in danger of cancellation. But on 10 October, NASA chief Mike Griffin granted a reprieve to the nuclear-powered rover, which will look for signs of life. How we gave cows TB Analysis of 9000-year-old human skeletons from a submerged village off Israel’s Mediterranean coast suggest that cows caught TB from us, not the other way round. This means that TB in humans pre-dated its presumed spread to us in milk from infected cattle (PLoS ONE, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003426). Planetarium managers were bemused, given that their request for federal funding has not been approved. “I was really shocked,” says Sarah Beck. Nor is it McCain’s first swipe: in earlier speeches, he has referred to “planetariums and other foolishness”. The Adler is trying to raise money to refurbish its 78-year- old Sky Theatre. It will cost $3 to $5 million to replace the existing projector (pictured, below left). Scientists have defended the planetarium, particularly in the blogosphere. “It seems to have touched a nerve, especially with those who have worked their entire lives in science education,” says Beck. THE early bird won’t get the worm if the environment has been tainted with carbon nanotubes. Eating them could stop earthworms reproducing and so threaten vital food chains. Nanotube materials have enormous potential in electronics and construction, but it is suspected that exposure to nanotubes could cause asbestosis- like lung disease in people. Now Janeck Scott-Fordsmand and his team at the National Environmental Research Institute in Roskilde, Denmark, have tested their effect on earthworms. They found that earthworms given food laced with double-walled nanotubes produced far fewer cocoons than normal: the higher the dose, the fewer the cocoons (Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, vol 71, p 616). Earthworms are vital to ecosystems because they aerate the soil. Nanotube pollution could make soils unable to support crops and sustain biodiversity, says Scott-Fordsmand. Andrew Maynard, a nanotechnologist at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, says the study is “useful” but questions whether nanotubes have a significantly bigger environmental impact than other nanomaterials. THE credit crunch is a golden opportunity to rebuild a “green” world financial system, says UN climate chief Yvo de Boer. “Governments now have an opportunity to create and enforce policy which stimulates private competition to fund clean industry,” he said at a press conference in New York on 10 October. The chance to grow a greener world economy will come this December in Poznan, Poland, where governments will begin to formulate a successor to the Kyoto protocol to combat global warming. The deadline for a final agreement is December 2009. De Boer pointed out that global demand for energy is expected to surge by 50 per cent by 2030, so investment in clean technologies must start now. Cap-and-trade schemes would allow polluters to “buy” carbon emission permits from non- polluters, for example. Taxing carbon emissions from petrol and creating green standards for vehicles and appliances should stimulate greener living, he said. “Green standards for vehicles and appliances should stimulate greener lifestyles” An outbreak of what appears to be a new haemorrhagic fever has brought home how frightening little we know about deadly African viruses. Three people have died and a fourth was ill as New Scientist went to press. In early September a 36-year-old woman living near Lusaka in Zambia fell ill and was airlifted to South Africa, where she died. Alarms were raised when a paramedic and a nurse who tended her died two weeks later. The latest person to succumb is a nurse who tended the paramedic. On Sunday, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) announced that the culprit was an arenavirus, a family of viruses carried by rodents. While several arenaviruses, including Sin Nombre, cause haemorrhagic fevers in the Americas, there was thought to be only one in Africa: Lassa fever , which kills around 5000 people a year in West Africa. “Now suddenly there’s this,” says Bob Swanepoel of the NICD, an expert on haemorrhagic viruses including the infamous Ebola and Marburg, which belong to the filovirus family. The US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, is sequencing the Zambian virus to see how it is related to other arenaviruses and whether it is a new strain or one so far unidentified. “It’s shocking how little we know about the viruses circulating in Africa,” says Swanepoel. In Africa, arenaviruses are carried by a common farm pest, the multimammate mouse (below). MOUSE CARRIES KILLER VIRUS DANIEL HEUCLIN/NHPA –Cute but deadly?– Tubular hell World of green www.newscientist.com 18 October 2008 | NewScientist | 7
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Transcript of 60 Seconds
60 SECONDS
Mountains under the ice
Working at temperatures of -40 °C, researchers will this month begin a project to survey mountains buried 4 kilometres beneath Antarctic ice. Six countries – the UK, the US, Germany, Australia, China and Japan – have joined forces to probe the Gamburtsev subglacial mountains, thought to be the birthplace of the vast East Antarctic ice sheet.
Cherry solution for malaria
Tanzanian children with malaria have been taking medication that tastes like cherries when dissolved in water. As the recovery rate was the same as for the conventional bitter tablet, creators of the sweet version hope it will encourage more children to complete the three-day treatment (The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61492-0 ).
Vessels’ nuclear power
It looks ever more likely that the US navy will soon send nuclear-powered amphibious assault ships into battle. Some radiation protection experts worry such vessels could release radiation if damaged in combat at the shoreline. The vessels are provided for by the Bush administration’s final military funding bill, which the president was expected to sign into law on Tuesday.
Mars mission survives
NASA’s next Mars mission lives on. The Mars Science Laboratory has crept over budget in recent months, and had been rumoured to be in danger of cancellation. But on 10 October, NASA chief Mike Griffin granted a reprieve to the nuclear-powered rover, which will look for signs of life.
How we gave cows TB
Analysis of 9000-year-old human skeletons from a submerged village off Israel’s Mediterranean coast suggest that cows caught TB from us, not the other way round. This means that TB in humans pre-dated its presumed spread to us in milk from infected cattle (PLoS
ONE, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003426 ).
Planetarium managers were bemused, given that their request for federal funding has not been approved. “I was really shocked,” says Sarah Beck. Nor is it McCain’s first swipe: in earlier speeches, he has referred to “planetariums and other foolishness”.
The Adler is trying to raise money to refurbish its 78-year-old Sky Theatre. It will cost $3 to $5 million to replace the existing projector (pictured, below left).
Scientists have defended the planetarium, particularly in the blogosphere . “It seems to have touched a nerve, especially with those who have worked their entire lives in science education,” says Beck.
THE early bird won’t get the worm if the environment has been tainted with carbon nanotubes. Eating them could stop earthworms reproducing and so threaten vital food chains.
Nanotube materials have enormous potential in electronics and construction, but it is suspected that exposure to nanotubes could cause asbestosis-like lung disease in people. Now Janeck Scott-Fordsmand and his team at the National Environmental Research Institute in Roskilde, Denmark, have tested their effect on earthworms. They found that earthworms given food laced with double-walled nanotubes produced far fewer cocoons than normal: the higher the dose, the fewer the cocoons (Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, vol 71, p 616).
Earthworms are vital to ecosystems because they aerate the soil. Nanotube pollution could make soils unable to support crops and sustain biodiversity, says Scott-Fordsmand.
Andrew Maynard, a nanotechnologist at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, says the study is “useful” but questions whether nanotubes have a significantly bigger environmental impact than other nanomaterials.
THE credit crunch is a golden opportunity to rebuild a “green” world financial system, says UN climate chief Yvo de Boer.
“Governments now have an opportunity to create and enforce policy which stimulates private competition to fund clean industry,” he said at a press conference in New York on 10 October.
The chance to grow a greener world economy will come this December in Poznan, Poland, where governments will begin to formulate a successor to the Kyoto protocol to combat global warming. The deadline for a final
agreement is December 2009.De Boer pointed out that
global demand for energy is expected to surge by 50 per cent by 2030, so investment in clean technologies must start now. Cap-and-trade schemes would
allow polluters to “buy” carbon emission permits from non-polluters, for example. Taxing carbon emissions from petrol and creating green standards for vehicles and appliances should stimulate greener living, he said.
“Green standards for vehicles and appliances should stimulate greener lifestyles”
An outbreak of what appears to be a new haemorrhagic fever has brought home how frightening little we know about deadly African viruses. Three people have died and a fourth was ill as New Scientist went to press.
In early September a 36-year-old woman living near Lusaka in Zambia fell ill and was airlifted to South Africa, where she died. Alarms were raised when a paramedic and a nurse who tended her died two weeks later. The latest person to succumb is a nurse who tended the paramedic.
On Sunday, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) announced that the culprit was an arenavirus, a family of viruses carried by rodents. While several arenaviruses, including Sin Nombre,
cause haemorrhagic fevers in the Americas, there was thought to be only one in Africa: Lassa fever , which kills around 5000 people a year in West Africa. “Now suddenly there’s this,” says Bob Swanepoel of the NICD, an expert on haemorrhagic viruses including the infamous Ebola and Marburg, which belong to the filovirus family.
The US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, is sequencing the Zambian virus to see how it is related to other arenaviruses and whether it is a new strain or one so far unidentified. “It’s shocking how little we know about the viruses circulating in Africa,” says Swanepoel.
In Africa, arenaviruses are carried by a common farm pest, the multimammate mouse (below).
MOUSE CARRIES KILLER VIRUS
DAN
IEL
HEU
CLIN
/NH
PA
–Cute but deadly?–
Tubular hell
World of green
www.newscientist.com 18 October 2008 | NewScientist | 7
