Daily Science Dose

Did you know that bats hibernate during the winter and that it is called hibernacula. Like Dr-acula? Come on. I may be having fun with that, but there is nothing fun about what is happening to bats in the eastern United States. They are dying of what biologists are calling white-nose syndrome.

And so far, no one knows what is causing it. Huh, kinda like the honeybees…

Anyway, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is advising to suspend all caving activity in the Eastern US in hopes of stopping the spread of the mysterious syndrome that is killing 90 to 100 percent of all bats affected by it. This is very sad news, and can affect the eastern states in terms of insect control and pollenation provided by bats in agriculture. Bats are a very important part of the ecosystem, so to see such decimation in numbers is worrying. White-Nose Syndrome has killed 75% of the bat populations in the affected areas in the US. See map below.

The FWS provides this information about the symptoms.

While they are in the hibernaculum, affected bats often have white fungus on their muzzles and other parts of their bodies. They may have low body fat. These bats often move to cold parts of the hibernacula, fly during the day and during cold winter weather when the insects they feed upon are not available, and exhibit other uncharacteristic behavior.

I’m going to play armchair scientist and offer a theory. This white-nose syndrome is a fungal attack on the skin of the bats. The areas most affected are the nose. The bat’s shove those noses into all sorts of places, like flowers that may have been treated with some sort of pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer, or whatnot. Not only that, but bats also consume things that other pesticides are meant to kill and maybe part of the meal for the unsuspecting bat. Maybe there is a link between the bats and the honeybees. Both are major players in the our agriculture, and maybe our newfangled way of growing stuff is killing them.

United States, bats, white nose syndrome, fungal, disease, die off, caves, deaths, wildlife, insects, pesticide, honeybee, agriculture, farming, colony collapse disorder, US Fish and Wildlife Service, FWS, advisory

Finally, the internet and wireless phones can be put to work on the side of good rather than just porn.

A test run of a new software suite called INSTEDD in Southeast Asia holds a world of promise when it comes to coordinating information across multiple users and agencies, locations, database configurations. Think of it as social networking among emergency and crisis workers and the people locally by anything from disease outbreaks to natural disasters.

I think everyone can agree that recent disasters like the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina has shown everyone that communication can be an effective key to mitigating the most profound effects of emergency situations. And as our methods of communication have expanded beyond telephones and telegraphs, so too must our tools for responding to disasters and epidemics.

As an example, the “test run” in Stung Treng Province, Cambodia was meant to simulate an outbreak of a disease scattered among many small villages throughout the region. Text messages, emails, and even blogs are useful tools to communicate, but with this new suite of three programs, INSTEDD can coordinate all methods of communication and can turn all that info into useful data for government agencies, relief workers, local residents, health officials, and anyone else who would be involved in relief efforts.

The INSTEDD suite consists of GeoChat, which “enables team members to communicate their position and important information using text messages, email or a web browser, with data instantly synchronized on every team members’ mobile phone or laptops.” The second component of the suite is Mesh4X, which translates all the different software among different agencies (stuff like which database software they use) among all the users. Finally, INSTEDD gives us Evolve, a tool that mines data and then provides vizualization tools like maps and charts to better understand all that information that is coming in now that all forms of communicating are linked up, with no software compatibility issues.

INSTEDD comes from a Palo Alto, California non-profit of the same acronym, which stands for Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters. INSTEDD has received money from Google, so it’s no surprise that Google Maps and Google Earth are part of the visualization tools.

natural disasters, emergency, relief, disease, outbreak, epidemic, Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters, INSTEDD, Google, Google Maps, Google Earth

In a not-so-stunning reversal of the Bush Era Suppression of Science, the EPA has supposedly sent a proposal for a “endangerment” finding for greenhouse gases to the White House, according to Reuters.

Finally.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in a case brought before it by a alliance of states and environmental groups that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are indeed a pollutant, and therefore should be regulated by the Clean Air Act and its erstwhile enforcer, the Environmental Protection Agency. You see, the EPA’s argument against regulating GHG emissions (and in particular carbon dioxide) was that there was uncertainty as to whether or not GHGs caused global warming.

The Bush Years were not a happy time at the EPA, and let’s just be glad it’s over.

What does an endangerment finding mean for us? Well, if something is a public danger it is then regulated by the EPA in terms of how much of it can safely be pumped into the air, water, what have you. That begs the question what is a safe amount of carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, even water vapor (although water vapor is directly related to temperature, so keep the temperature low and there is in turn less water vapor).

To determine a safe amount…This is what I’ve been waiting for, people. I am curious as to how much more carbon dioxide and CFCs and nitrous oxide can be allowed before we hit a tipping point. Not trying to be a Negative Nelly today, but we really need to take a sober look at the state of our planet.

On a positive note, I was heartened to see President Obama put out an op-ed in newspapers across the globe, calling for collective action and cooperation in the economic crisis. I’m hoping that his next international appeal will be for collective action on climate change.

EPA, White House, President Obama, Bush, carbon emissions, pollutant, greenhouse gases, GHG, methane, Clean Air Act, global warming

A new study, one being praised for its thoroughness, shows that heavy red-meat eaters are at a higher risk of death from pretty much everything.

The National Cancer Institute looked at the cases of 500,000 patients and in particular questionaires they filled out detailing their intake of red meat and processed meats, as well as other factors like smoking, exercise, fondness for vegetables and fruits, how much they ate, yada, yada, yada. They split the respondents into five groups and the group you were in related to how much red and processed meat you ate. Level 1 the lowest, level five the highest.

It seems that over the years from 1995 to 2005, about 48,000 of the men in the study died, as well as almost 24,000 women. And guess what? A larger percentage of those heavy meat consumers died than the level 1’s.

The quintile who ate the most red meat had a higher risk for overall death, death from heart disease and cancer than the men and women who ate the least red meat.

The researchers said thousands of deaths could be prevented if people simply ate less meat.

“For overall mortality, 11 percent of deaths in men and 16 percent of deaths in women could be prevented if people decreased their red meat consumption to the level of intake in the first quintile,” [Rashmi] Sinha’s team wrote. –Reuters via Planet Ark

Well, what do you know… Red meat is bad for your health. I’m sure cows would agree with me here.

Not only does beef cost a hefty price in terms of your health, but do you know how bad the beef and meat industry is for the larger world? Pollution, water usage, crop diversion to animal feed, the flatulence…cows and pigs are dirty creatures. Chickens and turkeys are, too. Especially the way we raise them.

Not only that, but in the US, we consume far too much meat, due to our relative affluence and a snappy campaign from the Beef Industry to the tune of Aaron Copeland. There’s a lot of people in this world are vegetarians not by choice, but by necessity.

But in this land of meat and potatoes, and heart attacks, obesity, high cholesterol, hyper-tension, diabetes, cancer…when will we stop believing the ad campaigns? Just say no.

And I love the response from the American Meat Institute, an industry front.

But American Meat Institute executive president, James Hodges, said: “Meat products are part of a healthy, balanced diet and studies show they actually provide a sense of satisfaction and fullness that can help with weight control. Proper body weight contributes to good health overall.” –ibid.

Brilliant. I wonder how many of those heavy red meat consumers are achieving “proper body weight.”

red meat, processed meat, beef industry, National Cancer Institute, death, obesity, heart disease, cancer, pollution, water, Americans, health, food, agriculture

If you have ever been to Yellowstone National Park, you may have noticed that rotten-egg smell around the myriad hot springs and geysers. Well, that intoxicating aroma is just that, in toxicating. Ok, it’s not necessarily the aroma that is toxic, but some of the stuff in the hot springs are toxic, including arsenic.

Huh, hot springs have arsenic in them? Why is it possible for me to soak my lily-white butt in them?

Ok, not all hot springs are quite as acidic as some of the hot springs in Yellowstone’s Norris Geyser Basin. That is where researchers from Montana State University concentrated their surveys of a certain one-celled algae named Cyanidioschyzon that grew in mats on the top of the pools of hot water. Tim McDermott, a prof at MSU, noticed years ago that the mats that nearly took over small pools in the winter virtually disappeared by summer. And like any good scientist, he wanted to know why.

It seems that the algae — red algae — had a little trick up its sleeve. Cyanidioschyzon can chemically change the arsenic that is found in these hot springs, and the more acidic the water, the more arsenic is there for the red algae to “eat.”

The cyanidioschyzon “oxidizes, reduces and converts arsenic to several forms that are less toxic than the original.” This finding has some rather serious implications. It may point out new ways for life to exist in extreme conditions, even those on other planets or moons.

“It gives us insight into how life adapts to extreme environments,” Rosen added. “If life can grow at high temperatures and high concentrations of heavy metals like arsenic, life might be able to evolve on other planets or moons such as Titan or Enceladus.”

McDermott said the scientists conducted basic research that may have implications someday for acid mine drainage and acid rock drainage remediation efforts.

“Any time you learn anything about eukaryotic algae and their potential application for bioremediation, that’s always good,” he said.–Terra Daily (SPX)

Arsenic is one of the more toxic by-products of coal-mining, so if there is some way that a teensy weensy little microbe can break down toxic forms of arsenic into less harmful variants, then this could be a very important discovery in terms of bioremediation of toxic sites and waste ponds.

algae, arsenic, toxic, Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone, hot springs, geysers, mining, cyanidioschyzon, Montana State, Norris Geyser Basin

A new Gallup poll has been released that shows that more Americans believe that the threats of global warming are exaggerated. When asked the question, “Thinking about what is said in the news, in your view is the seriousness of global warming …generally exaggerated, generally correct, or generally underestimated”, 41 percent of respondents answered that they felt the seriousness is generally exaggerated.

Ok, what news programs are they watching? Other than a few “specials” on CNN, I never see reporting that makes a big deal about climate change; in fact, most stories I see add more doubt that necessary. More than a few environmental and media watchdog groups feel that the media, in their pointless pursuit of fair and balanced reporting, often add global warming sceptics, not matter how much of a minority they are in the scientific community, just to appear to be objective.

Now, as a quasi-reporter, I can give the media props for trying to appear objective, but when the media is owned by men like Rupert Murdoch and ran by men like Michael Eisner and Sumner Redstone, then it is only natural to question the objectivity of a news organization that is part of a multinational corporation whose main purpose is to keep the profits rolling in. Furthermore, the “news” is no longer the pace where one goes for hard reporting and in-depth analyses of current issues — no, sadly, the news is nothing more than entertainment. (Sorry, Keith Olberman, I usually end up agreeing with you, and even though I am also a liberal thinker, I cannot call you an objective newsman.)

If you want to look at a handy chart to see who owns what in the media, click here.

I went to school for screenwriting, and in those classes, the number one lesson is “create conflict.” And for some reason, the News Media have taken that same lesson for fiction and drama and have added that ingredient to the objective news. Sometimes reporting the news should report the story itself, and not try to make a huge dramatic production of it, but adding players that have nothing to do with the story itself, much like those global warming deniers.

The worst part is that you often see the same “naysayers” on all the shows. They just make money by going around the news curcuit, bringing their own mics, mindlessly disagreeing with the science being presented by scientists that are actually working in the field and not going around the news circuit commenting on other scientists’ work.

Back to the poll…

The largest group responding “generally exaggerated” are, ta dah, Republicans.

Gallup attributes the rise to Republicans and independents believing media coverage of global warming is exaggerated. In the past 12 months alone, the ranks of Republican doubters grew from 59 percent to 66 percent, and independents from 33 percent to 44 percent. Among Democrates[sic], the rate remains about 20 percent. –Environmental Leader

Go figure…And do you notice how the spikes in the poll are in election years?

global warming, sceptics, news, media, reporting, balanced, Gallup poll, CNN, Republicans, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, Sumner Redstone, election, science, politics, objectivity, bias in media

The space shuttle Discovery finally launched Sunday evening from Cape Canaveral, after several delays due to a hydrogen leak and worries over the hydrogen valves. The shuttle’s mission is to get to the International Space Station to install the last solar panel arrays on the ISS to make it fully operational, as well as switching out an ISS “resident”. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will be moving in, and U.S. astronaut Sandra Magnus will be returning home on Discovery’s return flight.

Despite the troubles that plagued its liftoff, Discovery will only shorten its mission by one day and a space walk. Luckily, the ISS crew can accomplish the space walk’s goals on their own, once the shuttle leaves for Earth. NASA says that all other mission directives will go forward as planned. The major part of that mission is the transport and installation of the final and 11th truss segment, which are the solar wings that provide power to the station. These final “wings” will support a full-time crew of six at the ISS.

But just when science starts to get boring, yet another chunk of space debris, a piece of an old Soviet satellite threatens the International Space Station, the second time in the last week. NASA feels that the ISS is safe, as of this writing, but is monitoring the “erratic” movements of the 4-inch item that has been floating around since the satellite’s mysterious break-up in 1981.

The problem is that the Shuttle is not at the ISS yet, and won’t be docking at the Space Station until Tuesday. The space junk will arrive first, and if the ISS does have to power up some engines to move out of the way, the shuttle will also have to adjust its course. I guess that’s not much of a problem.

Anyway, space debris seems to be becoming a bit of a nuisance for space missions. In high school, I was on the debate team the year that the resolution was to increase space exploration, and I remember all the evidence I had about space debris becoming a problem in the near future. That was like 20 years ago now, and it looks like the alarmists were right.

Space may seem infinite, but our number of safe orbits is not.

space shuttle, NASA, Discovery, International Space Station, ISS, space debris, space junk, orbit, missions, astronaut

That’s kind of a strange thought, huh, a lifeboat in space. I wonder how long that lifeboat would sustain a person or persons, considering how long it could take to ready shuttles for rescue missions.

The three astronauts(kosmonauts) aboard the International Space Station got a nasty phone call today. It was NASA calling, and a chunk of space junk was headed right for the ISS. No time to fire an engine to nudge the vessel out of the way of impact and besides another piece of debris was in the way, the crew instead climbed into the Soyuz lifeboat. Luckily, the five-inch wide piece of space litter whizzed by the Space Station, and eleven minutes after entering the lifeboat, the astronauts returned to the station.

A spokeman for NASA told the New York Times that the threat of collision posed by the piece of space debris was not huge, but having the crew go into the lifeboat was an “abundance of caution.”

This is the fifth time since becoming operational in 1998 that space debris has threatened the International Space Station so much that the lifeboat maneuver was an option.

By the way, I was being rather glib about the Soyuz lifeboat earlier. The Soyuz is not technically a lifeboat per se, but it is the ship that takes the crews to the ISS as well as returning them to Earth. Here is a picture of the Soyuz docked at the International Space Station.

As the name would imply, the Soyuz is the Russian equivalent to the US space shuttle, in that it is used in the transport of people and equipment to the Space Station. The Soyuz program started back in the 60’s for the then Soviet’s moon mission.

International Space Station, NASA, space debris, space junk, satellite, orbit, Soyuz, lifeboat, space shuttle, US, Russian, Soviet

After 8 long, long years of a presidential administration who couldn’t separate their religious beliefs from scientific facts, President Obama changed the science “climate” in the White House with the stroke of a pen.

Yesterday, not only did President Obama overturn the Bush limits on embryonic stem cell research, but he also signed a memo to his science adviser to choose only the best experts in their scientific fields, rather than those scientists that are willing to change outcomes, omit data and manipulate evidence to fit certain ideologies. The new directive also calls for increased protections for those who uncover inappropriate handling of science or “whistleblow” on bad science.

The idea, the president said in remarks before an audience of lawmakers, scientists, patients advocates and patients in the East Room, is to ensure that “we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology”: a line that drew more applause than any other. Irv Weissman, who directs an institute at Stanford University devoted to studying stem cells, called the declaration “of even greater importance” than the stem cell announcement itself. –NY Times

Well, praise the lord and hallelujah. The Bush Era was downright hostile to science in many aspects — you can read more about that stuff here and here and here. And those examples are all from only the last few months of Bush’s Reign. Before that, numerous reports were released detailing the Bush Admin’s penchant for asking scientists to add “doubt” to the science behind global warming and climate change, to delete info about contraception on federal websites, and just generally use science to its own ends rather than scientifically-sound ends.

Will this mean that all policy will suddenly become better? Probably not, but at least there is an understanding in our national leadership that science is not our enemy.

As a science writer and teacher, I couldn’t be more pleased at Obama’s attempt to change the presidential attitude toward intelligence and reasoning, but it is just that, an attempt. Still, to have that kind of thinking in such an influential office is a breath of fresh air.

President Obama, science, stem cell research, embryonic cells, Bush, global warming, policy, whistleblower, global warming, contraception, ideology, conservative

It’s funny. I was watching Science Channel HD last night, and after a Killer Asteroids show, a show came on about Planet Hunters. And then this morning, I find out that the Kepler Telescope is being launched today. Weird. It’s like the Universe is trying to tell me something…like write about planet hunting.

After years and years of using Earth-based telescopes to find planetary cousins, NASA is moving the base of operations (well, the “eye” of operations) to an Earth orbit in order to get past the cloudy, hazier Earth atmosphere. One of the obstacles that planet-hunting scientists have is that atmosphere, and much like the Hubble Telescope, imaging of distant objects gets waaay better off-planet.

The Kepler Telescope has been designed with planet hunting in mind, and in particular Earth-alikes. Named for the guy who formulated the laws of planetary motion, Johannes Kepler. The key to finding a planet is patience, obviously, but also a keen eye. As planets are not stars, seeing them is a bit tricky. Astronomers have to look for “wobbles” in a star’s light, as seen from our perspective. The wobble or slight dip in the star’s brightness signifies that something is moving (or has, as looking at lights in space is like looking back in time) across the star’s face. Earth would be just a wobble across our Sun to those living across the Milky Way.

So, NASA is sending up the Kepler to look for wobbles…for three and a half years. In fact, a true wobble won’t be detected for those three years. The Kepler will be looking at a specific patch of sky up to 3,000 light years away in the vicinity of the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

Kepler will stare at the region for at least 3 1/2 years, measuring the light from 100,000 stars every half hour with a 95 million-pixel camera to watch for the slight dip in a star’s brightness that signals a planet moving across it as seen from Earth. It’s the equivalent of trying to spot a flea crawl across a car headlight from miles away, NASA has said. –Space.com

Once a wobble is found, and found again the next two years, to find another Earth-like planet, the planet has to be within a certain distance from whatever star it calls its Sun. Too close, like that little planet found last month by the European’s COROT space telescope, and the planet may be way too hot. Too far, and it could be too cold. Usually, the presence of water is the benchmark for Earth-iness. Of course, the size of the exosolar “sun” also matters, as a larger sun will provide more heat to planets farther away, and vice versa.

Kepler launches tonight (March 6) at 10:49 EST with a back-up window again at 11:13pm EST. If you are along the East Coast, try to get out and find the newest addition to the firmament as it heads towards orbit.

Kepler, Earth, NASA, telescope, space, Hubble telescope, space exploration, Cygnus, Lyra, planet hunting, planets, Milky Way, Sun, COROT, stars, universe, Science Channel

Yeah, when you take their cigarettes away…

No, but seriously, it seems that some bad behavior may not be because of crappy parenting — oh, wait. It is because of crappy parenting, namely smoking while pregnant. Some kids have a genetic variant that gets triggered by those prenatal smokes and those kids turn into bad kids.

A new study brought to us by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (a subset of the National Institutes of Health) has shown that exposure to smoke before birth raises the risks for behavioral problems in children and teens. The tobacco affects the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene variant, which is associated with the monoamine oxidase enzyme. This enzyme happens to regulate those nice neurotransmitters like dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, serotonin. Something goes wrong in the regulating and well, you got yourself trouble, right here in River City.

And get this, the study shows that the increased risk for bad behavior is different for boys and girls. MAOA has another variant, -L, and if a boy has low MAOA-L activity, he is more likely to have disruptive behavior issues. Quite conversely for a girl — she is more likely to be bad if her MAOA-L is high-activity. The activity levels mean how much or little of the enzyme MAOA is being produced. Also, in girls, it seems that the high-risk girls are prone to reading emotional cues as aggressive, which in turn makes the girls lash back aggressively. And the more mothers smoked, the higher the risks for behavior problems.

The last National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2006-7) showed that 426,000 pregnant women aged 15-44 were current cigarette smokers. I hope those truth ads are helping reduce this number. But then again, if smoking while pregnant produces out-of-control teenage girls, maybe it’s not all bad — Ask Maury.

smoking, drugs, cigarettes, tobacco, prenatal, exposure, smoking while pregnant, monoamine oxidase A, MAOA, gene, enzyme, neurotransmitters, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, serotonin, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health

Word is that Saturn has a new moon. This small, small, small moon might actually be called a moonlet, but the research is still out on that as the cameras on the Cassini probe are not able to get a clear picture of this new moon in Saturn’s faint, icy G-Ring.

From NASA’s explanation:

This sequence of three images, obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft over the course of about 10 minutes, shows the path of a newly found moonlet in a bright arc of Saturn’s faint G ring.

In each image, a small streak of light within the ring is visible. Unlike the streaks in the background, which are distant stars smeared by the camera’s long exposure time of 46 seconds, this streak is aligned with the G ring and moves along the ring as expected for an object embedded in the ring.

Cassini scientists interpret the moving streak to be reflected light from a tiny moon half a kilometer (a third of mile) wide that is likely a major source of material in the arc and the rest of the G ring. Debris knocked off this moon forms a relatively bright arc of material near the inner edge of the G ring, the most visible part of the ring in these images. That arc, in turn, leaks material to form the entire ring. –NASA

So what’s the diff between a moon and a moonlet? Moonlets are way smaller, sure; but as that is not an exact measurement, but you can think of moonlets as asteroid-sized for the most part (as small as 100 m). Moonlets are too small to have gravitational pull in so far as to collect surrounding debris in large enough quantities as to clear the surrounding space in their orbits, like a larger Saturn moon would. Because a moonlet does not create a clear view of itself, due to the other stuff around it, they are harder to see. In fact, so hard to see that moonlets of Saturn have only just recently been discovered.

These are the so-called “propeller moons” that were found in 2004 within Saturn’s A-Ring.

Before this new moonlet was noticed, the G-Ring was a mystery to scientists, as the other rings of Saturn were associated with a moon or moons. But now that a moonlet body has been found, scientists are hoping that this new moonlet can give them clues as to how rings form. Theory thus far has it that a larger moon broke up and shattered, forming the glorious rings of Saturn. The newer moonlets discovered as of late may provide clues as to their origin, but also may give scientists insight into how new moons aggregate out of smaller material and grow larger to develop a gravitational pull.

Just in case you were wondering, the rings get their letters from their sequence of discovery. Starting closest to Saturn, it goes D, C, B, A, F, G and E.

Images from NASA/JPL

Saturn, Cassani, JPL, NASA, moon, moonlet, G-ring, rings, gravity, orbit