LONDON (Reuters) - The discovery by NASA rover Curiosity of evidence that water once flowed on Mars - the most Earth-like planet in the solar system - should intensify interest in what the future could hold for mankind.
The only thing stopping Earth having a lifeless environment like Mars is the magnetic field that shields us from deadly solar radiation and helps some animals migrate, and it may be a lot more fragile and febrile than one might think.
Scientists say earth's magnetic field is weakening and could all but disappear in as little as 500 years as a precursor to flipping upside down.
It has happened before - the geological record suggests the magnetic field has reversed every 250,000 years, meaning that, with the last event 800,000 years ago, another would seem to be overdue.
'Magnetic north has migrated more than 1,500 kilometres over the past century,' said Conall Mac Niocaill, an earth scientist at Oxford University. 'In the past 150 years, the strength of the magnetic field has lessened by 10 percent, which could indicate a reversal is on the cards.'
While the effects are hard to predict, the consequences may be enormous. The loss of the magnetic field on Mars billions of years ago put paid to life on the planet if there ever was any, scientists say.
Mac Niocaill said Mars probably lost its magnetic field 3.5-4.0 billion years ago, based on observations that rocks in the planet's southern hemisphere have magnetisation.
The northern half of Mars looks younger because it has fewer impact craters, and has no magnetic structure to speak of, so the field must have shut down before the rocks there were formed, which would have been about 3.8 billion years ago.
'With the field dying away, the solar wind was then able to strip the atmosphere away, and you would also have an increase in the cosmic radiation making it to the surface,' he said.
'Both of these things would be bad news for any life that might have formed on the surface - either wiping it out, or forcing it to migrate into the interior of the planet.'
RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW
Earth's magnetic field has always restored itself but, as it continues to shift and weaken, it will present challenges - satellites could be more exposed to solar wind and the oil industry uses readings from the field to guide drills.
In nature, animals which use the field could be mightily confused - birds, bees, and some fish all use the field for navigation. So do sea turtles whose long lives, which can easily exceed a hundred years, means a single generation could feel the effects.
Birds may be able to cope because studies have shown they have back-up systems that rely on stars and landmarks, including roads and power lines, to find their way around.
The European Space Agency is taking the issue seriously. In November, it plans to launch three satellites to improve our fairly blurry understanding of the magnetosphere.
The project - Swarm - will send two satellites into a 450 kilometre high polar orbit to measure changes in the magnetic field, while a third satellite 530 kilometres high will look at the influence of the sun.
DESCENT INTO CHAOS
Scientists, who have known for some time the magnetic field has a tendency to flip, have made advances in recent years in understanding why and how it happens.
The field is generated by convection currents that churn in the molten iron of the planet's outer core. Other factors, such as ocean currents and magnetic rocks in the earth's crust also contribute.
The Swarm mission will pull all these elements together to improve computer models used to predict how the magnetic field will move and how fast it could weaken.
Ciaran Beggan, a geomagnetic specialist at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said studies have also refined our understanding of how the field reverses.
They have focused on lava flows. When these cool and form crystals the atoms in iron-rich molten rock align under the influence of the magnetic field, providing a geological memory of the earth's field.
But that memory looks different in various locations around the world, suggesting the reversal could be a chaotic and fairly random process.
'Rather than having strong north and south poles, you get lots of poles around the planet. So, a compass would not do you much good,' said Beggan.
While the whole process takes 3,000-5,000 years, latest research suggests the descent into a chaotic state could take as little as 500 years, although there are significant holes in scientific understanding.
'Although electricity grids and GPS systems would be more vulnerable, we are not really sure how all the complex things that are linked together would react,' Beggan said.
(Editing by Dan Lalor)
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Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Insight: Delays dog U.S. government loans to green energy projects
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A year after the U.S. government raced to meet a deadline to finish loan agreements with dozens of clean energy companies, less than half the total money promised has been handed over.
Technical questions and companies' own failures in hitting contractual milestones are behind some of the holdups.
But government officials fearful of taking a risk on firms that could collapse may have also caused some of the delays. The political firestorm after the failure of Solyndra, a solar panel maker that went bankrupt last year after receiving more than $527 million in a government loan, may have made the authorities wary, industry experts and investors say.
The Energy Department and some companies say the pace of disbursement reflects an appropriately cautious approach to handling taxpayer investment in nascent industries. In some cases, though, the rigid approval process for drawing on loans has frustrated recipients, who feel the government is withholding cash due to minor setbacks.
A Reuters analysis of Treasury Department data on payments to 19 solar, wind and geothermal power projects of the 26 in the Energy Department's portfolio shows that the pace at which funds have been released has been slow and uneven. Funding for the other seven loans, amounting to a combined $5.6 billion, comes from private lenders, with the Energy Department guaranteeing 80 percent of the principal. The department declined to discuss these loan disbursements.
(For a graphic, see http://link.reuters.com/ped92t)
The Treasury Department data provides a glimpse into how things are faring for the program, which the Obama administration hailed as a major job creator that would help wean the United States off its dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels. The program was crafted during the Bush administration but funded as part of the 2009 economic stimulus.
'One of the things it tells you is that the program became highly politicized and it gridlocked the process of doling out money,' said Theodore O'Neill of Litchfield Hills Research, after seeing the results of the Reuters review.
The Solyndra failure has become a stock part of stump speeches leading up the November 6 U.S. elections, including those of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who argues that the government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. He says Washington is not good at it, and should not put taxpayer money at risk in the process.
Only 47 percent of the total approved funding, or $4.9 billion, had gone out the door by August 31 for the 19 projects receiving their loans directly from the Federal Financing Bank, a division of the Treasury Department.
Four projects have not received any of their promised funding, including two solar manufacturing projects that O'Neill and other analysts say have only faint hope of reaching viable commercial production because of stiff competition from China. Another five projects have received less than half the loan funds that were pledged.
Some projects have seen disbursements withheld until they meet contract milestones with the Energy Department, which approves the payments.
'Whatever it is, things are not going right with their original investment,' said Jim Nelson, a solar cell entrepreneur who had a long career in private equity, including working at Bain and Co with Romney.
For critics like Nelson, the slow pace of loan disbursement is one more sign that the government is not an efficient financier. He said he does not expect his company, Solar 3D, to need government help to commercialize its technology.
AWKWARD PARTNER
Renewable energy projects in general have been hurt by low natural gas prices, uncertainty about federal tax credits, and the failure of Congress to legislate a federal mandate for using solar, wind and geothermal power.
Loan recipients also faced more government scrutiny after the failure of Solyndra, which received monthly payments right up until seven days before it shut its doors.
Since then, the government has withheld money for projects with signs of technical problems. But that can lead to a 'downward spiral,' said one private investor familiar with some of the projects.
Without the money, the companies can't fix the problems - and unless they are resolved, it is difficult for the firms to seek additional private capital they need to keep going, the investor said.
Earlier this year, a geothermal project at a hot springs in eastern Oregon ran into technical issues.
An injection well U.S. Geothermal had drilled was performing below expectations, and before the Energy Department would release regular monthly disbursements, the company needed to show it had equity to cover additional drilling costs.
'We found ourselves responding to a significant amount of questions' from the government, said U.S. Geothermal's CEO Daniel Kunz, noting that the delay meant one small local contractor had trouble paying employees.
U.S. Geothermal went without monthly disbursements again in June and July because of government questions about a single $100 invoice that held up more than $7 million in payments.
'They got into some real minute issues, and they're entitled to do that,' said Kunz, who stressed that he was grateful for the loan.
When it came to the additional drilling costs, U.S. Geothermal turned to its equity partner, Enbridge Inc, a Canadian pipeline company and original investor. Enbridge kicked in an extra $6 million in exchange for hiking in its ownership stake from 27 percent to 40 percent.
Kunz expects the project will be producing power, which it will sell under a long-term sales contract, by the year's end.
Abound Solar was not as fortunate. After receiving 17 percent of its $400 million government loan, the solar panel manufacturer's payments were cut off by the Energy Department in August last year because panel prices had collapsed.
'While we understood the increasing market risks driving this decision, and understood the technical justifications in the loan documents, we also knew that it put enormous financial strain on our small company,' Chief Executive Craig Witsoe told lawmakers in July, shortly after Abound filed for bankruptcy.
CAUTIOUS PACE
More than 12 percent of the money that has been handed out by the Treasury so far went to Solyndra, Abound and Beacon Power, an energy storage project that also later filed for bankruptcy.
Kevin Smith, CEO of Santa Monica, California-based SolarReserve, worries that all the loan projects are getting unfairly characterized as duds to score political points.
SolarReserve got a $737 million loan guarantee for a solar plant in Nevada, the largest of its type in the world.
'To use these short-term successes and failures to play politics is just too dangerous for us as a nation,' he said, adding that there should be a long-term view on the need to move away from fossil-based fuels.
Smith said he considered the government's cautious pace of loan disbursement appropriate. 'The level of scrutiny by the Department of Energy and their advisors is at a much higher level than you would see in commercial project finance.'
For the 19 projects covered in the Treasury Department data, the Energy Department declined to comment on whether there are targets or goals for getting the $5.1 billion remaining in promised loans released.
'The portfolio has been thoroughly evaluated by independent experts who determined that our practice of ensuring loan recipients can only access loan funds gradually as they meet financial and construction milestones is an important protection for the taxpayers,' Damien LaVera, an Energy Department spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.
'In some cases, the agreements specifically require significant portions of the equity in a project to be raised before any loan funds can be disbursed,' LaVera said.
NO MONEY YET
Four projects promised Treasury Department loans have yet to see any disbursements, including Abengoa's cellulosic ethanol plant in Kansas.
Abengoa's executive vice president, Chris Standlee, said he expects the ethanol project to begin drawing on the loan soon. Its plant has been under construction for a year, and the terms of the loan require that it use its own equity first.
Another company still waiting to tap its $197 million loan, SoloPower, opened a solar panel manufacturing plant in Portland, Oregon last week.
The company can begin to tap funds once it begins shipping panels. SoloPower's chief executive Tim Harris said he believes his company underwent a more rigorous review than Solyndra.
'Our initial due diligence was 14,000 pages,' Harris said. 'I call us the most heavily due-diligenced company in the world. It sure feels that way.'
HUNDREDS OF MILESTONES
SolarReserve's power plant in Nevada has about 200 milestones for which paperwork must be submitted to the Energy Department. The Crescent Dunes plant will use thousands of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a tower of molten salt, where heat will be stored until it is needed to create power.
The project is a year into its 30-month construction schedule. By the end of August, it had received only 21 percent of its loan, which CEO Smith said reflected the typical pace of building a plant.
Most of the early project work focused on engineering and procurement, Smith said in an interview. But Crescent Dunes will soon enter the most cash-intensive part of construction and in the next few months, employment will jump from 220 to about 600.
While Smith said his funding was on schedule, he said the government did not move as swiftly as a private-sector lender because it required more documentation and had more levels of review.
It took two years to finalize the loan guarantee, a process that in the private sector would take six to eight months.
Still, Smith said the program filled a 'commercialization gap' for an emerging industry struggling to find lenders after the 2008 financial crisis. 'Trying to finance that ... two years ago when we were still in the heart of economic downturn was virtually impossible,' he said.
(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Martin Howell, Karey Wutkowski and David Brunnstrom)
Technical questions and companies' own failures in hitting contractual milestones are behind some of the holdups.
But government officials fearful of taking a risk on firms that could collapse may have also caused some of the delays. The political firestorm after the failure of Solyndra, a solar panel maker that went bankrupt last year after receiving more than $527 million in a government loan, may have made the authorities wary, industry experts and investors say.
The Energy Department and some companies say the pace of disbursement reflects an appropriately cautious approach to handling taxpayer investment in nascent industries. In some cases, though, the rigid approval process for drawing on loans has frustrated recipients, who feel the government is withholding cash due to minor setbacks.
A Reuters analysis of Treasury Department data on payments to 19 solar, wind and geothermal power projects of the 26 in the Energy Department's portfolio shows that the pace at which funds have been released has been slow and uneven. Funding for the other seven loans, amounting to a combined $5.6 billion, comes from private lenders, with the Energy Department guaranteeing 80 percent of the principal. The department declined to discuss these loan disbursements.
(For a graphic, see http://link.reuters.com/ped92t)
The Treasury Department data provides a glimpse into how things are faring for the program, which the Obama administration hailed as a major job creator that would help wean the United States off its dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels. The program was crafted during the Bush administration but funded as part of the 2009 economic stimulus.
'One of the things it tells you is that the program became highly politicized and it gridlocked the process of doling out money,' said Theodore O'Neill of Litchfield Hills Research, after seeing the results of the Reuters review.
The Solyndra failure has become a stock part of stump speeches leading up the November 6 U.S. elections, including those of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who argues that the government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. He says Washington is not good at it, and should not put taxpayer money at risk in the process.
Only 47 percent of the total approved funding, or $4.9 billion, had gone out the door by August 31 for the 19 projects receiving their loans directly from the Federal Financing Bank, a division of the Treasury Department.
Four projects have not received any of their promised funding, including two solar manufacturing projects that O'Neill and other analysts say have only faint hope of reaching viable commercial production because of stiff competition from China. Another five projects have received less than half the loan funds that were pledged.
Some projects have seen disbursements withheld until they meet contract milestones with the Energy Department, which approves the payments.
'Whatever it is, things are not going right with their original investment,' said Jim Nelson, a solar cell entrepreneur who had a long career in private equity, including working at Bain and Co with Romney.
For critics like Nelson, the slow pace of loan disbursement is one more sign that the government is not an efficient financier. He said he does not expect his company, Solar 3D, to need government help to commercialize its technology.
AWKWARD PARTNER
Renewable energy projects in general have been hurt by low natural gas prices, uncertainty about federal tax credits, and the failure of Congress to legislate a federal mandate for using solar, wind and geothermal power.
Loan recipients also faced more government scrutiny after the failure of Solyndra, which received monthly payments right up until seven days before it shut its doors.
Since then, the government has withheld money for projects with signs of technical problems. But that can lead to a 'downward spiral,' said one private investor familiar with some of the projects.
Without the money, the companies can't fix the problems - and unless they are resolved, it is difficult for the firms to seek additional private capital they need to keep going, the investor said.
Earlier this year, a geothermal project at a hot springs in eastern Oregon ran into technical issues.
An injection well U.S. Geothermal had drilled was performing below expectations, and before the Energy Department would release regular monthly disbursements, the company needed to show it had equity to cover additional drilling costs.
'We found ourselves responding to a significant amount of questions' from the government, said U.S. Geothermal's CEO Daniel Kunz, noting that the delay meant one small local contractor had trouble paying employees.
U.S. Geothermal went without monthly disbursements again in June and July because of government questions about a single $100 invoice that held up more than $7 million in payments.
'They got into some real minute issues, and they're entitled to do that,' said Kunz, who stressed that he was grateful for the loan.
When it came to the additional drilling costs, U.S. Geothermal turned to its equity partner, Enbridge Inc, a Canadian pipeline company and original investor. Enbridge kicked in an extra $6 million in exchange for hiking in its ownership stake from 27 percent to 40 percent.
Kunz expects the project will be producing power, which it will sell under a long-term sales contract, by the year's end.
Abound Solar was not as fortunate. After receiving 17 percent of its $400 million government loan, the solar panel manufacturer's payments were cut off by the Energy Department in August last year because panel prices had collapsed.
'While we understood the increasing market risks driving this decision, and understood the technical justifications in the loan documents, we also knew that it put enormous financial strain on our small company,' Chief Executive Craig Witsoe told lawmakers in July, shortly after Abound filed for bankruptcy.
CAUTIOUS PACE
More than 12 percent of the money that has been handed out by the Treasury so far went to Solyndra, Abound and Beacon Power, an energy storage project that also later filed for bankruptcy.
Kevin Smith, CEO of Santa Monica, California-based SolarReserve, worries that all the loan projects are getting unfairly characterized as duds to score political points.
SolarReserve got a $737 million loan guarantee for a solar plant in Nevada, the largest of its type in the world.
'To use these short-term successes and failures to play politics is just too dangerous for us as a nation,' he said, adding that there should be a long-term view on the need to move away from fossil-based fuels.
Smith said he considered the government's cautious pace of loan disbursement appropriate. 'The level of scrutiny by the Department of Energy and their advisors is at a much higher level than you would see in commercial project finance.'
For the 19 projects covered in the Treasury Department data, the Energy Department declined to comment on whether there are targets or goals for getting the $5.1 billion remaining in promised loans released.
'The portfolio has been thoroughly evaluated by independent experts who determined that our practice of ensuring loan recipients can only access loan funds gradually as they meet financial and construction milestones is an important protection for the taxpayers,' Damien LaVera, an Energy Department spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.
'In some cases, the agreements specifically require significant portions of the equity in a project to be raised before any loan funds can be disbursed,' LaVera said.
NO MONEY YET
Four projects promised Treasury Department loans have yet to see any disbursements, including Abengoa's cellulosic ethanol plant in Kansas.
Abengoa's executive vice president, Chris Standlee, said he expects the ethanol project to begin drawing on the loan soon. Its plant has been under construction for a year, and the terms of the loan require that it use its own equity first.
Another company still waiting to tap its $197 million loan, SoloPower, opened a solar panel manufacturing plant in Portland, Oregon last week.
The company can begin to tap funds once it begins shipping panels. SoloPower's chief executive Tim Harris said he believes his company underwent a more rigorous review than Solyndra.
'Our initial due diligence was 14,000 pages,' Harris said. 'I call us the most heavily due-diligenced company in the world. It sure feels that way.'
HUNDREDS OF MILESTONES
SolarReserve's power plant in Nevada has about 200 milestones for which paperwork must be submitted to the Energy Department. The Crescent Dunes plant will use thousands of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a tower of molten salt, where heat will be stored until it is needed to create power.
The project is a year into its 30-month construction schedule. By the end of August, it had received only 21 percent of its loan, which CEO Smith said reflected the typical pace of building a plant.
Most of the early project work focused on engineering and procurement, Smith said in an interview. But Crescent Dunes will soon enter the most cash-intensive part of construction and in the next few months, employment will jump from 220 to about 600.
While Smith said his funding was on schedule, he said the government did not move as swiftly as a private-sector lender because it required more documentation and had more levels of review.
It took two years to finalize the loan guarantee, a process that in the private sector would take six to eight months.
Still, Smith said the program filled a 'commercialization gap' for an emerging industry struggling to find lenders after the 2008 financial crisis. 'Trying to finance that ... two years ago when we were still in the heart of economic downturn was virtually impossible,' he said.
(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Martin Howell, Karey Wutkowski and David Brunnstrom)
Will Climate Change Slow Marathon Times?
Climate change is blamed for melting ice, shrinking animals and brewing more intense storms around the globe - but is it slowing the top finish times at the Boston Marathon? Not yet, researchers found, though future increases in temperature could mean fewer records are broken.
Runners typically dread hot race days. Warmer temperatures tend to drag on finish times, studies have shown, and the slower you run, the more minutes you're likely to pile on during a boiling hot day.
This year saw one of the hottest marathons in Boston, with temperatures on April 16, 2012, soaring into the 80s - about 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius) higher than the normal high. Though that race day was unseasonably warm, temperatures in Boston have been rising at a relatively high rate over the past century.
The average annual temperature in Boston rose by about 0.027 degrees F (0.015 degrees C) per year between 1893 and 2005 (more than twice the global average). And the April average has crept up 0.031 degrees F (0.017 degrees C) per year over the same time period. In a study detailed online Sept. 26 in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers from Boston University (BU) examined whether these consistently climbing temperatures had any effect on the big race. [5 Amazing Marathon Feats]
Led by BU biologist Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, the scientists analyzed weather data alongside men's winning times in the Boston Marathon from 1933 to 2004 and women's winning times from 1972 (when women first officially participated) to 2004. They found that a 1.8 degree F (1 degree C) increase in temperature slowed the winning time, on average, by 20 seconds for men and 21 seconds for women. Strong headwinds had a similar effect. But overall, the researchers found that warming trends did not seem to affect the winning times of the marathon between 1933 and 2004, likely because there is still large variation in marathon-day temperature over that period.
'The authors are not saying that a warm temperature on race day on any given year won't affect race performance,' said Scott Montain, a physiologist with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine who was not involved in the study. But the BU data suggests it will take 'considerable time' before year-over-year warming will result in predictable and consistent slowing of race times, Montain explained to LiveScience in an email.
The BU researchers said if the race-day temperatures warmed by an average of 0.050 degrees F (0.028 degrees C) per year, they would expect a 64-percent chance that winning times would consistently slow by 2100. But even if Boston saw predictably rising temperatures on the third Monday of every April going forward, marathon runners will likely avoid any long-term climate-caused drag because race organizers have moved up the start time, researchers said. Through 2005, the race kicked off at noon, but since then, it has started in waves beginning at 9:00 a.m.
'By changing starting times for the race to earlier in the day when temperatures are cooler ... race organizers have effectively counteracted any effects that long-term warming would have had on winning times,' the authors wrote. 'If this change had not been made, we would have expected that warming would likely lead to fewer record-breaking times in the Boston Marathon.'
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING.
Runners typically dread hot race days. Warmer temperatures tend to drag on finish times, studies have shown, and the slower you run, the more minutes you're likely to pile on during a boiling hot day.
This year saw one of the hottest marathons in Boston, with temperatures on April 16, 2012, soaring into the 80s - about 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius) higher than the normal high. Though that race day was unseasonably warm, temperatures in Boston have been rising at a relatively high rate over the past century.
The average annual temperature in Boston rose by about 0.027 degrees F (0.015 degrees C) per year between 1893 and 2005 (more than twice the global average). And the April average has crept up 0.031 degrees F (0.017 degrees C) per year over the same time period. In a study detailed online Sept. 26 in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers from Boston University (BU) examined whether these consistently climbing temperatures had any effect on the big race. [5 Amazing Marathon Feats]
Led by BU biologist Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, the scientists analyzed weather data alongside men's winning times in the Boston Marathon from 1933 to 2004 and women's winning times from 1972 (when women first officially participated) to 2004. They found that a 1.8 degree F (1 degree C) increase in temperature slowed the winning time, on average, by 20 seconds for men and 21 seconds for women. Strong headwinds had a similar effect. But overall, the researchers found that warming trends did not seem to affect the winning times of the marathon between 1933 and 2004, likely because there is still large variation in marathon-day temperature over that period.
'The authors are not saying that a warm temperature on race day on any given year won't affect race performance,' said Scott Montain, a physiologist with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine who was not involved in the study. But the BU data suggests it will take 'considerable time' before year-over-year warming will result in predictable and consistent slowing of race times, Montain explained to LiveScience in an email.
The BU researchers said if the race-day temperatures warmed by an average of 0.050 degrees F (0.028 degrees C) per year, they would expect a 64-percent chance that winning times would consistently slow by 2100. But even if Boston saw predictably rising temperatures on the third Monday of every April going forward, marathon runners will likely avoid any long-term climate-caused drag because race organizers have moved up the start time, researchers said. Through 2005, the race kicked off at noon, but since then, it has started in waves beginning at 9:00 a.m.
'By changing starting times for the race to earlier in the day when temperatures are cooler ... race organizers have effectively counteracted any effects that long-term warming would have had on winning times,' the authors wrote. 'If this change had not been made, we would have expected that warming would likely lead to fewer record-breaking times in the Boston Marathon.'
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
- 7 Amazing Superhuman Feats
- The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
- 8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World
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Nuclear "birth control" helps Croatia fruit farmers fight flies
OPUZEN, Croatia/VIENNA (Reuters) - At the height of the tangerine season in Croatia's Neretva river delta, two pickup trucks scour a maze of water channels carrying an odd-looking contraption: a mortar-like pipe spraying orchards with sterilized flies.
Each launch sends into the air thousands of males of the fruit fly, one of the most harmful orchard pests, in what advocates say is a prime example of how nuclear science can benefit both agriculture and the environment.
They have been bombarded with radioactive Cobalt-60 in an Israeli biotechnology plant to make them sterile in a bid to reduce the fly population and the damage they wreak on the crop.
The United Nations' atomic agency says it shows how nuclear technology - more commonly associated with energy or atom bombs - is harnessed to help make an 'important contribution' in solving the world's food problems.
Scientists are developing and refining the Sterile Insect Technology (SIT) for different species - including the tsetse fly in Africa - at the Seibersdorf laboratory of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) outside Vienna.
'It is essentially a form of birth control,' IAEA head Yukiya Amano said. 'The result has been a drop of no less than 75 percent in fruit fly damage' in Neretva, where nine out of ten people are involved in the citrus fruit industry.
Twice a week, between April and November, shipments containing 5 million sterilized male flies reach the fertile valley in southern Croatia, the northernmost point in Europe where tangerines are successfully grown.
Some farmers use boats to spread the male flies in remote areas, part of project which started two years ago to combat a pest that destroyed about a third of the crop.
The sterilized males outnumber the local fruit flies and gradually take the place of normal males. They can mate, but there is no offspring. Consequently, the number of larvae, which feed on ripening tangerines, quickly declines.
FEWER FLIES, PESTICIDES
'We've had excellent results, more and more farmers want to take part. The next step will be to release the males from aircraft, which is the most efficient way,' said Luka Popovic of the Croatian Centre for Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
The U.N. agency pays for shipments of flies costing about 2,300 euros each, he said. The United States helps with funding.
The flatlands of the sprawling Neretva delta are expected to produce around 60,000 tonnes of tangerines this year. Most are exported, but many countries have strict quarantine rules and ban imports of fruit suspected of carrying fruit flies.
'Every year we add new crops and the output grows by around 20 percent, so we aim to reach 150,000 tonnes in 2020,' said Niko Kapovic, manager of AgroFructus, the leading local tangerine wholesaler.
Agrofructus exports 75 percent of the tangerines - mostly to Russia, the European Union and the Balkan region.
'Last year we had a big onslaught of the fruit fly and it really showed how good it was that we started this project. The treated areas had very few larvae,' Kapovic said.
Jorge Hendrichs, who heads a joint pest control program of the IAEA and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency, said the SIT method was a win-win because it enabled farmers to fight a pest which 'can easily eliminate 30 to 100 percent of the crop' and at the same time use fewer pesticides.
This is important as many importers are increasingly careful about the residue levels of insecticides in fruit, he said.
'It is a big problem for African and other exporters if they want to go to Europe. Europe is getting tougher and tougher in this respect,' Hendrichs said in the Austrian capital.
GREENPEACE URGES CAUTION
For other countries - like the United States, Japan and Chile - the main thing is to prevent new pest outbreaks. 'They want 100 percent assurance that the product you are exporting is 100 percent free, not one worm,' he said.
The technology has been used for decades in North and South America. In Europe, a push was made in southern Spain a decade ago to overcome problems in exports to the United States.
It has helped eradicate the tsetse fly - which can cause 'sleeping sickness' in humans and kill cattle - on the island of Zanzibar in east Africa and there is also a project in Ethiopia.
Andy Garner, an IAEA program coordinator, said he believed there was more demand to use nuclear applications for food production, though he acknowledged a potential 'branding' issue.
If 'you talk about irradiating food ... I think you do think twice before you eat that apple unless someone explains to you that it is no different than having something out of the microwave,' Garner said.
Giving another example of how nuclear technology can help farmers, Amano said a plant-breeding technique involving irradiation was used to develop a barley variety grown at high altitudes which is now the leading such grain in Peru.
It has more protein, a higher yield and fetches twice the price than other barley types, boosting rural incomes, he said.
But a scientific adviser to environmental group Greenpeace - which opposes nuclear energy on safety grounds - said the use of nuclear technology in this way needed to be looked at carefully.
'We should neither view it as risk free and nor should we view it as the panacea to all food security issues,' said Paul Johnston of the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at Britain's University of Exeter.
(Writing by Zoran Radosavljevic, editing by Paul Casciato)
This article is brought to you by FREE DATING.
Each launch sends into the air thousands of males of the fruit fly, one of the most harmful orchard pests, in what advocates say is a prime example of how nuclear science can benefit both agriculture and the environment.
They have been bombarded with radioactive Cobalt-60 in an Israeli biotechnology plant to make them sterile in a bid to reduce the fly population and the damage they wreak on the crop.
The United Nations' atomic agency says it shows how nuclear technology - more commonly associated with energy or atom bombs - is harnessed to help make an 'important contribution' in solving the world's food problems.
Scientists are developing and refining the Sterile Insect Technology (SIT) for different species - including the tsetse fly in Africa - at the Seibersdorf laboratory of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) outside Vienna.
'It is essentially a form of birth control,' IAEA head Yukiya Amano said. 'The result has been a drop of no less than 75 percent in fruit fly damage' in Neretva, where nine out of ten people are involved in the citrus fruit industry.
Twice a week, between April and November, shipments containing 5 million sterilized male flies reach the fertile valley in southern Croatia, the northernmost point in Europe where tangerines are successfully grown.
Some farmers use boats to spread the male flies in remote areas, part of project which started two years ago to combat a pest that destroyed about a third of the crop.
The sterilized males outnumber the local fruit flies and gradually take the place of normal males. They can mate, but there is no offspring. Consequently, the number of larvae, which feed on ripening tangerines, quickly declines.
FEWER FLIES, PESTICIDES
'We've had excellent results, more and more farmers want to take part. The next step will be to release the males from aircraft, which is the most efficient way,' said Luka Popovic of the Croatian Centre for Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
The U.N. agency pays for shipments of flies costing about 2,300 euros each, he said. The United States helps with funding.
The flatlands of the sprawling Neretva delta are expected to produce around 60,000 tonnes of tangerines this year. Most are exported, but many countries have strict quarantine rules and ban imports of fruit suspected of carrying fruit flies.
'Every year we add new crops and the output grows by around 20 percent, so we aim to reach 150,000 tonnes in 2020,' said Niko Kapovic, manager of AgroFructus, the leading local tangerine wholesaler.
Agrofructus exports 75 percent of the tangerines - mostly to Russia, the European Union and the Balkan region.
'Last year we had a big onslaught of the fruit fly and it really showed how good it was that we started this project. The treated areas had very few larvae,' Kapovic said.
Jorge Hendrichs, who heads a joint pest control program of the IAEA and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency, said the SIT method was a win-win because it enabled farmers to fight a pest which 'can easily eliminate 30 to 100 percent of the crop' and at the same time use fewer pesticides.
This is important as many importers are increasingly careful about the residue levels of insecticides in fruit, he said.
'It is a big problem for African and other exporters if they want to go to Europe. Europe is getting tougher and tougher in this respect,' Hendrichs said in the Austrian capital.
GREENPEACE URGES CAUTION
For other countries - like the United States, Japan and Chile - the main thing is to prevent new pest outbreaks. 'They want 100 percent assurance that the product you are exporting is 100 percent free, not one worm,' he said.
The technology has been used for decades in North and South America. In Europe, a push was made in southern Spain a decade ago to overcome problems in exports to the United States.
It has helped eradicate the tsetse fly - which can cause 'sleeping sickness' in humans and kill cattle - on the island of Zanzibar in east Africa and there is also a project in Ethiopia.
Andy Garner, an IAEA program coordinator, said he believed there was more demand to use nuclear applications for food production, though he acknowledged a potential 'branding' issue.
If 'you talk about irradiating food ... I think you do think twice before you eat that apple unless someone explains to you that it is no different than having something out of the microwave,' Garner said.
Giving another example of how nuclear technology can help farmers, Amano said a plant-breeding technique involving irradiation was used to develop a barley variety grown at high altitudes which is now the leading such grain in Peru.
It has more protein, a higher yield and fetches twice the price than other barley types, boosting rural incomes, he said.
But a scientific adviser to environmental group Greenpeace - which opposes nuclear energy on safety grounds - said the use of nuclear technology in this way needed to be looked at carefully.
'We should neither view it as risk free and nor should we view it as the panacea to all food security issues,' said Paul Johnston of the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at Britain's University of Exeter.
(Writing by Zoran Radosavljevic, editing by Paul Casciato)
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Monday, October 1, 2012
Botox Smooths Moods; Retractions Due to Fraud Are Way Up
Discovered: Botox lifts faces and moods; papers retracted due to fraud more often than error; climate change could decimate fish; African salmonella outbreak connected to HIV.
RELATED:
Botox lifts depression. Botulinum toxin injections may smooth out skin and clear up wrinkles, but many say that the cosmetic procedure leaves faces looking emotionless. But whatever emotions is (or isn't) registered on the outside, those who get Botox shots are likely to feel a positive mood adjustment. M. Axel Wollmer of the University of Basel conducted a study on the effect of Botox on patients suffering from major depressive disorder, and found that symptoms of depression alleviated by 47 percent after six weeks. Wollmer says that since Botox "interrupts feedback from the facial musculature to the brain, which may be involved in the development and maintenance of negative emotions," it may be able to regulate depression. Basically, since you can't frown, you can't be depressed! [ ]
RELATED:
More papers being retracted due to researcher fraud. The kind of scientific misconduct we've may be trending upwards, according to a study of over 2,000 papers retracted from PubMed in recent years. Since 1975, retractions have become ten times more likely to stem from fraud, not error, according to a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And that might be an optimistic account, says study author Arturo Casadevall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He says, "The better the counterfeit, the less likely you are to find it—whatever we show, it is an underestimate." Over two-thirds of the retractions Casadevall and his colleagues studied arose due to scientific misconduct, and only 21.3 percent came about from errors. Of the misconduct retractions, 43.3 percent were due to fraud, 14.2 percent to duplicated publications, and 9.8 percent from plagiarism. [ ]
RELATED:
There won't be plenty of fish in the sea, thanks to climate change. Seafood lovers might have to start shelling out bigger bucks for their delicacies of choice. Researchers led by the University of British Columbia's Dr. William Cheung predict that fish species will shrink by up to 24 percent by 2050. Cheung and his colleagues modelled this decline on the impact rising temperatures have had—and will continue to have—on over 600 fish species. Decreased oxygen in the ocean would cause a corresponding decrease in fish body weight. The effects are "unexpectedly large," writes Cheung. "Rising temperatures directly increase the metabolic rate of the fish's body function," he explains. "This leads to an increase in oxygen demand for normal body activities. So the fish will run out of oxygen for growth at a smaller body size." As oceans heat up, these shrunken fish will likely migrate towards Earth's poles, leading to lower fishery yields. [ ]
RELATED:
Salmonella spreads with HIV. Salmonella is perhaps best known as the culprit in food poisoning cases brought on by uncooked meat and eggs. But other strains of salmonella can lead to even worse afflictions, such as typhoid or iNTS, the abbreviation for invasive nontyphoidal salmonella. iNTS has been spreading through sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades, causing high fevers and killing nearly half of infected adults. Researchers led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's Gordon Dougan now believe that the outbreak may be linked to HIV. Like HIV, iNTS can spread from person to person, and Dougan finds that the weakened immune systems in HIV positive people is fertile ground for the spread of iNTS. Dougan and colleagues collected samples of the iNTS bacteria throughout Africa, trying to trace its epidemiology. They found that iNTS was indeed transferable between humans—a point that has been contested by many scientists—and that it became an epidemic by piggybacking on HIV. "It's a compelling demonstration of how techniques of evolutionary analysis developed for viruses can be applied to bacterial pathogens, provided full genome data are available," comments Oliver Pybus, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Oxford. [ ]
This article is brought to you by MATCH.
RELATED:
Botox lifts depression. Botulinum toxin injections may smooth out skin and clear up wrinkles, but many say that the cosmetic procedure leaves faces looking emotionless. But whatever emotions is (or isn't) registered on the outside, those who get Botox shots are likely to feel a positive mood adjustment. M. Axel Wollmer of the University of Basel conducted a study on the effect of Botox on patients suffering from major depressive disorder, and found that symptoms of depression alleviated by 47 percent after six weeks. Wollmer says that since Botox "interrupts feedback from the facial musculature to the brain, which may be involved in the development and maintenance of negative emotions," it may be able to regulate depression. Basically, since you can't frown, you can't be depressed! [ ]
RELATED:
More papers being retracted due to researcher fraud. The kind of scientific misconduct we've may be trending upwards, according to a study of over 2,000 papers retracted from PubMed in recent years. Since 1975, retractions have become ten times more likely to stem from fraud, not error, according to a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And that might be an optimistic account, says study author Arturo Casadevall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He says, "The better the counterfeit, the less likely you are to find it—whatever we show, it is an underestimate." Over two-thirds of the retractions Casadevall and his colleagues studied arose due to scientific misconduct, and only 21.3 percent came about from errors. Of the misconduct retractions, 43.3 percent were due to fraud, 14.2 percent to duplicated publications, and 9.8 percent from plagiarism. [ ]
RELATED:
There won't be plenty of fish in the sea, thanks to climate change. Seafood lovers might have to start shelling out bigger bucks for their delicacies of choice. Researchers led by the University of British Columbia's Dr. William Cheung predict that fish species will shrink by up to 24 percent by 2050. Cheung and his colleagues modelled this decline on the impact rising temperatures have had—and will continue to have—on over 600 fish species. Decreased oxygen in the ocean would cause a corresponding decrease in fish body weight. The effects are "unexpectedly large," writes Cheung. "Rising temperatures directly increase the metabolic rate of the fish's body function," he explains. "This leads to an increase in oxygen demand for normal body activities. So the fish will run out of oxygen for growth at a smaller body size." As oceans heat up, these shrunken fish will likely migrate towards Earth's poles, leading to lower fishery yields. [ ]
RELATED:
Salmonella spreads with HIV. Salmonella is perhaps best known as the culprit in food poisoning cases brought on by uncooked meat and eggs. But other strains of salmonella can lead to even worse afflictions, such as typhoid or iNTS, the abbreviation for invasive nontyphoidal salmonella. iNTS has been spreading through sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades, causing high fevers and killing nearly half of infected adults. Researchers led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's Gordon Dougan now believe that the outbreak may be linked to HIV. Like HIV, iNTS can spread from person to person, and Dougan finds that the weakened immune systems in HIV positive people is fertile ground for the spread of iNTS. Dougan and colleagues collected samples of the iNTS bacteria throughout Africa, trying to trace its epidemiology. They found that iNTS was indeed transferable between humans—a point that has been contested by many scientists—and that it became an epidemic by piggybacking on HIV. "It's a compelling demonstration of how techniques of evolutionary analysis developed for viruses can be applied to bacterial pathogens, provided full genome data are available," comments Oliver Pybus, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Oxford. [ ]
This article is brought to you by MATCH.
Scientists Propose Asteroid Dust Shield to Combat Global Warming
According to Space.com, a group of scientists in Scotland are publishing a paper in the journal Advances in Space Research that contemplates using asteroid dust to shield the Earth from solar radiation, thus mitigating the effects of global warming.
The idea has some problems, however.
Move an asteroid to L1 and then destroy it
The plan, according to Space.com, would be to capture an asteroid -- 1036 Ganymed, for preference -- and use a mass driver to throw out material from it to move it to the L1 point, the Earth Moon Lagrange Point that lay directly between the Earth and moon. Then the same mass driver would create a stream of asteroid dust that would surround the Earth and block out enough solar radiation to cancel out the effects of global warming, giving the world enough time to switch from a carbon based energy economy to something else.
1036 Ganymed
According to JPL, 1036 Ganymed is the largest known Earth-approaching asteroid, with a diameter of about 32 kilometers. It is an S type asteroid, meaning that it is composed of metallic iron mixed with iron- and magnesium-silicates. Space.com states that the asteroid has a mass of 130 million-billion kg. Using it as a source of a dust shield would create a cloud of 5 million-billion kilograms stretching about 2,600 kilometers wide.
Problem: Moving 1036 Ganymed
Space.com suggests that moving an asteroid of the mass of 1036 Ganymed may be infeasible for the foreseeable future. Planetary Resources, a company formed to begin an asteroid mining industry, contemplates being able to move a relatively small rock of about 500,000 kilograms by 2025.
Problem: Fear of a collision with Earth
According to Space.com, the scientists behind the proposal concede that politically moving such an enormous mass close to Earth would be difficult at best. An accident or a miscalculation could cause 1036 Ganymed to hit the Earth, which would end human civilization and likely a considerable amount of the biosphere.
Problem: No real world testing of the concept
Space.com also reports that the scientists concede that except for some computer modeling, there is no real world test that such a dust cloud would have the desired effect. Indeed, as is common with such massive, geo-engineering projects, the project is the test. What if the cloud blocks too much solar radiation, thus throwing the Earth into an ice age?
Problem: A solution in search of a problem
The whole concept of global warming, especially human caused, has been the subject of considerable controversy, with political posturing often substituting for rational science.
Former Vice President Al Gore, who won both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award for his documentary polemic against global warming "An Inconvenient Truth," recently told a group at Hampshire College that global warming is real, it has to be addressed now, and that "97 to 98 percent" of world's scientists agree to its veracity, according to Mass Live.
According to the Washington Examiner, a group of Apollo-era astronauts and scientists condemned official statements by NASA that suggested the reality of human caused global warming, arguing that such statements were beinf made without proper scientific investigation.
Global cooling on the horizon?
Just to contemplate things, Red Orbit reports that the sun is about to go into a solar minimum cycle, which means that it will emit less solar radiation. There is a collation between solar minimums and global cooling, Perhaps the asteroid dust shield scheme would only make matters worse.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.
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Amsterdam goes green with electric scooter taxis
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Six years ago Dutchman Ruben Beugels was on an Amsterdam tram that broke down, leaving him stuck in an out-of-the way place, and late for an appointment when he couldn't quickly find another means of transport.
'I was very frustrated at being late, and it was then that I thought, hey a scooter would be able to get me to my meeting on time,' said Beugels, founder of Hopper, Europe's first electric taxi scooter service, which will debut in Amsterdam on Monday.
Amsterdam's 17th Century canals and cobbled streets make driving cars, including taxis, in the centre of the city often difficult and time consuming due to unloading trucks, congestion or road blocks, which is one of the reasons so many Amsterdamers prefer to use bicycles within the city centre.
Dutch public transport, including trams, trains and buses, is generally considered reliable and efficient, but these services, which span out like a fan from the main central train station reaching to the city's edge, aren't available throughout the oldest parts of Amsterdam's city centre, which Beugels hopes will become Hopper's new turf.
Beugels, who calls the scooters a 'new form of public transport,' says they will help bridge the gap between using public transport and getting to your final destination, or that last kilometre, right to the doorstep.
The scooters are high-tech, kitted out with navigation and tracking systems by the Dutch firm TomTom and a Samsung smartphone which is locked into the dash and a tablet on the back, which is used for digital advertising.
Beugels expects the glossy lime green coloured scooters will become an urban fixture in Amsterdam and eventually in the three other biggest Dutch cities including The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht, where Hopper scooters will be rolled out throughout 2013.
The electric scooters drive at a maximum speed of 25 km/h and can go 130 km on a fully charged electric battery. Hopper's main garage, replete with 100 scooters to start, crouches between TomTom HQ and Amsterdam's central train station.
Six years since he was left stranded by the tram, Beugels cobbled together a consortium of partners, distributors and sponsors from both private and public sectors, including the city of Amsterdam, the National railway and sustainable bank Triodos, which provided half of the financing.
'Everything we finance has to contribute, one way or another, to a better quality of life because we think that profit should not come at the expense of the world's most pressing problems, which is why we finance organic farming, sustainable buildings, arts and culture, and renewable energy schemes,' said Maarten Thijs from Triodos.
'This particular loan customer (Hopper) has a very clever idea, but it's also very simple and sophisticated, which is why we like it,' said Thijs.
Users can call, book online or use the Hopper app to find the nearest driver and contact them directly to book a ride, which is a flat rate of 2.50 euros.
'Amsterdam will become a bit more Italian with all those hip scooters in town. Very nice. But the nicest thing is that the Amsterdam Hoppers are noiseless and non-polluting,' said Peter-Paul Blommers, marketing expert who has advised Hopper.
(Reporting by Roberta B. Cowan)
This news article is brought to you by SAVING MONEY BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
'I was very frustrated at being late, and it was then that I thought, hey a scooter would be able to get me to my meeting on time,' said Beugels, founder of Hopper, Europe's first electric taxi scooter service, which will debut in Amsterdam on Monday.
Amsterdam's 17th Century canals and cobbled streets make driving cars, including taxis, in the centre of the city often difficult and time consuming due to unloading trucks, congestion or road blocks, which is one of the reasons so many Amsterdamers prefer to use bicycles within the city centre.
Dutch public transport, including trams, trains and buses, is generally considered reliable and efficient, but these services, which span out like a fan from the main central train station reaching to the city's edge, aren't available throughout the oldest parts of Amsterdam's city centre, which Beugels hopes will become Hopper's new turf.
Beugels, who calls the scooters a 'new form of public transport,' says they will help bridge the gap between using public transport and getting to your final destination, or that last kilometre, right to the doorstep.
The scooters are high-tech, kitted out with navigation and tracking systems by the Dutch firm TomTom and a Samsung smartphone which is locked into the dash and a tablet on the back, which is used for digital advertising.
Beugels expects the glossy lime green coloured scooters will become an urban fixture in Amsterdam and eventually in the three other biggest Dutch cities including The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht, where Hopper scooters will be rolled out throughout 2013.
The electric scooters drive at a maximum speed of 25 km/h and can go 130 km on a fully charged electric battery. Hopper's main garage, replete with 100 scooters to start, crouches between TomTom HQ and Amsterdam's central train station.
Six years since he was left stranded by the tram, Beugels cobbled together a consortium of partners, distributors and sponsors from both private and public sectors, including the city of Amsterdam, the National railway and sustainable bank Triodos, which provided half of the financing.
'Everything we finance has to contribute, one way or another, to a better quality of life because we think that profit should not come at the expense of the world's most pressing problems, which is why we finance organic farming, sustainable buildings, arts and culture, and renewable energy schemes,' said Maarten Thijs from Triodos.
'This particular loan customer (Hopper) has a very clever idea, but it's also very simple and sophisticated, which is why we like it,' said Thijs.
Users can call, book online or use the Hopper app to find the nearest driver and contact them directly to book a ride, which is a flat rate of 2.50 euros.
'Amsterdam will become a bit more Italian with all those hip scooters in town. Very nice. But the nicest thing is that the Amsterdam Hoppers are noiseless and non-polluting,' said Peter-Paul Blommers, marketing expert who has advised Hopper.
(Reporting by Roberta B. Cowan)
This news article is brought to you by SAVING MONEY BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
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