The 139th Carnival of Space is now up at the very energetic Mama Joules blog.

Haha! You see, that’s a joke, because a Joule is a unit of energy. Haha! Ha! Erg.

Still, you should go there, read stuff, and learn. That’s what the web is for (despite the spam telling you otherwise).

Whales and the U.S. Navy have tangled repeatedly over the past years over charges that the Navy’s sonar exercises disorient or injure whales and other marine mammals. Now, whales in the Pacific appear to have a new champion: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is considering limiting the Navy’s sonar tests in certain marine mammal “hot spots.”

The announcement was made in a letter (pdf) from NOAA head Jane Lubchenco to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. NOAA also called for development of a system for estimating the “comprehensive sound budget for the oceans,” which could help reduce human sources of noise — vessel traffic, sonar and construction activities — that degrade the environment in which sound-sensitive species communicate [Los Angeles Times].

While NOAA’s new investigations into limiting the Navy’s sonar use is good news for whales, it may take years before new rules are issued. And until then, fights will rage on in courts. Back in 2008, a 5-4 vote in the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Navy to conduct sonar tests in the Pacific Ocean, despite environmental groups fighting to stop the tests. But that wasn’t the end of litigation over this issue. Last week a consortium of environmental groups sued the Navy in U.S. District Court to stop a sonar project on the other side of the country, in the Atlantic Ocean waters off Florida.

The proposed Undersea Warfare Training Center would cover 500 square nautical miles in an area ideally close to two Navy bases, one in Georgia and another in Florida. However, the range would lie just outside the shallow waters where right whales give birth and nurse their calves each year from mid-November to mid-April [Los Angeles Times]. Right whales are an endangered species numbering only about 350, researchers believe.

“Right whales shouldn’t be subjected to the threats that accompany this range — ship strikes, entanglement and noise disturbance — in the only place in the world where vulnerable females give birth to and care for their calves,” said Catherine Wannamaker, an attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center [Environmental News Service]. The Pentagon didn’t responded to the lawsuit immediately, but the Navy has previously stated it doesn’t believe the project will cause major environmental harm, and that it would halt construction during the whales’ five-month calving season.

The Navy’s own environmental impact statement notes that sonar can harm whales, though scientists don’t completely understand the specifics. But the environmental groups say there’s more to this case than sonar: Ship traffic in the calving grounds is of particular concern since data suggests female right whales are struck more often, possibly because they must spend more time at the surface with their calves which have undeveloped lung capacities [Environmental News Service].

Because of the extra issues besides sonar, and right whales’ status as critically endangered, Wannamaker says this is a different case than the 2008 one that became a Navy victory. In that decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that national security and military training outweighed the concern for the whales in that case, but that they wouldn’t necessarily trump the environmentalists’ arguments in every case.

Related Content:
80beats: Navy 1, Whales 0: Supreme Court Allows Navy’s Sonar Exercises
80beats: Supreme Court Hears the Legal Dispute Between Whales and the Navy
Reality Base: Whales Battle U.S. Military… and (Probably) Lose
80beats: Who Would Win in a (Legal) Fight: A Whale or a Battleship?
DISCOVER: Killing Whales With Sound

Image: Rialyn Rodrigo/U.S. Navy

Now that many U.S. farmers have grown used to genetically modified (GM) soy and corn, the controversy surrounding GM crops may shift over to GM eucalyptus–a fast-growing Australian tree that, in its unmodified strains, dominates the tropical timber industry.

Two industry giants, International Paper Co. and MeadWestvaco Corp. have formed a biotech venture called ArborGen LLC that is looking to introduce this tree to the southeastern forests of the United States. The company is seeking greater governmental deregulation so it can roll out its plans of replacing native pines in southeastern plantation forests with the genetically engineered eucalyptus, which can survive freezing winter temperatures.

Unlike the pine trees used in Southern plantations — which have quietly helped displace tobacco in the region’s economy — eucalyptus can deploy a full canopy of leaves within a few years. It is greedy for carbon, and within 27 months can grow to 55 feet in height [The New York Times]. ArborGen points out that the high growth rate will allow the company to grow more wood on less land, which could provide a boost to the region’s timber exports. What’s more, the wood could potentially serve as a biofuel feedstock.

Critics, however, worry that the plant would grow untrammeled, like a weed gone wild, and would consume whole forests and wipe out native foliage. One of the two species used to breed ArborGen’s hybrids, Eucalyptus grandis, had previously turned invasive in South Africa–raising concerns about this tree turning invasive in the south. ArborGen has received conditional approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expand its experimental eucalyptus operations to 28 sites in seven states, for a total of 330 acres of forest. Given the uncertainty involved, however, the Nature Conservancy has recommended to USDA that ArborGen be allowed fewer acres and trees to flower, and none in Florida, [ecologist Doria Gordon] said. The draft permit approved by USDA would allow flowering in 10 sites across the state [The New York Times]. ArborGen has pointed out that the tree that grew invasive in South Africa was thriving in arid conditions, something that would not happen in Florida due its moist climate.

ArborGen also says that the GM trees won’t spread because of a genetic tweak that prevents the trees from reproducing. (Similar techniques have been used to make GM plants like corn and soy infertile, a controversial tactic that forces farmers to buy new seeds each year.) In the case of the eucalyptus trees, ArborGen restricts their pollen production with a bacterial gene that produces a toxic enzyme called barnase that slices apart genetic material in a cell, causing death. Through genetic trickery, the enzyme is only produced in the pollen-spreading parts of the tree, destroying its ability to reproduce — at least most of the time [The New York Times].

It’s not yet clear how the public will feel about GM forests. But scientists note that some trees that have been genetically tweaked to prevent disease have already gained widespread acceptance–like papaya trees in Hawaii that are less susceptible to the ringspot virus, and American chestnuts that resist a deadly fungus. ArborGen’s scientists argue that tweaking eucalyptus trees for commercial reasons isn’t so different from those earlier efforts, and say the trees could eventually play a significant role in biofuel production. Tree geneticist Steve Strauss, who consulted with ArborGen, says: “If we’re going to rely on biofuels as a significant part of a diverse portfolio of renewable technology,” then harvesting trees is the best way to go, he said. “There’s a lot of marginal land that could be used” [The New York Times].

Related Content:
80beats: GM Corn & Organ Failure: Lots of Sensationalism, Few Facts
80beats: GM Corn Leads to Organ Failure!? Not So Fast
80beats: New Biotech Corn Gives Triple Vitamin Boost; Professors Unmoved
80beats: Germany Joins the European Mutiny of Genetically Modified Crops
DISCOVER: “Frankenfoods” That Could Feed the World
DISCOVER: Genetically Altered Corn, and how GM corn not intended for humans got into the food supply

Image: iStockphoto

Have no doubt, I’m a Mac guy. I don’t drink the Kool Aid, but my time with using PCs is well behind me. But y’know, Bill Gates is still my kinda guy: he and his wife are investing ten billion dollars to get vaccines to kids who need them.

That’s $10,000,000,000. Holy Haleakala. They think this can save nearly 9 million lives, and I think that’s pretty cool:

“Vaccines are a miracle,” added Melinda Gates. “With just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime. We’ve made vaccines our priority at the Gates Foundation because we’ve seen firsthand their incredible impact on children’s lives.”

Good on them. Very, very good. This is not only something desperately needed, but the publicity is, haha, a shot in the arm as well.

And if I may disagree ever-so-slightly with Ms. Gates, I’ll add that vaccines are not a miracle: they are the result of science, of clever people, of medical advances. That fact is lost on a lot of folks, including the antivaxxers. On top of this incredibly generous move, I’d love to see Mr. and Ms. Gates donate some money and effort to a good ad campaign that promotes vaccination and specifically targets the claims of the pro-disease antivax crowd, so that their work will have even more of a sustainable impact. I’m so thrilled they’re doing this, but we also need a national campaign to show people that the antivaxxers are wrong and doing significant damage to the public health.

Still and all: my congrats to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and my very sincere and hearty thanks.