Intense fertilizer use. Gas-guzzling farm equipment. Plowing up land. At first glance, industrial-scale agriculture doesn’t necessarily seem like an environmental positive. But, Stanford scientists say, looks can be deceiving.

Jennifer Burney and colleagues calculated the net effect of agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions from 1961 to 2005, a period when crop yields shot up dramatically. And while agriculture does produce plenty of emissions, those totals were overwhelmed by the emissions savings achieved by greater agricultural productivity. In short, higher yields mean plowing up less land, and plowing up less land means more carbon sequestered in undisturbed forests and soils. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

All other things being equal, the researchers found that agricultural advances between 1961 and 2005 spared a portion of land larger than Russia from development and reduced emissions by the equivalent of 590 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide — roughly a third of the total emitted since the start of the Industrial Revolution [Nature].

The team got those figures by comparing the last half-century to hypothetical alternative scenarios in which crop yields stayed more or less the same. The scientists say the world probably still would’ve reached its present population even without the vast improvements in yields, but we’d be in a much worse situation when it comes to emissions.

Of course, the greenhouse emissions saved aren’t the whole picture.

It’s important to realize, however, that simple carbon accounting doesn’t include the drawbacks of industrial farming, like fertilizer runoff, pesticide accumulation and antibiotic resistance [TIME].

Still, researcher Steven Davis argues, the study’s findings are a rebuttal to the thought that simpler is always better.

“Our results dispel the notion that industrial agricultural with its petrochemicals is inherently worse for the climate than a more ‘old-fashioned’ way of doing things,” said Dr Davis [BBC News].

If the Stanford researchers are right, then modern agriculture yields accidental benefits of forests and carbon storage. This report joins happy news from last month in which humans reached intentional agreements to protect forests in Indonesia and Canada.

Related Content:
80beats: GM Corn in China Drives Off One Pest, But Another Sneaks In
80beats: Evolution in Action: Roundup-Ready Crops Create Roundup-Resistant Superweeds
80beats: Lesson of the Ancient Nazcas: Deforestation Can Kill a Civilization
Gallery: “Frankenfoods” That Could Feed the World

Image: flickr / Jan Tik

I’ve written about Marian Call before: the fiery-haired songstress who croons her cleverly-written songs about Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, and being a geek.

Marian is currently on a tour of all 50 states, and on July 3rd and 4th she’ll be right here in Boulder! On the 3rd she’s performing at the Trident coffeeshop (940 Pearl Street) from 8:00 – 11:00 p.m. If you live in the area, and you’re a geek — face it, you are — then you should come. She’s set up a Facebook page to get an idea of how many people will attend. The next day — July 4 — she’ll be at the Folsom St. Coffee Shop (1795 Folsom St) at 5:00pm. Both concerts are free, but you should chip in a few bucks if you go to support her!

After Boulder, she’s heading down Colorado Springs (check her schedule at the link above), so if you’re in Boulder you should see her while you can.

You can get samples of her music on her page; her music is quirky and fun and personal (here’s a review from a newcomer to her music, a woman who heard Marian for the first time recently on this tour). To give you a better sense of what she’s about, check out this fan-made video featuring her music and scenes from Firefly. It’s really good:

I’ve already made my reservation at Trident. The venue is intimate, so better hurry up and get counted! I hope to see lots of other BABloggees there.

Caltech had its commencement ceremony last Friday, and I donned a cap and gown to march up on stage with the other faculty members. It’s always a great day, as years of work comes to fruition for several hundred students, ready to move on to the next stage of their careers.

Naturally, there was singing. The Glee Club sent spirits soaring with the Caltech alma mater, “Hail CIT.”

In southern California with grace and splendor bound,
Where the lofty mountain peaks look out to lands beyond,
Proudly stands our alma mater, glorious to see.
We raise our voices proudly, hailing, hailing thee.
Echos ringing while we’re singing, over land and sea.
The hall of fame resound thy name, noble CIT.

The one that got my attention, however, was the other song — Gaudeamus Igitur, apparently a “traditional college song.” How have I spent so many years in academia without coming across this one? It was sung in Latin, but a helpful translation into English was provided.

Therefore let us rejoice
While we are young
After pleasant youth,
After troublesome old age,
The earth will have us.

Where are they who before us
Were in the world?
You can cross the heavens,
You can go to hell,
If you wish to see them.

Our life is brief,
Shortly it will end.
Death comes quickly,
It snatches us cruelly,
No one is spared.

Long live the academy!
Long live the professors!
Long live each student!
Long live all students!
May they always flourish!

Cheerful, no? We’re all going to die, but at least the university will live on. Comforting.

And now Wikipedia informs me that a few verses were apparently left out of our version. To wit:

Long live all girls
Easy and beautiful!
Long live mature women also,
Tender and lovable
Good [and] productive,

Long live the state as well
And he who rules it!
Long live our city
[And] the charity of benefactors
Which protects us here!

Let sadness perish!
Let haters perish!
Let the devil perish!
Let whoever is anti-student
As well as the mockers!

So they left out the bits that were veering uncomfortably close to sexism, fascism, and serial killer-ism. I’m thinking they didn’t want the ceremony to drag on for too long.

Hubble is an awesome ’scope, but its life is limited. Heavy and huge, there’s no way to bring it back, and with the Shuttle retiring there’s no easy way to get to it. Eventually its gyros will fail, it won’t be able to be pointed, and then that’s that.

For the past few years, NASA has been working on the James Webb Space Telescope, what some people call Hubble’s "replacement", which is a misnomer: it’s actually Hubble’s successor. It will do amazing astronomy too, but it has different capabilities than its predecessor.

How different, you ask? I’m glad you did, and so is NASA: they’ve put together a side-by-side comparison of the two observatories (warning huge Flash animation stuff).

Just how different are they? Check out the comparison of their mirrors:

Hmmm, the woman in the diagram is pretty tall, 1.8 meters — 6 feet! Of course, she’s in heels. But should she really have her hand on that priceless (if incorrectly ground) mirror?

Anyway, check out the comparison. I’ll miss Hubble when it goes, but I’m very excited about what JWST will do for astronomy, for science, and for humanity’s search for understanding. It will be a powerful, powerful tool.

Though these multicolored horns might look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, World Cup followers can attest that the vuvuzela is a loud and droning reality. South Africa’s soccer stadiums are resounding with their buzzing calls, driving TV audiences to distraction and causing many a viewer to reach for the mute button.

Some spectators have called for bans on the instrument, but FIFA has refused. Its president, Sepp Blatter, said via Twitter: “I don’t see banning the music traditions of fans in their own country. Would you want to see a ban on the fan traditions in your country?”

But there may be a technological fix, an audio filter meant to cancel out, acoustically, the collective roar of the plastic horns.

The Telegraph reports that German recording and mixing engineer Clemence Schlieweis believes that viewers can cancel out the sounds blaring from their televisions by playing his 45-minute track of an “inverse” sound wave. He made the sound by manipulating a recording from a match broadcast, and compares his technique to ones commonly used by sound engineers to improve recordings’ quality, to remove the buzz of an air conditioner from an interview, for example.

But some acoustics experts are skeptical, given that the vuvuzela’s sounds are anything but uniform. Trevor Cox at the University of Salford, told The Telegraph:

“I can’t see how it could work. The vuvuzela chorus may come across as a single sound on television, but it is actually hundreds of instruments being blown at different times.”

But if Schlieweis’s recording can’t beat the vuvuzela, another technology is allowing spectators to join the chorus. The vuvuzela iPhone app is the number one downloaded free iPhone app in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Netherlands, UK, and South Africa, with reportedly over one million downloads.

Related content:
80beats: Just Kick The Ball: The Scientific Secret to World Cup Penalty Shots
80beats: 3D TV Will Kick Off With World Cup Match This Summer
Discoblog: Soccer Star Seeks Out Serbian Placenta Massage to Speed Healing
Cosmic Variance: Yet Another World Cup Post

Image: flickr / Dundas Football Club

And now, a sordid story about whaling.

This weekend, The Sunday Times of London published an expose charging the Japanese government with using foreign aid, cash, and even call girls to bribe nations on the International Whaling Commission into voting Japan’s way and supporting the country’s whaling.

Japan denies buying the votes of IWC members. However, The Sunday Times filmed officials from pro-whaling governments admitting:
- They voted with the whalers because of the large amounts of aid from Japan. One said he was not sure if his country had any whales in its territorial waters. Others are landlocked.
- They receive cash payments in envelopes at IWC meetings from Japanese officials who pay their travel and hotel bills.
- One disclosed that call girls were offered when fisheries ministers and civil servants visited Japan for meetings [The Times].

The full story is full of slimy details, like the allegation that Japan paid for Guinea’s IWC membership and that the latter country’s minister demanded a car and spending money, or the Tanzanian minister’s assertion that prostitutes would be made available in exchange for support. But most importantly, the story comes out with a crucial IWC meeting on the horizon. The annual get-together is in Morocco this month, where the nations will debate a possible end to the moratorium that dates back to 1986.

As we’ve noted before in a slew of stories about Japan’s controversial whaling, the nation is allowed to harvest some whales—just less than 1,000 per year—in the name of scientific research. But if the new measure passes in Morocco, that changes. The moratorium would be lifted in exchange for whaling nations promising to reduce their catch totals over 10 years. Japan has renewed its occasional threat to withdraw from the IWC if the ban stays in place.

Meanwhile, the bad press continues for the Japanese whaling. The Guardian has the story of a whistle-blower who formerly worked on a whaling ship and goes by the anonymous pseudonym “Kujira-san” (Mr Whale).

Kujira, who worked aboard the Nisshin Maru mother ship, saw crew members helping themselves to prime cuts of whale meat and packing them into boxes they would mark with doodles or pseudonyms so they could identify them when the vessel reached port. “They never wrote their real names on the boxes,” he said.

Some whalers would take home between five and 10 boxes, he said, while one secured as many as 40 boxes of prime meat that fetches ¥20,000 (about £148) a kilo when sold legally. One crew member built a house with the profits from illicitly sold whale meat, he said. “Another used the money he earned to buy a car,” he said. “They were careful to select only the best cuts, like the meat near the tail fin. I never dared challenge them” [The Guardian].

Related Content:
80beats: Will Commercial Whale Hunts Soon Be Authorized?
80beats: Videos Show Collision Between Japanese Whaling Ship & Protesters
80beats: Is the Whaling Ban Really the Best Way to Save the Whales?
80beats: Controversial Deal Could Allow Japan To Hunt More Whales

Image: Flickr/ Rene Ehrhardt

Can Kevin Costner’s centrifuge–a device to separate oil from water at up to 200 gallons per minute–clean up the Deep Horizon spill? We reported on Costner’s clean-up gadget back in May when he convinced the Coast Guard and BP to test his technology, and now comes news that BP has ordered 32 of Costner’s devices to try out in the Gulf.

It sure makes for easy reporting; Costner’s handsome mug is certainly more appealing than oil-soaked sea life. But what are the actual chances that the actor’s device will work? Costner seems to recognize how implausible it all sounds:

“It may seem an unlikely scenario that I am the one delivering this technology in this moment in time,” Kevin Costner said (see ABC video below) in a congressional committee meeting. “But from where I’m sitting, it’s equally inconceivable that these machines are not already in place.” [CNN]

As described in last week’s testimony before the House Committee on Science and Technology, Costner bought the patent for the basic technology behind his centrifuge 15 years ago and has since spent $20 million to develop it with the company he founded, Ocean Therapy Solutions. BP will test the V20 model, a version that has about a five square foot base, weighs around 4,500 lbs, and costs (according to The Los Angeles Times) $500,000.

Costner developed the device after the Exxon Valdez spill.

Costner was inspired to create something that would separate water from oil after watching the devastation of the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989 and from his work on notorious box office bomb Waterworld. If the OTS machine saves our asses from oil, we’ll have to cut Costner a break and go back to picking on Ishtar. [Gawker]

As explained in a video demonstration on his company’s site, the centrifuge takes in polluted water and spins it in a cylinder. The denser water moves to the outside of the cylinder and the oil stays on the inside. Costner’s company claims that the water coming out will be 99 percent pure.

Ocean Therapy Solutions includes scientific adviser Eric M.V. Hoek, a chemical and environmental engineer who works on nanomaterials and membrane technology at UCLA. Though BP’s initial tests of the device earlier this year reportedly fell short, with the machines failing to separate large clumps of oil and producing a peanut-butter consistency of oil after separation, Costner claims that some tweaks have fixed this problem. BP is also “confident” and “excited”:

“We were confident the technology would work but we needed to test it at the extremes. We’ve done that and are excited by the results,” said Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer. “We are very pleased with the results and today we have placed a significant order with OTS [Costner's Ocean Therapy Solutions] and will be working with them to rapidly manufacture and deploy 32 of their machines.” [ABC]

Still, it’s easy to be cynical. Twenty million dollars in research doesn’t seem like much when compared to the purported $1.6 billion that BP has already spent in its efforts (figure from latest BP press release), and one wonders if it’s too easy to confuse the actor’s fame with oil clean-up expertise. Why didn’t more-qualified problem solvers come up with this solution first? But if Costner’s device can really do what it claims, it will outperform current technology–skimmers which pick up 90 percent water and 10 percent oil, according to Costner in a CNN report.

“I’m not on a white horse,” Costner said. “I’m not the savior to this thing. But I’m kind of saying, like, I got a life preserver.” [ABC video below]

Recent posts on the BP oil spill:
80beats: Should We Just Euthanize the Gulf’s Oil-Soaked Birds?
80beats: “Top Cap” Installed on BP Oil Leak; Effectiveness Remains to Be Seen
80beats: This Hurricane Season Looks Rough, And What If One Hits the Oil Spill?
80beats: We Did the Math: BP Oil Spill Is Now Worse Than the Exxon Valdez
80beats: Oil Spill Update: BP to Switch Dispersants; Will Kevin Costner Save Us All?

Image: Universal Pictures

1969: “We landed on the moon. It’s dry.”

2008: “Excellent, we were wrong: It’s not totally dry.”

2010: “Actually, we may have been very wrong about that: There could be even hundreds of times more water there than we thought.”

That last statement is the latest in a rising tide of announcements of water on the moon; DISCOVER covered when the news broke in March, and now the study is out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To sum up: After reanalyzing moon samples from the Apollo landings and meteorites of lunar origin, a team led by Francis McCubbin calculated a water content of 64 parts per billion to 5 parts per million. That’s paltry compared to even the driest places on Earth. But, they write, “This lower limit range of water contents is at least two orders of magnitude [100X] greater than the previously reported value for the bulk Moon, and the actual source region water contents could be significantly higher.”

As exciting as that is, it raises the question: How did we miss this for 41 years?

First, this water is not sloshing around in some subsurface ocean; it’s locked up in lunar minerals:

The team peered into the apatite crystals using a technique called secondary ion mass spectrometry—training a beam of ions on the rocks and then studying the ions that the beam dislodges from the material. In the process, the researchers stumbled onto something big: the telltale chemical signature of water, in the form of hydroxyl ions. “Until this study water had never been reported within minerals from the moon,” McCubbin said. Apatite naturally soaks up water as water-bearing magma cools, locking it up in the form of hydroxyl ions—pairs of bonded hydrogen and oxygen atoms [National Geographic].

When scientists found evidence of water in volcanic glass and ice deposits at the moon’s pole, McCubbin’s team had the motivation to reexamine those old Apollo samples. And, lunar scientist Bradley Jolliff from Washington University in St. Louis says, four decades after Apollo our imaging technology was ready for this find:

“The concentrations are very low and, accordingly, they have been until recently nearly impossible to detect. We can now finally begin to consider the implications—and the origin—of water in the interior of the Moon” [BBC News].

All this news of a more-watery moon could help answer questions as old as our planet and its only natural satellite: When the moon formed, probably after a Mars-sized body struck the early Earth, did the moon form just from the remains of the impactor? Or did pieces of the Earth carry some of its water to the coalescing moon?

Related Content:
80beats: For Almost 40 Years, We Missed This: Apollo Moon Rocks Contain Water
80beats: Tons of Water Ice at the Moon’s North Pole Could Sustain a Lunar Base
DISCOVER: The Moon Makes a Splash
DISCOVER: The Moon: Cold, Wet, and Breathing
DISCOVER: Where Did the Moon Come From?

Image: NASA

In 2005, a group of American scientists resurrected one of history’s deadliest killer – the H1N1 flu virus of 1918 that killed approximately 50 million people worldwide. Using samples from a patient buried in Alaskan permafrost, they deciphered the virus’s genome and structure, rebuilt it from scratch and infected mice with it.

The move was understandably a controversial one. It has led to a greater understanding of the 1918 pandemic, and other important flu strains, but scientists have cited the possibility that this infamous killer could be accidentally released from a lab (as has happened before with other H1N1 strains). Worse still, it could be developed into a bioterror weapon. But according to Rafael Medina from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, these worries may be unfounded. He has shown that since 1918, the world has gained an ally that will protect people against the deadly strain should it ever reemerge. That ally is a most unexpected one – the H1N1 swine flu virus from 2009.

The virus that went pandemic last year is actually a fourth-generation descendant of the 1918 virus. It’s part of a ‘pandemic era’ that was kicked off by the original strain and that has lasted for almost a century. Despite the 91-year gulf between them, the 1918 and 2009 viruses have some important similarities that set them apart from seasonal strains. This likeness means that antibodies that target one strain should work against the other. Indeed, elderly people who survived the 1918 pandemic still carry such defensive antibodies, and these can neutralise the 2009 virus too. This probably explains why elderly people, who are usually most at risk from flu viruses, were largely spared the brunt of the recent pandemic.

Now, Medina has found that the protection works the other way too, at least in mice. He gave mice the vaccine against the 2009 pandemic or antibody transfusions from humans who had themselves been vaccinated. Either way, the rodents produced antibodies that completely protected them against extremely lethal doses of the 1918 virus. Without the vaccine, all of the mice were dead within 8 days. With it, they barely showed any signs of illness and lost trivial amounts of weight. By contrast, vaccines against other strains of seasonal flu failed to provide any sort of protection against the 1918 monster.

Of course, this study has only looked at mice and Medina acknowledges that the next step will be to see if the 2009 vaccine will protect against 1918 flu in other animal models, such as guinea pigs, monkeys and ferrets. But for now, the results are encouraging

The 2009 pandemic spread worldwide and it is still the dominant strain of seasonal flu. Huge numbers of people were vaccinated when the pandemic hit, and the World Health Organisation has recommended that the standard annual flu vaccine should also target the pandemic strain. This means that large swathes of the population should now be immune to the 1918 virus should it ever rear its proteins again. It’s good news for scientist too; as Medina says, the current vaccine “should also serve as an additional layer of safety for researchers working with the 1918 influenza virus”.

Reference: Nature Communications http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1026

More on flu:

• Flu survivors still immune after 90 years
• From Spanish to swine – how H1N1 kicked off a 91-year pandemic era
• How drug-resistant flu took us by surprise
• In a pandemic climate, public sneezing increases fears of unrelated risks
• Flu and Parkinson’s – how H5N1 bird flu causes neural degeneration in mice
• Origins of the swine flu pandemic

After eight years and just over 100,000 miles together, I must, sadly, donate my 2002 Honda CRV. The New England winters during grad school took a heavy toll. Rust is eating out the vehicle from the inside and various panels have fallen off from underneath. Nothing can be done. This year the AC stopped. The battery died. The caliper needed replacement. The gear shift locked in park. Finally over the weekend, AAA came to tow the car away again..this time beyond repair. So it goes. Now don't get me wrong, I loved my Honda and it served me well. But I'm now in need of something new. I want a reliable model with good mpg, all-wheel drive, and most of all, a great safety rating. It must be affordable and sturdy enough to handle the occasional trip to an off-road field site. Not too large, yet able to carry heavy equipment (or at times, a feisty sun conure). So I turn to the car experts out there... What do you recommend and what are you driving?

This is a guest post from a member of Science in the News (SITN), an organization of PhD students at Harvard University whose mission is to bring the newest and most relevant science to a general audience. For over a decade, SITN has been presenting a fall lecture series at Harvard Medical School, with talks on a diversity of current and newsworthy topics, such as stem cell biology and climate change. SITN also publishes the Flash, an online newsletter written by graduate students at Harvard, which presents current scientific discoveries and emerging fields in an accessible and entertaining manner. SITN engages in additional outreach activities such as "Science by the Pint", and hopes students at other institutions will also make the commitment to strengthen science communication. The following post is from Harvard graduate student Rou-Jia Sung. I recently attended an event entitled "Standing up for Science," which was held as part of the Cambridge Science Festival and organized by the UK-based group “Sense about Science.” The event was organized as a forum to bring people together to discuss the issue of science and the media: how these two entities perceive one another, and how the public perceives them in turn. From my perspective ...

Think this is just another devastatingly gorgeous picture of a volcano from NASA?

Well, you’re right. Kinda.

First, the image is from NASA’s Earth Observatory-1, which — surprise! — observes the Earth. The volcano in question is Volcán Villarrica, a 2850 meter (9300 foot) snow-capped stratovolcano at the southern tip of Chile. It’s a fairly active mountain, frequently ejecting ash and airborne rocks called pyroclasts, and causing lahars (mud flows). You can see the mess it’s made to the east (right), and to the west there is a vast network of grooves caused by flowing mud and lava.

So, cool picture, right?

The thing is, this isn’t a picture. At least, not really! You’d expect that EO-1 is equipped with a camera much like a digital camera you can get in a store (though probably a tad more pricey). And in fact, most cameras on board satellites are like that: a two-dimensional array (or grid) of light-sensitive diodes. When exposed to light, they create electrons which fill each pixel like water fills a bucket. Electronics then read out the electrons and count ‘em up. Brighter spots have more electrons, dimmer spots have fewer. Tadaa! Picture.

But that’s not how the Advanced Land Imager on EO-1 works. The following description simplifies things a bit (go to their page for more details), but essentially the imager has a row of pixels instead of a grid. When sitting at the back on of the telescope facing downward, each pixel sees a square of the Earth about 10 meters (33 feet) on a side. Imagine the satellite were standing still, and took a picture. It would see a long thin rectangular region of the Earth, 10 meters wide and some kilometers long. It takes some tiny fraction of a second to take that picture and to read out the row of pixels — that is, get the electrons out of each pixel and record how many there were (that’s why your camera pauses for a moment after you take a picture).

But the satellite is moving, orbiting the Earth. So now imagine that the exposure and readout time of the row of pixels is exactly the same as the time it takes for the view of the camera to move by 10 meters. In that case, just as the camera is ready to take another picture, the pixels have moved (or the Earth has slid underneath by) exactly their own field of view. When it takes the second shot, it’s seeing the very next strip of land adjacent to the first shot. This happens continuously, so the camera is basically taking a picture of strip after strip of the Earth. Once all those rows are beamed down to Earth, software can be used to stitch the image together, turning a pile of one-dimensional images of the Earth into a glorious two-dimensional picture like of the volcano, above.

In other words, that picture of the volcano wasn’t taken all at once: it was taken row by row, each one individually, and then stitched together after the fact. Cool, huh?

And maybe it sounds familiar: I bet you’ve used this method yourself. Ever had a scene you couldn’t fit on one picture, so you took two? And then later, using some software like Photoshop, you stitched the two pictures together (creating what’s called a panographic picture). Well, that’s what the imager on EO-1 does, but instead of turning the camera to get the second shot, the satellite allows its orbital motion to naturally put the next shot into frame.

Also, this is how scanners work! They don’t take a two-dimensional image of what you’re scanning; they have a single row of pixels that moves across the document, continuously reading out what it sees. Once it’s done, all those individual rows can be stuck together to make an actual picture.

For an Earth-orbiting satellite this is a pretty clever move. Having only a single row of pixels saves weight, space, and power. Since the satellite orbits the Earth you just use its motion to make the panning movement for you. Some astronomical observatories do this as well, like WISE, which spins around the Earth and takes huge scans of the sky as it does. Other big ’scopes like Hubble point at their targets and sit there, letting the picture build up, but that’s not always the best way to get your data. It just depends on what you’re trying to do.

The cool things about all this for me is just how many ways we can observe the Universe (and our home in it!) and the fact that smart people have figured this out! I’ve said it before, and no doubt I’ll say it again: I’m glad smart people are around. They make life so much more interesting for the rest of us!

Image credit: Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team

In honor of the tenth anniversary of the human genome project, here are a couple telling images, courtesy of Mihaela Pertea and Steven L Salzberg.

First: a visual history of the estimates of the number of genes in the human genome.
And second, a warning to anyone who believes in an iron law that the more protein-coding genes in a species, the more sophisticated/complex/cool/human that species is:

I for one welcome our grapey overlords.

This looks interesting, Aliens from Earth:

An ancient legend on the Indonesian island of Flores tells of an elflike creature similar to the fictional hobbit of novels and film. But a controversial 2003 archeological find not only suggests that there could be some truth behind the legend but promises to rewrite a key chapter in the human evolutionary story. This program investigates the discovery, analysis, and startling implications of the hobbit of Flores.

Airs tonight in the USA.

Temper and Temperature on the Diamond: The Heat-Aggression Relationship in Major League Baseball.

The Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox fight in a bench-clearing brawl in the second inning of a game on June 5, 2008. The brawl started when Red Sox player Coco Crisp charged the mound after being hit by a pitch by Tampa Bay pitcher James Shields.

“Archival data from major league baseball games played during the 1986, 1987, and 1988 seasons (total N = 826 games) were used to assess the association between the temperatures at the games and the number of batters hit by a pitch during them. A positive and significant relationship was found between temperature and the number of hit batters per game, even when potentially confounding variables having nothing to do with aggression were partialed out. A similar relationship was found for games played during the 1962 season. The shape of this relationship appears to be linear, suggesting that higher temperatures lead major league pitchers to become more aggressive in pitching to batters.

Thanks to David for today’s ROFL!

Image: flickr/ncbronte

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Impact of Yankee Stadium Bat Day on blunt trauma in northern New York City.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Proof that NCBI ROFL reduces aggression!
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: I’m pretty sure this is how the Civil War started…

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!

After a 10-to-1 vote in the Board of Supervisors, San Francisco stands poised to force cellphone makers to display the level of radiation their phones emit next the phone’s display in a store. It would become the first American city to do so.

The mayor, Gavin Newsom, supported the measure and will probably sign it into law. If he does, the rules will be phased in February next year, and violators who don’t provide the information will be charged up to $300. Predictably, the move is lauded as progressive and pro-consumer if you ask supporters and cast as a misleading ordinance if you ask the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. But what does it actually mean?

The number in question is called the specific absorption rate, or SAR. It’s a measure of how much of the phone’s radio frequency energy gets absorbed into a person’s tissue. Although no clear picture has emerged of what effects cell phone radiation has on health (though there are plenty of interesting and contradictory studies), there are already legal upper limits for the SAR of phones. Here in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission is responsible for testing those levels and won’t allow anything higher than 1.6 watts per kilogram of body weight. In Europe the cap’s a little higher—2 watts per kg.

The SAR for phones is already accessible. It’s just harder to get than it would be under the San Francisco rules. In its briefing on cellphones and health, the American Cancer Society notes that the number is available inside the battery compartment for many phones. If it’s not there, and you want to know, you can enter your phone’s FCC identification number on that organization’s Web site. Just last month CNET published a database of which phones are the best and the worst when it comes to radiation… but made sure to say that “the jury is still out” on health effects.

But soon, if you live in San Francisco, the number could be staring you in the face. So should you buy a Samsung phone with an ultra-low SAR rather than a Motorola with a higher one, even if you like the Motorola better? While the weight of evidence hasn’t shown any connections between cellphones and cancer or other ill health effects, it could be a tough decision for some people. That’s probably part of the reason the industry opposes such rules: It’d be better for them if you buy with your gadget lust and not your brain.

However, cellphone makers are correct in a couple of things: First, CNET’s top-rated and lowest rated phones both are within the FCC’s limits, and so both “meet exposure guidelines.” Second, SAR isn’t the only number that matters. For instance, phones emit more radiation when they’re searching for a signal—something to take into consideration if you live far from towers. And, of course, the duration you use a phone has a lot to do with how much radiation your body takes in.

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Image: flickr / Ed Yourdon

It’s pretty clear that–in a fight–Darth Vader would crush Jar Jar Binks, Optimus Prime would beat Starscream, and Batman could pummel the Joker. Though some of these fictional characters don’t even look like humans, when it comes to strength, their voices give it all away. New research seems to confirm this: humans, like other animals, can accurately predict physical strength from voice alone.

In a study appearing today in The Proceedings of the Royal Society, researchers asked subjects to evaluate the upper-body strength of speakers from four distinct populations and language groups just by listening to their voices. Even when unfamiliar with a speaker’s language, listeners could tell which men might be good in a fight. The men they judged as sounding brawny were in fact physically stronger as measured by tests of hand grip, chest strength, shoulder strength, and bicep circumference.

As lead author Aaron Sell told Discovery News:

“Information about male formidability would have been important for both sexes over evolutionary time,” said Sell. “Both men and women would have benefitted from knowing who would likely win fights in order to make prudential alliances and for other reasons. Men would need this information to regulate their own fighting behavior. Women would also need this information in order to make effective mate choices.”

They study failed to make a similar link between women’s voices and strength. The study’s authors speculate that this is because early men were more likely to spar. The researchers also couldn’t determine what it was about certain male voices that made them sound strong–it wasn’t just a deep timbre–and say listeners may respond to a complex mix of cues.

For men, the finding proves especially interesting given the non-menacing statement researchers asked English speakers to say: “When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow.” Apparently this sentence contains all the sounds of the English language, but those certainly aren’t fighting words.

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Image: flickr / ~ggvic~

Most of us think at some point about living in a space station or craft, whether it’s the USS Enterprise or the International Space Station.  Would you live in space given the opportunity?

Many people base their ideas of living in space on science fiction works such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and those incredible Alien movies. They are shocked when they see the inside of a real, functioning space craft like the Apollo 11.  I wonder how many Soyuz crafts you could fit on the bridge of the Enterprise?  Sure, we know there’s a difference between “real life” and “science fiction”, but it’s surprising how many people still believe astronauts have their own private rooms.  Since we’ve had space stations, there have been three astronauts to stay in space for over a year at a stretch, all aboard the Mir.  To give you some perspective, look at this image of the Atlantis docked to Mir:

NASA - Atlantis docked with Mir

Amazing.  There you would be, living in a short gopher hole stuffed with equipment and supplies.  Remember, if they ran out of something, they couldn’t go to the local department store and pick it up.

A lot of strange things happen to a person in space, too.  It’s way beyond certain that you will not survive in space unprotected.  We lost a cosmonaut in a decompression accident in 1971, and we almost lost an astronaut during some NASA tests with near-vacuum conditions in 1965 when his suit developed a leak.  You can research that one, but he remained conscious for 14 seconds, and his last sensation was of the saliva on his tongue boiling (that’s not due to heat; that’s related to lack of pressure).

Even in a protected environment, you would have to deal with a huge problem we haven’t solved as yet; microgravity.  The human body is designed to operate very well in a gravity environment.  In fact, we require it.  Now obviously you aren’t going to run into major problems immediately, although you might not be very comfortable at first.

Over half of all astronauts spend the first couple of days in space nauseated, dizzy, and feeling like they are upside down.  Your body has certain expectations of what the environment is going to look and feel like.  For millions of years, everything was just dandy, until suddenly (with no warning) your big fat brain decides to take your body into space.  Your body will retaliate.  Also, about 60% of your body is water.  Within minutes of entering microgravity most of that water is up around your sinuses.  And it stays there, until you return to gravity.

Those are the fun effects.  Hang around in microgravity long enough, and you start losing bone and muscle mass.  When you lose bone mass, the calcium released into your blood settles in your soft body tissues, most prominently the kidneys.  Muscles not only atrophy (stop working altogether), the type of muscle fibers prominent in the tissue changes.  When you return to gravity, you have a hard time even breathing, much less moving around.  We’re not sure if the body ever fully recovers.  If all that wasn’t enough, your annual radiation dose in low-Earth orbit is ten times that on Earth.  That’s a serious cancer risk.

Those are just the highlights of the physical effects.  We didn’t hit on the psychological problems; the boredom, stress, anxiety, loneliness, lack of privacy, messed up sleep cycles, insomnia, depression… why are we even trying to go into space?  I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with the need to know, the need to explore.  Also, there’s just something in human nature that MUST push a button if it’s there.  We want to go faster, higher, and further.  We want to see how hot something can get, how cold it can get, how hard it can be pushed; and then push it a little harder.

We want to see what’s over the horizon.

Like there’s any other kind!

But after that last bit of nastiness involving astrology, I thought a palate cleanser might be in order. So, I offer to you the utter delightful nonsense that is The Astrology Site, a watering hole on the web so full of fertilizer they should bag it up and sell it to be-droughted nations. Specifically, for reasons beyond understanding, though I suspect related to trying to mock reality, they decided to post a link to my book Bad Astronomy. That book, my first, has a whole chapter slamming astrology to the ground. The astrology site doesn’t have any actual content on the page; it just has a link, a picture, and the text of the blurbs from the book cover.

The comments that were left, though, are highly amusing. The very first one is from an astrology apologist who also think the Moon landings were faked! Ah, these blog posts sometimes write themselves. It reminds me of something I wrote in this post:

I’ve said here before that the path of reality is razor-thin: there’s only one way to be right, but an infinite number of ways to be wrong.

The thing is, that narrow path is like a single, unbroken strand, but each path of unreality leads to every other. If you can chuck reality into the dustbin, then all manners of silliness seem equally plausible. You might think that believing in Santa Claus is a lot sillier than believing in homeopathy, but really they’re the same: they’re both fantasy.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

How do you punch a hole in a cloud? Fly through it.

Meteorologists had long figured that aircraft were part of the explanation for crazy-looking “hole-punch clouds” like this one. When propeller planes fly through a cloud, they thought, it can exert air pressure that cools water extremely quickly to produce ice. If water vapor condenses on that ice, snow falls from the sky and leaves a conspicuous cloud hole.

Now, thanks to a happy accident, researchers confirmed that planes can cause these cloud holes, and that even jets, not just prop planes, can do it.

Andrew Heymsfield, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, was aboard a research plane near the Denver airport in 2007 when he unwittingly flew through a flurry of snow produced by a hole-punch cloud.

The plane was loaded with instruments for studying how ice forms in clouds. Radar from the ground picked up a strange echo in their wake, indicating oddly-shaped snowflakes. “We didn’t know it, but we went right through this precipitation feature that was spotted from the ground,” Heymsfield said [Wired.com].

Their readings, when matched up with the path of planes in the area, helped unravel the mystery:

The researchers then linked satellite images of hole-punch clouds to flight schedules to show that jet aircraft, not just propeller planes, can also punch holes and produce snow. The supercooled droplets freeze after passing over the jet planes’ wings, Heymsfield said [Wired.com].

Their work will soon be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

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Image: Alan Sealls, chief meteorologist, WKRG-TV