TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[chinatyke]

Big Bang...as the report says, "..What ensued was a rare example of the scientific process — sharp elbows, egos and all — that played out the last three months." There's nothing that scientists like better than proving their colleagues to be wrong!
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The scientists say the threat to nature is the same as that once posed by the notorious chemical DDT....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27980344

Get rid of the agro-chemicals and bring back contaminated crops, lice infestations, fleas, dubonic plague, black rivers, like in the good old days? The fact is that there are 7 billion people to feed and crop yield and spoilage cannot be mismanaged. We seem to think it is OK to wipe out mosquitoes but not bees. Isn't this human selfishness?

DDT probably did more good than harm.

[Stanley]

It's a puzzle isn't it China... I suppose we are groping our way slowly towards a balance but the question is, are we in time?

[Stanley]

See this LINK for news of an article in Nature (Which I couldn't find....) which posits a reason why Tibetans and others living on the high Mongolian plateau can function in the rarefied air. It's suggested that they interbred at some time with an ancient race who had the ability to thin their blood so that it absorbed available oxygen and transported it to muscles more quickly than ordinary DNA allows. Fascinating stuff and isn't it amazing what esoteric fields are being investigated!

[Bodger]

There was a program about coastal Australia, Darwin, they are investigating why their crocodiles can have major wounds swimming in highly poluted waters , but self heal in days, apparently the crocs have superior anti biotics in their blood, scientists are trying to isolate the crucial gene to see if it can aid humans
http://theglyptodon.wordpress.com/2012/ ... ile-blood/

[Stanley]

I saw that too Bodge. Very timely in view of the growing number of bacteria we can't zap with antibiotics. Incidentally I heard a discussion about the plural of bacterium on R4 and one caller said that as the Romans didn't know about bacteria it was a sterile argument.... I like it!

[Tizer]

The more primitive animals like reptiles can afford to have a very powerful defence system because they are `simpler' than us. We're so complicated that powerful immunity or powerful antibiotics are more likely to have side-effects by attacking our own bodies (collateral damage).

[Bodger]

Thank you Tizer

[Stanley]

True, that already exists in auto-immune diseases like Arthritis. I have a friend who suffers from Lupus, a dreadful condition and also thought to be auto-immune.

[Tizer]

Thank you Tizer

Bodger, nevertheless, as an old crock myself I wish them success with their research!

Stanley, another bit of information lost to the old OG site...I wrote about the hypothesis that our present day susceptibility to auto-immune diseases has increased with the loss of our parasitic worms. Those worms evolved along with us, their hosts - in fact the co-evolution went on long before humans existed, millions of years ago when our ancestors were small mouse-like mammals. The worms developed the ability to suppress our immune system so that they could live inside us, and our immune systems, likewise, became stronger to try to counter the worms' strategy. This went on for millions of years but in the last hundred years or so we de-wormed ourselves and our immune system hasn't yet had the chance to damp itself down; it's still trying to kill worms that aren't there.

[Stanley]

I think I remember you posting that information. Gruesome enough to stick in the back of my head!

[Stanley]

See THIS for news that scientists have discovered a protein that seems to be a precursor for Altzheimer's disease. Question is, do we want to know when there is no known cure?
Another LINK here to the discovery of the fossil of a gigantic sea gull, thought to be the biggest bird ever. Its wing span could be up to 24 feet!

[Tizer]

Extinct undersea volcanoes squashed under Earth’s crust cause tsunami earthquakes, according to new research
New research has revealed the causes and warning signs of rare tsunami earthquakes, which may lead to improved detection measures.(Press release from Imperial College, London)

Tsunami earthquakes happen at relatively shallow depths in the ocean and are small in terms of their magnitude. However, they create very large tsunamis, with some earthquakes that only measure 5.6 on the Richter scale generating waves that reach up to ten metres when they hit the shore. A global network of seismometers enables researchers to detect even the smallest earthquakes. However, the challenge has been to determine which small magnitude events are likely to cause large tsunamis. In 1992, a magnitude 7.2 tsunami earthquake occurred off the coast of Nicaragua in Central America causing the deaths of 170 people. Six hundred and thirty seven people died and 164 people were reported missing following a tsunami earthquake off the coast of Java, Indonesia, in 2006, which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale.

The new study, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, reveals that tsunami earthquakes may be caused by extinct undersea volcanoes causing a “sticking point” between two sections of the Earth’s crust called tectonic plates, where one plate slides under another. The researchers from Imperial College London and GNS Science in New Zealand used geophysical data collected for oil and gas exploration and historical accounts from eye witnesses relating to two tsunami earthquakes, which happened off the coast of New Zealand’s north island in 1947. Tsunami earthquakes were only identified by geologists around 35 years ago, so detailed studies of these events are rare. The team located two extinct volcanoes off the coast of Poverty Bay and Tolaga Bay that have been squashed and sunk beneath the crust off the coast of New Zealand, in a process called subduction. The researchers suggest that the volcanoes provided a “sticking point” between a part of the Earth’s crust called the Pacific plate, which was trying to slide underneath the New Zealand plate. This caused a build-up of energy, which was released in 1947, causing the plates to “unstick” and the Pacific plate to move and the volcanoes to become subsumed under New Zealand. This release of the energy from both plates was unusually slow and close to the seabed, causing large movements of the sea floor, which led to the formation of very large tsunami waves.

All these factors combined, say the researchers, are factors that contribute to tsunami earthquakes. The researchers say that the 1947 New Zealand tsunami earthquakes provide valuable insights into what geological factors cause these events. They believe the information they’ve gathered on these events could be used to locate similar zones around the world that could be at risk from tsunami earthquakes. Eyewitnesses from these tsunami earthquakes also describe the type of ground movement that occurred and this provides valuable clues about possible early warning signals for communities.

Dr Rebecca Bell, from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says: “Tsunami earthquakes don’t create massive tremors like more conventional earthquakes such as the one that hit Japan in 2011, so residents and authorities in the past haven’t had the same warning signals to evacuate. These types of earthquakes were only identified a few decades ago, so little information has been collected on them. Thanks to oil exploration data and eyewitness accounts from two tsunami earthquakes that happened in New Zealand more than 70 years ago, we are beginning to understand for first time the factors that cause these events. This could ultimately save lives.”

By studying the data and reports, the researchers have built up a picture of what happened in New Zealand in 1947 when the tsunami earthquakes hit. In the March earthquake, eyewitnesses around Poverty Bay on the east coast of the country, close to the town of Gisborne, said that they didn’t feel violent tremors, which are characteristic of typical earthquakes. Instead, they felt the ground rolling, which lasted for minutes, and brought on a sense of sea sickness. Approximately 30 minutes later the bay was inundated by a ten metre high tsunami that was generated by a 5.9 magnitude offshore earthquake. In May, an earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale happened off the coast of Tolaga Bay, causing an approximate six metre high tsunami to hit the coast. No lives were lost in the New Zealand earthquakes as the areas were sparsely populated in 1947. However, more recent tsunami earthquakes elsewhere have devastated coastal communities.

The researchers are already working with colleagues in New Zealand to develop a better warning system for residents. In particular, new signage is being installed along coastal regions to alert people to the early warning signs that indicate a possible tsunami earthquake. In the future, the team hope to conduct new cutting-edge geophysical surveys over the sites of other sinking volcanoes to better understand their characteristics and the role they play in generating this unusual type of earthquake.
Source:

[Stanley]

Those pesky scientists at it again.... We learn more and more through their efforts....

[Stanley]

I heard an interesting discussion this morning on World Service about VIRTUAL WATER. I have never come across this concept before but it makes a lot of sense.

[Tizer]

It's been around for a while and figures are quoted fairly often but I'm not used to it being called `virtual water'. Adjectives like `embodied' get used or simply overall water usage. This is from the U of California at Davis:
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Water usage to make a ½ liter bottle of coke
Water footprint report, Joint with the Nature Conservancy
1/2 liter Coca-Cola beverage in PET bottle:
23 liters of water (green water is 15 liters, and the blue water footprint is 8 liters)
Produces 12 liters of waste water
Roughly 70:1 ratio
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Similarly they quote the embodied energy in making a 12oz aluminium can as 4 MJ and say that it results in almost ½ kg of CO2 emission.
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Wikipedia definitions:
"The blue water footprint is the volume of freshwater that evaporated from the global blue water resources (surface water and ground water) to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community. The green water footprint is the volume of water evaporated from the global green water resources (rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture). The grey water footprint is the volume of polluted water that associates with the production of all goods and services for the individual or community."

[Stanley]

What intrigued me was the concept of making water-hungry goods where there was a surplus as it is easier to transport the goods than the water. But of course it isn't quite as simple as that.

[Tizer]

Coincidentally the FT today reports the CEO of one of the world's biggest food companies, Nestle, warns that even without the effects of climate change we are in great danger of a global shortage of potable water and that this is a more immediate danger than climate change itself. But unfortunately climate change is making it worse - for example, at a hydro-electric plant in the French Alps EDF have had to spend about 30 million euros building a new water supply tunnel to the plant. The water comes from a glacier which has retreated so far that the old tunnel is now no longer functional and the new one had to be built.

[Stanley]

It's always amazed me that the biggest source of food in the UK, Norfolk etc. is the driest part of the country.

[Tizer]

A new virus found in the human gut, not known to be harmful but present in over half of the population. It's a bacteriophage which is a type of virus that lives in bacteria, so this is one that lives in the bacteria that live in our gut. Fleas have little fleas etc...
BBC news, 26 July 2014
Newly-found gut virus 'abundant in humans'
"Scientists have discovered a previously unknown virus living in the human gut, according to a study in Nature Communications. Exploring genetic material found in intestinal samples, the international team uncovered the CrAssphage virus. They say the virus could influence the behaviour of some of the most common bacteria in our gut. Experts say these types of viruses, called bacteriophages, have been shown to play a role in chronic diseases. Led by a team at San Diego State University in the USA, scientists scoured genetic information stored in three large international databases. They stumbled upon a piece of DNA, some 100,000 letters long, present in more than half of all samples from the gut.
'Novel virus' And while cross-checking its identity in global directories they realised it had never been described before. "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28440006
(Don't get misled by claims that this virus might be involved in diabetes and obesity, it's all speculation and the media loves anything about diabetes and obesity because they're a `hot topic' at the moment!)

[Stanley]

It just goes to show how little we know about the sub-microscopic world. Transfer this discovery to the complex micro-organisms and trace elements in soil. We grab hold of what we know and assume that this is the full story. I am reminded of the blank wall of disbelief put up by scientists during the BSE crisis when a layman suggested that manganese deficiency might have some connection. He was ridiculed but funnily enough, when BSE was identified in France they described it as 'manganese deficiency' as this didn't affect exports.... Old fashioned mixed farming when we rotated crops and polluted the ground with organic manure from the stockyards had a lot going for it! If you want a child to have a good immune system, encourage them to eat garden soil!

[David Whipp]

Aren't our bodies a wonderful symbiotic collective of lifeforms?

[Stanley]

And we don't understand the relationships half as well as some people would like us to believe, like advertisers! We are urged to spray powerful germicides, fly killers and air fresheners round as though there was no downside!

[Bodger]

A scary video of recording abilities out of earshot
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... udio-sound

[Tizer]

An interesting item from AlphaGalileo which provides a science news service for newspaper, radio, TV and the like. Many of the news stories you hear about science research will have come via AlphaGalileo.

Science coverage on the BBC
There has been interest in the UK over the BBC's recent decision that it will not give equal coverage in scientific news items to non-scientists. This has led one leading climate change denier, and UK politician, to claim he was being 'gagged'. But in fact this was just a small part of a BBC review of the impartiality and accuracy of BBC science coverage.

The review covered specialist and non-specialist science content on TV, radio and online, included in it was an analysis by the Science Communication Group at Imperial College [http://www.ic.ac.uk] of relevant coverage over a three month period in 2009 and again in 2010. Surprisingly given the emphasis on climate change in coverage of the report, the Imperial Group found, "Relatively few items dealt with climate science and technology given that a number of inquiries into climate science were published during the 2010 sample period." But then they also found, "no news items dealing with mathematics and only 5% of science items on broadcast news covered the physical sciences."

As should be expected the biggest coverage was of medical stories, with almost 40% in 2010, in 2009 it was 69% but the outbreak of Swine Flu undoubtedly distorted the results. Given that the key factor in any editors' news agenda is relevance to their viewers or readers, medical and health news should be expected to receive high levels of interest, particularly in news bulletins. News bulletins also concentrated on research results. AlphaGalileo has long known that news published under embargo and based on papers in peer-reviewed journals receives the most interest, but there is other media coverage beyond news bulletins - documentaries, current affairs, etc. Two-thirds of non-news coverage and almost all children's broadcasting did not deal with results. So cultural interest in science - dinosaurs, astronomy, information technology, etc – remains and non-medical press officers should not despair. In all the Imperial Group found science topics in 73 different series or regular strands in programmes and a further nine one-off programmes.

Sadly a factor that hasn't received the coverage it deserves is the gender of presenters and scientists in programmes. "... in general science on the BBC is represented by UK-based male scientists." Female role models and an emphasis on research by multi-national teams are urgent tasks. AlphaGalileo sees more pictures of male researchers than female. Sadly AlphaGalileo continues to get more pictures of men than of women researchers. Many research funders would also agree with comment that "the funders of research are rarely mentioned." Understandable given space and time constraints, but of course still annoying.

Perhaps of most concern is the comment that BBC science coverage, "celebrates science but rarely critiques it." That science is somehow different and requires different handling by the media from politics or economic news is not helpful. It belongs to the days of the 'science deficit communication model'. The media's role does of course include being an entertainer, without entertainment who would buy a newspaper or watch television? But if that is all the media does our society is at risk. The media should ask the questions that we would all ask if we had their privileged position, whether its about a new government policy or a research programme. Science journalists should never be content to act as public relations officers for science.

The BBC reports can be found here [http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_work/ ... ality.html].

[Stanley]

"Science journalists should never be content to act as public relations officers for science."
Hear hear! Especially when the content being reported is funded by industries lobbying for their products.