Making the case for off-road bike paths instead of on-road bike lanes (or, ideally, in addition to them), here’s a summary of some recent research I conducted and some recent research out of Harvard Medical School:

More or less, bicycle infrastructure policy and its relationship to riderships was the topic of my 2007 master’s thesis. It’s been obvious to some of us for a long time that bicycle infrastructure policy needs to change in order to give bicycle ridership a big boost, and public health would of course improve from that, as well. Nonetheless, there was some debate regarding infrastructure, thanks to a rather small but loud group of cycling enthusiasts who thought not having bike lanes was a better policy than having bike lanes, and who especially hated off-road bike paths that intersected with roads. Quite frankly, I’ve always thought that was absurd. Now, it seems that the case has grown strong enough in favor of off-road bicycle paths (or cycle tracks) that Harvard researchers think the “Bible” of transportation planning needs to be updated to encourage off-road bicycle paths over (as in, instead of, not in the space above) on-road bicycle lanes.

Better Bicycle Facilities = More Bicycling

2-way off-road bike path and speed bumps in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

I’ll highlight some of the key conclusions from my research (which included regression analyses):

In both Montgomery County and Delft, the best possible bicycle travel facilities in respondents’ home neighborhoods were significantly associated with higher levels of bicycle travel, strongly affirming initial hypotheses.

In Montgomery County, the existence of bicycle paths/trails in one’s home neighborhood was significantly correlated with bicycle travel from home to work, and the existence of sidewalks in one’s home neighborhood was significantly correlated with bicycling in or from one’s neighborhood. Sidewalks protected from the roadway by a buffer of parked cars had a particularly strong association with bicycling in or from one’s home neighborhood.

Bike-only transportation connection in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Bike-only road next to canal in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Whether or not a person had ever lived in an area with considerably more bicycle facilities was significantly correlated with the proportion of times they bicycled to work, indicating a possible carryover effect of a habit that had been developed in a more bicycle friendly environment.

Bike-only road that goes under automobile road in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Bike-only roads also used by those in wheelchairs in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Bike paths go through beautiful parks and offer a quicker connection to the city center in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Bike path separated from the roadway via parked cars and medians in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Bike paths separated from roadway by grassy area and also raised above the roadway in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Bike paths going through a green space and residential area in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Bike roads also way out in the suburbs in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Bike road out in the suburbs in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

And bike roads also go way, way out into the country in Groningen, Netherlands. I think there’s a biker in the distance there using this one. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

OK, that’s all I’ll report from my research right now. On to the Harvard study….

Change The Transportation Planning Bible!

Harvard researchers came to similar findings. But they didn’t stop there. They took up the important work of advocating for changes in the most influential book in the transportation planning realm.

From the Harvard press release: “Bicycle engineering guidelines often used by state regulators to design bicycle facilities need to be overhauled to reflect current cyclists’ preferences and safety data, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. They say that U.S. guidelines should be expanded to offer cyclists more riding options and call for endorsing cycle tracks – physically separated, bicycle-exclusive paths adjacent to sidewalks – to encourage more people of all ages to ride bicycles….

“Standards set by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in its Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities generally serve vehicles well but overlook most bicyclists’ needs, according to lead author Anne Lusk, research scientist in the Department of Nutrition at HSPH, who has been studying bicycling patterns in the U.S. and abroad for many years. ‘In the U.S., the default remains the painted bike lane on the road,’ she said, which is problematic since research has shown that women, seniors, and children prefer not to ride on roads with traffic.”

Yep. Unfortunately, AASHTO, based on no legitimate evidence, has always considered off-road bicycle paths as dangerous. “According to the researchers, the AASHTO guidelines discouraged or did not include cycle tracks due to alleged safety concerns and did not cite research about crash rates on cycle tracks.”

The Harvard researchers went ahead and did the research that AASHTO had passed over. “This study analyzed five state-adopted U.S. bicycle guidelines published between 1972 and 1999 to understand how the guidelines have directed the building of bicycle facilities in the U.S. They also wanted to find out how crash rates on the cycle tracks that had been built compared with bicycle crash rates on roadways in the U.S. They identified 19 cycle tracks in 14 cities in the U.S. and found these cycle tracks had an overall crash rate of 2.3 per one million bicycle kilometers ridden, which is similar to crash rates found on Canadian cycle tracks and lower than published crash rates from cities in North America for bicycling in the road without any bicycle facilities.”

In other words, build the damn cycle tracks! They are safer than bike lanes.

Bike-only roads with green spaces on the side quite common in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Lusk, coming from Harvard’s School of Public Health, also made the important link to public health: ”Bicycling, even more than walking, helps control weight and we need to provide comfortable and separate bicycle environments on existing roads so everyone has a chance for good health.” As did the press release: “Encouraging more cycling would be helpful for weight control, heart function, and would boost physical fitness for children and adults in addition to helping to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution from vehicles.”

After over a 1,200 words (this article) and dozens of research papers, the point remains clear: off-road bicycle paths are safer, preferred by most people, and should be encouraged and built.

Bike path next to sidewalk and separated from roadway by a median in the city center of Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Off-Road Bike Paths Needed In Transportation Planning “Bible” was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Here’s the story as to why I became an electric car lover after being a car hater:

I’m not going to lie — I’ve got issues with cars. My master’s degree is in city and regional planning. From my experience studying that (before, during, and after graduate school), I’m well aware that cars and cities simply don’t mix well. I mean, they could, but the vast majority of cities in the world are overfull of cars.

A city, by definition, is a lot of people living in a relatively small space. To try to move individuals around in quite large vehicles of their own is highly inefficient. In the US, this results in the loss of trillions of dollars a year. Seriously. From billions of hours wasted in traffic, to oil imports from countries that aren’t fond of us, to lives lost and people injured from car accidents, the costs are actually quite stunning, incomprehensible, and incalculable.

But I won’t go on about that today — rather, let me switch to the topic in the title. I have become a huge electric vehicle (EV) fan, obsessed even. I actually started a website due to my desire to read and write about electric cars every day.

So, why and how did this switch occur?

Furthermore, there’s a large amount of air and water pollution from gasoline-powered vehicles; there are the issues of oil dependency mentioned above; and, not to be discounted, gasmobiles create a tremendous amount of noise pollution.

Bike-only roads with green space on the side quite common in Groningen, Netherlands. Image Credit: Zachary Shahan / Bikocity

Yes, I think it would be great if we transformed cities and our lifestyles in order to switch from driving to bicycling and using mass transit for the majority of trips. I actually lived in a city with a 50-60% bicycle commute rate (Groningen, Netherlands). I am sure the transit commute rate wasn’t bad either — the buses were often packed. The city was so quiet and unpolluted that it’s hard to describe it. The quality of life was the best I’ve seen anywhere.

But, again, that’s all a discussion for another day. While I’d love it if all cities emulated Groningen, I know that isn’t happening. And I know that a lot of people still think they need and want a car, and want to drive for most trips. In other words, I know that there’s still a tremendous amount of demand for cars, and that they will be dominant transportation forces in our cities and countries indefinitely. So, the pollution problems must be addressed.

Image Credit: Fiat

So, I started reading and writing about electric cars a few years ago. And as I have, I have fallen in love with their beauty, simplicity, performance benefits, and revolutionary spirit. I’ve fallen in love with the EV movement. I’ve fallen in love with specific EV models — the Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S, Fiat 500e, Detroit Electric SP:01, and of course several electric supercars. (No offense to the others — I love and like several others, too.) I’ve also become fascinated with thoughts and projections on how the electric revolution may play out. All in all, this is just a super fun technology and transformation to cover.

Of course, I still think cities are much nicer when they are planned for humans rather than transporters that are simply too big for efficient and pleasant city life. But electric vehicles themselves are such a huge step above what we have today, and they really are a useful option for a number of occasional needs, that I can’t help being an EV enthusiast. If I ever do buy a car again, my biggest problem would be deciding which EV to go with.

That’s my story. How about you? How did you fall in love with electric cars?

How Electric Cars Won Over A Car Hater was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Changes in the climate are intimately connected with wildfires, both causing them and being being caused by them. Recent research has estimated that wildfires will increase by around 50% across most of the US, and by as much as 100% in the West, by 2050, as a result of climate change. And with this increase in the frequency/extent of wildfires, greenhouse gas emissions will rise too.

Image Credit: Wild Fire via Flick CC

And now, new research, recently published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, has synthesized “recent findings on the interactions between fire and climate and outlines future research needs.” Written by research meteorologists Yongqiang Liu and Scott Goodrick from the Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) and Warren Heilman from the Northern Research Station, the report focuses on the effects that emissions from wildfires will have on long-term atmospheric conditions.

“While research has historically focused on fire-weather interactions, there is increasing attention paid to fire-climate interactions,” says Liu, lead author and team leader with the SRS Center for Forest Disturbance Science. “Weather, the day-to-day state of the atmosphere in a region, influences individual fires within a fire season. In contrast, when we talk about fire climate, we’re looking at the statistics of weather over a certain period. Fire climate sets atmospheric conditions for fire activity in longer time frames and larger geographic scales.”

Atmospheric conditions are affected by fires through the effects of the gases, particles, water, and heat, that is emitted during wildfires. “Some of the article focuses on radiative forcing from fire emissions. Radiative forcing refers to the change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus longwave) at the tropopause, the top of the troposphere where most weather takes place. Smoke particles can generate radiative forcing mainly through scattering and absorbing solar radiation (direct radiative forcing), and modifying the cloud droplet concentrations and lifetime, and hence the cloud radiative properties (indirect radiative forcing). The change in radiation can cause further changes in global temperatures and precipitation.”

“Wildfire emissions can have remarkable impacts on radiative forcing,” says Liu.

“During fire events or burning seasons, smoke particles reduce overall solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere at local and regional levels. At the global scale, fire emissions of carbon dioxide contribute substantially to the global greenhouse effect.”

Some of the other important findings covered by the report, include:

- “The radiative forcing of smoke particles can generate significant regional climate effects, leading to lower temperatures at the ground surface.”

- “Smoke particles mostly suppress cloud formation and precipitation. Fire events could lead to more droughts.”

- “Black carbon, essentially the fine particles of carbon that color smoke, plays different roles in affecting climate. In the middle and lower atmosphere, its presence could lead to a more stable atmosphere. Black carbon plays a special role in the snow-climate feedback loop, accelerating snow melting.”

- Changes in land surface use may also factor into future effects. “Wildfire is a disturbance of ecosystems,” says Liu. “Besides the atmospheric impacts, wildfires also modify terrestrial ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, soil fertility, grazing value, biodiversity, and tourism. The effects can in turn trigger land use changes that in turn affect the atmosphere.”

Climate Change And Wildfire — Research Examines Relationship was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Researchers recently discovered two new species of cave-dwelling arachnids in northeastern Brazil — Rowlandius ubajara and Rowlandius potiguara. The arachnids are both a type of short-tailed whipscorpion.

Image Credit: Santos AJ, Ferreira RL, Buzatto BA (2013)

The arachnids are a reddish-brown color, and were discovered inhabiting the cool, humid limestone caves present in the otherwise arid northeastern Brazil region. They were both discovered deep inside of these limestone caves. The Arachnids likely prey on the small insects that live in the cave feeding on Bat guano and seed deposits.

“Both species were found only within the caves but there is little indication that they have adapted exclusively to life in darkness. Though specimens of both species lack eye spots, the authors clarify that this is a common trait in short-tailed whipscorpions, since the group does not rely heavily on visual information to survive.”

The researchers, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, have concluded that the species’ may be present outside of the caves as well. They are next planning to explore the areas outside of the caves to “confirm the extent to which these new species may have adapted to become exclusive cave dwellers.”

The new findings were just published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Cave-Dwelling Arachnids — Two New Species Found In Brazil was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Critically endangered Javan leopards have been caught on digital camera traps in West Java. If you have been following conservation news, you know that the Formosan Cloud Leopard was recently declared extinct. They were driven into extinction by human activities. So it is very important that the Javan leopards be protected or they may suffer the same fate.

Image Credit: CFIR

(Javan leopard caught on camera trap from CIFOR stock footage library on Vimeo.)

Thirty cameras were placed in Gunung Halimun-Salak National Park in West Java, by researcher  Age Kridalaksana, from the Center for International Forestry Research. For about a month the cameras recorded images of local wildlife. Most of the animals documented by the cameras were deer, civets and birds. There were also three Javan leopards. These leopards are about one hundred pounds and the height and length of an American mountain lion.

There are probably less than 250 left in the wild, according to IUCN. Loss of habitat, poaching and loss of prey animals are contributing factors in their decline. All these factors are due to human activities.

About 2,000 hectares of rainforest a year are being lost each year due to industrial activities such as mining and land clearing for palm oil plantations. If you want to protect these leopards and their habitat, make sure to stop using products containing palm oil. (Boycotting palm oil will likely also help orangutans.)

Even within Gunung Halimun-Salak National Park 25% of the forested area was lost from illegal logging.

The huge city of Jakarta with 20 million people is just several hours from the park. Surely, these wild animals deserve to have some natural habitat protected and kept undeveloped.

The Center for International Forestry Research works to conserve natural forests and their wildlife. They also are study poor human communities and their relationship with natural habitats. Their work is some of the most important on Earth. What complements it the most is human population management. If the human population had not reached over seven billion, some of these very difficult situations would be less damaging.

Very Rare Leopards Caught On Camera was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Lightning Roach
Lucihormetica luckae (image credit: Vrsansky et al)

The list is here!… Yes, the annual list of ‘Top Ten’ New Species has been announced.

Organized annually by the Institute for International Species Exploration (IISE) at the University of Arizona, an international committee of experts reviewed animal, vegetable and microbial species culled from 140 top nominations out of a total candidate pool of 18,000 species — all discovered (and properly named according to taxonomic rules) in the previous calendar year (2012).

Top Species selections hail from five continents…. Alas, no Australian picks this year. However, one (tiny vertebrate) comes from Papua New Guinea — part of Micronesia — which is pretty darn close to the land down under!

Members of the committee could use any criteria they wished to select the final ten under the overarching purpose of highlighting biodiversity (and the many scientists and research institutes engaged in exploration of new species) while paying special attention to “taxonomic, geographic, and natural history diversity.”

While are the selections are fascinating, there is one that achieves the “trifecta” in new species discovery (read on to see why).

To view the species distribution map, visit the map page here.

All of the following species descriptions and photos come directly from the top 10 species website (http://www.top10species.org). The original reference (source of the discovery) and photo is cited following each listing.

Well then, enough preliminaries, here (in no ranking order) are the Top Ten New Species of 2013:

1] Lilliputian Violet
Viola lilliputana

Not only is the Lilliputian violet among the smallest violets in the world, it is also one of the most diminutive terrestrial dicots. Known only from a single locality in an intermontane plateau of the high Andes of Peru, Viola lilliputana lives in the dry puna grassland ecoregion. Specimens were first collected in the 1960s, but the species was not described as a new until 2012. The entire above ground portion of the plant is barely 1 cm tall. Named, obviously, for the race of little people on the island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

Country: Peru

Reference:
Ballard, H. E. and H. H. Iltis. 2012. Viola lilliputana sp. Nov. (Viola sect. Andinium, Violaceae), one of the world’s smallest violets, from the Andes of Peru. Brittonia 64(4), 353-358.

2] Lyre Sponge
Chondrocladia lyra

A spectacular, large, harp- or lyre-shaped carnivorous sponge discovered in deep water (ave. 3399 m) from the northeast Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. The harp-shaped structures or vanes number from two to six and each has more than 20 parallel vertical branches, often capped by an expanded, balloon-like, terminal ball. This unusual form maximizes the surface area of the sponge for contact and capture of planktonic prey items.

Country: NE Pacific Ocean; USA: California

Reference:
Lee, W. L., Reiswig, H. M., Austin, W.C., and L. Lundsten. 2012. An extraordinary new carnivorous sponge, Chdondrocladia lyra, in the new subgenus Symmetrocladia (Demospongiae, Cladorhizidae), from off of northern California, USA. Invertebrate Biology xx, 1-26.

(Ladies and gentlemen: The “trifecta” of new species: it’s new, it’s a mammal, and, it’s a primate!)

3] Lesula Monkey
Cercopithecus lomamiensis

Discovered in the Lomami Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the lesula is an Old World monkey well known to locals but newly known to science. This is only the second species of monkey discovered in Africa in the past 28 years, and was first seen by scientists as a captive juvenile in 2007. Scientists describe the lesula as shy having human like eyes. It is more easily heard than seen by the booming dawn chorus it performs. Adult males have a large bare patch of skin on the buttocks, testicles, and perineum that is brilliant blue in color. Although the area where it occurs is remote, the species is hunted for bushmeat and thus its status vulnerable

Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Reference:
Hart, J.A., Detwiler, K.M., Gilbert, C.C., Burrell, A.S., Fuller, J.L., Emetshu, M., Hart, T.C., Vosper, A., Sargis, E.J., and A. J. Tosi. 2012. Lesula: a new species of Cercopithecus monkey endemic to the Democratic Republic of Congo and implications for conservation of Congo’s central basin. PLoS ONE, 7, e44271.

4] No to the Mine! Snake
Sibon noalamina

A beautiful new species of snail-eating snake has been discovered from highland rainforests of western Panama. The snake is nocturnal and a predator of soft bodied prey including earthworms and amphibian eggs in addition to snails and slugs. This harmless snake defends itself by mimicking the alternating dark and light rings of venomous coral snakes. Mining of ore deposits in the Serrania de Tabasara mountain range where the species is found is degrading and diminishing its habitat. The species name is derived from the Spanish phrase “No a la mina,” or No to the Mine.

Country: Panama

Reference:
Lotzkat, S., Hertz, A., and G. Kohler. 2012. A new species of Sibon (Squamata: Colubroidea: Dipsadidae) from the Cordillera Central of western Panama, with comments on other species of the genus in the area. Zootaxa 3485: 26-40.

5] A Smudge on Paleolithic Art
Ochroconis anomala

In 2001, black stains began to appear on the walls of Lascaux Cave in France. These stains were so prevalent by 2007 that they became one of the major concerns for the conservation of the precious rock art at the site that dates from the Upper Palaeolithic. A white fungus, Fusarium solani, outbreak had been successfully treated when, a few months later, black staining fungi appeared. The genus primarily includes fungi occurring in the soil and associated with the decomposition of plant matter. While this, one of two new species of the genus from Lascaux, is as far as known harmless, at least one species of the group,
O. gallopava, causes diseases in immunocompromised humans.

Country: France

Reference:
Martin-Sanchez, P. M., Novakova, A., Bastian, F., Alabouvette, C., and C. Saiz-Jimenez. 2012. Two new species of the genus Ochroconis, O. lascauxensis and O. anomala isolated from black stains in Lascaux Cave, France. Fungal Biology 116, 574-589.

Image: Lascaux Cave, France. Source: Prof. Saxx. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lascaux_painting.jpg

6] World’s Smallest Vertebrate
Paedophryne amanuensis

Living vertebrate animals range in size more than 3,000 fold, from this tiny new species of frog as small as 7 mm to the blue whale measuring in at 25.8 m. The new frog was discovered near Amau village in Papua, New Guinea. It claims the title of smallest living vertebrate from a tiny Southeast Asian cyprinid fish that captured the record in 2006. The adult frog size, averaging length of both males and females, is only 7.7mm. With few exceptions, this and other ultra-small frogs have been found in association with moist leaf litter in tropical wet forests suggesting a unique ecological guild that could not exist under drier circumstances.

Country: New Guinea

Reference:
Rittmeyer, E. N., Allison, A., Grundler, M. C., Thompson, D. K., and C. C. Austin. 2012. Ecological guild evolution and the discovery of the world’s smallest vertebrate. PLoS ONE 7, e29797.

7] Endangered Forest
Eugenia petrikensis

Eugenia is a large, worldwide genus of woody evergreen trees and shrubs of the myrtle family that is particularly diverse in South America, New Caledonia and Madagascar. The new species E. petrikensis is a shrub growing to two meters with emerald green, slightly glossy, foliage and beautiful dense clusters of small magenta flowers. It is one of seven new species described from the littoral forest of eastern Madagascar and is considered to be an endangered species. It is only the latest evidence of the unique and numerous species found in this specialized humid forest that grows on sandy substrate within kilometers of the shoreline. Once forming a continuous band 1,600 km long, the littoral forest has been reduced to isolated, vestigial fragments under pressure from human populations.

Country: New Madagascar

Reference:
Snow, N., Rabenantoandro, J., Randriatafika, F., Rabehevitra, D., Razafimamonjy, N. D., and S. Cable. 2012. Studies of Malagasy Eugenia (Myrtaceae) — III: Seven new species of high conservation concern from the eastern littoral forests. Phytotaxa 48, 39-60.

8] Lightning Roaches
Lucihormetica luckae

Luminescence among terrestrial animals is rather rare and best known among certain groups of beetles — fireflies and certain click beetles in particular — and cave-inhabiting fungus gnats. Since the first discovery of a luminescent cockroach in 1999, more than a dozen species have, pardon the pun, come to light. All are rare and, interestingly, so far only found in remote areas far from light pollution. The latest addition to this growing list is L. luckae that may be endangered or possibly already extinct. It is known from a single specimen collected 70 years ago from an area recently heavily impacted by the eruption of the Tungurahua volcano. The species may be most remarkable because the size and placement of its lamps suggest that it is using light to mimic toxic luminescent click beetles.

Country: Ecuador

Reference:
Vrsansky, P., Chorvat, D., Fritzsche, I., Hain, M., and R,. Sevcik. 2012. Light-mimicking cockroaches indicate Tertiarty origin of recent terrestrial luminescence. Naturwissenschaften. 99, 739-749.

9]  No Social Butterfly
Semachrysa jade

In a trend setting collision of science and social media, Hock Ping Guek photographed a beautiful green lacewing with dark markings at the base of its wings in a park near Kuala Lumpur and shared his photo on Flickr. Dr. Shaun Winterton, an entomologist with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, serendipitously saw the image and recognized the insect as unusual. When Guek was able to collect a specimen, it was sent to Dr. Stephen J. Brooks at London’s Natural History Museum who confirmed its new species status. The three joined forces preparing a description using Google Docs. In this triumph for citizen science, talents from around the globe collaborated by new media in making the discovery. It is named, by the way, for Winterton’s daughter, Jade, not its color.

Country: Malaysia

Reference:
Winterton, S. L., Guek, H. P., and S. J. Brooks. 2012. A charismatic new species of green lacewing discovered in Malaysia (Neuroptera, Chrysopidae): the confluence of citizen scientist, online image database and cybertaxonomy. ZooKeys 214, 1-11.

10] Hanging Around in the Jurassic
Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia

Living species of hangingflies can be found, as the name suggests, hanging beneath foliage where they capture other insects as food. They are a lineage of scorpionflies charactersized by their skinny bodies, two pairs of narrow wings, and long threadlike legs. A new fossil species, Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia, has been found along with preserved leaves of a gingko-like tree, Yimaia capituliformis, in Middle Jurassic deposits in the Jiulongshan Formation in China’s Inner Mongolia. The two look so similar that they are easily confused in the field and represent a rare example of an insect mimicking a gymnosperm, 165 million years ago, before the explosive radiation of flowering plants.

Country: China

Reference:
Wang, Y., Labandeira, C.C., Shih, C., Ding, Q., Wang, C., Zhao, Y., and D. Ren. 2012. Jurassic mimicry between a hangingfly and a ginkgo from China. PNAS 109, 20515-19.

About the Top Ten New Species List (source: top10species website):

The list is announced each year on or about Carolus Linnaeus’ birthday on May 23^rd. Linnaeus is the “Father of Taxonomy” and his work in the mid 18^th century was the beginning point for “modern” naming and classification of plants and animals.

A Note About IISE:

The International Institute for Species Exploration is dedicated to the exploration, inventory, and classification of earth’s species, public awareness of the biodiversity crisis, advocacy for the important roles played by taxonomy and natural history museums, and in advancing cybertaxonomy, the application of cyber and digital tools to accelerate and improved comparative morphology, descriptive taxonomy, and phylogenetic classification.

the trifecta of new species: (new, a vertebrate, a primate!)

Top Ten New Species Of 2013 — A ‘Musical’ Sponge, World’s Smallest Vertebrate, A ‘Paleolithic’ Fungus, A ‘Trifecta’ Find, & More! was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Overfishing has had an incredible effect on the quantity and diversity of fish present in the oceans of the world, along with greatly reducing biodiversity. Because of this decline in fish numbers, and a number of complete fishery collapses, the industry is becoming increasingly dependent upon only a handful of shellfish species. And now, new research from the University of York has detailed the extreme risks of such a situation/approach.

Image Credit: University of York

The research has found “that traditional fisheries targeting large predators such as cod and haddock, have declined over the past hundred years. In their place, catches of shellfish such as prawns, scallops and lobsters have rocketed as they begin to thrive in unnaturally predator-low environments often degraded by the passage of trawls and dredges.”

As a result, In many regions, shellfish are currently the most valuable marine resource, bring in large amounts of money for the industry. “The research by the Environment Department at York suggests that although a shellfish-dominated ecosystem appears beneficial from an economic perspective, it is highly risky. Like simplified agricultural systems, these shellfisheries are unstable in the long-term and at great risk of collapse from disease, species invasions and climate change. Warming and acidification of our oceans due to greenhouse gas emissions is expected to affect shellfish worst. Ocean acidification, in particular, will limit the ability of scallops and other shellfish to form proper shells, and lead to widespread mortality.”

Lead author, Leigh Howarth, says: “Prawns are now the most valuable fishery in the UK, with catches currently worth over £110 million a year. But this fishery has come to exist only after we overexploited populations of cod, haddock and other predators. If shellfish now collapsed the social consequences for fishermen would be devastating. There are simply very few remaining species left to target.”

The new research clarifies that this is a nearly-global problem now. In North America, because of the cod population collapse, lobster, scallops and crab are now the primary fishing resource there. “However, disease and climate change again put these species at great risk. While in the Black Sea, Baltic and off the west coast of Africa, overfishing of large predators have caused the ecosystems to become overrun with jellyfish, resulting in severe oxygen depletion and eruptions of hydrogen sulphide, thereby wiping out important food chains across 100,000 square kilometres of seabed.”

Co-author Dr Bryce Stewart adds: “Shellfish make a valuable contribution to our fisheries. But we cannot just assume everything is rosy. There is an urgent need for continued improvements in management of finfish fisheries, and an ecosystem approach which rebuilds the diversity, resilience and productivity of our oceans into the future.”

Co-author Professor Callum Roberts concludes: “The rise of shellfish has been welcomed by many as a lifeline for the fishing industry. However, such changes are not a result of successful management, but rather a result of management failure, a failure to protect stocks and their habitats in the face of industry innovation and overfishing. This study highlights why the UK needs to urgently act to protect our seas. We need more marine protected areas to stop our seas from becoming a wasteland and to restore the diversity and productivity of fisheries well into the future.”

The new research was recently published in the journal Fish and Fisheries.

Current Approach Of Fishery Industry Is Extremely Risky, Research Finds — May Lead To Collapse was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Crazy ants are currently invading Texas and the southeastern United States, displacing and eliminating the fire ants throughout those areas, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin. This is of course not a surprise for many of those throughout those regions who have had experiences with those ants. This is just the most recent of the recurrent ant invasions that have been happening since large-scale human movement between North and South America began in the 1800s. These invasions have had profound effects on the natural environments and ecosystems of North America.

Image Credit: Joe MacGown, Mississippi Entomological Museum

The new research has found that the “ecologically dominant” crazy ants are diminishing the biological diversity of the areas that they invade — eliminating a variety of different ant and arthropod species. The researchers argue that their spread can be limited if proper measures are taken — mostly if people take care to avoid transporting them inadvertently.

“When you talk to folks who live in the invaded areas, they tell you they want their fire ants back,” said Ed LeBrun, research associate with the Texas invasive species research program at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in the College of Natural Sciences. “Fire ants are in many ways very polite. They live in your yard. They form mounds and stay there, and they only interact with you if you step on their mound.”

The crazy ants though, they go everywhere — regularly invading people’s homes, nesting in them, in their walls, and damaging electrical equipment — all in great numbers.

Crazy ants were first found in the US back in 2002 “by a pest control operator in a suburb of Houston, and have since established populations in 21 counties in Texas, 20 counties in Florida, and a few sites in southern Mississippi and southern Louisiana. In 2012 the species was formally identified as Nylanderia fulva, which is native to northern Argentina and southern Brazil. Frequently referred to as Rasberry crazy ants, these ants recently have been given the official common name ‘Tawny crazy ants’.”

As mentioned before though, ant invasions are nothing new — the Argentine ant came through the port of New Orleans sometime 1891, before spreading throughout the South. “In 1918 the black imported fire ant showed up in Mobile, Ala. Then in the 1930s, the red imported fire ant arrived in the U.S. and began displacing the black fire ant and the Argentine ants.”

The press release continues:

The UT researchers studied two crazy ant invasion sites on the Texas Gulf Coast and found that in those areas where the Tawny crazy ant population is densest, fire ants were eliminated. Even in regions where the crazy ant population is less dense, fire ant populations were drastically reduced. Other ant species, particularly native species, were also eliminated or diminished.

LeBrun said crazy ants are much harder to control than fire ants. They don’t consume most of the poison baits that kill fire ant mounds, and they don’t have the same kinds of colony boundaries that fire ants do. That means that even if they’re killed in a certain area, the supercolony survives and can swarm back over the area.

“They don’t sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests,” he said. “There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It’s very expensive.”

Image Credit: Joe MacGown, Mississippi Entomological Museum

The researchers speculate that in the ants native area — northern Argentina and southern Brazil — that populations are probably held in check by other ant species/enemies. In the US there doesn’t appear to be any such natural controls though.

As a result, the crazy ants here “can attain densities up to 100 times as great as all other ants in the area combined. In the process, they monopolize food sources and starve out other species. The crazy ants, which are omnivorous, may also directly attack and kill other ant and arthropod species. The overall result is a significant reduction in abundance and biodiversity at the base of the food chain, which is likely to have implications for the ecosystem as a whole.”

“Perhaps the biggest deal is the displacement of the fire ant, which is the 300 pound gorilla in Texas ecosystems these days,” said LeBrun. “The whole system has changed around fire ants. Things that can’t tolerate fire ants are gone. Many that can have flourished. New things have come in. Now we are going to go through and whack the fire ants and put something in its place that has a very different biology. There are going to be a lot of changes that come from that.”

There remains much that is unknown about the Tawny crazy ants, including their potential range, so it is unclear what effects they may potentially have. As of now, “most of the colonies are in fairly wet environments with mild winters, near the coast, so it may be the case that they can’t thrive in drier or colder climates, and that fire ants will remain dominant in those areas.”

Their spread is also limited by the fact that because the reproductive members of their species don’t fly, they can’t spread very quickly. “When left to their own devices, crazy ant colonies can only advance about 200 meters a year. That means they’re dependent on humans to colonize new areas.”

“They are opportunistic nesters,” said LeBrun. “They can take up residence in everything from a house plant, to an empty container left outside, to an RV. So they’re easily transported by us. But the flip side of that is that if people living in or visiting invaded areas are careful and check for the crazy ants when moving or going on longer trips, they could have a huge impact on the spread.”

The researchers state that nursery products are also likely one of the key ways that the crazy ants spread, “so both buyers and sellers should be watchful for these ants. Cutting down on the number of transplantation events could slow the spread by years or decades. And that extra time could give the ecosystem time to adapt and researchers time to develop better control methods.”

“We can really make a difference,” he said, “but we need to be careful, and we need to know more.”

The new research was recently published in the journal Biological Invasions.

Crazy Ants Are Displacing Fire Ants — Invading Texas And The South (VIDEO) was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Aboard a modified Boeing 727 from the Zero G Corporation, the Made In Space team monitors and records each of the 3D printers in operation inside the experiment box as the simulated gravity environment reaches -.01g, as noted by the monitor in the background. In picture: Michael Snyder, Alison Lewis, and Aaron Kemmer. Image credit: Made In Space, Inc.

Regular readers of PS are aware that we have covered many news items of late involving the remarkably versatile technology known as 3D printing/rapid prototyping in which 3D computer design software, laser printing and materials science combine to create real (3 dimensional) objects or materials.

This tech has been used to “print” various useful items: solar energy cells, new pharmaceutical compounds (anti-cancer drugs) and even human embryonic stem cells (for organ/tissue replacement therapy). More recently, NASA has considered using 3D printing tech to create composite bricks for moon base building. But many folks reading of such amazing applications have probably also wondered: what about 3D printing food, ala the ‘food replicator’ machine featured frequently on old Star Trek episodes?

Well, wonder no more, as NASA has been thinking along the same lines and has recently invested $125,000.00 in a research company called Systems & Materials Research Cooperation (SMRC) to design a 3D printer capable of printing food — specifically pizza — using 30-year “shelf stable” food stocks.

Why pizza? Well, it’s the one basic food item that has never made it into space (in any form), but, it is also a food that is amenable to how the technology works — by building up 3D objects one layer at a time. Pizza is ideal for this process in that it can be made by layering bread dough, cheese* and sauce — plus “toppings” — sequentially (note: the layering would occur on a heating plate that would then cook the pizza, allowing for the familiar sensation of burning the rook of your mouth from hot, melting cheese).

However, the food stocks used here will not be ordinary, Earth kitchen ingredients; proteins and carbohydrates will come from “base powders” (like the toner powders in your office printer) derived from grass, algae and insects.

SMRC has even higher hopes for its technology than space; the company feels it’s 3D food printing machine (click link for diagram) will be crucial to providing food security in a predicted future world of 9 billion humans (by 2050).

* If done correctly (for you space foodies): first the dough, then a layer of cheese, followed by the sauce, and then another thinner layer of cheese, which holds everything together.

Watch this super techie video of a prototype, 3D printer/’food replicator’ (here printing chocolate) in action for the first NASA trial (article continues below):

3D Food Printer – The Beginnings and Details:

SMRC (founded by Arjan Contractor) was a recent winner of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research Program, in which they did a “mod” of a chocolate printer to build a basic food printer — a feat that duly impressed engineers and officials at NASA.

3D printing has its own long-standing maker community which supports open-source software projects. In this case, SMRC’s design was based on the open-source RepRap 3D printer. Construction of the prototype food replicator will begin in a few weeks but is not scheduled for actual delivery to the ISS until 2014.

The technology is also ‘dual use”: it can be used to fabricate tools and parts needed for, say, any emergency space walk repair mission (which happened recently).

Of course, the tech won’t be practical for making more complicated dishes, like Chicken Cordon Bleu (but it could handle Eggs Benedict), but then, when you’re stuck in LEO with nothing but plastic tubes filled with food paste, actual pizza (however rudimentary) will seem like ambrosia. Also: to provide enough food (calories) for a hungry crew, you’ll need bulk supplies of the key food stock ingredients to be kept on board, taking up precious space.

One other big question: will the technique work in zero (micro) gravity? Tests aboard a Boeing 727 “vomit comet” (courtesy of the Zero G Corporation; test team: Made in Space, Inc.) are underway (see top photo).

Some last food for thought:

So, what if this food replicator merges with artificial intelligence — will smart food replicators someday control the food we eat? Well, for those futurists out there worried about the Vinge ‘Singularity’ (first used by Werner Vinge to describe a super-intelligent “run-away robot” scenario), you may find it unnerving to know that RepRap’s has already made a 3D printer capable of printing itself (‘Mendel’ – named after the 19th Century scientist/monk Gregor Mendel who discovered the principle of inherited traits in plants).

Still, if one is going to be taken over by robots, self-replicating/pizza-printing  bots would surely be preferable to the other (scarier) kind.

3D-Printed Pizza In Space! NASA Funds ‘Food Replicator’ For Space Station [VIDEO] was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Below is a must-watch Bill Maher clip. So many great points and jokes are included in it, but the grand finale is on the topic of global warming denial, the biggest scandal of the last century. Depending on how far it goes, it could actually be the biggest scandal of human history, since its effects could cause the greatest human disaster, death, and chaos… humans have ever seen.

h/t to Peter Sinclair

Here are some more great Bill Maher clips and posts from the Important Media network:

1. Bill Maher: “If you’re a working-class American who still votes Republican … you’re stupid”
2. GMOs in Mainstream Media: Bill Maher on Labeling
3. Bill Maher Skewers Right-wing Idiots Who Hate Occupy Wall Street
4. Global Warming: One of the Best Videos on the Debate (Bill Maher)

Must Watch Bill Maher Clip — Global Warming Denial Is Biggest Scandal Of Century was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

The Dance of the Planets will be occurring from — roughly — May 24 through May 30. The “dance of the planets” is the name used for the event where Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury, all appear to be right next to each other in the evening sky, and over a period of time appear to rotate and change positions with each other. The show is expected to be a good one this year, so I recommend that anyone who has the time should check it out.

Image Credit: Nathan August © ; After Sunset via Flickr CC

The best days to watch will be from May 24 – 30 2013 — when all three planets will be within 5 degrees of each other, in the sunset/dusk sky. They of course won’t truly be anywhere near each other, but in actuality hundreds of millions of miles away from each other. That’s relativity.

Venus and Jupiter are often easily visible in the night’s sky, though typically not near each other. And Mercury is itself a bit more elusive, requiring some forethought or luck in order to see it. Since Mercury is very close to the Sun, it’s only visible from the Earth when the Sun is dimmed, as seen from the Earth, such as at and after sunset/twilight.

Image Credit: Nathan August © ; After Sunset via Flickr CC

ScienceHeathen has some details:

So for those wanting to watch, the best time is about 45 minutes after sunset, though really anytime around then is good. You’ll be wanting to look low on the west northwestern horizon. There will be a couple of bright ‘stars’ in the area — one of which will be Jupiter, one Venus, one Mercury, and then a couple of other true stars. The graphics on this page should give you a very good idea.

A note, sometimes, and in some regions you may need to use binoculars to see all three of the planets. It’s a beautiful show regardless though, even ‘just’ with the naked eye.

For information on the year’s other great astronomy events, see: Astronomy 2013, Comet ISON, Lunar Eclipses, Perseids, Solar Eclipses, Geninids, Supermoon, etc

Enjoy the show

Dance Of The Planets 2013 — Venus, Jupiter, And Mercury Dance May 24 – 30 was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

India has released a statement rejecting captive dolphin shows due to damage dolphins sustain when kept in confined spaces. ‘Confinement in captivity can seriously compromise the welfare and survival of all types of cetaceans by altering their behaviour and causing extreme distress,” said B.S. Bonal, the member secretary of the Central Zoo Authority of India. (Source:ENS)

Image Credit: Public Domain

Dolphins are some of the most admired animals in the world due to their intelligence and playfulness. However, one might argue that they have been ‘loved’ too much. It seems the best thing for dolphins is for humans to largely leave them alone. A incident in recent years at a dolphin tank in Switzerland resulting in at least one death prompted an investigation and banning of dolphin importation. With no new dolphins, the practice of using them for entertainment in Switzerland will die out.

What India did is much more assertive and shows a greater regard for dolphins. India is obviously a much larger country with a growing economy, so there might have been a significant market for dolphin-related consumer entertainment. Banning dolphin exploitation also seems to be more in accord with some of their cultural values, which to some extent have shown respect for the lives of animals.

Additionally, wild dolphins are not doing particularly well in India due to loss of habitat for human development and pollution fouling their waters. The Ganges may be sacred, but it is also a repository for much effluent.

Dolphin activists may have rejoiced at the news of the ban. At least one prominent dolphin advocate said the development was a huge win for dolphins.

You can do your part by refusing to pay the expensive entry fees for dolphin parks or other entertainment venues to exploit dolphins. Some have said such shows are educational, and they may convey some facts, but their main purpose is profits, not raising awareness.

Captive Dolphins Banned In India was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Small wind turbines are a perennial point of contention. According to wind energy expert Paul Gipe, they often don’t live up to their hype. However, in very high-wind and off-grid situations, they may sometimes be useful. You really just have to do the best you can to evaluate your unique situation. Check out this guest post below for a look at the small wind turbines that lead the market.

It seems not a month goes by without some crazy new idea about how to more efficiently harness wind on a small scale passing by our desks. But really who are the biggest small wind turbine companies in the world? We scoured the industry to put together our updated list of the top 5:

Bergey

Bergey Windpower is based in Oklahoma and is one of the longest standing small wind turbine companies in the world. They have a relatively simple horizontal design, identified by its yellow color, which is well suited for farms and other open spaces. Although their strongest presence is in the U.S., they do have presence in other locations with installations in over 50 countries. It was reported that Alec Baldwin would install one of their 10kW turbines on Long Island.

XZERES

XZERES’ wind designs are manufactured and deployed in the United States, the UK, and elsewhere around the world. According to their website, XZERES’ WindRx site assessment can aid in designing systems for markets such as residential, micro-grid based rural electrification, agricultural, small business, rural electric utility systems, as well as other private, corporate infrastructure and government applications. XZERES was formerly Abundant Renewable Energy (ARE) which ultimately went bankrupt in 2010 as part of a failed acquisition by Helix Wind (also now out of business). Afterwards XZERES was formed to resurrect ARE. XZERES trades publicly on the OTC (over the counter) market and had trailing 12 month revenue of $4.41m USD as of 11/30/2012.

UGE

Unlike the other companies listed here, New York City-headquartered Urban Green Energy (UGE) specializes in full distributed renewable energy (DRE) solutions, deploying hybrid solar/wind/storage solutions for enterprise customers. However, vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) have caught many people’s attention over the years, and no company has sold more VAWTs than UGE. With a unique look, they utilize a helical Darrieus design that allows the turbine to harness wind from all directions simultaneously while being extremely quiet and durable. High-profile installations of UGE turbines include projects with Lincoln Financial Field (home of the Philadelphia Eagles), BMW, and GE. UGE also designs and supplies a variety of applications for its wind turbines, including telecom base station applications, wind/solar off-grid street lighting, and teamed up with General Electric in 2011 to provide wind-powered electric vehicle charging stations care of the Sanya Skypump. In total UGE has worked in approximately 80 countries.

Gaia-Wind

The Gaia-Wind small wind turbine is a Danish design and is now approximately 20 years separated from its initial inception. The company’s global headquarters are located in Glasgow, Scotland, from where they manufacture and distribute their turbines worldwide. Within the US the exclusive distributor is Talco. Over 500 of their wind turbines have been installed worldwide with a combined operational history of more than 1,500 years. The Gaia-Wind turbine can be spotted by its two-blade design, which includes a patented hub which allows the two oversized blades to rotate.

Evance

Evance Wind Turbines is a UK-based company established 12 years ago. With over 1,600 of their turbines installed, it is among the leading companies in the industry, with a particularly strong presence in Europe. Evance has a single model wind turbine, rated at 5 kW, for both grid-tie and off-grid configurations, and sells them in systems which range from 5 kW to 15 kW.

Top Five Small Wind Turbines (In Sales) was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Image Credit: Tesla

The company appears to be on track to pay the loan back years early, and that includes the interest.

The loan was $465 million, and the Elon Musk is going to buy $100 million of shares at an upcoming public offering price. $45 million of that will be purchased from the public offering, while the other $55 million will be purchased directly from Tesla Motors.

$465 million sounds tremendous. However, Nissan received $1.4 billion in funding from the US government for the Nissan Leaf. Fortunately, that money was to prepare their Tennessee, United States factory, which has resulted in the cost of the US Nissan Leaf being cut by several thousand dollars.

Tesla Motors’ share value has increased drastically this month to over $91.

Related Stories:

• Tesla Coupe Rendered By Theophilus Chin Would Be Sweet
• Tesla’s First Superchargers Are Now Open To The Public

Tesla Motors Set To Repay Its Government Debt was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Green business table via Shutterstock

Going green is a much talked about topic. All kinds of rumors and false ideas are circulating about the environment and the actions we can take to help it. Here are 5 green myths debunked.

1. Going Green is More Expensive

Many are under the impression that everything green is expensive. It is quite the contrary. Granted, organic food and products of such are more pricey than “conventional” food. But going green extends beyond nutrition. And, in fact, if you’re no tree hugger and if no one can convince you that environmental issues are crucial, the one argument that could turn you is that going green is thrifty. Many environmental activists are using the money angle to convince people of adopting a greener lifestyle. You can save money on a ton a things: Energy bills, grocery bills, car related expenses, etc.

2. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs Are The Best Option

While they undoubtedly last much longer than conventional incandescent light bulbs, compact fluorescent light bulbs pose various ecological problems. Many myths circulated about them causing migraines or being a threat to health because of the mercury they contain. But what is truly scary about CFLs can be summed up in one question: What are we going to do with them all at the end of their useful life? CFLs made an entry into our domestic lives no more than 10 years ago. With a useful life that can last up to 50,000 hours, most of the bulbs currently used are not at the end of their useful life yet. Sooner rather than later, millions of compact fluorescent light bulbs will end up in the trash, all in the same time. While the mercury doesn’t compare to that coming from coal-fired power plants, it’s still mercury, and we have to do something with ut.

A much better solution is LED lights. More efficient, longer lasting, and no toxic residue. Here’s a great video showcasing the difference between LED and CFL.

3. Organic Food Is always the Greener Choice

If your organic food was shipped then trucked all the way from Costa Rica, its transportation causes a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, organic may not always be the greener choice. The ideal is to pair organic with local, of course, but when that is not an option, what do you do?

Economists will argue that choosing organic helps build a market demand, and that local farmers and producers will move to fill that demand. If local farmers are using GMO seeds and tons of pesticides, and they know that you’ll buy their stuff just because it’s local, what’s the economic incentive for them to stop destroying the world with GMOs? So, not a clear choice, but organic does not ALWAYS mean the greenest option.

4. Recycling Will Save the World

It’ll help it a lot, yes, and thank goodness for recycling. But we should not rely only on it. Recycling factories, depending on the material they recycle, use incredible amount of energy and of water to process the recycled material. What is the solution, then? Remember that “Recycling” come third in the three “Rs”: Reduce, Reuse, and then, only, Recycle. We should keep in mind that the best environmental initiative is to consume less and to come up with many upcycling ideas for our everyday items.

Mireille is a travel, music and theater enthusiast. She wrote for the stage and television, and is now working as a freelance blogger for Via Rail, a Canadian railroad transporter helping travelers finding the best Montreal packages and getaways.

4 Green Myths Debunked was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

A photosynthetic bacteria that can survive without light? What…? A strain of photosynthetic cyanobacteria has been genetically manipulated by researchers at the University of California – Davis and is now able to grow without the presence of light.

Image Credit: Cyanobacteria via Wikimedia Commons

“In this work, we used synthetic biology approaches to probe and rewire photoautotrophic (exclusively relying on carbon dioxide and light energy for growth) cyanobacterial metabolism for the ability to grow without light energy,” says Jordan McEwen, the lead researcher on the study. McEwen is a member of Shota Atsumi’s lab at the university, the researchers there are primarily focused on the development of biofuels via synthetic organisms.

The cyanobacterium strain in question — Synechococcus elongatus strain PCC 7942 — has been characterized by previous work as a model photoautotroph. Previous work done by Atsumi’s lab “has engineered this organism to recycle carbon dioxide into a variety of biofuels and valuable chemicals in the presence of light. Any cost-effective, cyanobacterial biofuel production scheme would use natural lighting conditions, limiting how much biofuel could be produced in a 24-hour period.”

“To overcome this constraint, we installed foreign genes into S. elongatus to allow this cyanobacterium to grow and generate biofuels in diurnal (light or dark) conditions,” says McEwen. “With recent, increased focus on cyanobacteria-based industrial applications, this advancement is desirable for more efficient, economical and controllable bioproduction systems.”

Research such as this always begs the question — is this a good idea? Altering any natural ecosystems is always a questionable affair, but on the microbial scale man-made alterations could be particularly unpredictable.

Microbes Genetically Engineered To Grow In The Dark was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

image credit: krutikof

Have you ever tried to engage in a balanced discussion or debate over, say, macro-economics or maybe foreign policy — subjects that are complex and contingent upon many factors — and found yourself frustrated in your attempts by an extreme/unyielding ideological viewpoint?

Well, the next time you’re confronted with an extreme (and typically over-simplified) political viewpoint, you might try asking that person to explain their viewpoint, that is, ask them to detail how they think a certain policy or law actually works. You might just find that their extreme view will shift to one that is more moderate and balanced.

This shift from an extreme view to a less extreme one is due to the ‘illusion of understanding’, according to new research published in the journal Psychological Science.

How to Explain the Rise and Ubiquity of Polarized Politics?

The generally perceived increase in political polarization in the US in recent years, prompted a team of psychological scientists (Fernbach et al) at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, Boulder, to explore some of the possible factors contributing to this increase in extreme/polarizing politics.

“We wanted to know how it’s possible that people can maintain such strong positions on issues that are so complex — such as macroeconomics, health care, foreign relations — and yet seem to be so ill-informed about those issues,” said Philip Fernbach, lead researcher on the study.

Previous research on voter viewpoints seems to indicate that this ‘illusion of understanding’ is based upon people possessing a misapprehension (the ‘illusion’) of their own knowledge of a subject, that is, they tend to believe that their understanding is greater or better than it actually is*.

Apparently, when the extreme view-holding person is tasked with explaining the “nuts and bolts” of how a given policy or law works, this forces them to confront the fact that they do not know as much about the policy as they had previously thought, forcing them to moderate or soften their former extreme view.

Welcome news, to be sure, but not that surprising, really.

* This misapprehension about one’s own knowledge seems very similar to the ‘Dunning-Kruger Effect’ in which a person’s incompetence prevents them from recognizing their incompetence.

The Experiments – Explaining Your Views Points

In the first of two experiments conducted by the research team, participants were given an on-line survey to assess how well they understood six different policies (e.g., raising the retirement age for Social Security qualifying, or implementing a national ‘flat tax’ or merit-based pay for teachers). Following this self-rating, the participants were randomly given two of the policies to actually explain and then they were asked to rate themselves again based upon how well they thought they understood the issues.

Data from these self-assessments corroborated the earlier prediction; in general, people reported lower understanding on all six policies after being tasked with explaining them. Further, results showed that as participants’ understanding of a policy decreased, their uncertainty about a position increased, and the less extreme their position became.

These results held true for “views” spanning the mainstream political spectrum — Republican, Independent, and Democrat.

What’s more, the researchers found a strongly correlated behavioral effect from this shifting of viewpoints; a second experiment showed that people indeed “put their money where their mouth is” (or rather, withhold their money when faced with their policy ignorance) in terms of monetary donations to a given political cause. Given the opportunity to donate ‘bonus’ money to a politically-related organization, participants whose extreme views had shifted or “softened” after having to explain the policies were less likely to donate money to that political organization.

The Importance of Being Uncertain

The researchers feel that their findings could possibly help to keep lines of communication open amongst those locked in ideologically-driven debate or negotiations.

“This research is important because political polarization is hard to combat. There are many psychological processes that act to create greater extremism and polarization, but this is a rare case where asking people to attempt to explain makes them back off their extreme positions.” commented Fernbach.

This study (Fernbach et al) would also seem to be supported by, or be related to, earlier research regarding the role that uniformed individuals (those showing ‘weak preferences” in both human and non-human animal groups) play in “promoting democratic consensus” through preventing extreme minority viewpoints from dictating group choice (see: Couzin et al; ‘Uninformed Individuals Promote Democratic Consensus in Animal Groups’, Science, 16 Dec., 2011).

Well, maybe as long as the “uninformed individuals” have to explain themselves before they go vote.

The study paper is entitled: ‘Political Extremism Is Supported by an Illusion of Understanding’ and its co-authors include Todd Rogers, Harvard Kennedy School; Craig R. Fox of the University of California, Los Angeles; and Steven A. Sloman of Brown University. Source: Association for Psychological Science

*Author’s Comment:

While I find this study affirming of my principles of moderation (in most things) and feel it is generally valid, the study results imply (and seem to confirm) that any given extreme political view (towards a given policy, as defined by the researchers) is generally held by someone who cannot explain accurately the policy for which the view is held. The study also seems to imply that the extreme view is the ‘wrong’ view (because it is unsupported by personal understanding; it could be unsupported, but, by chance, be correct), and further seems to imply that, therefore, the moderated/softened view is more “correct”, or closer to the truth.

Psychological studies such as these are always problematic.

Some source material for this post (including quotes) came from the escience news article: ‘Extreme political attitudes may stem from an illusion of understanding’ - published: Monday, April 29, 2013 – 12:36 in the Psychology & Sociology section.

Top Image: (two male politicians cartoon) by krutikof via shutterstock.com

Extreme Political Views Caused By The ‘Illusion of Understanding’ was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

In case you haven’t see the photos that are going around the Web, there is one below. The horse reportedly is owned by the president of Turkmenistan Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

Image Credit: Public Domain

The breed is Akhal Teke and there may be only about 3,500 of them in the world. Some are cream-colored like this one, and others have different colors such as chestnut, palomino, perlino, gray and black. The metallic sheen to their coats is a signature trait.

Their breed may date back to about 3,000 years ago and they are known for endurance. In one case, this kind of horse reportedly was ridden 2,500 miles by a group of Turk men in 1935. They accomplished this feat in about 83 days.

They may have first used by tribesman from Turkmenistan for conducting raids and were known for hardiness in difficult terrain and climates. The name Akhal Teke came from a Russian general who admired these horses and named them for Turk tribesman who lived near Akhal oasis.

These horses are naturally athletic and have been used by people to good effect for dressage, racing, jumping and eventing. Today, Turkmenistan also uses them as diplomatic gifts.

Because the population is small, there are some genetic issues. There is also some question about their relationship with thoroughbred racehorses. They may have preceded Arabians, or in some cases, mixed with them.

At any rate, some might object to saying a horse breed that has been manipulated so much is beautiful, because it isn’t the most natural. The most natural would probably be those living in the wild, but in North America even wild mustangs are said to be ‘feral’ by some people. The number of truly wild horses left in the world, is probably very tiny, especially relative to the number of domesticated breeds.

World’s Most Beautiful Horse? was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Melt from Alaska’s Columbia Glacier and other glaciers around the world contributed as much to global sea rise as the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets combined from 2003 and 2009.
Image Credit: Tad Pfeffer, University of Colorado

Research has found that approximately 99% of our planet’s land-locked ice is held up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The remainder, however, is out in the open, located primarily in the glaciers dotted throughout the appropriate latitudes across the planet.

And according to new research, those glaciers contributed approximately the same amount of water to sea level rise as the two ice sheets combined between 2003 and 2009.

All glacial regions lost ice mass over the period studied, but the biggest losses happened in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes, and the Himalayas, losing an estimated 260 billion metric tonnes of ice annually during the study period, causing the oceans to rise approximately 0.7 millimetres per year.

The study, led by Clark University and involving the University of Colorado Boulder compared traditional mound measurements to satellite data collected from NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE).

“For the first time, we’ve been able to very precisely constrain how much these glaciers as a whole are contributing to sea rise,” said geography Assistant Professor Alex Gardner of Clark University in Worcester, Mass., lead study author. “These smaller ice bodies are currently losing about as much mass as the ice sheets.”

“Because the global glacier ice mass is relatively small in comparison with the huge ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica, people tend to not worry about it,” said CU-Boulder Professor Tad Pfeffer, a study co-author.  “But it’s like a little bucket with a huge hole in the bottom: it may not last for very long, just a century or two, but while there’s ice in those glaciers, it’s a major contributor to sea level rise,” said Pfeffer, a glaciologist at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

The University of Colorado Boulder explained the two ways in which the two satellite missions worked;

ICESat, which ceased operations in 2009, measured glacier changes using laser altimetry, which bounces laser pulses off the ice surface to determine changes in the height of ice cover. The GRACE satellite system, still operational, detects variations in Earth’s gravity field resulting from changes in the planet’s mass distribution, including ice displacements.

GRACE does not have a fine enough resolution and ICESat does not have sufficient sampling density to study small glaciers, but mass change estimates by the two satellite systems for large glaciated regions agree well, the scientists concluded.

“Because the two satellite techniques, ICESat and GRACE, are subject to completely different types of errors, the fact that their results are in such good agreement gives us increased confidence in those results,” said CU-Boulder physics Professor John Wahr, a study co-author and fellow at the university’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

Glaciers Contributing Same As Ice Sheet Melt To Sea Level Rise was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Scientific understanding is continually shifting as time moves on. For decades now, scientists have assumed that ancient high tide lines referred to higher sea levels. These assumptions have led scientists to believe that if the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets were to completely melt, they would cause such a high sea level again.

New research, however, has challenged these assumptions, by showing that the Earth’s hot mantle pushed up segments of ancient shorelines over millions of years, skewing what we thought we understood.

“Our findings suggest that the previous connections scientists made between ancient shoreline height and ice volumes are erroneous and that perhaps our ice sheets were more stable in the past than we originally thought,” says Rowley. “Our study is telling scientists that they can no longer ignore the effect of Earth’s interior dynamics when predicting historic sea levels and ice volumes.”

In other words, the sea level is not just influenced by the amount of water going into it, but the level of activity going on underneath it as well.

“This study was the culmination of years of work and deep collaboration by researchers in CIFAR’s program in Earth System Evolution,” explains Rowley. “For this study, each of us brought our individual expertise to the table: Rob and Alex worked on simulations of Earth’s mantle dynamics, Jerry provided calculations on how glaciers warp Earth’s surface, and I shaped our understanding of the geology of the landscape we were looking at. This study would not have been possible without CIFAR.”

The research team, including CIFAR Senior Fellows Alessandro Forte (Université du Québec à Montréal) and Jerry Mitrovica (Harvard), and a former CIFAR-supported post-doctoral fellow Rob Moucha (Syracuse), studied the coast from Virginia to Florida which has a high-tide line much higher than current day levels. Previous research assumed that the presumed high sea level was caused by a collapse of the Greenland, West Antarctic, and a portion of the East Antarctic ice sheets, subsequently raising the sea level by 35 metres.

The new research, however, suggests that the ice sheets in question — specifically the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the world’s largest ice sheet — were, and are, more stable than previously assumed.

Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets More Stable Than Previously Thought was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Genome sequencing diagnostics has some serious limitations to it, as researchers at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute recently discovered when they came across three children who had some of the rare inherited conditions collectively known as Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG), but only in some of the cells of their body, not all. The children are ‘mosaics’ — the term used for people who have different genomes in different parts of their body.

The press release from the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute provides some context:

Children born with rare, inherited conditions known as CDG have mutations in one of the many enzymes the body uses to decorate its proteins and cells with sugars. Properly diagnosing a child with CDG and pinpointing the exact sugar gene that’s mutated can be a huge relief for parents — they better understand what they’re dealing with and doctors can sometimes use that information to develop a therapeutic approach. Whole-exome sequencing, an abbreviated form of whole-genome sequencing, is increasingly used as a diagnostic for CDG.

But researchers at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute recently discovered three children with CDG who are mosaics — only some cells in some tissues have the mutation. For that reason, standard exome sequencing initially missed their mutations, highlighting the technique’s diagnostic limitations in some rare cases.

“This study was one surprise after another,” said Hudson Freeze, Ph.D., director of Sanford-Burnham’s Genetic Disease Program and senior author of the study. “What we learned is that you have to be careful — you can’t simply trust that you’ll get all the answers from gene sequencing alone.”

Complicated arrangements of sugar molecules decorate almost every protein and cell in the body. These sugars are crucial for cellular growth, communication, and many other processes. As a result of a mutation in an enzyme that assembles these sugars, children with CDG experience a wide variety of symptoms, including intellectual disability, digestive problems, seizures, and low blood sugar.

To diagnose CDG, researchers will test the sugar arrangements on a common protein called transferrin. Increasingly, they’ll also look for known CDG-related mutations by whole-exome sequencing, a technique that sequences only the small portion of the genome that encodes proteins. The patients are typically three to five years old.

In the new research, it was observed that there were “different proportions and representations of sugar arrangements depending on which tissues were examined. In other words, these children have the first demonstrated cases of CDG ‘mosaicism’ — their mutations only appear in some cell types throughout the body, not all. As a result, the usual diagnostic tests, like whole-exome sequencing, missed the mutations. It was only when Freeze’s team took a closer look, examining proteins by hand using biochemical methods, did they identify the CDG mutations in these three children.”

The researchers then returned “to the three original children and examined their transferrin again. Surprisingly, these readings, which had previously shown abnormalities, had become normal. Freeze and his team believe this is because mutated cells in the children’s livers died and were replaced by normal cells over time.”

“If the transferrin test hadn’t been performed early on for these children, we never would’ve picked up these cases of CDG. We got lucky in this case, but it just shows that we can’t rely on any one test by itself in isolation,” Freeze said.

The findings were recently published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Genome Sequencing Diagnostics Have Significant Problems, As New Research Demonstrates was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

NASA’s relentless solar-powered Mars rover Opportunity has now set a new record — greatest distance traveled by a US made vehicle on another world. The Opportunity rover was originally scheduled only for a three-month mission that began back in January 2004, but the solar-powered rover has shown itself to be quite tough and long-lasting — greatly outlasting the original mission.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State University

The new record set by Opportunity eclipses a record set more than 40 years ago by the Apollo moon buggy. Opportunity has traveled 22.220 miles on the Red Planet. The previous record was 22.210 miles, held by the Apollo 17 moon rover, which was driven by the astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt across the lunar surface in December 1972. The new US record is still about a mile under the world record — 23 miles — held by the Soviet Union’s Lunokhod 2 rover, which landed on the Moon in 1973.

“The record we established with a roving vehicle was made to be broken, and I’m excited and proud to be able to pass the torch to Opportunity,” Cernan said a few days ago in a conversation with Opportunity team member Jim Rice, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., space agency officials said.

The Mars rover Opportunity, along with its twin, Spirit, began their mission on Mars in order to look for evidence of past water activity on the planet, which thy both found.

Spirit, while lastly greatly linger than was originally expected, did finally give out in 2010, ceasing communication, and being declared “dead” by NASA. Opportunity, though, is still going strong. the Mars rover is currently on exploring the rim of Mars’ Endeavour Crater.

“Opportunity had been working at a section of the rim dubbed ‘Cape York’ since the middle of 2011. But this week it began trekking toward an area called Solander Point, which lies 1.4 miles away.”

So it’s looking very likely that Opportunity will soon surpass Lunokhod 2′s record, taking the record for overall off-planet driving as well.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“I want to beat that record,” John Callas, Opportunity’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told SPACE.com last year, at a time when the rover’s odometer read 21.35 miles (34.4 km).

It’s possible though that the Mars rover Curiosity may be able to surpass both records, though that may not be for awhile…

NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity Breaks Record For Off-Planet Driving By A US Made Vehicle was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

An asteroid big enough to cause an extinction event if it were to impact the Earth will pass by us at a distance of about 3.6 million miles on May 31, 2013. That’s about the distance that theEarth is from the Moon, times 15. The asteroid — asteroid 1998 QE2 — isn’t any danger to us anytime in the near-future, but it is an interesting opportunity, giving researchers the chance to observe a 230-foot — or larger — asteroid at relatively close range.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target at Goldstone and Arecibo and we expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface features,” said radar astronomer Lance Benner, the principal investigator for the Goldstone radar observations from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Whenever an asteroid approaches this closely, it provides an important scientific opportunity to study it in detail to understand its size, shape, rotation, surface features, and what they can tell us about its origin. We will also use new radar measurements of the asteroid’s distance and velocity to improve our calculation of its orbit and compute its motion farther into the future than we could otherwise.”

The asteroid’s closest approach will be on May 31, at 1:59 pm Pacific time, or 4:59 pm Eastern time. This is the closest that the asteroid will approach the planet in at least the next two hundred years. The asteroid was discovered only very recently, on August 19, 1998, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program near Socorro, New Mexico.

Current estimates state that the asteroid is likely around 1.7 miles. With radar, “the Goldstone antenna could resolve features on the asteroid as small as 12 feet (3.75 meters) across, even from 4 million miles away.”

“It is tremendously exciting to see detailed images of this asteroid for the first time,” said Benner. “With radar we can transform an object from a point of light into a small world with its own unique set of characteristics. In a real sense, radar imaging of near-Earth asteroids is a fundamental form of exploring a whole class of solar system objects.”

The press release from NASA continues:

Asteroids, which are always exposed to the sun, can be shaped like almost anything under it. Those previously imaged by radar and spacecraft have looked like dog bones, bowling pins, spheroids, diamonds, muffins, and potatoes. To find out what 1998 QE2 looks like, stay tuned. Between May 30 and June 9, radar astronomers using NASA’s 230-foot-wide (70 meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, are planning an extensive campaign of observations. The two telescopes have complementary imaging capabilities that will enable astronomers to learn as much as possible about the asteroid during its brief visit near Earth.

NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. In fact, the U.S. has the most robust and productive survey and detection program for discovering near-Earth objects. To date, U.S. assets have discovered over 98 percent of the known NEOs.

In 2012, the NEO budget was increased from $6 million to $20 million. Literally dozens of people are involved with some aspect of near-Earth object (NEO) research across NASA and its centers. Moreover, there are many more people involved in researching and understanding the nature of asteroids and comets, including those that come close to Earth, plus those who are trying to find and track them in the first place.

In related news, in only a couple of years (2016) NASA will be launching a mission/robotic probe to investigate “one of the most potentially hazardous of the known NEOs. The OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid (101955) Bennu will be a pathfinder for future spacecraft designed to perform reconnaissance on any newly-discovered threatening objects. Aside from monitoring potential threats, the study of asteroids and comets enables a valuable opportunity to learn more about the origins of our solar system, the source of water on Earth, and even the origin of organic molecules that lead to the development of life.”

And NASA also recently announced their plans to capture an asteroid and then relocate it to a point near the Moon, where it would be easier for humans to explore it. “Using game-changing technologies advanced by the Administration, this mission would mark an unprecedented technological achievement that raises the bar of what humans can do in space. Capturing and redirecting an asteroid will integrate the best of NASA’s science, technology and human exploration capabilities and draw on the innovation of America’s brightest scientists and engineers.”

Asteroid 1998 QE2 — Asteroid Big Enough To Cause Extinction Event Passes By The Earth On May 31 2013 was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Human cell-line colony being cloned in vitro through use of cloning rings. Own work – photo credit: Bob Walker, 2006; cc-by-sa 2.5)

A team of reproductive biologists led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at the Oregon Health and Science University (Beaverton, OR) have successfully created ‘patient-specific’ embryonic stem cells (ESCs) through cloning.

The improved cloning technique used by the team is much more efficient than previous approaches that have achieved only partial successes. The breakthrough will surely reignite ethical debate over the controversial technique that has long-promised cures for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, to name just two.

The purpose of cloning ESCs is to create perfectly matched (thus ‘ patient-specific’) cell lines (cultures). ESCs are ‘pluripotent’ and capable of becoming any other cell type (except placenta cells) — given the right molecular prompts. But the technique requires the destruction of embryos in order to derive the ESCs that can then be made to ‘differentiate’ into any other type of cell (e.g., heart cells, liver cells, neurons, etc.).

This required destruction of the source embryo is what has sparked the ethical debate over its use (and the banning of stem cell research of this kind in many states). Additionally, there have been recent cases of exposed fraud* and, newer, alternative techniques (i.e., cell reprogramming via ‘induced pluripotent stem cells’ [iPSCs] or transdifferentiation) have been developed that would seem to obviate the need for cloning.

The cloning technique used here is known as ‘therapeutic cloning’, or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) and is essentially the same technique — with a few important ‘tweaks’ — used to create the first cloned sheep (‘Dolly’). In SCNT cells, a donor cell is fused with an egg (also a single cell) from which the nucleus (containing the egg’s DNA) has been removed. The egg cell then reprograms the transferred DNA from the donor cell into an embryonic state which then begins dividing until a multi-cell stage (i.e., a blastocyst) is achieved. The newly divided cells are then harvested to create a cell line (lineage) that is genetically matched to the donor and capable of differentiating into any cell type desired.

* Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University in S. Korea, published studies in 2004 and 2005 which fraudulently claimed to have successfully cloned ESCs.

The New and Improved Experiments

Mitalipov et al perfected their technique using monkey eggs before working with human eggs. In their technique, the researchers used an inactivated Sendai virus to induce the egg and donor cell fusion stage and then applied an electric jolt to trigger embryonic development (i.e., cell division). Following initial failures to generate stable cell lines, caffeine was added to protect the egg from premature development. These techniques are not new, but when used in the right combination, produce stable, growing ESC colonies.

Seeing double: human embryonic stem cells have finally been made using cloning techniques. Image credit: OHSU Photos)

The experiments, begun in September, 2012, took only a few months to achieve success. The techniques were successfully applied to cloning monkey cell lines back in 2007 and observers have wondered why it took six years to to do the same with human ESCs. Mitalipov asserts that much of that time was spent dealing with US stem cell regulations on ESC research (imposed under George W. Bush).

Some of the cloned cell lines were created using fetal skin cells while others were derived from an 8-month old patient with a rare metabolic syndrome. These latter cells were used to prove that ESCs could be derived from matured donor cells. Also, the technique used here did not require destruction of a large number of eggs; it took 15 eggs to generate the latter cell line and just 5 eggs to generate the former.

The team conducted several test to verify that these were viable SCNT cells capable of differentiating into other cell types (including self-contracting heart cells, or cardiocytes).

The Future of Therapeutic Cloning

This improved cloning technique to derive patient-specific ESCs comes along at a time when many are questioning the need for therapeutic cloning. These critics point to fairly new iPSC technology — first developed in 2006 (Takahashi K, Yamanaka S) — and an improved version of this technique (RNA-induced Pluripotent Stem cells, or RiPS cells; Rossi et al),  which seem to be just as successful at generating patient-specific cell lines — with no embryonic destruction required.

As long as the technique requires destroying even a single embryo, no funding from the US National Institutes of Health (which are funded by taxpayers) can be used to derive or experiment with SCNT cells — putting a brake on most new medical research in this field.

Further, the procedure is expensive in that eggs are acquired through paid donors (who are paid between $USD 3000 – 7000) and bio-ethicists have argued that this exploits the poor and could promote an “organ trade”.

Their are even fears that the breakthrough could trigger a new round of “cloning hysteria” over the possibility of cloning a human being. But fellow researcher (and co-author of the paper) Masahito Tachibana asserts that human cloning is not possible using their (SCNT) technique,and that why this is so will be explained in a forth-coming paper (note: earlier experiments with monkey embryos by Mitalipov failed to produce an actual cloned monkey).

In the meantime, researchers look forward to clinical comparison between the two techniques (i.e., iPS and SCNT cells). Some have argued that iPS cells are not truly “reprogrammed”, due to defects caused by inserted DNA (but see the linked article above, ‘RiPS cells’), and, that SCNT cells are more similar to ESCs derived from in vitro fertilization techniques. To that end, Mitalipov and Tachibana have begun a new study comparing the two, derived-cell techniques using an identical donor cell for the fused-cell source.

Medical biologists around the world are eagerly awaiting the results — and anticipating a renewed ethical debate.

Some source material for this post came from the Sci Am article: ‘Patient-Specific Human Embryonic Stem Cells Created by Cloning’ by David Cyranoski and Nature magazine (published May 15, 2013)

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on May 15, 2013.

Medical Breakthrough: ‘Patient-Specific’ Embryonic Stem Cells Achieved By Cloning was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

A news story about a woman who swam with dolphins and was somehow inspired to visit a doctor who identified a cancer tumor, has speculated a dolphin might have helped. A Panama City Beach, Florida woman went on a dolphin cruise and once in the water with about 15 dolphins something strange happened. One male dolphin stayed near her and even bumped her. Then it did a flip in front of her.

Image Credit: Henry A-W, Wiki Commons

She told the dolphin trainer what had happened and he asked her if she was sick and if the dolphin swim as one of her last wishes. She said no and replied with the same answer when he asked if she had cancer.

After she returned home she notice a pain in her chest and decided to go to a doctor after remembering the dolphin encounter. The doctor found a tumor in one of her lungs, which she had treated. The woman credits the dolphin with helping her get checked out and saving her life. She plans to visit him in the British Virgin Islands again.

While it seems likely that the dolphin’s behavior towards the sick women was merely a coincidence and that we may have a tendency to read too much into such a situation, how exactly do we know dolphins don’t have abilities we don’t yet understand?

An Emory University researcher said there is no connection,  “Despite the mythology, there is no evidence that dolphins can detect cancers and other diseases in the human body. Why was the dolphin ramming the woman and getting excited? It could be for a number of reasons—agitation, play, but none of them show the dolphin detected the cancer.” (Source: Takepart)

Reportedly, the dolphin from the British Islands is kept in captivity. If it becomes a widespread belief that dolphins can help detect cancer, the number of dolphins held in captivity might grow. Some people are already concerned dolphins held in captivity are being subjected to abuse and cruelty, so adding more would only make the situation worse.

What’s more puzzling is that there are better ways to detect cancer and ones that are far less dramatic – simply getting regular checkups and tests.

There are probably more cases of dolphins butting into humans they swim with where there was no cancer or any illness. Hopefully, this one news account won’t cause humans to abuse dolphins anymore than they are currently.

Dolphin Detected Woman’s Cancer? was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

A very commonly used insecticide, imidacloprid (a neonicotinoid), has now been found by new research to be extremely toxic to aquatic organisms, often leading to their death. It’s very important to note that the “slow starvation” caused by the insecticide is undetectable by conventional toxicity tests, which are done on a much shorter time frame than the new research was. Which means that many chemicals which are now considered to be “non-toxic”, in various regards, may have effects completely undetected by the most-commonly used toxicity tests.

Image Credit: EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology

The new research looked specifically at the effects of imidacloprid on native freshwater shrimps (gammarids). The shrimps “were exposed to pulsed high and to constant low concentrations of imidacloprid. Peak concentrations typically occur when rain falls on farmland during or shortly after the application of insecticides; these soluble but persistent substances can then enter surface waters via runoff. Interestingly, pulses lasting no more than a day proved less harmful to the organisms than concentrations that were much lower but persisted for several days or weeks. While organisms transferred to clean water after pulsed exposure recovered relatively rapidly, constant exposure led to starvation after 2 to 3 weeks. This was because the organisms’ mobility and feeding behavior was impaired by the neurotoxin.”

“The slow starvation effect observed under constant exposure to low levels of neonicotinoids is not detected by conventional toxicity tests, as they are not carried out over a period of several weeks. In addition, the study indicated that seasonal and environmental factors can be crucial: the results of the experiments are significantly affected by organisms’ initial fitness and lipid reserves. To eliminate these effects and to identify processes other than starvation that influence survival rates in aquatic organisms, the research team has also developed a mathematical model which makes it possible to predict harmful concentrations and exposure times.”

Neonicotinoids are a group of widely-used insecticides that have been previously linked, by a growing body of research, to honeybee decline and colony collapse disorder.

As the press release from Eawag notes: “At the end of April, the EU imposed a 2-year ban on the use of neurotoxic agents belonging to the neonicotinoid group. In Switzerland, the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) has followed suit, suspending the authorizations of three insecticides used on oilseed rape and maize fields. These measures have been taken in response to evidence that neonicotinoids are toxic to honeybees and are contributing to the decline of bee colonies.”

The new research was just published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Insecticides Cause Slow Starvation In Aquatic Organisms, Discovery Shows Limits Of Conventional Toxicity Tests was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

A recent study of research papers published from 1991 to 2011 that took a view on human-related climate change found 97% of them were agreement that humans are a factor. The study was published in Environmental Research Letters, Volume 8, Number 2.

Image Credit: Public Domain

A large team of researchers made up the study group, which had affiliations with quite a number of organizations, such as the University of Queensland, Australia, the School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Australia Tetra Tech, Incorporated, and Department of Chemistry at Michigan Technological University.

In their study abstract, the researchers wrote, ‘Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus.’ (Source: Environmental Research Letters)

Is it a big deal that researchers found this pattern of consensus?
Considering that scientists are the source of technical information for climate change mechanisms and impacts, the answer must be yes.

If one considers that a majority of American pastors expressed doubt about the role of humans in creating climate change, it is easy to see how important the role of science is in bringing accurate information to the public.

Our collective reality and denial have been linked for centuries to a religious view of the world – one that dismissed science aggressively at times (Galileo). The most important beliefs about reality were tied to the Bible and the privileged few – such as pastors, priests and ministers – who advised their congregations on life’s matters. However, today science is very much interwoven into our society and culture and it appears religion has taken a backseat to personal freedoms and expression. When scientists study the work of their fellow researchers and conclude it almost entirely points at one view, we can respond with gratitude and sobriety, indifference or denial.

It certainly is much more difficult to address, observe and document the complexity of reality than to refer to a single book that has existed for the duration of a good portion of Western civilization.

Interestingly, the book doesn’t have any solutions for climate change. Nor does it even reference it. What we do going forward will be recorded for future generations to study, and humans eventually will adapt in accordance with this changing scientific information.

97% Of Research Papers Say Global Warming Is Manmade was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Hofstadter’s butterfly in color. The horizontal axis is the energy (or chemical potential) and the vertical axis is the magnetic flux through the unit cell. The warm and cold colors represent positive and negative values of Hall conductance, respectively (image credit: Mytomi)

Forty years ago, a mysterious and beautiful “butterfly-shaped” magnetic energy pattern was theorized by famed physicist and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Douglas Hofstadter. But due to previous limitations in the laboratory technology used to generate strong magnetic fields, this pattern had here-to-fore never materialized.

Today, two separate but cross-collaborating research teams — one of which is from the High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) at Florida State University (Tallahassee, Florida) — reported the first ever observations of the ‘Hofstadter butterfly’.

“The observation of the ‘Hofstadter butterfly’ marks a real landmark in condensed matter physics and high magnetic field research,” said Greg Boebinger, director of the MagLab. “It opens a new experimental direction in materials research.”

Condensed matter physics is a branch of physics that seeks to understand the physical properties of condensed phases of matter. The most common condensed phases of matter are solids and liquids but modern research here mostly focuses on more “exotic” phases such as the low-temperature superconducting, ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic phases of atomic spin (on crystal lattices) and the Bose-Einstein condensate found in cold atomic systems.

Fellow MagLab physicist Nicholas Bonesteel, added:

“The Hofstadter butterfly is a beautiful fractal energy pattern that has intrigued physicists for decades. Seeing clear experimental evidence for it is a real breakthrough.”

About the Butterfly

While a student at the University of Oregon, Hofstadter wrote what would become a very influential paper (“Energy levels and wave functions of Bloch electrons in rational and irrational magnetic fields”) in condensed matter physics. In the paper, he theorized and predicted certain allowable energy levels of a electron in a 2D square lattice (recently constructed from the above-mentioned materials) as a function of a magnetic field applied to the lattice, and forming what would later be known as a fractal set.

Rendering of the butterfly by Hofstadter

In this case, the fractal set describes the observed distribution of energy levels for small-scale changes in the (applied) magnetic field that recursively repeat patterns observed in the larger scale structure (note: this is known in fractal geometry as self-similarity). The graphical representation of this fractal structure or pattern is what came to be known as the  “Hofstadter’s butterfly”. It is one of only two examples of fractal geometry in physics (the other being the  KAM tori).

How The Break Through Was Achieved

This particular breakthrough required measurements of material samples at very low temperatures and subjected to very high magnetic field strengths (up to 35 Teslas; note: the most powerful MRI machines generate fields less than 2.0 Teslas). The MagLab is one of the few such research labs in the world capable of creating both conditions simultaneously.

The key to observing the unique butterfly energy pattern was the fabricating of a unique material composed of boron nitrate nitride (BN) and graphene — one atom thick sheets of carbon atoms that have become the wonder-nano material of the 21st Century. The stuff is in batteries, cell phones, televisions, computers…it is nearly transparent (being one atom layer thick) but is 300 times stronger than steel (for its weight) and 1000 times more conductive that silicon.

The material was first cooled and then exposed to the high magnetic field — producing the ‘Hofstadter butterfly’ energy pattern.

MagLab deputy director Eric Palm also commented on the discovery:

“This is about a puzzle that has been solved. It is really about scientific curiosity. It is an exciting confirmation of a theory that was made years ago.”

The Research Teams

One research team was led by Columbia University’s Philip Kim and included researchers from City University of New York, the University of Central Florida, Tohoku University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan. The team’s work will be published today in the Advanced Online Publication of the journal Nature.

Similar results were discovered at the MagLab (reported here) by a team led by Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and Raymond Ashoori at MIT, as well as scientists from Tohoku University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan. Their work (‘Massive Dirac Fermions and Hofstadter Butterfly in a van der Waals Heterostructure’) is also expected to be published soon.

Long-Predicted Fractal Energy Pattern Observed For First Time By Physicists was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

University of British Columbia scientist William Cheung has documented a gradual shifting of some fish species further north than their typical ranges. Some tropical commercial species are being found by fishing boats in waters near New England. Ocean water in the tropics is becoming too warm due to climate change, so they are seeking cooler places.

Image Credit: Public Domain

If tropical waters continue to increase in temperature, habitat for local fish will shrink and they may not be able to inhabit their customary ranges. If more tropical commercial fish move away, local economies could be damaged because there will be reduced catches. (In addition, damage from rising seas will undoubtedly have some negative impacts in coastal areas and island communities.)

Northern areas actually may benefit somewhat, at least in terms of an influx of fish, but what will happen to their native fish populations? If ocean water is increasing in temperature by almost two degrees per decade, many fish species may be unable to live in their normal habitats.

A separate study in 2012 found that even a two-degree increase in Antarctic waters could cause the extinction of local fish species.

“The development of polar climatic conditions that shaped the [evolution] of Antarctic fish is now reversing. The increasing temperature of the Southern Ocean, with the potential for the arrival of invasive species and disruption of food webs, is the greatest threat to the survival of this unparalleled [diversity], explained Yale Associate Professor Thomas Near. (Source: Yale University)

Of course, these fish species did not evolve independently of  other animals in their habitats. If there is a sudden die-off of fish species due to increasing water temperatures, many other creatures could be impacted severely throughout the food chain.

Fish are one of the most important food sources for humans, and the collapse of commercial fisheries without an immediate fix, would likely be very damaging to regional and even national economies. At the same time, ocean acidification is damaging reef systems, which also causes fish declines.

Fish Species Moving North Due To Climate Change was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Sea ice has been in a decline recently, and that is very bad news for polar bears. They conduct much of their lives on sea ice, including locating mates and reproducing.

Image Credit: Alan Wilson, Wiki Commons

‘Sea ice extent averaged for the month of April 2013 was 14.37 million square kilometers (5.54 million square miles). This is 630,000 square kilometers (243,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for the month, and is the seventh-lowest April extent in the satellite record.’ (Source: NSDIC)

Of course, climate change is becoming a greater issue because it is damaging many natural habitats, like sea ice for polar bears and we can reduce our carbon footprints by making small adjustments in our driving habits. According to the Carbon Fund, doing things like driving the speed limit, accelerating slowly and smoothly and keeping tires inflated properly can reduce our carbon output by one ton per year.

In Ohio, a recently passed bill made it legal to drive 70 mph on rural highways. Increasing speed limits will be bad for polar bears because driving faster produces more air pollution, including carbon. (Ohio seems to be a rather poor state for animals given the recent history involving the mass shooting of large predators that should never have been legal to be kept.)

As drivers, we don’t have to travel at the full speed limits though. We save money when we drive slower, and are probably much safer. At lower speeds we have more reaction time and considering how many distracted drivers there are on many roads because of texting while driving (not to mention drinking) is is probably better to not being driving swiftly. Curiously, raising speed limits in rural areas seems backwards because of the greater number of wild animals crossing roads in these areas, such as deer.

One of the main reasons we drive is for work commutes, which tend to be fairly short, so even if we do drive faster on short trips, the amount of time saved isn’t that great, and probably doesn’t offset the extra carbon, air pollution, stress and increased risk of accidents.

Save Polar Bears By Reducing Driving Speeds was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.