Study Gives Clearer Picture Of How Land-Use Changes Affect U.S. Climate

This map shows observation minus reanalysis (OMR) trends in the continental United States from 1979-2003. The trends are associated with land use and land-use changes. Researchers from Purdue and the universities of Colorado and Maryland conducted a study that showed land use can affect surface temperatures locally and regionally. Units are in degrees Celsius per decade. (Image courtesy of Souleymane Fall) - click to enlarge

From Watts Up With That?

Researchers say regional surface temperatures can be affected by land use, suggesting that local and regional strategies, such as creating green spaces and buffer zones in and around urban areas, could be a tool in addressing climate change.

A study by researchers from Purdue University and the universities of Colorado and Maryland concluded that greener land cover contributes to cooler temperatures, and almost any other change leads to warmer temperatures.

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Drink Responsibly: Which Is Better For The Planet, Beer Or Wine?

From Slate:

I'm hosting a dinner party next week, and I'll be serving both beer and wine alongside the meal. But it got me wondering: Which has the lower carbon footprint? Beer has to be kept refrigerated, which requires energy, but shipping wine in those heavy bottles can't be good for the planet, either.

It's hard to come up with a simple answer for this one, because so many factors affect the calculation: Where was your beverage made? What's it packaged in, and how did that package get to you? How was it stored at the point of sale? Accounting for all these variables can make your head spin, but the best available research suggests that parsing out the difference might not be worth the headache.

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Critique Of The Path To Sustainable Energy 2030

From the Next Big Future:

Brave New Climate reviews the work of Mark Z. Jacobson (Professor, Stanford) and Mark A. Delucchi (researcher, UC Davis) entitled “A path to sustainable energy by 2030” (p 58 – 65 Scientific American Nov 2009; they call it WWS: wind, water or sunlight).

Jacobson and Delucchi argue that, by the year 2030:
Wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 percent of the world’s energy, eliminating all fossil fuels.

Carbon Emissions from Expected Wars Based on Militarization of Technology Similar to Energy Sources

They also state:

Nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, when reactor construction and uranium refining and transport are considered.

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80 Min Exercise Per Week Prevents Visceral Weight Gain

From Future Pundit:

Fat around your internal organs is thought to be a much bigger risk factor for heart disease than fat near the surface of the skin. Well, if you go on a diet, exercise, get your weight down, and then eventually go off the diet continued exercise will prevent the resulting weight gain from happening where the risk factor is greatest.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A study conducted by exercise physiologists in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Human Studies finds that as little as 80 minutes a week of aerobic or resistance training helps not only to prevent weight gain, but also to inhibit a regain of harmful visceral fat one year after weight loss.

The study was published online Oct. 8 and will appear in a future print edition of the journal Obesity.

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The Fourth Part Of The World: The Epic Story Of History’s Greatest Map By Toby Lester

From Times Online:

In 2003, the US Library of Congress spent $10m on a beautiful world map, created in 1507. The price was justified by a single, magical name, inscribed in capitals on a strange tract of blank space in the far west: “AMERICA”. As Toby Lester tells in this boundlessly engaging book, this map was not just the first to give America a name, it was the very first to show it as a continent, separated from Asia by a new ocean.

Advertising its purchase, Congress called the map “America’s birth certificate”; Lester rates its importance much less narrowly. It charts an astonishing shift in world-view, he argues, from the Europe-centred, God-driven world of the Middle Ages to the brave new imperial vision of the early modern age.

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Robots That Care

Image: With extroverts, robots can speak forcefully; with introverts, they are more soothing.

From The New Yorker:

Advances in technological therapy.

Born in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia, Maja Matarić originally wanted to study languages and art. After she and her mother moved to the United States, in 1981, her uncle, who had immigrated some years earlier, pressed her to concentrate on computers. As a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Matarić wrote software that helped robots to independently navigate around obstacles placed randomly in a room. For her doctoral dissertation, she developed a robotic shepherd capable of corralling a herd of twenty robots.

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America's Natural Gas Revolution -- A Commentary

From Wall Street Journal:

A 'shale gale' of unconventional and abundant U.S. gas is transforming the energy market.

The biggest energy innovation of the decade is natural gas—more specifically what is called "unconventional" natural gas. Some call it a revolution.

Yet the natural gas revolution has unfolded with no great fanfare, no grand opening ceremony, no ribbon cutting. It just crept up. In 1990, unconventional gas—from shales, coal-bed methane and so-called "tight" formations—was about 10% of total U.S. production. Today it is around 40%, and growing fast, with shale gas by far the biggest part.

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Sahara Sun 'To Help Power Europe'

From The BBC:

A sustainable energy initiative that will start with a huge solar project in the Sahara desert has been announced by a consortium of 12 European businesses.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative aims to supply Europe with 15% of its energy needs by 2050.

Companies who signed up to the $400bn (£240bn) venture include Deutsche Bank, Siemens and the energy provider E.On.

The consortium, which will be based in Munich, hopes to start supplying Europe with electricity by 2015.

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10 Neat Facts About Google

From Neatorama:

Sure, everybody knows that Google was created by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin who became gazillionaires. But did you know that Google's first storage device was cobbled together with LEGO? Or that Google's first investor wrote a $100,000 check even before the company officially existed? Or that it has its own "official" Google dog?

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African Desert Rift Confirmed As New Ocean In The Making

New research confirms that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world's oceans, and the rift is indeed likely the beginning of a new sea. (Credit: Imagery (c) 2009 TerraMetrics. Map data (c) 2009 Europa Technologies / Courtesy of Google Maps)

From Live Science:

Science Daily (Nov. 3, 2009) — In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.

Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world's oceans, and the rift is indeed likely the beginning of a new sea.

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Caffeine Cuts Into Sleep, Even Hours Later

From Live Science:

Add one more insult to the injury of working the night shift: Drinking coffee during work hours may just keep you awake during the day.

"Caffeine is the most widely used stimulant to counteract sleepiness, yet it has detrimental effects on the sleep of night-shift workers who must slumber during the day, just as their biological clock sends a strong wake-up signal," said Julie Carrier, a University of Montreal psychology professor. "The older you get, the more affected your sleep will be by coffee."

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The Story Behind Our Photo of Grieving Chimps

Cameroon—At the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, more than a dozen residents form a gallery of grief, looking on as Dorothy—a beloved female felled in her late 40s by heart failure—is borne to her burial.

From National Geographic:

The November issue of National Geographic magazine features a moving photograph of chimpanzees watching as one of their own is wheeled to her burial. Since it was published, the picture and story have gone viral, turning up on websites and TV shows and in newspapers around the world. For readers who’d like to know more, here’s what I learned when I interviewed the photographer, Monica Szczupider.

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Oh No, Not This Kilimanjaro Rubbish Again!

Mount Kilimanjaro - Trees put moisture into the air via evapotranspiration, upslope winds precipitate it on Kilimanjaro. Image: Wikimedia

From Watts Up With That?

Gore started this. Note to journalists everywhere: IT’S THE EVAPOTRANSPIRATION STUPID!

See this article to understand why linking snow on Kilimanjaro to small changes in global temperature is just flat wrong. The plains around Kilimanjaro have gone through years of deforestation. Less trees > less evapotranspiration > less snow.

Don’t believe me? Here’s news of a recent study from Portsmouth University Of Mt. Kilimanjaro ice waving us good-bye due to deforestation. Here’s another peer reviewed study from UAH saying the same thing.

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Sniffing Out Swine Flu

From Slate:

Researchers hope to create a better way to diagnose swine flu and other ailments.

Crude methods of detecting swine flu have so far provoked hand-wringing and no small amount of ridicule. Planeloads of travelers to China have had laser beams aimed at their foreheads, landing some under quarantine (and spurring a YouTube minifest of airport videos). This summer, Slate reported on a camp that tried to prescreen kids for flu by checking campers for fevers—and failed to detect a sick child whose physician parent brought his temperature down with Tylenol, fueling an outbreak. Meanwhile, people infected with the virus can pass it on before they develop symptoms; others never develop fever at all.

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San Francisco Bay Bridge Re-Opened

From The Next Big Future:

The San Francisco Bay Bridge was re-opened at 9AM Monday, Nov 2, 2009

An anti-vibration system has been put in place to limit stresses and additional supports installed to prevent any rods – in case they snap off again – from falling on traffic.

Initial daily inspections will be conducted of the repair system. The eyebars will also be inspected every three months. Other future inspections may require full bridge closures.

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Clever Fools: Why A High IQ Doesn't Mean You're Smart

There's more to intelligence than just IQ. (Image: David C Ellis/Getty)

From New Scientist:

IS GEORGE W. BUSH stupid? It's a question that occupied a good many minds of all political persuasions during his turbulent eight-year presidency. The strict answer is no. Bush's IQ score is estimated to be above 120, which suggests an intelligence in the top 10 per cent of the population. But this, surely, does not tell the whole story. Even those sympathetic to the former president have acknowledged that as a thinker and decision-maker he is not all there. Even his loyal speechwriter David Frum called him glib, incurious and "as a result ill-informed". The political pundit and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough accused him of lacking intellectual depth, claiming that compared with other US presidents whose intellect had been questioned, Bush junior was "in a league by himself". Bush himself has described his thinking style as "not very analytical".

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T. Rex Teens Fought, Disfigured Each Other

Dino Fight. This graphic illustration depicts the moment that "Jane," the T. rex found at Montana's Hell Creek Formation in 2001, was disfigured by another teenage T. rex.
Illustration by Erica Lyn Schmidt

From Discovery:

Tyrannosaurus rex's reputation as a fierce, battle-hungry carnivore can now also apply to teenagers of this Late Cretaceous dinosaur, according to a new study.

The evidence comes from "Jane," who died when she was just a T. rex teen. Her fossils, found at Montana's Hell Creek Formation in 2001, reveal that another T. rex teenager severely bit her in the head, breaking her snout to the point of disfigurement.

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Glaciers Disappearing From Kilimanjaro

Scientists say Mount Kilimanjaro's glaciers, which cap Africa's highest peak,
may be gone within two decades.

From CNN:

(CNN) -- The ice and snow that cap majestic Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are vanishing before our eyes.

If current conditions persist, climate change experts say, Kilimanjaro's world-renowned glaciers, which have covered Africa's highest peak for centuries, will be gone within the next two decades.

"In a very real sense, these glaciers are being decapitated from the surface down," said Lonnie Thompson, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University. Thompson is co-author of a study on Kilimanjaro published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Secure Computers Aren’t So Secure

istockphoto.com

From MIT News:

Even well-defended computers can leak shocking amounts of private data. MIT researchers seek out exotic attacks in order to shut them down.

You may update your antivirus software religiously, immediately download all new Windows security patches, and refuse to click any e-mail links ostensibly sent by your bank, but even if your computer is running exactly the way it’s supposed to, a motivated attacker can still glean a shocking amount of private information from it. The time it takes to store data in memory, fluctuations in power consumption, even the sounds your computer makes can betray its secrets. MIT researchers centered at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab’s Cryptography and Information Security Group (CIS) study such subtle security holes and how to close them.

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Security Measures Lead To False Sense Of Security: Scientists Dispute Use Of National Security Tools

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 2, 2009) — Many of the security tools used by national governments lack scientific underpinning. This was posited by a team of thirteen international behavioural scientists, including Bruno Verschuere and Geert Crombez (Ghent University), in a recent publication in the Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology.

The team denounces the current situation regarding the use of tools and methods to protect national security.

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My Comment: This is a small study, but its conclusions are disturbing and disheartening when one realizes the amount of monies and energies that have gone into making these procedures work in the first place.