Today’s white rice is mutation spread by early farmers, researchers say
at 1:14 pm on Wednesday, 10 March 2010
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/WhiteRice.kr.html
Some 10,000 years ago white rice evolved from wild red rice and began spreading around the globe. But how did this happen?
Researchers at Cornell and elsewhere have determined that 97.9 percent of all white rice is derived from a mutation (a deletion of DNA) in a single gene originating in theJaponica subspecies of rice. Their report, published online in the journal PloS (Public Library of Science) Genetics, suggests that early farmers favored, bred and spread white rice around the world.
(CornellOnline, August 16, 2007) (more…)
EDF nuclear reactor carries ‘Chernobyl-size’ explosion risk
at 3:28 pm on Monday, 8 March 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/07/edf-nuclear-reactor-chernobyl-risk
Protest network Sortir du Nucléaire says leaked EDF documents show reactor’s defects could cause massive nuclear accident.
French anti-nuclear campaigners claim a new power plant being built in Normandy carries an accident risk of “Chernobyl proportions”.
Sortir du Nucléaire, a protest network, says leaked confidential documents show that tests on the third-generation pressurised water reactor present a potentially catastrophic scenario.
(Guardian, March 7. 2010)
U.S. needs fresh look at nuclear waste issue: Chu
at 1:59 pm on Sunday, 7 March 2010
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6244NE20100305
SANTA BARBARA, California (Reuters) – U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Friday that the United States needs to come up with a better system for storing or disposing of radioactive nuclear waste than a planned repository near Las Vegas.
“The president has made it very clear that we are going to go beyond Yucca mountain. You should go beyond Yucca mountain,” Chu said. “But instead of wringing my hands, let’s go forward and do something better.”
“Ida” not a missing link
at 12:22 pm on Sunday, 7 March 2010
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/ida-not-a-missing-link/
On May 20 of last year, at a remarkable press conference in New York, a group of researchers announced—with much ballyhoo—that they’d found a 47-million-year-old primate fossil named Darwinius masillae(nicknamed “Ida”). Ida, the finest fossil primate in existence, was touted loudly as the missing link between the two major branches of primates, the Haplorhini (anthropoids [apes and monkeys] and tarsiers), and the Strepsirrhini (lemurs and lorises; see figure below). Concurrent with the press conference was a History Channel documentary and a book about Ida, Colin Tudge’s The Link, that proclaimed, with much heavy breathing, that Ida was, as one of the earliest primate ancestors of our own species, an earthshaking discovery (see my review of the book here).
Every skeptic argument ever used
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Every-skeptic-argument-ever-used.html
The Skeptical Science list of skeptic arguments is one of the larger compilations going around, currently numbering 91 different arguments. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Whenever I encounter a skeptic argument, I add it to the database which currently contains 242 skeptic arguments. The 91 are those which I’ve found the time to research and write a summary of what the peer-reviewed science says on the topic. Now all 242 arguments have been categorised and displayed on a new Global Warming Links page. And just to open up a potentially huge can of worms, you can add to the list of skeptic arguments yourself!
Did Dinosaurs Start Out on All Fours?
at 11:26 am on Sunday, 7 March 2010
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/03/did-dinosaurs-start-out-on-all-f.html?etoc
How much is that Asilisaurus in the window? That’s what prospective pet owners might be asking, if a newly discovered dinosaur ancestor were still alive. “It’s a lightweight, four-legged, plant-eating, scampering wonder that might have made a nice pet,” says paleontologist Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago in Illinois. The creature’s fossilized bones should cause a rethinking about dinosaur ancestors because they suggest that dinos evolved not from two-legged carnivores but from four-legged vegetarians.
Solving the Rangeland Paradox
at 11:09 am on Sunday, 7 March 2010
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/03/solving-the-rangeland-paradox.html?etoc
They have a saying in Texas: We don’t have a water problem, we have a brush problem. The idea is that when shrubs and trees invade former grazing lands, they soak up so much groundwater that streams slow down and water supplies to cities and towns decrease. But a new study suggests that the opposite is true: Trees and shrubs on the prairies may actually help recharge the groundwater. The findings should force a rethink of land-management techniques for much of the U.S.’s former rangelands.
The Spread of Superbugs
at 10:44 am on Sunday, 7 March 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07kristof.html?th&emc=th
Until three months ago, Thomas M. Dukes was a vigorous, healthy executive at a California plastics company. Then, over the course of a few days in December as he was planning his Christmas shopping, E. coli bacteria ravaged his body and tore his life apart.
Mr. Dukes is a reminder that as long as we’re examining our health care system, we need to scrutinize more than insurance companies. We also need to curb the way modern agribusiness madly overuses antibiotics, leaving them ineffective for sick humans.
(New York Times, March 6, 2010)
Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
at 9:23 am on Sunday, 7 March 2010
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Does-record-snowfall-disprove-global-warming.html
The 2009/2010 winter saw a number of dramatic, record breaking snowstorms. Early February saw two “once in a 100 years” snowstorms hit Philadelphia, now being dubbed “Snowmageddon”. Does record snowfall prove that global warming isn’t happening? What do observations say? 2009 was the second hottest year on record. January 2010 was the hottest January in the UAH satellite record. Satellites data indicates last month was the second hottest February in the satellite record. Observations tell us that rumours of global warming’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Figure 1: UAH satellite measurement of near surface temperature. January 2010 is the hottest January in the satellite record. February 2010 is the second hottest February in the satellite record. Click on the image for larger version.
Hacked Email Scientists: Temperature Data Withheld at Countries’ Request
at 5:50 pm on Saturday, 6 March 2010
Prominent British researchers at the heart of the hacked email scandal shot down accusations of illegally withholding scientific information charting the planet’s temperature, telling a parliamentary hearing that certain governments had prohibited them from publishing all the raw data.
Phil Jones (photo), head scientist of the premier Climatic Research Unit(CRU) at the University of East Anglia, acknowledged that he refused requests for the institute’s raw climate data, but only because of confidentiality agreements with national weather stations supplying the figures.
Surprising mtDNA diversity
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57199/
Mitochondrial genomes are not uniform across cells of the body as previously believed, but vary between different tissue types, according to a study published online today (March 3) inNature.
The findings may affect forensics and the search for biomarkers, both of which utilize mitochondrial DNA.
(more…)
Human Culture, an Evolutionary Force
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/science/02evo.html?em
As with any other species, human populations are shaped by the usual forces of natural selection, like famine, disease or climate. A new force is now coming into focus. It is one with a surprising implication — that for the last 20,000 years or so, people have inadvertently been shaping their own evolution.
The force is human culture, broadly defined as any learned behavior, including technology. The evidence of its activity is the more surprising because culture has long seemed to play just the opposite role. Biologists have seen it as a shield that protects people from the full force of other selective pressures, since clothes and shelter dull the bite of cold and farming helps build surpluses to ride out famine.
Name Change
at 3:09 pm on Saturday, 6 March 2010
I learned to my horror today that the Creationists/Intelligent Design folks, in order to avoid being called a religion, have added a host of other “scientific” matters in order to appear to being calling innocently for “critical thinking about science” — presenting “both sides of the controversy” — in evolution, global warming, the Big Bang, human cloning, etc.
Since I called this blog “Thinking Criticaly About Science’” I fear that it may become associated with this evangelistic anti-scientific movement, and cause potential readers to pass us by.
Therefore, I am changing the title to “arguendo — for the sake of argument”.
If you have an idea for a better name for this blog, please send it to jimalakirti@gmail.com
Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/earth/04climate.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation’s classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools.
In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”
Researchers Identify Fossil of Dinosaur-Eating Snake
at 2:51 pm on Saturday, 6 March 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/snakes.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
The discovery of a snake near an egg is by no means unusual, but in this case, the snake was 67 million years old — providing scientists with new information about how snakes in the dinosaur era lived, and what they ate.
The fossilized scene is a striking one and the first of its kind: the 11.5-foot-long snake is coiled around a cracked egg and surrounded by several more eggs. Nearby is a dinosaur hatchling, newly emerged from the cracked egg.
Utah: Nuclear Waste Burial Scrutinized
at 2:24 pm on Saturday, 6 March 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/earth/04brfs-NUCLEARWASTE_BRF.html
More than 10,000 drums of nuclear waste that have been buried in Utah are likely to include some material that is so radioactive state law forbids its burial, a report released Wednesday by the group Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah says. Since 2003, the federal Department of Energy has disposed of depleted uranium from a nuclear weapons complex, the Savannah River Site, near Aiken, S.C., at EnergySolutions’ facility about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City. The report says that as many as 5,600 drums from the site could include material that violates state standards for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste.
(New York Times, March 3, 2010)
Insects are crustaceans!
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/insects-are-crustaceans-2/
The phylogeny of arthropods has always been messy. One reason is that studies trying to discern their evolutionary relationships often use too few taxa (this is, after all, the most species-rich of all animal groups), and, especially, too few genes. Conclusions have been based, for example, on only 18S and 28S rRNA and mtDNA (the latter is, of course, effectively one gene). And this has led to conflicting conclusions, some of which contravene morphologically-based systematics.
(WhyEvolutionIsTrue, March 6, 2010)
Palaeontology: Do the locomotion
http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15603919
The earliest animal tracks yet found have been unearthed in Canada
ONE of the greatest mysteries of the history of life is the Cambrian explosion. Prior to 560m years ago, animal fossils are rare. Then, in a geological eyeblink, they become common. Shelly creatures such as trilobites and brachiopods, of whose ancestors there is little sign in the rocks, are suddenly everywhere. Biologists would dearly love to know what happened.
(The Economist, March 4, 2010)
Monitoring greenhouse gases: Highs and lows
at 11:31 am on Saturday, 6 March 2010
http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15603891
You might think that measuring the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would be a priority. If you did think that, though, you would be wrong.
IN NEGOTIATIONS on nuclear weapons the preferred stance is “Trust but verify”. In negotiations on climate change there seems little opportunity for either. Trust, as anyone who attended last year’s summit in Copenhagen can attest, is in the shortest of supplies. So, too, is verification.
(Economist, March 4, 2010)
Pacific Northwest forests act as massive carbon banks
at 11:03 am on Saturday, 6 March 2010
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/03/carbon-storage-pacific-northwest-forests.html
The thick, wet forests of the Pacific Northwest are the carbon storage powerhouses of the U.S. — in fact, they store more than 1-1/2 times as much carbon as the entire amount of carbon dioxide burned in fossil fuels throughout the country each year, a new study shows.
Two analysts for the Wilderness Society looked at data compiled by the U.S. Forest Service and identified 10 national forests, from the Tongass in southeast Alaska to the Siskiyou in southern Oregon, that together store about 9.8 billion metric tons of carbon on a total of 19 million acres.
By absorbing carbon dioxide, forests accumulate and store carbon in trees, roots and soil — a valuable depository for greenhouse gases that, if released into the atmosphere, might contribute to climate change.
(LA Times, March 4, 2010)