Earthwitness » for a better now.: December 2009

Arctic could face warmer and ice-free conditions

There is increased evidence that the Arctic could face seasonally ice-free conditions and much warmer temperatures in the future.

Scientists documented evidence that the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas were too warm to support summer sea ice during the mid-Pliocene warm period (3.3 to 3 million years ago). This period is characterized by warm temperatures similar to those projected for the end of this century, and is used as an analogue to understand future conditions.

Biogas plant for biological wastes recycling

Ukrainian engineering company ZORG Ukraine has announced development of new waste-management solution for plants that produce alcohol. Biogas plant can reduce sanitary zone (distance from the enterprise to residential area) from 500m to 150m. In many cases such ecological issues are vital for some enterprises.

Out-of-date lagoons occupy lots of space and have bad smell. Biogas plant requires space that several times less if to be compared to lagoons and manure storages. Water in lagoons is bounded by colloid compounds hence evaporation is very faint. After treatment in biogas plant water is separated and easily vaporised.

African leaf-eating primates are ‘likely to be wiped out’ by climate change

Monkey species will become ‘increasingly at risk of extinction’ because of global warming, according to new research, published this week. It reveals that populations of monkeys and apes in Africa that depend largely on a diet of leaves may be wiped out by a rise in annual temperatures of two degrees Celsius. The study by researchers from Bournemouth, Roehampton and Oxford Universities suggests that the species most at risk are the already endangered gorillas and colobine monkeys.

The paper, published online by Animal Behaviour, pinpoints which species are most threatened by climate change in a series of new global maps. They show current and predicted distribution patterns of primates, comparing the populations according to their diet and the amount of enforced rest they are predicted to need.

Limestone Leaf-warbler has been described from the limestone karst country of Vietnam and Laos.Photo:Ulf Johansson/Swedish Museum of Natural HistoryA new species of warbler has been described from the karst limestone country of Vietnam and Laos by scientists from BirdLife International, Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Swedish Museum of Natural History, and Wildlife Conservation Society.

Named Limestone Leaf-warbler Phylloscopus calciatilis, the new species is very similar to Sulphur-breasted Warbler P. ricketti, in morphology, but it is smaller with a proportionately larger bill and rounder wing. Its song and calls are diagnostic.

Photo:Fiver Locker/WikimediaThe timing of molar emergence and its relation to growth and reproduction in apes is being reported by two scientists at Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins in the Dec. 28 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

From the smallest South American monkeys to the largest African apes, the timing of molar development and eruption is closely attuned to many fundamental aspects of a primate's biology, according to Gary Schwartz, a researcher at the Institute of Human Origins and an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Jill Pruetz, an ISU associate professor of anthropology, has been studying savanna chimpanzees at her Fongoli research site in Senegal since 2001. Her new study documents how the chimps understand the fire they encounter in the region. Photo by Bob Elbert, ISU News ServiceThe use and control of fire are behavioral characteristics that distinguish humans from other animals. Now, a new study by Iowa State University anthropologist Jill Pruetz reports that savanna chimpanzees in Senegal have a near human understanding of wildfires and change their behavior in anticipation of the fire's movement.

An ISU associate professor of anthropology, Pruetz and Thomas LaDuke, an associate professor of biological sciences at East Stroudsburg (Pa.) University, co-authored the paper, which will be posted online Friday by the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. It will be published in a 2010 edition of the journal.

Mammalodon skull, oblique side view.
Image: Rodney Start
Source: Museum VictoriaDr Fitzgerald’s study, which is published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, is centred on Mammalodon colliveri, a primitive toothed baleen whale, one of a group of whales that includes the largest animal ever to have lived, the blue whale. Although Mammalodon was discovered in 1932 and named in 1939, it has remained relatively unknown until now.

“Through study of Mammalodon, I hypothesise that it was a bottom-feeding mud-sucker that may have used its tongue and short, blunt snout to suck small prey from sand and mud on the seafloor. This indicates early and varied experimentation in the evolution of baleen whales”, explained Dr Fitzgerald.

Soil studies reveal rise in antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance in the natural environment is rising despite tighter controls over our use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, Newcastle University scientists have found.

Bacterial DNA extracted from soil samples collected between 1940 and 2008 has revealed a rise in background levels of antibiotic resistant genes. Newcastle University’s Professor David Graham, who led the research, said the findings suggest an emerging threat to public and environmental health in the future.

Scientists chart velocity of climate change

New study finds that the average ecosystem will need to shift about a quarter mile per year to keep pace with global climate change

From beetles to barnacles, pikas to pine warblers, many species are already on the move in response to shifting climate regimes. But how fast will they - and their habitats - have to move to keep pace with global climate change over the next century? In a new study, a team of scientists including Dr. Healy Hamilton from the California Academy of Sciences have calculated that on average, ecosystems will need to shift about 0.42 kilometers per year (about a quarter mile per year) to keep pace with changing temperatures across the globe. Mountainous habitats will be able to move more slowly, since a modest move up or down slope can result in a large change in temperature. However, flatter ecosystems, such as flooded grasslands, mangroves, and deserts, will need to move much more rapidly to stay in their comfort zone - sometimes more than a kilometer per year. The team, which also included scientists from the Carnegie Institute of Science, Climate Central, and U.C. Berkeley, have published their results in the December 24 issue of Nature.

The high power output 100 W-class portable generator to be developed and field tested in fiscal 2012

Panasonic has developed a direct methanol fuel cell system which can produce an average power output of 20 W by increasing the output per cubic centimeter twice that of its previous prototype. Using this technology, Panasonic aims to develop a 100 W-class portable generator and start field testing in fiscal 2012 ending in March 2012.

Twenty years after Exxon Valdez, a tugboat has run aground on the same reef – with a potential spill of 33,500 gallons of diesel.

Coast Guard personnel from Marine Safety Unit Valdez, Sector Anchorage and Cutter Long Island are responding to a 136-foot Crowley tug grounding on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound Thursday.The Pathfinder crew had completed an ice survey and was heading back to its port in Valdez when the vessel struck the reef Wednesday evening.

The faint tug of the sun and moon on the San Andreas Fault stimulates tremors deep underground, suggesting that the rock 15 miles below is lubricated with highly pressurised water that allows the rock to slip with little effort, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, seismologists.

"Tremors seem to be extremely sensitive to minute stress changes," said Roland Bürgmann, UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science.

The winds of January are a good thing if you're getting electricity from a wind farm, and that's the case for the City of Ames and Iowa State University. The city and university will begin buying wind-generated electricity from a new wind farm north of Zearing. Around the first of the year, local appliances, lights, and computers may be powered by a new, eco-friendly energy source.

The timing is excellent, says ISU assistant director of utilities Jeff Witt, because "winter is the best time for wind energy in Iowa and January is probably the peak month."

Details of the lifestyle of mink, which escaped from fur farms and now live wild in the UK, have been revealed through analysis of their whiskers. Research led by the University of Exeter reveals more about the diet of this invasive species and provides a clue to its whereabouts. There are now plans to use the findings to eradicate it from environments where it can be devastating to native species.

Published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, the study focused on American mink living in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The scientists used stable isotope analysis to study the whiskers and claws of mink carcasses collected on the islands.

Greenpeace Climate Heroes imprisoned over Christmas and New Year

Four Greenpeace climate activists will spend Christmas and New Year in Copenhagen prison after the High Court there this afternoon rejected appeals to release them from Danish police custody. The four Climate Heroes from the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland were arrested following a protest staged during last Thursday's State Banquet hosted by Queen Margrethe II for world leaders attending the Copenhagen climate summit.

Greenpeace condemned the High Court's decision as a further 'climate injustice' on top of world leaders' failure to agree a legally binding treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The organisation is calling on the public to help step up pressure to secure the release of its four activists, as well as other peaceful climate protesters still being held in custody. Despite today's Court ruling, the release of Greenpeace's Climate Heroes remains at the discretion of Denmark's Chief of Police.

Photo:Mila Zinkova/WikimediaA study recently completed in the gulf coast of Alaska by federal and university researchers has found that as glacial ice disappears, the production and export of high- quality food from glacial watersheds to marine ecosystems may disappear too. This trend could have serious consequences for marine food webs.

The study, "Glaciers as a source of ancient and labile organic matter to the marine environment," was recently published in the December 24, 2009, issue of the journal Nature.

The fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement to tackle climate change, which was scheduled to be finalised at the recently concluded UNFCCC Climate Change Conference (COP) in Copenhagen, did not materialise.

This latest of 15 Climate Change COPs was mandated to agree a new global climate deal under the UNFCCC umbrella, to address emission reductions and adaptation to climate change. But with some of the 192 participating governments negotiating with each other away from the main conference proceedings, acrimonious disputes about the legal shape of a new treaty ate up trust and patience, and above all, time.

Photo:Sten Porse/WikimediaGlobal warming is causing climate belts to shift toward the poles and to higher elevations. To keep pace with these changes, the average ecosystem will need to shift about a quarter mile each year, says a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University and at the University of California, Berkeley.

For some habitats, such as low-lying areas, climate belts are moving even faster, putting many species in jeopardy, especially where human development has blocked migration paths.

An inexpensive 'dipstick' test for pesticides in foods

Scientists in Canada are reporting the development of a fast, inexpensive "dipstick" test to identify small amounts of pesticides that may exist in foods and beverages. Their paper-strip test is more practical than conventional pesticide tests, producing results in minutes rather than hours by means of an easy-to-read color-change, they say.

The study was published in ACS' Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal. John Brennan and colleagues note in the new study that conventional tests for detecting pesticides tend to use expensive and complex equipment and in some cases can take several hours to produce results. They cite a growing need for cheaper, more convenient, and more eco-friendly tests for pesticides, particularly in the food industry.

School classroom air may be more polluted with ultrafine particles than outdoor air

The air in some school classrooms may contain higher levels of extremely small particles of pollutants — easily inhaled deep into the lungs — than polluted outdoor air, scientists in Australia and Germany are reporting in an article in ACS' semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Lidia Morawska and colleagues note increasing concern in recent years over the health effects of airborne ultrafine particles. Evidence suggests that they can be toxic when inhaled into the lungs. Much of the scientific research, however, has focused on outdoor sources of these invisible particles, particularly vehicle emissions. Little research has been done, however, on indoor sources, and even less on ultrafine particles in school classrooms.

Global temperatures could rise more than expected

The kinds of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide taking place today could have a significantly larger effect on global temperatures than previously thought, according to a new study led by Yale University geologists. Their findings appear December 20 in the advanced online edition of Nature Geoscience.

The team demonstrated that only a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) was associated with a period of substantial warming in the mid- and early-Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago, when temperatures were approximately 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today.

Global warming likely to be amplified by slow changes to Earth systems

Researchers studying a period of high carbon dioxide levels and warm climate several million years ago have concluded that slow changes such as melting ice sheets amplified the initial warming caused by greenhouse gases.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels was associated with substantial global warming about 4.5 million years ago during the early Pliocene.

A coalition of conservation and government accountability groups — the Center for Biological Diversity, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), and Council of Civic Associations — filed a formal 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today over the agency’s failure to respond to a scientific petition to designate critical habitat for the endangered Florida panther.

“The Florida panther is on its way to extinction as its habitat becomes suburbia,” said petition author Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.

More than 100 groups endorse petition to EPA to cap CO2 pollution at 350ppm

More than 100 groups have issued a letter supporting a legal petition filed earlier this month by the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org that would require the Environmental Protection Agency to scientifically establish national safe limits for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act. The petition seeks to have greenhouse gases designated as “criteria” air pollutants and atmospheric CO2 capped at 350 parts per million (ppm), the level leading scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.

The letter states: “We are writing in support of the petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org to cap greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act[’s]... national ambient air quality (NAAQS) program... For four decades, the Clean Air Act has protected the air we breathe through a proven, successful system of pollution control that saves lives and creates economic benefits exceeding its costs by many times. It’s time to fully use our strongest existing tool for reducing greenhouse gas pollution: the Clean Air Act.”

Suit Filed to Stop Hawaii longline fishery from tripling sea turtle kill

Deadly Hooks Also Snag Whales, Seabirds, and Sharks

Conservation groups Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity, and KAHEA, all represented by Earthjustice, filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Honolulu challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s issuance of a rule that removes all limits on effort in the Hawaii-based longline swordfish fishery and allows the fleet to catch nearly three times as many loggerhead sea turtles as was previously permitted.

The new rule conflicts with the Fisheries Service’s own assessment that the North Pacific loggerhead sea turtle is in danger of extinction. That report, released only four months ago, noted that incidental capture in longline fisheries is a primary threat to the species’ continued existence.

An additional 2 degrees of global warming could commit the planet to 6 to 9 meters (20 to 30 feet) of long-term sea level rise

A new analysis of the geological record of the Earth's sea level, carried out by scientists at Princeton and Harvard universities and published in the Dec. 16 issue of Nature, employs a novel statistical approach that reveals the planet's polar ice sheets are vulnerable to large-scale melting even under moderate global warming scenarios. Such melting would lead to a large and relatively rapid rise in global sea level.

Effects of global warming and pollution on disadvantaged communities

Special issue on climate justice highlights disproportionate effects of global warming and pollution on disadvantaged communities

Global warming, pollution, and the environmental consequences of energy production impose a greater burden on low-income, disadvantaged communities, and strategies to prevent these inequities are urgently needed. A provocative collection of articles on climate justice presents the global implications of climate change and its effects on human health and the environment in a special issue of Environmental Justice, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Landing is tricky: hit the ground too fast and you will crash and burn; too slow and you may stall and fall. Bees manage their approach by monitoring the speed of images moving across their eyes. By slowing so that the speed of the looming landing pad's image on the retina remains constant, bees manage to control their approach.

But what happens in the final few moments before touch down? And how do bees adapt to landing on surfaces ranging from the horizontal to upside-down ceilings?

Stellar mosh pit, complete with crashing stars, resolves a mystery

For almost 50 years, astronomers have puzzled over the youthful appearance of stars known as blue stragglers.

Blue stragglers are the timeworn Hollywood starlets of the cosmos: They shine brightly, they are older than they appear, and they have, disconcertingly, gained mass at a late stage of life."These blue, luminous stars should have used up their hydrogen fuel and flamed out long ago," explains Robert Mathieu, a University of Wisconsin-Madison astronomer.

Photo: Randolph Femmer, National Biological Information InfrastructureWith would-be goblins and ghosts set to drape those huge fake spider webs over doorways and trees for Halloween, scientists in Wyoming are reporting on a long-standing mystery about real spider webs: It is the secret of spider web glue.

The findings are an advance toward a new generation of biobased adhesives and glues – "green" glues that replace existing petroleum-based products for a range of uses. A report on the study was published in ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal.

Scanning electron microscope view of plant cell nanoridges. Photo: John OhlroggeMicroscopic ridges contouring the surface of flower petals might play a role in flashing that come-hither look pollinating insects can't resist. Michigan State University scientists and colleagues now have figured out how those form.

The result could help researchers learn to enhance plants' pollination success and even could lead to high-grip nanomaterials and "green chemical" feedstocks."Surprisingly, our work on plant surface biochemistry became a birds and bees and flowers story," said John Ohlrogge, MSU University Distinguished Professor of plant biology.

Seeing how evolutionary mechanisms yield biological diversity

An international team of scientists has discovered how changes in both gene expression and gene sequence led to the diversity of visual systems in African cichlid fish.

In research published in the December 21, 2009 issue of the journal PLoS Biology, Assistant Professor Karen Carleton, together with post-doctoral associate Chris Hofmann and graduate student Kelly O'Quin, in the University of Maryland Department of Biology, and collaborators Justin Marshall, University of Queensland; Tom Cronin, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC); and Ole Seehausen, University of Bern; describe how over 60 species of cichlid fish from Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria have adapted their visual sensitivity in response to specific ecological factors, including what they eat and the clarity of the water in which they swim.

Prof. Hugh Coe Photo: The University of ManchesterNew research from scientists at The University of Manchester is set to improve predictions about climate and air quality – and make life easier for those suffering from respiratory problems.

Atmospheric researchers from the Centre for Atmospheric Science in the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Science (SEAES) worked with an international team of 60 scientists to study the behaviour of organic particulate once it has been released into the atmosphere.

Photo:Arnaud Gaillard/WikimediaSkull fragments of prehistoric koalas from the Riversleigh rainforests of millions of year ago suggest they shared the modern koala's "lazy" lifestyle and ability to produce loud "bellowing" calls to attract mates and provide warnings about predators.

However, the new findings published as the featured cover article in the current issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology suggest that the two species of koalas from the Miocene (24 to five million years ago) did not share the uniquely specialized eucalyptus leaf diet of the modern koala (Phascolarctos cinereus).

The kinds of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide taking place today could have a significantly larger effect on global temperatures than previously thought, according to a new study led by Yale University geologists. Their findings appear December 20 in the advanced online edition of Nature Geoscience.

The team demonstrated that only a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) was associated with a period of substantial warming in the mid- and early-Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago, when temperatures were approximately 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today.

Photo:Michael Laplace-Toulouse/BirdLifeThe Tana River Delta in Kenya's north coast is under unprecedented threat as corporations and foreign agencies scramble to exploit its riches for export crops, biofuels and minerals. NatureKenya (BirdLife Partner) – with support of RSPB (BirdLife in UK), Schweizer Vogelschutz SVS/BirdLife Schweiz (BirdLife in Switzerland) and DOF (BirdLife in Denmark) – are working with local communities to try and stop the proposed poorly planned developments which would result in tens of thousands of people losing their livelihoods.

Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly news magazine of the world's largest scientific society, has published a major analysis of the divisive issues at the heart of the debate over global warming and climate change.

The article appears at the conclusion of the much-publicised United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which sought to seal a comprehensive international agreement on dealing with global warming. An embargoed text is available to journalists upon request.

Soil microorganisms’ role cited as a missing factor in climate change equation

Those seeking to understand and predict climate change can now use an additional tool to calculate carbon dioxide exchanges on land, according to a scientific journal article co-authored by a University of Alabama researcher.

The research, publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ Early Edition, incorporates into global computer models the significant impact an enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, has on the chemical form of carbon dioxide released from the soils and reduces uncertainties in estimates of CO₂ taken up and released in terrestrial ecosystems.

Historic opportunity to avert climate chaos squandered in Copenhagen

Greenpeace strongly condemned the arrogance of the heads of state from the world's most powerful countries for presenting a 'take it or leave' deal to the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Whilst en route to the airport they claimed the deal was done, it was not. All they left was chaos and confusion in their wake.

World leaders in Copenhagen have taken a first and useful step to slow the course of climate change – a threat that is already affecting people, ecosystems and biodiversity in many parts of the world. A global legally binding climate change treaty must be the next step.

Although the Copenhagen Accord goes some way to address some of the critical issues that have been on negotiators' agenda for the past two years, such as a financing package of USD100 billion per year by 2020 to assist developing countries to adapt to climate change and to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, others remained unsolved.

The UN climate talks in Copenhagen were inches away from total failure and ended with an outcome far too weak to tackle dangerous climate change, WWF said.

"Copenhagen was at the brink of failure due to poor leadership combined with an unconvincing level of ambition", said Kim Carstensen, Leader of WWF's Global Climate Initiative. "Well meant but half-hearted pledges to protect our planet from dangerous climate change are simply not sufficient to address a crisis that calls for completely new ways of collaboration across rich and poor countries."

As Yogi Berra said, prediction is hard – especially about the future. The computer models scientists use to predict climate change are always works in progress.

In a sort of cosmic reality competition, 20 groups around the world are developing new models they plan to submit for review under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international body whose recommendations are being considered at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Three modelling groups are based in the United States, and Cornell researchers are involved in one of them.

Photo:Mike Brown/CaltechSaturn's largest moon, Titan, looks to be the only place in the solar system – aside from our home planet, Earth – with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. According to planetary astronomer Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Earth and Titan share yet another feature, which is inextricably linked with that surface liquid: common fog.

The presence of fog provides the first direct evidence for the exchange of material between the surface and the atmosphere, and thus of an active hydrological cycle, which previously had only been known to exist on Earth.

619 free charging points to be installed by 2011 in North East England

Regional Development Agency One North East and car manufacturer Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., today entered the next phase of their partnership on the development of zero emission mobility in North East England. The two parties have signed a definitive agreement which sets out a road map for the roll-out of electric vehicles and infrastructure in North East England and cements the region's status as the national centre for the development of ultra low carbon vehicles.

Photo:Meredith Murphy ThomasDevelopment and morphology of insect-mimicking spots on the flower petals of a South African beetle daisy

Dark spots on flower petals are common across many angiosperm plant families and occur on flowers such as some lilies, orchids, and daisies. Much research has been done on the physiological and behavioural mechanisms for how these spots attract pollinators. But have you ever wondered what these spots are composed of, how they develop, or how they only appear on some but not all of the ray florets?

Tool use in Veined Octopus

Museum Victoria’s Julian Finn and Mark Norman have recorded the first case of tool use – sophisticated behaviour generally limited to mammals and birds – in an invertebrate.

The Veined Octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, uses foreign objects for shelter, which is common in octopuses and is not itself considered tool use. However the Veined Octopus goes a step further and prepares, manipulates and carries coconut shells up to 20 metres to reassemble its shelter elsewhere.

Photo:Stefan Wernli/WikimediaA confidential UNFCC secretariat analysis confirms that current emissions reductions pledges by developed and some emerging economies leaves the world on track to global warming of at best three degrees warming – and probably more.

"The stark message for world leaders at Copenhagen is that the proposals on the table - especially from industrialised countries – fall far short of what the world needs," said Keith Allott, head of climate change at WWF-UK.

Mammals may be nearly half way toward mass extinction

If the planet is headed for another mass extinction like the previous five, each of which wiped out more than 75 per cent of all species on the planet, then North American mammals are one-fifth to one-half the way there, according to a University of California, Berkeley, and Pennsylvania State University analysis.

Conservation success depends on understanding feeding behaviour

Scientists in Scotland, Canada and the US have proposed a new method to identify priority areas for whale conservation. The team's findings, published in Animal Conservation, suggest that even small protected areas, identified through feeding behaviour, can benefit highly mobile marine predators such as killer whales.

Leaders arriving to sign a Copenhagen climate agreement and finding that they now need to salvage it need to take a global rather than national approach to the numerous outstanding issues, WWF said.

"It looks like The Copenhagen Climate Summit could have made it through the valley of death", said Kim Carstensen, Leader of WWF's Global Climate Initiative."It's encouraging that some new offers are starting to hit the table. Now is the time for Heads of States to show their leadership skills.

Tropical deforestation accounts for 15-20 per cent of all human-induced carbon emissions each year. BirdLife International wants to see this reduced to zero by 2020, along with the acknowledgement of the vital importance of safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystems and the essential services that tropical forests provide in climate change mitigation.

In response to this global crisis, BirdLife International has created the Forests of Hope programme to bring together and build on its successful forest conservation and management programmes throughout the tropics.

Image: Toshi Nishimura/UCLAA network of cameras deployed around the Arctic in support of NASA's THEMIS mission has made a startling discovery about the Northern Lights. Sometimes, vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, producing spectacular outbursts of light. Movies of the phenomenon were unveiled at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

"Our jaws dropped when we saw the movies for the first time," said space scientist Larry Lyons of the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), a member of the team that made the discovery. "These outbursts are telling us something very fundamental about the nature of auroras."

An explosion at the West Mata Volcano throws ash and rock, with molten lava glowing below. Photo: NSF/NOAAScientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NOAA have recorded the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered – West Mata Volcano – describing high-definition video of the undersea eruption as "spectacular."

"For the first time we have been able to examine, up close, the way ocean islands and submarine volcanoes are born," said Barbara Ransom, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences. "The unusual primitive compositions of the West Mata eruption lavas have much to tell us."

As the lights were turned back on at the conclusion of the special Earth Hour Copenhagen, Vijay Nambiar, the Chief of Staff of the Secretary General UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "Climate change may be bigger than each of us but it is not bigger than
all of us."

The citizens of the UN climate summit host city turned off their lights for an hour in a special Earth Hour which recalled the global event in March of this year in which hundreds of millions of people from 88 countries and 4000 cities and towns Voted Earth for decisive action on climate change.

As talks heat up in Copenhagen, several countries put forward additional fast-start financing proposals to help broker a deal, but the important missing component remains long-term finance. Today, Japanese Environment Minister Sakihito Ozawa announced USD15 billion for fast start funding by 2012, under the Hatoyama Initiative.

Earlier in, Australia, France, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States announced that they will commit USD3.5 billion of public finance to reduce emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD).

Deutsche Bank completes 250-kw solar project at Piscataway facility

New Jersey Project Part of Deutsche Bank's Commitment to be Carbon Neutral by 2012

Deutsche Bank has announced the completion of a 250-kilowatt solar photovoltaic (PV) system at its Piscataway, NJ, office. The roof-mounted array will offset a portion of the facility's electricity consumption and reduce its carbon emissions by 143 metric tons annually, equivalent to 16,232 gallons of gasoline.

University of Calgary archaeologist Julio Mercader at work in the Ngalue cave site, Mozambique. Photo: Courtesy of University of CalgaryThe consumption of wild cereals among prehistoric hunters and gatherers appears to be far more ancient than previously thought, according to a University of Calgary archaeologist who has found the oldest example of extensive reliance on cereal and root staples in the diet of early Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago.

Julio Mercader, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Tropical Archaeology in the U of C's Department of Archaeology, recovered dozens of stone tools from a deep cave in Mozambique showing that wild sorghum, the ancestor of the chief cereal consumed today in sub-Saharan Africa for flours, breads, porridges and alcoholic beverages, was in Homo sapiens' pantry along with the African wine palm, the false banana, pigeon peas, wild oranges and the African "potato."

Deforestation in the Usambara Mountains in Lushoto District, Tanga Region, Tanzania.Photo:Mohsin S. Karmali/WikimediaAn agreement in Copenhagen to fund reduced emissions from deforestation may generate multiple environmental and economic benefits if investments simultaneously target sites that are both carbon and biodiversity-rich.

But the new report, published in the journal Conservation Letters, also warns of challenges in countries such as Brazil and parts of East Africa unless safeguards are followed. This is because funding Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) might also displace and intensify activities such as agriculture in lower carbon but equally biodiversity-rich locales. Such areas include parts of East Africa and Brazil.

Credit: NASA/CXC/UCSC/L. Lopez et al.At a very early age, children learn how to classify objects according to their shape. Now, new research suggests studying the shape of the aftermath of supernovas may allow astronomers to do the same.

A new study of images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory on supernova remnants - the debris from exploded stars - shows that the symmetry of the remnants, or lack thereof, reveals how the star exploded. This is an important discovery because it shows that the remnants retain information about how the star exploded even though hundreds or thousands of years have passed.

Photo:Danielle Langlois/WikimediaPlants in subarctic Quebec community don't always benefit from application of fertiliser

Companies and communities trying to restore vegetation on damaged northern landscapes should think twice about using fertiliser to stimulate growth according to new research published in the November issue of Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research.Not all plants benefit from the use of fertilisers. In fact, some do worse.

The American coot is a drab, seemingly unremarkable marsh bird common throughout North America. But its reproductive life is full of deception and violence.

According to biologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, coots have evolved a remarkable set of cognitive abilities to thwart other coots that lay eggs in their neighbors' nests. In 2003, the researchers showed that coots can count their own eggs and reject ones laid in their nests by other coots. Their latest findings, published this week in Nature, show that coot parents can tell the difference between their own chicks and any impostors that manage to hatch in their nest, and they will violently reject most impostor chicks.

This is a view of the Zuccale Fault, Elba, Italy from a distance. Photo: Cristiano Collettini, Universita degli Studi di Perugia, Italy,Some geologic faults that appear strong and stable, slip and slide like weak faults. Now an international team of researchers has laboratory evidence showing why some faults that "should not" slip are weaker than previously thought.

"Low-angle normal faults – faults that dip less than 45 degrees – are a problem," said Chris Marone, professor of geosciences, Penn State. "Standard analysis shows that these faults should not slip because it is easier to form a new fault than to slip on this orientation."

An additional 2 degrees of global warming could commit the planet

A new analysis of the geological record of the Earth's sea level, carried out by scientists at Princeton and Harvard universities and published in the Dec. 16 issue of Nature, employs a novel statistical approach that reveals the planet's polar ice sheets are vulnerable to large-scale melting even under moderate global warming scenarios. Such melting would lead to a large and relatively rapid rise in global sea level.

This artist's impression shows how the newly discovered super-Earth surrounding the nearby star GJ1214 may look. Image: ESO/L. CalçadaIn this week's issue of Nature, astronomers announce the discovery of a planet around the nearby, low-mass star GJ1214 [2]. It is the second time a transiting super-Earth has been detected, after the recent discovery of the planet Corot-7b [3].

A transit occurs when the planet's orbit is aligned so that we see it crossing the face of its parent star. The newly discovered planet has a mass about six times that of our terrestrial home and 2.7 times its radius, falling in size between the Earth and the ice giants of the Solar System, Uranus and Neptune.

Lost water of the Napa Valley vineyards

Stanford researchers on how irrigation water slips away and how to stanch the flow

Getting the most out of every drop of water is a high priority for grape growers in the southern Napa Valley, where summers are hot and dry and vines have to be irrigated to make it through the growing season. But Stanford researchers have found that a significant portion of the water applied to the vines zips right by the plants, hardly even pausing.

An unseen stellar nursery comes into view in this Herschel image. Image: ESA and the SPIRE & PACS consortia, P. André (CEA Saclay) for the Gould’s Belt Key Programme Consortia.Herschel has peered inside an unseen stellar nursery and revealed surprising amounts of activity. Some 700 newly-forming stars are estimated to be crowded into filaments of dust stretching through the image. The image is the first new release of 'OSHI', ESA's Online Showcase of Herschel Images.

This image shows a dark cloud 1000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila, the Eagle. It covers an area 65 light-years across and is so shrouded in dust that no previous infrared satellite has been able to see into it. Now, thanks to Herschel's superior sensitivity at the longest wavelengths of the infrared, astronomers have their first picture of the interior of this cloud.

Shell awarded permit to study natural gas potential in central South Africa

The South African Petroleum Authorities (Petroleum Agency SA) today awarded Shell a Technical Cooperation Permit for a one-year study to determine the hydrocarbon potential in parts of the Karoo Basin in central South Africa.

The permit covers an area of approximately 185,000 square kilometres. The study will provide a better understanding of the area's geology and shale gas potential, establishing the scope to pursue natural gas exploration. Shell will have the exclusive right to apply for exploration permits following completion of the study.

North American indigenous peoples demand more in Copenhagen

As the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) winds down, thousands of people marched in the streets today to "reclaim power" from the UN process they say is not good enough. Indigenous Peoples led a march from inside the official venue of the climate negotiations, to stand in solidarity with the rest of civil society in demanding climate justice.

Over the past two weeks, indigenous peoples have been working to ensure all potential climate policies and actions that come out of the negotiations, ensure recognition of and respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. Specifically, indigenous peoples have lobbied for the incorporation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into climate policy. Although some would see the mention of the UNDRIP in the text of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) a small success, many feel it is a slap in the face of indigenous peoples.

Six countries in West Africa have committed to conserving Important Bird Areas (IBAs) for migratory birds along their coastlines. This is the outcome of a recent joint workshop organised by BirdLife and Wetlands International.

"The project offers an opportunity for coordinated monitoring and conservation of IBAs along the coast of West Africa, and for capacity building, which is crucial for migratory bird conservation, as well as enhancement of the livelihoods of local communities", said Dr Hazell Shokellu Thompson - Africa regional director of BirdLife International.