Earthwitness » for a better now.: March 2010

Proteins in unroasted coffee beans may become next-generation insecticides

Unroasted coffee beans contain proteins that kill insects, a finding that may lead to new insecticides for protecting food crops.
Credit: Fernando Rebelo, Wikimedia CommonsScientists in Brazil are reporting for the first time that coffee beans contain proteins that can kill insects and might be developed into new insecticides for protecting food crops against destructive pests. Their study, which suggests a new use for one of the most important tropical crops in the world, appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication.

Innovative thinking on agriculture in the Greater Mekong Subregion

Nations of the Greater Mekong Subregion need to 'rethink' their agricultural industries to meet future food needs, given the social shifts and climate changes that are forecast for the coming decades. With better farming practices, and by managing agriculture within the wider context of natural ecosystems, nations could boost production and increase the wealth and resilience of poor people in rural communities. Demand for food is forecast to double by 2050, as populations swell and people's dietary choices change. If governments act now, they will be better placed to meet this target and withstand the more severe climatic changes likely to affect the GMS beyond 2050.

Dr Tom H. Rich with the Australian tyrannosauroid fossil. | Image: Jon Augier | Source: Museum VictoriaFossils discovered by Australian scientists have provided the first ever evidence of tyrannosaur dinosaurs in the southern continents. A hip bone found at Dinosaur Cove in Victoria has been identified as belonging to a relative of the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex.

The discovery of the fossil sheds new light on the evolutionary history of this group of dinosaurs and raises the crucial question of why it was only in the northern hemisphere that tyrannosaurs evolved into giant predators like Tyrannosaurus rex. The specimen suggests there may well be more tyrannosaurs on the southern continents.

Oxfam calls for urgent response to warning signs, citing delays that cost lives last time the region faced a severe food shortfall

Almost 10 million people across the Sahel region of West Africa are threatened with a severe food shortage, international aid agency Oxfam said today. The worst affected country is Niger where 8 million people are at risk. Some 2 million people are threatened in Chad and a substantial number of people are expected to be affected in Mali in the coming months. Parts of Nigeria and Burkina Faso are also at risk.

Greenpeace divers with underwater banner reading 'Where have all the tuna gone' in Balearic Islands, Spain - a breeding ground for the bluefin tuna. ©Greenpeace/Gavin NewmanGreenpeace condemns governments for putting short-term economic interests ahead of the long-term survival of endangered species.

“Too many governments at CITES have voted to protect profits not endangered species,” said Oliver Knowles, Greenpeace International Oceans Campaigner. “This conference has been a disaster for conservation.”

Scientists in Wisconsin are reporting discovery of a way to lower the cost of converting wood, corn stalks and leaves, switch grass, and other non-food biomass materials into ethanol fuel. They describe their process, which reduces amounts of costly enzymes needed to break down tough fibrous cellulose matter in biomass for fermentation into alcohol, here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

"We believe our finding will have a major impact on the economics of cellulose to biofuels conversions," said Rajai Atalla, Ph.D. "We think it can make cellulose significantly more competitive with corn as the primary source of glucose as a feedstock for biofuels." Atalla is the founder of Cellulose Sciences International in Madison, Wisc.

Soils release more carbon dioxide as globe warms.

Twenty years of field studies reveal that as the Earth has gotten warmer, plants and microbes in the soil have given off more carbon dioxide. So-called soil respiration has increased about one-tenth of 1 per cent per year since 1989, according to an analysis of past studies in today's issue of Nature.

Boreal forest Having a large-scale boreal forest biomass inventory would allow scientists to understand better the carbon cycle and to predict more accurately Earth’s future climate. However, obtaining these maps has been wrought with difficulty – until now.

A new processing algorithm has been developed using stacks of images from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) on ESA’s Envisat satellite that allows for the retrieval of boreal forest biomass well beyond the levels that have been previously reported.

Pollution from Asia circles globe at stratospheric heights

The economic growth across much of Asia comes with a troubling side effect: pollutants from the region are being wafted up to the stratosphere during monsoon season. The new finding, in a study led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, provides additional evidence of the global nature of air pollution and its effects far above Earth's surface.

The international study is being published Thursday in Science Express. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, together with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency.

Greenland ice sheet losing mass on northwest coast

Ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet, which has been increasing during the past decade over its southern region, is now moving up its northwest coast, according to a new international study.

Led by the Denmark Technical Institute's National Space Institute in Copenhagen and involving the University of Colorado at Boulder, the study indicated the ice-loss acceleration began moving up the northwest coast of Greenland starting in late 2005. The team drew their conclusions by comparing data from NASA's Gravity and Recovery Climate Experiment satellite system, or GRACE, with continuous GPS measurements made from long-term sites on bedrock on the edges of the ice sheet.

Senecio inaequidens, a plant native to the mountains of South Africa, has been spreading rapidly along the roads and railway embankments in Germany since the 1950s.In the coming decades, climate change is set to produce worldwide changes in the living conditions for plants, whereby major regional differences may be expected to occur. Thus today´s cool, moist regions could in future provide habitats for additional species, and in arid and hot regions the climatic prerequisites for a high degree of plant diversity will deteriorate. This is the conclusion reached in a new study by scientists at the Universities of Bonn, Göttingen and Yale, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society London. The study was funded by the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).

A United Nations meeting on endangered species trade adjourned today after two weeks of negotiations marked by the repeated rejection of proposals to better protect marine species, such as the Atlantic bluefin tuna, corals and several shark species.

Trade issues on marine species failed to attract the necessary support at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which meets once every three years.

A single unit of the new desalination device, fabricated on a layer of silicone. In the Y-shaped channel (in red), seawater enters from the right, and fresh water leaves through the lower channel at left, while concentrated brine leaves through the upper channel.
Photo: Patrick Gillooly/MITCould lead to small, portable units for disaster sites or remote locations.

A new approach to desalination being developed by researchers at MIT and in Korea could lead to small, portable desalination units that could be powered by solar cells or batteries and could deliver enough fresh water to supply the needs of a family or small village. As an added bonus, the system would also remove many contaminants, viruses and bacteria at the same time.

At the close of the world’s largest wildlife trade convention meeting, global conservation organization WWF welcomes the statement today by the regional fisheries management organization in charge of the Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery – the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, ICCAT – that its members should agree and implement a scientifically sound recovery plan for the species when they meet in November in Paris, France.

In a statement in Doha, Qatar, today on the last day of the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), ICCAT chair Dr Fabio Hazin told delegates: “Setting management measures not in line with scientific advice is no longer an option. (...) The commitment to recover bluefin tuna stocks in the Atlantic must be strengthened at ICCAT’s forthcoming meeting in Paris in November.”

Time for closer collaboration on wildlife trade

It’s time for joint action and for regulatory bodies to work together to ensure the continued survival of species threatened by wildlife trade, says IUCN at the end of the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP15) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), in Doha, Qatar.

“CITES CoP15 has highlighted the challenges facing this convention as one of the many existing agreements for managing commercially important species sustainably,” says Sue Mainka, Head of IUCN’s delegation to CITES. “However, the decisions taken at CoP15 should stimulate further evolution of CITES including development of tools and mechanisms needed to support efforts to achieve sustainable management of natural resources. Those resources are fundamental elements of our economy and people’s livelihoods.”

Abundant populations of the deep-sea spider crab Encephaloides armstrongi from c. 1,000 m (lower boundary OMZ) in the Gulf of Oman and the dead bodies of large upper-ocean jellyfish (Crambionella orsini) which can occur in plague proportions in the Gulf of Oman.
Credit: NOCS/NERCSome regions of the deep ocean floor support abundant populations of organisms, despite being overlain by water that contains very little oxygen, according to an international study led by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. But global warming is likely to exacerbate oxygen depletion and thereby reduce biodiversity in these regions, they warn.

The sunlit surface waters tend to be well oxygenated as a result of their connection with the atmosphere. Here, tiny marine algae called phytoplankton thrive. When they die and sink, they are degraded by bacteria, using oxygen from the water column.

BMW Group Middle East, supported by the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD), the Road and Transport Authority of Dubai (RTA), Abu Dhabi Municipality and Dubai Municipality, has launched its 'Stay Alert. Stay Alive.' road safety initiative in a bid to raise awareness of the importance of various road safety issues.

Following an independent survey of BMW and MINI customers to help identify what prompts drivers in the GCC region to take risks in their vehicles, BMW Group Middle East has identified the use of seat-belts, and in particular, appropriate child restraints, as the theme of its first campaign under the initiative that is aimed at increasing road safety awareness across the board.

Earth Hour, a global event created to symbolise that each one of us, working together, can make a difference on climate change, will take place on Saturday March 27th at 8.30 PM.

The world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa and the resting place of the UAE’s founding father, the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque will join other iconic UAE landmarks including, the Emirates Palace, Raffles Hotel, ADIA Building, Burj Al Arab, Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Aldar Head Quarters, Sharjah Mega Mall, Sharjah Science Museum, Fairmont, Tecom, Media One Hotel, Dubai World Trade centre, the Yas Hotel and Yas Marina Circuit, Sas Radisson Hotel Blue and more for Earth Hour and ‘flick the switch’ on their signature landmarks, marking their dedication to sustainable development and joining their citizens in adopting low-carbon practices switching off the lights in a decisive display of climate action.

A girl drinking purified water in Kalpitiya.
(Photo: UNDP/CWI/SGP)On the Kalpitiya Peninsula, located on Sri Lanka’s western coast, relatively large scale irrigated monoculture agriculture is practiced. The associated heavy use of fertilizers has led to the contamination of farm and domestic wells with nitrates, which poses the risk of methaemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome) and other concerns.

United Nations chemical experts have recommended that two pesticides - endosulfan and azinphos methyl - be included in the Rotterdam Convention's "Prior Informed Consent" procedure.

The Convention's Chemical Review Committee based its recommendation on a review of national regulatory actions to ban these chemicals, due to unacceptable risks to human health and the environment.

Discussion of a long-awaited proposal to ban international commercial trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna was cut short today at the largest wildlife trade convention when an immediate vote was pushed through.

Member governments of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) chose to vote today on the proposal. 72 out of 129 CITES members voted against the trade ban, 43 voted in favour, with 14 abstentions.

Eighty five per cent of sturgeon, one of the oldest families of fishes in existence, valued around the world for their precious roe, are at risk of extinction, making them the most threatened group of animals on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The latest update of the Red List assessed the status of 18 species of sturgeon from all over Europe and Asia and found that all were threatened.

Urgent law enforcement action by governments in Central and West Africa and South-east Asia is crucial to addressing the illicit ivory trade, according to a new analysis of elephant trade data released today.

Detailed regional summaries of the data held in the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), the world’s largest database on ivory seizures, highlight the failure of law enforcement in key elephant range States facing an increasing threat from organised crime and the presence of unregulated markets.

New study to show how our body clock controls disease

New treatments for inflammatory lung diseases and a host of other conditions could be developed following a study into the impact of circadian rhythms – or body clock – at The University of Manchester.

In a partnership between the University of Manchester, the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a team of scientists will investigate how our biological clock controls inflammation in lung diseases such Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Reindeer have 'switched off' their body clocks in order to survive the extreme Arctic seasons of polar day, when the sun stays up all day, and polar night, when the sun does not rise above the horizon at all, scientists have discovered.

The body clock, or circadian clock, is the internal mechanism that drives hormone rhythms - and thus a host other functions - in a rhythmic 24-hour fashion. Light-dark cycles drive hormone rhythms via a circuit that involves the eye and nervous system affecting hormone production, in particular melatonin. In most mammals, this wiring circuit also involves the circadian clock, which is able to drive the hormone rhythms even when there is no light dark cycle.

Suzanne Hendrich, an ISU professor in food science and human nutrition, led a study finding that men can experience some cholesterol-lowering benefit from consuming flaxseed lignans. Photo by Jaclyn Hansel, College of Human SciencesA new study from Iowa State University's Nutrition and Wellness Research Center (NWRC) may give men a way to combat high cholesterol without drugs – if they don't mind sprinkling some flaxseed into their daily diet.

Suzanne Hendrich, an ISU professor in food science and human nutrition, led a study that examined the effects of flaxseed lignan in 90 people diagnosed with high cholesterol. The results showed that consuming at least 150 milligrams of flaxseed lignans per day (about three tablespoons) decreased cholesterol in men, but not women, by just under 10 percent over the three months that they were given the flaxseed.

From climate change to securing sustainable employment: key issues facing the Arab region

UNEP-Led "Environment Outlook for the Arab Region" launched at League of Arab States meeting in Cairo

Multiple challenges are facing the Arab region from climate change and food insecurity to decreasing water availability and unemployment according to a new assessment by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The Environment Outlook for the Arab Region (EOAR), compiled at the request of the Council of Arab Ministers Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE) says important progress is being made to address sustainability.

Photo: Alicia NavidadAustralian and US scientists have discovered how changes in winds blowing on the Southern Ocean drive variations in the depth of the surface layer of sea water responsible for regulating exchanges of heat and carbon dioxide between the ocean and the atmosphere.

The researchers’ findings – published on-line today in Nature Geoscience – provide new insights into natural processes which have a major influence on the rate of climate change.

Climate now: New state of the Climate Snapshot

More extremely hot days, fewer cold ones wetter in the north and drier in the south: this is not a forecast for Australia’s climate but a snapshot of the climate now.

In a joint CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology statement released today, Australia’s two lead climate science agencies have produced a snapshot of the state of the climate to update Australians about how their climate has changed and what it means.

Credit: OpenCageWWF applauds the confirmation from European Union member states that they will vote for a ban on international commercial trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna during a meeting of the largest wildlife trade convention starting this week.

The 27 EU members said today they would vote to list Atlantic bluefin tuna on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), joining a growing list of supporting countries, including the United States of America.

Exposure to BPA may cause permanent fertility defects

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered that exposure during pregnancy to Bisphenol A (BPA), a common component of plastics, causes permanent abnormalities in the uterus of offspring, including alteration in their DNA. The findings were reported in the March issue of Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB J.).

Led by Hugh S. Taylor, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale, the study is the first to show that BPA exposure permanently affects sensitivity to estrogen.

Governments meeting March 13 for the largest wildlife trade convention will have a unique opportunity to help preserve the world’s oceans and simultaneously stem a worldwide poaching crisis.

The 15th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES CoP 15) will consider an unprecedented six proposals to better protect marine species - including a crucial ban on the international commercial trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Shortly after the Moon formed, an asteroid smacked into its southern hemisphere and gouged out a truly enormous crater, the South Pole-Aitken basin, almost 1,500 miles across and more than five miles deep.

"This is the biggest, deepest crater on the Moon -- an abyss that could engulf the United States from the East Coast through Texas," said Noah Petro of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The impact punched into the layers of the lunar crust, scattering that material across the Moon and into space. The tremendous heat of the impact also melted part of the floor of the crater, turning it into a sea of molten rock.

That was just an opening shot. Asteroid bombardment over billions of years has left the lunar surface pockmarked with craters of all sizes, and covered with solidified lava, rubble, and dust. Glimpses of the original surface, or crust, are rare, and views into the deep crust are rarer still.

The Tharsis region of Mars, including the three volcanoes of Tharsis Montes (Arsia, Pavonis and Ascraeus Mons), as well as Olympic Mons in the upper left corner. Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion LabFlowing lava can carve or build paths very much like the riverbeds and canyons etched by water, and this probably explains at least one of the meandering channels on the surface of Mars.

These results were presented on March 4, 2010 at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference by Jacob Bleacher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Whether channels on Mars were formed by water or by lava has been debated for years, and the outcome is thought to influence the likelihood of finding life there.

Chicxulub Crater, Image Credit: Virgil L. SharptonResponding to challenges to the hypothesis that an asteroid impact caused a mass extinction on Earth 65 million years, a panel of 41 scientists re-analyzed data and provided new evidence, concluding that an impact in Mexico was indeed the cause of the mass extinction.

Thirty years ago, Luis Alvarez, Jan Smit and their coworkers suggested a large meteorite slammed into Earth 65 million years ago and caused one of the most severe mass extinctions in Earth's history, ending the age of the dinosaurs. In 1991, a more than 200-kilometer-wide impact crater was discovered in Yucatan, Mexico, that coincided with the extinctions. Since then, the impact hypothesis has gained overwhelming acceptance within the scientific community.

Arctic seabed methane stores destabilising, venting

A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science, show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane, is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.

In this photo from Canada's Yukon Territory, an iron-rich layer of 716.5-million-year-old glacial deposits (maroon in color) is seen atop an older carbonate reef (gray in color) that formed in the tropics.

Credit: Francis A. Macdonald/Harvard UniversityGeologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a "snowball Earth" event long suspected to have taken place around that time.

Led by scientists at Harvard University, the team reports on its work this week in the journal Science. The new findings - based on an analysis of ancient tropical rocks that are now found in remote northwestern Canada - bolster the theory that our planet has, at times in the past, been ice-covered at all latitudes.

Assessing antibiotic breakdown in manure

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist Scott Yates is studying how oxytetracycline (OTC), an antibiotic that is administered to animals, breaks down in cattle manure.

Livestock producers in the United States often use antibiotics to control disease in their animals, and confined U.S. livestock and poultry generate about 63.8 million tons of manure every year. The drugs are often only partially absorbed by the digestive tract, and the rest are excreted with their pharmaceutical activity intact.

New research addressing climate change questions, a priority focus of the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, documents that American pika in the Sierra Nevada and southwestern Great Basin are thriving and persist in a wider range of temperatures than previously discovered.

Results were recently published in a paper titled "Distribution and Climatic Relationships of the American Pika (Ochotona princeps) in the Sierra Nevada and Western Great Basin, U.S.A.; Periglacial Landforms as Refugia in Warming Climates," by Constance Millar and Robert Westfall in the February 2010 issue of the journal Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research.

Scientists report octopus imitating flounder in the Atlantic. Remarkable strategy evolved to avoid predators.

On the open sand plains of the Caribbean seafloor, where soft-bodied animals are routinely exposed to predators, camouflage can be key to survival. Perhaps no group of animals is quite as adept at blending in with its surroundings as cephalopods, who along with relatives the cuttlefish and squid, have evolved a unique skin system that can instantaneously change their appearance.

A record Earth Hour is looming with more countries now signed up for the event than for last year’s globe circling lights out for climate action.

Just over two weeks out from the event, timed for 8.30 pm on March 27, organisers are now active in in 92 countries, compared to a final participation figure of 88 countries in 2009 which saw hundreds of millions participating.

Chemicals that eased one environmental problem may worsen another

Chemicals that helped solve a global environmental crisis in the 1990s — the hole in Earth's protective ozone layer — may be making another problem — acid rain — worse, scientists are reporting. Their study on the chemicals that replaced the ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) once used in aerosol spray cans, air conditioners, refrigerators, and other products, appears in ACS' Journal of Physical Chemistry A, a weekly publication.

A team of scientists in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are reporting disturbing evidence that soil microbes have become progressively more resistant to antibiotics over the last 60 years.

Surprisingly, this trend continues despite apparent more stringent rules on use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, and improved sewage treatment technology that broadly improves water quality in surrounding environments. Their report appears in ACS' bi-weekly journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Climate change is one reason malaria is on the rise in some parts of the world, new research finds, but other factors such as migration and land-use changes are likely also at play. The research, published in The Quarterly Review of Biology, aims to sort out contradictions that have emerged as scientists try to understand why malaria has been spreading into highland areas of East Africa, Indonesia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

"We assessed … conclusions from both sides and found that evidence for a role of climate in the dynamics is robust," write study authors Luis Fernando Chaves from Emory University and Constantianus Koenraadt of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "However, we also argue that over-emphasizing a role for climate is misleading for setting a research agenda, even one which attempts to understand climate change impacts on emerging malaria patterns."

Photo: Joanna ServaesIncreased appetite and insulin resistance can be transferred from one mouse to another via intestinal bacteria, according to research being published online this week by Science magazine.

The finding strengthens the case that intestinal bacteria can contribute to human obesity and metabolic disease, since previous research has shown that intestinal bacterial populations differ between obese and lean humans.

Vigilance needed in nanotechnology

University of Calgary chemist finds right mix of tools to measure nanomaterials in blood vessels

University of Calgary chemistry professor David Cramb is a step closer to helping solve a complex problem in nanotechnology: the impact nanoparticles have on human health and the environment.

Cramb, director of the Faculty of Science's nanoscience program, and his researchers have developed a methodology to measure various aspects of nanoparticles in the blood stream of chicken embryos. Their discovery is published in the March online edition of Chemical Physics Letters.

Researchers search for answers to warming coastal water, thinning marine populations

The ongoing El Niño of 2010 is affecting north Pacific Ocean ecosystems in ways that could affect the West Coast fishing industry, according to scientists at NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.

An atrazine-induced female frog (a genetic male) is shown (bottom) copulating with an unexposed male sibling. This union produced viable eggs and larvae that survived to metamorphosis and adulthood. Yet, because both animals were genetic males, the offspring were all males. (Tyrone Hayes photo)Atrazine, one of the world's most widely used pesticides, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.

The 75 per cent that are chemically castrated are essentially "dead" because of their inability to reproduce in the wild, reports UC Berkeley's Tyrone B. Hayes, professor of integrative biology.