World energy demand will increase by around a third by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency. Which area of the energy industry will create most new jobs by 2035? (Click all that apply)
Zebrafish synapsesImage: Courtesy of Gordon Wang and Philippe Mourrain Stanford University
The benefits of sleep seem obvious. And yet scientists have long debated precisely how it improves brain performance at the cellular level. One camp argues that sleep reduces the unimportant connections between neurons, preventing brain overload. Another camp maintains that sleep consolidates memories from the previous day.
A group of researchers recently tried to settle this debate by studying the larvae of a common see-through aquarium pet, the zebrafish. Like humans, zebrafish are active during the day and sleep at night. Unlike humans, zebrafish larvae are transparent, which allowed researchers to watch their brains as they slept. The researchers, led by Lior Appelbaum and Philippe Mourrain of Stanford University, tagged the larvae neurons with a dye so that active neuron connections, or synapses, appeared green, whereas inactive ones appeared black. Decreased synaptic activity would show that sleep pruned unnecessary memory connections, whereas memory consolidation would have a different pattern. After following the fluctuations of these synapses over the course of a day, the team found that the zebrafish did indeed have lower overall synapse activity during sleep. The researchers published their results in the journal Neuron, becoming the first to show the effects of sleep/wake cycles and time of day on the synapses of a living vertebrate. “Sleep is an active process that reduces the activity in the brain,” Mourrain says. “It allows the brain to recover from past experiences.” Without the synapse reduction that happens during sleep, he notes, the brain would not have the ability to continually take in and store new information.
But the debate is not yet settled. Among the team’s other findings was that not all neural circuits are affected by sleep in the same way. Learning and memory may benefit the most, Mourrain says. For this reason, the two hypotheses about sleep “may not be mutually exclusive,” says neuroscientist Jan Born of the University of Lübeck in Germany. A resolution may not be far off; Mourrain and Applebaum’s new imaging technique will allow for more detailed study of the brain during sleep in years to come.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Climate change to continue to the year 3000 in best case scenarios
By Jennifer Myers Dr. Shawn Marshall co-authored a study that is the first full climate model simulation to make predictions out to 1,000 years from now.
New research indicates the impact of rising CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere will cause unstoppable effects to the climate for at least the next 1,000 years, causing researchers to estimate a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet by the year 3000 and an eventual rise in the global sea level of at least four metres.
The study, published in the Jan. 9 Advanced Online Publication of the journal Nature Geoscience, is the first full climate model simulation to make predictions out to 1,000 years from now. It is based on best-case, ‘zero-emissions’ scenarios constructed by a team of researchers from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (an Environment Canada research lab at the University of Victoria) and the University of Calgary.
“We created ‘what if’ scenarios,” says Dr. Shawn Marshall, co-author of the paper, Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and University of Calgary geography professor. “What if we completely stopped using fossil fuels and put no more CO2 in the atmosphere? How long would it then take to reverse current climate change trends and will things first become worse?” The research team explored zero-emissions scenarios beginning in 2010 and in 2100.
The Northern Hemisphere fares better than the south in the computer simulations, with patterns of climate change reversing within the 1,000-year timeframe in places, such as Canada. At the same time, parts of North Africa experience desertification as land dries out by up to 30 percent and ocean warming of up to 5oC off of Antarctica is likely to trigger widespread collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, a region the size of the Canadian prairies.
Researchers hypothesize that one reason for the variability between the North and South is the slow movement of ocean water from the North Atlantic into the South Atlantic. “The global ocean and parts of the Southern Hemisphere have much more inertia, such that change occurs more slowly,” says Marshall. “The inertia in intermediate and deep ocean currents driving into the Southern Atlantic means those oceans are only now beginning to warm as a result of CO2 emissions from the last century. The simulation showed that warming will continue rather than stop or reverse on the 1,000-year time scale.”
Wind currents in the Southern Hemisphere may also have an impact. Marshall says that winds in the global south tend to strengthen and stay strong without reversing. “This increases the mixing in the ocean, bringing more heat from the atmosphere down and warming the ocean.”
Researchers will next begin to investigate more deeply the impact of atmosphere temperature on ocean temperature to help determine the rate at which West Antarctica could destabilize and how long it may take to fully collapse into the water.
The paper “Ongoing climate change following a complete cessation of carbon dioxide emissions” by Nathan P. Gillett, Vivek K. Arora, Kirsten Zickfeld, Shawn J. Marshall and William J. Merryfield is available online at http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html
Epic Journeys of Turtles Revealed Via Satellite Tracking
ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2011) — The epic ocean-spanning journeys of the gigantic leatherback turtle in the South Atlantic have been revealed for the first time thanks to groundbreaking research using satellite tracking.
Top: This is a leatherback turtle on a beach in the South Atlantic. Bottom: This map shows three migration routes monitored during the research. Each one illustrates one of the three main migration strategies identified by the research. (Credit: Matthew Witt)
Experts at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation (Cornwall) at the University of Exeter led a five-year study to find out more about these increasingly rare creatures and inform conservation efforts.
The research, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, has shed new light on the little-known migration behaviour of these animals -- following their movement from the world's largest breeding colony in Gabon, Central Africa, as they returned to feeding grounds across the South Atlantic.
The research has been carried out with the help of Parcs Gabon, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), PTMG (Marine Turtle Partnership for Gabon), the Trans-Atlantic Leatherback Conservation Initiative (TALCIN) -- a multi-partner effort coordinated by WWF, and SEATURTLE.org
Out of 25 females studied in the new research, three migratory routes were identified -- including one 7,563km (4,699 mile) journey straight across the South Atlantic from Africa to South America.
Other routes still involved large distances, as they moved from Gabon to food-rich habitats in the southwest and southeast Atlantic and off the coast of Central Africa. They will stay in these areas for 2-5 years to build up the reserves to reproduce, when they will return to Gabon once again.
Dr Matthew Witt said: "Despite extensive research carried out on leatherbacks, no-one has really been sure about the journeys they take in the South Atlantic until now. What we've shown is that there are three clear migration routes as they head back to feeding grounds after breeding in Gabon, although the numbers adopting each strategy varied each year. We don't know what influences that choice yet, but we do know these are truly remarkable journeys -- with one female tracked for thousands of miles travelling in a straight line right across the Atlantic."
In the Pacific ocean, leatherback turtles have seen a precipitous decline over the past three decades -- with one nesting colony in Mexico declining from 70,000 in 1982 to just 250 by 1998-9*. The exact cause of the dramatic fall-off in numbers is not clear, but turtle egg harvesting, coastal gillnet fishing, and longline fishing have been identified as potential factors.
In the Atlantic, population levels have been more robust but, due to variations in numbers at nesting sites each year, it's not clear whether they are in decline. Conservationists are keen to take action now to avoid a repeat of the Pacific story.
Dr Brendan Godley said the new research would be vital for informing this conservation strategy: "All of the routes we've identified take the leatherbacks through areas of high risk from fisheries, so there's a very real danger to the Atlantic population. Knowing the routes has also helped us identify at least 11 nations who should be involved in conservation efforts, as well as those with long-distance fishing fleets. There's a concern that the turtles we tracked spent a long time on the High Seas, where it's very difficult to implement and manage conservation efforts, but hopefully this research will help inform future efforts to safeguard these fantastic creatures."
Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Ocean Giants Program, said: "This important work shows that protecting leatherback turtles -- the ancient mariners of our oceans -- requires research and conservation on important nesting beaches, foraging areas and important areas of the high seas. Armed with a better understanding of migration patterns and preferences for particular areas of the ocean, the conservation community can now work toward protecting leatherbacks at sea, which has been previously difficult."
The research was carried out with the financial support of a range of donors, including the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, UK), the Darwin Initiative, the Large Pelagics Research Center (LPRC, USA) Competitive Grants Program, and the European Association of Zoos & Aquaria (EAZA) Shellshock Campaign.
Journal Reference:
M. J. Witt, E. Augowet Bonguno, A. C. Broderick, M. S. Coyne, A. Formia, A. Gibudi, G. A. Mounguengui Mounguengui, C. Moussounda, M. NSafou, S. Nougessono, R. J. Parnell, G.-P. Sounguet, S. Verhage, B. J. Godley. Tracking leatherback turtles from the world's largest rookery: assessing threats across the South Atlantic. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2011; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.2467
Friday, January 7, 2011
Polar expedition to study Antarctica's climate history
Scientists from Aberystwyth and Leeds have joined forces to learn how glaciers behaved in the past so they can predict the future.
The expedition to the north-eastern Antarctic peninsula will study how they reacted to previous climate changes.
The polar experts will collect 100 boxes of rock samples to date how long they have been exposed to sunlight.
A team from Aberystwyth and Swansea universities spent five months studying the Greenland ice sheet last year.
The Antarctic team will be led by Professor Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University. Prof Glasser and his colleagues will hunt for clues about how the glaciers and ice sheets behaved in past climates and what we can expect in the future.
"The collapse of Antarctic ice shelves is largely thought to be caused by warming of the atmosphere, but it appears that changes in sea temperature and ice-shelf structure are also important”- Professor Neil GlasserAberystwyth University
The Antarctic peninsula has suffered above average warming over the past 50 years, with around a 2.5°C temperature increase since 1950, said the universities.
This warming is causing glaciers and ice shelves to melt, releasing large volumes of fresh water into the oceans which not only raises sea level, but also influences regional climate change.
However, scientists do not fully understand the relationship between air and sea temperature, and the melting of ice.
It is difficult for them to assess whether the melting being observed at the moment is unprecedented in the context of geological time.
To address these outstanding questions, the team will collect samples of rock to date their exposure to cosmic radiation and analyse how glaciers and ice have retreated since the last ice age, around 20,000 years ago.
"The collapse of Antarctic ice shelves is largely thought to be caused by warming of the atmosphere, but it appears that changes in sea temperature and ice-shelf structure are also important," said Prof Glasser.
"With the climate expected to warm in the future, it is important for us to understand how Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves behaved in the past so we can predict how they will react in years to come if temperatures continue to rise."
The team of three scientists and one British Antarctic Survey (BAS) field assistant will be dropped off by the Royal Research Ship Ernest Shackleton on James Ross Island, just off the Antarctic Peninsula.
They will be heavily laden with equipment including four quad bikes, two trailers, scientific equipment, tents and enough food and fuel to last three months.
"Normally when researchers work in Antarctica they operate from a research ship or at an established station, whereas we will be dropped off with all our kit and left for two months with just radio contact to the rest of the world," said Dr Jonathan Carrivick from the University of Leeds, who will take part in the trip.
The research is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
La Niña and monsoonal winds flood northern Australia
Blame the strong La Niña and a monsoonal low-pressure zone for the devastating floods in the Australian state of Queensland that have left towns and cities stranded this week.
In some parts of the state flood waters are now slowly receding, while other areas continue to wait for river levels to crest. The region's Fairbairn Dam remains over capacity, spewing 99,705 megalitres of water over its spillway daily.
At its peak, early on 31 December, the dam was at 176 per cent capacity, with water overflowing at a rate of 373,016 megalitres a day.
Boxing day deluge
Pradeep Singh of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology says heavy rains early last month saturated central Queensland and raised stream levels above average. But the final trigger was a deluge on 26 and 27 December, which broke river banks and flooded half of Queensland's 1.1 million square kilometres. Flooding now affects an area larger than Texas, or the size of France and Germany combined.
Jonathan Nott, a geoscientist specialising in extreme natural events at James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland, says pockets of heavy rain are common in the state. But this time the rain was unseasonably widespread and fell over the entire catchment area. "All of the tributaries that flow into the trunk stream, Fitzroy river, have been completely soaked," he says.
According to the Queensland government, some 200,000 people are affected by the floods. Nine flood-related deaths have been confirmed since November.
Niña and monsoon
Nott says the heavy flooding was caused by two largely unrelated weather phenomena.
The first is a strong La Niña event, an interaction between the atmosphere and the oceans: "The strongest we've had in several decades," he says. In 2002, an El Niño cooled Australia's eastern coastal waters, resulting in severe droughts and wildfires. The La Niña, on the contrary, is now trapping warm water at the coast, fuelling cloud development and rainfall, says Nott.
Plus, there is a low-pressure zone over Queensland, he says. Monsoonal troughs are pressure troughs that seasonally enter the southern hemisphere, dragging moisture from north-westerly monsoonal winds into the region. This encourages heavy rain, too. "With the La Niña and monsoonal trough, conditions were absolutely set for these floods to occur," says Nott.
While no single event can be attributed to climate change, warming seawater "loads the dice" for more frequent extreme conditions such as this to occur, he says.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Countering Stress and Depression
At a fundamental level, as human beings, we are all the same; each one of us aspires to happiness and each one of us does not wish to suffer. This is why, whenever I have the opportunity, I try to draw people's attention to what as members of the human family we have in common and the deeply interconnected nature of our existence and welfare.
Today, there is increasing recognition, as well as a growing body of scientific evidence, that confirms the close connection between our own states of mind and our happiness. On the one hand, many of us live in societies that are very developed materially, yet among us are many people who are not very happy. Just underneath the beautiful surface of affluence there is a kind of mental unrest, leading to frustration, unnecessary quarrels, reliance on drugs or alcohol, and in the worst case, suicide. There is no guarantee that wealth alone can give you the joy or fulfilment that you seek. The same can be said of your friends too. When you are in an intense state of anger or hatred, even a very close friend appears to you as somehow frosty, or cold, distant, and annoying.
However, as human beings we are gifted with this wonderful human intelligence. Besides that, all human beings have the capacity to be very determined and to direct that strong sense of determination in whatever direction they like. So long as we remember that we have this marvellous gift of human intelligence and a capacity to develop determination and use it in positive ways, we will preserve our underlying mental health. Realizing we have this great human potential gives us a fundamental strength. This recognition can act as a mechanism that enables us to deal with any difficulty, no matter what situation we are facing, without losing hope or sinking into feelings of low self-esteem.
I write this as someone who lost his freedom at the age of 16, then lost his country at the age of 24. Consequently, I have lived in exile for more than 50 years during which we Tibetans have dedicated ourselves to keeping the Tibetan identity alive and preserving our culture and values. On most days the news from Tibet is heartbreaking, and yet none of these challenges gives grounds for giving up. One of the approaches that I personally find useful is to cultivate the thought: If the situation or problem is such that it can be remedied, then there is no need to worry about it. In other words, if there is a solution or a way out of the difficulty, you do not need to be overwhelmed by it. The appropriate action is to seek its solution. Then it is clearly more sensible to spend your energy focussing on the solution rather than worrying about the problem. Alternatively, if there is no solution, no possibility of resolution, then there is also no point in being worried about it, because you cannot do anything about it anyway. In that case, the sooner you accept this fact, the easier it will be for you. This formula, of course, implies directly confronting the problem and taking a realistic view. Otherwise you will be unable to find out whether or not there is a resolution to the problem
Taking a realistic view and cultivating a proper motivation can also shield you against feelings of fear and anxiety. If you develop a pure and sincere motivation, if you are motivated by a wish to help on the basis of kindness, compassion, and respect, then you can carry on any kind of work, in any field, and function more effectively with less fear or worry, not being afraid of what others think or whether you ultimately will be successful in reaching your goal. Even if you fail to achieve your goal, you can feel good about having made the effort. But with a bad motivation, people can praise you or you can achieve goals, but you still will not be happy.
Again, we may sometimes feel that our whole lives are unsatisfactory, we feel on the point of being overwhelmed by the difficulties that confront us. This happens to us all in varying degrees from time to time. When this occurs, it is vital that we make every effort to find a way of lifting our spirits. We can do this by recollecting our good fortune. We may, for example, be loved by someone; we may have certain talents; we may have received a good education; we may have our basic needs provided for - food to eat, clothes to wear, somewhere to live - we may have performed certain altruistic deeds in the past. We must take into consideration even the slightest positive aspect of our lives. For if we fail to find some way of uplifting ourselves, there is every danger of sinking further into our sense of powerlessness. This can lead us to believe that we have no capacity for doing good whatsoever. Thus we create the conditions of despair itself.
As a Buddhist monk I have learned that what principally upsets our inner peace is what we call disturbing emotions. All those thoughts, emotions, and mental events which reflect a negative or uncompassionate state of mind inevitably undermine our experience of inner peace. All our negative thoughts and emotions - such as hatred, anger, pride, lust, greed, envy, and so on - are considered to be sources of difficulty, to be disturbing. Negative thoughts and emotions are what obstruct our most basic aspiration - to be happy and to avoid suffering. When we act under their influence, we become oblivious to the impact our actions have on others: they are thus the cause of our destructive behaviour both toward others and to ourselves. Murder, scandal, and deceit all have their origin in disturbing emotions.
This inevitably gives rise to the question - can we train the mind? There are many methods by which to do this. Among these, in the Buddhist tradition, is a special instruction called mind training, which focuses on cultivating concern for others and turning adversity to advantage. It is this pattern of thought, transforming problems into happiness that has enabled the Tibetan people to maintain their dignity and spirit in the face of great difficulties. Indeed I have found this advice of great practical benefit in my own life.
A great Tibetan teacher of mind training once remarked that one of the mind’s most marvellous qualities is that it can be transformed. I have no doubt that those who attempt to transform their minds, overcome their disturbing emotions and achieve a sense of inner peace, will, over a period of time, notice a change in their mental attitudes and responses to people and events. Their minds will become more disciplined and positive. And I am sure they will find their own sense of happiness grow as they contribute to the greater happiness of others. I offer my prayers that everyone who makes this their goal will be blessed with success.
The Dalai Lama
December 31, 2010
Originally published in the Hindustan Times, India, on January 3rd, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Biodiversity Year Ends on a High Note as UN General Assembly Backs Resolution Signing into Life an 'IPCC-for Nature'
New York/Nairobi, 21 December 2010 A new international body aimed at catalyzing a global response to the loss of biodiversity and world's economically-important forests, coral reefs and other ecosystems was born yesterday by governments at the United Nations 65th General Assembly (UNGA).
It underlines a further success of the UN's International Year of Biodiversity and should provide a boost to the International Year of Forests which begins in January 2011, and the international decade of biodiversity, also beginning in January 2011.
The adoption, by the UNGA plenary, was the last approval needed for setting up an Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Governments gave a green light to its establishment in June at a meeting in Busan, Republic of Korea, coordinated by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), but this required a resolution to be passed at the UNGA.
The independent platform will in many ways mirror the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has assisted in catalyzing worldwide understanding and governmental action on global warming.
The new body will bridge the gulf between the wealth of scientific knowledge on the accelerating declines and degradation of the natural world, with knowledge on effective solutions and decisive government action required to reverse these damaging trends.
Its various roles will include carrying out high-quality peer reviews of the wealth of science on biodiversity and ecosystem services emerging from research institutes across the globe in order to provide gold standard reports to governments.
These reports will not only cover the state, status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystems, but will also outline transformational policy options and responses to bring about real change in their fortunes.
The IPBES will achieve this in part by prioritizing, making sense of and bringing consistency to the great variety of reports and assessments conducted by United Nations bodies, research centres, universities and others as they relate to biodiversity and ecosystem services.
World energy demand will increase by around a third by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency. Which area of the energy industry will create most new jobs by 2035? (Click all that apply)
