How Endangered Is Endangered Enough?

Do you care that a rare type of freshwater mussel has been nearly wiped out? Unless you are like me in the throes of Summer and I am still looking-for-a-job-limbo, I doubt you have the time to give more than a moment of attention to the freshwater pearl mussels in Cumbria in the United Kingdom...if that. In my daily perusing of the BBC I saw this article, Rare mussels 'almost' wiped out and I couldn't help but think A) how in danger is in danger enough to warrant media coverage and B) does covering close calls for endangered species result in 'boy who cried wolf' response from the public?

In summary, the article is about a massive die-off of freshwater peal mussels (Margaritifera margaritifera) which are a type of mollusk. The BBC reported that 80,000 of the mussels were lost in a single event out of a total estimated population of 12 million in England and Scotland. It was speculated that the event was caused by a loss of outflow from a lake that caused water temperature to go up and oxygen levels to go down. According to the BBC's article the loss is significant because it happened in an individual incident and because the freshwater pearl mussel is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as one what the BBC called the most endangered species. 

I was struck by the term "most endangered" because endangered is in itself a classification. I've written about IUCN red list classifications before, but I went back to their website to check how they define the status of a species. The IUCN has nine classifications for a species, they are: 

via Wikimedia Commons

1. Extinct
2. Extinct in the Wild
3. Critically Endangered
4. Endangered
5. Vulnerable
6. Near Threatened
7. Least Concern
8. Data Deficient
9. Not Evaluated

I can't help but wonder, how much nuance is too much nuance? I think it is very important to provide context and evidence when doing something like evaluating the state of a species. As science writers, we need to be specific because it helps avoid confusion or misrepresentation. I think the classifications are good because they help people determine how a species is doing and what should be of most concern. However, is it possible that by covering the shift of a species from level to level, or a mostly-bad-but-there-are-still-some-that-are-doing-okay-so-all-is-not-lost-event we are causing the public to care less? How many people read the BBC's article and thought, "oh no, not the freshwater pearl mussel!"

But is lack of love for the freshwater pearl mussel really a reflection of uninteresting media coverage or just the lack of sexiness of the mollusk? Would the giant panda cause a bigger stir, just because it is a giant panda? Probably. Though theoretically all species are important, and seeing one in peril is always worrisome. While you can definitely argue that species like this and the problems they face don't get nearly enough media attention and thus the coverage that it does get is a solid positive, I can't help but wonder if people start to get jaded when they see stories like this. Personally, I thought the article in the BBC was interesting. I learned about a species that I wasn't familiar with and problems that it and other species face. I think it was worth the time and worth the coverage, I just don't think that opinion is going to land me in the majority. 

So then is this a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation? Perhaps it is. I think the argument could be made on both sides. Covering an event that is important to a specific species, even when it does not cause it to become endangered or extinct can muddy the waters so to speak and make readers exasperated with stories that don't seem pertinent in the grand scheme of things. Covering an event that is important to a specific species can also provide the public with information that is necessary to helping that species survive and can help them learn something interesting in the process. I think any story about species conservation walks a fine line between being appealing and entertaining while still being relevant and interesting. 

What do you think, is the freshwater pearl mollusk worth covering? Would you cover it in print or only online? Does having an online platform make you more likely to cover it because it costs you less to do so? Do you think you can make the public jaded with stories that are interesting to science lovers but perhaps not to the general non-science minded public? Would that affect your choice to cover the species? Lots of questions and things to think about. If you've got some thoughts on the matter I'd love to hear them so leave them in the comments!

Book Review: Moby-Duck

Recently I departed on my first trip to Europe, to visit a friend who was studying abroad in Germany (Bonn, to be exact.) I traveled armed with several books lest I get bored on my flights or train trips, and one of these books was Donovan Hohn's Moby-Duck. I really, really want to be able to tell everyone I know to go read this book, but I can't. It was hard to get through, I kept stopping and starting and coming back to it, reading in short bursts which I don't usually do because I could only focus on it for small intervals. I feel like someone who isn't really invested in the subject matter would be likely to put it down and not go back to it. But even though I don't think it is for everyone doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. Actually, I liked it a lot.

Moby-Duck starts with the seed of a great story, one so great it has been misinterpreted and told erroneous many times over the last decade. In 1992, a shipping container fell off the back of its transport ship in the Pacific Ocean. The container was holding small plastic bath toys, sets containing a beaver, a frog, a turtle and a duck. These bath toys, set afloat in the ocean traveled the high seas, and ended up washing ashore in high numbers on the Alaskan coast. Hohn is really captivated by the idea of the bath toys, particularly the rubber duck, lost at sea and ends up quitting his job as a teacher to chase the story and find out how far the ocean could have carried the toys. There were rumors that they had washing up in Maine, which would have meant traversing the arctic. It's a good little story, if you don't mind the fact that the ducks didn't actually end up in Maine and Hohn spends the majority of the book chasing a figment of a duck. I really didn't because this book is about much more than bathtub toys.

If you can see past Hohn's sometimes difficult to relate to fascination with the rubber duck, you will start to notice though that this isn't actually a book about rubber ducks. Sure, the science is there. It includes plenty of facts about pollution, plastics, and ocean currents. But really this is a book about fatherhood. Only speaking from my point of view as a 20-something woman who has no children, it feels like the book, the whole fascination with the ducks is Hohn having a hard time with becoming a father. That's not to say he doesn't want to be a father, the relationship with his son that he describes in the book is very sweet, but ultimately I think what the duck represents is childhood - Hohn having to let go of his and focus on making his son's the best it can be.

One of the most likeable parts of the book is Hohn himself. While his self-deprecating descriptions of his participation in his various sea-faring adventures can get a little tedious (we get it, you are not particularly adept at this) at the same time you can't help but feel a little jealous. Jealous that while you sit at your day job doing all the things you are supposed to, this guy had the balls to quit his job and travel through Asia, Hawaii, Alaska and the Arctic because he was just interested in something. Would you want to do that? I would. I respect Hohn for going in search of his own adventure, for chasing his own personal white whale, and for having the guts to do something unexpected.

The book is also beautifully written. Hohn writes like an English teacher, but in this case it works. His romanticizing of the ducks and the sea works in this book whereas in a different story I think it would drive me a little nuts. The descriptions of what he sees and experiences are pitch perfect for me. For example:

"One imagines, before setting sail, that seafaring promises excitement or romance but on calm tropical seas, the hours pass through one's mind like cubic meters of water through a manta trawl, leaving a sprinkling of impressions snared in memory's gauze." (pg. 168)

Overall, Moby-Duck is a good book, it is well written, it has a great cast of characters, and there are a lot of interesting facts in it. Looking at it as a story about rubber ducks, will leave you disappointed. You have to see it for what it is, Hohn's own adventure tale as he comes to terms with his life at home. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but I enjoyed it and would certainly recommend it to people with an interest in the ocean, in pollution, or in personal narratives. I would recommend this book for people who normally read narrative non-fiction. There was a lot of good in it, even if it did take me a while to get through.

Polar Bears Resort To Cannibalism

If a picture is worth a thousand words, for me this one is worth a thousand nightmares:

Photograph by Jenny Ross.

The photograph was captured by Jenny Ross, an environmental photojournalist working in Olgastretet, a part of the Svalbard archipelago, located in the Arctic north of Norway. Ross co-authored a paper with Dr. Ian Sterling a biologist with Environment Canada and a professor at the University of Alberta, about the photographs and observed instances of cannibalism among polar bears. 

For anyone who reads Science Decoded regularly, I don't have to tell you that polar bears are sort of my thing. I've written about them being Irish, mysteriously dying, having osteoarthritis, status as endangered, and their habitat needs. I make no bones about the fact that they are my favorite and I love them. I've loved them since I was a little kid, and have a large collection of polar bear themed...stuff. From earrings to ice cream scoops, I've got it all. My collection doesn't include nightmare inducing, zombie-evoking images of polar bears eating each other. The child in me is horrified by what I now know to be a normal occurrence.

Yes, that's right. While the above photograph might be some of the most jarring evidence to date about intraspecies polar bear predation, the behavior isn't abnormal. In fact, according to Dr. Stirling instances of infanticide (killing baby bears) and predation on older bears, in addition to cannibalism have been known to Inuit hunters in Canada and Greenland and reported in scientific literature. In these instances, the bear doing the killing is always an adult male, which would have the advantage over young bears, old bears, and even adult females.

In the paper with Ross, Stirling reports on three instances of what is most likely intraspecific killing and subsequent cannibalism by adult male polar bears. The instances were all observed on the sea ice in Svalbard in midsummer and early autumn. Each incident was photographed (see above). The victims in each case were killed by more than one bite to the head. This is an instantly lethal way to take down prey, and the way that polar bears would take down seals, their typical food source.

According to Stirling, the instances of cannibalism described in the paper, published in the journal Arctic, are different than the normal instances of intraspecies predation. The bears that did the killing appeared to be in good physical condition, not obviously thin which is typically the case in intraspecies killings. Stirling and Ross concluded that the behavioral and ecological factors present in the instances of killing they describe in their paper show that by late summer, when available ice and the number of seals to hunt are significantly reduced, young polar bears may become a source of prey for adult males to still hunt from the surface of the remaining sea ice. While this type of behavior may be relatively normal, Stirling says that as climate continues to warm and reduce sea ice the frequency of kills like this may increase.

I asked Stirling what we should take away from these photographs, and the instances of polar bear cannibalism, and this is what he said:

"Climate-driven concerns for polar bears are real. The bottom line is that polar bears need ice to hunt from and without that, most bears will not be able to survive. At present, it looks like the last ice will be in the area of the northern Canadian Arctic and in Greenland. Some relatively small, but unknown, number of bears may survive there for some time after they cannot continue in more southerly areas."

So basically, cannibalism is a natural behavior for polar bears. It happens. But due to climate change and the changes that are occurring to sea ice, it is likely that cannibalism is going to get worse. Which leads me to think, do we really want a unique and charismatic species that many people are working to protect to be eating itself? It seems somewhat backwards to invest in conservation and then just watch the bears duke it out amongst themselves. I wish there was a solution I could offer but climate change is its own beast entirely. I will say that intraspecies cannibalism wasn't something I had on my mind when thinking about conservation, but I'll definitely remember it next time.

A Pollution Solution, Brought To You By Lehigh University

The Lehigh Mountain Hawk in 2008
photo credit: Erin Podolak

If you've ever checked the About section of this blog, you'll know that my alma mater is Lehigh University. I loved my time at Lehigh (it's where I first learned about science writing) and thinking about the university evokes a lot of positive memories. But, as much as I love Lehigh, I have to admit it isn't exactly a premier research institution (despite what they might tell you in the pamphlets). Not that research doesn't go on at Lehigh, but it's no University of Wisconsin-Madison as far as a reputation for cutting edge research is concerned.

Imagine my surprise as I was perusing Scientific American a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon Lehigh while reading an article (reprinted from ClimateWire) about a newly developed material that has the ability to pull carbon dioxide and methane pollution from other gases. The material was developed by Kai Landskron, Paritosh Mohanty and Lillian D. Kull of Lehigh's department of chemistry, and could potentially be used to help capture greenhouse gases.

Creating carbon-sucking materials has been a goal for scientists for years as a way to combat the effects of climate change caused by an excess of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, existing systems tend to be expensive, use a tremendous amount of energy, or don't work well at high temperatures. The new material developed at Lehigh avoids these problems.

The new substance was created using chemicals called diaminobenzidine and hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene. These chemicals are cheaper than others used for carbon absorption, and can operate at heat as high as 400 degrees Celsius. In addition to avoiding the problems that have plagued early carbon capture systems the researchers also had to create something that could take carbon dioxide and methane out of a gas stream, but then release it at a later time for permanent storage underground once compressed.

Coal power plant Somerset NY
Credit: Matthew D. Wilson/Wikimedia Commons.

When they developed their "sponge" the researchers found that the material drew more carbon dioxide and methane from the air than other gases, like nitrogen. This makes the material idea for capturing harmful greenhouse gases out of mixed emissions. The researchers have suggested that the material could be placed inside a tower located adjacent to a coal burning power plant, the flue gas generated from the burning coal could then be transported via pipeline through the material to capture greenhouse gases from the emissions.

According to the researchers, the material has a 90% success rate capturing CO2 from a gas stream. However, some problems with the mass production of this material include the fact that real power plants would emit a more complex mixture of gases than was tested by the Lehigh research team, the material may be too dense for manufacture on a large enough scale, and production would create chemical byproducts that may become difficult to control.

The researchers are confident however, in the product they have created. Landskron told ClimateWire:
"There is no fundamental difference in doing this in the lab versus doing it at an industrial scale." This material hasn't been tested on a commercial scale and it remains unknown if it could actually be implemented practically, so we'll have to wait and see if the material can stand up to the high expectations its creators have set up for it.

Even though the chemicals used in the material are cheaper than others used for carbon capture, the cost of producing and implementing the technology is still a barrier to its use. The researchers hoped to test the material on an existing coal plant in the US earlier this year, but the effort stalled due to a lack of funds, even with a 50% investment by the Department of Energy.

On campus with friends before my graduation from
Lehigh in 2009.

So, while the research is promising and it demonstrates an interesting idea with a lot of potential for carbon capture it needs support and further research to make it something that could actually be used commercially. If you'd like to know more, the research was published in July in Nature Communications.

I was excited to see Lehigh in the news for scientific research. Research wasn't a big part of my life at Lehigh, in fact I rarely encountered it, but Lehigh is where my passion for science evolved into a career. It is where, with the support of the journalism department and the wonderful professors who gave me my first real introduction to writing, I realized that I could have a career dedicated to science without being a scientist, and that has shaped the course of my life. I'm proud of my school, and even prouder to know that Lehigh researchers are working to find solutions to our greenhouse gas problems. Now lets get some funding to make that research a reality!

The Arabian Oryx's Comeback Story

We see so many stories proclaiming the final nail in the coffin of so many species around the world (and indeed, species extinction is a serious issue) but today there is actually some good news about the Arabian oryx, which was previously considered extinct in the wild. Good news needs to be talked about more, so inspired by this post from New Scientist I wanted to share the Arabian oryx's story.

Arabian Oryx, via Wikimedia Commons

Around 1972 the last wild Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) was killed, most likely in Oman. While the species was extinct in the wild there were still several in captivity, particularly at the Phoenix Zoo, which received four wild Arabian oryx in 1963 as a part of a conservation effort called Operation Oryx.

After the species went extinct in the wild, individuals from the zoo’s breeding program were brought together with individuals from royal collections in Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to make a last “world herd.”  A breeding program began and in the early 1980’s the first individuals were reintroduced into the wild in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. 

The Arabian oryx has since flourished, reaching a wild population of more than 1000 individuals, and is continuing to increase. This had led to the Arabian oryx officially being moved from endangered to vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. A 2008 assessment showed that the Arabian oryx had recovered enough to no longer qualify as even an endangered species.

The IUCN Species Program produces, maintains and manages the IUCN Red List, and implements worldwide species conversation projects. The Species Program is headquartered in Switzerland and is designed to determine the relative risk of a species facing extinction. The Red List is used to keep track of and bring attention to the plants and animals that directly risk global extinction. 

Under IUCN Red List Guidelines a species can only move to a lower category if none of the criteria for the higher category have been met for five years or more. To be considered endangered there must be 250 or fewer mature individuals of a species, so the Arabian oryx, which is doing well at over 1000, will be listed as Vulnerable starting this year.

The Arabian oryx is native to the Arabian Peninsula, and doesn’t have many natural predators; humans drove the animals to extinction from hunting. In addition to the 1000 in the wild there are another 6,000-7,000 individuals alive in captivity around the world, many within the Arabian region.

Interestingly, the population that was re-introduced to Oman (where the last wild Arabian oryx were killed before it went extinct in the wild) has been struggling. The Oman population was hurt through illegal live capture for private sale, and has been rendered ineffective because only males remain.  Most new populations are in secure areas that are relatively safe from poaching, but animals that wander outside protected sites have no guarantee of safety. Future release locations for animals bred through captivity will be determined by the potential effects of drought and overgrazing, which have reduced available areas where populations could thrive. 

Now that I'm spending my days perusing the internet (so much more than ever before!) I've seen a lot of strange, strange, and I mean STRANGE things. In addition there is also so much negative news from hackers to politicians to criminal cases and everything in between that I feel like little glimmers of good news, particularly about successful conservation efforts should to be recognized. It doesn't make the bad news easier to swallow, but it still makes things seem brighter. 

An Extinction Intervention

Over the course of the year doing grad school work at UW-Madison, I've written a few different articles for class assignments. I've decided to publish this article here, though it should be noted that this was written in December 2010 from interviews conducted throughout the Fall of 2010. I feel that the information and perspectives still hold a lot of value, so I wanted to share it anyway.

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Managed relocation is a potential solution to the biodiversity loss posed by climate change, but the policy’s unpredictable risk ignited the scientific community in a debate that questions how society views conservation in the context of impending extinction.

Every summer, your backyard garden produces a cornucopia of vegetables because it gets enough sunlight and rain to make your plants bloom. But, then your neighbors plant trees in their yard that cast a shadow on your garden. Without sunlight your plants wilt and suddenly its goodbye tomatoes. So what do you do? Well, next year you move the garden to a sunnier spot. Problem solved.

Moving your garden to a sunny spot is an easy way to keep up with the changing environment of your backyard, but would it work on a larger scale?

The rapid changes to ecosystems around the world predicted by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) include the widespread extinction of species that don’t adapt fast enough. That is, unless a policy like “managed relocation” -- the shifting of species to new environments to counteract the affects of climate change -- can be implemented successfully.

Some conservationists in the United States have jumped on the idea of managed relocation. The most notable project so far is the transportation of the Torreya (Torreya taxifolia,) a conifer tree, from Florida to North Carolina by the independent group the Torreya Guardians. Whether the Torreya experiment will work is unknown, but it has drawn attention to the risk associated with relocating species.

Torreya taxifolia
via Wikimedia Commons

Unlike moving your garden to that perfect sunny spot, moving species involves a fragile web of ecological connections that when broken, could create more problems than solutions.

Managed relocation is exemplary of an overall trend in ecology toward an interventionist approach focused on species. This trend is a challenge to previously established conservation policy that focused on protecting habitat to help species, and has opened debate about whether human meddling will save or sacrifice Earth’s biodiversity.

David Richardson, Professor of Ecology and Deputy Director of Science Strategy at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa,) says whether more attempts at managed relocation will be made and whether they occur with the sanction of government will depend on the success of projects like the one conducted by the Torreya Guardians.

“A few spectacular failures would probably nail the coffin on the concept,” said Richardson in an email message. “Managed relocation is undoubtedly very risky and the practice could cause more problems than it solves. But then, losing species is also very risky, so the price of taking no action could be very high, perhaps higher than undertaking managed relocation.”

The Risky Business of Managed Relocation

Moving species through managed relocation poses both a risk of total failure, and a risk of extreme success. The fragile connections between species in an ecosystem cannot be easily replaced, and even the most heavily researched relocations can fail completely. Unexpected new connections can also form, causing a species to explode in their new habitat and become invasive.

“The way managed relocation gets framed is that it is a trade off,” said Jason McLachlan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. “On the one hand you don’t want species that you care about to go extinct, but on the other hand we have a bad track record with moving species around. We come with good intentions but cause more problems.”

According to Ralph Grundel, a research ecologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Porter, IN the complex science of moving species is enough reason to be skeptical that managed relocation will succeed. Grundel’s own work relocating the Karner Blue Butterfly only a few miles away from its natural range has failed, even after extensive research into the habitat specifications needed by the species.

Karner Blue Butterfly Source: Wikimedia Commons

“When you introduce a new species into another species range, you are rolling the dice because you don’t know how the species will interact,” said Grundel. “It can be really challenging, so aside from the ethics of whether we should meddle, our ability to succeed if we wanted to do these things I’m pessimistic about.”

With debate mounting about whether humans could or should micromanage the survival of species, researchers like McLachlan and Grundel say that a redefinition of the way the US thinks about conservation is needed to consider the ethical problems posed by intervening.

From conservation to intervention

According to Ben Minteer, Associate Professor at the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University, for over a century the United States’ stance on conservation (outlined by the Endangered Species Act) has been to protect species from human involvement in the species native environment.  But, if the habitat can’t be maintained – due to climate change – then a new policy will be needed.

“Now things are changing,” said Minteer. “In the most extreme cases we have to go in and round the species up and move them to a place that is different from their native range. If we don’t do that we’re committing them to extinction.”

According to Minteer, the majority of researchers who have investigated the implications of climate change on biodiversity are in agreement that a plan is needed for future action. But, whether managed relocation is that plan is uncertain.

 “What we are going to be forced into is this strong interventionist approach to conservation,” said Minteer. “I say this with a heavy heart, but we are moving toward a planetary management situation where we become much stronger manipulators of the landscape to make it more amenable to saving species, and to make sure that it provides the services that humans depend upon.”

More harm than help

“We really don’t know what we’re doing,” said Jessica Hellmann an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. “But everything that we do has side affects.”

Hellmann says managed relocation can be thought of like a medical treatment. Cancer patients are given chemotherapy even though it has detrimental side affects, because the treatment is more beneficial than the side affects are harmful. Managed relocation may be a treatment for species suffering from climate change, but researchers don’t know if the benefits will outweigh the side affects.

Researchers are experimenting to figure out which species can be moved, and where they can go based on climate change models. “We want to create the sweet spot,” said Hellmann. “You want the population to be successful, you just don’t want it to be so successful that it starts overwhelming other species and damages the ecosystem.”

While some researchers are busy figuring out the feasibility of managed relocation, others have taken a different approach to finding solutions to the extinction problem posed by climate change.

“We aren’t going to be good at managed relocation, and the consequences of not being good at it go back to this larger issue of how we as a society deal with changing climate,” said McLachlan.

According to McLachlan, instead of trying to make solutions like managed relocation feasible researchers should attack the underlying problem, climate change itself.

“The idea that any of these other plans is going to be easier and less expensive than just reducing green house gas emissions isn’t true,” said McLachlan. “At least with green house gases we know how to reduce them and we know it would work.”

When compared, the uncertainty of managed relocation makes the certainty of reducing green house gas emissions a sensible undertaking.

“Right now our path is to totally perturb the earth and then go around and fix it afterwards,” said McLachlan. “If you don’t like that option, you might think about not breaking the entire Earth system in the first place.”

According to Grundel, the United States is in the middle of what he calls “devilishly difficult decisions,” about ecological policy. While researchers may be at odds about human interference, one thing is certain – rash future action could trigger unexpected detrimental effects.

“We’re doing an unprecedented manipulation of earth’s atmosphere, but we can’t predict the dynamics,” said McLachlan. “The answer is we better be careful, everyone lives on this planet, so it’s really not a good idea to do an unprecedented experiment on it.” 

Nuclear Legacy: Chernobyl Turns 25

The worst nuclear disaster the world has ever known, began with a trial run of an experimental cooling protocol on April 26, 1986. A power surge occurred in reactor #4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the town of Pripyat in the Ukraine (then part of the USSR.) An emergency shut down was attempted, but the situation was already out of control. Another power surge - stronger than the first - ruptured the containment vessel through a series of explosions that launched radioactive fuel and core materials into the atmosphere. When the reactor's graphite moderator was exposed to open air, it ignited in a fire that sent a plume of smoke, ripe with radioactive material into the atmosphere.

Map of Chernobyl's radioactive fallout

The plume drifted over parts of the former Soviet Union and Europe releasing into the open more radioactive material than the atomic bomb dropped of Hiroshima during World War II. The most effected regions include Belarus, Ukraine and what is now Russia - though radioactive material was detected at elevated levels throughout Europe.

The disaster killed 31 people who either worked at the reactor or were part of the emergency response crew, but the number of people who have been killed as a result of subsequent radiation exposure vary from the World Health Organization's estimated 4,000 to the Greenpeace estimate of 200,000 or more.

The Soviet Union tried hard to downplay the April 26th fire and explosion back in 1986, but two days later on April 28th workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden 680 miles from Chernobyl detected radioactive particles on their clothes. Sweden's search for the source of the radioactivity (after it was determined that there was no problem at their plant) led to the conclusion that a serious incident had occurred in the western part of the Soviet Union. Chernobyl become the center of world wide attention.

On the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, society is still dealing with the legacy of fear, misinformation, and health effects left by the destroyed power plant. Chernobyl was ranked as a level 7 disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES,) which is the highest possible ranking. The world is still reeling from March's Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, the only other INES level 7 disaster in history. But Fuskushima is not Chernobyl. Fukushima has not caused the level of death and destruction as Chernobyl - and the plants were of completely different designs.

The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were made based on a now defunct Soviet design, which had known cooling problems. The plant's workers were testing a new cooling protocol because it was known that in the event of a power outage the system in place (back up generators, etc.) would not have been able to cool the reactors quickly enough. There has been much speculation about who is to blame for the Chernobyl incident - if it was the reactor design or if it was human error.

Chernobyl as it is today

The first reports out of Chernobyl blamed the workers - reporting that they didn't have adequate training and experience, that they were operating the plant with key safety systems (like the Emergency Core Cooling System) turned off, and that they knowingly ignored regulations. However, over time the role of these accusations has been downplayed, while flaws in the design of the control rods (part of the cooling system) and the reactors ability to deal with the build up of steam has been blamed for the bulk of the incident.

The initial clean up of Chernobyl was done by "liquidators" who moved the majority of debris into the damaged reactor, which was covered in sand, lead and boric acid dropped from helicopters. A concrete enclosure was built around the damaged reactor - a task that exposed the construction workers to significant amounts of radiation.

In February I did a post on What We Don't Know about Chernobyl - namely that the site of the damaged reactor has been without a proper containment vessel all these years. The concrete sarcophagus originally erected around the destroyed reactor is still in place, and there are cracks in it. The money was never raised to build a more permanent enclosure.

The Fukushima disaster has brought Chernobyl back into the headlines, and today on its 25th anniversary we have to stop and ask ourselves how our understanding of nuclear power has been influenced and shaped by that April day back in 1986. In the wake of a nuclear disaster many people question whether the science is really safe, but I think the question we should really be asking is whether the science, in human hands, is really safe. It isn't an issue of nuclear power - it is an issue of what happens when people try to harness nuclear power.

Science For Six-Year-Olds: Giant Earthworms

This is my third post for Mrs. Podolak's first grade class at Lincoln-Hubbard Elementary School. We have been talking about animal behavior with Alex the Genius Parrot and Animals who use tools, but now to kick off the first grader's new science unit, we are going to talk about worms.
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When it comes to worms, there is no specimen more impressive than the Giant Gippsland Earthworm. Check out this video to learn more about this massive worm:



Giant Gippsland Earthworms are gross yet fascinating, but these worms are found in Australia. What about the worms in your own backyard? They might not be giants, but the common earthworm are still pretty impressive little animals.

The common earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris,) also called a night crawler, is found throughout North America and Europe. Compared to the Giant Gippsland Earthworm which is usually about 20cm long, the common earthworm is usually just 7-8cm long.

The earthworm has a mouth and a butt (anus). It also has a brain, a nerve cord (the way humans have a spinal cord,) a heart, and a digestive system. So we know what worms look like: they can be big or small, and they are made up of several different parts. But what do earthworms do? Earthworms are experts about dirt. They tunnel through soil making pockets of air and water which are important for plants and the microorganisms that live in the soil.

To help learn more about worms check out these Frequently Asked Questions posed by students just like you! As always, feel free to ask me questions, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Good luck on your new science unit, and learning all about earthworms!

How To: Recycle A Chicken?

Once again I'm using Science Decoded for my long form journalism class. Our assignment this week was to do a post that was under 350 words. I put up short posts all the time, but I decided to use the assignment to go back to my blogging style from last Fall and give a short run-down of newly published research.

Did you know that you can recycle a chicken? Well, recycle part of a chicken at least. Research has previously been proposed to use bio-waste (hair, nails, or in this case chicken feathers) to create plastics. But new research presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society shows that a new mixture using 50% chicken feathers (the largest amount used to date) can actually make the material we use for shopping bags, eating utensils, children's toys and millions of other objects.

Millions of chicken feathers are discarded in the United States each year, which makes finding a use for them highly worthwhile. Feathers are made of the protein keratin. When combined with the chemical methyl acrylate, the feathers form a strong but relatively light weight plastic substance.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Typically making plastics requires petroleum derived products like polyethylene and polypropylene. The feather-methyl acrylate combination could reduce the need for petroleum derived plastic products, which would be environmentally beneficial. Without petroleum the plastics would be more degradable and sustainable.

This research, led by Yiqi Yang of the University of Nebraska was conducted on a small scale. Until the new feather compound is tested on a large scale for ease of production and energy required for production it is unclear if it could realistically be used to manufacture commercial plastic products.

This research is exciting because it is essentially a form of recycling. The chicken feathers are just being discarded anyway, so if they can be used to make plastics that are more environmentally friendly not only will we benefit from finding a use for the feathers, we'll also benefit from having a more sustainable plastic.

The big BUT in this article is that it needs further testing before it can be implemented. It is important with research like this to remember that a scientific find isn't a definite. Just because something works on a small scale, doesn't mean that it will work on a large scale. So even though the finding is exciting, it doesn't mean that it will actually be implemented.

Sequencing Genomes to Save Species

For this post I’m trying something a little different. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’m using Science Decoded for class, and as a part of that we were assigned to write a post in the form of a list.

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All living organisms are made of DNA, a series of nucleotide bases (Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, and Thymine) contained in chromosomes. Genome sequencing is an analysis of DNA, conducted by “reading” the different patterns of nucleotides A-G-C-T for differences between species, and abnormalities within a species. Researchers around the world are working to sequence the genomes of a variety of organisms, including those on the endangered species list.

1. Orangutan (Pongo abelii) – In January 2011 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the publication of the orangutan genome sequence. Funded by the NIH, researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX sequenced the genome of a female Sumatran orangutan, five additional Sumatran orangutans, and five Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus.) The research shows that orangutans share 97% of their DNA with humans, but compared to humans and chimpanzees, orangutans have evolved much slower leading to fewer mutations (variations in the code between individuals of a species). (Read more) 

2. Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) – Fifteen years ago a facial cancer was identified in tasmanian devil populations. The cancer has ravaged the species, resulting in an 80% decline that has forced the species to the brink of extinction. This cancer is transmissible, which means that biting the face of an infected animal passes it between individuals. In September 2010 researcher from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the genome sequencing company Illumina announced that they sequenced the tasmanian devil genome in an attempt to learn more about the cancer and how to stop it from wiping out the species. (Read more)

3. Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) – Arguably one of the cutest endangered species, the giant panda is a prominent symbol of China, where it lives in a restricted mountain area. According to the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) the number of giant pandas left in the wild is estimated between 1600-3000. In December 2009, BGI published the complete sequence of the giant panda genome. With the information obtained by the genetic analysis researchers hope to learn more about the genetic and biological factors that shape this species behavior to assist in disease control and conservation efforts. (Read more)

4. Tibetan Antelope (Pantholops hodgsoni) – Listed by the United Nations as an endangered species since 1979, the Tibetan antelope could hold the key to understanding the pathogenesis of chronic plateau sickness. The species calls China’s Qinghai-Tibet Plateau home, making them ideal for studying the evolution of species that thrive in environments characterized by extreme cold and low oxygen levels. The genome sequence of the Tibetan antelope was announced in December 2009 by researchers from BGI and Qinghai University. (Read more)

5. Coral Reefs (Acropora millepora) – Coral reefs are among the world’s most diverse ecosystems, yet according to the Genome Center at Washington University it has been predicted that in the next 50 years between 40%-60% of the world’s coral reefs will die. In 2005 the NIH funded the sequencing of the coral A. millepora (which is not an endangered species, though coral reefs as a whole are endangered ecosystems) to serve as a “lab rat” for studies of the environmental factors (light, sediment load, or acidity) that can cause coral death. (Read more)

Not quite endangered & not fully sequenced:

6. Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) – Recently removed from the list of endangered species recognized by the United States, researchers at BGI are still working to sequence the polar bear genome. The polar bear sequence is a part of a three-pronged project to sequence the Tibetan antelope (completed in 2009) and emperor penguin genomes.

7. Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes fosteri) – One of the most recognizable penguin species, the Emperor Penguin is found in Antarctica. The emperor penguin is currently under consideration for inclusion under the Endangered Species Act, due to the effects of climate change. The genome sequencing project is being conducted by researchers from BGI in conjunction with sequencing the polar bear, and Tibetan antelope genomes. (Read more)

8. Snow Leopard (Uncia uncia) - In October 2009 researchers from Oregon State University, the Western University of Health Sciences, and the Miller Park Zoo (IL) announced plans to sequence the genome of the snow leopard (which is on the Endangered Species list). According to Oregon State, the snow leopard is prone to diseases that do not plague other big cats including pneumonia, enteritis, hip dysplasia, and papillomaviruses. Sequencing the genome could help researchers identify what makes the snow leopard susceptible to these disorders. (Read more)

Genome sequencing technology continues to develop, making it easier and cheaper to sequence the genomes of various organisms. While an endangered species has yet to be saved due to the information obtained by sequencing its genome, what researchers learn will help them gain a better understanding of endangered species, which is a step in the right direction towards improving conservation efforts. 

Bear Stun Gun

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I love bears, particularly polar bears, but in a pinch any Ursus arctos (I've seen the taxonomy with and without 'horriblis' on the end) also known as the Brown or Grizzly bear, will do. I am thus drawn to all stories regarding bears, it is a personal bias I suppose.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Taking Patricia McConnell's Biology and Psychology of Human and Animal Behavior course this semester has me thinking a lot about the human role in the lives of other animals (and today in particular, bears.) I took a course at Lehigh to complete my environmental science minor that had more to do with animal rights than McConnell's class but there were some similarities to what I'm studying now. These classes have appealed to me because no matter what your opinion on animal rights or human and animal relationships, I think its important to question and think about these issues..

I say that because once you get your brain into the habit of questioning the things you see, hear, and read you might view things in a very different light. In my daily perusing of the BBC website today I was drawn to the article Company in America Launches Taser 'Bear Stun Gun'. This is the kind of article you could very easily glance over, I mean what could be wrong with giving members of the National Parks Service Tasers to protect themselves? Obviously, park rangers getting mauled by bears is a bad thing.

BUT, my first thought when reading this article was that bears live in the woods, and I wouldn't like it if someone came into my house to take a tour, and then shocked me with a stun gun when I got upset about their presence. So why then is it OK to do it to bears? Tasers used by police have reportedly killed people, so does that make it more or less OK to use it on an animal? While the taser might not be humane due to the acute (sudden onset) pain that it causes, is it a better option than just shooting a bear with a regular gun and killing it? Or would you be doing the bear a favor by killing it (something along the lines of putting it out of its human-induced misery)?

This all then circles back to the question of whether or not people should be in the woods in the first place. Would it be more or less OK to use Tasers on bears if they were used by people who live in towns near forests, who need to occasionally protect their lives or property? In that instance the bear is then in the human habitat, not the other way around so would the violence be justified? Does the bear have an inane right not to be Tased, considering it can't choose to follow or not follow human rules and thus can't know that it has broken them? Should humans assume a guardian role over lesser animals and protect them from the kind of violence we use against each other?

Human taser. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 

I don't intend to answer any of the questions I posed above, the point I'm trying to make isn't for or against the use of Tasers. My point is that even an issue that seems straight forward can have many layers when you tease it apart. Questioning things is one of the easiest ways we have to educate ourselves, especially on science-related issues. I encourage everyone to try to think critically when they see science topics in the news, you might even be surprised by what conclusions you draw.

I would like to give the BBC article's writer Dan Cairns a positive review for explaining how the bear taser works in a clear and concise way. He writes, "Like other Tasers, it delivers an electric shock by shooting two electrode darts attached to conductive wires. The subjects motor nerves are immediately affected and the brain is unable to send signals to the muscles until the charge is turned off."

I wanted to draw attention to this description because this type of background knowledge about how the weapon works is really essential to helping readers determine how they feel about the use of the bear taser. You can't be for or against something you don't understand (well, if politics is any indication you can - but I don't recommend it). Even for a short little news article like this, you need to have background, and I like this article because I think it gives you the information you need to really think critically.

Animals On The Black Market

I've been thinking a lot about how humans use animals due to the readings I was assigned for my zoology class for next week. I like to think that my position on the use of animals is somewhat middle of the road. I believe in animal research, in work animals (like a sheep dog), and I do eat meat. BUT, I am a firm believer in protecting animal welfare and conducting all animal related activities in a humane way.

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes).
Source: Wikimedia Commons

I bring up animal welfare, because I saw an article in the BBC today about a huge raid on suspected illegal animal traders conducted by Gabon's ministries of water, forestry, and defense. The government agencies weren't able to save any live animals, but they found enough evidence (heads, hands, skins, etc) to charge the five suspects with poaching.

According to the World Wildlife Federation, the raid resulted in the largest haul of dismembered animals in Central Africa in the last decade. Included in the seizure were parts (I know, awful) of a gorilla, at least 15 chimpanzees (probably several more if the parts came from different animals), 12 leopards, a lion, five elephants, and several snakes.

I feel like animal poaching is the type of issue that can be easy for people to ignore because we associate it with being a far away problem, it can be easy for us to forget about. I realize that there are some cultures that hunt and eat these animals - but selling them for exorbitant prices on the black market, when killing them is illegal in the first place is a problem.

About a year ago I wrote an article for BioTechniques about a new method to track animal poaching using genetic analysis of poached animals. Genetics Cracks Down On Animal Trafficking focuses on animals poached in Nigeria and Cameroon, but it is still an interesting way to crack down on illegal animal trafficking.

USGS says the nose knows prominent lake toxins

I wrote this article for my J800 class last semester at the beginning of October. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get it published in any of the local papers when it was still timely. But, the nice thing about having a blog is that I can use it to publish pieces that don't get picked up elsewhere, so here you go...

A U.S. Geological Survey study has found that cyanotoxins in Midwest lakes emit odors, adding smell to the public’s arsenal against exposure to hazardous aquatic toxins.

Before you enter your local lake, stop and smell the water. A new study shows that lakes in the throes of a toxic algae bloom give off a characteristic scent that can warn people to stay away. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) the findings should help the public identify hazardous lakes based on their smell, reducing the instance of cyanotoxin-related illness.

“Cyanotoxins pose the largest hazard to human health during recreational activities, so public health is one of the motivations behind studies of these toxins,” said Jennifer Graham a researcher at the USGS’ Kansas Water Science Center, and lead researcher on the study.

Simply avoiding lakes with algae isn’t a realistic way for residents to stay safe because algae occurs naturally and is not usually harmful. According to Graham, residents need new ways to tell whether specific algae blooms contain toxic compounds. The researchers tested for chemical signatures that indicate the presence of odor, and found that cyanobacteria blooms give the water what Graham describes as a musty smell.

The study showed the odor consistently occurs when toxins are present, but toxins can occur without the odor. According to Graham this makes smell a useful indication that toxins are present, but not something the public can rely on with absolute certainty.

“Smell is something that anybody should be able to use, the human nose is very sensitive to the compounds produced by the cyanobacteria. It is musty and might smell like dirt and so that could be used to evaluate a situation,” said Graham. “From a recreational perspective it is useful because odor gives a cue that there might be something of concern going on in an area.”

Would your nose know?

While Graham maintains that the odors given off by toxic algae blooms are distinctive enough to identify a toxic bloom, some Madison residents have doubts.

University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) sophomore Martin Feehan doesn’t think smell is a reliable way to identify cyanotoxin episodes in Wisconsin’s lakes. Feehan is president of Hoofer Scuba, a recreational group at UW that uses the lakes surrounding campus regularly.

“I think smell could be a good way, but it could also be misleading because the different smells in the lake could come from several sources,” said Feehan. According to Feehan, the decomposition of plant material or fish could easily cause earthy, musty smells at the lakes that could be confused with the toxin scent.

Feehan says participating in Hoofer Scuba has made him aware of cyanotoxins, but the group does not actively look for toxic blooms. Instead, they rely on notices from the Madison Department of Public Health. “We have warnings that go up at the boathouse if there are blooms,” said Feehan.

Todd Miller, a postdoctoral researcher at UW-Madison is wary of encouraging the public to sniff out cyanotoxins.  Miller, who holds a doctorate in marine estuarine environmental sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Trina McMahon since 2007.

“The study is intriguing and I think opens the door to potential new methods for early toxic bloom detection,” said Miller, in an email message. “But there are many sources of the odor compounds the researchers measured, and as the study shows toxins can be present in the water at dangerous levels even when the odor compounds are not present.”

According to Miller, smelling the lakes to identify the presence of toxins is unreliable. “It is probably not reasonable to expect the public to identify toxic or non-toxic waters based on smell,” said Miller. “I tell people to enjoy the lakes, but don’t swallow the water, pay attention to public warning signs by the health department and don’t enter the water if the lakes are closed to recreation.”

Graham says smell is not the only one way that the public should identify potentially toxic blooms, and advocates using multiple means to avoid exposure to cyanotoxins including visual cues (green or red tint to the water or scum floating on the water’s surface) and checking for warning notices before entering a lake.

A persistent problem

Cyanobacteria and the toxins they produce are a problem that has affected Midwest lakes for several years. According to the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network and the UW-Center for Limnology nine beaches in Madison were closed due to cyanotoxins in July 2009, the largest cyanotoxin episode in Wisconsin that year.

According to Graham, cyanobacteria are microorganisms that occur naturally in aquatic ecosystems as part of algae blooms. Some of these blooms contain cyanobacteria, which can create toxic chemical compounds that can be dangerous.

The three main types of toxins are dermatoxins, which cause skin or respiratory reactions after direct contact; hepatotoxins, which are absorbed by the liver and cause gastroenteritis; and neurotoxins, which are absorbed by the central nervous system.

Though cyanobacteria exist naturally in lakes, according to Graham, the toxins they produce become problematic when they occur in increasingly large concentrations. This happens when algae the bacteria thrive on grow rapidly.

“Cyanobacteria blooms are a natural phenomenon, but they can be aggravated by human activities,” said Graham. These activities include land development that causes soil to erode and runoff from farms or landscaping that washes fertilizer and soil into lakes.

According to Graham in addition to testing for odors, this study was the first to quantify the presence of multiple toxins in a single algae bloom. The study evaluated lakes in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Minnesota, chosen because they have long-standing cyanobacteria problems.

Until Next Year

With the outdoor recreational season ending and Midwest residents heading back to land, Graham, Miller and Feehan agree that cyanotoxins remain a pressing issue.

Cyanotoxins are continuously researched. Miller is studying how environmental factors like temperature and pH influence the production of toxins in freshwater lakes, and Graham is working to identify what organisms produce cyanotoxins and why.

“Cyanobacterial blooms are an issue that has been exacerbated by human activities, so it won’t be an easy issue to solve because it is something that has evolved over time,” says Graham. “But, with public education and increased information about what hazards are in natural water bodies the incidents of human illness and animal illness from recreational exposure can really be reduced.”

For water enthusiasts like Hoofer Scuba’s Feehan, research like Miller and Graham’s is a step in the right direction because staying out of the water every time there is a toxic bloom isn’t sustainable. “I understand that the algae is toxic and can cause health problems,” said Feehan. “But it makes people lose out on fishing and other water activities so I think something definitely needs to be done to fix the situation.”

The research paper, “Cyanotoxin mixtures and taste-and-odor compounds in cyanobacterial blooms from the Midwestern United States” was published in the September 2010 issue of Environmental Science and Technology. 

Blackbird Homicide

I hope everyone had a great start to the new year! Over my weekend blogging hiatus the big science story in the US was the mysterious death of thousands of birds on New Year's Eve in Arkansas.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

More than 3,000 blackbirds fell in the town of Beebe, AK and samples have been taken for analysis to determine what could have killed the birds in one mass attack. Initial reports said that the birds have died due to trauma (they fell out of the sky, so clearly that was a shocking conclusion.) Now the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is reporting that fireworks launched to commemorate the new year caused the birds' demise.

However, today it was reported that approximately 500 red-winged blackbirds (the same species found dead in Arkansas) and starlings fell from the sky in Labarre, Louisiana, hundreds of miles south of the original bird deaths. Early reports from Louisiana also state that the birds suffered some trauma, although an official cause has yet to be determined.

One theory on the mysterious deaths is that the mere sound of new year's fireworks could have startled the birds, causing them to fly into buildings or billboards. Although, you have to wonder why we've never heard of fireworks (launched every year for new year's, the fourth of july, weddings, fairs, and numerous other events) causing birds to die in large, concentrated groups.

I think that we're definitely going to have to stay tuned to this story to see what happens after the birds from Louisiana are analyzed more closely, and also watch to see if more birds die in other areas -- which most certainly wouldn't be attributable to fireworks.

Polar Bear Officially Not On the Brink

The status of the Polar Bear under the Endangered Species Act was up for review this past week, and despite campaigning by environmental groups the Polar Bear retained its designation of threatened, instead of being bumped up to endangered.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The article, Polar bears not endangered, US confirms in the BBC is interesting because it very much takes the view that the ruling is incorrect and that the polar bear should have an endangered ranking. The tone of the article puts a lot of stress on the fact that the Bush administration had the polar bear listed as threatened, and makes a point of saying that the Obama administration is keeping in line with Bush-era policies.

Greenhouse gas emissions and global warming are a big part of the arctic melting that has caused the destruction of polar bear habitat. If the polar bear was listed as an endangered species, the US would have to assess the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on polar bear habitat. The BBC's article explicitly states that environmental groups believe the government doesn't want to have to assess emissions and that is why they didn't bump up the polar bear's status to endangered.

The article doesn't give much voice to the government perspective, or explain what kind of analysis was done to arrive at the conclusion that the polar bear is only threatened. Because of this, the article is one sided and I think takes too biased a point of view. This is surprising from the BBC, because in general I think they do a good job staying balanced in their reporting.

Polar Bear Protection

Polar bear at the Henry Vilas Zoo
Madison, WI August 2010

It's Thanksgiving! But instead of talking turkey, I'm going to talk about polar bears. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently designated an area twice the size of the United Kingdom as protected habitat for Polar Bears to help combat the effects of global warming and the reduction of sea ice on the polar bear population.

Setting aside the land is important, because some of it was previously open to and slated for oil drilling by Shell. The only reason Shell hasn't already drilled in that spot is because of a temporary stay due to the BP oil spill that occurred earlier this year in the Gulf of Mexico, (Shell still intends to drill in other parts of the Arctic starting in 2011.)

For those who don't know, Polar Bears are my favorite animal so I've done several reports on threats to habitat prevention in the arctic for school. It is amazing the amount of wildlife that depends on the arctic.

A Little Politics

Since this is a science and journalism blog I try to stay out of politics. That is why I didn't offer my commentary on Tuesday's midterm elections. Most of the attention in the California election went to the defeat of Proposition 19 (legalization of marijuana) but I think the defeat of Proposition 23 is also important to note.

The proposition was a move to suspend California's regulations on green house gas emissions, backed by oil companies. According to the LA Times, industry in Silicon Valley (which is investing billions in clean energy) opposed the propositions, and may have added to the surprising defeat.

The LA Times article Prop 23 battle marks new era in environmental politics is an interesting read for the way it chronicles the cross over between science, environmental activism, and politics. I have a particular interest in the way that scientific information can shape policy through informing the public. As one of the first major public votes on issues related to climate change and global warming I find these results surprising, but encouraging.

But then again, it is just California. When Texas stands up to oil companies and makes moves to reduce green house gas emissions and invest in alternative energy, then I'll be impressed. But for now, we have a small political victory for climate science.

The Rundown on Runoff

Credit: Erin Podolak, Sept.  2010

There is an article in the BBC this week about algae that have toxic affects on coral reefs. This article stood out to me because I just finished working on an article about toxic cyanobacteria (which come from algae) in lakes in Wisconsin for J800.

Most of us know what algae looks like, it is the green slime you see floating in natural bodies of water or growing on rocks, docks, or other items that stay in the water continuously. Algae occur naturally and aren't typically a problem. However, for the last decade researchers have been evaluating toxic algae, that is algae that blooms in a large concentration due to an increase of fertilizer in the water.

Where does the fertilizer in the water come from? Well the easy answer is agriculture. The fertilizers used by farmers get washed away and flow through the system of rivers and tributaries to larger bodies of water. The algae feed off the fertilizer and then "explode" in a huge bloom that can have toxic affects.

In the case of the coral, the algae are using up nutrients like oxygen and sunlight so that the coral are denied access to these resources and die off. What can be done? Well, find a way to allow farmer's to fertilize their crops that won't end up in our waterways causing algae blooms. But that is far easier said than done.

The BBC article: Toxic Algae Rapidly Kills Coral

This Is Not Polite Dinner Conversation

Francis and I have been having the most ridiculous conversations over dinner. Apparently we both favor talking about the things you aren't supposed to talk about like religion, abortion, politics, and even global warming. I guess we are just getting a feel for each other and what we think and believe. Although I have a tendency to provide my opinions about these topics freely, which I suppose thats why getting my own voice out of my reporting was a challenge for me when I first started writing.

But on the topic of global warming, she made a fairly decent argument for why she doesn't believe in global warming specifically (she does believe in climate change) based on the geologic record of cooling and warming trends, but she is a geologist after all. On the opposing side, I think I also made a good argument in favor of global warming and climate change. In the end it was a respectful parting of opinions, which when you share a small apartment is probably best.

This article in the New York Times reminded me of our global warming conversation, because I think it is another scientific finding that provides evidence in favor of global warming. Extreme heat bleaches coral, and threat is seen by Justin Gillis reports on the mass death of coral reefs due to high water temperatures.

According to the article, with the rising temperatures the coral are far more sensitive, so any other slight disturbance in their environment can send them right over the edge, causing them to lose their color killing the organisms that rely of them. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) scientists believe that 2010 will rival 1998 as the hottest year on record, and probably the most damaging to coral. Not that you can just accept everything NOAA says, but I do think that the article presents a concise and logical argument in favor of a warming trend and its negative affects of coral reefs.