What Killed the Woolly Mammoths?

Last week, Francis and I visited UW Madison's free geology museum where they have several skeletal remains in addition to fossils and mineral specimens. With the woolly mammoth in my recent memory, this article from the BBC caught my eye.

The article reports on new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that disproves previously held notions about the meaning of nanodiamonds (incredibly small diamonds) found in sediments that date to the period of history 12,900 years ago that saw the rapid extinction of large creatures and human settlers across north america at the beginning of the cooling period known as the Younger Dryas. 

The presence of nanodiamonds in the sediment had led researchers to believe that an impact of something from space had disrupted the natural environment and led to the extinction. However, the new research seems to disprove the impact from space theory, as the strongest evidence - the nanodiamonds - have been shown to be just aggregations of carbon, not proof of a collision with a space-rock. 

The research isn't the final word on the issue however, because some proponents of the collision from space theory have claimed that the research from PNAS was looking at the incorrect sediments and didn't accurately study the nanodiamond evidence. 

Truly, the issue is an example of how the very nature of science, that it is always changing and adapting, can cause confusion. Researchers simply won't always agree based on the evidence that they have witnessed, which can make it very difficult for the public to draw conclusions as new findings are constantly introduced. 

On Personal Passions and Journalistic Detachment

An interesting post from Andrew Revkin's blog DotEarth for the New York Times, talking about how journalists can reconcile the issues they are personally passionate about with the need to be detached and well-rounded in their reporting.

The post is taken from a 2005 speech given by Revkin (when he was still a full-time Times reporter, instead of a blogger) but I think it drives home some interesting points about being a journalist.

Writers are people first, and journalists second but a requirement of the profession is not to insert your own voice into the reporting, unless you are a columnist. Writers have to conform to the style of whatever publication they work for. This can dilute their own voice even more as they adapt to specific structure and standards.

I also found Revkin's thoughts on how science writers approach content interesting. There is no doubt that it can be difficult to show a new scientific finding in the greater context of all the findings that have occurred before it. I think science writers need to find a balance between skill and instinct that informs how to explain an issue, something that only comes with experience.

Good Thing I Didn't Choose Colorado

When I was narrowing down programs and trying to choose which Grad School I wanted to attend I was split between the University of Wisconsin Madison and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Michigan State's Knight Center for Environmental Journalism was a big draw, but I didn't get the acceptance letter until just days before I had to make a decision, making a visit to the school impossible, so that pretty much counted them out. I chose UW because I loved Madison, and I felt like I would fit into the community much better than I would in Colorado.

As it turns out, its a good thing I chose UW instead of Colorado because CU Boulder is closing their Journalism school. It would have been incredibly unfortunate to be stuck there with the program completely restructuring. Most likely, I would have ended up with a graduate degree in something that didn't reflect my actual interests and job goals (probably information studies or multi media something or another.) I guess I dodged the proverbial bullet on that one.

Thanks to my Mom for this interesting article on the closing and how journalism, despite the massive loss of revenue in recent years, is expanding at an enormous rate due to the rise of new technologies. Universities need to find a way to fit the ever changing role of journalism into their programs.

One quote from the article that I just want to highlight is from David Hazinski an associate professor at the University of Georgia's Journalism and Mass Communication program. Essentially he's explaining why journalists still have a role to play in a society that has been bombarded by instant opinion and commentary through blogs, twitter, etc. People trained in the technology are not the same as people who are trained in telling the story.

"Journalism isn't hardware. It is content and context. Someone is still going to have to go to that fire and shoot some video, interview the mayor, and analyze that stock report. Someone is still going to have to package it, if for no other reason than to save audiences time. Writing, interviewing, editing, and working under pressure will still be needed skills. Ethics and standards will become even more important as the sea of opinion grows deeper. The content and context will be distributed over many platforms but someone has to be at the top of the information food chain. Those people will be skilled journalists, not technicians."

Immunizations For Fish

Most of us are pretty familiar with the concept of immunizations to help safeguard us against disease by giving our bodies a heads up, jump starting our immune system so it will know how to respond when it encounters disease. But now, researchers have successfully immunized fish against the Ich, the white spot disease.

The LA Times reported on the new research, which was presented recently at the American Chemical Society annual meeting. Ich kills 50-100% of fish that it infects, by affecting their breathing and making them lethargic. The disease is characterized by white patches that appear on a fish's body. It is common in farm fish that are grown in close quarters.

The researchers (from the US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service) developed two forms of the vaccine. First, the vaccine was created in the form of a shot, like a typical vaccine administered to a person, but the approach proved difficult to administer to hundreds of small fish. The researchers then developed a bath containing the vaccine that showed a 60% success rate at protecting the fish from Ich.

The researchers still have to overcome the obstacle of how to grow enough of the parasite for the demand (there is a huge volume of fish farms, each containing hundreds to thousands of fish). But for now, the mere fact that researchers have found a way to adapt a human technology for a lesser organism is particularly interesting.