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California Rim Fire rages
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Acid still reigns
With the shuttles now museum artefacts, NASA is out of uses for the platforms. Its next big rocket, the Space Launch System, will use a newer one that is already built. The historic platforms could be made into museum pieces, but they won’t go to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Curator Paul Ceruzzi says there is no practical way to get them there. The platforms might be reused by a commercial space company, or turned into artificial reefs or oil rigs, says NASA. Failing that, the agency hopes someone will pay to have them recycled.
60 Seconds
“Alkalinity is typically thought of as a good thing,” says Sujay Kaushal at the University of Maryland in College Park, but it can stimulate the overgrowth of algae and wreak havoc with public water supplies (Environmental Science &
DESPITE the decline of acid rain, its legacy still taints the rivers of the eastern US, but in an unexpected way. Following stringent air pollution controls, the acid rain that devastated forests, ponds and small streams in the eastern “The legacy of acid rain still taints the rivers of US has been diminishing since the eastern US, but in its peak in the 1970s. an unexpected way” Now the opposite problem, excessive alkalinity, has emerged in the same area. New research has Technology doi.org/nkf). It looks like alkaline by-products found that 62 of 97 large rivers, of acid-neutralising processes had from New Hampshire to Florida, have become increasingly alkaline built up in the rocks and soil, and are now leaching into the rivers. since the mid 20th century.
California Rim Fire rages
Deadly well water
AP Photo/PA/Jae C. Hong
TWENTY million Chinese people SAN FRANCISCO is in a state of emergency, its power and water are in danger of arsenic poisoning supplies threatened by one of the from drinking water, according largest Californian wildfires on to a new risk-mapping technique. record - just 250 kilometres to the east Arsenic occurs naturally in of the city, on the fringes of Yosemite the world’s rock, dissolving in National Park. It is a grim warning of underground water that can profound changes that may lie ahead. pollute wells. If consumed over Wildfires have always been a part decades, it can cause cancers, as of life in the US west, but activity is well as other kidney and liver diseases. The hazard is recognised, on the rise as climate change takes hold. In California’s Sierra Nevada but few countries undertake the laborious task of testing each well. mountains, the main problem is the earlier onset of spring. “The snow Luis Rodriguez-Lado of the melts earlier, especially at lower Swiss Federal Institute of elevations,” says Michael Wehner Aquatic Science and Technology of the Lawrence Berkeley National in Dübendorf, and Chinese Laboratory. That gives forests longer colleagues, developed a system to dry out, producing tinderbox using geological warning signs conditions by late August. that revealed the two most susceptible landscape – alkaline inland drainage basins and delta regions with new river sediments. Globally, the latter includes Bangladesh, the scene of what the World Health Organization called “the largest poisoning of a population in history”. The team tested their model in China, and identified two previously unsuspected areas likely to be at risk: parts of the north China basin and Sichuan province (Science, doi.org/nkx). The system should help ensure any plans to tap dangerous –Up in flames– groundwater are scrapped.
As New Scientist went to press, the Rim Fire had torched over 700 square kilometres and was approaching the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, which provides San Francisco with most of its water and generates hydroelectric power for the city’s General Hospital, transit system and airport. It serves as a warning that wildfires can have effects far beyond the area they burn. Another concern is that scorched forest may not recover – at least not to its former state. Mixed conifer forest, like the area now ablaze, is slowly being replaced at lower elevations by shrubland, which is better adapted to drier conditions. This, in turn, will reduce the ability of wildlands to mitigate global warming by pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Badger cull begins UK farmers began shooting badgers this week in a controversial pilot project intended to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis. In June, the government licensed two culls, in Gloucestershire and Somerset. The aim is to kill 70 per cent of badgers in six weeks. But it could take years to find out if culling actually works.
Squid allure Some squid catch their prey with a rod and bait. The first sightings of deep-sea Grimalditeuthis bonplandi in their natural habitat show that the squid use their strange sucker-free tentacles to lure in prey. They wiggle the tentacle tips to mimic small fish and draw in the bigger ones (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2013.1463).
Japan rocket no-go A Japanese space telescope that was to spy on the atmospheres of Venus and Mars has been grounded because of an abnormality, just 19 seconds before lift-off on 27 August. The launch would have been the maiden voyage for the Epsilon rocket, designed as a cheaper way to get science satellites into space.
Hubble bags a slinky Pictures shot by the Hubble Space Telescope more than 13 years have been pieced together to reveal the spiral, slinky-like motion of a jet of gas shooting from the black hole at the centre of the nearby M87 galaxy. Such jets are thought to play a role in galaxy evolution (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, doi.org/nj8).
Element 115 – at last? A new chemical element may soon make its debut in the periodic table – if the international unions of pure and applied physics and chemistry agree that there is, at last, enough evidence for its existence. A team at Lund University in Sweden say they have made element 115 – as yet unnamed – building on a claim by a Russian group in 2004.
31 August 2013 | NewScientist | 7
Acid still reigns
With the shuttles now museum artefacts, NASA is out of uses for the platforms. Its next big rocket, the Space Launch System, will use a newer one that is already built. The historic platforms could be made into museum pieces, but they won’t go to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Curator Paul Ceruzzi says there is no practical way to get them there. The platforms might be reused by a commercial space company, or turned into artificial reefs or oil rigs, says NASA. Failing that, the agency hopes someone will pay to have them recycled.
60 Seconds
“Alkalinity is typically thought of as a good thing,” says Sujay Kaushal at the University of Maryland in College Park, but it can stimulate the overgrowth of algae and wreak havoc with public water supplies (Environmental Science &
DESPITE the decline of acid rain, its legacy still taints the rivers of the eastern US, but in an unexpected way. Following stringent air pollution controls, the acid rain that devastated forests, ponds and small streams in the eastern “The legacy of acid rain still taints the rivers of US has been diminishing since the eastern US, but in its peak in the 1970s. an unexpected way” Now the opposite problem, excessive alkalinity, has emerged in the same area. New research has Technology doi.org/nkf). It looks like alkaline by-products found that 62 of 97 large rivers, of acid-neutralising processes had from New Hampshire to Florida, have become increasingly alkaline built up in the rocks and soil, and are now leaching into the rivers. since the mid 20th century.
California Rim Fire rages
Deadly well water
AP Photo/PA/Jae C. Hong
TWENTY million Chinese people SAN FRANCISCO is in a state of emergency, its power and water are in danger of arsenic poisoning supplies threatened by one of the from drinking water, according largest Californian wildfires on to a new risk-mapping technique. record - just 250 kilometres to the east Arsenic occurs naturally in of the city, on the fringes of Yosemite the world’s rock, dissolving in National Park. It is a grim warning of underground water that can profound changes that may lie ahead. pollute wells. If consumed over Wildfires have always been a part decades, it can cause cancers, as of life in the US west, but activity is well as other kidney and liver diseases. The hazard is recognised, on the rise as climate change takes hold. In California’s Sierra Nevada but few countries undertake the laborious task of testing each well. mountains, the main problem is the earlier onset of spring. “The snow Luis Rodriguez-Lado of the melts earlier, especially at lower Swiss Federal Institute of elevations,” says Michael Wehner Aquatic Science and Technology of the Lawrence Berkeley National in Dübendorf, and Chinese Laboratory. That gives forests longer colleagues, developed a system to dry out, producing tinderbox using geological warning signs conditions by late August. that revealed the two most susceptible landscape – alkaline inland drainage basins and delta regions with new river sediments. Globally, the latter includes Bangladesh, the scene of what the World Health Organization called “the largest poisoning of a population in history”. The team tested their model in China, and identified two previously unsuspected areas likely to be at risk: parts of the north China basin and Sichuan province (Science, doi.org/nkx). The system should help ensure any plans to tap dangerous –Up in flames– groundwater are scrapped.
As New Scientist went to press, the Rim Fire had torched over 700 square kilometres and was approaching the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, which provides San Francisco with most of its water and generates hydroelectric power for the city’s General Hospital, transit system and airport. It serves as a warning that wildfires can have effects far beyond the area they burn. Another concern is that scorched forest may not recover – at least not to its former state. Mixed conifer forest, like the area now ablaze, is slowly being replaced at lower elevations by shrubland, which is better adapted to drier conditions. This, in turn, will reduce the ability of wildlands to mitigate global warming by pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Badger cull begins UK farmers began shooting badgers this week in a controversial pilot project intended to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis. In June, the government licensed two culls, in Gloucestershire and Somerset. The aim is to kill 70 per cent of badgers in six weeks. But it could take years to find out if culling actually works.
Squid allure Some squid catch their prey with a rod and bait. The first sightings of deep-sea Grimalditeuthis bonplandi in their natural habitat show that the squid use their strange sucker-free tentacles to lure in prey. They wiggle the tentacle tips to mimic small fish and draw in the bigger ones (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2013.1463).
Japan rocket no-go A Japanese space telescope that was to spy on the atmospheres of Venus and Mars has been grounded because of an abnormality, just 19 seconds before lift-off on 27 August. The launch would have been the maiden voyage for the Epsilon rocket, designed as a cheaper way to get science satellites into space.
Hubble bags a slinky Pictures shot by the Hubble Space Telescope more than 13 years have been pieced together to reveal the spiral, slinky-like motion of a jet of gas shooting from the black hole at the centre of the nearby M87 galaxy. Such jets are thought to play a role in galaxy evolution (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, doi.org/nj8).
Element 115 – at last? A new chemical element may soon make its debut in the periodic table – if the international unions of pure and applied physics and chemistry agree that there is, at last, enough evidence for its existence. A team at Lund University in Sweden say they have made element 115 – as yet unnamed – building on a claim by a Russian group in 2004.
31 August 2013 | NewScientist | 7