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Coral reefs ‘flattened’ over past four decades
STEPHEN FRINK/CORBIS
UPFRONT
Coral’s last gasp A DOUBLE whammy of disease and global warming has flattened Caribbean coral reefs in just 40 years. Consequently, the reefs have lost the intricate, tree-like surface corals that provided sanctuary for reef fish and other creatures up to the 1970s, as well as protecting coastlines from the onslaught of waves. “The importance of this complexity is both for biodiversity and for coastal protection,” says Jenny Gill of the University of East Anglia, UK. Gill and her colleagues analysed 40 years of data from 500 surveys of 200 Caribbean reefs. They discovered that the flattening took place in two main phases. The first, in the late 1970s, saw white-band disease sweep through the reefs, killing 90 per cent of the most spectacular tree-like
elkhorn and staghorn coral species (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0339). In the second phase, in 1998, many remaining tree-like corals were wiped out in a massive bleaching event, probably driven by global warming. Large, weedy corals took over, outcompeting the remaining tree-like corals. Flat reefs now cover 75 per cent of the Caribbean, compared with just 20 per cent in the 1970s. “It’s difficult to see how to reverse any of this,” says Gill. The biggest problem, she says, is the sheer density of human population – stresses on the coral include pollution and tourism. By contrast, reefs remain almost pristine across the Indian Pacific, where human habitation is sparse.
Reactors, anyone?
protocol in 2001, after opposition from both European and some developing countries. Climate-change experts are cautious. Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Manchester, UK, has “serious reservations” about the CDM. He says nuclear power should be considered – but only if “safety and security issues are satisfactorily addressed”. Robert Stavins of Harvard University argues that a “carefully designed” provision to include nuclear power could be “helpful” in combating climate change.
–Tree corals on the way out–
6 | NewScientist | 13 June 2009
See page 23 for Wiseman’s account of the experiment.
Blind guesswork
TOP GUESS
GL
RAILWAY
K R FENCE
B UNDERPASS
TRIAL 3
GRAVEYARD
CANAL
TRIAL 2
DOOR
TRIAL 4
WOODS
BRIDGE
GRAFFITI
BUILDING
PARK
SHOP CHURCH
ST
STEPS
PO
TRIAL 1
PL AY
PA
OX
CAR PARK
ACTUAL LOCATION
A SS
IN
G
RO
O
F
The psychic powers of Twitter users failed them when attempting to divine the correct location of psychologist Richard Wiseman
D
more than an iPhone and the social messaging service Twitter to test the idea. The results fail to show any support for the paranormal. Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, together with New Scientist, enlisted thousands of “twitterers” for an experiment. Of these, 38 per cent believed in the paranormal, and 16 per cent claimed some psychic ability. Each day, Wiseman sent a “tweet” from one of five possible locations in Edinburgh, UK, inviting guesses as to what he was looking at. Believers and sceptics performed equally badly, failing collectively to guess correctly in
IL
“Believers in the paranormal might see illusory relationships in the real world”
THE prospect of paying poor countries to build nuclear power stations is back in view. Draft text under negotiation at climate-change talks in Bonn, Germany, includes an option to make nuclear facilities eligible for funding under two schemes meant to help poorer countries develop low-carbon technologies: the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation. Nuclear power was excluded from these schemes in the Kyoto
U
THE US government has spent millions of dollars trying to find out if “psychic spies” could identify a distant location with mind power alone. Now one psychologist has used nothing
four trials (see charts, below). After finding out the answer, 31 per cent of the believers said they had felt some link between their thoughts and the target, compared with only 12 per cent of sceptics. Wiseman says this may explain why they believe in the paranormal: “This type of creative thinking might make people see illusory relationships in the real world, and help convince them that there are uncanny matches between their dreams and subsequent events.”
B
No psychic vision
ESCALATOR
UPFRONT
Coral’s last gasp A DOUBLE whammy of disease and global warming has flattened Caribbean coral reefs in just 40 years. Consequently, the reefs have lost the intricate, tree-like surface corals that provided sanctuary for reef fish and other creatures up to the 1970s, as well as protecting coastlines from the onslaught of waves. “The importance of this complexity is both for biodiversity and for coastal protection,” says Jenny Gill of the University of East Anglia, UK. Gill and her colleagues analysed 40 years of data from 500 surveys of 200 Caribbean reefs. They discovered that the flattening took place in two main phases. The first, in the late 1970s, saw white-band disease sweep through the reefs, killing 90 per cent of the most spectacular tree-like
elkhorn and staghorn coral species (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0339). In the second phase, in 1998, many remaining tree-like corals were wiped out in a massive bleaching event, probably driven by global warming. Large, weedy corals took over, outcompeting the remaining tree-like corals. Flat reefs now cover 75 per cent of the Caribbean, compared with just 20 per cent in the 1970s. “It’s difficult to see how to reverse any of this,” says Gill. The biggest problem, she says, is the sheer density of human population – stresses on the coral include pollution and tourism. By contrast, reefs remain almost pristine across the Indian Pacific, where human habitation is sparse.
Reactors, anyone?
protocol in 2001, after opposition from both European and some developing countries. Climate-change experts are cautious. Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Manchester, UK, has “serious reservations” about the CDM. He says nuclear power should be considered – but only if “safety and security issues are satisfactorily addressed”. Robert Stavins of Harvard University argues that a “carefully designed” provision to include nuclear power could be “helpful” in combating climate change.
–Tree corals on the way out–
6 | NewScientist | 13 June 2009
See page 23 for Wiseman’s account of the experiment.
Blind guesswork
TOP GUESS
GL
RAILWAY
K R FENCE
B UNDERPASS
TRIAL 3
GRAVEYARD
CANAL
TRIAL 2
DOOR
TRIAL 4
WOODS
BRIDGE
GRAFFITI
BUILDING
PARK
SHOP CHURCH
ST
STEPS
PO
TRIAL 1
PL AY
PA
OX
CAR PARK
ACTUAL LOCATION
A SS
IN
G
RO
O
F
The psychic powers of Twitter users failed them when attempting to divine the correct location of psychologist Richard Wiseman
D
more than an iPhone and the social messaging service Twitter to test the idea. The results fail to show any support for the paranormal. Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, together with New Scientist, enlisted thousands of “twitterers” for an experiment. Of these, 38 per cent believed in the paranormal, and 16 per cent claimed some psychic ability. Each day, Wiseman sent a “tweet” from one of five possible locations in Edinburgh, UK, inviting guesses as to what he was looking at. Believers and sceptics performed equally badly, failing collectively to guess correctly in
IL
“Believers in the paranormal might see illusory relationships in the real world”
THE prospect of paying poor countries to build nuclear power stations is back in view. Draft text under negotiation at climate-change talks in Bonn, Germany, includes an option to make nuclear facilities eligible for funding under two schemes meant to help poorer countries develop low-carbon technologies: the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation. Nuclear power was excluded from these schemes in the Kyoto
U
THE US government has spent millions of dollars trying to find out if “psychic spies” could identify a distant location with mind power alone. Now one psychologist has used nothing
four trials (see charts, below). After finding out the answer, 31 per cent of the believers said they had felt some link between their thoughts and the target, compared with only 12 per cent of sceptics. Wiseman says this may explain why they believe in the paranormal: “This type of creative thinking might make people see illusory relationships in the real world, and help convince them that there are uncanny matches between their dreams and subsequent events.”
B
No psychic vision
ESCALATOR