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UK fracking should not threaten public health
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Bitter pill
work by funnelling supersonic air into a combustion chamber with no moving parts. But a scramjet can only kick in once a plane’s speed gets above Mach 3, while the top speed of a jet engine is Mach 2.5. Lockheed Martin said on 1 November that its SR-72 will use a scramjet that has a jet engine built in. This engine will be capable of hitting Mach 3 for long enough to allow the scramjet mechanism to fire up, enabling the plane to fly at Mach 6. The SR-72 could reach “any location across a continent in less than an hour”, says programme manager Brad Leland.
60 Seconds
species, the main plant had been replaced with something else. Some also contained unlabelled fillers such as grass, wheat or rice (BMC Medicine, doi.org/pwf). Several included contaminants with side effects such as diarrhoea
GOT a cold? You may want to think twice before you pop some Echinacea. Almost 60 per cent of common herbal supplements tested contained unlisted products – some of them risky “In 32 per cent of the for your health. samples, the main herb Steven Newmaster at the University of Guelph in Canada and had been replaced with something else” colleagues used DNA barcoding to identify plant material in or nausea, or that interact 44 herbal products from 12 firms. negatively with other medicines. They then compared those to The authors suggest the industry samples of known provenance. should voluntarily opt for DNA In 32 per cent of the samples barcoding of their ingredients. found to contain unlabelled
Maths key to containing bird flu
UK to frack away
Dong Jinlin/ColorChinaPhoto/AP/PA
AVOID leaks and frack away. BIRD flu is back – and we may be able to stop it with maths. Whatever the other problems The H7N9 strain of bird flu that with drilling for shale gas in the swept through China in February UK, the risk to public health is has reappeared in Zhejiang province, low, says a government report. infecting two men. Closing live poultry The US has embraced fracking markets again may help. for shale gas but the UK is yet to Benjamin Cowling at the University follow suit, and an exploratory of Hong Kong and colleagues report site in Balcombe attracted a storm that closing markets in April in the of protests. A key concern is that four east Asian cities most affected gas or the fluids used during the rapidly cut the rate of new infections process might release pollutants, by at least 97 per cent (The Lancet, possibly into drinking water. doi.org/pvj). To assess the risk, Public Health But Guillaume Fournié at the Royal England (PHE), a government agency, looked at the history of US Veterinary College in Hatfield, UK, fracking. “The risks to public health argues it might not work a second time. He says it may have succeeded from exposure to emissions from in the spring because there was such shale gas extraction are low if fear of H7N9 that demand for poultry operations are properly run and regulated,” it concluded last week. The biggest risk is from the boreholes drilled to reach the shale. Fluids and gas can escape through the wells’ sides if they are not sealed. PHE says this must be strictly monitored and regulated. Mike Stephenson of the British Geological Survey doubts that this will reassure a sceptical public: “People worry about things they can’t see.” He recommends the UK follows the example set by the government of Alberta, Canada, which has promised to put all the data from its tar sands operations –Market detox– online, in real time.
plummeted, forcing traders to destroy birds they couldn’t sell. Now, he says, the initial panic has calmed and demand has recovered. If H7N9 closed markets again without panicking consumers, traders may continue to sell birds via other channels, and the virus would spread. Network theory might offer a solution. Fournié shows that Vietnam’s live poultry trade forms networks in which a small number of markets are hubs that trade heavily with many other members of the network. Such hubs could be mapped by tracking traders’ movements, and then targeted with disease-controlling measures to keep a lid on contagion.
Olympic spacewalk A replica of the 2014 Winter Olympics torch is due to be flown to the International Space Station on 7 November, where it is booked to go on a spacewalk – unlit, of course. The torch will later return to Earth so it can take part in the Olympic kick-off in Sochi, Russia, next February.
Torture docs US doctors were directed by the CIA to collaborate in the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a report by an independent panel of military, medical and legal experts. The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers says that US intelligence services demanded doctors participate in inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees.
US malaria on the rise Malaria cases in the US reached a 40-year high in 2011, according to a report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 1925 cases and five deaths, although most infections – 69 per cent – were acquired overseas, mainly in West Africa.
Elephants never forget Culls carried out in the 1970s and 80s have impaired the decisionmaking processes of African elephants. So say researchers who compared the behaviour of two herds, one undisturbed by culls, and another formed of animals orphaned by culls. Elephants in the latter group were “hyperaggressive” (Frontiers in Zoology, doi.org/pwq).
Growth spurts White girls in the US are hitting puberty four months earlier than they did a decade ago, and increasing obesity is probably to blame, concludes a study of more than 1200 girls over seven years. Black girls reach puberty at 8.8 years old, with white girls at 9.7 years, earlier than in studies 10 and 20 years ago (Pediatrics, doi.org/pwm).
9 November 2013 | NewScientist | 5
Bitter pill
work by funnelling supersonic air into a combustion chamber with no moving parts. But a scramjet can only kick in once a plane’s speed gets above Mach 3, while the top speed of a jet engine is Mach 2.5. Lockheed Martin said on 1 November that its SR-72 will use a scramjet that has a jet engine built in. This engine will be capable of hitting Mach 3 for long enough to allow the scramjet mechanism to fire up, enabling the plane to fly at Mach 6. The SR-72 could reach “any location across a continent in less than an hour”, says programme manager Brad Leland.
60 Seconds
species, the main plant had been replaced with something else. Some also contained unlabelled fillers such as grass, wheat or rice (BMC Medicine, doi.org/pwf). Several included contaminants with side effects such as diarrhoea
GOT a cold? You may want to think twice before you pop some Echinacea. Almost 60 per cent of common herbal supplements tested contained unlisted products – some of them risky “In 32 per cent of the for your health. samples, the main herb Steven Newmaster at the University of Guelph in Canada and had been replaced with something else” colleagues used DNA barcoding to identify plant material in or nausea, or that interact 44 herbal products from 12 firms. negatively with other medicines. They then compared those to The authors suggest the industry samples of known provenance. should voluntarily opt for DNA In 32 per cent of the samples barcoding of their ingredients. found to contain unlabelled
Maths key to containing bird flu
UK to frack away
Dong Jinlin/ColorChinaPhoto/AP/PA
AVOID leaks and frack away. BIRD flu is back – and we may be able to stop it with maths. Whatever the other problems The H7N9 strain of bird flu that with drilling for shale gas in the swept through China in February UK, the risk to public health is has reappeared in Zhejiang province, low, says a government report. infecting two men. Closing live poultry The US has embraced fracking markets again may help. for shale gas but the UK is yet to Benjamin Cowling at the University follow suit, and an exploratory of Hong Kong and colleagues report site in Balcombe attracted a storm that closing markets in April in the of protests. A key concern is that four east Asian cities most affected gas or the fluids used during the rapidly cut the rate of new infections process might release pollutants, by at least 97 per cent (The Lancet, possibly into drinking water. doi.org/pvj). To assess the risk, Public Health But Guillaume Fournié at the Royal England (PHE), a government agency, looked at the history of US Veterinary College in Hatfield, UK, fracking. “The risks to public health argues it might not work a second time. He says it may have succeeded from exposure to emissions from in the spring because there was such shale gas extraction are low if fear of H7N9 that demand for poultry operations are properly run and regulated,” it concluded last week. The biggest risk is from the boreholes drilled to reach the shale. Fluids and gas can escape through the wells’ sides if they are not sealed. PHE says this must be strictly monitored and regulated. Mike Stephenson of the British Geological Survey doubts that this will reassure a sceptical public: “People worry about things they can’t see.” He recommends the UK follows the example set by the government of Alberta, Canada, which has promised to put all the data from its tar sands operations –Market detox– online, in real time.
plummeted, forcing traders to destroy birds they couldn’t sell. Now, he says, the initial panic has calmed and demand has recovered. If H7N9 closed markets again without panicking consumers, traders may continue to sell birds via other channels, and the virus would spread. Network theory might offer a solution. Fournié shows that Vietnam’s live poultry trade forms networks in which a small number of markets are hubs that trade heavily with many other members of the network. Such hubs could be mapped by tracking traders’ movements, and then targeted with disease-controlling measures to keep a lid on contagion.
Olympic spacewalk A replica of the 2014 Winter Olympics torch is due to be flown to the International Space Station on 7 November, where it is booked to go on a spacewalk – unlit, of course. The torch will later return to Earth so it can take part in the Olympic kick-off in Sochi, Russia, next February.
Torture docs US doctors were directed by the CIA to collaborate in the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a report by an independent panel of military, medical and legal experts. The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers says that US intelligence services demanded doctors participate in inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees.
US malaria on the rise Malaria cases in the US reached a 40-year high in 2011, according to a report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 1925 cases and five deaths, although most infections – 69 per cent – were acquired overseas, mainly in West Africa.
Elephants never forget Culls carried out in the 1970s and 80s have impaired the decisionmaking processes of African elephants. So say researchers who compared the behaviour of two herds, one undisturbed by culls, and another formed of animals orphaned by culls. Elephants in the latter group were “hyperaggressive” (Frontiers in Zoology, doi.org/pwq).
Growth spurts White girls in the US are hitting puberty four months earlier than they did a decade ago, and increasing obesity is probably to blame, concludes a study of more than 1200 girls over seven years. Black girls reach puberty at 8.8 years old, with white girls at 9.7 years, earlier than in studies 10 and 20 years ago (Pediatrics, doi.org/pwm).
9 November 2013 | NewScientist | 5