- Email: [email protected]
Bird “red list” reveals species ups and downs
CASSINI IMAGING TEAM/SSI/JPL/ESA/NASA
UPFRONT
Cold-war fuel running out IT MIGHT just be the speediest government response ever. On the same day as warnings that new spacecraft for studying distant worlds are poised to run out of nuclear fuel, the US Department of Energy (DoE) promised $30 million to address the problem. It was probably a coincidence, but no one is complaining. Missions such as Galileo and Cassini rely on radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that convert the heat from radioactive decay into electricity. These are the only long-term source of power when sunlight is too weak for solar cells. Supplies of plutonium-238 used in RTGs are expected to run out by 2018, the US National Research Council (NRC) warned last week. The fuel was a by-product of reactors that produced
weapons during the cold war but were decommissioned decades ago. To stretch supplies, the report recommended the development of more efficient electrical generators, based on a Stirling engine which heats and compresses gas. But their moving parts “make people nervous” as they can break, says Ralph McNutt of Johns Hopkins University, who co-chaired the study. A better idea would be to convert current nuclear reactors to start producing plutonium238, he says, although at least $150 million in new equipment would be needed to process it into a usable form, the study concluded. The DoE has pledged $30 million to get the ball rolling in its new budget. It was “a very pleasant surprise”, says McNutt.
Premium on boys
births per 100 female births, but this reached 111 to 100 by 2007 (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/ journal.pone0004624). Guilmoto also analysed statistics of access to prenatal ultrasounds, and found that there had been a tenfold increase in availability between 1998 and 2007. Demand for sex determination may have existed for a long time, but only once better quality ultrasound machines arrived in hospitals were women able to access and make use of this information, he says.
–Solar panels won’t help here–
Libel loss for Singh
“The judge has given us a meaning of bogus that is very extreme and that I never intended” the BCA sued him for libel. In a pre-trial hearing last week, the judge ruled that Singh was saying the BCA had knowingly made false claims. He rejected 6 | NewScientist | 16 May 2009
LUCY GARRETT/RAREBIRDS YEARBOOK.COM
IF YOU have ever been tempted to call alternative medicine “bogus”, chose your words with care. You could be sued for defamation. That’s the message from a ruling in the High Court in London that censured science writer Simon Singh for claiming that the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) promoted “bogus” treatments. Chiropractic is a system of alternative and complementary medicine that treats illnesses by manipulating the spine. Singh made the comment in an article in London newspaper The Guardian in April 2008. The BCA asked him to retract the statement, which it said was wrong and damaging to its reputation. Singh refused, so
Singh’s defence that it was fair comment. “The judge has given us a meaning [of bogus] that is very extreme and that I never intended,” Singh told New Scientist. Some lawyers and bloggers see the ruling as a landmark as it could restrict freedom of speech to criticise alternative medicine, and not just in England. People from all over the world are using English libel law to silence their critics (see page 24). BCA president Tony Metcalf said he was delighted that the judge had protected the BCA’s integrity.
VIETNAM is seeing a boom in male births as increasing numbers of parents opt for sex-specific abortions. Christophe Guilmoto of Descartes University in Paris, France, and his colleagues analysed population data collected by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam since 2000, plus two surveys which assessed birth rates in 2006 and 2007. In 2001, the sex ratio in Vietnam was close to the biological norm of 105 male
Bird life in the red DARWIN would not be happy. A bird native to the Galapagos Islands, the medium tree finch, has joined 191 other species on this year’s “critically endangered” list for birds. While this finch is in jeopardy as a result of parasitic flies introduced to the islands by humans, most of the bird species on this year’s International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red –A high-visibility snack no more– List of endangered species are
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
60 SECONDS
Moon shot in doubt
imperilled by habitat loss. Another ominous factor is the impact of climate change, says Martin Fowlie of BirdLife International in Cambridge, UK, which compiles bird entries for the IUCN. Overall, threatened bird species comprise about 12 per cent of all species on the Red List. Some good news included species recovering through conservation programmes. For example, the classification of the Mauritius fody (pictured, below left) improved to “endangered” after moving them to a predator-free island off the coast of Mauritius.
date is at risk,” says Scott Pace of George Washington University in Washington DC. NASA’s moon plans might even be completely sidelined instead. “The uncertainty here is the future of exploration beyond the
AMERICAN plans to return to the moon may be under threat. President Barack Obama has ordered an independent review of NASA’s post-shuttle plans. The new US administration also offered its first detailed budget for the agency, “The uncertainty here is the future of which projects $3.1 billion less exploration beyond than was requested in last year’s the shuttle” budget for the development of new craft up until October 2013. shuttle: are we going to go beyond These cuts could delay the low-Earth orbit, and if so, on what Altair lunar lander and the Ares V schedule?” Pace says. heavy-lift rocket, which were The review is expected to be planned to return astronauts to completed in August. the moon by 2020. “The lunar
Back from the blue
Row over who gets ‘alcopop’ tax
JAMES BRICKWOOD/OCULI/AGENCE VU
BLUE whales have begun to AUSTRALIAN researchers are taking a stand against a common practice return to Pacific waters off North of accepting funds from the alcohol America, from which they were industry, to prevent legitimising hunted out before whaling was “ineffective education programmes”. banned in 1965. Their increased The issue came to a head this range may indicate attempts to week as the Australian government escape local food shortages. made moves to ensure that taxes on “They’ve shifted from just high-alcohol drinks, introduced a feeding off California and year ago, continue. The so-called dispersed more broadly, to “alcopop tax” has raised $300 million the north and maybe to more and has been an effective way of central Pacific zones,” says curbing problem drinking, says the John Calambokidis of Cascadia Australian government. Research Collective in Olympia, The liquor industry wants the Washington. His team funds to go to DrinkWise – an photographed 15 blue whales “evidence-based research and social between 1997 and 2007 in North change organisation” that they Pacific waters off British helped to set up and fund. But in Columbia and Alaska, where blue four letters in the Medical Journal whales were once abundant. Four of the 15 whales have also been identified off the coast of California, proving for the first time that blue whales range all along the western coastline of North America, rather than maintaining separate populations. Their foray north could mean good news if it is a result of the recovering population outgrowing the local food supply off California, but not if it follows a reduction in krill – a key food source – due to global warming, as reported in the Arctic, or due to natural changes in ocean currents. –Who gets funding from this?–
of Australia this week, more than 50 health researchers say that the money should go to an independent research body. Industry-linked bodies in the UK and the US fund research and campaigns aimed at stopping problem drinking through education programmes, but these are largely ineffective, claims Peter Miller of Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria, and one of the letters’ authors: “They fund research into interventions that have been shown not to work. That is what they love, because they need to make money.” Miller aims to encourage researchers globally to refuse drinksindustry funding in an upcoming series of papers in Addiction.
The key to orgasms The higher a woman’s “EQ” – the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions – the higher the frequency of orgasm during sexual intercourse, say researchers from Kings College London. They suggest EQ has a direct impact on sexual functioning by influencing the ability to communicate sexual expectations and desires to a partner.
Bogged down on Mars The wheels of the Mars rover Spirit are slipping in soft soil, prompting controllers to suspend driving on Monday. The NASA rover’s wheels are now half-buried, raising concerns that rocks could reach up to the rover’s belly and trap it. “Spirit is in a very difficult situation,” says John Callas, project manager for NASA’s two rovers.
Crime still pays While legitimate businesses struggle, crimes against the environment earned Italian “ecomafia” gangs €20.5 billion in 2008, up 12 per cent from 2007, says environmental group Legambiente. Export of illegal waste tops the list.
Subdued sunspots The latest solar cycle will be the weakest since 1928, says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Solar activity during the current cycle, which began late last year, will peak in May 2013 with an average of 90 sunspots per day. In 1928, an average of 78 sunspots was seen daily.
Too late to cheat Climate change may be ruining cuckoos’ chances to sneak their eggs into other nests. As global warming speeds up bird migration, host species that migrate short distances now arrive at breeding sites earlier and have nearly finished incubating their eggs when the cuckoos turn up. This may explain recent cuckoo declines (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0312).
16 May 2009 | NewScientist | 7
UPFRONT
Cold-war fuel running out IT MIGHT just be the speediest government response ever. On the same day as warnings that new spacecraft for studying distant worlds are poised to run out of nuclear fuel, the US Department of Energy (DoE) promised $30 million to address the problem. It was probably a coincidence, but no one is complaining. Missions such as Galileo and Cassini rely on radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that convert the heat from radioactive decay into electricity. These are the only long-term source of power when sunlight is too weak for solar cells. Supplies of plutonium-238 used in RTGs are expected to run out by 2018, the US National Research Council (NRC) warned last week. The fuel was a by-product of reactors that produced
weapons during the cold war but were decommissioned decades ago. To stretch supplies, the report recommended the development of more efficient electrical generators, based on a Stirling engine which heats and compresses gas. But their moving parts “make people nervous” as they can break, says Ralph McNutt of Johns Hopkins University, who co-chaired the study. A better idea would be to convert current nuclear reactors to start producing plutonium238, he says, although at least $150 million in new equipment would be needed to process it into a usable form, the study concluded. The DoE has pledged $30 million to get the ball rolling in its new budget. It was “a very pleasant surprise”, says McNutt.
Premium on boys
births per 100 female births, but this reached 111 to 100 by 2007 (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/ journal.pone0004624). Guilmoto also analysed statistics of access to prenatal ultrasounds, and found that there had been a tenfold increase in availability between 1998 and 2007. Demand for sex determination may have existed for a long time, but only once better quality ultrasound machines arrived in hospitals were women able to access and make use of this information, he says.
–Solar panels won’t help here–
Libel loss for Singh
“The judge has given us a meaning of bogus that is very extreme and that I never intended” the BCA sued him for libel. In a pre-trial hearing last week, the judge ruled that Singh was saying the BCA had knowingly made false claims. He rejected 6 | NewScientist | 16 May 2009
LUCY GARRETT/RAREBIRDS YEARBOOK.COM
IF YOU have ever been tempted to call alternative medicine “bogus”, chose your words with care. You could be sued for defamation. That’s the message from a ruling in the High Court in London that censured science writer Simon Singh for claiming that the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) promoted “bogus” treatments. Chiropractic is a system of alternative and complementary medicine that treats illnesses by manipulating the spine. Singh made the comment in an article in London newspaper The Guardian in April 2008. The BCA asked him to retract the statement, which it said was wrong and damaging to its reputation. Singh refused, so
Singh’s defence that it was fair comment. “The judge has given us a meaning [of bogus] that is very extreme and that I never intended,” Singh told New Scientist. Some lawyers and bloggers see the ruling as a landmark as it could restrict freedom of speech to criticise alternative medicine, and not just in England. People from all over the world are using English libel law to silence their critics (see page 24). BCA president Tony Metcalf said he was delighted that the judge had protected the BCA’s integrity.
VIETNAM is seeing a boom in male births as increasing numbers of parents opt for sex-specific abortions. Christophe Guilmoto of Descartes University in Paris, France, and his colleagues analysed population data collected by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam since 2000, plus two surveys which assessed birth rates in 2006 and 2007. In 2001, the sex ratio in Vietnam was close to the biological norm of 105 male
Bird life in the red DARWIN would not be happy. A bird native to the Galapagos Islands, the medium tree finch, has joined 191 other species on this year’s “critically endangered” list for birds. While this finch is in jeopardy as a result of parasitic flies introduced to the islands by humans, most of the bird species on this year’s International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red –A high-visibility snack no more– List of endangered species are
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
60 SECONDS
Moon shot in doubt
imperilled by habitat loss. Another ominous factor is the impact of climate change, says Martin Fowlie of BirdLife International in Cambridge, UK, which compiles bird entries for the IUCN. Overall, threatened bird species comprise about 12 per cent of all species on the Red List. Some good news included species recovering through conservation programmes. For example, the classification of the Mauritius fody (pictured, below left) improved to “endangered” after moving them to a predator-free island off the coast of Mauritius.
date is at risk,” says Scott Pace of George Washington University in Washington DC. NASA’s moon plans might even be completely sidelined instead. “The uncertainty here is the future of exploration beyond the
AMERICAN plans to return to the moon may be under threat. President Barack Obama has ordered an independent review of NASA’s post-shuttle plans. The new US administration also offered its first detailed budget for the agency, “The uncertainty here is the future of which projects $3.1 billion less exploration beyond than was requested in last year’s the shuttle” budget for the development of new craft up until October 2013. shuttle: are we going to go beyond These cuts could delay the low-Earth orbit, and if so, on what Altair lunar lander and the Ares V schedule?” Pace says. heavy-lift rocket, which were The review is expected to be planned to return astronauts to completed in August. the moon by 2020. “The lunar
Back from the blue
Row over who gets ‘alcopop’ tax
JAMES BRICKWOOD/OCULI/AGENCE VU
BLUE whales have begun to AUSTRALIAN researchers are taking a stand against a common practice return to Pacific waters off North of accepting funds from the alcohol America, from which they were industry, to prevent legitimising hunted out before whaling was “ineffective education programmes”. banned in 1965. Their increased The issue came to a head this range may indicate attempts to week as the Australian government escape local food shortages. made moves to ensure that taxes on “They’ve shifted from just high-alcohol drinks, introduced a feeding off California and year ago, continue. The so-called dispersed more broadly, to “alcopop tax” has raised $300 million the north and maybe to more and has been an effective way of central Pacific zones,” says curbing problem drinking, says the John Calambokidis of Cascadia Australian government. Research Collective in Olympia, The liquor industry wants the Washington. His team funds to go to DrinkWise – an photographed 15 blue whales “evidence-based research and social between 1997 and 2007 in North change organisation” that they Pacific waters off British helped to set up and fund. But in Columbia and Alaska, where blue four letters in the Medical Journal whales were once abundant. Four of the 15 whales have also been identified off the coast of California, proving for the first time that blue whales range all along the western coastline of North America, rather than maintaining separate populations. Their foray north could mean good news if it is a result of the recovering population outgrowing the local food supply off California, but not if it follows a reduction in krill – a key food source – due to global warming, as reported in the Arctic, or due to natural changes in ocean currents. –Who gets funding from this?–
of Australia this week, more than 50 health researchers say that the money should go to an independent research body. Industry-linked bodies in the UK and the US fund research and campaigns aimed at stopping problem drinking through education programmes, but these are largely ineffective, claims Peter Miller of Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria, and one of the letters’ authors: “They fund research into interventions that have been shown not to work. That is what they love, because they need to make money.” Miller aims to encourage researchers globally to refuse drinksindustry funding in an upcoming series of papers in Addiction.
The key to orgasms The higher a woman’s “EQ” – the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions – the higher the frequency of orgasm during sexual intercourse, say researchers from Kings College London. They suggest EQ has a direct impact on sexual functioning by influencing the ability to communicate sexual expectations and desires to a partner.
Bogged down on Mars The wheels of the Mars rover Spirit are slipping in soft soil, prompting controllers to suspend driving on Monday. The NASA rover’s wheels are now half-buried, raising concerns that rocks could reach up to the rover’s belly and trap it. “Spirit is in a very difficult situation,” says John Callas, project manager for NASA’s two rovers.
Crime still pays While legitimate businesses struggle, crimes against the environment earned Italian “ecomafia” gangs €20.5 billion in 2008, up 12 per cent from 2007, says environmental group Legambiente. Export of illegal waste tops the list.
Subdued sunspots The latest solar cycle will be the weakest since 1928, says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Solar activity during the current cycle, which began late last year, will peak in May 2013 with an average of 90 sunspots per day. In 1928, an average of 78 sunspots was seen daily.
Too late to cheat Climate change may be ruining cuckoos’ chances to sneak their eggs into other nests. As global warming speeds up bird migration, host species that migrate short distances now arrive at breeding sites earlier and have nearly finished incubating their eggs when the cuckoos turn up. This may explain recent cuckoo declines (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0312).
16 May 2009 | NewScientist | 7