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Deepwater Horizon, one year on
KPA/Zuma/Rex
UPFRONT
Gulf spill one year on IT IS just over a year since the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded, killing 11 workers and releasing 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico – and we still don’t how much havoc has been caused. The spill is the second largest in US history, after the 1910 Lakeview Gusher in California spewed 9 million barrels. But despite an army of scientists and volunteers monitoring the area, the spill’s impact has yet to be quantified. “We do not have enough information to determine the overall severity,” says Tony Penn, deputy chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Response and Restoration. While microorganisms quickly consumed much of the methane gas, it is unclear how much oil is left in the
deep sea and what its effects are. Kevin Yeager of the University of Southern Mississippi is trying to find out what the oil has done to life in the sea floor sediment. He says toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are “above background levels in sediments throughout the continental shelf and slope”. His team is running studies to check that they came from Deepwater Horizon. In the wake of the spill, BP committed $500 million to support research into its effects, but only now have teams been given the opportunity to apply. Yeager says he has been “waiting anxiously” for funds to become available. The US government has also announced that BP will provide $1 billion to fund restoration projects.
Ash risk confirmed
Copenhagen, Denmark, arranged for colleagues to collect ash from two locations 10 and 55 kilometres from the volcano, while it was erupting. They found that the ash released in the first few days was unusually rich in particles less than 300 micrometres across. These are likely to become trapped in jet engines and melt, causing the engines to stall. The particles were also hard and sharp, so could have “sandblasted” cockpit windows, obscuring pilots’ view (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015053108).
–The fires are out but it’s not over–
Higgs hint
“If it is the Higgs, then the extra photon pairs are 30 times as abundant as the standard model predicts” They say they have found an excess of photon pairs with an energy of 115 gigaelectronvolts in data from the LHC’s ATLAS detector, which might have 4 | NewScientist | 30 April 2011
Robert Nickelsberg/Time Life Pictures/Getty
ANOTHER week, another outbreak of particle fever. Just weeks after a potential new particle was reported at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, a leaked abstract suggests the Higgs boson may have been sighted at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva in Switzerland. The LHC smashes beams of protons together in the hope that somewhere in the detritus will be signs of new particles such as the Higgs, widely touted to endow all other particles with mass. Four physicists now say they may have seen such signs, according to an abstract posted anonymously on a blog maintained by Peter Woit of Columbia University in New York.
decayed from a Higgs boson with an equivalent mass. But others urge caution. “Bumps come and go all the time,” says Greg Landsberg of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The study has not yet been reviewed by other LHC physicists, and anomalies often turn out to be due to errors in analysis, he says. If further study confirms it is the Higgs, that will raise another mystery. The extra photon pairs are 30 times as abundant as the standard model of particle physics predicts they should be.
THOSE who questioned the wisdom of closing European airspace after the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökul erupted last year now have their answer: it did indeed pose a serious risk to aircraft. Eyjafjallajökul began erupting explosively on 14 April 2010, blasting ash into the atmosphere. European airspace was then closed – for several months in some areas – because of fears that the ash would damage aircraft. Susan Stipp of the University of
Catfish reprieve LAST week bought a little extra time for the world’s largest freshwater fish, the Mekong giant catfish, as a decision to build a giant dam on the Mekong river was deferred. Officials from the four countries on the lower Mekong failed to agree on whether to approve the Xayaburi dam. Laos wants to build the dam on its stretch of the river and sell the –Still around, for now– electricity it generates, but
UPFRONT
Gulf spill one year on IT IS just over a year since the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded, killing 11 workers and releasing 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico – and we still don’t how much havoc has been caused. The spill is the second largest in US history, after the 1910 Lakeview Gusher in California spewed 9 million barrels. But despite an army of scientists and volunteers monitoring the area, the spill’s impact has yet to be quantified. “We do not have enough information to determine the overall severity,” says Tony Penn, deputy chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Response and Restoration. While microorganisms quickly consumed much of the methane gas, it is unclear how much oil is left in the
deep sea and what its effects are. Kevin Yeager of the University of Southern Mississippi is trying to find out what the oil has done to life in the sea floor sediment. He says toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are “above background levels in sediments throughout the continental shelf and slope”. His team is running studies to check that they came from Deepwater Horizon. In the wake of the spill, BP committed $500 million to support research into its effects, but only now have teams been given the opportunity to apply. Yeager says he has been “waiting anxiously” for funds to become available. The US government has also announced that BP will provide $1 billion to fund restoration projects.
Ash risk confirmed
Copenhagen, Denmark, arranged for colleagues to collect ash from two locations 10 and 55 kilometres from the volcano, while it was erupting. They found that the ash released in the first few days was unusually rich in particles less than 300 micrometres across. These are likely to become trapped in jet engines and melt, causing the engines to stall. The particles were also hard and sharp, so could have “sandblasted” cockpit windows, obscuring pilots’ view (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015053108).
–The fires are out but it’s not over–
Higgs hint
“If it is the Higgs, then the extra photon pairs are 30 times as abundant as the standard model predicts” They say they have found an excess of photon pairs with an energy of 115 gigaelectronvolts in data from the LHC’s ATLAS detector, which might have 4 | NewScientist | 30 April 2011
Robert Nickelsberg/Time Life Pictures/Getty
ANOTHER week, another outbreak of particle fever. Just weeks after a potential new particle was reported at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, a leaked abstract suggests the Higgs boson may have been sighted at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva in Switzerland. The LHC smashes beams of protons together in the hope that somewhere in the detritus will be signs of new particles such as the Higgs, widely touted to endow all other particles with mass. Four physicists now say they may have seen such signs, according to an abstract posted anonymously on a blog maintained by Peter Woit of Columbia University in New York.
decayed from a Higgs boson with an equivalent mass. But others urge caution. “Bumps come and go all the time,” says Greg Landsberg of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The study has not yet been reviewed by other LHC physicists, and anomalies often turn out to be due to errors in analysis, he says. If further study confirms it is the Higgs, that will raise another mystery. The extra photon pairs are 30 times as abundant as the standard model of particle physics predicts they should be.
THOSE who questioned the wisdom of closing European airspace after the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökul erupted last year now have their answer: it did indeed pose a serious risk to aircraft. Eyjafjallajökul began erupting explosively on 14 April 2010, blasting ash into the atmosphere. European airspace was then closed – for several months in some areas – because of fears that the ash would damage aircraft. Susan Stipp of the University of
Catfish reprieve LAST week bought a little extra time for the world’s largest freshwater fish, the Mekong giant catfish, as a decision to build a giant dam on the Mekong river was deferred. Officials from the four countries on the lower Mekong failed to agree on whether to approve the Xayaburi dam. Laos wants to build the dam on its stretch of the river and sell the –Still around, for now– electricity it generates, but