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Going under
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Grow nuclear WHO would have thought that nuclear power could be used to make fertiliser? It will if a new direction in US research proves a success. The Department
FRANK ZULLO / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
60 SECONDS
Stem cells are go US biologists can now ask for federal dollars to do stem cell research that George W. Bush refused to fund. In March, President Barack Obama lifted Bush’s ban on using federal funds for research on human embryonic stem cells derived after August 2001. As of 21 September, researchers may tender requests to the US National Institutes of Health.
“Heat from nuclear reactors could be used in industrial processes such as fertiliser production”
ALAMY
of Energy (DOE) is expanding its development of nuclear reactors that churn out large amounts of waste heat, which could be used in a number of other industries. On 18 September, the DOE announced that its Next Cloud creators Generation Nuclear Plant project will receive a $40 million boost in CLOUD watching is hardly an extreme sport, but NASA took the funding. The gas-cooled reactors involved will run at temperatures pursuit to a whole new level this week by creating an artificial in excess of 800 °C, more than cloud on the edge of space. twice that of existing light water So-called noctilucent clouds reactors. The heat is valuable for float at high altitudes and glow industrial processes that use when the sun illuminates them thermal chemical reactions, such from below the horizon. They are as fertiliser production and formed when ice clumps onto hydrogen generation, says Tom charged particles high in the O’Connor of the DOE. atmosphere, sometimes in rocket Depending on how many trails (see photo). reactors are built and how much of their heat is used, the plants “NASA spewed particles could make a significant dent in carbon emissions from industries into the atmosphere and will use radar to monitor currently reliant on the burning the resulting cloud” of fossil fuels to generate their heat. According to the DOE, about NASA wanted to know whether 40 per cent of US emissions come radar measurements currently from industrial processes. used to study the birth of these clouds are being accurately interpreted. To do this, the Charged Aerosol Release Experiment spewed more than 100 kilograms of aluminium oxide into the atmosphere at an altitude of about 280 kilometres on 19 September. The plan is to use radar and other instruments to monitor the charged particles in the plume over the coming days and weeks as a cloud spreads. Comparing the radar results with what was known to be released will determine –Colder than Pluto– whether radar is a viable way
Cheetahs are go, too
–A cloud is born–
to investigate these clouds. “If radar could be used to say exactly what the population of particles the ice is forming around, that would be a major step forward,” says Scott Bailey of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. To see a gallery of natural noctilucent clouds, go to: www.newscientist.com/gallery/ noctilucent-clouds.
Going under THE sinking fate of Venice could be shared by the half-billion people who live in delta regions – many of them in megacities such as Bangkok. A study of river deltas around the world shows that most are sinking due to human activity. James Syvitski of the University of Colorado at Boulder and colleagues studied satellite images and historic maps of 33 deltas, and found that 24 were sinking (Nature Geoscience, 10.1038/ngeo629). They blame a combination of rising sea levels, extraction of irrigation water and the removal of oil and gas from underneath the deltas. Reservoirs and dams also contribute by trapping sediment that normally replenishes deltas. Deltas at greatest risk include the Chao Phraya in Thailand, the Colorado in Mexico and the Rhone in France. Five regions, including the Amazon and the Congo, were found to be stable.
Plans are afoot in India to bring back the Asiatic cheetah, half a century after it went extinct on the sub-continent. The subspecies is thought to survive only in Iran. Previous efforts to reintroduce it in India flopped in the 1970s after the Shah of Iran was deposed.
Recession emissions Those depressed by the unhappy combination of economic and environmental crises at last have something to be cheerful about. In the first major study of the impact of the recession on climate change, the International Energy Agency is predicting a drop in carbon dioxide emissions of 2.6 per cent in 2009, the largest in the past 40 years, as a result of the recession and government policies.
Plague researcher dies Malcolm Casadaban, a 60-year-old microbiologist who worked at the University of Chicago on a weakened form of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis has died. An autopsy revealed Y. pestis in his blood, although it is not yet known if this is what killed him.
Saturn’s ring show A rare celestial alignment has put Saturn’s rings exactly edge-on to the sun, and Cassini has become the first spacecraft to see the phenomenon up close. The unusual lighting revealed dust clouds kicked up by meteoroids smashing into ring particles, which should help calculate the erosion rate and age of the rings.
26 September 2009 | NewScientist | 7
Grow nuclear WHO would have thought that nuclear power could be used to make fertiliser? It will if a new direction in US research proves a success. The Department
FRANK ZULLO / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
60 SECONDS
Stem cells are go US biologists can now ask for federal dollars to do stem cell research that George W. Bush refused to fund. In March, President Barack Obama lifted Bush’s ban on using federal funds for research on human embryonic stem cells derived after August 2001. As of 21 September, researchers may tender requests to the US National Institutes of Health.
“Heat from nuclear reactors could be used in industrial processes such as fertiliser production”
ALAMY
of Energy (DOE) is expanding its development of nuclear reactors that churn out large amounts of waste heat, which could be used in a number of other industries. On 18 September, the DOE announced that its Next Cloud creators Generation Nuclear Plant project will receive a $40 million boost in CLOUD watching is hardly an extreme sport, but NASA took the funding. The gas-cooled reactors involved will run at temperatures pursuit to a whole new level this week by creating an artificial in excess of 800 °C, more than cloud on the edge of space. twice that of existing light water So-called noctilucent clouds reactors. The heat is valuable for float at high altitudes and glow industrial processes that use when the sun illuminates them thermal chemical reactions, such from below the horizon. They are as fertiliser production and formed when ice clumps onto hydrogen generation, says Tom charged particles high in the O’Connor of the DOE. atmosphere, sometimes in rocket Depending on how many trails (see photo). reactors are built and how much of their heat is used, the plants “NASA spewed particles could make a significant dent in carbon emissions from industries into the atmosphere and will use radar to monitor currently reliant on the burning the resulting cloud” of fossil fuels to generate their heat. According to the DOE, about NASA wanted to know whether 40 per cent of US emissions come radar measurements currently from industrial processes. used to study the birth of these clouds are being accurately interpreted. To do this, the Charged Aerosol Release Experiment spewed more than 100 kilograms of aluminium oxide into the atmosphere at an altitude of about 280 kilometres on 19 September. The plan is to use radar and other instruments to monitor the charged particles in the plume over the coming days and weeks as a cloud spreads. Comparing the radar results with what was known to be released will determine –Colder than Pluto– whether radar is a viable way
Cheetahs are go, too
–A cloud is born–
to investigate these clouds. “If radar could be used to say exactly what the population of particles the ice is forming around, that would be a major step forward,” says Scott Bailey of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. To see a gallery of natural noctilucent clouds, go to: www.newscientist.com/gallery/ noctilucent-clouds.
Going under THE sinking fate of Venice could be shared by the half-billion people who live in delta regions – many of them in megacities such as Bangkok. A study of river deltas around the world shows that most are sinking due to human activity. James Syvitski of the University of Colorado at Boulder and colleagues studied satellite images and historic maps of 33 deltas, and found that 24 were sinking (Nature Geoscience, 10.1038/ngeo629). They blame a combination of rising sea levels, extraction of irrigation water and the removal of oil and gas from underneath the deltas. Reservoirs and dams also contribute by trapping sediment that normally replenishes deltas. Deltas at greatest risk include the Chao Phraya in Thailand, the Colorado in Mexico and the Rhone in France. Five regions, including the Amazon and the Congo, were found to be stable.
Plans are afoot in India to bring back the Asiatic cheetah, half a century after it went extinct on the sub-continent. The subspecies is thought to survive only in Iran. Previous efforts to reintroduce it in India flopped in the 1970s after the Shah of Iran was deposed.
Recession emissions Those depressed by the unhappy combination of economic and environmental crises at last have something to be cheerful about. In the first major study of the impact of the recession on climate change, the International Energy Agency is predicting a drop in carbon dioxide emissions of 2.6 per cent in 2009, the largest in the past 40 years, as a result of the recession and government policies.
Plague researcher dies Malcolm Casadaban, a 60-year-old microbiologist who worked at the University of Chicago on a weakened form of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis has died. An autopsy revealed Y. pestis in his blood, although it is not yet known if this is what killed him.
Saturn’s ring show A rare celestial alignment has put Saturn’s rings exactly edge-on to the sun, and Cassini has become the first spacecraft to see the phenomenon up close. The unusual lighting revealed dust clouds kicked up by meteoroids smashing into ring particles, which should help calculate the erosion rate and age of the rings.
26 September 2009 | NewScientist | 7