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‘HIV denial’ alive and well online
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MARTIN WESTLAKE/ASIA IMAGES/JUPITER
Upfront– WILL A TSUNAMI HIT SOME DAY? Hong Kong and Macao are enormous, sprawling economic centres perched on the coast. And both stand a 10 per cent chance of being hit by a serious tsunami in the next century, warn geophysicists. The warning follows a new assessment of how earthquakes along the nearby Manila trench could radiate tsunami waves across the South China Sea. Although Chinese records of tsunamis date back to AD 171, the hazard was largely ignored until the cataclysmic Sumatra tsunami in 2004. However, the structure of the complex plate boundary on the eastern side of the South China Sea, running from Taiwan to the Manila trench, makes shallow subductionrelated quakes particularly likely. This problem was highlighted by the quake in December 2006 that hobbled internet traffic in the region when it ripped through subsea data cables. Such
earthquakes could also trigger tsunamis. To assess the threat, Yingchun Liu of the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing developed a computer model with David Yuen’s group at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. They identified the sites where major quakes were most likely, then modelled how the tsunamis they produced would spread and their heights as they reached major cities. Finally, they factored in the tsunami risks of all possible large quakes for each location. They found that all coastal regions, stretching north from Macao and Hong Kong to beyond Shantou – a city of 1.2 million people where the tropic of Cancer crosses the Chinese coast – have about a 1-in-10 chance of being struck by a tsumani within 100 years (Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, vol 163, p 233).
–Hope won’t protect Hong Kong–
Stormy weather ARE the most powerful, devastating hurricanes becoming the norm? Hurricane researchers are divided over the issue. When hurricane Dean reached category 5 strength in the Caribbean on Monday night, 2007 became the fourth year out of the past five to host the most intense category of storm – an unparalleled record. “We’re in transition now to a new regime,” with warmer seasurface temperatures fuelling more and stronger storms, says Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who has reported both that hurricanes are becoming more
“Today’s observations spot high winds over oceans that would have been missed before” intense and that storm frequency in the North Atlantic began to rise significantly in 1995 (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1116448). Category 5 storms have been uncommon: during 43 of the seasons since 1940, no such storms were recorded. The only 4 | NewScientist | 25 August 2007
time before now that a category 5 storm has been recorded during three out four years was between 1958 and 1961. Other hurricane specialists are sceptical of Webster’s conclusions, however, claiming that previous storm records were badly collated and based on flawed observations. We don’t truly know the extent of past hurricanes, says Kerry Emmanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “It’s hard to tell.” Aircraft observations began in the 1940s, but Emmanuel says that for a decade “they just guessed wind speeds by looking at the water”. Early hurricane-hunter planes weren’t strong enough to fly into the eye of a fierce storm, and satellite observations didn’t start until 1965. Today’s observations can even spot high winds over the open ocean that would have been missed before, says Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida. “Hurricane Wilma in 2005 was category 5 for 18 hours, but in the 1950s all we would have known was that it was category 4 when it hit Cancun,” he told New Scientist.
HIV denial AIDS is caused by HIV; it’s a fact established beyond any reasonable doubt. Yet many beg to differ, blaming it instead on social causes, from poverty to promiscuity. South African president Thabo Mbeki is perhaps the most famous HIV denialist, with tragic consequences for his country’s fight against AIDS. HIV denial is also flourishing worldwide on the internet and it is costing lives. According to a new analysis, HIV denial is remarkably similar
to other anti-scientific ideologies such as creationism, anti-vaccine movements and even Holocaust denial (PLoS Medicine, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256). For example, HIV denialists claim that the idea that HIV causes AIDS is backed by an orthodoxy, or conspiracy, that makes money selling HIV drugs; that science is based on faith, rather than evidence, and that their ideas are on the verge of acceptance. They point to gaps in the science, back-pedalling as those gaps fill up. The study calls for scientists to fight back.
NOT SO SCARY AFTER ALL It was responsible for one of the biggest food scares in recent times. Now acrylamide, which is found in coffee, French fries and many other foods, has been cleared of causing breast cancer. The alarm was raised in 2002 when researchers discovered that acrylamide, which had been shown to cause cancers in animals, can form in a range of foods while they are being cooked. A team led by Lorelei Mucci at Harvard School of Public Health in
Boston has now sounded the all-clear – at least for breast cancer – following a 20-year study of 100,000 nurses in the US. Although 3000 of the women developed breast cancer, questionnaires revealed that their risk was not affected by the amount of acrylamide-rich food they had consumed. “At levels in the diet, it doesn’t seem to cause breast cancer,” says Mucci, who presented her results at the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston earlier this week.
www.newscientist.com
MARTIN WESTLAKE/ASIA IMAGES/JUPITER
Upfront– WILL A TSUNAMI HIT SOME DAY? Hong Kong and Macao are enormous, sprawling economic centres perched on the coast. And both stand a 10 per cent chance of being hit by a serious tsunami in the next century, warn geophysicists. The warning follows a new assessment of how earthquakes along the nearby Manila trench could radiate tsunami waves across the South China Sea. Although Chinese records of tsunamis date back to AD 171, the hazard was largely ignored until the cataclysmic Sumatra tsunami in 2004. However, the structure of the complex plate boundary on the eastern side of the South China Sea, running from Taiwan to the Manila trench, makes shallow subductionrelated quakes particularly likely. This problem was highlighted by the quake in December 2006 that hobbled internet traffic in the region when it ripped through subsea data cables. Such
earthquakes could also trigger tsunamis. To assess the threat, Yingchun Liu of the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing developed a computer model with David Yuen’s group at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. They identified the sites where major quakes were most likely, then modelled how the tsunamis they produced would spread and their heights as they reached major cities. Finally, they factored in the tsunami risks of all possible large quakes for each location. They found that all coastal regions, stretching north from Macao and Hong Kong to beyond Shantou – a city of 1.2 million people where the tropic of Cancer crosses the Chinese coast – have about a 1-in-10 chance of being struck by a tsumani within 100 years (Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, vol 163, p 233).
–Hope won’t protect Hong Kong–
Stormy weather ARE the most powerful, devastating hurricanes becoming the norm? Hurricane researchers are divided over the issue. When hurricane Dean reached category 5 strength in the Caribbean on Monday night, 2007 became the fourth year out of the past five to host the most intense category of storm – an unparalleled record. “We’re in transition now to a new regime,” with warmer seasurface temperatures fuelling more and stronger storms, says Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who has reported both that hurricanes are becoming more
“Today’s observations spot high winds over oceans that would have been missed before” intense and that storm frequency in the North Atlantic began to rise significantly in 1995 (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1116448). Category 5 storms have been uncommon: during 43 of the seasons since 1940, no such storms were recorded. The only 4 | NewScientist | 25 August 2007
time before now that a category 5 storm has been recorded during three out four years was between 1958 and 1961. Other hurricane specialists are sceptical of Webster’s conclusions, however, claiming that previous storm records were badly collated and based on flawed observations. We don’t truly know the extent of past hurricanes, says Kerry Emmanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “It’s hard to tell.” Aircraft observations began in the 1940s, but Emmanuel says that for a decade “they just guessed wind speeds by looking at the water”. Early hurricane-hunter planes weren’t strong enough to fly into the eye of a fierce storm, and satellite observations didn’t start until 1965. Today’s observations can even spot high winds over the open ocean that would have been missed before, says Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida. “Hurricane Wilma in 2005 was category 5 for 18 hours, but in the 1950s all we would have known was that it was category 4 when it hit Cancun,” he told New Scientist.
HIV denial AIDS is caused by HIV; it’s a fact established beyond any reasonable doubt. Yet many beg to differ, blaming it instead on social causes, from poverty to promiscuity. South African president Thabo Mbeki is perhaps the most famous HIV denialist, with tragic consequences for his country’s fight against AIDS. HIV denial is also flourishing worldwide on the internet and it is costing lives. According to a new analysis, HIV denial is remarkably similar
to other anti-scientific ideologies such as creationism, anti-vaccine movements and even Holocaust denial (PLoS Medicine, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0040256). For example, HIV denialists claim that the idea that HIV causes AIDS is backed by an orthodoxy, or conspiracy, that makes money selling HIV drugs; that science is based on faith, rather than evidence, and that their ideas are on the verge of acceptance. They point to gaps in the science, back-pedalling as those gaps fill up. The study calls for scientists to fight back.
NOT SO SCARY AFTER ALL It was responsible for one of the biggest food scares in recent times. Now acrylamide, which is found in coffee, French fries and many other foods, has been cleared of causing breast cancer. The alarm was raised in 2002 when researchers discovered that acrylamide, which had been shown to cause cancers in animals, can form in a range of foods while they are being cooked. A team led by Lorelei Mucci at Harvard School of Public Health in
Boston has now sounded the all-clear – at least for breast cancer – following a 20-year study of 100,000 nurses in the US. Although 3000 of the women developed breast cancer, questionnaires revealed that their risk was not affected by the amount of acrylamide-rich food they had consumed. “At levels in the diet, it doesn’t seem to cause breast cancer,” says Mucci, who presented her results at the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston earlier this week.
www.newscientist.com