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Nuclear fusion project gets green light
News in perspective
JOHANN ROUSSELOT/OEIL PUBLIC
Upfront– WHEN DOGS WALK BIRDS FLY It is sure to send wings a-flapping and tails a-sagging. Even when owners walk their dogs on leashes they still manage to frighten off nearly half the birds in natural parklands. Land managers in several countries, including the UK and Australia, have responded to birders’ worries that dogs may be scaring local wildlife by banning the animals from sensitive wild areas. But dog-owners maintain there is little hard evidence to support this view, and are angry over such bans. So Peter Banks and Jessica Bryant at the University of New South Wales in Sydney tested the effect of dogs on bird sightings at 90 different sites in both regional parks where dogs are allowed on a leash and in neighbouring national parks, where dogs are banned. They
used two “treatments” – a person walking alone and a person with a dog. After each treatment group walked past, the researchers counted the number of birds they saw or heard within 50 metres. Walking a dog was followed by an immediate exodus of nearby birds, leaving 41 per cent fewer individual birds on average. The number of species also dropped by 35 per cent compared to when no one was walking. People alone, even two people, had half the impact (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0374) Walking a dog without a leash is likely to be even worse, says Banks, who says the birds must perceive the dogs as potential predators. He anticipates dog-owners will react badly to his findings.
Fusion is go
deuterium and tritium – to create helium. This releases neutrons and huge amounts of energy. The European Commission gave approval in July for the High Power Laser Energy Research (HiPER) facility. Last week, negotiations began to establish where the facility will be located, how the £500-million project will be funded and what technical options to pursue. “This project is now going ahead,” says Dunne. “It’s just a matter of working out the detail.” Dunne leads a consortium of scientists from 15 nations, which hopes to begin construction of the facility in 2011.
–They’re not singing any more–
AS FEARED, the chikungunya virus has begun spreading in Europe. In June, a few people near Ravenna in north-east Italy developed a fever with severe joint pain, but by mid-August there were more than 100 cases. The Italian government has confirmed that the culprit is chikungunya virus, a previously rare, mild infection spread by mosquitoes, that has mutated into a virulent, rapidly spreading strain. Since 2005, it has infected at least 1.4 million people in India and on islands in the Indian Ocean and may have killed thousands. Italian officials blame the outbreak on warm weather and unusually high numbers of mosquitoes, but as New Scientist went to press no more new cases
Europe to have originated locally, meaning that the virus has now established itself in mosquitoes. Officials are spraying insecticide in the places where the insects breed in a bid to wipe them out. The Asian tiger mosquito, which carries chikungunya, is now widespread in Italy, but also in warmer regions of Europe and the Americas where the virus is not established. In the tropics the insects also carry the more serious dengue virus, which infects about 100 million people a year. The fear is that if chikungunya can establish itself in local tiger mosquitoes, so can dengue. SOPHIE CHIVET/AGENCE VU
Deadly virus
“The Italian cases are the first infections in Europe to have originated locally” had come to light in recent days. Chikungunya has been diagnosed in dozens of travellers returning to Europe and North America from infected areas, but the Italian cases are the first in 6 | NewScientist | 8 September 2007
–Investing in an attention deficit?–
REPRODUCING the power of the sun on Earth is no easy task, but an international team of physicists based in Europe is now preparing to give it a go. If their attempt to develop nuclear fusion works, it could provide a limitless and clean source of energy that promises to end reliance on the fossil fuels that are causing global warming. The consortium, led by Mike Dunne of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford, UK, hopes to develop commercial nuclear fusion using lasers to crush together isotopes of hydrogen –
Now look here WANT to give your children a good start in life? Then you may need to deny them their beloved television every once in a while. The first long-term study of the impact of television viewing on attention skills reports that the more television children watch between the ages of 5 and 11, the more likely they are to have attention problems between the ages of 13 and 15 (Pediatrics, vol 120, p 532). The team followed more than www.newscientist.com
JOHANN ROUSSELOT/OEIL PUBLIC
Upfront– WHEN DOGS WALK BIRDS FLY It is sure to send wings a-flapping and tails a-sagging. Even when owners walk their dogs on leashes they still manage to frighten off nearly half the birds in natural parklands. Land managers in several countries, including the UK and Australia, have responded to birders’ worries that dogs may be scaring local wildlife by banning the animals from sensitive wild areas. But dog-owners maintain there is little hard evidence to support this view, and are angry over such bans. So Peter Banks and Jessica Bryant at the University of New South Wales in Sydney tested the effect of dogs on bird sightings at 90 different sites in both regional parks where dogs are allowed on a leash and in neighbouring national parks, where dogs are banned. They
used two “treatments” – a person walking alone and a person with a dog. After each treatment group walked past, the researchers counted the number of birds they saw or heard within 50 metres. Walking a dog was followed by an immediate exodus of nearby birds, leaving 41 per cent fewer individual birds on average. The number of species also dropped by 35 per cent compared to when no one was walking. People alone, even two people, had half the impact (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0374) Walking a dog without a leash is likely to be even worse, says Banks, who says the birds must perceive the dogs as potential predators. He anticipates dog-owners will react badly to his findings.
Fusion is go
deuterium and tritium – to create helium. This releases neutrons and huge amounts of energy. The European Commission gave approval in July for the High Power Laser Energy Research (HiPER) facility. Last week, negotiations began to establish where the facility will be located, how the £500-million project will be funded and what technical options to pursue. “This project is now going ahead,” says Dunne. “It’s just a matter of working out the detail.” Dunne leads a consortium of scientists from 15 nations, which hopes to begin construction of the facility in 2011.
–They’re not singing any more–
AS FEARED, the chikungunya virus has begun spreading in Europe. In June, a few people near Ravenna in north-east Italy developed a fever with severe joint pain, but by mid-August there were more than 100 cases. The Italian government has confirmed that the culprit is chikungunya virus, a previously rare, mild infection spread by mosquitoes, that has mutated into a virulent, rapidly spreading strain. Since 2005, it has infected at least 1.4 million people in India and on islands in the Indian Ocean and may have killed thousands. Italian officials blame the outbreak on warm weather and unusually high numbers of mosquitoes, but as New Scientist went to press no more new cases
Europe to have originated locally, meaning that the virus has now established itself in mosquitoes. Officials are spraying insecticide in the places where the insects breed in a bid to wipe them out. The Asian tiger mosquito, which carries chikungunya, is now widespread in Italy, but also in warmer regions of Europe and the Americas where the virus is not established. In the tropics the insects also carry the more serious dengue virus, which infects about 100 million people a year. The fear is that if chikungunya can establish itself in local tiger mosquitoes, so can dengue. SOPHIE CHIVET/AGENCE VU
Deadly virus
“The Italian cases are the first infections in Europe to have originated locally” had come to light in recent days. Chikungunya has been diagnosed in dozens of travellers returning to Europe and North America from infected areas, but the Italian cases are the first in 6 | NewScientist | 8 September 2007
–Investing in an attention deficit?–
REPRODUCING the power of the sun on Earth is no easy task, but an international team of physicists based in Europe is now preparing to give it a go. If their attempt to develop nuclear fusion works, it could provide a limitless and clean source of energy that promises to end reliance on the fossil fuels that are causing global warming. The consortium, led by Mike Dunne of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford, UK, hopes to develop commercial nuclear fusion using lasers to crush together isotopes of hydrogen –
Now look here WANT to give your children a good start in life? Then you may need to deny them their beloved television every once in a while. The first long-term study of the impact of television viewing on attention skills reports that the more television children watch between the ages of 5 and 11, the more likely they are to have attention problems between the ages of 13 and 15 (Pediatrics, vol 120, p 532). The team followed more than www.newscientist.com