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US is poorly prepared for dirty bomb cleanup
ALAMY
UPFRONT
Bears run riot as ice melts YOU can almost hear Sarah Palin cocking her rifle. As climate change causes sea ice to shrink, the number of “problem” polar bears appears to be increasing. “Hungry bears don’t just lie down – they go looking for an alternate food source,” says zoologist Ian Stirling at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. “In many cases this brings them into human settlements and hunting camps.” Stirling’s team found that around the town of Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay – the “polar bear capital of the world” – the number of bears reported as attacking humans, homes and hunting camps more than tripled between 1970 and 2005, from 20 to 90 per year. The shorter the sea ice season, the greater the number of
reports of problem bear activity (Polar Biology, DOI: 10.1007/ s00300-009-0653-y). This increase comes despite a 22 per cent decline in the west Hudson Bay polar bear population since the late 1980s. Sea ice in Hudson Bay now melts three weeks earlier than it did in the 1970s. This has reduced the time polar bears have to hunt seals and build up sufficient fat reserves to survive the ice-free summer months without food, driving them to look for food in towns. Many of the problem bears were young males, which need the most energy. “Previous research has postulated that climate change will boost numbers of problem bears,” says team member Andrew Derocher. “This is the first evidence for the link.”
On shaky ground
pumping pressurised water into hot rocks underground, forcing fissures in the rock to expand. Steam then pushes up to the surface, where it drives a turbine, producing clean energy. But the process, critics argue, increases the risk of earthquakes. Roy Baria, a geophysicist and a member of the review panel, says engineers rather than the technology could be partly to blame. Past quakes triggered by similar plants in Switzerland were avoidable, he says. “The [Swiss] engineers failed to adhere to best practice guidelines.”
–Just looking for food–
(Health Affairs, DOI: 10.1377/ hlthaff.28.5.1253). If healthcare costs continue to grow at this rate, they will consume 150 per cent of the extra wealth that Americans would expect to gain as the economy grows between now and 2050. The latest healthcare reform bill is due to be unveiled in the Senate this week, but there has been little discussion about limiting costs to individuals. Instead the debate has focused on expanding insurance to those who lack coverage, rather than creating publicly funded health insurance.
AS THE fight over US health reform heats up, an analysis has emerged showing that the crippling cost of not changing the existing system will force people’s spending on non-medical services to fall even as the country becomes richer overall. Fears over rising costs have been a critical factor in kickstarting the reform debate. The US spends around $7400 per person per year on healthcare, twice the health costs in Canada, the next highest spender. This increase is outstripping the nation’s ability to pay. Over the past decade the rise in health spending has been more than 2 percentage points greater
“Healthcare will consume 150 per cent of the wealth that Americans would expect to gain by 2050“ than GDP increases. Michael Chernew of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues have calculated the long-term impact of this trend 6 | NewScientist | 19 September 2009
NINA BERMAN/REDUX/EYEVINE
Ruinous healthcare
GEOTHERMAL energy is in the dock in Germany – but some scientists are pleading for leniency. A government panel is investigating claims by the state geological survey for RhinelandPalatinate that a geothermal plant built by energy company Geox triggered a 2.7-magnitude earthquake in the town of Landau in the state on 15 August. If the panel finds against Geox, the facility could be shut down. Geothermal plants work by
No clean-up plan A DIRTY bomb attack on the US would find the country illprepared to clean up the resulting radioactive mess, a government watchdog warned this week. A release of polonium-210 in London in 2006 showed how difficult and expensive it can be to clean up radioactive material, says Gene Aloise of the US Government Accountability Office, which on Monday –The real thing will be trickier– submitted a report on nuclear
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
60 SECONDS
Turing wronged
terrorism to a congressional committee. The aftermath of a dirty bomb would be much worse. The polonium incident taught the British government how to prepare for such an event, but the US has no detailed plan. A bungled clean-up attempt could make things worse. Hosing down a contaminated building could push radioactive material into pores in materials such as concrete, making it harder to extract. “Typically if you get them into that environment they’ll adhere and they don’t want to come out,” says Barry Scheetz of Pennsylvania State University.
Graham-Cumming’s article on the subject (12 September, p 24). Turing died in 1954 after eating part of an apple containing cyanide. Although it was almost certainly suicide, the possibility of murder or even accidental
SORRY about that, old chap. On 10 September the UK government belatedly apologised for its treatment of mathematician Alan Turing, who in 1952 was convicted of gross indecency for having a “As an alternative homosexual relationship. As an to prison, Turing took alternative to prison, Turing took hormone injections to hormone injections to reduce his reduce his libido” libido. “His treatment was of course utterly unfair,” said Prime contamination can’t be ruled Minister Gordon Brown. out. “You wouldn’t need a large A petition organised by John amount to give a toxic dose,” says Graham-Cumming had called for John Thompson of the UK National the apology, which came hours Poisons Information Service. after New Scientist published
Wheat hero dies
Wake-up call for student boozers
IMAGE SOURCE/REX
BY DEVISING ingenious ways DRINKING games, late-night parties far from disapproving parents, and to breed disease-resistant wheat, youthfully robust livers make for an Norm Borlaug, who died Saturday intoxicating pastime that’s tough to aged 95, helped to end famine in curtail. But an interactive website much of the world. Yet the fungi he battled still pose a global threat. has at least persuaded the heaviest student drinkers to cut down. In 1944, the US government The site, dubbed Thrive, provides sent Borlaug, an agronomist, to a 10-minute consultation. It starts Mexico to fight wheat’s age-old by quizzing students about their enemy, stem rust fungus, after drinking habits. Heavy drinkers then outbreaks had rampaged into learn how much more they drink than the US breadbasket. His plants upped food production elsewhere, their peers, the extent to which they are exceeding recommended limits notably India, and ushered in and the health effects of their the “green revolution” in which blood-alcohol level during their most irrigation, fertiliser and highextreme reported binge. The site also yield crops were used worldwide. tots up and displays the amount of But in 2007, Borlaug, battling money they spend on booze in a year. cancer but not yet frail, was When more than 7000 undergrads angered. A stem rust called Ug99 had evolved to evade the rust resistance he had discovered. He charged that in the intervening years of plenty, the system for applying science to food production had atrophied, and was responding too slowly. Progress is now being made. But the fungus is already in Iran and poised to strike war-torn Afghanistan and the breadbaskets of India. “This thing could cause major human and social destruction,” Borlaug told New Scientist. He hoped that genetic engineering would provide new –It all adds up– ways for crops to resist disease.
in Australia used the site as part of a study, it identified 2400 as having a problem, and seems to have done some good: for at least six months following the study, the heaviest boozers reduced their intake by 11 per cent (Archives of Internal Medicine, vol 169, p 1508). Kypros Kypri at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, New South Wales, who led the study, admits that the reported gains are modest, but regards them as a success given that the target population is motivated to drink heavily: “In a group such as this, abstinence is not the goal.” He says the website should be tried on students from North American and British universities, where heavy-drinking is common.
Colour-blind no more Two formerly colour-blind squirrel monkeys can now see in full colour. The animals were injected in the eye with a harmless virus carrying a gene they lacked. This enabled them to make “long-wavelength opsin”, a pigment needed to distinguish red from green (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature08401).
Protect the mothers If pregnant women catch swine flu, their health is at particular risk, so mothers-to-be are the subjects in the latest swine flu vaccine trial, conducted by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The 120 receiving the vaccine will be monitored for adverse effects, whether they produce H1N1-flu antibodies and how well their placenta transports these to the fetus.
Saturn’s stormy nights A lightning storm on Saturn has zapped its way into the record books. First seen by NASA’s Cassini probe in January, it is now the longest-running storm observed in the solar system. Saturn is no stranger to extreme weather: a region called Storm Alley has experienced lightning storms up to 3000 kilometres across.
Enjoy a group session Good news for gregarious people: group exercise boosts endorphin levels. College crews rowing in synchrony had a heightened endorphin rush compared with when they trained alone using the same regime (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0670).
More room for rockets Work on China’s fourth space-launch centre began this week on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The Wenchang Space Satellite Launch Center will launch China’s powerful Long March CZ-5 rocket, capable of carrying components for a space station or lunar mission.
19 September 2009 | NewScientist | 7
UPFRONT
Bears run riot as ice melts YOU can almost hear Sarah Palin cocking her rifle. As climate change causes sea ice to shrink, the number of “problem” polar bears appears to be increasing. “Hungry bears don’t just lie down – they go looking for an alternate food source,” says zoologist Ian Stirling at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. “In many cases this brings them into human settlements and hunting camps.” Stirling’s team found that around the town of Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay – the “polar bear capital of the world” – the number of bears reported as attacking humans, homes and hunting camps more than tripled between 1970 and 2005, from 20 to 90 per year. The shorter the sea ice season, the greater the number of
reports of problem bear activity (Polar Biology, DOI: 10.1007/ s00300-009-0653-y). This increase comes despite a 22 per cent decline in the west Hudson Bay polar bear population since the late 1980s. Sea ice in Hudson Bay now melts three weeks earlier than it did in the 1970s. This has reduced the time polar bears have to hunt seals and build up sufficient fat reserves to survive the ice-free summer months without food, driving them to look for food in towns. Many of the problem bears were young males, which need the most energy. “Previous research has postulated that climate change will boost numbers of problem bears,” says team member Andrew Derocher. “This is the first evidence for the link.”
On shaky ground
pumping pressurised water into hot rocks underground, forcing fissures in the rock to expand. Steam then pushes up to the surface, where it drives a turbine, producing clean energy. But the process, critics argue, increases the risk of earthquakes. Roy Baria, a geophysicist and a member of the review panel, says engineers rather than the technology could be partly to blame. Past quakes triggered by similar plants in Switzerland were avoidable, he says. “The [Swiss] engineers failed to adhere to best practice guidelines.”
–Just looking for food–
(Health Affairs, DOI: 10.1377/ hlthaff.28.5.1253). If healthcare costs continue to grow at this rate, they will consume 150 per cent of the extra wealth that Americans would expect to gain as the economy grows between now and 2050. The latest healthcare reform bill is due to be unveiled in the Senate this week, but there has been little discussion about limiting costs to individuals. Instead the debate has focused on expanding insurance to those who lack coverage, rather than creating publicly funded health insurance.
AS THE fight over US health reform heats up, an analysis has emerged showing that the crippling cost of not changing the existing system will force people’s spending on non-medical services to fall even as the country becomes richer overall. Fears over rising costs have been a critical factor in kickstarting the reform debate. The US spends around $7400 per person per year on healthcare, twice the health costs in Canada, the next highest spender. This increase is outstripping the nation’s ability to pay. Over the past decade the rise in health spending has been more than 2 percentage points greater
“Healthcare will consume 150 per cent of the wealth that Americans would expect to gain by 2050“ than GDP increases. Michael Chernew of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues have calculated the long-term impact of this trend 6 | NewScientist | 19 September 2009
NINA BERMAN/REDUX/EYEVINE
Ruinous healthcare
GEOTHERMAL energy is in the dock in Germany – but some scientists are pleading for leniency. A government panel is investigating claims by the state geological survey for RhinelandPalatinate that a geothermal plant built by energy company Geox triggered a 2.7-magnitude earthquake in the town of Landau in the state on 15 August. If the panel finds against Geox, the facility could be shut down. Geothermal plants work by
No clean-up plan A DIRTY bomb attack on the US would find the country illprepared to clean up the resulting radioactive mess, a government watchdog warned this week. A release of polonium-210 in London in 2006 showed how difficult and expensive it can be to clean up radioactive material, says Gene Aloise of the US Government Accountability Office, which on Monday –The real thing will be trickier– submitted a report on nuclear
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
60 SECONDS
Turing wronged
terrorism to a congressional committee. The aftermath of a dirty bomb would be much worse. The polonium incident taught the British government how to prepare for such an event, but the US has no detailed plan. A bungled clean-up attempt could make things worse. Hosing down a contaminated building could push radioactive material into pores in materials such as concrete, making it harder to extract. “Typically if you get them into that environment they’ll adhere and they don’t want to come out,” says Barry Scheetz of Pennsylvania State University.
Graham-Cumming’s article on the subject (12 September, p 24). Turing died in 1954 after eating part of an apple containing cyanide. Although it was almost certainly suicide, the possibility of murder or even accidental
SORRY about that, old chap. On 10 September the UK government belatedly apologised for its treatment of mathematician Alan Turing, who in 1952 was convicted of gross indecency for having a “As an alternative homosexual relationship. As an to prison, Turing took alternative to prison, Turing took hormone injections to hormone injections to reduce his reduce his libido” libido. “His treatment was of course utterly unfair,” said Prime contamination can’t be ruled Minister Gordon Brown. out. “You wouldn’t need a large A petition organised by John amount to give a toxic dose,” says Graham-Cumming had called for John Thompson of the UK National the apology, which came hours Poisons Information Service. after New Scientist published
Wheat hero dies
Wake-up call for student boozers
IMAGE SOURCE/REX
BY DEVISING ingenious ways DRINKING games, late-night parties far from disapproving parents, and to breed disease-resistant wheat, youthfully robust livers make for an Norm Borlaug, who died Saturday intoxicating pastime that’s tough to aged 95, helped to end famine in curtail. But an interactive website much of the world. Yet the fungi he battled still pose a global threat. has at least persuaded the heaviest student drinkers to cut down. In 1944, the US government The site, dubbed Thrive, provides sent Borlaug, an agronomist, to a 10-minute consultation. It starts Mexico to fight wheat’s age-old by quizzing students about their enemy, stem rust fungus, after drinking habits. Heavy drinkers then outbreaks had rampaged into learn how much more they drink than the US breadbasket. His plants upped food production elsewhere, their peers, the extent to which they are exceeding recommended limits notably India, and ushered in and the health effects of their the “green revolution” in which blood-alcohol level during their most irrigation, fertiliser and highextreme reported binge. The site also yield crops were used worldwide. tots up and displays the amount of But in 2007, Borlaug, battling money they spend on booze in a year. cancer but not yet frail, was When more than 7000 undergrads angered. A stem rust called Ug99 had evolved to evade the rust resistance he had discovered. He charged that in the intervening years of plenty, the system for applying science to food production had atrophied, and was responding too slowly. Progress is now being made. But the fungus is already in Iran and poised to strike war-torn Afghanistan and the breadbaskets of India. “This thing could cause major human and social destruction,” Borlaug told New Scientist. He hoped that genetic engineering would provide new –It all adds up– ways for crops to resist disease.
in Australia used the site as part of a study, it identified 2400 as having a problem, and seems to have done some good: for at least six months following the study, the heaviest boozers reduced their intake by 11 per cent (Archives of Internal Medicine, vol 169, p 1508). Kypros Kypri at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, New South Wales, who led the study, admits that the reported gains are modest, but regards them as a success given that the target population is motivated to drink heavily: “In a group such as this, abstinence is not the goal.” He says the website should be tried on students from North American and British universities, where heavy-drinking is common.
Colour-blind no more Two formerly colour-blind squirrel monkeys can now see in full colour. The animals were injected in the eye with a harmless virus carrying a gene they lacked. This enabled them to make “long-wavelength opsin”, a pigment needed to distinguish red from green (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature08401).
Protect the mothers If pregnant women catch swine flu, their health is at particular risk, so mothers-to-be are the subjects in the latest swine flu vaccine trial, conducted by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The 120 receiving the vaccine will be monitored for adverse effects, whether they produce H1N1-flu antibodies and how well their placenta transports these to the fetus.
Saturn’s stormy nights A lightning storm on Saturn has zapped its way into the record books. First seen by NASA’s Cassini probe in January, it is now the longest-running storm observed in the solar system. Saturn is no stranger to extreme weather: a region called Storm Alley has experienced lightning storms up to 3000 kilometres across.
Enjoy a group session Good news for gregarious people: group exercise boosts endorphin levels. College crews rowing in synchrony had a heightened endorphin rush compared with when they trained alone using the same regime (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0670).
More room for rockets Work on China’s fourth space-launch centre began this week on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The Wenchang Space Satellite Launch Center will launch China’s powerful Long March CZ-5 rocket, capable of carrying components for a space station or lunar mission.
19 September 2009 | NewScientist | 7