Wolverine and Walrus

Recent studies find that two more species of mammals, the wolverine and the walrus, are threatened by climate change, yet neither will be immediately placed on the official Endangered Species list by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Seems there are too many species becoming endangered too fast for the bureaucracy to keep up. What does that tell you about the state of our planet, and the effects of climate change?

Scientia Pro Publica, 34th Edition - July 5th, 2010

Welcome to an interesting and eclectic collection of wonderful science writing. Enjoy these observations of science, nature, and humanity brought to you by Scientia Pro Publica, the blog carnival promoting science writing for the public. And please remember to leave a comment to let the authors know you visited and what you thought of their contribution.

We begin with Bob O'Hara, from Deep Thoughts and Silliness, bringing us a thoughtful review of the book, Elegance in Science: The Beauty of Simplicity, by Ian Glynn. You all know as well as Bob that the conventional wisdom puts great scientific stock in simplicity, not without good reason. Might even have something to do with the popularity of Occam's Razor, but does Ian Glynn explain why simplicity makes for elegant science? Bob's Book Review: Elegance in Science gives us an answer, and of course, a question.

Next comes a little-known biographic detail about Sir Isaac Newton, who apparently dabbled in a greater variety of intellectual pursuits than most of us thought. Romeo Vitelli sheds light on Newton's ventures into alchemy and theology at Providentia with his contribution entitled Newton's Revelation.

Several contributions involve nature and the environment. First, Ninjameys continues to fulfill his pledge to raise the profile of the lesser-known but still important species threatened with extinction by completing Parts 4 and 5 of his twelve-part Endangered Species 2010 Series: Dicotyledons (Part 1) and Dicotyledons (Part 2). We also get a bonus this time around with Plants and Fungi Map showing the geographic location of each of the species described in Parts 1 through 5! Parts 1, 2, and 3 included fungi and bryophytes; club mosses, quillworts, ferns, and red algae; as well as conifers, cycads, and monocots. Although I am partial to plants, Ninjameys' mission includes critically endangered species from twelve different taxonomic categories populating IUCN's Red List 2010, so the animal-lovers among us have much to look forward to.

Bridget Nicholson submitted 10 Biggest Health Dangers Behind the Oil Spill, where you will find the health dangers categorized as either "Right Now" or "In the Future", a useful dichotomy given that the effects are being felt at the moment, but will also be with us for a long time to come. Has this oil disaster prompted anyone else to wonder what might be the nuclear power industry's equivalent to the oil industry's "blind shear ram" that failed so appallingly beneath the Deepwater Horizon platform?

Birds, especially ravens, are noted for their intelligence. Now, as suggested in a research study reviewed by Grrlscientist in Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted), ravens may exhibit empathy. The study, by Orlaith Fraser and Thomas Bugnyar at the University of Vienna, involved 13 ravens observed interacting with each other over a nearly two-year time period. The key interactions were conflicts (chase flights, hitting, or forced retreats), and an affiliative, or consoling, behavior characterized by "contact sitting, preening or beak-to-beak or beak-to-body touching. Examine the evidence as described by Grrrlscientist and judge for yourself whether or not Distressed Ravens Show That Empathy Is For The Birds, Too

Human health and behavior is a focus of three contributions. In Unmaking the Disease (Part 1),
Romeo Vitelli begins a brief history of the study of homosexuality. Part 1 concludes with the first of the dissenters from the conventional wisdom of their day, Alfred Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker. We await Parts 2 and 3 where Romeo promises to describe the scientific community's removal of the disease label from homosexuality.

Mind over matter oversimplifies the findings of a study Faith Martin reviews on Highlight HEALTH. Relating how a patient thinks about their illness to their emotional and physical well-being makes for interesting advice for healthcare providers and anyone who knows someone with a chronic affliction. How Your Head Can Influence Your Heart offers valuable insight with relevance far beyond those concerned with cardiac care.

Our favorite 360 Degree Skeptic challenges readers to find the flaws in a study he reviews entitled "Greater religiosity during adolescence may protect against developing problem alcohol use." In Spot the Flaws: Unpacking the Religion Variable skeptic Andrew Bernardin suggests we examine the validity of the conclusions of the study, and includes a link to the original report as well, if you need it to help identify any scientific and/or logical error(s).

Finally, we venture to the outer limits with John at Kind of Curious, who is reading "The Varieties of Scientific Experience" by Carl Sagan. John introduces us to a fine opportunity to participate in one of Carl Sagan's passions, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). In Searching for Aliens, John describes how the SETI@home project encourages ordinary citizens to donate spare processing power from their Internet-connected home computers to assist with the search for ET. Best of all, John reports that "If your computer is the one that finds ET, you get named as a co-discoverer." Be careful what you wish for!

OIL IN DEEP WATER

The behavior of oil in deep water is a subject few of us thought about until very recently. However, the oil industry has thought about it before this year. In June of 2000, the Minerals Management Service (part of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA) contracted with SINTEF and ChevronTexaco to explore just what would happen if there were an oil well blowout in deep water (see Project "Deep Spill"). In this planned experiment off the coast of Norway, "mixtures of crude oil and natural gas, diesel oil and natural gas, ... were released at approximately 800 meters water depth." On page 150 of their final report of that project, in a section entitled "Further Research", a paragraph begins with the following interesting observation.

"Prior to the sea trial, there were some doubts about whether the oil would reach the sea surface. It apparently did so during these experiments, but if the size of the oil droplets formed at the exit had been sufficiently small, the oil might not have surfaced."

Recent observations in the Gulf of Mexico of an unplanned experiment releasing a large quantity of oil at a depth of 1,500 meters suggest that a significant quantity of the oil has not reached the surface. Given that a large volume of oil dispersants have been intentionally added at the site of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, and that oil dispersants are designed and applied specifically to make the oil break up into smaller droplet sizes, one might anticipate that a significant portion of the oil released in the BP blowout would not reach the surface.

So it is more than a little surprising that BP's chief executive would, weeks after the blowout took place, be so ill-informed about the behavior of oil in deep water as to belittle claims that plumes of oil might exist beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

A key purpose of adding the dispersants is to make the oil break up into smaller droplets so that bacteria and physical action can break it down before it can harm wildlife or coastal habitats. It appears that these smaller droplets also keep a portion of the oil from surfacing, perhaps a good thing for plants along the coast, though maybe not so good for plankton and fish living out in the Gulf.

In any event, it should come as no surprise that scientists observing the spill find plumes of oil under the surface (see USF, and UGA). Oil experts discovered that could happen in an experiment almost 10 years ago, see Deep Spill Technical Report.

A friend wanders across the U.S.A.

A good friend, Paul O'Connor, is about to head off on his second cross-country adventure in as many years. For a peak at some highlights of what he found last summer, and to keep up with his travels this time around, visit his blog at http://www.ocolumn.com.

Oceans of Climate Change

Climate change is all about energy --- energy in --- energy out, the balance of energy coming to the Earth and leaving the Earth. The incoming energy is light from the Sun, the outgoing energy is earthshine, infrared radiation from the Earth. To the extent that greenhouse gases exist in our atmosphere, the incoming sunlight arrives unimpeded, but the outgoing infrared light is absorbed by those same gases, which in turn gain energy and increase in temperature, and themselves emit infrared light. In this way, the planet gains energy, and all things being equal and stable, eventually reaches a new, higher equilibrium temperature where the outgoing infrared energy matches the incoming sunlight. But the trouble is, all things are not equal. The concentrations of those greenhouse gases keeps going up, and more and more infrared light is being intercepted on its way out, and the planet's overall energy content continues rising.

How do we know all this is happening? Well, the measurement of the concentration of greenhouse gases is rather straightforward. And we can see from satellite measurements that less infrared light escapes the atmosphere as time passes. We can even estimate Earth's average temperature --- and this is where the oceans come in.

Air temperatures get lots of attention in measuring global warming, but the atmosphere is the least dense, and least massive, of the parts of the Earth that gain energy due to an increased greenhouse effect. Of much greater density, and much greater capacity to absorb energy, are the world's oceans. It will take much more energy to warm the oceans than to warm the atmosphere.

The oceans cover 70% of the planet and average 3,790 meters in depth. Up until recently, we have only measured sea surface temperatures. Limited past measurements of ocean temperatures below the surface exist, but are few in number and geographic extent. It is only since the beginning of this century that a network of bouys have been deployed that measure the heat content of the oceans down a significant 2000 meters in depth. That network is called Argo, and as of today it includes 3,254 bouys spread around the world's oceans.

So what do those bouys tell us about the ocean's heat content? If you can manage to read the smallish reproduction of a graph from a recent paper published using the Argo database (by J. von Schuckmann et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 114, 2009), note that the line shows a heat content increasing from 2003 through 2008. There are ups and downs, but the trend is in one direction, increasing heat content. The average over the period is plus 0.77 Watts per square meter of ocean surface.


Doesn't sound like much, less than one Watt per square meter of the ocean. Imagine your typical neighborhood swimming pool, 25 meters long with six lanes each 5 meters wide. There would be 602 billion such pools needed to equal all the world's oceans, and for the six years between 2003 and 2008 each of those pools, assuming they were each 2000 meters deep (!) would experience an increased heat content equivalent to the heat from six 100 watt light bulbs. That adds up to 3.6 trillion 100 watt light bulbs in all the world's oceans, a lot of extra heat to evaporate more water, power more storms, and change climate in all sorts of energetic and surprising ways.

Rainbow Bridge and Twin Arches

Rainbow Bridge, Utah
Even if you have not seen it, you have probably heard of Rainbow Bridge in Utah. This is as close as we got back in 2004 when we hiked the short trail in from Lake Powell. Judging the size is difficult, but if someone were standing on top, you would see little more than a tiny speck.

One of the Twin Arches
Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Tennessee

Take a moment to examine this second picture. Although this natural rock arch is also large, it can be tricky to pick out in the middle of a forest amidst all the leaves and tree trunks. But it is there, and it is big. Not as big as Rainbow Bridge in Utah, but still an impressive piece of rock.

The Twin Arches in north-central Tennessee are part of the Cumberland Plateau formation, made up of layers of sedimentary rock deposited at the bottom of a large inland sea that covered part of eastern North America a few hundred million years ago. These rock layers are mostly sandstone, relatively soft and easily eroded away.

In some places, the sandstone is covered by a layer of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock made up of a conglomeration of pebbles that first accumulated along the bottom of rivers and streams that developed when the inland sea dried up. The conglomerate is much more resistant to erosion than the underlying sandstone.

Thus the formation of large rock overhangs, abundant in the area, as well as quite a few arches. The conglomerate on top resists erosion, while the sandstone around it readily washes away. If the flowing water washes underneath the conglomerate, it can erode the underlying sandstone and create a natural rock arch as seen in the picture.

Not only is it difficult to see these arches in the middle of a forest, and difficult to take good photographs of them, their location also made for a humorous moment on our recent hike through the area.

At one point one of our group was walking near the arch pictured above and through the trees saw what appeared at first glance to be a large splash of blue paint on the side of the rock face. Connie was incredulous that someone would deface such a unique natural landmark by painting a large piece of rock blue. Maybe she was thinking about the Carolina Tar Heels and their off year in college basketball this past season. In any case, she immediately turned around and made her way back to the rest of us and insisted that we go see what she could barely believe had happened.

We followed her path, and for a brief moment saw the splash of blue she mentioned, but a few steps farther along the path noticed a large patch of blue sky visible through the arch. Her splash of blue paint was a beautiful blue patch of sky.

You Can't Throw It Away

Redworms, Eisenia andrei to be exact, used in vermicomposting

Two years ago, the City of Raleigh, North Carolina proposed a ban of in-sink garbage disposals. It was a teachable moment, though city officials ultimately failed to take advantage of the moment. The ban was rescinded after a brief but loud public outcry.

The lesson that might have been taught would have reminded us that we all live in an ecosystem and a river basin, where everything is connected eventually to nearly everything else.

Throwing something in the trash or down the sink is not really throwing it "away". In an ecosystem, there is no "away"! We may embrace the concept, and practice something we call "throw it away", but ecologists know we are fooling ourselves. Each of us must learn a little about being good ecologists.

We burn gasoline in trucks hauling the contents of our trash cans to a landfill, where they take up space that could be forest or farm. The garbage very slowly decomposes, generating methane gas, and leaching toxins into the ground.

We must capture the methane lest it contribute to global warming more powerfully per molecule than carbon dioxide. We must collect the toxins so they won't poison groundwater beneath the landfill. And a lot of that stuff in the landfill, despite our recycling efforts, is valuable raw material today, or will be years from now. So much for throwing it all away.

Liquid and some solid wastes go down a pipe in toilets, dishwashers, clotheswashers, and sinks. These wastes go to a sewage treatment plant, a wonderful invention which breaks down the pathogenic, or disease-causing bacteria and viruses that can accompany the by-products of our lives.

When you also dump food or grease down your sink with the help of that garbage disposal and lots of water to hurry it along and keep the pipes from getting clogged, the food and grease goes to the sewage treatment plant. Problem #1 today, that is a waste of water. And as wonderful as sewage treatment plants are at killing bacteria and viruses, they are not so great at breaking down the nutrients in wastes and food. That is Problem #2.

In fact, the nutrients that a sewage treatment plant is not so good at breaking down, constitute the most important sources of water pollution today. Here's why.

First, these "nutrients" are essential chemicals that plants need to grow. Like fertilizer, they stimulate rapid growth of tiny plants called algae in a river or lake.

What's wrong with algae growing in a lake? Like all plants, algae produce more oxygen than they use, and that is good. But though a little is okay, too much means trouble, and we're not talking about the oxygen. The tiny algae do not live very long. As suddenly as they blossomed in response to the excess nutrients, they die and sink to the bottom of the lake.

Dead algae make good food for bacteria, so following the die-off of the algae comes a massive growth of bacteria. Although the bacteria themselves are not pathogenic, they require a lot of oxygen to grow.

The population explosion of bacteria decomposing the dead algae uses up all the oxygen in the water. Without oxygen in the water, the fish, indeed every living thing in the river or lake, dies.

So food scraps and grease that go down your drain add to the most important water pollution problem facing America today. But put them in the trash and they go to a landfill, which has an array of problems all its own. What can you do?

This is the part an ecologist loves.

Start a compost bin in your backyard! Composting allows us to "close the loop" on a lot of things we would otherwise "throw away". All those food scraps, egg shells, indeed, everything but meat scraps (which can attract unwanted animals), along with paper napkins, paper towels, even grass clippings and those leaves you love to rake up in the fall, all can contribute to the recycling of valuable nutrients in a compost bin.

And here's the exciting finale, what to do with the compost you create? Spread it in your garden, under plants in your yard or in a "natural area", you could even sprinkle a little as a natural fertilizer in your lawn. All those nutrients left over from delicious meals and lawn care can be recycled and reused. Spread and mixed into the ground, compost enriches soil, promoting better plant growth.

As ecologists we know we can't really throw anything away. But ecologists also know how to save water, reuse nutrients, protect water quality, limit landfills, enrich soil, and promote the growth of the beautiful trees, shrubs, flowers, and vegetables that can grace yards large and small.

Find out more about composting at http://www.p2pays.org/compost/.