Monday Science Guy

It seems that my posts today have made this Monday, Science Day.

• Just Right Ice
• Elephants Cogitate
• Dialectics of Extinction
• Pay Now Or Pay Later

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Science

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Just Right Ice

Another example of the Goldilocks Enigma....the X-rays were 'just right'....

Splitting Water Creates Alloy

"At first, we saw these unexpected H₂ and O₂ peaks in our X-ray Raman spectra," Wendy Mao tells C&EN. "Then we released pressure from the diamond anvil cell, and we actually saw gas bubbling out."

Upon further investigation, they determined that at high pressure the X-rays dissociate H₂O and the resulting atoms recombine into a previously unknown solid of H₂ and O₂. This new "alloy" is spectroscopically distinct from a simple H₂-O₂ mix.

X-rays are known to create free radicals and instigate reactions at ambient pressure, but examples of similar transformations at high pressure are rare. "We managed to hit on just the right level of X-ray energy input," Hemley explains. "Any higher, and the radiation tends to pass right through the sample. Any lower, and the radiation is largely absorbed by the diamonds in our pressure apparatus."

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Elephants Cogitate

End the Ivory Trade! And the incarceration of elephants.

Happy the elephant recognises herself in a mirror. Image: Diana Reiss/Wildlife Conservation Society.

Elephants possess self-awareness

SYDNEY: Elephants can recognise themselves in mirrors, an ability which gains them membership of the cognitive elite, U.S. researchers say.

"We report a successful MSR [mirror self-recognition] elephant study and report striking parallels in the progress of responses to mirrors among apes, dolphins and elephants," said the researchers. They report their findings today in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mirror self-recognition is considered a sign of self-awareness which, until now, has been observed only in humans, apes and dolphins. These animals - as well as elephants - all have large brains, complex social systems and high intelligence levels.

"When CITES first banned the ivory trade in 1989, Africa's elephant population was 609,000 (down from 1.3 million in 1979). Now the most optimistic estimates are around 400,000 elephants. Losing elephants is an ecological disaster. Elephants are not just ornaments or tourist attractions; they disperse seeds, prune the trees and shape the land wherever they live, naturally." Ian Redmond, Born Free Wildlife Consultant and elephant expert

West Africa's ivory trade thrives

By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent Poachers' victim in central Africa A lively illegal trade in ivory is now flourishing in three populous states in West Africa, conservation groups say. They found more ivory in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal than the countries' own elephant populations could produce. The wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic and the global conservation group WWF say West Africa's vibrant ivory markets spur the poachers on. They believe much of the ivory their teams found will have come from animals slaughtered by gangs in central Africa. Any international ivory trade must be sanctioned by Cites, the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Elephant News


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Dialectics of Extinction

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Dialectics of Extinction

"We came up with the idea that humans themselves act as both press and a pulse," said West. "Humans began manipulating the environment - the press - from the advent of agriculture. However, that alone did not trigger the current mass extinction. That seems to have been triggered by the pulse of industrialisation and the demands for energy and resources that came with it."

New theory for mass extinctions



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Pay Now Or Pay Later

Global warming could soon cost trillions

According to the Observer, the Stern report says unchecked climate change would cost up to US$6.98 trillion (A$9 trillion) - more than World Wars I and II and the Great Depression of the 1930s.

It also warns that the world needs to spend about one per cent of global gross domestic product - equivalent to about US$349 billion (A$454 billion) - on the issue now or face a bill up to 20 times higher than that in future, the paper says.

Stern also calls for a successor to the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gases to be signed next year, not in 2010 or 2011 as planned, because the problem is so urgent, according to the paper.

He reportedly says that failure to act quickly would trigger a global recession and calls for an international framework to tackle the issue.

The Observer says his report is the first heavyweight contribution to the debate on climate change by an economist rather than a scientist.

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Ambrose

Environment

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