Scientific American - Energy & Sustainability

Watching food digestion

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:24:00 EST

Video of the Week #31 February 22nd, 2012

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Being Happy: Social and Natural Factors Are More Important than Money (Especially in Costa Rica)

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:30:00 EST

It’s easy to find an online test that will purportedly tell you how happy you are. But how happy are the people of an entire nation? And which nation’s people are happiest ?

That’s hard to measure. So for decades world organizations like the United Nations that concern themselves with improving people’s well-being have used a single proxy for happiness: gross domestic product, or GDP. The loose logic is that as people attain a higher standard of living, they will feel less burdened by basic survival and have greater means for everything from decent food to recreation.

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Fracking gets the NMA Taiwan animation treatment

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:52:00 EST

Fracking actually got the treatment several months ago as people started worrying their sinks might ignite from methane contamination, but I just saw it this week. It does a decent job of summarizing the general idea behind fracking (pump a bunch of fluids underground to crack rock, extract natural gas) and why people are concerned/opposed/scared about its possible effect on groundwater (your sink might ignite, no biggie).

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"Hockey Stick" Scientist Cross-Checks Critics: A Q&A with Michael E. Mann (preview)

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

Climatologist Michael E. Mann is most famous for what he calls one of the “least interesting” aspects of his work. In the 1990s he used data from tree rings, coral growth bands and ice cores as proxies for ancient temperatures, combining them with modern thermometer readings. This annual record of temperature variations over the past millennium offered insights into natural climate cycles. As an “afterthought,” he included a graph of average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere going back to the 1400s in a 1998 paper (he later extended it to A.D. 1000). That “hockey stick” graph, which shows temperatures bouncing up and down before rapidly rising more recently, became an icon of climate change.

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#SciAmBlogs Tuesday - big brains, caveman's yeast, social drinking, oil subsidies, and more.

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:53:00 EST

- Robin Anne Smith – How Did Human Brains Get to Be so Big?

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Extinction Looms for Rare Frog Species, Now Down to 1 Individual

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:52:00 EST

And then there was one. The last known Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog ( Ecnomiohyla rabborum ) now lives by himself at Zoo Atlanta in Georgia after the zoo euthanized the only other member of its species.

The euthanized frog, another male, had been experiencing a “marked decline in health and behavior” according to a Zoo Atlanta news release . Scientists made the decision to end its suffering and preserve its genetic material for future studies.

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Fossilized, 'Pompeii' Forest Discovered Under Ash

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:30:00 EST

About 300 million years ago, volcanic ash buried a tropical forest located in what is now Inner Mongolia, much like it did the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

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Guest Post: End Oil Subsidies? The $4 Billion Question

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST

By now, you have probably heard the call by democrats and environmentalists to end the $4 billion in subsidies for big oil.

The five major oil companies that have a significant presence in the United States – Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and Conoco – are some of the biggest businesses in America, and have some of the highest gross profits of all U.S. Companies. They can probably afford to pay a little bit more in taxes. But does it make sense to repeal the tax breaks for the oil industry?

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#SciAmBlogs Monday - John Glenn, termite balls, Hamlet, volcanic symbolism, octopus vision, fungal farmers, and more.

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:54:00 EST

Welcome to Monday, the day of the new Image of the Week – check it out. Click through the links within to see more awesome stuff by the same artist.

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Entangled

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:33:00 EST

Image of the Week #31, February 20th, 2012:

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Live from Vancouver: Dispatches from the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST

Fermilab Set to Reveal “Interesting” Higgs Boson Results [More]

Let's Begin Talking about How to End Wars

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:45:00 EST

Are you a war pessimist? Odds are you are. For almost a decade now, I’ve been asking people if they think war will ever end. I’ve surveyed thousands of people, young and old, liberal and conservative, hawks and doves, male and female. Almost nine times out of 10, the answer to my question is “No,” and often, “Hell no!” as if the question itself is silly. Of course war will never end! It’s part of human nature! In our genes! It’s the inevitable consequence of our religious/ethnic/economic/political differences, of male competition for females/land/oil/prestige/power. And so on.

I wrote The End of War , published last month by McSweeney’s Books, to challenge this fatalism, which I believe is wrong empirically and morally. Empirically because research into war’s roots shows that deadly group violence is a relatively recent cultural “invention” an especially vicious, self-perpetuating meme that culture can help us overcome. Morally because our fatalistic acceptance of war as a permanent part of the human condition can impede efforts to achieve enduring peace.

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Is the Keystone Pipeline a Shortcut to Catastrophic Climate Change?

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:00:08 EST

"Game over" for climate change . So opines NASA climatologist Jim Hansen when it comes to the development of the Canadian tar sands. And one big way to unleash the estimated 170 billion barrels of heavy oil stuck in Alberta's sands is to build a pipeline to the world's biggest oil consumer: the U.S.

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Fracking Could Work If Industry Would Come Clean

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:02:00 EST

VANCOUVER Resistance to hydraulic fracturing in the U.S. has risen steadily in recent months. Citizens and politicians are worried that fracking deep shales to extract natural gas can contaminate groundwater, trigger earthquakes and release methane, the potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. But a panel of experts not tied to industry told a large audience at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting here yesterday that the primary concerns can be solved if drilling and gas companies would impose tougher controls on their own operations, and if regulators would stiffen safety rules and crack down on violators who break them.

That realistic but optimistic tone arose primarily from conclusions made in a new study released a day earlier by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. The study of shale drilling and gas extraction in Texas and Pennsylvania determined that three basic operations at the surface of wells have the greatest potential to taint drinking water with chemicals or methane. We did not find that fracking the shale itself was likely to contaminate groundwater, said Chip Groat, a geologist and professor of geoscience at the university who led the study. We did find contamination from surface spills and leaks at the top of the well.

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#SciAmBlogs Friday - Citizens' Agenda, Tasmanian Devils, dropout electrons, wine & Beer, snails that fly and more.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:50:00 EST

Have a great weekend!

- Bora Zivkovic – Can We Ask Presidential Candidates about Science?

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Can We Ask Presidential Candidates about Science?

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:56:00 EST

Back in December 2011, The Guardian USA and New York University’s Studio20 (see their Tumblr – note: I am associated with the program ) announced a new joint project – US presidential election 2012: the citizens agenda . Here is some background information from that time:

The Guardian USA:

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Readers Respond to "Can We Feed the World and Sustain the Planet?" and Other Articles

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST

ENTOMOLOGICAL ETHICS [More]

#SciAmBlogs Thursday - thinking like a doctor, explaining climate change, drunk fruitflies, nomadic planets, DNA nanorobots and more.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:28:00 EST

Today we welcome Unofficial Prognosis the newest blog at #SciAmBlogs – please go say Hello in the comments.

- Ilana Yurkiewicz – How (not) to think like a doctor

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California Seismologist Testifies against Scientists in Italy Quake Manslaughter Trial

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:30:00 EST

The courthouse in L’Aquila, Italy, on February 15 hosted a highly anticipated hearing in the trial of six seismologists and one government official indicted for manslaughter over their reassurances to the public ahead of a deadly earthquake in 2009 (see "Scientists face trial over earthquake deaths " and "Scientists on trial: At fault? "). During the hearing, the former head of the Italian Department of Civil Protection turned from key witness into defendant, and a seismologist from California criticized Italy’s top earthquake experts.

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Guest Post: Rick Santorum and Climate Change

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:00:00 EST

How to Explain Climate Change to a Skeptic

Rick Santorum has recently described climate change as a hoax a bunch of bogus science that tries to make nature s normal boom and bust cycle into something man-made. His comments illustrate how, despite the fact that the scientific community accepts climate change as truth, and despite the fact that the science is gaining greater acceptance among the general public, you may still run into people that just don t believe the theory of climate change. In my experience working for oil companies and environmental organizations alike, I have heard pretty much every argument for and against climate change. But there are a couple truths that trump them all.

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