A look this morning at the news from SciDev.Net, the non-profit service based in London but with correspondents and editors all over the developing world, found the usual: Stories that being dry and to-the-point, don’t get their hooks into you fast. But, after a few moments, often engross. Its output is aimed primarily at policy makers. The aim is to encourage smart governance in poorer parts of the world by encouraging and covering scientific analysis and discoveries that point to better ways to do things.  The style is low key, deliberately serious, and reads at times like a report on an old SSR five-year-plan’s intent. Here are some I found particularly satisfying anyway:

• Maina Waruru (Nairobi) Cactus could feed East African livestock, say scientists ; Prickly pear yet. I got so obsessed with one question – what about the spines? – I found an answer and a revelation. This piece’s account of research in Kenya looks like a recapitulation of what researchers in the US and elsewhere have found also to be true – as seen in this old report. As for the spines – cattle can eat them, the report says, but an easy solution is to singe them off. And I got that pic from a site that says prickly pear were introduced in S. Africa specifically as cattle fodder. The more you read, the more you know.
• Yojana Sharma (Singapore) Conference agrees global science ethics code ;
• Linda Nordling, Nourou Dia (Cape town) African centres hope to produce top mathematicians ;
• Busani Bugana (Ougadougou, Burkina Faso) Biofuels could increase food production, says report ; The hed cuts across the usual worry, and the story reports some contrary opinion too. B. Bugana has another one too: Africa and Brazil to cross-fertilize agricultural ideas ;
• Smriti Mallapaty (Kathmandu) Nepal foresters ready to sell carbon stocks ; Cap and Trade not dead….

- Charlie Petit

Putting that cap two weeks ago on the blown out Macondo Well, near the the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig (one wonders why we haven’t seen a submersible’s pic of the wreckage on the sea floor), has had dramatic results at the surface. So report a few outlets today, chiefly the NYTimes in a top left front page article by Justin Gillis and Campbell Robertson. The hed has the news, with a sensible caveat: On the Surface, Gulf Oil Spill Is Vanishing Fast ; Concerns Stay. The paper runs a series of maps displaying the surface expression of the spill since early June. What was a gigantic, tentacled mass of floating oil is now a mere few wispy patches.

One wonders, as the ugliness of thick oil floating into marshes fades, how well the media will continue tracking events and news on the persistence (or, one hopes, not so much persistence) of the oil under the surface and in coastal sediments. In the meantime, looks like those oil-metabolizing microbes combined with sunlight and warm water we’ve been reading about are doing a better job than did any gallonage of dispersant.

Other media outlets, puzzling enough, seem not as impressed so far as is the Times at the rapidity with which the slick has fallen to pieces. At USA Today one finds only a blog post by Jessica Durando quoting officials from the gov’t and BP saying it’s now hard to find anything to skim, and that the fate of the millions of gallons in the water column, as well as the ultimate impact of dispersants on them, is not known. The AP‘s Kelli Kennedy has on the wire a re-cap of a Natural Resources Defense Council report on the thousands of beach closings since the spill occurred, no mention that the leak is stopped, and no recognition that things now look at least superficially better.

The AP has also has on its feed a report from Ramit Plushnick-Masti headlined Despite Oil, Baby Turtles Being Released to Gulf. Filed from Houston, it described a turtle hatching program off Padre Island well to the west of the spill in Texas. Wildlife workers are continuing the practice of releasing the small turtles into the gulf. It says they are betting “that by the time that the silver dollar-sized swimmers make it to the oil-fouled waters of the eastern Gulf, BP will have cleaned up its goopy mess.” Perhaps an update in the piece is merited to suggest the bet may be nearly won already, if surface goop is the goop that matters. The story also does not mention that by natural requirement 99+ percent of baby turtles die before living to reproduce – otherwise, with adult females laying hundreds of eggs in their lifetimes, it would not be long before the world was truly turtles all the way down (which is a reference to an old joke). Thus, one wonders, to what extent might the spill change the overall calculus?

BEST SCIENCE OF THE SPILL STORY TODAY:

• New Orleans Times-Picayune – Bob Marshall: Despite science against jetties, Gov. Bobby Jindal rocks on ; This is the most informed piece I”ve seen on the determination by local politicians to armor marshy barrier islands with rocks and to narrow the channels between them with jetties – and the near-solid opposition to that by professors and agency scientists both locally and nationally.

- Charlie Petit

A Cleopatra and classical chemistry two-fer in recent news.

At USA Today Dan Vergano wrote recently a distinctively off-beat column on an issue of no news significance but engaging (not a bad formula to use regularly): did Cleopatra really make a cocktail in which she dissolved a pearl with the aid of vinegar? Ancient texts say as much. The answer is maybe, and that a few serious chemists have examined previous harrumphs of scorn from scholars who concluded it exceedingly unlikely just on general principle. He got onto this, by circumstances I don’t know, after learning of a paper in the small journal Classical World. He wrote the hell out of it, making it an amusing and sly romp through chemistry, history, fable, cheap pearls suitable for experimental dissolution, and the fates of empires.

He happened upon this Cleopatra cocktail story on the tail of another one: a new hypothesis that she stirred up a poisonous quaff to kill herself at age 39. No snake, say some scholars, is as plausible as a quick death by classically known, baneful chemistry. That’s a more conventional, less entertaining piece of speculation and got broader coverage. Dan brought the coincidental Cleo news to our attention. To complete this Cleopatra roundup, here are a few of the..

Don’t Blame the Asp stories:

• Telegraph – Allan Hall: Cleopatra died from a cocktail of drugs, not asp bite, says scientist ;
• CNN – Melissa Gray : Poison, not snake, killed Cleopatra, scholar says ;
• Newser – Nick McMaster : Cleopatra Died From Poison ;

Pic source (British Museum)

- Charlie Petit

Most frogs when they jump land with reasonable grace, forelegs first and back legs neatly tucked under the body. Or so we gather from a few stories today with the remarkable research finding that close study of certain “primitive” frogs sort of crash-bellyflop awkwardly after each hop. A researcher at Southern Illinois University and colleagues in the US and New Zealand says so.

News stories all say that this means the ability to jump, evading predators, came before the arrival of graceful arrivals. That does make sense, even if it sounds funny to think of the belly flop as a stage of evolution.

It does seem further odd that, while the body form of the so-called basal anuran line of frogs (it means primitive frogs) may be primitive, their behavior should remain so. It is not as though they haven’t been evolving and responding to selective pressure for the last few hundred million years or however long frogs have been around. You’d think that if there’s a survival advantage to scoring a ten at the gymnastics meet by sticking the landing, it’d penetrate the whole froggy world by now. Of course primitive frogs started out this way. But even if there are descendants that carry more primitive features (ribs, etc) than other frog types, why should they have they stuck with this embarrassing way to land?  Just wondering…

Stories:

• LiveScience – Charles Q. Choi: Awkward Primitive Frog Can Jump But Landing Is Belly Flop ;
• Scientific American – Cynthia Graber : Belly-flopping Frogs Leapt While Still Bad Landers ;
• New Scientist – Catherine de Lange: Bellyflopping frogs shed light on evolution ; Again, seems from here this sheds light on a puzzling failure to evolve.

Grist for the Mill:

Spring Publications Press Release ; Naturwissenschaften Article,

- Charlie Petit

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) Muy Interesante is the leading science Magazine in the Spanish-speaking World. Founded in Spain in 1981, nowadays it has local editions in different countries in Latin America. Today we go through the contents of the Mexican edition, which according to its editors is the best selling scientific magazine in their country as well. Muy’s formula is clear: popular topics, attractive layouts, beautiful illustrations, and good science writing. The formula works. It catches your attention. The stories are fluid and very well documented. The content of the Mexican edition is 80% original, and its editors have kindly shared some of their August pdf’s with us. We don’t found references to research done in Mexico, and we admit we would have liked to. But we are impressed by the depth of topics/ They include: the latest research on metamaterials that bend light and create invisibility, an overview of the historical and current concerns regarding nuclear weapons existence, a photographic report on pollen microscopic images, a review of the different kinds of scientific martyrs that have existed, the forecast of stronger hurricanes this season, and an original parallelism between Stephen Hawking and Gabriel García Márquez views on extraterrestrial life.

Muy Interesante es la revista de contenidos científicos más vendida en español. Con más de 200.000 ejemplares mensuales y 2 millones de lectores, está entre las más difundidas de todo el mercado general de revistas en España. Fundada en 1981, a lo largo de su trayectoria ha conseguido compatibilizar rigor y entretenimiento, éxito comercial y calidad periodística, en una fórmula que combina temáticas interesantes, buena redacción, notas cortas, reportajes en profundidad, contenido visual impactante, diseño de páginas atractivos, empatía con el lector… Este equilibrio es lo que le ha permitido mantenerse como líder de su sector, ser distribuida a una veintena de países, y contar con algunas ediciones fuera de las fronteras españolas. Hoy nos detenemos a rastrear en la edición de Muy Interesante- México. Comparte algunas piezas con la edición española, pero según su coordinador editorial Gerardo Sifuentes “el 80% de la edición Mexicana de Muy es original, preparado en nuestra redacción”. Una redacción que está formada por 4 periodistas y 2 colaboradores habituales dirigidos por Francisco Villaseñor, quien asegura “Estamos dentro de las 10 revistas más vendidas de México y la número 1 en cuanto a divulgación científica”.

El lector más meticuloso a primera vista puede considerar sensacionalistas algunas portadas o maneras de presentar la información de Muy, pero esta impresión se diluye enseguida cuando uno empieza a leer. Además, debemos recordar que “divertido no es lo contrario de serio, sino de aburrido”. Veamos algunas de las piezas de la edición de Agosto de Muy México.

El texto de portada plantea que la amenaza de una guerra nuclear está todavía vigente. Preparado por Gerardo Sifuentes y Rafael Muñoz, “El dedo en el botón” es el ejemplo de un planteamiento inicial impactante: “las bombas nucleares que surgieron con la carrera armamentista aún están almacenadas y listas para ser utilizadas. En malas manos podrían causar un desastre”, seguido de un contexto histórico en el que enmarcar el reportaje y repasar todos los aspectos clave de la temática. Bien documentado con frases como la del presidente francés Nicolás Sarkozy: “No puedo abandonar las armas nucleares mientras no esté seguro de que el mundo es un lugar estable y seguro”, el reportaje de 8 páginas defiende que todavía persiste un clima de inestabilidad preocupante. Merece la pena fijarse en las ilustraciones, gráficos, el enfoque periodístico, y la gran cantidad de interesntes despieces de esta completa y muy documentada pieza, de tono más bien histórico.

Al leer el título del reportaje de Luis Felipe Brices “La ciencia de la invisibilidad”, un primer “¿otra vez?” se coló subliminalmente por las neuronas de mi cortex. Es un tema que se ha repetido en bastantes ocasiones en los últimos años, y parecía quemado. Pero fue empezar a leerlo y descubrir un texto fluido que recopila desde las primeras ideas de cómo conseguir curvar la luz alrededor de un objeto para hacerlo invisible, hasta los pasos científicos claves que se han seguido para finalmente conseguirlo. El contenido científico del texto es excelente, interesantes los datos sobre la participación de la agencia de defensa DARPA, sobre las propiedades y usos diversos de los metamateriales, y todo narrado de una manera tremendamente divulgativa. Nadie puede calificar de sensacionalista o poco riguroso un contenido así.

Una de las características imprescindibles de Muy: los apartados de fotografía. Bellísimas las imágenes microscópicas de polen aglutinadas por Francisco Villaseñor. Espectaculares, y muy interesantes los comentarios que acompañan a cada foto sobre las alergias, propiedades nutritivas, formas de propagarse, o maneras en que el artista científico Martín Oeggerli obtiene las imágenes.

En una revista mensual, y con los tiempos más amplios de maquetación y cierres, las noticias de actualidad son difíciles de abordar. La sección de notas abre con un texto breve muy adecuado para la edición de México, explicando que esta temporada se prevén huracanes más intensos. Luego encadena una serie de notas citando estudios de diversa tipología, que si bien para el gusto particular del Tracker pecan un poco de anecdóticas y no creemos que resuman lo más importante acontecido en la ciencia de este último mes, seguro que aportan información interesante para el lector. Nos sorprende no encontrar notas sobre investigaciones realizadas en México, y nos quedamos reflexionando sobre si esto podría hacer la sección más atractiva o no.

En una columna, José Gordon “¿Vida extraterrestre?” establece un curioso enlace entre las especulaciones científicas de Stephen Hawking y las especulaciones literarias de Gabriel García Márquez alrededor de cómo sería la vida inteligente extraterrestre en caso de encontrarla. Ameno texto sobre un tema clásico, que hace muy bien en no tomar las palabras de Hawking como si fueran sagradas (error que a menudo se comete), y reconocer que a este científico “tampoco le falta imaginación”.

Dejamos para el final el artículos que a título puramente subjetivo más le ha gustado al Tracker: “Mártires de la Ciencia”, de Rafael Muñoz Saldaña. De nuevo, es un texto de alto contenido histórico, y hablar de científicos que han sido repudiados por sus investigaciones no resulta novedoso en absoluto, pero la recopilación es buenísima y curiosa la clasificación de los tres tipos diferentes de mártires científicos: los perseguidos por contradecir nociones incuestionables como el caso de Galileo, los que perdieron la vida debido a sus investigaciones como Marie Curie, o a los que el contexto social les ha perjudicado, como muchas mujeres científicas. El artículo cita muchos otros investigadores como Tesla, Alan Turing, Giordano Bruno, Lavoisier, Berthold Schwart… Quizá se hubiera podido enriquecer con versiones actuales de este tipo de mártires, referencias a investigadores Mexicanos, u otras tipologías de mártires que pudieran estar surgiendo en el complejo mundo de la investigación científica; pero puede ser material para otro artículo.

Felicidades al equipo de Muy-México, y ánimos a todos los periodistas científicos que se enamoran de un tema y deciden invertir largas horas en aunar información para ofrecerle al lector una combinación de elementos divulgativos que le permite entretenerse mientras recibe información científica de calidad.

- Pere Estupinyà

The eye fell upon an instance of careless reporting, editing or both at Reuters this morning. From Nov0-Ogaryovo in Russia Gleb Bryanski writes a political-weather story on health fears in Moscow as heavy haze and smog from burning peat envelops the city, during a severe heat wave,  for the second straight day.

It could be fixed by the time you see this, and admittedly it’s a fussy thing to spend time on. But I was stunned to see the assertion in the second graf, ascribed to a local Green Party man, that “air pollution caused by the smog’s high amount of carbon dioxide could kill hundreds…” Really, CO2 causing smog, killing people? Nah. Couldn’t be.

And deeper it does say carbon monoxide. One still can’t be sure of the health hazard from either gas in this instance, but at least CO makes sense. One trusts it’ll get checked and fixed. Or, I’ll be set straight by somebody.

BBC has its own bulletin on the peat-smoked, baked Russian capital. Ditto for Pravda, which puts a bedroom spin on the swelter. And watch out for strapped throat.

- Charlie Petit

Health and behavior get p. 1 of this weeks science section at the NYTimes, with the space above the fold filled by a remarkable, complementary duo on the AIDS struggle. One is a thoughtful big-picture look at recent news, the other a narrowly focussed examination of one man and his handling of HIV – with direct pertinence to therapy for millions.

Top right is Donald G. McNeil‘s follow to last week’s encouraging news that a medicated, vaginal gel has remarkable if not knockout ability to block HIV transmission. The story provides a rare look at the daunting difficulty of turning good experimental data into medicine. One conundrum: how to find a way to continue providing the poor women in South Africa who took part in the study with the gel. And the economics angle is illuminating. Ditto for hopes men, including homosexual men, can benefit.

Top left is the view from the other end of the binoculars, from Abigail Zugler, M.D., a tight look at one of her drug-pushing patients. It ingeniously turns inside out the standard judgment that most of us would apply to a guy who sells his government-provided meds on the street. Life is complicated, and so is the equation of personal morality, or its absence, with the general good of society.

Filling out the front, Sarah Kershaw, a staff feature and metro writer mainly, does a turn as a medical and behavior writer. It’s about a new and still-exploratory effort by some therapists to reduce nightmares during sleep by having people, among other things, do some editing when they’re awake. It’s interesting as can be. But I think she let a few Jungians off easy, quoting them on the possible mental harm if the messages or whatevers of spontaneous nightmares are not allowed to get through to us. Sounds hokey. How many neuro-scholars buy that sort of thing? This piece is smooth and fascinating with engaging vignettes, but needs a few references to how difficult it is to be rigorous in such studies. Related to rigor, she mentions significant reductions in nightmares in controlled studies of some interventions. Is that significant as in a five percent reduction that is demonstrably statistically convincing  (but still just 5 percent or so), or significant as in substantial (which is how most people read the word)?

Other notable headlines:

• Sean B. Carroll: Translating the Stories of Life Forms Etched in Stone ; An adventure in paleontology here, pre-Cambrian department. Radiative explosions and all that. Eye opener to me: how’d I miss that the Ediacaran Period has been added to the geologic scale? Some congress in the academy carved it off the pre-Cambrian’s tail end. I did find a previous NYTimes, John Wilford story filed before that happened, on much the same theme, from 15 years ago, and a four-year-old ABC (Australia) report on when the new, ancient division went official. Now somebody’s gotta ritually dub the Anthropocene Era on the other and of the scale.
• Kenneth Chang (Observatory roundup & shorts) Some Like It Warm (If They’re Marmots) ; Never a Lab Rat ; Two briefs from Chang, one in the Observatory corner, another run separately right above. He has others in today’s issue too – I like the marmot one especially for pointing out that there are, among all the perils, some winners in the global warming game other than jellyfish and tropical mosquitoes moving north. I also learned this morning that Observatory, the  section studio for short-form science artistry, is for now a rotating assignment among staff. Its longtime maestro Henry Fountain is attending to oil spill hardware and technology news, while subsequent regular, Sindya Bhanoo, a recent UC Berkeley J-school grad, finished her internship.
• Dennis Overbye: Hints of Earth Splash a Saturnian Moon Landscape ; Lakes at one end are drying up, others are full. Looks like a seasonal cycle, or some sort of climatological rhythm, on Titan.
• Plus two reviews of books most of us probably won’t buy, but will think we ought to. Katherine Bouton (book is entitled Brilliant) Let There Be  Dimmers on Our Glowing Planet; and Abigail Zuger, M.D. (The Fever) Drama! Intrigue! A Mystery? No, Malaria’s Story ;

As usual, lots more. Whole Section.

- Charlie Petit

For about $15 or $20, anybody can sign up for a yoga class, and spend 60-90 minutes bending, twisting, and sometimes chanting.

Some like it; some don’t. For some, it’s exercise. For others, the exercise is a prelude to meditation, and perhaps even part of a voyage of self-discovery or a spiritual search. I’ve practiced yoga for 10 years, and I’m pretty sure I figured this out after my first few classes. It’s not that complicated.

For the New York Times, however, yoga seems to be something of an occult art, riddled with danger and badly contaminated by greed and corruption, more about fashion and fads than fitness.

On Sunday, July 25th, the Times carried no fewer than three articles on yoga–one in the Sunday Book Review, one in the Sunday magazine, and another in the metro section.

The most egregious of them was the piece in the book review, by Pankaj Mishra, entitled “Posing as Fitness.” That was supposed to be a play on words, I guess–in yoga, the various “asanas” or positions are referred to as poses. But its literal meaning seems to be that yoga only “poses” as a form of fitness-but isn’t one. Before we’ve started the piece, we can see where this is headed.

Mishra starts with an anecdote about Sting (not sure why this Brit is relevant to the history of yoga in America), who claimed yoga had enabled him to have sex with his wife for eight hours at a time. If that sounds like a criticism of yoga, or of the pop stars who’ve embraced it–it isn’t. It was a joke. Sting’s joke, which Mishra briefly pretended to take seriously to make yoga look silly.

Then he goes on to quote “one of the first of many indefatigable charlatans who popularized yoga” in the United States. (He never identifies the others.) This character, named Bernard, apparently promoted yoga–nearly a hundred years ago–as a way to increase sexual prowess and to “make better bargains.” As if yoga could make Donald Trumps of us all. And as if it were snake oil. All of this is by inuendo, of course; Mishra cites no evidence, pro or con, on the physical or other possible benefits of, or harm from, yoga.

He continues for more than half of the review to elaborate on Bernard’s extravagances, including bilking the rich. Is this early 20th century faker really the central figure in the history of yoga in America?

Mishra’s encapsulated history then moves to “fiercely entrepreneurial Indian gurus” who showed up in America “just in time for the counterculture” and who were later “outed as lecherous frauds and crooks.”

He concludes, coming around to sex again, by saying that for many practitioners, deeper orgasms may be more feasible than spiritual transcendence.

I have no idea what Mishra is trying to say about yoga’s history, but he clearly hates yoga, thinks the people who practice it are victims of fraud and lecherous gurus, and does–or doesn’t–believe it has something to do with titanic sexual accomplishments. I can’t tell.

In the Sunday magazine, Mimi Swartz profiles a contemporary yoga entrepreneur, John Friend, the developer of what he calls Anusara yoga. “Many people still picture yogis as serene guys who live in respectable deprivation in places like Mysore or Pune, India, and wait for disciples to find them. Not Friend,” Swartz writes. How many people picture yogis that way? Did Swartz interview any? I picture yogis as people walking down the street in New York City with yoga mats sticking out of their backpacks. But you can see the straw man Swartz is trying to knock down: How can an entrepreneur like Friend be a real yogi, if yogis are supposed to be starving in Mysore?

She compares Friend to a “magnetic evangelical megachurch minister” with a “feel-good message.” Swartz, apparently unable to find somebody to say that Friend has watered down yoga for personal gain–which must be what she believes–instead writes this: “Friend’s detractors — and there are at least as many as admirers — claim that he has watered down and commercialized a hallowed tradition for his own gain.” Quotes, anyone? If there are so many detractors, why doesn’t she quote a few of them here?

The third piece, in the metro section, was by Lizette Alvarez, who does a monthly column on yoga for the Times. This piece is about how dangerous yoga can be in causing injuries. The title is “When Yoga Hurts.”

Ready for the list of injuries? One woman says her thumbs were adjusted by her yoga teacher, and she’s “still recovering from the strain.” Another “injured her rotator cuff.” And in a separate incident, she did something from which “her hamstring suffered the consequences.”

C’mon, if you’re going to do a story on yoga injuries, can’t you at least find a broken bone? Alvarez writes that yoga can lead to “strained backs,” “pulled knees” (what the heck is a pulled knee?), and “aching wrists.”  Compare those to, say, bicycle injuries, which can include not only broken bones, but concussion and death. Or soccer injuries. Or football.

I recognize that I’m probably making too much out of these molehills. But the Times, whenever it encounters yoga, seems ready to pounce on the entrepreneur-charlatan, or the spiritually inclined numbskull, or the 20-something fashion victim.

Lighten up, Times. It’s exercise. Some people like it, some don’t. Some add a spiritual dimension, some don’t. Why does it frighten you so?

- Paul Raeburn

The Tracker has not looked at physics news for awhile; now is the time for amends. There are reports of various sorts this morning.

At The Guardian in the UK, Ian Sample is among the first to bang out of the gate with news where the Higgs boson is NOT (according to results from the US Tevatron machine, announcedat a Paris meeting). Also weighing in, at AAAS Science Now, Adrian Cho helps scotch rumors that the Chicago gang had ambushed the LHC on its way to glory. Cho also provides news of a sort – that the Tevatron’s management already is shifting its gaze away from one last triumph with that machine and toward its next big machine, called NOvA. In a separate dispatch, Cho reports that CERN not only will shut down the LHC for repairs and mods for all of 2012, but it will idle the rest of its big physics machines as well.

Similarly pouncing on the Fermilab triangulation of Higgs’s whereabouts is Science News, where Ron Cowen reports the dragnet points toward the elusive particle as less massive (and hence easier to find) than some models suggest, and that evidence also favors supersymmetry – ie new physics for the next standard model. Cowen walks a fine line between the unworthy and the curious, citing  “intriguing, but not statistically significant” results from the Tevatron.

Other physics news in general (and some special) media:

• AP – Emma Vandore: Big Bang investigators want new smasher ; Nothing really novel here, or evidence that physicists are being impulsive. It is about the long-discussed International Linear Collider that, rather than contra-rotating racetracks of colliding particles, would spray them straight at one another kind of like rifles pointed down each other’s bores.
• CNET DeepTech blog – Stephen Shankland – LHC firing on all cylinders, but no HIggs boson yet ; Lots of detail here, including a nicely-done rendering of the LHC’s recapitulation of old physics on its route toward something new.
• SymmetryBreaking – Katie Yurkewicz : LHC results: Not just the same old thing ; This outlet is an inhouse magazine (SLAC and Fermilab), but works like a news outlet – and provides here a good “outside” analysis of what the latest data mean.

Grist for the Mill: Int’l linear collider ; CERN Press Release ;

Maybe it was just me, but in this summer of no-carbon-caps-for-us-exceptionalist-Americans, orange greasy goo in the gulf, and climategate hangover, the list of environment stories on the Reuters wire offers an essay in itself  just by stringing together the headlines. The wire’s editors and reporters have been busy. Here’s a selection off the recent lot, cut and pasted straight from Reuters’s rss environment feed:

• David Stanway: Pollution makes quarter of China water unusable: Ministry ;
• Conor Humphries – Smog blankets Moscow on city’s hottest day.
• Raymond Colitt: Brazilian Indians take hostages at Amazon dam site ;
• Chen Aizhu – China Dalian oil spill cleaned 9 days after accident ;
• Tom Bergin: BP set to replace CEO as spill cleanup resumes ;
• Gerard Wynn – Beijing fund warns on Kyoto CO2 offset rule changes ; No idea what that’s about? Read it. It is depressing like most of these stories.
• Timothy Gardner, Richard Cowan: Senate Democrats to introduce energy bill ; Not much left of it in this rendition, just like all the others.
• James Kelleher, Kay Henderson, Karl Plume, Andrew Stern: Flooding, tornadoes in Midwest as storms continue ; No mention, correctly, of global warming. But there is an awful lot of moisture in the air. Intense heat and humidity equals RAIN by the BUCKET.
• Bob Burgdorfer: Kansas heat wave has killed 2,000 cattle: state ;

- Charlie Petit

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) Charlie Petit Just posted about the reconstruction of the 10.000 year old fossils found in the Mexican peninsula of Yucatan, suggesting that the first settlers in America arrived not only from North Asia through Bering strait, but also from much southern latitudes. Charlie ended his post betting that Mexican press should have more coverage. Well… “La mujer de las Palmas” appeared in all newspapers, but no reporter  found any more information than was provided by wire services or the press release from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). The only original and related story that we’ve found is from a local newspaper saying that collection of more fossils from the area may permit better judgment of the claimed  findings.

En 2002 los restos de uno de los ancestros más remotos del continente americano fueron encontrados en la cueva Quintana Roo cerca de Tulum en la península mexicana de Yucatán. Ahora, especialistas del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia han reconstruido la imagen completa de “La mujer de las Palmas”, que vivió hace unos 10.000 años y cuyos rasgos revelan similitudes con pobladores del sureste de Asia. Esto refuerza la idea que los primeros habitantes del continente americano no sólo procedieron del norte de Asia, sino que también llegaron movimientos migratorios del centro y sureste. Este es dato científico más importante: América no fue poblada sólo por un par de oleadas llegadas por el estrecho de Bering.

Bastante uniformidad en la manera de tratar la noticia, y pocas aportaciones más allá de la información suministrada por agencias o comunicado del INAH.

El Universal “INAH reconstruye fisionomía de mujer de Era del Hielo”

La Crónica “Reconstruyen rostro de esqueleto de la Era de Hielo”

Milenio “Mujer de la era de hielo al descubierto”

Diario de Yucatán “Revelan el rostro de la mujer de la era del hielo”

Diario de Quintana Roo: “Tulum, en la Era del Hielo. Reconstruye INAH a la “Mujer de Las Palmas”, cuyo esqueleto fue hallado hace 8 años en una tumba submarina: Apoyo de especialistas franceses, vital”

El nuevo Herald “Osamenta arqueológica sugiere migración diversa en México” información de AP que da más relevancia a la conclusión del hallazgo que a la reconstrucción en sí.

Sipse –Yucatán “Mujer de las Palmas’ vivió en la Península de Yucatán”

BBC Mundo: “¿Quién es la mujer de Las Palmas?”

La única historia firmada que encontramos, y de redacción original, es en el Diario de Quintana Roo por Silvia Reyes: “Especialistas se preparan para regresar a la tumba submarina de “Las Palmas” explicando que ya van por el quinto esqueleto hallado, y futuros análisis contribuirán a esclarecer el enigma del origen de estos pobladores.

- Pere Estupinyà

The AP‘s Mark Stevenson circulated a fascinating story out of Mexico City Friday, on the reconstruction of some ancient bones recovered from a sink hole on the nation’s east coast. What seems odd is that no other major news agencies have much on this specimen, dubbed La Mujer de las Palmas, or The Woman of the Palms. His story carries appropriate, dubious remarks from some authorities on the ability of facial reconstruction to provide particularly definitive clues to the ancient woman’s deeper ancestry – such as implications of migration from Southeast Asia.

It is doubly odd it gained no wider pickup because the photos that the archeologists released are striking.

Maybe this is old news? A search found no earlier reports – even though divers found the remains eight years ago. My bet is that the Mexican press has some more.

- Charlie Petit