source http://tinyurl.com/3ercn69

We all have, and I’d expect that most readers of this site already know this, thriving E. coli infections. That is, if infection can be stretched to mean occupation by billions of happily coexisting microbes in our gut, or on our skin, and elsewhere. E. coli are natural and perhaps necessary parts of the collective us.  And as any human population has a few psychopaths, some strains of this ubiquitous microbe run amok in us secreting  toxins and sending us skidding into profound, and on occasion lethal, kidney failure or other severe illness.

News coverage of the cases in Germany have inevitably focussed on the public health campaign to chase the culprit to its origin – bean sprouts are pretty nearly convicted. Also getting intense coverage have been the economic and casualty tolls, along with strategies to treat infections once they are identified.

Some also look at this particular vicious strain itself by delving into its evolutionary history and into the peculiar genetic attributes that give it a wicked punch. So, to get to ksjtracker’s writ …

A few that have a focussed science angle:

• AP – Maria Cheng: Scientists probe DNA of E. coli for outbreak clues ; She doesn’t use the term lateral gene transfer, but the story refers to genes swapped among E. coli strains and that sounds to be the same thing. And the result, it says here: This strain sticks more to the gut wall than most, and reproduces faster. Perhaps eight distinct gene variants lend it resistance to antibiotics too. I am puzzled that it says “narrowing down where the ne E. coli came from” is key to reducing risk of further epidemics. One wonders what health officers could do upon learning this strain first arose in some specific district.
• Philadelphia Inquirer/Planet of the Apes Column – Faye Flam: One Nasty Evolver ; Flam gives us the full stomach-churning description how this strain does its dirty work, how it explodes into the billions after only a few dozen cells set up camp (translation: a lowinfectious dose is all it takes), clumping and oozing the Chiga toxin that “massacres blood cells and eventually destroys the kidneys.” Fiendishly, the buggers ramp up their poison production when under assault by antibiotics – sometimes thus hastening death when doctors start trying to prevent it. Suspected, but still unknown for sure, she reports, is what if anything in recent  human farming or industrial practice encouraged its rise.
• Deccan Chronicle: No E. coli in India, thanks to cow dung ; The hed means of course no E. coli sicknesses. The story reminds one a bit of the hygiene hypothesis that seeks to explain rises in allergies and perhaps asthma as a consequence of children growing up in such clean circumstances their unchallenged immune systems don’t develop properly. Thisunbylined story from India bears checking. It asserts, after consultation with a German physician working in India, that with all the cow dung in the streets and even used as house plaster in India, the majority of residents of India are exposed to so much bovine-borne E. coli that their systems scoff at any and all variants.
• BBC – Eleanor Bradford:  Glasgow University microchip “speeds up DNA analysis’; The recent E. coli outbreak soon had the new gadgetry in action.
• Wall Street Journal (Editorial): Europe’s Organic Food Scare / Bart Simpson as chief safety technologist ; First of all the appropriate Simpson to evoke in this context is idiot  Homer, not his son Bart. And second this thing piles on to organic farming as though that explicitly is the problem even though, as the piece itself says, one cannot grow much without having some kind of E. coli involved. But it makes a solid point about irradiation – with gamma rays or electron beams – and phobias about such practice as one reason this tactic for reducing pathogens in what we eat is not used more often.
• HealthDay – Amanda Gardner: Deadly E. Coli Strain in Europe Should Serve as Warning, Experts Say ;

Generally, the science of why most E. coli are our friends – and some are decidedly – not is taking a back seat as a news topic to finger pointing and atttention to straightforward public health work. That latter is seen in an AP story from Kirsten Grieshaber and David Rising that declared in its lede “simple detective work trumped science..” in the hunt, etc. Actually, much of science is itself simple detective work (information plus logic).

But reporters have had plenty of press releases and other direct communicaiton from research oriented institutes to goad some science out of them:

Grist for the Mill:

Nat’l Science Foundation/Live Science – Marlene Cimons (yes, the former LATimes reporter): E. coli Offers Insight to Evolution ; Bioniche Life Sciences Inc Press Release (on vaccine for E. coli O157) ; Univ. of Southampton Press Release (on copper as an E. coli preventive); BGI (Beijing genomics institute) Press Release on analysis of the O104 strain ; Virginia Tech Press Release (on lab studies of the culprit strain);

Dept of Whattaya call a site like THIS?

The borders among old fashioned (if with new technology) journalistic news writing, public service announcements, p.r., blogging, the sheer commercial opportunism of inf0-ads, and gov’t or non-profit or corporate outreach are getting blurrier all the time.

The search for stories turned up one site that is hard to peg on the news scale, the responsibility scale, the p.r. scale…. Its parent organization is something called WOW NEW MEDIA, based in Spain. It says its goal is to generate and maintain profitable online businesses and strong brand equities. Whatever that means. I think it means it aims to make money off ads, which hardly sets it apart from a zillion other sites. The specific site that popped up during the search for news stories  is called E. coli O104:H4 – the ongoing Eshcerichia coli 0104:H4 bacterial outbreak. That almost looks composed explicitly to turn up high on a key-word search. Oh. No almost about it. It has informational items that look loosely rewritten from news stories. And lots and lots of ads. I cannot say it is reckless. But the writing is a bit slap dash. Now, old timey newspaper and cable TV news moguls have, or had, a business model – provide news etc. in order to sell ads. That was cynical enough. But I am unsure what to call the verbiage around which these ads at E. coli 0104:H4 are wrapped.

- Charlie Petit

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) The first case of E. coli O104:H4 infection was documented in Germany on May 2nd. After a few weeks of uncertainty, on May 26 German health officials made a serious mistake. With no persuasive evidence, they announced that the source of the E. coli outbreak was cucumbers imported from Spain. They retracted a few days later, too late to stop huge losses by Spanish farmers. It is no surprise that Spain’s media have given the outbreak heavy coverage. Mostly it is focused on politics, economy and international relationships, not science. We review today a few articles that do explore the scientific side of the story. The outbreak has also got remarkably attention in Latin America, with good stories in Chile and Ecuador, news of a possible infection in Colombia, and precaution measures in such places as Peru and Mexico.

A principios del pasado Mayo apareció en Alemania la primera infección causada por una rara y anormalmente patógena cepa de la bacteria Escherichis coli enterohemorrágica (EHCE), que en estos momentos ha causado ya 34 muertes en Alemania y una en Suecia, e infectado a más de 3.000 personas en varios países del mundo.

Esta crisis se denominó “la crisis del pepino” porque tras unas primeras semanas de alerta, el 26 de Mayo las autoridades alemanas anunciaron de manera precipitada y sin pruebas concluyentes que el origen de la infección era unos pepinos contaminados importados de España.

Tras pérdidas millonarias en la huerta española, las autoridades alemanas reconocieron su error, y empezaron a buscar el foco de la infección en otras fuentes. Tras sospechar de pepinos holandeses y un restaurante alemán, el pasado viernes 10 de Junio confirmaron que la cepa patógena de EHCE había aparecido en una explotación de brotes vegetales de Bienenbüttel. Especialmente en los medios españoles, pero también muy de cerca en los de Latinoamérica, la evolución de los casos y las investigaciones para detectar el origen de la bacteria se han seguido con gran interés. España también se ha hecho profundo hueco de la indignación por la acusación injustificada de las autoridades alemanas. Claros ejemplos son el texto en Público desde Berlín de Patricia Baelo “La E. coli pone contra las cuerdas el mito de la perfección alemana” (gran resumen de la evolución de la crisis, y crítica quizás un poco exagerada al insinuar que Alemania ha perdido toda la credibilidad acumulada en las últimas décadas), o titulares como el de El Mundo – Olatz Ruiz “¿Qué nos da Alemania para que no la demandemos”, y del Editorial “Alemania va por libre” en La Vanguardia.

Ha habido mucha cobertura desde el ángulo político, económico y de seguimiento de nuevos casos, pero si nos centramos en la información exclusivamente científica, la incertidumbre y anuncios confusos hacía que poco margen tuvieran los periodistas de ciencia para contrastar opiniones y dar informaciones complementarias. A pesar de eso, hay buenos ejemplos. Intentemos recoger algunas notas con enfoques interesantes, y contenido científico.

El Pais – Juan Gómez / Emilio de Benito “La bacteria provoca una reacción autoinmune que agrava la enfermedad”. Juan Gómez ha hecho un buen trabajo cubriendo desde Berlín todas las informaciones que iban apareciendo durante la crisis. En esta pieza cortita se acerca al lado científico para explorar cómo causa daños la EHCE.

El Mundo – Patricia Matey “Mi hijo tuvo E.coli”. Interesante testimonio de una familia cuyo hijo pasó hace 5 años por una infección parecida. E interesante reportaje de Ángeles López “Con los brotes germinados ¿Caso resuelto?”, quien busca opiniones críticas en científicos españoles, y les pregunta por los siguientes pasos a seguir. Incluso Teresa Guerrero presenta un biocida español que fulmina la bacteria E.coli.

Público – Ainhoa Iriberri “La E. coli que ha causado las muertes es una cepa nueva”. Buena aproximación también a la ciencia, con expertos españoles que hace unos días sugerían otros posibles focos de infección, o pistas sobre cómo aparece “de repente” una nueva bacteria. Interesante la frase que refleja lo que sentimos muchas veces al cubrir ciencia: “esta información, sin duda de mucho interés para los científicos, tiene una importancia relativa para los afectados y sus médicos, ya que no da ninguna pista sobre su origen”.

ABC – Esther Armora / Irene Gómez “¿Qué es Escherichia coli? Todos los detalles sobre la bacteria de los pepinos” Texto ya antiguo, de cuando los pepinos eran sospechosos, que plantea un informativo “preguntas frecuentes” sobre la E. coli.

Fuera de España, vemos un excelente reportaje en La Tercera (Chile) de Jennifer Abate “¿Cómo se forma una súper bacteria?”. Gran nota que contextualiza la crisis, explica la situación en Chile, y aborda el ángulo científico.

El Comercio (Ecuador) “La bacteria E.coli es común en el país”. Muy buen y didáctico artículo cuyo objetivo es informar a la sociedad ecuatoriana de los puntos principales alrededor de la infección, y transmitir calma. Positivo también ir en busca de investigadores locales que te expliquen el rol de los antibióticos en la aparición de cepas más patógenas.

Quizás demasiada alarma y prematura esté generando un paciente en Colombia infectado con E. coli, pero que no ha estado viajando a Alemania, como explica El Espectador. Será interesante ver si es la misma cepa, aunque parece muy muy difícil. (Si lo es, los científicos podrían frotarse las manos y recordaríamos la frase de Ainhoa en Público). Con muy buen grado de detalle lo redacta Nidia Serrano “preocupación por un enfermo con E. coli en Montería”, en El Universal (Colombia).

Quizá por esto empiezan ciertos temores, como en El Universal (México) explica por medio de Alfredo Quiles que la secretaría de salud está incrementando controles. O el que transmite La República (Perú) con “Bacteria E.coli podría llegar al Perú”. Muy buena y completa nota, pero demasiado alarmista el titular en versión impresa: “amenaza mortal podría…”. Quizás deberíamos leer la columna de opinión de Darner Mora “E. coli: agua, alimentos y diarreas” en La Nación (Costa Rica), recordando que en países de Latinoamérica las infecciones por bacterias que generan diarreas y muertes no son algo tan extraño.

- Pere Estupinyà

On the eve of a conference in Minnesota on a crop-withering wheat rust,  a fungal disease, several news outlets pushed out stories by plant science to develop varieties of the grain that resist it. This might appear a scenario perfect for crop genetic engineers to show they can do useful things other than make the world safe for sales of the herbicide Roundup, but genetic modification is such a turn-off to consumers around the world that hopes are pinned on old-fashioned cross-breeding. The old standby appears to be up to the task, too.

The fungus, called UG99, has been reported in the news off and on since its discovery about ten years ago. It is becoming endemic across North Africa and the Mideast, and is moving into the Southern Caucauses and India. It is the latest variant of what is called wheat rust or black stem rust, a recurring threat to the crop known since ancient times.

One hopes that a reporter or two now attends the meeting to share what goes on there.

Stories:

• Reuters – Charles Abbott: Years of work loom to save world wheat from fungus ;
• Greenwire via NYTimes -Paul Voosen: Scientists Breed Wheat “Near Immune’ to Devastating Plague ; Hmmm.Story’s fine but here is a usage quibble that can be applied to several outlets today. The terms are somewhat interchangeable, but a better word for a plant disease is blight. Plague generally connotes a disease of animals, or people.
• AFP – Kerry Sheridan: Ancient wheat plague threatens world crops anew ;
• AP – Steve Karnowski: Scientists: ‘Super’ wheat to boost food security ;

Grist (non Rusted too) for the Mill:

Cornell University Press Release ; Univ. Minnesota Press Release ; Borlaug Global Wheat Rust Initiative Press Release via EurekAlert!

 

- Charlie Petit

Empty Dotted Delineation Tells a Tale

In April a team at Fermilab’s Tevatron collider, scheduled for shut down later this year after a glorious career, reported it had seen a new particle shooting jets of stuff and sitting on the mass and energy spectrum where standard theory says there should be nothing of the sort. (News coverage was immense. See earlier post April 11). Theorists jumped to the fore proposing technicolor (a technical term) physics, and other non-Standard Model possibilities. Now…trouble. Late last week a second team revealed it is sending to Physical Review Letters its own review of the collider run as seen with its, separate detector. Upshot: Zilch.  And at CERN in Europe, physicists said that in the data they have from similar conditions they don’t see anything odd either.

The two Fermilab teams are still sorting out their differences, in a civil way, it appears, and maybe something epochal really did occur. But doubt runs strong in coverage  thus far.

Speaking of missteps, and thank you Jim Handman at CBC in Canada for flagging this, one news report filed in the rush to make deadline appears to have conflated or confused this mystery particle with the separate hunt for the fabled Higgs boson, the supposed field mediator for interactions of material things that gives them the behavior we call mass. You can skip to the bottom of this list if you like to see immediately that energetic account of a (supposed) crisis in physics. First, here’s a gathering of other accounts with a consistent, more banal and to this eye more sensible version of things:

Stories:

• ScienceNews – Ron Cowen: No new particle from second detector ; Has not only the second team’s contrary data, but a most recent analysis  from the first group that saw the original surprise – which has decidedly not been withdrawn. Cowen also drops in, at the end, yet another puzzle from Fermilab that will demand a different round of date and theory-sifting.
• BBC – Paul Rincon: Tests ‘reject new particle claim’ ; Rincon has a nifty little, timeless sidebar on what sigma means in science. The story pointedly reports that whatever was seen or not seen, it cannot be the big kahuna in particle and quantum physics: the Higgs boson.
• MSNBC Cosmic Log – Alan Boyle: Subatomic mystery leads to standoff ; Boyle brings up the Higgs but mainly (and briefly) to say that if this new physics is real physics, it could render the Higgs unnecessary. That is to say, without it the Higgs remains a solid target for further research.
• Guardian (UK) Ian Sample: Dreams of a new particle fizzle out at Tevatron collider ; Well told, and includes a previous post from Jon Butterworth at the Guardian that more or less saw this coming.
• Discovery News- Jennifer Ouellette: Tevatron’s DZero Sees No Evidence of New Particle ; She too says it’s not the Higgs “regardless of what other news outlets might tell you.” Good explanation in here, too, of how two separate detectors at different parts of the Tevatron ring work to backstop one another and historically have agreed 99% of the time on what happens at what collision energy.
• Discover/ Cosmic Variance – Sean Carroll: D0 Decides to be Debbie Downers – Wherein Sean ascribes his alliterative headline to wife Jennifer (previous bullet).
• ScienceNOW – Adrian Cho: Hopes Fade for Monumental Last-Minute Discovery at U.S. Atom Smasher ; The oddball particle was a longshot from the start, it says here in recounting the sequence of hope and suspicion arousing data.
• NatureNews – Eugenie Samuel Reich: Tevatron teams clash over new physics ; Independent search fials to confirm earlier report of novel particles ; One theorist fears his specialty has been sent off on a wild goose chase. Another says that the exercise, if that’s all it was, was still worth it. The original claim compelled original thinking that may yet pay off.
• Ars Technica – John Timmer: No new particle after all: Tevatron’s second detector comes up empty ;
• Wired Science – Lisa Grossman: New Tevatron Particle May Be a Mirage ;

The Version with the Big Higgs angle :

• Fox News: Jeremy A. Kaplan: Heartbreaker: Major Setback in Quest for ‘God Particle’ ; Could be true, in a non-parallel, but divergent universe. Could be a huge scoop. Or an awful misunderstanding in pursuit of an angle too good to check. It’s a mystery.

Grist for the Mill:

Fermilab Today article (via Symmetrybreaking Mag) ; arXiv New Paper submitted to Phys Rev Ltrs ;

So it Goes:

In physics and most highly rigorous and mathematical disciplines, eyebrow-raising data from the real world that imply new science or refutation of old science get theorists salivating. It was way back in 1989-90, but I remember well the marvelous theories that arose to explain a whirling pulsar. Nearly 2000 times per second it blinked. How could it not fly apart? New ideas blossomed. Some of the proffered explanations even posited that a planet could be glimpsed in the data from this neutronic marvel that had lit up in the billowing ashes of  supernova 1987A. Then poof. It was gone. The original team shuffled its feet and reported that it later noticed the same signal in another piece of sky. Data forensics soon enough revealed the awful truth – the pulsaroid blippity-blips arose from the skirling electronics in a video recorder mounted on the telescope , cross-talking their mischievous way into the data circuit. The crestfallen faced the music bravely. They broke the news at a AAAS meeting. Such honesty. Such embarrassment. Such fun. Such an example of the way science waltzes and jigs closer to the truth, missteps  an unavoidable part of the dance.

Maybe another episode just transpired.

- Charlie Petit

A team of US Geological Survey paleoclimatologists report in Science today that the Rocky Mountains – after displaying for centuries an oscillating pattern of low snow in the north followed by low snow in the south – are into a new mode. The snow is down everywhere, pretty much every year in a trend going back 30 years or so. This year’s heavy accumulations in some regions are just a blip.

In this time of public weariness – and some media exhaustion too – over the drumbeat of climate change news and dire projection, it is notable that the study is getting reasonably wide pickup. And in yet another blow to the gripe that contrarian climate deniers get too much ink due to a “false balance” by reporters, stories generally stick to what scientists say without calling somebody just to hear a reliable snort based on the general principle that mainstream scientists are in cahoots with the devil, or with liberals, or maybe that’s the same.

• ScienceNOW – Sid Perkins:Drying Rockies Could Bring More Water Woes to Western U.S.; With clear discription of the paleo-pattern, now broken, of a see-saw in snowpack height between northern and southern Rockies – modulated in part by ENSO rhythms (El Nin0 etc).
• Denver Post – Joey Bunch: Abundant snowpack “a small blip” after decades of decline ; The writer tried to balance this year’s locally heavy snow with the longer pattern’s opposite message. Judging from some comments, it’s still all liberal hogwash to plenty of readers.
• ClimateWire via NYTimes – Lauren Morello: Researchers See Unusually Rapid Decline in Water Source for Western Rivers ; Morello, as did Perkins at ScienceNOW, called Tim Barnett of Scripps for an opinion. He’s glum. It’s worth noting that, 15 years ago or so, Barnett was a reliable skeptic on the data to support global warming. The rising temp of the oceans turned him. Now he’s among the most worried. I dunno if he’s liberal or not.
• Greenwire via NYTimes (an E&E newsletter like the previous one) Laura Petersen: 1000-year Record Shows Unusual Snowpack Declines — Study ; One is unsure why the E&E empire double teamed this news. Different editors in different places I guess.
• PostMedia News via Vancouver Sun – Margaret Munro: Shrinking snowpack hurts water supply/ Change in Rockies could leave millions short of water ; She calls up a Canadian professor. He says it’s happening there too – even more markedly in BC  than in the US.
• NPR – Richard Harris: Thinning Snows in Rockies Tied to Global Warming ; KSJtracker filched the photo of the Sawtooth Wilderness in Washington above from this site (which took it in turn from the press pack at AAAS). The red color suggested to me beetle-killed pines, another sign of a warmed forest. But the AAAS and NPR caption says they’re subalpine larch. Maybe they have their own beetles? They provided some tree rings for the study. An effort to learn more turned up an interesting poster session entry, see Grist below.
• Reuters -Timothy Gardner:  Rockies snow decline bad sign for water supply ;
• Nat’l Geographic – Tasha Eichenseher: Warming to Blame for Water Crisis in U.S. West? ; A water manager source says things may not be too bad – if the precipitation falls as rain, or the snow melts earlier, either way there are dams to catch the runoff. So maybe it won’t be so bad even if the ground goes bare earlier than it used to.

Grist for the Mill:

Science article abstract ; And here’s an old USGS poster from a meeting that seems to lay out the genesis of this study. USGS Press Release on new study ;

- Charlie Petit

What a brilliant move. The high-fiving at Greenpeace’s p.r. operation must have left a few people with bruises. The organization this week started sending its reps to chant, carry signs, and generally protest publicly the Mattel toy company’s used of packaging cardboard and other pulp paper products from Indonesia – a country with large rain forests and a lot of logging. Some and maybe a lot of it, say many, is unsustainable due to crooked contracts, failure of gov’t to enforce resource protection laws and so forth and driven in part by expansion of palm oil plantations.

But what might have put it over the top was  a Greenpeace-commissioned video spoof (see Grist below for link). It depicts the famously perfectly-coiffed doll Ken learning that his lovely girlfriend Barbie is a conniver in illegal deforestation adn loss of habitat for furry orangs and tigers. And  all so she could wrap up in Indonesian cardboard. He broke into tears, and then broke up with her,  he did. Dunno if it’s direct cause and effect, but Mattel promptly announced it’s stopped buying wood products from a Singapore supplier that in turn – says Greenpeace – provided unsustainably logged products from Indonesia. The logging combine issued a stout retort via press release, also in Grist (also there is an old press release in which Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder, praises some Asian logging operations. Of course, don’t we all know, Moore is already on the outs with Greenpeace for embracing nuclear power as a needed wedge against global warming.)

It was already news before the Ken and Barbie angle cropped up. But not like this. Personally I think Greenpeace’s spoofers overdid the fey and effeminate side of Ken’s persona. It’s a distracting caricature. But a copyright violation in any case, one presumes. Don’t you just bet that Greenpeace is hoping and praying that Mattel is huffy enough to sue for infringement?

Stories:

• Los Angeles Times – Margot Roosevelt: Pressured by Greenpeace, Mattel cuts off sub-supplier APP ; As far as I can tell, Roosevelt is first out of the gate, among major media, with news of Mattel’s decision. This filed two days after she blogged at the LATimes site on the Ken-Barbie spoof, a facebook and twitter war between Mattel and Greenpeace and its allies,  and the underlying deforestation struggle that spawned it.
• AP : Mattel won’t use wood from alleged clear-cutter ; Wire service’s rewrite of the LATimes story.
• AFP – Paper firm welcomes Mattel deforestation inquiry ;
• Halifax Chronicle Herald – Bill Power ; Pictou firm joins Barbie on Greenpeace’s hit list ;  It’s not Indonesia, not even Asia, but the local paper company is part of Asia Pulp & Paper Ltd. Despite the lede’s reference to the “tentacles” of Greenpeace’s campaign reaching all the way to these northern woods, the story lays out the international and local issues and their overlap.
• Reuters – Dan Whitcomb: “Ken” doll protesters arrested at Mattel headquarters ; They rappelled  down the front of the building. Dressed as Ken. One wonders how this covert special op went down. Were they wired, and watched live from the Greenpeace situation room?
• Washington Post (blog) Sarah Anne Hughes:Greenpeace protests Barbia at Mattel headquarters ; With the Reuters photo of the graphic reproduced top right, but part of a banner that activists unrolled down the front of Mattel’s Southern California headquarters building. Filed before Mattel suspended pulp purchases from the suppliers the enviros don’t like, and investigates where how they get their logs.
• Daily Mail (UK)  Ken raps Barbie’s ‘nasty deforestation habit’ on Greenpeace website ;

Other, related news:

• Voice of America – Brian Padden: Indonesia Development Ban Fails to Curb Deforestation ; This is the real news, the back story to Greenpeace’s fury and the pulp sellers dismay at some of their customers getting antsy. One source tells Padden that despite whatever success Greenpeace has in the p.r. battle, things won’t change much on the ground in Indonesia’s back country.

Grist for the Mill:

Greenpeace/YouTube video Barbie’s rainforest destruction habit REVEALED! Ken Leaving Barbie ; Greenpeace Press Release ; Greenpeace General Toy Packaging site ;

Asia Pulp and Paper Group Press Release Defending its Forestry (via BusinessWire, Financial Post) . Plus, old release trumpeting Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore’s praise.

- Charlie Petit

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) The evolution of the Yasuni ITT initiative is one of the most interesting environmental topic to follow in LAtin America. The basic idea is that the Ecuadorian government is asking for international funds to compensate and avoid the extraction of oil in the Yasuni’s Amazonian rainforest. Yasuni is one of the world’s most biodiverse area. Lunched in 2007, it had an initial pretty good reception. But due to uncertainties about the final use of the funds, the commitment in case the Ecuadorian government changes in the future, certain intransigence in President Correa’s expressions, and internal problems in the negotiating team, it has not move forward significantly. The total amount demanded by Ecuador is $3,6 billion in 13 years. But last Saturday President Correa declared again that if they don’t get at least $100 million by the end of 2011, they will give permissions to begin with the extractions. On Wednesday Germany (who it’s one of the biggest potential donors) said that they won’t give the money without guaranties and as a simple donation, as Ecuador wants. Here is the analysis of the journalistic treatment: some international news agencies and newspapers in countries like Spain are saying that the negotiations with Germany are over. Ecuadorian media say that that’s not true. They rely in the words of Ivonne Baki (the leader of the negotiating team) who assures everything is going well, and that they are going to get funds from Spain, Turkey, EAU, and possibly France. We haven’t found a single story in Ecuador that includes German sources. But we found a very good one from a German media with a section in Spanish, that makes a great analysis. It’s conclusion is that the negotiation is not over, but Ecuadorian government needs to change a few specific things if they want to get funds from Germany.

La evolución de iniciativa Yasuní ITT es quizás la historia medioambiental más interesante de seguir. Aquí lo vamos haciendo periódicamente. La idea básica que empezó en 2007 es la siguiente: Ecuador se compromete a no explotar la enorme cantidad de petróleo que alberga la región de selva amazónica de Yasuní (una de las más biodiversas del mundo), si la comunidad internacional le compensa económicamente con al menos la mitad del dinero que obtendría de la explotación. Estamos hablando de un total de 3.600 millones de dólares pero, -de momento-, 100 millones de dólares antes de fin de este año. si no. Correa ya anunciado que dará luz verde al Plan B: permisos para explotación.

La iniciativa tuvo muy buena acogida inicial, se la consideró un proyecto pionero, despertó interés de varios países, pero cambios “sospechosos” en la comisión, dudas sobre cómo se gestionaría el dinero, qué pasaría después si otro gobierno decidiera explotar, e intransigencia del presidente Correa en aceptar compromisos, han generado desencanto en la comunidad internacional y sospechas de que el gobierno en realidad quiera impulsar el “Plan B” pudiendo echar culpas fuera. Es significativo que en la consulta popular realizada en Ecuador hace escasas semanas no se incluyera la voluntad de preservar o no Yasuní.

Las noticias de esta semana son controvertidas. Primero el sábado Correa lanzó un ultimatum repitiendo que si no recibían el dinero empezarían a explotar. Tres días después, las agencias de noticias exponían que Alemania (uno de los mayores donantes en potencia) retiraba definitivamente su apoyo (ya había mostrado su disconformidad un año antes) debido a que dar dinero sin compromiso sentaría un precedente peligroso ante otros países. Así lo exponen -por ejemplo- Público “Ecuador no consigue dinero para salvar la reserva de Yasuní” y ABC “Alemania no financiará el plan para Yasuní porque sentaría un precedente“.

En cambio, tras las declaraciones de la jefa de la comisión negociador Ivonne Baki, algunos periódicos ecuatorianos dan otra versión. El Comercio titula “Ivonne Baki niega que la iniciativa Yasuní ITT haya perdido fuerza en Alemania“. Baki asegura en un video que las negociaciones con Alemania fueron positivas, e incluso que espera la confirmación del apoyo de Francia este julio, que Turquía y Emiratos Árabes ya han decidido aportar, y que España aumentará su contribución en durante los próximos tres años. Baki niega que pueda ser un precedente porque poquísimo países tienen estas circunstancias. Nadie pregunta a los alemanes. En la misma línea, El Ciudadano afirma “Respaldo alemán a Yasuní continúa“. Para afirmar esto se basa sólo en las palabras de Baki. Hoy publica un interesante “Yasuní ITT: plan B en la mira“, donde también reflejan sólo declaraciones de fuentes peruanas. Curioso que nadie consulte a las fuentes de Alemanisa. Sí lo hace, como es lógico, un medio alemán que tiene sección en espanol llamado Deutsche Welle. Y es justo allí donde encontramos la mejor nota periodística, y con diferencia, del asunto. Mirra Banchón en “Yasuní: bastante más que reducción de emisiones” ofrece una gran introducción al problema, pero además, consigue declaraciones muy interesantes de las fuentes alemanas. En ellas reconoce que efectivamente Alemania no ha dado total marcha atrás en su compromiso, pero no está dispuesta a hacerlo según las condiciones de Correa. No están de acuerdo con una compensación directa, porque “echamos de menos mayores garantías y una mayor representación  de la sociedad civil en el proyecto”. El embajador ecuatoriano en Alemania defiende que en caso de cambio de planes de un futuro gobierno, el dinero concedido pasaría a ser deuda. Y que algunos nativos están en aislamiento voluntario, por lo que no es posible incluirlos. Pero el ministerio alemán parece empeñado en contemplar el problema desde otra óptica. En concreto, dentro del marco de reducción de emisiones. Sinceramente, la importancia del Yasuní parece ir muchísimo más lejos que unos simples bosques para fijar carbono. Ecuador tiene razón a defender que es mucho más valioso que eso. Pero Alemania pone condiciones. La negociación no ha terminado como dicen algunas agencias de noticias, ni parece estar en tan buen estado como defendía Ivonne Baki y los medios que la entrevistaban. Seguiremos alerta…

- Pere Estupinya

© iStockphoto/David Freund

Physics does not count things the way biologists do. If some genetic engineer slammed together the genomes of zebras and shellfish and the fused gametes died a moment after the merger, would a claim to have created a new species of striped clam make it past peer review?

Didn’t think so. I’m not making a serious point here, but maybe there should be asterisks for new elements that hardly last long enough to tickle a spectrometer. Two such are numbers 114 and 116, which have been known since glimmerings of their momentary existence were spotted a few years in the debris in a Russian cyclotron. There an international team, including Americans, had put beams of plutonium, calcium, and curium ions on collision course. An international board, after certifying the data, says those numbered boxes now have official entries. Their actual names, akin to Berkelium or Seaborgium or Lawrencium or Roentgenium or Meitnerium other unstable massive elements, are still under discussion.

So anticipated is this news that the periodic table I have tacked up in my office, and which I snatched from a freebies pile at the Nat’l Inst. of Science and Technology exhibit at the recent AAAS meeting, already has these things filled in with their atomic weights. It calls them Ununquadium and Ununhexium. Those names don’t count except literally literally. Most of you will immediately figure out why they are clearly merely placeholders.

Stories:

• AP – Malcolm Ritter: 2 new elements officially added to periodic table;  A shorty, and covers most of the essence. After quoting a Livermore Lab man who is on the team, it ought to have mentioned the action occurred far away, at Russia’s Dubna lab.
• Wall Street Journal – Robert Lee Hotz: Party of Two Is Seated at the Periodic Table ; My table has ununoctium, too. Hotz tells me it didn’t past muster with the certification panel. (Also, must credit this hed’s word play as inspiration for my own hed on this post).
• Irish Times – David Molloy: Elements added to periodic table ; Here we learn what names are in play among the Russians who built the machine in Dubna.
• Guardian (UK) Emine Saner: Two new elements joint the periodic table – but what should we call them? ; Smart piece – she called a man who wrote a book about the periodic table.
• TIME magazine – Katy Steinmetz: Scientists Welcome Two New Elements to the Periodic Table ; With a sidebar on the table’s history.
• Toronto Star – Lesley Ciarula Taylor: Memorizing the periodic table just got harder ; Clever hed, tho one thinks that task is rarely on a finals exam. The story leads more seriously on the hoped-for ‘island of stability’ just a few atomic numbers over the horizon, and recounts the Cold War dynamic that, transumuted, created a winning collaboration.
• Independent (UK) Tom Peck: Periodic Table gets new elements (but no one knows what they do). Fall to pieces is what they do. The piece has more on the island of stability including high hopes for numbers 120 and beyond.
• Scientific American – John Matson: Two New Superheavy Chemical Elements Formally Recognized ; While a lot and probably most of the work was by physicists, Matson points out that this achievement is mainly one that falls in chemistry’s domain.
• New Scientist – David Shiga: Heaviest elements yet join periodic table ; Strong illus, and one learns that if either had lasted a whole minute, its chemical behavior might be learned.

Grist for the Mill: Journal of Pure and Applied Chemistry article on decision.

- Charlie Petit

By John Walker, Fresno Bee, March 1, 2011

We’ve had a wet and cold winter in California, where we keep the snow where it belongs:  in the mountains so we can sunbathe or go surfing or play tennis year around. Spring has been cool, too. Ergo, the snowpack is absurdly heavy for the 2d week of June. A record in fact. Twenty feet deep in places. There’s nearly as much snow up there as is normal at the usual peak two months ago.  Three of the state’s major papers this week took different tacks in reminding readers what a winter that was. Some science on hydrology, weather, stuff like that, sneaks in.

• SF Chronicle – Peter Fimrite: Record Calif. snowpack raises summer flood fear; As the story says, right now it’s chilly. But the state’s inland sizzle of June must be on the way. Just gotta be.
• LA Times – Mike Anton: Blasting winter away at Yosemite ; On backpack explosives, and a wonderful history of the wondrous road over Tioga Pass.
• Fresno Bee – Eddie Jimenez:Big Sierra snowpack means hazardous season for river swimmers, rafters ; This got added to the mix only after I discovered that fine photo up there from the Bee – and then looked for the paper’s coverage of the tall white backdrop still seen easily in Fresno – when the smog and the  fog lift.

Grist for the Mill: CA Dept Water Resources current snow level and water equivalent, compared to the norm for April 1.

- Charlie Petit

Sometimes when a baseball bat or tennis racket happens to hit the ball right in the sweet spot – if my jargon is right it’s the center of percussion – the ball just soars even if the swing was rather puny. Something like that seems to have occurred on the sun. Space telescopes including NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the action yesterday near the sun’s right limb, and hustled the images to the public. It seems that the energy of the flare – caused as magnetic fields crossed and shorted out – was not remarkable. But the amount of photosphere (I think it’s photosphere) that was lofted above the sun’s visible edge may have been a record. Most of it fell back down in a rain of plasma covering nearly half the sun’s visible disk.

Some of the debris escaped the Sun entirely and will pass by Earth, but no big problems seem likely. A few little ones, maybe. Another terrific image, in far ultraviolet light, is here. (original at tinyurl.com/3rvt7ja .)

Stories:

• National Geographic – Dave Mosher: Solar Flare Sparks Biggest Eruption Ever Seen on Sun ; With lots of links to pictures, videos…. The story, as do others, takes advantage of this event to remind readers that solar flares can disrupt power and communications on Earth. One in 1859, it says here, caused telegraph lines to burst into flames.
• Associated Press – Ben Nuckols: Solar flare erupts and creates spectacular images; not expected to significantly affect Earth ;
• Washington Post – Melissa Bell: Huge solar flare explodes on camera ;
• Space.com – Tariq Malik: Sun unleashes a ‘spectacular’ solar storm ;
• The Sun Today (NASA-Goddard man’s blog) – Alex Young: A Spectacular Event – A Filament/Prominence Eruption to Blow Your Socks Off! ; Lots of videos through various filters, assembled by a pro. It’ll tell you that this has it all: flare, coronal waves, filament eruption, coronal mass ejection, coronal rain… Doesn’t say whether it includes a photosphere seismic tsunami.
• AFP – Kelly Sheridan: “Dramatic’ solar flare could disrupt Earth communications ;
• Sky and Telescope – Shweta Krishnan: Remarkable Explosion on the Sun ;
• USA Today – Dan Vergano: Sun uncorks a massive solar blast ;
• … Lots more, but gotta wind up for the day. Some say northern US could see some aurora tonight.

*UPDATES: Added June 9. Have seen no reports yet whether the forecast Northern (or Southern) Lights showed up at lowish latitudes. Here are some more on the flare and CME or coronal mass ejection (trans: glowing cloud thrown clear off the Sun) and the reminder they offer that worse are sure to come, mostly also filed yesterday.

• E&E ClimateWire via NYTimes – Peter Behr: This Week’s Solar Flare Illuminates the Grid’s Vulnerability ; Not this one, but one that is odds-on to come before long, poses an “existential threat” to power grids vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses and sudden, induced voltage spikes. Says here a potential grid-killer did erupt last week, but from the back side of the Sun – heading for a peak in its 11-year activity cycle from 2012 through 2014. Well reported story. Even checks into the supply of spare transformers in the US (not good. We don’t even make’em. One imagines China would replace its own fried transformers before shipping any here).
• PCWorld – Erick Mack: Solar Flares Could Cripple Earth’s Tech Infastructure in 2013 ;
• PC Magazine -Peter Pachal: Massive Solar Flare Misses Earth, but Are We Ready for the Big One? ; Good simile here – it’s like preparing for hurricanes. If you live on the gulf of Mexico, eventually you’ll get hit. Count on it.
• Christian Science Monitor – Pete Spotts: Solar Flare? Yes, but tonight’s northern light have a more spectacular cause ; That more spectacular thing being the CME.
• Discover Mag – Bad Astronomy blog – Phil Plait: The Sun Lets Loose a HUGE explosion ; Among the most prolific science bloggers on the net, maybe THE most, astronomer Plait assembles his own video to add to others in circulation. Also, go to his blog home page to savor the several posts he’s put up since this solar blast – chiefly including a salute to a NASA gallery from Endeavour’s last visit to the space station, and a do-n0t-miss weird artistic space cubist powers-of-ten Escheroid imagery mashup video from one Cyriak Harris.

Grist for the Mill

Univ. Alaska Aurora Forecast, including a neat map (be sure to blow it up) of the solar wind showing the near miss path of this CME;  NOAA Auroral Activity page ; NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center ;

- Charlie Petit

Steven Weinberg is a minor but steady and substantial news fixture. He’s a magnet for reporters with gumption. For one thing, he tends to be grumpy and brusque, quick of tongue, and when reporters approach him he tends to take a few moments. He produces good quotes. Anger, and confidence that one knows things that others, mostly fools, do not is like humor: a reliable catalyst to memorable conversation. Plus and of course, as a Nobelist, he’s smart, he knows his physics and that of others, and he has things to say on topics other than specific scientific theory and experiment. Such things are why he is, fairly frequently, found in the New York Review of Books, reviewing.

He was a key speaker at the recent World Science Festival in York City. Two reporters got very different stories about that:

• ScienceNOW – Karen Frenkel: Nobelist Steven Weinberg calls for Bigger Science, More Taxes ; Weinberg is a prof at UT-Austin. Demanding more taxes in Texas is almost against the zoning laws – except I don’t think Texas is big on zoning laws either. Frenkel passes along Weinberg’s fine variant on a standard template: “A society that decides it will only support applied science and not waste money on pure science is likely to wind up with neither.”
• Jewish Daily Forward Newspaper/The Arty Semite blog – Benjamin Ivry: Physicist Steven Weinberg, Not Just Another Lady of Shalott ; This was written prior to his World Science Festival talk, to promote it. Weinberg, while a big supporter of Israel, is also (far as I can learn) an atheist. And he provides this biting quote to Ivry, who mined it from a PBS program: “It seems to me that with or without religion good people will behave well and bad people will do evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” He also refers to himself as “some lakeside Lady of Shalott.”  To round this post off, here follows a ref. to a review of a book connected to that quote, published last year.. (Correction Note: First version of this post gave only a partial name for the publication, calling it the Jewish Daily rather than the correct Jewish Daily Forward Newspaper, or simply The Forward).
• Dallas Morning News – Alexandra Witze (Jan 17, 2010): ‘Lake Views’ by Steven Weinberg ;

- Charlie Petit

A few days ago, after it had lain around the house for a few days, I picked the latest High Country News off the side table and took time to read it, with its cover story image of an angry-looking man in a cowboy hat and holding a sign that says Wolves are Not Endangered.  One presumes this is a man who thinks what is endangered are the calves and sheep he raises, or the elk he likes to shoot to keep the freezer loaded with game.

Right inside was a story on the supposedly high hazards of US nuclear power plants, and another on eco-meddlers who use half-phony mining claims to snarl solar power farms on federal land, all looking pretty green. I got set to read a standard weeper of a story on the wolves of the northern Rockies in which environmental groups are the heroes and the ranchers and gun-toting wolf alarmists the villains.

Wrong. This is a story of balance and shading. Writer Hal Herring has a sure hand as he guides readers through his story. Its headline: Wolf Whiplash. It’s imperfect, but it gives the anti-wolf faction its due while treating the return of wolves to the greater Yellowstone region as a triumph. That is, wolves really do eat a lot of elk, and really can wreak a murderous trail through a meadow full of sheep. If you click that link you will first find  a pay wall, a discouraging thing to those in a rush and not inclined to buy a full subscription. But managing editor Jodi Peterson lets us know there’s a work-around: sign up for a free trial subscription and you’ll have 30 days access.

The story has gristle and insight. Herring does not care much for the kill-all-the-wolves faction, at all. But he also scoffs at some enviros’  goal to assure that 5,000+ or several times more than now, wolves live in the region (one wolf eats several dozen elk yearly). He sees, far as I can tell, not much harm and plenty of benefit – if only from the revenue of permit tags – in killing some of them. He figures the wolves can take it if reasonable hunting seasons are reasonably managed. A telling passage is his description why an Idaho hunt did not produce the expected lobo slaughter: “..hunters were unable to do anything about the wolves that were impacting elk herds in the Lolo areas: the wolves were simply too smart, and the country too heavily timbered and rugged, for hunters to kill them.”

He worries that anti-wolf forces will overshoot their new freedoms. Wolves were shot out of the American Rockies once, they could be again. But he blames enviro groups such as EarthJustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity – groups that I have regarded adn still do as the good guys – for being so lawsuit-happy and selective in their science and so sure of their own righteousness that they infuriated even moderate groups, such as The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. That opened the door for Congress to override agency-level endangered species decisions and turn wolves mainly over to state control. So it says. This is something to chew on.

- Charlie Petit