Phylogeographic research published by Michael Moore

A recent faculty paper as indexed in Web of Science:

Sun, Yanxia, Michael J. Moore, Associate Professor of Biology, Liangliang Yue, Tao Feng, Haijia Chu, Shaotian Chen, Yunheng Ji, Hengchang Wang, and Jianqiang Li. 2014. "Chloroplast Phylogeography of the East Asian Arcto-Tertiary Relict Tetracentron Sinense (Trochodendraceae)." Journal of Biogeography 41 (9): 1721-1732. doi:10.1111/jbi.12323. [subscriber access only]

Partial abstract:  "A phylogeographical study of the widespread but phylogenetically isolated East Asian endemic tree species Tetracentron sinense (Trochodendraceae) was performed to evaluate whether and how Pleistocene and pre-Pleistocene climate changes helped to influence current phylogeographical patterns, and to describe the current patterns of genetic diversity and their implications for conservation.  [Research findings suggest:] The extant distribution of T. sinense is likely to have been shaped by both pre-Quaternary and Pleistocene climate changes. Southwestern China may have served as an important refugium for T. sinense throughout the Neogene, while the species also occupied multiple refugia during the late Pleistocene glacial periods. Populations of T. sinense were resolved into five allopatric groups, between which there is apparently no seed movement."

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry: magnifying teeny tiny objects

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014  - Official Nobel Prize site.
 Highly recommended: How the optical microscope became a nanoscope (Nobel Prize "popular information")
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As reported by Inside Science News Service:
By Chris Gorski, Senior Editor
Oct. 8, 2014

(Inside Science) – The 2014 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to an American neuroscientist, a German biochemist and an American chemist "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy."

The prize goes jointly to Eric Betzig, from the Howard Hughes Medical Center in Ashburn, Virginia, Stefan W. Hell, from the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, in Göttingen, Germany, and William E. Moerner, from Stanford University in Stanford, California.

"What this year's prize is about is beating the diffraction limit of light," said Trisha Andrew, a chemist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "You can actually image directly very, very small features that are below the resolution of the visible light that everyone uses."

Hell has used [these techniques] to investigate living nerve cells. Moerner studied Huntington's disease with the techniques. Betzig watched cell division within embryos.

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All of the preceding text is from Chris Gorski's article in Inside Science News Service.  Read the whole piece for deeper insight.

Inventors of Blue LEDs win Nobel Prize in Physics

From Inside Science News Service:

"The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two Japanese and one U.S. citizen, all born in Japan, 'for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.'

"The prize goes jointly to Isamu Akasaki of Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan, Hiroshi Amano of Nagoya University in Japan, and Shuji Nakamura of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Starting in the 1990s they produced blue LEDs, an energy-efficient, environmentally friendly source of blue light, which could be mixed with LEDs of other colors to produce a mixture that the eye sees as white light."

Philips SlipStyle; mashable.com

The Nobel Prize news release highlights the significance of their achievement, succeeding "where everyone else had failed," to transform how the world uses electricity for lighting.  Ultimately, the switch from incandescent or fluorescent to LED means enormous savings in energy, decreased consumption of manufacturing materials, and improving "the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power." Pretty remarkable for a tiny light bulb.

Nobel Prize Week Begins: 3 Share Prize for Physiology or Medicine

As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, three neuroscientists have been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, with one half to John O´Keefe and the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser for their discoveries of cells that constitute a  positioning system in the brain.  

"The discoveries of John O´Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser have solved a problem that has occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries – how does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment?" 

Their findings have implications for Alzheimer's research, and "represent a paradigm shift in our understanding of how ensembles of specialized cells work together to execute higher cognitive functions. It has opened new avenues for understanding other cognitive processes, such as memory, thinking and planning." [from today's announcement on Nobel Prize]

Two key papers, accessible to subscribers:

O'Keefe, J., and Dostrovsky, J. (1971). The hippocampus as a spatial map. Preliminary evidence from unit activity in the freely‐moving rat. Brain Research 34, 171-175. [access at science direct.com] 

Fyhn, M., Molden, S., Witter, M.P., Moser, E.I., Moser, M.B. (2004) Spatial representation in the entorhinal cortex. Science 305, 1258-1264.  [access at sciencemag.org]

Letter from Dennis Hubbard published in Science

Dennis Hubbard, Professor of Geology, has published a letter with 13 other researchers from five different countries and five other states, disagreeing with assertions conveyed by science writer Christopher Pala (Science Aug. 1, p. 496).  Pala interviewed scientists who implied that recent land losses from low-lying islands are the result of poor coastal management, and that islanders are being affected "for the same reason as millions of people on the continents: because they live too close to shore."   Pala cited studies that imply that "coral reefs supporting sandy atoll islands will grow and rise in tandem with the sea."  Hubbard and co-authors refute those findings in their letter Island outlook: Warm and swampy.
Authors:
Hubbard, Dennis; Gischler, Eberhard; Davies, Peter; Montaggioni, Lucien; Camoin, Gilbert; Dullo, Wolf-Christian; Storlazzi, Curt; Field, Michael; Fletcher, Charles; Grossman, Eric; Sheppard, Charles; Lescinsky, Halard; Fenner, Douglas; McManus, John; Scheffers, Sander.
Science, 345 (6203):1461-1461; SEP 19 2014 [access online for subscribers]

It is timely reading, following on the heels of the State of the Climate Debate held in Nancy Schrom Dye Lecture Hall yesterday evening.

Ohio fracking waste disposal practices examined

From EcoWatch, September 25, a discouraging note:  "The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report this week showing that Ohio was the only state among eight studied that allows waste fluids from oil and gas wells to be disposed of without disclosure of the chemicals it contains."

Some context is provided by this title from Wiley online:   Fracking: the operations and environmental consequences of hydraulic fracturing / Michael D. Holloway and Oliver Rudd.  2014.

New Publications from Craig, FitzGerald, Tarvin; co-authored with alumni

New publications from Oberlin faculty and recent grads (names indicated by bold font), as indexed in Web of Science:

Craig, Norman C. (Professor Emeritus of Chemistry), Yihui Chen '13, Herman van Besien '11, and Thomas A. Blake. 2014. Analysis of the Rotational Structure in the High-Resolution Infrared Spectra of Trans-Hexatriene-2-D(1) and-3-D(1). Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy 303: 26-35. doi:10.1016/j.jms.2014.07.001.  Subscriber access at sciencedirect.com

Kapelewski, Matthew T., Stephen J. Geier, Matthew R. Hudson, David Stueck, Jarad A. Mason, Jocienne N. Nelson '14, Dianne J. Xiao, Elizabeth Gilmour (Physics instructor), Stephen A. FitzGerald (Professor of Physics), et al. 2014. M-2(M-Dobdc) (M = mg, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni) Metal-Organic Frameworks Exhibiting Increased Charge Density and Enhanced H-2 Binding at the Open Metal Sites. Journal of the American Chemical Society 136 (34): 12119-12129. Subscriber access at pubs.acs.org

Lumpkin, David C. '13, Troy G. Murphy, and Keith A. Tarvin (Professor of Biology). 2014. Blood Parasite Infection Differentially Relates to Carotenoid-Based Plumage and Bill Color in the American Goldfinch. Ecology and Evolution 4 (16): 3210-3217. Open access at onlinelibrary.wiley.

Maine is uniquely vulnerable to effects of climate change

As reported in the Boston Globe, September 21, by David Abel:  The interactions of so many effects of climate change are leading to increasingly dire consequences, from massive die-off of amphibians to a population explosion among deer ticks, rapid growth in the numbers of invasive species that disrupt ecosystems, and plant communities that are becoming "out of sync" with their pollinators.  Maine is particularly susceptible to the negative impacts of climate change:

"Heat waves, more powerful storms, and rising seas are increasingly transforming Maine — effects that most climate scientists trace to greenhouse gases warming the planet. Wedged between powerful streams of cold and warm air, the state is buffeted by climate fluctuations in the arctic and the Gulf of Maine, both of which are warming rapidly."  --David Abel

I tend to think of Florida or the Gulf of Mexico coastal areas as the most vulnerable to huge storms, without considering climate impacts on our most northeastern state.  Maine seems so solid and impervious, with its thousands of square miles of forested land and higher elevation topography.  Abel's story is a compelling read, examining complex ecosystems which are finely balanced to thrive in a cooler world than where we are now (and certainly cooler than where we are headed).

The Encyclopedia of global warming & climate change / general editor, S. George Philander, gives a summary of the effects of a warming world on regions, states and nations worldwide.

Nature Communications to become Open-Access

www.nature.com/ncomms/index.html

This comes from Nature Publishing, announced on September 23:

Nature Communications is to become Nature Publishing Groups flagship open access title. From 20th October 2014 Nature Communications will only accept open access research submissions.

Nature Communications was launched in 2010 as a born-digital hybrid journal, publishing both open access and subscription content and is now one of NPG's fastest growing titles, receiving over 1000 submissions every month. All research published by the journal represents important advances of significance to specialists within each field, in all areas of the biological, physical, chemical and earth sciences. The journal will continue to uphold its high editorial standards and service, but now through a purely open access publishing model.  More

The most recent review article published in Nature Communications is indicative of the high quality of this new journal from Nature Publishing:  
Spicer, C. D. & Davis, B. G. Selective chemical protein modification. Nat Commun 5 (2014)

It's National Voter Registration Day! Register to vote in the science library.

Vote in Ohio!  Citizens of the United States who reside in Ohio as college students are given the right to vote in our state.

Input area code 44074 @ Vote411.org for election information

Voter registration forms are available in the science library; we'll help you complete the form and deliver it to the Board of Elections for you.

There are important state-wide races to be decided in this November's election, as well as choosing the U.S. congressional representative for our district (4th district; incumbent is Jim Jordan).  The outcome of these elections impacts all college students, as policies and budgets help determine quality of life and the extent to which the broader community is supported with access to good education options, funding for scientific research, health care, employment, social services, a clean and sustainable environment, and safe, adequate public works infrastructure.  This is just the short list of ways in which Ohio politicians can affect our daily lives. We are part of the community; you have the right to help determine how we are governed.

--Alison Ricker, current board member and past president, League of Women Voters of the Oberlin Area.  LWVOA on Facebook.

Pneumonia-causing bacteria shown to invade heart muscle

I always enjoy the weekly update from The Scientist, received in my email inbox every Friday.  This week, an excellent summary of research published in PLOS Pathogens caught my eye.

Here, a snippet from Molly Sharlach's news article:

“Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) and their colleagues found that mice and rhesus macaques infected with Streptococcus pneumoniae developed myocardial microlesions, which were also present in human autopsy samples. 

“Study coauthor Carlos Orihuela, a microbiologist and immunologist at UTHSCSA, remarked, 'This is sort of a big deal. It’s a brand new disease pathology for a very old bug.' 

“'This is the first report in over 120 years of research with Streptococcus pneumoniae to say that the bacteria actually invade heart tissue,' added Orihuela.“

A.O. Brown et al., “Streptococcus pneumoniae translocates into the myocardium and forms unique microlesions that disrupt cardiac function,” PLOS Pathogens, doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1004383, 2014.

For some background reading, try this ebook from Springer, accessible through OBIS:
Molecular pathology of lung diseases / edited by Dani S. Zander ... [et al.] New York : Springer, c2008

Neonictinoids: dangerous to bees and more, with negative consequences for entire ecosystems

Researchers continue to amass evidence showing the harmful effects of neonictinoids in pesticides.  National Geographic's news report for a general audience gives an overview, and many scientific papers are quickly found with a search on neonictinoids in Web of Science.  Here are a few of the most recent, beginning with two articles in the open access journal PLOS One.

Tan, K., Chen, W., Dong, S., Liu, X., Wang, Y., & Nieh, J. C. (2014). Imidacloprid alters foraging and decreases bee avoidance of predators. PLOS One, 9(7), e102725. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0102725

Partial abstract: “Concern is growing over the effects of neonicotinoid pesticides, which can impair honey bee cognition. We provide the first demonstration that sublethal concentrations of imidacloprid can harm honey bee decision-making about danger by significantly increasing the probability of a bee visiting a dangerous food source.”

Sandrock, C., Tanadini, M., Tanadini, L. G., Fauser-Misslin, A., Potts, S. G., & Neumann, P. (2014). Impact of chronic neonicotinoid exposure on honeybee colony performance and queen supersedure. PLOS One, 9(8), e103592. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0103592 

Find it in the library

Chen, M., Tao, L., McLean, J., & Lu, C. (2014). Quantitative analysis of neonicotinoid insecticide residues in foods: Implication for dietary exposures. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 62(26), 6082-6090. doi:10.1021/jf501397m

Godfray, H. C. J., Blacquiere, T., Field, L. M., Hails, R. S., Petrokofsky, G., Potts, S. G., . . . McLean, A. R. (2014). A restatement of the natural science evidence base concerning neonicotinoid insecticides and insect pollinators. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 281(1786), 20140558. doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.0558

Hallmann, C. A., Foppen, R. P. B., van Turnhout, Chris A M, de Kroon, H., & Jongejans, E. (2014). Declines in insectivorous birds are associated with high neonicotinoid concentrations. Nature, 511(7509), 341-+. doi:10.1038/nature13531

Kasiotis, K. M., Anagnostopoulos, C., Anastasiadou, P., & Machera, K. (2014). Pesticide residues in honeybees, honey and bee pollen by LC-MS/MS screening: Reported death incidents in honeybees. Science of the Total Environment, 485, 633-642. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.03.042

Stewart, S. D., Lorenz, G. M., Catchot, A. L., Gore, J., Cook, D., Skinner, J., . . . Barber, J. (2014). Potential exposure of pollinators to neonicotinoid insecticides from the use of insecticide seed treatments in the mid-southern united states. Environmental Science & Technology, 48(16), 9762-9. doi:10.1021/es501657w

Also relevant:  Honeybee Neurobiology and Behavior : A Tribute to Randolf Menzel / edited by C. Giovanni Galizia, Dorothea Eisenhardt, Martin Giurf.  Springer, 2012 online for subscribers.

Pulsar research published by Dan Stinebring

New publication from Stinebring, et al., using the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope, as indexed in Web of Science:

Millisecond pulsar scintillation studies with LOFAR: initial results
Authors:
Archibald, Anne M.; Kondratiev, Vladislav I.; Hessels, Jason W. T.; Stinebring, Daniel R, Francis D Federighi Professor of Physics.

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS, 790 (2) AUG 1 2014  [view at IOPScience]

Getting ready for the new year!

Summer is fleeting away, and some of us are trying to squeeze just a little vacation into what is left of August.

Meanwhile, orientation for new faculty has begun and the class of 2018 will be moving in next week.  It's an exciting time of year.  Many of our colleagues around the state have already welcomed incoming and returning students and are in full academic year mode.  By mid-September, these waning days of summer will be a fading memory.  For now, enjoy the relative peace in the science library, where the new book shelves are still brimming with fascinating tomes and a new printer sits gleaming in the copy room, promising reliable performance (hurray!).

Recent Publications by Calcut, Whelan, Wojtal, et al.

Newly indexed publications by science faculty and students, as reported in the Web of Science:

Borromean rays and hyperplanes.

Calcut, Jack S., Assistant Professor of Mathematics; Metcalf-Burton, Jules R. ’15; Richard, Taylor J. ’14; Solus, Liam T.   Journal of Knot Theory and its Ramifications  23 (4) Article 1450020,  April  2014.  Access at World Scientific

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MUC16 (CA125): tumor biomarker to cancer therapy, a work in progress.

Felder, Mildred; Kapur, Arvinder; Gonzalez-Bosquet, Jesus; Horibata, Sachi; Heintz, Joseph; Albrecht, Ralph; Fass, Lucas; Kaur, Justanjyot; Hu, Kevin '11; Shojaei, Hadi; Whelan, Rebecca J., Associate Professor of Chemistry; Patankar, Manish S.   Molecular Cancer 13, Article UNSP 129,  MAY 29 2014.  Access at BioMedCentral.  A "highly accessed" open access article.

---
Microstructures and rheology of a calcite-shale thrust fault.

Wells, Rachel K.; Newman, Julie; Wojtal, Steven, Professor of Geology.  Journal of Structural Geology  65: 69-81, Aug. 2014.  Access at OhioLINK EJC

New Book Shelves are Overflowing!

We have received over 200 new books in the past month - it's a bit overwhelming!  So much wonderful reading for us all.  Come and check out something so we will have room for the next shipment of new books.  Just three are noted here:

Mental biology : the new science of how the brain and mind relate / W.R. Klemm

The oldest living things in the world / Rachel Sussman

Dinosaurs without bones -- dinosaur lives revealed by their trace fossils / Anthony J. Martin

Angiosperms to Dipeptides: publications by Altheimer, Manish, Moore, et al.

Two recent publications by faculty and alumni, as indexed in Web of Science:

Altheimer, Benjamin D. (OC '12), & Mehta, Manish A., Professor of Chemistry (2014). Effects of structural differences on the NMR chemical shifts in isostructural dipeptides. Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 118(14), 2618-2628. [access at ACS, for subscribers]

http://systbiol.org

Drew, B. T., Ruhfel, B. R., Smith, S. A., Moore, Michael J., Associate Professor of Biology; Briggs, B. G., Gitzendanner, M. A., Soltis, P.S., Soltis, D. E. (2014). Another look at the root of the angiosperms reveals a familiar tale. Systematic Biology, 63(3), 368-382. [access at Oxford Journals, for subscribers]  Published by Oxford on behalf of the Society of Systematic Biologists.

Eco Tour app available for download - share it!

Bridget Flynn, OC's Sustainability Coordinator, made the following announcement today:
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Oberlin College's Eco Tour app [for iPhone, iPad or iPod] is now live and available for download on the Apple App Store. This app highlights various sustainability-related places of interest on campus.

The campus sustainability map can also be viewed in a Google map online and will be up on the OES website by the end of this week.

OES student intern Parker Oka-Wong developed the app, with guidance and support from CIT, Communications Office, and others over the past year.
---

Congratulations to the OES team.  Even if you know Oberlin very well, you'll learn something new and interesting and enjoy the images on the app - give it a try!

Keystone & Beyond -- download the ebook, understand the issues.

This information is taken directly from a message from Inside Climate News.  This is important reading/viewing for understanding the complexities surrounding the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline and development of Alberta tar sands.  Free download of this ebook (can be viewed on your computer) is available for just one week.  

"Keystone & Beyond: Tar Sands and the National Interest in the Era of Climate Change traces the Keystone’s origins to energy policy decisions made by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the first months of their administration, and to expectations about energy development that have turned out to be wrong.

"The Keystone has since divided the nation on the fundamental questions of how we should respond to climate change and what our energy future should look like.

"Standing at this crossroads is President Obama who must decide whether or not to approve a project started under his predecessor’s administration. What are the implications for our country and our climate? John H. Cushman, Jr., former reporter for The New York Times, answers this and other questions by constructing a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Keystone saga."

New Publications: Faculty and Students in Chemistry and Geology

Oberlin affiliated authors are indicated in bold:

Journal home page @ ACS

Easterday, Clay C. (OC’11), Dedon, Liv R. (OC’12), Zeller, M., & Oertel, Catherine M., Associate Professor, Chemistry. (2014). Helical (1)(infinity)[Pb2O] chains in polymorphs of Pb2O(C6H5COO)(2). Crystal Growth & Design, 14(4), 2048-2055. [full text at American Chemical Society, subscribers only]

Qiao, X., Schmidt, Amanda H., Assistant Professor, Geology; Tang, Y., Xu, Y., & Zhang, C. (2014). Demonstrating urban pollution using toxic metals of road dust and roadside soil in Chengdu, Southwestern China. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 28(4), 911-919. [full text at Springer, subscribers only]

Exams, Day 1. The place is busy, with an intense quiet.

Day 1 of Exams and the concentration is apparent.  Laptops, headphones, all checked out.  Calculators will be next…

Printers and the stapler are getting a near constant workout.

Best wishes for a successful end to the semester for everyone!

Going to Hell in a hand basket

"We are all going to Hell in a hand basket" was something my grandmother said, and who can blame her?  She lived through two World Wars, the Cold War and two regional wars, plus enormous social change throughout the world. The proverbial hand basket is carried by more than one entity, to be sure, and some are gathering us up in bushel loads and with front-loaders… forget the hand basket.

If you have any doubt, read the latest IPCC report (note - authored by qualified scientists, not political/economic pundits), and consider its implications beyond your immediate vision.  The latest issue of EcoAméricas will also open your eyes and thinking.

Recent Faculty and Alumni Publications in Science

As found in Web of Science, April 18, 2014.  Oberlin affiliated authors are shown in bold lettering:

Katzner, T. E., Daniel S. Jackson (OC '06), J. Ivy, E. A. Bragin, and A. DeWoody. 2014. Variation in offspring sex ratio of a long-lived sexually dimorphic raptor, the Eastern Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca. Ibis 156:395-403.

Money, E. S., L. E. Barton, Joseph Dawson (OC '12), K. H. Reckhow, and M. R. Wiesner. 2014. Validation and sensitivity of the FINE Bayesian network for forecasting aquatic exposure to nano-silver. Science of the Total Environment 473:685-691.

Owen, J. C., E. A. Cornelius, D. A. Arsnoe, and Mary C. Garvin (Biology). 2013. Leukocyte response to eastern equine Encephalomyelitis virus in a wild passerine bird. Avian Diseases 57:744-749.

Plosone.org: article full-text

Owen, J. C., Mary C. Garvin (Biology), and F. R. Moore. 2014. Elevated testosterone advances onset of migratory restlessness in a nearctic-neotropical landbird. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 68:561-569.

van Vugt, M. K., Patrick Simen (Neuroscience), L. Nystrom, P. Holmes, and J. D. Cohen. 2014. Lateralized readiness potentials reveal properties of a neural mechanism for implementing a decision threshold. PLOS One 9:e90943.

Endocrine Disruptor Week - learn how to avoid the dirty dozen

https://www.facebook.com/ewg.org

Environmental Working Group has declared this to be Endocrine Disruptor Week, in an effort to educate more people about the dangers of toxic chemicals in the environment.  Just posting the announcement has created an interesting spate of comments on the pros and cons of eating soy, fermented or otherwise.  Should be an interesting week on Facebook. 

Background information can be found in any one of these books, all accessible online through OBIS:

• Multi-system endocrine disruption
• Endocrine disruptors and puberty
• Endocrine-disrupting chemicals 
• Endocrine disrupters: hazard testing...
• Toxic bodies: hormone disruptors and the legacy of DES (also available in print in the science library)

Perlik Commons terrazzo gets a make-over. Wow!

Friday morning:
applying the finish, from a reservoir backpack.

At the end of the day, Thursday

Spring break has been quiet in terms of student traffic in and out of the library, but not at all quiet in terms of work being done right outside our door.  The project began Monday, moving all of the furniture from the Perlik Commons.  Intense cleaning and stripping of old wax took at least a dozen people working together, Monday-Thursday, finally resorting to hours of scraping, even on hands and knees with a razor blade, to get the terrazzo stone completely clean.  It's been quite the process to witness.  Today, layers of a protective finish are being applied.  Beautiful result!  Everyone involved should take pride in a job well done - those of us who walk through the Commons on a daily basis will thoroughly enjoy the new look.  Thank you.

We are slow learners when it comes to oil transport

This is very dispiriting news, on the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill: Collision and oil spill closes Houston ship channel.

NPR's Morning Edition is presenting in-depth stories on the Exxon Valdez disaster every day this week, so we can better understand the immediate impacts on the natural environment and human communities of Prince William Sound, as well as the enduring legacy of oil in sediment and long-lived species (like us!).  Good listening, thoughtful interviews, rigorous research into all facets of this tragedy.  Remembering the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill series.

Relevant books (print and electronic), government documents, conference proceedings, and Web-based resources abound, for further reading.  Try this keyword search in OBIS: "exxon valdez" or search the subject heading oil spills--cleanup.

"Ripples in the Fabric of Space Time"

Gravitational waves have been detected from the very "first sliver of cosmic time," and are being hailed as the "signature of a universe being wrenched violently apart when it was roughly a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old." This is the "long sought proof" of the Theory of Inflation, or the Big Bang, and Dennis Overbye of the New York Times does a fine job of explaining it all (March 17, 2014).  Take a look!

We have dozens of books on the big bang, great reading for a bit of background knowledge.  You might like to start with The Big Bang: theory, assumptions and problems / Jason R. O'Connell and Alice L. Hale, editors.  Nova Science Publishers, 2012.

Plastic Bottle Sheds Light Equal to 55 Watt Bulb

Watch this video, from EcoWatch.  Very cool.  Installing water-filled plastic bottles in the metal roofs of some of the poorest homes in the world provides interior lighting where there was none, and creates new possibilities for living and productivity. "This video, shot in the Philippines around the time of the initiative’s launch, shows how the bottles are made and the vast improvement it’s given residents, including some who said they simply slept or always spent their time outside because they couldn’t see inside their own homes."  What a great use of discarded plastic!

Related e-book to check out:  Plastics and sustainability: towards a peaceful coexistence between bio-based and fossil fuel-based plastics / Michael Tolinski.  Wiley, 2012.

The Climate Risks of Natural Gas

From the Union of Concerned Scientists, a new Infographic on the climate risks of natural gas - full of information you can use, now, to help slow the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and educate others about the risks of over-reliance on natural gas.

Here's my quick takeaway:
"Can renewables realistically provide more than 80% of U.S. electricity?
Absolutely. A comprehensive study by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has demonstrated that currently available renewable technologies could affordably and reliably provide 80 percent of U.S. electricity needs by 2050."

So why aren't we moving faster?  This book addresses that question.  Find it on the new book shelf:
The burning question : we can't burn half the world's oil, coal and gas. So how do we quit?

Having doubts about global warming? Don't. Keep up with climate literacy.

We're getting tired of snow and ice and want the polar vortex to swirl around the north pole where it belongs, thank you very much.  Plenty of individuals with limited "climate literacy" point to the enduring heaps of snow and extended periods of below freezing temperatures and doubt the evidence of a warming planet caused by human activity.  The disruption of typical climate cycles and weather patterns (flood and high-wind warnings today!) increases the urgency that more people understand the complexity and interrelatedness of climatic features.

The library has over 2450 items in the collection with subject headings of Climatic changes or Climate change mitigation.  Where to begin?  Perhaps a quick review for non-specialists, online for free from an independent, scientifically reliable source, is a good starting point.  Two suggestions:

Climate Change: Evidence, Impacts, and Choices.  National Research Council
Climate Literacy: the Essential Principles of Climate science.  U.S. Global Research Program

National Research Council

These reports were distributed at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and are at the science library reference desk, in print.  Prefer to get your information through a video?  See Climate Change at the National Academies - videos & multimedia.

For up to the minute news stories from around the world, see EcoWatch Climate Change News.  And don't forget the thousands of books and other items found through OBIS.  Far better to rely on those sources of information than so-called climate change "debates" on Fox News or other media outlets with dubious credentials for accurate coverage of scientific topics.

Can you explain color to an 11-year old?

Alan Alda challenged thousands of attendees at the AAAS Annual Meeting to Take the Flame Challenge!  I feel sure someone on campus can do so, in such an engaging and enlightening manner that any 11-year old would be enthralled.

www.flamechallenge.org

This science communication competition, hosted by the Alan Alda Center for Community Science, relies upon nearly 20,000 real kids as judges (and they are not at all shy about pointing out exactly how and why the explanation did not measure up).

Feeling up to the challenge?  Deadline is March 1, 2014.

Recent Faculty Publications (Dec-Jan)

The following publications by science faculty were published December 2013-January 2014.  Online access to each of the articles requires a current subscription.

Calcut Jack S (Mathematics Dept), Gompf RE (2013) Orbit spaces of gradient vector fields. Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems 33:1732-1747. [access at OhioLINK EJC]

Demaison J, Csaszar AG, Groner P, Rudolph HD, Craig Norman C (Chemistry Dept) (2013) Semiexperimental equilibrium structures for cis,cis- and trans,trans-1,4-difluorobutadiene by the mixed estimation method and definitive relative energies of the isomers. Journal of Physical Chemistry A 117:13166-13175. [access at ACS pubs]

Gillis KM et al (2014) Primitive layered gabbros from fast-spreading lower oceanic crust. Nature 505:204-+. Co-authored with Andrew Horst (Physics Dept) [access at Nature.com]

Mroue AH, Scheel MA, Szilagyi B, Pfeiffer HP, Boyle M, Hemberger DA, Kidder LE, Lovelace G, Ossokine S, Taylor NW, Zenginoglu A, Buchman LT, Chu T, Foley E, Giesler M, Owen Rob (Physics Dept), Teukolsky SA (2013) Catalog of 174 binary black hole simulations for gravitational wave astronomy. Phys Rev Lett 111:241104. [access at APS]

Page F. Zeb (Geology Dept), Essene EJ, Mukasa SB, Valley JW (2014) A garnet-zircon oxygen isotope record of subduction and exhumation fluids from the franciscan complex, california. J Petrol 55:103-131. [access at Oxford journals]

Scofield John H (Environmental Studies Program) (2013) Efficacy of LEED-certification in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission for large new york city office buildings. Energy Build 67:517-524. [access at science direct.com]

Walsh James (Mathematics Dept), Widiasih E (2014) A dynamics approach to a low-order climate model. Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems-Series B 19:257-279. [access at AIMS]

Keystone XL pipeline: EcoWatch video challenges industry claims

From an EcoWatch video news release: 

"[Yesterday], on the first day of the State Department’s public comment period for the recently released environmental impact report on the Keystone XL pipeline, acclaimed comedians and climate justice advocates team up to release a provocative new video blasting the pipeline’s impact on jobs and the environment."

I haven't watched this yet, myself, but will just as soon as I can without disrupting the intensely quiet environs of the science library.  Here is a bit more about the video:

"Combining environmental justice politics with hilarious satire straight out of the Daily Show, the comedy video, Keystone XL Has a Job for You!, is the brainchild of Movement Generation. Written by and starring Josh Healey and Donte Clark, the video is a comedic twist on one of today’s most serious environmental issues: the Keystone XL pipeline. The Keystone XL and tar sands production threatens people’s health, water and air across North America, especially in indigenous and working class communities and communities of color."

The Center for Biological Diversity is calling for action to encourage Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama to reject the pipeline, citing the likely destruction of at least 20 threatened and endangered species: "Obama's decision comes down to this: Approve Keystone XL and embrace the climate-killing fossil fuels of the past, or reject Keystone in favor of energy policies safer for people, wildlife and a healthy climate."

Yeah! OBIS is back! With a link to different theory of the universe.

OBIS, how we missed you.  Hurray for the online catalog and our entrée to fantastic resources.

Brand new, this online book:  Tree of Nature: the essence of nature is information & communication.  From the Science-Meets-Philosophy Forum of Trans Tech Publications, this will give you something to ponder over Winter Term.

From the concluding commentary by David J. Fisher:

"Fred Wöhlbier’s theory [of the universe] is of an entirely different order and possesses the great virtue of being completely in accord with accepted scientific truths, while requiring no technical knowledge on the part of the reader beyond that needed for the everyday understanding of information technology. Indeed, this is the very message of the book: that the universe is an expression of the tenets of IT." 

CLOSED this morning, due to extreme cold

The college campus is closed this morning.  The Science Library will open at 1pm for our afternoon hours of 1-4:30pm.  The Main Library in Mudd Center is open from 8am-8pm today.  Stay warm!

Winter Term Looks the Part

The onslaught of snow and frigid temperatures has kept traffic into the library at a minimum, but we expect that to change as Winter Term gets a firmer footing on Monday. The storm promised for Sunday may bury these abandoned bicycles completely! Lunching at the picnic tables is just a fond memory for now.

Are Hackers Using Your Laptop Microphone and Speakers? Sneaky.

Disconcerting news just received from the American Institute of Physics (AIP) InsideScience News Service [via insidescience@aip.org]

Computers Can Be Hacked Using High-Frequency Sound

A computer's microphone and speakers can covertly send and receive data.
By: Ker Than, ISNS Contributor
Inside Science News Service  December 11, 2013

(ISNS) -- Using the microphones and speakers that come standard in many of today's laptop computers and mobile devices, hackers can secretly transmit and receive data using high-frequency audio signals that are mostly inaudible to human ears, a new study shows. (continue to full article text)

Everything That Lives Will Die

With these stark words begins a musing on a fundamental fact of life: not every person dies at the same age and there is wild variation in length of life among different species.  A giant fungus in Michigan has been alive since the Ice Age, while a dragonfly lives just four months, and a mayfly perishes within a few hours.  What accounts for these differences?  Read about it in:
The Long and the Short of It: the science of life span and aging / Jonathan Silvertown.

Also on the new book shelf:  Beyond the God Particle, by Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman with Christopher Hill. They write:  "While most scientists expected a vast assortment of new discoveries, new 'super' particles, and bizarre new forces [from work conducted on the European Large Hadron Collider], all we have so far is the single Higgs boson.  The discovery, while important, has resulted in even more questions, the main one being, Who ordered the God Particle, and what is it telling us?"

Fascinating reading in these and other new books just received.

Nelson Mandela's legacy for science and medicine in Africa

Nelson Mandela's influence on human advancement and social development is incalculable in this small space, and millions of people will mourn his death for some time to come.  I will highlight just one achievement that may not be immediately celebrated in the countless remembrances that will be written and shared:  the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST).

"The Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Arusha is one in a network of Pan-African Institutes of Science and Technology located across the continent. These institutes, which are the proud brainchild of Nelson Mandela, envision to train and develop the next generation of African scientists and engineers with a view to impacting profoundly on the continent’s development through the application of science, engineering and technology." (NM-AIST About Us)

Our condolences to all who loved President Mandela.  May his legacy inspire all of us and many future generations to live our lives so that others might also thrive.

Stardust and Our Once and Future Planet

December is a month for looking back and looking ahead.  Several new books in today's shipment will help you do just that:  looking very far back, to the beginning of time, as well as considering future possibilities for scientific research.

Here are a few titles to entice you to stop by and gather food for thought, to balance food for feasting in the holiday season.

The Cosmic-Chemical Bond: chemistry from the big bang to planet formation
The Earth as a Cradle for Life: the origin, evolution, and future of the environment
The Stardust Revolution: the new story of our origin in the stars
Time, Space, Stars & Man: the story of the big bang

Don't get so lost in the past that current challenges are overlooked, however!  In particular:

The Science of Crime Scenes
A Piece of the Sun: the search for fusion energy
Groundwater for the 21st Century
Should We Eat Meat?
Our Once and Future Planet: restoring the world in the climate change century.