And the Winners Are... Globie Awards Announced by Environmental Defense

From Environmental Defense:

We're pleased to announce the winners of the first-ever Global Warming Globie Awards.

Based on the votes from more than 20,000 online supporters, we've chosen the best and worst global warming performances - from public officials to corporate leaders.

Their actions in recent years - from promoting solutions to obstructing real action - got them nominated. But your votes determined the winners.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels narrowly edged ahead of California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by fewer than 30 votes, for spearheading a national effort to organize America's cities to cut carbon dioxide pollution 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. The "U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement" has been signed by 393 mayors representing over 57 million Americans.

View the rest of the winners.

Wikipedia: Knowledge to the People. An Interview With the Founder.

New Scientist, February 3-9, 2007 (vol. 193, no. 2589) features an interview with Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales, founder of Wikipedia. It offers insight into the amazing growth and popularity of this collaborative enterprise, and touches on plans for the search engine [search.wikia.com].

This issue of New Scientist is now on display with other journals received this week. The exclusive interview may be read online at newscientist.com.

newscientist.com also offers the Readers Q & A with Wikipedia founder.

image: from newscientist.com; Jimbo Wales during the interview.

Pimp Your Bookcart Contest Winners

One of the winners of the Pimp Your Book Cart contest, @ Overdue Media, creators of the Unshelved comic strip.

This may seem far afield from science - but creativity is a huge part of any scientific endeavor (see C.M. Hall's essay on science and poetry on the wall across from the chemistry office), and these "pimped" book carts are nothing if not testimony to creativity, innovation, and technical expertise. So enjoy!

See all the winners and notable entries.

Feel inspired? Start planning now for next year's contest! We have a big red book cart that could definitely use a bit of imagination.

Science.gov Version 4.0 Launched

From a Science.gov press release dated Feb. 16, 2007

"At Science.gov, a single query can be launched across more than 50 million pages of government-sponsored science information and research results. Science.gov allows users to search the surface Web as well as the deep Web, where traditional search engines typically cannot go. The information is free and no registration is required.

"Hosted by the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) Science.gov is the gateway to reliable science and technology information from 16 organizations within 12 federal science agencies."

Huge Underground Lakes Discovered Beneath Rapidly Flowing Glaciers in Antarctica

From NPR.org Morning Edition:
"Researchers have discovered vast lakes under the ice in Antarctica, a find that could help scientists understand the rapid and currently unpredictable behavior of huge moving glaciers — called ice streams — that can influence global sea levels."

NPR correspondent Richard Harris interviews scientists who can help answer the question "how quickly might the earth's vast ice sheets melt, and quickly will sea level rise?"

Helen Fricker, Scripps Institution of Oceangraphy, and her colleagues report in an article soon to be published in Science that more than 145 underground lakes have been documented in Antarctica. Water in these lakes is moving rapidly from one lake to another and even out to sea, accelerating the flow of glaciers on the surface. Glaciers breaking off the continent into the Antarctic Ocean cause global increases in sea level. [listen to the story on Morning Edition]

Image from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Read the accompanying story on rifts in glaciers.

Library Closed Through Wednesday

Snow Closing Update: The college remains closed through Wednesday, with the exception of essential services for student dining, safety & security, the heating plant, etc. See Oberlin Oncampus for more info. Reserve materials due on Tuesday or Wednesday will not result in overdue fines if returned by 10 a.m. on Thursday. Questions? Email Alison Ricker or IM alisonricker (Yahoo or AOL). Thank you!

More snow art from Calvin. The "The Boogarious Baffoon" - by Bill Watterson.

Snow Emergency Declared - Library Closed

Due to the severe weather now and predicted to continue this evening, the college is closed. See the campus alert on Oberlin Oncampus. Reserve materials checked out this afternoon with due times after 2:30 p.m. may be kept overnight and returned to the library on Wednesday, February 14 - assuming we will be open for business by then!


Snow art by Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson)

Vote for the Best and Worst Preformances in the Fight Against Global Warming

From Environmental Defense:
GLOBAL WARMING GLOBIES

Vote for Globie Winners

Forget the red carpet - we're rolling out the green and announcing our first ever global warming Globie Awards.

Our nominees embody the best and worst performances in the fight against global warming.

And best of all, you get to choose who wins! Vote here.

Winners will be announced the Friday before the Oscars.

Study Carrels Available in the Science Library

Want a corner of the science library that's all yours? Sign up for a study carrel. Study carrel application

We have 30 carrels, where you are welcome to leave checked out books, papers, and other materials needed for research and study. No food, please, and beverages are allowed only in certain types of containers. Food & Drink policy.

Study carrels will be assigned February 12, after 3:30 p.m.

Listen to Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents

As reported by Timothy J. Crone and associates in PLoSOne, deep-sea hydrothermal vents produce a variety of sounds. Their recordings are "the first unambiguous field recordings showing that these vents radiate significant acoustic energy."

The Sound Generated by Mid-Ocean Ridge Black Smoker Hydrothermal Vents.
Timothy J. Crone, William S.D. Wilcock, Andrew H. Barclay, Jeffrey D. Parsons, School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America.

"Hydrothermal flow through seafloor black smoker vents is typically turbulent and vigorous, with speeds often exceeding 1 m/s. Although theory predicts that these flows will generate sound, the prevailing view has been that black smokers are essentially silent. The sounds contain a broadband component and narrowband tones which are indicative of resonance."

Listen to the audio files on T. J. Crone's web site @ Univ. of Washington School of Oceanography.

Small Brains, Big Fight: 'Hobbits' Called New Species

From Science news this week, by Michael Balter

This week, a research team presented new data in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that it says support the contention that a diminutive, small-brained hominid found on the Indonesian island of Flores truly represents a new species.

Read the news summary at www.sciencemag.org.

Read the research article at PNAS: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0609185104

“Green Budget” Calls for Restoration of Vital Conservation Program Funding

From The Wilderness Society, January 30, 2007 press release:

The nation’s leading environmental groups released the annual “Green Budget” for fiscal year 2008, calling on Congress and the president to restore adequate funding to protect public health and natural resources for the American people. Last year, the Bush administration tried to cut environmental spending by $4.3 billion -- 13 percent below FY 2006 levels.

Advocates say adequate funding for the programs listed in the Green Budget would provide critical resources to help combat global warming, clean the air, improve water quality and protect nature and wildlife.

Not Even Wrong. Peter Woit's view of superstring "theory"

From the book blurb: Wolfgang Pauli coined the phrase "not even wrong" to describe scientific theories or ideas that are "so incomplete that they could not even be used to make predictions to compare with observations to see whether they were wrong or not." Peter Woit, lecturer in the mathematics department of Columbia University, puts forth the view that superstring theory is such an idea, not a theory at all, because it offers no predictions and this "very lack of falsifiability is what has allowed the subject to survive and flourish."

Now on the new book shelf. Not Even Wrong.

See also Peter Woit's blog by the same title, which gives a handy link to book reviews.

Subject searches in OBIS on string models and superstring result in a number of relevant titles.

Dialogue, Not Diatribe: Collaboration in Science in Environment and BioScience

The January 2007 issues of Environment and BioScience, both on display in the science library, consider the essential need to dialogue in order to "advance cross-displinary research" (Eigenbrode, S.D., et al., BioScience 57(1): 55) and effectively integrate science and policy through "joint fact finding" (Karl, H.A., L.E. Susskind and K.H. Wallace, Environment 49(1): 20).

The critical need to refine communication among scientists in different disciplines and between scientists and policy makers, as well as scientists and the general public, and is further examined by AIBS President Douglas Futuyma in his editorial Science's Greatest Challenge (also in the January issue). Futuyma states, "The challenge that matters now is to make sure that science is taken seriously... can a pragmatic people not see that a scientific consensus is more trustworthy than the pronouncements of an industry-sponsored naysayer or a president untrained in biology or physics?" Toward this end, the AIBS will work with the National Academy of Sciences to make 2009 the "Year of Public Understanding of Science."

image: Environment 49(1): 20.

New Light on Ancient Worlds Through Geological Research

The January 2007 issues of Geotimes and Geology each feature icons of ancient civilizations on their covers. Odysseus, as memorialized in a museum located in the Villa of Tiberius, Sperlonga, Italy, draws the reader to the Geotimes report on "Finding Ithaca," the story of how geologists are helping to locate the possible real-world sites in Homer's epic poem Odyssey.

Geology pictures Pueblo Bonito, "the largest ruin at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico... The abandonment of dwellings by ancestral Americans, such as those at Chaco, may have been caused by sudden shifts in climate. Asmerom et al.* suggest that solar variability, via modulation of the tropical Pacific, may be the cause of Holocene climate change." Both journal issues are on the new journal display rack today.

*Asmerom, Y. V.Polyak, S.Burns, J.Rassmussen. Solar forcing of Holocene climate: new insights from a speleothem record, southwestern United States. Geology 35 (1): 1-4.

Novel Neuropeptides, Mass Spectrometry and Peptidomics in Analytical Chemistry, Jan. 1, 2007

Now on the science library's current journal display, and at the American Chemical Society publications site: Analytical Chemistry, Jan. 1, 2007:

MS applied to the discovery of novel peptides from the brain. Marcus Svensson, Karl Skold, Anna Nilson, Maria Falth, Katarina Nydahl, Per Svenningsson, and Per E. Andren.

"Per E. Andren and colleagues at Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institutet describe neuropeptidomics approaches in brain lysates and tissue section to study peptide expression in disease models and to identify potentially biological active neuropeptides."

The authors provide a helpful overview of neuropeptides (smallish proteins present throughout the nervous system) and the technology of visualizing and analyzing proteins with mass spectrometry. Wikipedia gives a handy definition of one of the techniques used by the researchers: MALDI MS.

Reverse Panspermia Considered in Sky & Telescope

In the January issue of Sky & Telescope, now on the science library's current journals display, Selby Cull describes the hypothetical journey of a bacteria-laden rock hurtling from Earth through space, propelled by a mighty asteroid-earth collision on the scale of the Chicxulub impact.

Speculation that endospores from bacteria billions of years old might survive such a journey and successfully colonize inhospitable surfaces found on Europa, Titon and Mars is not so far-fetched, says Cull. Take a break from your Winter Term activities and check out this issue, which also considers how black holes helped build the universe and includes marvelous photographs from the land rovers on Mars, Opportunity and Spirit. Selby Cull, editorial intern for Sky & Telescope in the summer of 2006, wrote the text accompanying the "Martian photo opportunity" in addition to the story of bacteria launched by asteroid impact.

The Power of Plagues - on the new book shelf

Our most recent shipment of new books includes The Power of Plagues by University of California, Riverside, biologist Irwin W. Sherman (ASM Press, Washington, DC, 2006). Sherman's book has been reviewed by several authors, notably Stephen Greenberg in JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association July 5, 2006, vol. 296, p. 101 (available in print in the science library), and by J. G. Rigau-Pérez in Emerging Infectious Diseases, online October 2006.

Dr. Greenberg notes that the strength of the book is the historical discussion of specific diseases, and that it should appeal to a "broad lay audience" as well as graduate students and advanced undergraduates in biology. Related works in the college library:

• Rats, Lice and History
• Plagues and Peoples
• The Coming Plague.

A Bit of Chemistry for Christmas

Thanks to a posting in Stephanie Bianchi's Sci-Tech Library Newsletter (National Science Foundation).

Kids may enjoy using chemistry to solve the “Christmas Cookie Mystery”

If you weary of the traditional, try caroling with song lyrics by chemists and physicists:

• Science Jokes: Chemistry Poetry
• Iona Prep Physics Christmas Carols
  
• Chemistry Carols
• Physics Carols
  

Michael Faraday started a series of Christmas lectures on chemistry in 1827. These lectures show that the relationship chemists have with Christmas is timeless. The Royal Institution still hosts Christmas lectures today.

Fossil Helps to Redraw the Mammalian Family Tree

From the current issue of Nature:

"Distant relatives of today's flying squirrels probably existed at least 135 million years ago; much earlier than anyone had suspected. That is the conclusion of a team of researchers led by Jin Meng, who have found the fossilized remains of a new species of mammal" (see Nature 14 December, p. 889).

Read the story behind the discovery of this ancient glider in inner Mongolia.