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.

Is that print copy so important?

I was about to print this notice, perhaps in multiple copies on colored paper in an eye-catching font, to place strategically around the public workstations.  The irony of doing so stopped me.  Hopefully, you also will give careful thought before you use more energy, paper and print supplies.

Reported by the Center for Information Technology, November 25:

"Since the start of the semester on August 27th, Oberlin College has printed 745,885 pages. That's 5.58 trees consumed, 2,022.1 kg of CO2 produced, and 127,319 equivalent bulb hours used."

Presumably, that's just the printing done at public printers, and doesn't take into account the reams of paper used in offices.

Yikes.  It's especially worrisome when we see large number of printouts left behind on the printer.  They couldn't have been that important, eh?

Some lines you've not heard before

Snippets of paragraphs from new books received November 5.  They speak for themselves. Come read!

Over 1000 seals were dying in year as a result of marine debris entanglement [from off-shore fishing practices] in Australian waters.
Fur seals and sea lions.

This minuscule angle would be formed by drawing lines from the top and bottom of Lincoln's eye on a penny in New York and have them come to an apex in Paris. Dreams of other worlds.

The phyla were, after all, born in the sea, and so, if we want to see them, to the sea we must return.  Telling our way to the sea.

There is a full-fledged moral economy of inaction to ensure that our response to climate change and energy scarcity falls short of what is required. The future is not what is used to be.

Need we be paralyzed by the existence of limitations to our ability to gain fully accurate knowledge?  Absolutely not.  The why of things.

Indeed, our self-concept is defined in large measure by how the self fits into not one but many groups of other human beings.  The making of the mind.

Upon stepping out of my tent around midnight for relief from the sauna-like atmosphere, I found the group alive with scorpions... the place was seething with them, with barely room enough to place a foot between the pale, translucent bodies.  Chasing kangaroos.

The sound of dozens of hoofs hitting the road rippled towards us like thunder, and then in a flash the herd burst around the corner.  Consumed: food for a finite planet.

What kind of fundamental theory of particle physics is it that can't predict the masses of its constituent elementary particles?  Farewell to reality.

A Flurry of Publications by Faculty and Students

The following publications were recently indexed in the Web of Knowledge.  Oberlin faculty, staff and students are indicated in bold font.

Getschow C. M., P. Rivers, S. Sterman, D. C. Lumpkin, and K. A. Tarvin. 2013. Does gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) response to heterospecific alarm calls depend on familiarity or acoustic similarity? Ethology 119:983-992. [OhioLINK EJC] also @ Wiley Online Library.

Goderis S., B. M. Simonson, I. McDonald, S. W. Hassler, A. Izmer, J. Belza, H. Terryn, F. Vanhaecke, and P. Claeys. 2013. Ni-rich spinels and platinum group element nuggets condensed from a Late Archaean impact vapour cloud. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 376:87-98. [OhioLINK EJC]

Grether, G.F., C. N. Anderson, J. P. Drury, A. N. G. Kirschel, N. Losin, K. Okamoto, K.S. Peiman.  2013.  The evolutionary consequences of interspecific aggression. in
Year in Evolutionary Biology.  Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1289 48-68.

Hinckley T. M., P. Chi, K. Hagmann, S. Harrell, A. H. Schmidt, L. Urgenson, and Z. Zeng. 2013. Influence of human pressure on forest resources and productivity at stand and tree scales: The case study of Yunnan pine in SW China. Journal of Mountain Science 10:824-832. [OhioLINK EJC]

MacInnes M., S. Kozimor, K. Boland, and J. Rowsell. 2013. Dithiophosphinates as an approach to the separation of actinides and lanthanides. Abstracts of Papers of the American Chemical Society 245.

Oertel C. M., C. C. Easterday, L. R. Dedon, and M. Zeller. 2013. Chiral inorganic motifs in two polymorphs of hydrothermally synthesized Pb2O(C6H5COO)(2). Abstracts of Papers of the American Chemical Society 245.

Free Access to Elsevier Publications of 2013 Nobel Prize Winners

Scientific publisher Elsevier is providing free access to Elsevier-published research from the 2013 Nobel Laureates in the fields of Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. Thank you, Elsevier, for granting open access to a significant body of research.  Begin at the Elsevier Nobel tribute page.

elsevier.com

"Elsevier congratulates the 2013 Nobel Laureates and their prominent findings in the fields of Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. We feel honored to have had the opportunity to work with these remarkable scientists, either through publishing their ground-breaking work in our journals and books or in their role as editors, editorial board members and reviewers. In recognition of these extraordinary scholars, we have made a collection of their work, published with Elsevier, freely available."

Wally the crawler in fizzy Barkley Canyon

Science News, Oct. 19, 2013:  Real time monitoring of the seafloor in six underwater research stations connected to the Internet with fiber optic cables - this is the NEPTUNE observatory (Canada site).  Science News describes an amazingly broad research study of the biological, chemical, physical, geological and acoustical features of the ocean floor, including deployment of a robot named Wally that monitors methane bubbling up from a seafloor canyon more than 850 meters deep.  This issue is on the current reading rack now, adjacent to the circulation desk.  Stop in and read more: the potential for massive tsunamis if too much methane is released all at once, due to warming waters or a change in pressure; video footage of a northern elephant seal slurping up a hagfish in one gulp; seismometer recordings of both whale songs and an earthquake; the vitality and dynamism of ocean ridges.  The NEPTUNE observatory involves scientists around the world and its "online viewing portal" may be accessed by anyone. See Interactive Oceans at Univ. of Washington (NEPTUNE U.S.).

.

"mostly our cities are a herp's worst nightmare" - John Marzluff

"This is what we are doing to the animals around us: we are pushing them out, running them over, isolating their populations, changing their sex, modifying their genes, making them mini-toxic waste sites, turning them into freaks, suppressing their immunity, changing their night into day, and stacking the deck in favor of non-native invasives." -- from Urban herpetology / edited by Joseph C. Mitchell, Robin E. Jung Brown, and Breck Bartholomew.  Forward by John M. Marzluff.

Over 100 authors, 40 chapters of research studies across most continents, 13 case studies and countless cited references make this a formidable tome: an urgent plea for conservation and a recognition that biological diversity and reasoned co-existence of humans with other species just as essential for a healthy urban environment as it is for a wilderness preserve.  On the new book shelf.

Eclectic collection in the new book area - thank you, Bruce Simonson

Mysteries of terra firma.

Thanks to donations from professor of geology Bruce Simonson, we have a very interesting array of books in the new book corner.  They represent just a few of the many overflowing boxes of  donated volumes that Bruce has carried into the library over the past several years, and they reflect a wide area of research and general interests.  From deep ocean life to objects in space, from mining astroids to deceitful practices of mining on earth, and solving the riddle of navigation for sea-going vessels (Edmond Halley's doing), these donations expand our collection in new directions. Fun and interesting reading, here!  See the new books list.

Theoretical chemists win Nobel Prize - combining different approaches into a cohesive methodology

The American Institute of Physics' Inside Science [written by Chris Gorski] does a wonderful job of explaining the significance of the work that led three scientists who collaborated in the United States to share in the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

"The prize goes jointly to Martin Karplus, 83, from the University of Strasbourg, in France, and Harvard University, Michael Levitt, 66, from Stanford University, and Arieh Warshel, 72, from the University of Southern California, 'for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems'."

I also liked Richard Harris' analogy, heard on NPR's Morning Edition, of a "chocolate and peanut butter" combination, to explain how blending quantum mechanics and "ball and stick type models" (i.e., classical mechanics) of chemistry have led to a transformation in our understanding of chemical reactions.

Nobel Prize Week! Great work rewarded, accolades all around.

Yesterday's announcement of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof "for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells," may have left you wondering what sort of machine is inside your cells.  The Nobel Prize press release explains it quite nicely: "Each cell is a factory that produces and exports molecules. For instance, insulin is manufactured and released into the blood and chemical signals called neurotransmitters are sent from one nerve cell to another. These molecules are transported around the cell in small packages called vesicles."  I especially appreciate the analogy to a busy port, with the challenges of traffic congestion, docking and timing handled by genes encoding specialized proteins and the aid of highly targeted neurotransmitters.  Incredible activity taking place inside us, every nanosecond!  It is worth noting that Schekman, a professor in the department of molecular and cellular medicine at the University of California at Berkeley, is editor in chief of eLife, an open-access, scientist-driven journal founded in 2011. Read more at Chronicle of Higher Education.

The work of the physicists lauded today, François Englert and Peter W. Higgs, is more familiar to the lay reader, given popular media attention to the Higgs boson.  Nobel Prize in Physics press release:  "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider."  Check out this book for some broader context: The infinity puzzle : quantum field theory and the hunt for an orderly universe / Frank Close.