|
2008-02-18, 10:25:26 "Imagine a gigantic, inflatable, sausage-like bag capable of storing 160 million tonnes of CO2..." Even if scientist David Keith's vision of these bags isn't as catchy as John Lennon's song, it could actually make a big difference in the world, by offering a way of ridding our atmosphere of carbon dioxide, the pesky greenhouse gas that's heating up the planet. He argues that these sausage-like bags could be cheaply filled with liquid CO2, then sunk to the sea floor where they'd stay (we hope) for a long time. This CO2 could be captured from coal-fired power plants or other sources, and preventing the gas from going into the atmosphere would keep it from worsening ongoing global warming. “There are a lot of gee-whiz ideas for dealing with global warming that are really silly,” said Keith, a professor at the University of Calgary. “At first glance this idea looks nutty, but as one looks closer it seems that it might technically feasible with current-day technology.” For it to work, you'd need to find placid spots on the ocean floor for the sausages to sit, where they won't get punctured. Keith believes the carbon sausages offer a viable solution because vast flat plains cover huge areas of the deep oceans. These abyssal plains have little life and are benign environments, according to a press release. “If you stay away from the steep slopes from the continental shelves, they are a very quiet environment," Keith says. The bags themselves could be cheap, Keith argues—with existing polymers, less than four cents per ton of carbon. But they'd still have to work out how to cheaply capture the CO2, and then compress it to a liquid form. "If we can drive those [costs] down,” Keith said, “then ocean storage might be an important option for reducing CO2 emissions." Link to Eurekalert press release |
|
|
2008-02-11, 13:41:38 Cowbirds can act like mobsters, asking for "favors"—or else. These birds aren't looking for a cash payoff, but are trying to get other birds to raise their young. The cowbirds lays their eggs in the nests of other bird species, and then come around to check on them later, to make sure the eggs are still there. If not, they'll trash the other birds' nests. (I covered these findings last year, in my article "Mafia Birds" Make Others Raise Their Young ... Or Else.") The cowbird chicks are rough on their nest-mates, emitting loud, high-pitched screeches so they get more attention—and more food—from the mother. But a new study shows that the other nestlings don't just sit and take this. Song sparrow chicks fight back, matching the cowbirds' screams, which makes sure they get as much attention as the cowbird chicks. So even though the cowbirds are still exploiting the other birds, at least the song sparrows are able to keep up. The parents may be getting stressed out by all the extra noise, though, since the researchers describe the parents as "harried." Here's the abstract of the study, which will appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Sheep in wolf’s clothing: host nestling vocalizations resemble their cowbird competitors Like cuckoos, cowbirds lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. Unlike in cuckoos, cowbird chicks do not hoist ‘host’ chicks out of the nest but instead attempt to outcompete them by emitting ear-splitting, high-pitch begging calls to monopolize their foster parent’s attention. Rather than quietly accepting this, we show that when with a cowbird, song sparrow chicks match the cowbird’s screams to get their parents to pay attention to them. This sheep in wolf’s clothing strategy seems to work because the harried parents do not neglect their own chicks. Until now host chicks have simply been seen as passive victims. Link
|
|
|
I got the message below by email, sent to my work account. Both times I've written a feature article on physics, at least a couple of crackpot wanna-be physicists have gotten in touch with me to seek help in promoting their new revolutionary theory. I can't tell if this message I got is some new genre of spam, or another misguided attempt at physics. Re: Kochab, probable supernova star, Ursa Minor.... Estimated time-line,
within 12 months....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Ursae_Minoris
According to some astronomers, the next supernova in our galaxy will be thousands of light-years distant, and it might be thousands of years before it happens....!
Details submitted to the advanced research group PEAR, Princeton University, has produced the first scientific verification of "psychic relativity" - i.e., the ability of "mind" to transcend space and time.
The theory in physics is called 'acausality' - simply meaning that unrelated events can come together to form "meaningful coincidences" - which, at times, can be interpreted....
Naturally the problem for human consciousness is accepting a greater reality, and making the necessary adjustments for our survival as a species. No easy task, considering all the belief systems, i.e., prejudices, etc.
Ref: Dr. Robert G. Jahn, former Dean, School of Applied Science, Princeton University.
Theory: Prof. W. Pauli, Nobel laureate-physics: "on the nature of transcendence."
Sincerely,
Todd Laurence
New York
"entelekk"
Fax: 718-515-0150
UPDATE: Todd Laurence seems to be a real person, or at least some kind of persona, who reviewed a Carl Sagan book on Amazon, and has a profile on Scitizen. This is kind of disappointing, because it's seeming more like the crackpot option was right. I was kind of looking forward to getting more random physics spam, though. I guess I'll just have to browse the titles of papers in the Arxiv; it has the same kind of feel as Todd's message. |
|
|
2008-01-09, 17:20:06  Grist has a nice chart summing up the presidential candidates' stances on the future of energy and how it will impact climate. Check it out here.
The most important part, as I see it, is the overall reduction in carbon dioxide emissions that the candidates are shooting for over the next several decades. According to this chart, all the viable Democrats—Clinton, Obama, and Edwards—have the same goals: putting in a cap-and-trade system and reducing the absolute amount of CO2 emissions to 80% below 1990 levels. To state it differently, that's about 20 times greater reduction than the Kyoto Protocol has called for from most countries (but the U.S. isn't a part of it). Or it means that by 2050, we would emit less one-fifth the amount of CO2 that we do now. Also, beware politicians, such as Bush, who talk about "carbon intensity." That means CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP. So in a growing economy like ours, CO2 intensity is going down, while the absolute amount of emissions is going up. Long before Bush came on the scene, CO2 intensity has been going down—that is, we squeeze more GDP out of a unit of energy now than we did in the past. What we need is a reversal of direction, where we ramp down the absolute amount of CO2 emissions. And we shouldn't forget about other greenhouse gases such as methane. Although these other gases won't affect climate nearly as much in the long run, in the short run, they may warm the world as much as carbon dioxide. What's more, it may be much easier to slash emissions of these other greenhouse gases, since they're not as central to the world's economies as CO2 emissions are. |
|
|
2008-01-09, 14:34:59 I've been feeling guilty about not doing enough to learn about presidental candidates' actual policies, ideas, and voting records. So I've been reading several websites that check up on claims the candidates are making to see whether their attacks really hit the mark, and whether they're representing their own records accurately. While this fact checking doesn't capture everything—I think it's important to have a president who's inspirational and has good judgment, not just good promises for policies—it's given me a lot more insight into the candidates than the relatively empty articles and newscasts you typically see. Here's my short list of sites providing this service: I'm hoping that reading these will help resolve a dilemma for me. Obama inspires me, but I wonder if he has enough substance. Many people think not, because he talks more about hope and change than about specific policies. But I suspect that's not because he's empty, but because he's taking a different tack. "The Fact Checker," a Washington Post blog, has an interesting post about "poetry" candidates vs "prose" candidates. They put Obama firmly in the poetry camp, and Clinton and Romney in the prose camp. |
|
|
