Women in British science, new research

This video from Ireland says about itself:

Reflections on women in science; diversity and discomfort: Jocelyn Bell Burnell at TEDxStormont

Apr 4, 2013

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell inadvertently discovered pulsars as a graduate student in radio astronomy in Cambridge, opening up a new branch of astrophysics — work recognised by the award of a Nobel Prize to her supervisor. She is now a Visiting Professor in Oxford.

From Kingston University in London, England:

Unearthing the hidden women of science and inspiring the next generation

08 May 2013

A group of historians and scientists is about to embark on a major project to scrutinise the role of British women in science. It will focus on finding and assessing the careers of scientific women who may not have received credit or recognition for their work. The £33k project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and run jointly by Kingston University, University of Liverpool, the Royal Society and the Rothschild Archive London, aims to examine how women were involved in scientific societies between the years 1830 to 2012 and look at how that can inform policy today.

It will involve the establishment of a network of academics to gain a better understanding of how historical perspectives might impact future education policy making. Recent statistics show that only a third of science, technology, engineering and maths students in Britain are female and just 11 per cent of senior positions in science are held by women.

“Women’s unequal participation in science subjects at all levels, both in education, academia and in industry, is currently receiving close attention from policy makers, educationalists and social commentators,” project leader Dr Susan Hawkins, a senior history lecturer from Kingston University, said. “Part of the purpose of our work will be to closely examine data on women in science in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The hope is that by looking at women’s relationship with science in the past, we can pinpoint ways to encourage young women to participate more fully in the subject.”

There was a wealth of historical information which could open a window into the past but it was often dispersed across different archives, Dr Hawkins, who originally trained as a scientist, explained. “Through the network we hope to identify where these archives are and what revelatory material they may contain.” Part of the project will involve a shadowing scheme which will allow researchers studying the history of science to spend time alongside a female scientist in the laboratory, gaining an understanding of how science works today and the challenges faced by women in the field.

The network will be organised around a series of events, including three workshops, a two-day international conference to be held at the Royal Society in May 2014 and an exhibition open to the public. The first workshop will aim to identify archives that may contain information on women in science. It will concentrate on two groups of women – those whose work was recognised by the scientific community of their time and those who, despite producing work of high standard, were not. “The intention is to look at the characteristics that link the two groups of women and also to find out what set them apart,” Dr Hawkins added. Another workshop will focus on identifying possible oral history projects.

“The final workshop will pull together the findings from the first two events and allow us to make recommendations to government on future projects to help increase female participation in science,” Dr Hawkins said.

The issue of the representation of women in science has dominated headlines in the media in recent months. According to a report in last month’s Independent newspaper, female professors account for 5.5 per cent in physics, 6 per cent in chemistry and maths and just 2 per cent in engineering. This has prompted growing calls for better representation of women in science both in universities and in industry – a sentiment also echoed by Kingston University’s new Chancellor American playwright and author Bonnie Greer. “It is crucial that women continue to take up the study of science and maths as historically women have been kept out of these professions, so who knows what genius has been lost?” she said recently. “When you think of all the big problems that are out there waiting to be solved, every ounce of human intelligence is needed.”

Things were extremely tough for women in science in the past and they often did not receive proper recognition, according to Dr Hawkins. “It was a real struggle. For instance, the Royal Society didn’t accept female fellows until as late as 1945,” she said. “There were women in the scientific field but they really had to fight to be recognised, independent of any men they might have been working with.”

Guests from around the world will attend a launch event for the project at the International Congress for the History of Science Technology and Medicine to be held in Manchester in July.

Related articles

• For women in science, it’s still chilly out there (blogs.berkeley.edu)
• Science Center Launches Women in Science Program (connecticut.cbslocal.com)
• On Educating Women in the Sciences, Nature Magazine, 1871 (longstreet.typepad.com)
• New online debate over women and science (insidehighered.com)
• Have your say about science (irishtimes.com)
• Women love science – what a surprise! (independent.co.uk)

Arctic Ocean acid problems

From Mother Jones in the USA:

10 Key Findings From a Rapidly Acidifying Arctic Ocean

By Julia Whitty

Tue May 7, 2013 3:05 AM PDT

Polar bear on a remnant ice floe: Credit: Gerard Van der Leun at Flickr

As predicted by chemistry, change in the Arctic Ocean is accelerating as temperatures warm faster than the global average, as the sea ice melts, as northern rivers run stronger and faster, delivering more fresh water farther into the northernmost ocean, and as we continue blasting an ever increasing quantity of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The Arctic Ocean Acidification Assessment, a new report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), presents these 10 key findings:

1. Arctic marine waters are experiencing widespread and rapid ocean acidification. In the Nordic Seas, acidification is taking place over a wide range of ocean depths, from surface waters (faster) to deep waters (more slowly). Seawater pH has declined ~0.02 per decade since the late 1960s in the Iceland and Barents Seas. Other ocean acidification signals have also been encountered in surface waters of the Bering Strait and the Canada Basin of the central Arctic Ocean.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

2. The primary driver of ocean acidification is uptake of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere by human activities. The ocean has swallowed our atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions and slowed global warming during the past few critical decades while we dithered in disbelief. But the cost of temporarily delaying even more warming has been the increasing acidification of seawater. The average acidity of surface ocean waters worldwide is now ~30% higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

3. The Arctic Ocean is especially vulnerable to ocean acidification. Arctic rivers plus melting ice input huge (and increasing) amounts of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean, changing the chemistry and making it less effective at neutralizing CO2′s acidifying effects. Add the fact that cold waters slurp up more CO2 from the air. Add the fact that dramatic decreases in Arctic summer sea-ice cover—real and projected—allow for greater transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere into the ocean. These combined influences make Arctic waters among the world’s most easily acidified.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

4. Acidification is not uniform across the Arctic Ocean. Other processes influence the pace and extent of ocean acidification. Rivers, sea-floor sediments, and coastal erosion all supply organic material that bacteria can convert to carbon dioxide, exacerbating ocean acidification, especially on shallow continental shelves. Sea-ice cover, freshwater inputs, and plant growth and decay also influence local ocean acidification. The contributions of these processes vary from place to place, season to season, and year to year. The result is a complex, unevenly distributed, ever-changing mosaic of Arctic acidification states.

Brian Gratwicke at Flickr

5. Arctic marine ecosystems are highly likely to undergo significant change due to ocean acidification. Arctic marine ecosystems are generally characterized by short, simple food webs, where energy is channeled in just a few steps from small plants and animals to large predators like seabirds and seals. The integrity of such a simple structure depends greatly on keystone species. Pteropods (sea butterflies) and echinoderms (sea stars, urchins) are key food-web organisms that may be sensitive to ocean acidification. Too few data are presently available to assess the precise nature and extent of Arctic ecosystem vulnerability, as most biological studies have been undertaken in other ocean regions. Arctic-specific long-term studies are urgently needed.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

6. Ocean acidification will have direct and indirect effects on arctic marine life. Some marine organisms will respond positively to new conditions associated with ocean acidification. Others won’t. Experiments show that a wide variety of animals grow more slowly under the acidification levels projected for coming centuries. While some seagrasses appear to thrive under such conditions. Birds and mammals are not likely to be directly affected by acidification but may be indirectly affected if their food sources decline, expand, relocate, or otherwise change in response to ocean acidification. Ocean acidification may alter the extent to which nutrients and essential trace elements in seawater are available to marine organisms. Shell-building Arctic mollusks are likely to be negatively affected by acidification, especially at early life stages. Juvenile and adult fishes are thought likely to cope with acidification levels projected for the next century, but fish eggs and early larval stages may be more sensitive. In general, early life stages are more susceptible to direct effects of ocean acidification than later life stages.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

7. Ocean acidification impacts must be assessed in the context of other changes happening in Arctic waters. Arctic marine organisms are experiencing not only acidification but also other large simultaneous changes: climate change, harvesting, habitat degradation, and pollution. Ecological interactions—e.g. between predators and prey, or among competitors—also play an important role in shaping ocean communities. As different marine life responds to environmental change in different ways, the mix of plants and animals in a community will change, as will their interactions with each other. We don’t know much of anything about this yet.

NOAA Photo Library at Flickr

8. Ocean acidification is one of several factors that may contribute to alteration of fish species’ composition in the Arctic Ocean. Ocean acidification is likely to affect the abundance, productivity, and distribution of marine species. But the magnitude and direction of change are uncertain. Other processes driving Arctic change include rising temperatures, diminishing sea ice, and freshening surface waters.

Western Arctic National Parklands at Flickr

9. Ocean acidification may affect Arctic fisheries. Few studies have estimated the socio-economic impacts of ocean acidification on fisheries, and most have focused largely on shellfish and on regions outside the Arctic. The quantity, quality, and predictability of commercially important Arctic fish stocks may be affected by ocean acidification, but the magnitude and direction of change are uncertain. Fish stocks may be more robust to ocean acidification if other stresses—for example, overfishing or habitat degradation—are minimized.

missmonet at Flickr

10. Ecosystem changes associated with ocean acidification may affect the livelihoods of Arctic peoples. Marine species harvested by northern coastal communities include species likely to be affected by acidification. Most indigenous groups harvest a range of organisms and may be able to shift to a greater reliance on unaffected species, but these changes would likely exert a cultural toll. Recreational fish catches may change to different species. While marine mammals—important to the culture, diets and livelihoods of Arctic indigenous peoples and other Arctic residents—are unlikely to escape changes in the Arctic Ocean food web.

Related articles

• NEWS: Arctic Ocean “particularly vulnerable” to acidification: new report (nunatsiaqonline.ca)
• Scientists: Climate change causing Arctic Ocean to acidify at alarming rate (rawstory.com)
• Arctic faces further threat from ocean acidification (guardian.co.uk)
• Arctic Ocean ‘acidifying rapidly’ (bbc.co.uk)
• Acidification: the latest unknown for stressed Arctic ecosystem (reuters.com)
• Arctic Ocean acidifying from greenhouse gasses, study suggests (ctvnews.ca)
• The Rapidly-Acidifying Arctic Ocean Won’t Return to Normal for Thousands of Years (motherboard.vice.com)
• Scientists sound alarm at Arctic Ocean’s rapid acidification (terradaily.com)

Poison discovery in lipstick

This video from the USA says about itself:

12 March 2012

A chemical analysis of 400 popular lipstick brands, conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has found that all the lipsticks contained lead, a toxic metal linked to severe health problems. The agency says the lead levels are so low that the products are safe, but health groups insist there is no safe level. Producer Zulima Palacio has more.

By Emily Sohn:

Toxic Metals Found In Lipstick

May 2, 2013 12:01 AM ET

In chemical testing on commonly used lipsticks and lip glosses, researchers found toxic metals at levels that could possibly lead to health problems.

For the study, published today (May 2) in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers measured levels of lead, aluminum, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, manganese, nickel and titanium in 32 kinds of lipstick and lip gloss commonly used by young Asian women in Oakland, Calif.

Lead showed up in 75 percent of the samples, with half of those at concentrations exceeding the United States Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recommended maximum allowable level in candies that are consumed by young children. Levels of lead weren’t high enough to be of concern for adults, but children sometimes play with makeup, the researchers said, and no level of lead is considered safe for kids.

When the researchers looked at how much lipstick people tend to ingest during routine use, they found that regular application of some of the products would lead to excessive consumption of chromium, cadmium, aluminum and manganese.

Cadmium and chromium are known human carcinogens. Excessive exposure to manganese can cause neurological problems as can exposure to lead.

The FDA does not regulate metals in cosmetic products. But, the new study suggests, maybe it should.

“Our study was small, using lip products that had been identified by young Asian women in Oakland,” said lead author Sa Liu, of the University of California, Berkeley, in a press release. “But, the lipsticks and lip glosses in our study are common brands available in stores everywhere. Based upon our findings, a larger, more thorough survey of lip products — and cosmetics in general — is warranted.”

Related articles

• Study: Some lipsticks, lip glosses contain toxic metals (wgntv.com)
• Toxic metals and cancer risks found in lipsticks, lip glosses (cbsnews.com)
• Lipsticks And Lip Glosses Contain Toxic Metals (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Alarming Levels of Toxic Metals Detected in Popular Lipsticks (counselheal.com)
• Lipstick, glosses contain toxic chemicals: Keep kids away, researchers say (examiner.com)
• Poison lips? Troubling levels of toxic metals found in cosmetics (yubanet.com)
• Troubling levels of toxic metals found in lipstick (eurekalert.org)
• Is Your Lipstick Safe? High Levels Of Toxic Metals Found in The Popular Cosmetic (latinospost.com)

BP oil still polluting Gulf of Mexico

This video from the USA is called BP, Beyond Pollution.

From Nature:

Dirty blizzard buried Deepwater Horizon oil

One-third of oil from 2010 spill may be mixed with sea-floor sediments.

Mark Schrope

26 January 2013

Scientists say large amounts of oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill may have ended up on the sea floor.

Missing oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill may have ended up at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 spewed more than 600 million litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. While microbes processed the vast majority within months, US government assessments failed to account for the fate of about one-quarter of the spilled oil.

Some scientists attending the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana this week are now saying that as much as one-third of the oil may have been mixed with deep ocean sediments through a phenomenon dubbed the dirthy bathtub, and dragged to the bottom by another process called the dirty blizzard. The oily sediments risk causing significant damage to ecosystems, they say, and might even affect commercial fisheries in the future.

Perfect storm

Rebekka Larson, a sedimentary geologist at Eckerd College in St Petersberg, Florida, presented data showing that at many sites, plankton and other surface material were raining down at least ten times faster than normal, often leaving a telltale darker layer on the sea floor. Jeff Chanton, a geochemist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, thinks that the oil acted as a catalyst for particles to clump together and fall to the bottom on a massive scale, creating a ‘dirty blizzard’. This fit with reports from researchers that during the spill, layers of water that would normally be cloudy with suspended plankton instead appeared totally transparent — except for strings of aggregated particles falling to the bottom. “There’s something about that oil that just sucks everything out of the surface,” says Chanton.

Uta Passow, a biological oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Barbara, offered hints about what that something might be. She presented lab experiments showing that weathered oil collected from the Deepwater Horizon site causes particles to clump together, whereas fresh oils do not. Passow’s lab is now exploring whether the effect is due to chemical transformation of the oil on its path to the surface or some bacterial effect.

Dark water

The dirty blizzard may have gotten dirtier as it rained down. Researchers at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science in St Petersburg, led by chemical oceanographer David Hollander, described a ‘dirty bathtub’ effect in which diffuse oil, suspended in a water layer at depths of more than 1,000 metres, contaminated sediments as deep currents moved it around the Gulf. Hollander said this week that, taken together, the dirty bathtub and dirty blizzard may have sent up to 30% of the spilled oil to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. “We can debate about how to delineate it, but the material is there,” he says.

Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science in Cambridge and a member of a commission assembled by the US government to investigate the spill, is not convinced by this figure. “I find it hard to believe,” he says, noting that oil concentrations measured in most sediments have been small. But Hollander says that the spill affected such a wide area that small concentrations might add up to huge amounts of oil.

Sediment contamination could be troublesome for commercially fished species such as tilefish, which live in deep waters and not only eat worms and other animals found in the sediment, but also burrow into the sediment, mixing it up, says Steve Murowski, a University of South Florida fisheries biologist who collaborates with Hollander. Tracey Sutton, an ichthyologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point, says that the ecological effects could get worse with time. ”The long-term effects, we’re not going to see yet.”

Nature
doi:10.1038/nature.2013.12304

Minor oil spills are often bigger than reported. Remote imaging finds official number of Gulf of Mexico slicks is correct, but size not always is: here.

Britain: BP drivers stage strike to save their pensions: here.

Related articles

• BP oil’s toxic ‘clean-up’ (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• The Science of the BP Oil Spill (wkrg.com)
• Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic (sciencedaily.com)
• Disperant Made BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill 52 Times More Toxic (treehugger.com)
• Environment: New study shows dispersant makes oil up to 52 times more toxic to Gulf of Mexico microorganisms (summitcountyvoice.com)
• BP Suspended By EPA From New Contracts With Federal Government (huffingtonpost.com)
• BP Oil Spill Class-action Claims – Filing a Claim and Making Presentment (prweb.com)

How Canadian beetles survive winter

From Biology News Net:

Dance of water molecules turns fire-colored beetles into antifreeze artists

January 2, 2013 02:35 PM

Certain plants and animals protect themselves against temperatures below freezing with antifreeze proteins.

How the larva of the beetle Dendroides canadensis manages to withstand temperatures down to -30 degrees Celsius is reported by an international team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Martina Havenith from the Department of Physical Chemistry II at the Ruhr-Universität in the journal PNAS.

Together with American colleagues, the RUB-researchers showed that interactions between the antifreeze proteins and water molecules contribute significantly to protection against the cold. Previously, it was assumed that the effect was only achieved through direct contact of the protein with ice crystals. The team obtained the results through a combination of terahertz spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations.

Related articles

• Dance of water molecules turns fire-coloured beetles into antifreeze artists (nanowerk.com)
• As climate warms, bark beetles march on high-elevation forests (sciencedaily.com)
• Climate Change Will Lead To Insect Numbers Growing Substantially And Tree Deaths Rising Significantly (planetsave.com)
• Robin Rowland: Pine Beetles’ Move Up Threatens Western Forests: Study (huffingtonpost.ca)

Iraq war infant birth defects

This video is called Cancer Birth Defects, Depleted Uranium, 2012, Fallujah, Iraq, Europe.

By Eric London:

US munitions cause spike in Iraqi infant birth defects

27 December 2012

Though it has been nearly a decade since the beginning of the US-led invasion of Iraq, a report from the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology released in September reveals the devastating impact that the war is continuing to have on the Iraqi people—particularly Iraqi infants.

According to the study, titled “Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities,” the Iraqi cities of Basra and Fallujah are experiencing an exponential rise in birth defects, allegedly caused by the use of depleted uranium ammunition by the United States and British invasion forces.

The German-based Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology survey reported that half of the infants it surveyed who were born between 2007 and 2010 were born with a birth defect. This figure was less than 2 percent before 2000. In Basra, the southern Iraqi city and site of a massive bombing campaign undertaken at the start of the invasion in March and April 2003, the birth defect rate was 17 times higher than before the 2003 invasion.

“Some [infants] had only one eye in the forehead. Or two heads. One had a tail like a skinned lamb. Another one looked like a perfectly normal child, but with a monkey’s face. Or the girl whose legs had grown together, half fish, half human,” Basra children’s cemetery owner Askar Bin Said told Der Spiegel.

Chemist Chris Busby, the co-author of two studies on the subject, told the Guardian that Fallujah is experiencing “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.”

Hair sample studies performed in 2010 by Bulletin researchers revealed that lead levels were five times higher in Fallujah children than in other children. Mercury levels were six times higher. Diagnosed cases of hydrocephalus, or “water in the brain,” are six times higher in Basra children than in children from the United States. Basra is also experiencing the highest ever rate of spina bifida, or “open back disease.” In total, over 45 percent of pregnancies ended in miscarriage between 2004 and 2006.

Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a lead author of the report and an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, told the Independent that “the massive and repeated bombardment of these cities is clearly implicated here. I have no knowledge of any alternative source of metal contamination in these areas.”

According to Dr. Savabieasfahani, there is now a “footprint of metal in the population” and “compelling evidence linking the staggering increases in Iraqi birth defects to neuro-toxic metal contamination following the repeated bombardments of Iraqi cities.”

Moreover, the data reported by the study was most likely an “underestimate,” according to Dr. Savabieasfahani, on account of many parents’ attempts to hide their children’s defects from public view.

The unprecedented health crisis facing the bombed-out targets of American imperialism is apparently the result of the use of “depleted uranium” ammunition used by the United States and British armed forces during the invasion and occupation. “DU” ammunition contains alloys or cores made of depleted uranium. The added density the uranium gives to projectiles allows bullets and shells to pierce bodies and metal with increased facility.

When the ammunition explodes or hits a target, it releases a chemical dust that is inhaled or permeates through the skin of its victim.

In other words, the advanced weaponry utilized by the US with the express goal of facilitating the destruction of Iraqi towns and cities has achieved its goal: local populations will quite literally be feeling the pain of the invasion for generations to come. Infants born even after the public “withdrawal” of invasion troops are killed as a result of the impact of the invasion on young Iraqi mothers and fathers.

“The war is to blame. The pollution. There were many bombs in our neighborhood,” said Sabra Salman, the mother of a 10 year-old child with cancer, to Der Spiegel.

Mohammad Haider, a Basra parent of a deformed child, also told Der Spiegel that he and his wife “both grew up in Basra. I hold the United States responsible. They used DU. My child isn’t an isolated case.”

Related articles

• Depleted Uranium Receives More Attention (sgtreport.com)
• High rates of birth defects in Iraq, where depleted uranium was used (nuclear-news.net)
• “After the Fire, the Fire Still Burns”: Horror Goes on for Victims of Iraq War Atrocities (truth11.com)
• Fallujah: the forgotten scandal of babies affected by depleted uranium (nuclear-news.net)

Australian termites used for finding gold

This video is called Didgeridoo Pete at a Cathedral Termite Mound Australia.

From Australian Geographic magazine:

Scientists use termites to find gold

By Alyce Taylor

December-24-2012

Researchers are using termites to find precious metals beneath Australia’s landscape.

CSIRO RESEARCHERS ARE USING termites to track gold and other precious mineral deposits.

“A lot of Australia’s landscape is covered by a layer of material that is capping and hiding resources, so we are using termites to help see beneath that. Because they construct their nests, in part, with material which is a little bit deeper down,” says Dr Aaron Stewart, a CSIRO researcher.

Aaron is the lead author of the paper, which was published last month in the journal Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis. The paper suggests the future of resource exploration could lie in tracking insects.

Termite mounds contain signs of gold

Termites and ants burrow into the depth of the ground where ‘fingerprints’ of underlying gold deposits are found. The insects bring traces of these fingerprints up to the surface when making their nests.

Large termite mounds in Northern Australia and Africa have previously been used in mineral exploration. But by studying termite sites in Western Australia the CSIRO research team has shown that smaller nests, which are common throughout Australia, are just as valuable in identifying gold deposits.

“Our recent research has shown that small ant and termite mounds that may not look like much on the surface are just as valuable in finding gold as the large African mounds that stand at several meters tall,” says Aaron.

Termites could be used to mine other precious metals

In the future insects could be used commercially by mining companies to determine the location of gold and other mineral deposits, according to scientists. The technique could present an environmentally-friendly alternative to invasive drilling methods.

“By developing these methods it will make life much easier for exploration companies working in areas with a lot of transported sediment cover,” says Dr Ravi Anand, who co-authored the paper. “It will also cut down the cost of exploration.”

“We haven’t demonstrated that we can use termites to find other mineral resources yet,” says Aaron. “But in principle, there is no reason why we can’t.”

Mineral resources make up $86.7 billion of Australia’s exports and new discoveries in many commodities are needed to sustain production, which pushes pioneering exploration research.

One should hope that exploiting the gold and other metals found by the termites and ants will happen without mercury or other stuff poisoning the environment of those termites and other wildlife, as happens often in gold digging.

Related articles

• Termites strike gold (csironewsblog.com)
• Termites act as tiny miners, lead humans to gold (arstechnica.com)
• CSIRO says thar’s gold in them thar ant hills! (abc.net.au)
• Gold-Digging Termites Concentrate Minerals in Bodies and Nests (theepochtimes.com)
• Termites act as tiny miners, lead humans to gold (wired.co.uk)
• Strike it Rich With Termites (neatorama.com)
• Thar’s gold in them thar termite nests! (msnbc.msn.com)
• Termite Mounds Can Help Reveal Location of Gold Deposits (sciencespacerobots.com)
• Let Termites find Gold Deposits for us! (mining.com)

Snowflake chemistry

This video says about itself:

The Chemistry of Snowflakes – Bytesize Science

The video tracks formation of snowflakes from their origins in bits of dust in clouds that become droplets of water falling to Earth. When the droplets cool, six crystal faces form because water molecules bond in hexagonal networks when they freeze.

It explains that ice crystals grow fastest at the corners between the faces, fostering development of the six branches that exist in most snowflakes. As snowflakes continue to develop, the branches can spread, grow long and pointy, or branch off into new arms. As each snowflake rises and falls through warmer and cooler air, it thus develops its own distinctive shape.

Produced by the American Chemical Society.

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BP oil’s toxic ‘clean-up’

This video is called Inside Story Americas: Environment still engulfed by BP’s oil spill.

From Wildlife Extra:

Oil spill treatment may make the pollution much worse

Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic

December 2012. If the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill was an ecological disaster, the two million gallons of dispersant used to clean it up apparently made it even worse – 52-times more toxic.

That’s according to new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico.

The study found that mixing the dispersant with oil increased toxicity of the mixture up to 52-fold over the oil alone. In toxicity tests in the lab, the mixture’s effects increased mortality of rotifers, a microscopic grazing animal at the base of the Gulf’s food web.

Rotifers

Using oil from the Deep Water Horizon spill and Corexit, the dispersant required by the Environmental Protection Agency for clean up, the researchers tested toxicity of oil, dispersant and mixtures on five strains of rotifers. Rotifers have long been used by ecotoxicologists to assess toxicity in marine waters because of their fast response time, ease of use in tests and sensitivity to toxicants. In addition to causing mortality in adult rotifers, as little as 2.6 percent of the oil-dispersant mixture inhibited rotifer egg hatching by 50 percent. Inhibition of rotifer egg hatching from the sediments is important because these eggs hatch into rotifers each spring, reproduce in the water column, and provide food for baby fish, shrimp and crabs in estuaries.

Dispersants are poorly understood

“Dispersants are preapproved to help clean up oil spills and are widely used during disasters,” said UAA’s Roberto-Rico Martinez, who led the study. “But we have a poor understanding of their toxicity. Our study indicates the increase in toxicity may have been greatly underestimated following the Macondo well explosion.”

Martinez performed the research while he was a Fulbright Fellow at Georgia Tech in the lab of School of Biology Professor Terry Snell. They hope that the study will encourage more scientists to investigate how oil and dispersants impact marine food webs and lead to improved management of future oil spills.

Crude oil may be less harmful than the dispersants

“What remains to be determined is whether the benefits of dispersing the oil by using Corexit are outweighed by the substantial increase in toxicity of the mixture,” said Snell, chair of the School of Biology. “Perhaps we should allow the oil to naturally disperse. It might take longer, but it would have less toxic impact on marine ecosystems.”

The findings are published online by the journal Environmental Pollution and will appear in the February 2013 print edition.

See also here.

Related articles

• Study: Dispersant Made Oil 50 Times More Toxic To Gulf Of Mexico Microorganisms (thinkprogress.org)
• Disperant Made BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill 52 Times More Toxic (treehugger.com)
• BP Clean-Up Made Oil Spill 52 Times Worse (medicaldaily.com)
• Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic (eurekalert.org)
• For tiny critters, Gulf spill clean-up kills (futurity.org)
• Gulf of Mexico clean-up makes 2010 spill 52-times more toxic (esciencenews.com)

New Mars research

This video says about itself:

Unlike previous rovers to Mars, Curiosity is a robot chemist seeking evidence of past habitability on Mars.

See also here.

ScienceDaily (July 27, 2012) — Debate over the origin of large-scale polygons (hundreds of meters to kilometers in diameter) on Mars remains active even after several decades of detailed observations. Similarity in geometric patterns on Mars and Earth has long captured the imagination. In this new article from GSA Today, geologists at The University of Texas at Austin examine these large-scale polygons and compare them to similar features on Earth’s seafloor, which they believe may have formed via similar processes: here.

Mars landing live blog: here.