Science & the Public
Where scienceand society meet
- Humans
BP gusher left deep sea toxic for a time, study finds
In the early weeks after the damaged BP well began gushing huge quantities of oil and gas, a toxic brew was developing deep below the surface in plumes emanating from the wellhead. Finned fish and marine mammals probably steered well clear of the spewing hydrocarbons. But planktonic young — larval critters and algae that ride the currents — would have been proverbial sitting ducks.
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Red-yeast cholesterol fighters can be worthless
Manufacturers don’t report quantities of active ingredients, which can be next to nil, or the presence of fungal toxins.
- Humans
When to welcome ‘invading’ species
As climate changes, some environments are becoming hostile to the flora and fauna that long nurtured them. Species that can migrate have begun to move into regions where temperatures and humidity are more hospitable. And that can prove a conundrum for officials charged with halting the invasion of non-native species, notes Jon Jarvis, a biologist who for the past year has headed the National Park Service.
- Humans
GNP’s glaciers: Going, going . . .
Climate warming will eliminate them within a generation, data indicate.
- Animals
Wolverine: Climate warming threatens comeback
BLOG: New data point to unexpected sociability and filial behavior in carnivore.
- Health & Medicine
Pesticide in womb may promote obesity, study finds
One-quarter of babies born to women who had relatively high concentrations of a DDT-breakdown product in their blood grew unusually fast for at least the first year of life. Not only is this prevalence of accelerated growth unusually high, but it’s also a worrisome trend since such rapid growth during early infancy has — in other studies — put children on track to become obese.
- Earth
Warming is accelerating global water cycle
Fresh water evaporates from the oceans, rains out over land and then runs back into the seas. A new study finds evidence that global warming has been speeding up this hydrological cycle recently, a change that could lead to more violent storms. It could also alter where precipitation falls — drying temperate areas, those places where most people now live.
- Health & Medicine
Pernicious influences on dietary choices
Because humanity developed during eons of cyclical feasts and famines, we survived by chowing down on energy-dense foods whenever they became available. Today that's all the time. But a number of recent studies point to additional, less obvious influences on what and how much we choose to eat.
- Health & Medicine
Few Americans eat right
The Institute of Medicine periodically issues recommendations on what people should eat to be healthy and maintain a reasonable weight. Americans have largely ignored this well-intentioned advice, a new study shows. It reports that “nearly the entire U.S. population consumes a diet that is not on par with recommendations.”
- Earth
Contemplating an Arctic oil spill
The waters off northern Alaska may be “the largest oil province in the United States” after the Gulf, notes Edward Itta, a native of Barrow, Alaska. He is also mayor of the North Slope Borough, an 88,000-square-mile jurisdiction that runs across the upper part of the state. And in a September 27 videoconference with the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, he tried to impress upon the commissioners just how remote his neck of the tundra is.
- Chemistry
BP oil: Gulf sediment at risk, oceanographer claims
Most of BP’s spilled oil remains in the Gulf — with little sign of degrading, according to Ian MacDonald of Florida State University. And much of this surviving oil could be in sediment or on its way there, the scientist reported at a September 27 meeting in Washington, D.C.
- Tech
Poor initial Gulf spill numbers did ‘not impact’ response
In the early weeks after the catastrophic blowout of the deep-water well in the Gulf of Mexico this spring, BP — the well’s owner — provided the government dramatically low estimates of the flow rate of oil and gas into the sea. Did telling Uncle Sam and the public that the flow rate was 1,000 barrels per day and later 5,000 barrels per day — when the actual rate was closer to 50,000 to 65,000 barrels per day — affect the spill’s management?
