Linking offshore wind turbines together could help make wind energy more reliable, says a study published in the 5 April issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Despite abundant wind power resources offshore, wind turbines cannot provide a steady stream of power, due to changes and fluctuations in wind direction and strength. However, wind power output can be made more consistent if turbines are located in places that take advantage of regional weather patterns. Connecting wind power generators on a common power line also helps with regularity, researchers found.

Wind Turbine

“Making wind-generated electricity more steady will enable wind power to become a much larger fraction of our electric sources,” said lead author Willett Kempton, professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware in the US, and director of the Center for Carbon-free Power Integration.

The researchers studied five years of wind monitoring data from 11 stations along the American East Coast.They estimated output from a hypothetical five-megawatt offshore turbine. The team also explored the seasonal effects on power output.

“A north-south transmission geometry fits nicely with the storm track that shifts northward or southward along the U.S. East Coast on a weekly or seasonal time scale,” said researcher Brian Colle.

The researchers found that when a power line connected each site, the overall power output was evened out. Maximum or minimum output was rare.

Currently, no wind turbines are located in U.S. waters, although projects have been proposed.¹

Value of species status gauged with ‘biodiversity barometer’

Scientists have calculated that it would cost US$60m (£39m) to learn about the conservation status of millions of species, some that have not yet been identified.

Experts from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Conservation International published their article “The Barometer of Life” in Science. “Our knowledge about species and extinction rates remains very poor, and this has negative consequences for our environment and economy,” said Simon Stuart, chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.

Almost 48,000 species have been assessed on the IUCN Red List, costing about $4m (£2.6m) each year.

Only 1.9 million species have been identified in the world, though the estimated number of species is believed to be between 10 and 20 million.²

Climate funding tripled before financial crisis hit

Philanthropic donations for climate change initiatives grew threefold in 2008 from the previous year, according to a study conducted by the Foundation Center in New York.

Donations jumped from US$240m (£155.2m) in 2007 to $897m (£580m). The  top donor was the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, of printer manufacturer fame. The foundation gave almost $550m (£355.7m) to the ClimateWorks Foundation, which seeks to reduce emissions in the sectors with the highest carbon footprints.

The remaining 267 foundations gave a total of $348.7m (£225.6m)– a 45 per cent increase over the total value of donations in 2007.

The 2007 Design To Win report issued by California Environmental Associates states that charities will need to provide approximately $800m (£517.8m) annually to implement the necessary strategies to address climate change.  Since the financial crisis hit in late 2008, overall foundation funding has been strained, a trend the Foundation Center expects to continue through 2010.

Tortoises in trouble

Madagascar’s radiated tortoise may become extinct in the next 20 years, say biologists, due to exploitation for food and animal trafficking.

A team of biologists from the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) surveyed the country’s southern spiny forest. These surveys showed areas once abundant with tortoises now devoid of the species. Local residents also spoke of poachers taking away truckloads of tortoises for meat markets. Poaching camps, with the remains of thousands of radiated tortoises, were also found.

“The rate of hunting of radiated tortoises is similar to the hunting pressure on American bison during the early 19th century, where they were nearly hunted to extinction when they once numbered in the tens of millions,” said Brian D. Horne, turtle conservation coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Species Program.

1. Kempton, W., Pimenta, F., Veron, D., & Colle, B. (2010). Electric power from offshore wind via synoptic-scale interconnection Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (16), 7240-7245 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909075107
2. Stuart, S., Wilson, E., McNeely, J., Mittermeier, R., & Rodriguez, J. (2010). The Barometer of Life Science, 328 (5975), 177-177 DOI: 10.1126/science.1188606

One week before the delay of the Cryosat-2 mission launch, Tiffany Stecker interviews Duncan Wingham, lead scientist of the mission and researcher at University College London’s Center for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM).  Dr. Wingham discusses why a satellite like CryoSat-2 is important for studying polar ice sheets and ocean levels, the cost of launching the satellite and what this means in a time of growing doubt over climate research.

The case of the hermaphrodite chicken

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute in Scotland have found why some chickens appear to be male on one side of the body, and female on the other.

Photo credit: Darin Barry on Flickr

The research was carried out on birds with white (male) plumage on one side and brown (female) plumage on the other. Previously, experts thought that sex chromosomes in birds controlled the feather colours.

The researchers, however, found that colour may not be linked to chromosomes, but to differences between male and female cells that control the development of sexual traits, called cell autonomous sex identity (CASI).

The findings, published in the journal Nature, may also reveal why males and females exhibit different behaviour and susceptibility to disease.

Knowing the molecular differences between male and female cells could lead to better tests for sexing embryos prior to hatch, playing a part in improving poultry production.

“This research has completely overturned what we previously thought about how sexual characteristics were determined in birds,” said Michael Clinton, one of the researchers for the study. “We now believe that the major factors determining sexual development are built into male and female cells and derive from basic differences in how sex chromosome genes are expressed. Our study opens a new avenue for our understanding of sexual development in birds.”

The group will continue the study to investigate the molecular mechanisms responsible for the differences between male and female cells.¹

Schizophrenia-linked memory loss caused by low neurotransmitter levels

A deficiency in a brain chemical may be the reason why schizophrenia patients suffer from cognitive disorders like poor attention, memory loss and difficulties in solving problems. These disorders often accompany the symptoms more often associated with the disease, such as delusions or hallucinations.

The neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was found to play an important role in regulating cognitive activity in animal models and postmortem analysis of GABA concentrations in human schizophrenic brains. Neuroscientists at the University of California, Davis in the US published their findings on 10 March in the Journal of Neuroscience.

While delusions and hallucinations are usually treated with anti-psychotic drugs to dampen the activity of dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to psychotic behavior, no medications are available to treat the cognitive impairments of schizophrenia.

“We still know very little about the neurobiology of schizophrenia, particularly at the level of specific circuits and molecules and how their impairments affect behaviour and cognition in the disease,” said Jong H. Yoon, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at UC Davis and the study’s lead author. “We need this level of specificity to guide targeted treatment development. This is one of the first studies to show that there is a strong association between cognitive deficits and a decrease in a particular neurotransmitter.”

Yoon and his colleagues measured the levels of GABA in the visual cortices of the brains of 13 subjects with schizophrenia and 13 control subjects without the disorder. The schizophrenic patients were found to have a deficit in GABA of about 10 percent, compared to those without the disease.

“The link between changes in patients’ brain chemistry and the cognitive impairments they experience never has been shown before in this way,” said Cameron Carter, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UC Davis.”This work provides tremendous support for targeting the GABA system for treatment of cognitive decline in schizophrenia.”²

Hearing deprivation can lead to ‘lazy ear’

Short-term hearing deprivation during childhood may lead to persistent hearing deficits, even after hearing is restored to normal, states a study in the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron.

It is known that deprived visual stimulation early in life can cause amblyopia, better known as “lazy eye”. Now researchers have found that the same can be said about amblyaudio, or “lazy ear”.

Like the visual cortex, the auditory cortex must be stimulated early in life to function properly in adulthood. Hearing deprivation can be caused by the buildup of viscous fluid in the middle ear cavity.

In their study, researchers Daniel Polley and Maria Popescu from Vanderbilt University blocked hearing in one ear in infant, juvenile and adult rats and looked at how auditory brain areas were impacted by the temporary hearing loss.

They observed that this disrupted auditory patterning in the brain weakened the deprived ear’s representation and strengthened the open ear’s representation. The effect was also more pronounced when hearing deprivation began in infancy rather than later in life.

“The good news about amblyaudio is that it is unlikely to be a permanent problem for most people,” said Polley. “Even if the acoustic signal isn’t improved within the critical period, the mature auditory cortex still expresses a remarkable degree of plasticity.”

The team will further study whether auditory perceptual training may help accelerate recovery in individuals with processing deficits due to childhood hearing loss.³

New material could replace silicon in electronics

A method for developing a form of carbon called “graphene”- that could rival silicon in its potential for electronics device manufacturing- has been discovered.

The material consists of a layer of graphite 50,000 times thinner than a human hair with properties that could be used in supercomputers, mobile phones and many other electronics.

While it could replace silicone in many cases, expensive and inefficient production methods result in poor-quality graphene that is not practical on an industrial scale.

Head Researcher Victor Aristov, from the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden, Germany, and his colleagues from various other institutes, said they have developed a simple procedure for making cost-effective graphene.

They team was able to grow high-quality graphene on the surface of silicon carbide wafers, as described in the study published in ACS’ Nano Letters.

“It represents a huge step toward technological application of this material as the synthesis is compatible with industrial mass production,” stated the study.⁴

1. Zhao, D., McBride, D., Nandi, S., McQueen, H., McGrew, M., Hocking, P., Lewis, P., Sang, H., & Clinton, M. (2010). Somatic sex identity is cell autonomous in the chicken Nature, 464 (7286), 237-242 DOI: 10.1038/nature08852
2. Yoon, J., Maddock, R., Rokem, A., Silver, M., Minzenberg, M., Ragland, J., & Carter, C. (2010). GABA Concentration Is Reduced in Visual Cortex in Schizophrenia and Correlates with Orientation-Specific Surround Suppression Journal of Neuroscience, 30 (10), 3777-3781 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6158-09.2010
3. Popescu, M., & Polley, D. (2010). Monaural Deprivation Disrupts Development of Binaural Selectivity in Auditory Midbrain and Cortex Neuron, 65 (5), 718-731 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.02.019
4. Aristov, V., Urbanik, G., Kummer, K., Vyalikh, D., Molodtsova, O., Preobrajenski, A., Zakharov, A., Hess, C., Hänke, T., Büchner, B., Vobornik, I., Fujii, J., Panaccione, G., Ossipyan, Y., & Knupfer, M. (2010). Graphene Synthesis on Cubic SiC/Si Wafers. Perspectives for Mass Production of Graphene-Based Electronic Devices Nano Letters, 10 (3), 992-995 DOI: 10.1021/nl904115h

Former science ministers from Labour and Conservative parties have put aside political differences to urge the incoming Government to support science funding.

Lord David Sainsbury, who served as science minister under PM Tony Blair’s Labour Government, and Tory Lord William Waldegrave, who worked under PM Margaret Thatcher, made the joint announcement at the launch of a Royal Society report on the importance of innovation.

Investment in science is needed

The two former ministers sat on the advisory group of the Royal Society that released the publication. The group began working on the report last April.

“Times are tough at the moment but that is exactly when you need to invest in the future and focus spending where you already have an advantage. Investment in science cannot be turned on and off on a political whim – we must have a long-term investment,” Lord Waldegrave said.

The report was written as a response to increased spending in R&D abroad. The US pledged $21 billion to boost science last year. In France, €35 billion has been invested for the “knowledge economy,” and China has given almost 25 per cent to R&D investment, year on year.

“We cannot compete with countries such as China and India on the basis of low wages,” Lord Sainsbury said. “Science and innovation must, therefore, be the basis of the strategy for growth,” he added.

Titled “The Scientific Century: Securing our Future Prosperity,” it identified six recommendations for future science policy: to recognise science as a crucial element for economic growth; to invest in doctoral studies and research councils; to increase resources within Government business and science departments; to place the UK as a centre for international science research and exchanges; to align scientific research with public and commercial needs; and to bring new life into science and maths education.

According to the report, the UK currently contributes to 3 per cent of global funding for research and to almost 8 per cent of scientific research papers in the world.

The launch of CryoSat-2 , the first ever satellite designed to measure the thickness of polar ice sheets, did not happen.

This news comes as a particular disappointment. The European Space Agency (ESA) -backed mission follows a failed attempt to launch the original CryoSat mission in 2005.

Photo credit: ESA/W. Simpson

But just six days before the 25 February launch date, the reins were pulled once again. Technicians from Yuzhnoye, the manufacturer of CryoSat-2, decided that the fuel tank capacity and fuel gauge margins were not optimal for launching the satellite 700km into space.

“You know when you’re driving, and the fuel gauge shows that you are running out, but there is still enough fuel left, you’re touching in the red zone?” asked Dr Richard Francis, project manager for the mission. In this case, the crew deemed that fuel margin, or “red zone”, too narrow.

To create a larger margin, technicians will change the fuel mixture to a leaner formula to run more efficiently, said Dr Francis.

“The satellite is still safe, this is the important factor,” he said.

CryoSat-2 is designed to emit radar beams that ricochet off the surface of the ice, as well as ocean water surface. The difference in echo between the two is used to assess the thickness of the ice. While the ESA has mapped the extent of ice sheets for more than 15 years, the thickness of ice has never been mapped from space. Data on thickness would further understanding of changes in ice structure in relation to climate change.

On site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and at the ESA’s European Spacecraft Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, the mood was somber.

“As you can imagine, the news went down like a lead balloon here,” stated CryoSat campaign manager Bill Simpson on the ESA’s online launch diary.

The ESA hopes to finally launch the satellite four weeks from the original launch date, although no official announcement has been made. A team of experts will meet this week in Ukraine, where Yuzhnoye is based, to discuss the course of action to repair the satellite.

The 2005 failure was caused by a missing command from the onboard flight control system. When the main engine cut-off was to occur, the command was lost as the engine continued to operate until it ran out of fuel. Thus, the two parts of the satellite did not separate as planned, and the entire satellite crashed close to the North Pole.

More than four years later, the project has bloated to approximately €250m (£220m), according to Dr Duncan Wingham, lead investigator for the mission and professor of climate physics at University College London.

Yuzhnoye is unable to give a figure on the cost of reformulating CryoSat-2 before the next planned launch, said Oleg Ventskovsky, a representative from the company’s Brussels, Belgium office. He assured that the company would absorb all costs incurred. ESA is funded by European Union member states who contribute a percentage of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the agency.

CryoSat was the first mission in the ESA’s Earth Explorers programme to be selected in 1999. Two other satellites have already been launched as part of the programme: the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission [ GOCE] to improve models of the Earth’s gravity fields was launched on 17 March last year, and the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission to measure moisture and salinity levels was launched on 2 November.

“Those of us who went through the failure the first time around are feeling a little bit nervous this time,” said Dr Wingham in an interview before the delay. “But I do hope that we don’t have to wait another five years to get this mission into space.”

Plastic bottled water is losing its appeal as city-wide efforts encourage people to twist on the tap.

In the past few years, tap water campaigns have circled the world, from Tokyo to Toronto, calling people to ditch plastic bottles and have faith in the purity of their local treatment plant.

Picture credit: saw2th on Flickr

In Bundanoon, Australia, a town of approximately 2,500 people, the sale of plastic bottled water was banned in September last year – theirs was the first local government to do so, ever. Venice, a city literally built on water, launched a glossy campaign in the summer to promote tap water and reduce the amount of rubbish along its canals. In October The Greater London Authority, along with Thames Water and Transport for London announced the installation of water fountains at the Hammersmith bus station and Tower Bridge museum.

While the drinking water movement has its origins in grassroots environmentalism, tap water campaigns in the United Kingdom are of a different nature: the leaders are private water companies who vie for a profit, just like bottled water companies.

“It’s kind of a weird contradiction, the fact that water is privatised in Britain,” says Richard Girard, head researcher with the Canadian think tank Polaris Institute. Girard wrote an article that warned: “Don’t be fooled by strange bedfellows.”

“Private water delivery companies see bottled water as a direct competitor for their product, tap water,” he wrote. “It is not surprising, then, that the pro-tap water movement in the UK has achieved such prominence – with the public relations teams from several private water companies working on the issue, and the use of the print media for promotion, it is bound to achieve some.”

There is an indication that preference for bottled water is decreasing in the UK. A report from market research group Zenith International released last March found that 2008 sales of bottled water fell by 5.5 per cent in volume and 4 per cent in retail value. The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), which regulates mains-fed water quality, commissioned a survey in November 2008 to compare attitudes towards tap water to results from a similar survey completed in 1995. It found that the number of people drinking bottled water has remained fairly static between the two phases, if not with slightly fewer consumers of bottled water in 2008 compared with 1995.

However, this decrease may be attributed to consumers simply switching to beverages other than water, rather than a preference for tap, according to Zenith. The group also projects bottled water consumption to rise in the UK to 2.5m litres – a 500,000 unit increase – by 2015.

While lobbyists from both camps accuse the other of lower quality, the reality is that one type is not held at a higher standard, but at a different standard.

Tap water quality is regulated by the DWI in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Bottled water is approved by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in three different categories: natural mineral water, spring water and bottled drinking water.

Natural mineral water, the most expensive form of bottled water, must be recognised by establishing the composition of water in relation to the rock strata through which it passed, and the aquifer in which it accumulated. Mineral and microbe composition must be strictly monitored to avoid variance. There is also no legal limit for sodium content in mineral water, which is not the case for the less expensive types. Despite its premium price tag, natural mineral water is also the most popular type of water, says Jo Jacobius, director of British Bottled Water Producers Ltd.

For spring water, regulations are a little less stringent. The underground source does not have to be officially recognised by the FSA, although it must be declared on the label. Criteria for chemicals and microbes are “essentially the same as tap water,” says an FSA spokesperson.

The ‘bottled drinking water’ category encompasses all other types of bottled water, which are usually the least expensive brands. This designation has no restrictions on the water source, and may be drawn from the same source as tap. The requirements for chemicals, pathogens and pesticides are also the same as for tap.

“Comparing bottled water and tap is an odd thing to do as the two aren’t straightforward alternatives – any more than a soft drink or hot beverage is a tap water alternative,” says Jacobius.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched the first-ever satellite to gauge soil moisture and ocean salinity, with the mission of collecting crucial data on atmospheric and terrestrial water to provide more accurate weather forecasting.

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite was launched in early November from northern Russia. It is the second of six satellites the ESA have launched in their Earth Explorer Mission, which aims to track changes in the earth’s resources more efficiently.

The launch of the SMOS is a timely one. The mission began just days after torrential floods fell upon Scotland and Wales. Floods, as well as droughts, are two phenomena scientists hope to understand better from the data. Soil moisture can give an insight as to whether water runs off soil or absorbs into it.

“This touches on two very important aspects of the water cycle,” said Mark Drinkwater, head of the Mission Science Division of the ESA. “We have very little knowledge today on how water exchanges with the atmosphere.”

The satellite measures radioactivity in microwaves called L Band, waves approximately 20 cm long. It is the first L Band radiometre in space.

Using these waves, the satellite will measure moisture levels in the upper layer of soil, ocean salinity and evaporation rates. It is designed to track miniscule changes in moisture and salt concentration and consequently, how storms develop and how soils react to excessive amounts of water.

According to Drinkwater, SMOS can detect levels of moisture equivalent to a teaspoonful of water in a handful of soil. The satellite will be able to measure dampening and drying cycles of the soil in response to rainfall events every three days.

“It gives a global view on the distribution of soil moisture,” said Yann Kerr, lead investigator with the Center for Spatial Studies of the Biosphere. “There is no measurement of soil moisture in [current] weather forecast models.”

A major indicator of flood magnitude is not necessarily the amount of rainfall, said Kerr, but the ability for soil to absorb it.

“You can have dry soil with heavy rain, and there won’t be flooding,” he said, “Or you can have drenched soil and little rain and there is a flood.”

For example, floods in France earlier this year were linked to waterlogged soils, rather than heavy rain.

The satellite must undergo a six-month commissioning phase before it can engage in a longer program. It is guaranteed for three years, with a life expectancy of five, said Kerr.

SMOS will also measure water salinity, which indicates ocean current movement and can estimate how and at what rate climate will change. The satellite can measure salinity with an accuracy of 0.01 to 0.02 per cent, and has the sensitivity to detect a “small pinch of salt in a litre of water,” said Drinkwater. The team will accumulate global ocean data over longer intervals than soil moisture, in order to map changes throughout the year, and examine how patterns of surface salinity vary seasonally.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts will be one of the primary users of this data. The centre predicts weather patterns across Europe and expects forecasts to become more accurate with the help of SMOS.

“What is important for us is the construction of a model between atmospheric variables and surface values of soil temperature,” said Patricia de Rosnay, a scientist at the centre.

Yet de Rosnay is aware that it is early days for SMOS, and the level of importance and reliability of the soil humidity and salinity data is yet to be known.

“We will wait and see how much it improves the forecast. The Earth Explorer mission is a new concept, and it is the first time we have soil moisture information,” she said. “In 2010, we will see how useful it is.”

The next satellite in the Earth Explorer series will be Cryosat, which will measure changes in ice formations.