news20100319gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Endangered species]
US proposal to ban polar bear trade voted down at UN wildlife meeting

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species decided a ban would hurt indigenous economies
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 March 2010 11.10 GMT Article history

{{The US proposal to ban trade on polar bear skins was voted down at the UN over concerns that it did not pose a significant threat to the animals and that it could hurt indigenous economies.}
{Photograph}: Kennan Ward/Corbis}

A US-backed proposal to ban the international trade of polar bear skins, teeth and claws was defeated today at a UN wildlife meeting over concerns it would hurt indigenous economies and arguments the practice didn't pose a significant threat to the animals.

The US argued at the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, that the sale of polar bears skins was compounding the loss of the animals' sea ice habitat due to climate change. There are projections that the bear's numbers, which are estimated at 20,000 to 25,000, could decline by two-thirds by 2050 because of habitat loss in the Arctic.

"We're disappointed," said Jane Lyder, the Department of Interior's deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks. "But we understand that Cites is still trying to understand how to incorporate climate change into its decision making."

Canada, along with Norway and Greenland, led the opposition to the US proposal. They said the threat from trade was minimal and the hunting done by Aboriginal communities was critical to their economies. Only 2% of Canadian polar bears are internationally traded and the country strictly manages the commerce, Canada said.

"There is no doubt that action must continue to ensure the conservation of polar bears. Canada's goal is long-term survival of polar bears," the Canadian representative Basile Van Havre said. "But Canada does not think the proposal is supported by facts."

Frank Pokiak, an indigenous leader from Canada, said communities in the Arctic have hunted bears for generations, mostly for meat and pelts for clothing and shelter. He said they hunt them in a sustainable way and would continue doing so with or without an international ban.

"We have always cared for land and the wildlife because we have a lot to lose," Pokiak told delegates. "If it wasn't for polar bears and other wildlife that we harvest, we wouldn't exist today."

The big white bear, the world's largest land meat-eater, nanuq to the Inuit, may be uniquely susceptible to climate change as rising temperatures fast shrink its habitat, the Arctic sea ice.

Many bears spend their whole lives on the ice, mating, giving birth and hunting for their main prey, the ringed seal. But Arctic summers may be almost free of sea ice within 30 years, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted last April.

Data available on polar bear trade shows that since the early 1990s the market for polar bear carcasses and parts has increased. From 1992 to 2006, approximately 31,294 live polar bears, carcasses or parts were exported to 73 different countries, according to data collected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Skins are the most popular export item, and Canada is the largest commercial exporter.


[Environment > Conservation]
China and India called on by scientists to collaborate on conservation

Biodiversity knows no 'national boundaries' and nations must protect species from rising consumption, dams and industry
Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 March 2010 18.00 GMT Article history

{{Mount Kanchenjunga in the Darjeeling mountains in the Himalayas, a particularly environmentally sensitive area.}
{Photograph}: Frederic Soltan/© Frederic Soltan/Corbis}

China and India could together decide the future of the global environment, a team of senior scientists warn today in a call for closer collaboration on conservation by the world's two most populous nations.

Writing in the journal Science, the eight coauthors — including zoologists from both nations — warn of the security and biodiversity threat posed by rising consumption, dam construction and industrial emissions.

The ecological footprint of the two fast-emerging Asian economies has already spread beyond their borders and with future economic growth rates likely to continue at 8% for several years, the experts say the pressure on borders, resources and biodiversity could reach dangerous levels.

"The degree to which China and India consume natural resources within their boundaries and beyond will largely determine future environmental, social and economic outcomes," say the co-authors headed by Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

The report notes that the two countries import 9m of crude oil a year and 64% of all the roundwood pine produced in Asia, adding to the problems of global deforestation and warming.

The impacts are becoming more obvious in the strategically sensitive Himalayan border area, where the authors say large numbers of troops are damaging the environment. Resources in the mountain region are so scarce, they note, that soldiers sometimes eat rare plants.

Melting glaciers that supply meltwater for half the world's population and the constriction of rivers by hundreds of dams are also major problems, they say.

With the demand for energy in both nations growing, they predict a further rise in construction of hydroelectric plants and exploitation of other Himalayan resources, with alarming implications for regional security.

"The synergistic effects of decreasing water resources, loss of biodiversity, increased pollution and climate change may have negative social and economic consequences and, even worse, escalate conflicts within and between the two countries," they warn.

Despite their growing global importance, China and India have conducted little joint research and engaged in only modest collaboration to mitigate the impact of their rapid development. There have been small signs of progress in recent years, including agreements to jointly monitor glaciers and study the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean. But the authors say much more collaboration is necessary.

"More earnest cooperation between the world's two most populous countries will be vital for mitigating biodiversity loss, global warming and deforestation," the authors say.

They suggest turning disputed territory into trans-boundary protected areas, fostering scientific collaboration, working with the United Nations to manage natural resources and encouraging regional forums, such as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), to focus more on the environment.

One of the authors — Zhang Yaping, the president of the Kunming Institute of Zoology — said it was rare for biodversity protection to span the two nations.

"We should certainly strengthen cooperation in this field," he said. "China and India have done a lot of conservation work inside their own nations. What we need now is a joint effort. There should be no national boundaries in biodiversity protection."

news20100319gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
Bolivia creates a new opportunity for climate talks that failed at Copenhagen

Bolivia will host an international meeting on climate change next month because it is not prepared to 'betray its people'
Pablo Solón Romero
guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 March 2010 07.00 GMT Article history

In the aftermath of the Copenhagen climate conference, those who defended the widely condemned outcome tended to talk about it as a "step in the right direction". This was always a tendentious argument, given that tackling climate change can not be addressed by half measures. We can't make compromises with nature.

Bolivia, however, believed that Copenhagen marked a backwards step, undoing the work built on since the climate talks in Kyoto. That is why, against strong pressure from industrialised countries, we and other developing nations refused to sign the Copenhagen accord and why we are hosting an international meeting on climate change next month. In the words of the Tuvalu negotiator, we were not prepared to "betray our people for 30 pieces of silver".

Our position was strongly criticised by several industrialised countries, who did their brazen best to blame the victims of climate change for their own unwillingness to act. However, recent communications by the European Commission have confirmed why we were right to oppose the Copenhagen accord.

In a report called International climate policy post-Copenhagen (pdf), the commission confirmed that the pledges by developed countries are equal to between 13.2% and 17.8% in emissions reductions by 2020 – far below the required 40%-plus reductions needed to keep global temperature rise to less than 2C degrees.


The situation is even worse once you take into account what are called "banking of surplus emission budgets" and "accounting rules for land use, land use change and forestry". The Copenhagen accord would actually allow for an increase in developed country emissions of 2.6% above 1990 levels. This is hardly a forward step.

This is not just about gravely inadequate commitments, it is also about process. Whereas before, under the Kyoto protocol, developed countries were legally bound to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a certain percentage, now countries can submit whatever targets they want without a binding commitment.

This dangerous approach to climate negotiations is like building a dam where everyone contributes as many bricks as they want regardless of whether it stops the river.

The Copenhagen accord opens the dam and condemns millions. Various estimates suggest that the commitments made under the accord would lead to increases of between three to four degrees celsius – a level that many scientists consider disastrous for human life and our ecosystems.

For Bolivia, the disastrous outcome of Copenhagen was further proof that climate change is not the central issue in negotiations. For rich countries, the key issues in negotiations were finance, carbon markets, competitiveness of countries and corporations, business opportunities along with discussions about the political makeup of the US Senate. There was surprisingly little focus on effective solutions for reducing carbon emissions.

President Evo Morales of Bolivia observed that the best way to put climate change solutions at the heart of the talks was to involve the people. In contrast to much of the official talks, the hundreds of civil society organisations, communities, scientists and faith leaders present in Copenhagen clearly prioritised the search for effective, just solutions to climate change against narrow economic interests.

To advance an agenda based on effective just solutions, Bolivia is therefore hosting a Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth on 19-22 April, and inviting everyone to participate. Unlike Copenhagen, there will be no secret discussions behind closed doors. Moreover the debate and proposals will be led by communities on the frontlines of climate change and by organisations and individuals dedicated to tackling the climate crisis. All 192 governments in the UN have also been invited to attend and encouraged to listen to the voices of civil society and together develop common proposals.

We hope that this unique format will help shift power back to the people, which is where it needs to be on this critical issue for all humanity. We don't expect agreement on everything, but at least we can start to discuss openly and sincerely in a way that didn't happen in Copenhagen.

• Pablo Solón is Ambassador to the UN for the Plurinational State of Bolivia. He is a sociologist and economist, was active in Bolivia's social movements before entering government, and is an expert on issues of trade, integration, natural resources and water.

news20100319gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > George Monbiot's blog]
Bluefin tuna loses out simply because scarce fish make a profit

Stocks will collapse after a few more seasons of fishing at current levels, and investors will just move on to the next catch
> Bluefin tuna fails to make UN's list of protected fish
> Mediterranean EU countries block bluefin tuna ban
> Push to ban trade in endangered bluefin tuna

Idiots. Morons. Blockheads. Numbskulls. Nothing quite captures the mind-withering stupidity of what has just happened in Doha. Swayed by Japan and a number of other countries, some of them doubtless bought off in traditional fashion, the members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) have decided not to protect the Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Those who opposed suspending trade in the species argued that the temporary ban proposed by Monaco would devastate their fishing industries. There is some truth in this: for the years in which bluefin stocks would have been allowed to recover, the export ban would have put people out of work and reduced the output of their industry. But the absence of a ban ensures that, after one or two more seasons of fishing at current levels, all the jobs and the entire industry are finished forever, along with the magnificent species that supported them. The insistence that the fishing can continue without consequences betrays Olympic-class denial, a flat refusal to look reality in the face.

One of the commenters on a Guardian thread this week, who lives in Japan and uses the tag Kimpatsu, related his experiences of trying to discuss these issues.

"the Japanese policy towards both Bluefin tuna and whales has two engines of motivation. The first is the fact that the average Japanese is in denial about the imminent extinction of these creatures; the thought runs that as they have always eaten these animals (and many Japanese mistakenly think that the whale is a fish) since time immemorial, they will be able to continue doing so indefinitely into the future. When pressed on the subject of hunting to extinction, they grow aggressive. (I know from personal experience.) The second reason is the low-grade paranoia that informs all Japanese interaction with the outside world; the notion of Nihon tataki (Japan-bashing) is omnipresent. If you protest against whaling or tuna fishing, you're a cultural imperialist. If you point out that some Japanese are members of Greenpeace or oppose whaling (my GP is one), then "you don't understand Japanese mind so much". Remember: all your actions against whaling and overfishing are driven by a deep-seated, irrational hatred of Japan. Consequently, when you push, they push back."

I have no idea how representative this is, but the attitudes Kimpatsu describes were powerfully represented in The Cove, the film about the secret dolphin slaughter in Japan which won the 2010 Oscar for best documentary. The massacre it exposed is pointless, counter-productive and profoundly damaging to Japan's international image, but it was fiercely defended by what seemed to be the entire political establishment. Denial is evident everywhere on earth, but in the Japanese fishing and whaling industries it seems to have been raised to an art-form.

But it would be wrong to blame only Japan for this. In fact the only nations which unequivocally stood up for a ban were Monaco, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States, Norway and Kenya. It's good to have the UK and US on board, especially after eight years of sabotaging international treaties by the Bush administration, but the feeble or hostile response of many other countries was deeply depressing. The EU, some of whose members are major tuna exporters to Japan, supported a ban, but only if it was delayed until May 2011, by which time tuna stocks might pass the point of no return. Several nations simply rebuffed what the fisheries scientists say and insisted that they could carry on as usual without ill-effect. It's Easter Island all over again.

This proposal was brought before the meeting in Doha for just one reason: the nations charged with managing the tuna fishery have flunked it. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat), which is supposed to discharge this task, is in urgent need of a new name: it should be called the the International Commission for the Cleansing of Atlantic Tunas. It has repeatedly set catch limits way above what its own scientists have proposed, and turned a blind eye to illegal bluefin catches which probably outweigh the legal take.

Now Japan, as if to show that it really doesn't care what happens to the industry it claims to support, has said that it should be Iccat, not Cites, which continues to decide how many tuna are caught. It's like putting Cruella de Ville in charge of the Battersea Dog's Home.

Behind all this lurks a simple calculation. The businessmen currently fishing the Atlantic bluefin to extinction know that while any members of the species survive there is no cut-off point for the profits they make. The scarcer tuna become, the higher the price each carcass fetches. Once the fish have been exterminated, the investors can just shift their vast profits into another industry. It makes perfect economic sense. The shocker is that the nations which are supposed to regulate these crooks have let them get away with it. In doing so, they are reducing the king of fish to an expendable asset in a bent accountant's ledger.

news20100319sn1

[SN Today] from [ScienceNews]

[Science News for Kids]
FOR KIDS: What the appendix is good for

Some body parts seem pointless but in fact have purpose
By Emily Sohn Web edition : Monday, March 15th, 2010

{{The digestive system}
The appendix is a small organ that looks like a little worm (lower left of image). It doesn't lead anywhere, but may serve as a haven for good bacteria.}
3drenderings/iStockphoto}

It was a Saturday morning in 1991 when 12-year old Heather Smith woke up feeling nauseous. Spring break was just beginning, and her parents were planning to take her skiing the next day in Flagstaff, Ariz. — two hours from their home in Tempe.

A stomachache was not how Smith wanted to start vacation. “I was hoping I would get better,” she says, “So I could go ski.”

As the day progressed, things worsened. A sharp pain developed in her lower right side. She couldn’t swallow the soup her sister warmed up for her at lunchtime. By the time she saw a doctor later that afternoon, she was hunched over in pain.

When she learned that her appendix was infected, she didn’t have much time to be afraid. She was rushed into surgery. The next morning, her appendix was gone.

“It was a little scary because it happened so quickly,” says Smith, now an evolutionary biologist at the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine at Midwestern University in Glendale, Ariz. But she has never missed her long-lost organ. In fact, the emergency left her with a lifelong fascination for a body part she no longer has.

“I have always been interested in the appendix and trying to figure out why we have one,” Smith says. “There’s been this idea for so long that it didn’t do anything.”

Appendices have long been considered “vestigial structures.” That means we don’t actually need them. The brain, heart, skin and most other organs are essential for survival. But you can live a long life without an appendix. The same goes for tonsils, wisdom teeth, body hair and other vestigial structures.

At best, according to traditional thinking, vestigial structures just take up space. At worst, they can get infected and cause all sorts of trouble. So why do we have these unnecessary body parts in the first place?

Growing evidence suggests that we have them because they aren’t actually unnecessary at all. Their function probably depends on where you live (and perhaps when you lived). In some parts of the world, people still need vestigial body parts. Studying where and when these features are or were useful is helping scientists make new advances in modern medicine. The work is also providing insight into the history of humankind — telling scientists things about our ancestors that we didn’t know before.

“It may be the case with a lot of unnecessary body parts that they may have had a function in the past but we don’t necessarily need that function anymore,” says Smith, who ended up studying the appendix sort of by accident. “That can give us insights.”

The hidden point

Consider your body, and you’ll notice a hodgepodge of random features that might seem silly when you stop to think about them. What’s the point of fingernails, for example? Why is there hair on your toes? And what’s the deal with muscles in your ears? Do we really need muscles in our ears?

{{Wisdom teethOur ancestors may have found wisdom teeth more useful than we do.}
Lakhesis/iStockphoto}

Throughout history, scientists, too, have wondered about structures that don’t seem to do anything useful. The appendix is a popular example. This little, worm-like pouch is about four inches long and less than half an inch wide.

The organ grows near where the long intestine meets the short intestine. The intestines are essential for digestion, but the appendix appears to just sit there.

“It’s a dead-end sack,” says William Parker, an immunologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C. “It doesn’t go anywhere.”

Parker didn’t start out intending to study the appendix. His specialty is the immune system — a collection of organs, cells and molecules that our bodies use to stay healthy. But his research led him to the appendix anyway.

Parker knew that the human body is full of tiny organisms called bacteria, which can overwhelm the immune system, cause infections and make a person sick. He also knew that some bacteria are good for human health. Among other benefits, these “good” bacteria help people digest food and fight off “bad” bacteria that cause disease.

The immune system doesn’t just benefit from good bacteria, though. In the 1990s, Parker and colleagues began to figure out that the immune system also helps good bacteria flourish. These bacteria appear in thin layers called biofilms, which grow on the side of the gut near and inside the appendix. These biofilms, the researchers learned, provide a barrier that keep out bad bacteria.

“Once we figured that out, it should have been obvious to us what the appendix did,” says Parker, whose team also found that the appendix has a particularly robust biofilm. “It’s in the perfect spot to harbor bacteria — out of the flow and with a thin, narrow opening. And there’s a large amount of immune tissue associated with it.”

After stumbling on a possible link between the immune system and the appendix, though, the scientists still had some clues to compile before being sure of the organ’s purpose.

Hangout for good bacteria

In 2007, Parker’s team put together all the evidence they had gathered and came up with a conclusion: The appendix serves as a “safe house,” Parker says, a storage bin for good bacteria. If bad bacteria attack, good bacteria emerge from the appendix and come to the rescue.

Having a safe space for good bacteria should be especially useful in parts of the world that are poor and undeveloped — places where people are starving, medicine is hard to come by, clean water is scarce and diarrhea can kill. In those places, Parker says, the appendix probably helps keep people alive, especially young children.

In fact, people in the developing world rarely get infected appendixes, like Smith’s. Most cases of appendicitis, in fact, occur in the United States and other developed countries, where water is purified, hospitals are sterilized and medical care is easier to get.

Those trends suggest that the appendix evolved in our ancestors to maintain health in a bacteria-filled world. Today, places such as the United States might be too sterile for the appendix. When the organ has nothing do, the immune system can turn on itself, sending people to the emergency room, Parker says. Other problems, such as allergies and immune diseases, might have similar roots.

Even in ultra-clean societies, then, the appendix and other vestigial organs might be unrecognized heroes.

“Just because body parts don’t seem to have any usefulness here doesn’t mean you wouldn’t need them if you were suddenly thrown in the middle of the woods somewhere and had to drink from whatever mud hole you could find nearby and you had to run away from predators,” Parker says. “Problems we are having today with allergies and autoimmune diseases are a result of the body not really fitting in with our culture.”

Figuring out the true purpose of the appendix and other overlooked organs, Parker adds, is an important step toward solving medical mysteries.

“We want to understand how the body functions so we can work towards getting it to function normally,” he says.

To do that, it can help to take an historical view. By considering what was normal a long time ago and comparing the old normal to the new normal, researchers can see how evolution has shaped our bodies over hundreds of thousands of years. That process of change over time is called evolution.

“The best way to figure out how the body was designed to work,” Parker says, “is to look at how it was meant to work over hundreds of millions of years of evolution.”

Wise beyond our years

The appendix isn’t the only example of a body part with hidden powers. Wisdom teeth are another. This final set of molars usually grows in at around age 20. Today, most people get their wisdom teeth removed before the bulky molars can squeeze other teeth out of place or get infected.

Millions of years ago, though, human faces weren’t as flat as they are today and mouths had more room for wisdom teeth. After 20 years of life without dental care, our ancestors would have benefited from a fresh set of strong teeth that could chew and grind raw food.

As for other structures long thought to be pointless, a recent study found that the spleen stores a whole lot of immune cells. Among other roles, those cells help to repair hearts that are damaged. Tonsils, which are also removed routinely in many developed countries, probably help boost the immune system, as well, Parker says.

As they continue to find purposes for seemingly purposeless body parts, scientists are connecting our present with the past. They are also connecting the human animal with other animals on Earth.

Last year, Smith teamed up with Parker and other colleagues to look at a whole bunch of mammal species, some that lived tens of millions of years ago. The researchers found that the appendix has existed in a wide range of animals, from rodents to primates to Australian marsupials. The study also revealed that the appendix evolved more than once throughout history. Both findings suggest that the appendix has had an important purpose throughout time.

CONTINUED ON newssn2

news20100319sn2

[SN Today] from [ScienceNews]

[Science News for Kids]
FOR KIDS: What the appendix is good for

Some body parts seem pointless but in fact have purpose
By Emily Sohn Web edition : Monday, March 15th, 2010

CONTINUED FROM newssn1

By looking closely at our body’s “pointless” parts, we can begin to imagine what our bodies used to be able to do. Recognizing the body’s lingering power could also open up a whole new future of possibilities.

“Our evolution gives our bodies a lot of resilience and strength we really don’t need very much in our society,” says Parker. “I sit around in my office and have all the food I want. My body can do so many things I never ask it to do.”


[Science News]
Farming's rise cultivated fair deals

Market economies may owe more to cultural evolution than to Stone Age instincts
By Bruce Bower Web edition : Thursday, March 18th, 2010

{{Let's make a deal}
A Samburu woman in Kenya, from a population of livestock herders, plays an experimental economics game while a research assistant watches.}
Carolyn Lesorogol}

Blanche DuBois, Tennessee Williams’ wide-eyed protagonist who relied on “the kindness of strangers,” had nothing on ancient farmers.

In rapidly expanding settlements, early cultivators had no choice but to bargain for daily goods with lots of folks they didn’t know. A fundamental redefinition of a fair deal soon followed, according to a new cross-cultural study.

Around 10,000 years ago, residents of large farming communities had to learn to make fair exchanges with strangers and to retaliate against selfish exploiters, researchers propose in the March 19 Science.

Before the rise of modern agriculture and resulting trade, the researchers contend, people rarely had to behave this way with strangers. During Stone Age days, members of small hunter-gatherer groups exchanged favors only with those they knew.

“Cultural and institutional evolution harnessed and extended our evolved psychology so that we could cooperate and exchange goods in vast communities,” says anthropologist and study director Joseph Henrich of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

To arrive at this conclusion, the team set up money-swapping games played by people from small societies around the world — farmers, hunter-gatherers, seaside foragers, livestock herders, and wage laborers — and looked at how each group divvied up resources.

Participants who regularly have to deal with outsiders treated strangers more fairly, sharing a pool of money or valuables more equally, the team found.

{{Give it up}
An Au man, from a group of foragers and plant growers in Papua New Guinea, ponders how to divide money between himself and an anonymous partner.}
David Tracer}

Game players’ willingness to split up resources fairly with an unknown partner rose sharply with their “market integration,” or the extent that they lived in communities with market economies. The researchers measured market integration by calculating the degree to which families purchased food, rather than hunting or growing it.

Fair play also rose substantially among volunteers who subscribed to Christianity or Islam, as opposed to local religions. Large-scale religions with strict moral codes galvanize a “golden rule” approach to social exchanges, the researchers propose. Supernatural threats, such as the prospect of spending eternity in hell, and community-building rituals jointly promote fairness toward strangers, in their view.

In addition, participants from the largest communities were most likely to punish players whom they regarded as offering unfair deals. That meant canceling the deal and getting nothing or paying part of one’s own pool of money to cause an even bigger loss for the unfair player.

That’s not good news for traditional economic theories that regard self-interest as the engine of commerce. If those theories are right, players should take whatever someone else gives them, because that’s better than nothing.

Neither do the new results bode well for evolutionary psychologists who argue that people in small Stone Age groups evolved brain circuits for kin favoritism, tit-for-tat exchanges and protecting one’s own reputation. In their view, these biologically ingrained social tactics now often lead people astray, Blanche Dubois–style, by inducing excessive trust in strangers.

“This new study powerfully challenges the view in evolutionary psychology that cultural inventions during the last 10,000 years are irrelevant to human cooperation,” remarks economist Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich.

Market economies didn’t exist during the Stone Age, Fehr notes. But Henrich’s study indicates that the relatively recent expansion of market economies inspired a growing concern for dealing fairly with strangers, he says. People living in communities most like those of Stone Age hunter-gatherers — small in numbers and lacking a “moralizing god” — made the most unfair offers to strangers and were least likely to punish stingy partners. Reputation concerns and a focus on give-and-take exchanges can’t explain such behaviors, Fehr asserts.

Henrich’s data suggest that modern economic development has prompted people to find new ways to be selfish within vast markets, comments economist Karla Hoff of the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

Henrich’s new data build on a previous study of fair play in 15 small-scale societies (SN: 2/16/02, p. 104). In each group, a person given a chunk of money or other valuable stuff tended to offer a substantial, but highly variable, share to an anonymous partner. Partners often rejected offers deemed to be too low, resulting in both parties getting nothing.

In the new study, three economic games were played by 2,148 volunteers from 15 small-scale populations, including five communities from the earlier project. Community sizes ranged from 20 to 4,600 people.

One game allotted an amount of money, set at one day’s local wage, to a pair of players who could not see each other. One player decided how much to keep and how much to give to the other player. This provided a basic measure of fair play toward strangers.

A second game worked in much the same way. But the receiving player first decided the amount that he or she considered a minimum acceptable offer. If that minimum was met, the deal went through. If not, both players got nothing.

A third game was similarly framed, but also provided one-half day’s local wage to a third person who observed the action. The observer first determined the amount of a minimum acceptable offer between the other players. If the offer fell short, the observer forked over 20 percent of his or her pot and the offending player lost triple that amount.

Going from a fully subsistence-based society with a local religion to a fully market-based society grounded in Christianity or Islam led to increases in amounts offered by players of about 23 percent in the first game, 20 percent in the second game and 11 percent in the third game.

news20100319nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 18 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.135 News
Sperm wars illuminated

Insect sperm fight one another with brute force and chemical weapons.
By John Whitfield

{{Reproductive tract of female fruitfly mated to males with sperm containing green or red fluorescent protein.}
Science/AAAS}

When the sperm of different male insects meet inside a female, they use everything from wrestling to chemical warfare to try and fertilize as large a share of her eggs as possible, according to two studies published this week. The studies also show that females don't just let the battle take its course, but manipulate it to their own ends.

A US team has genetically engineered fruitflies to produce sperm that fluoresce in different colours. The researchers use the technique to watch the sperm of different males as they jostled for position inside a female, giving a first look at sperm competition in action¹.

And researchers in Denmark and Australia have shown that the seminal fluid of some ants and bees aids a male's own sperm and attacks his rivals. But queen ants, which need huge sperm reserves for the long years of egg-laying ahead, suppress this competition². Both studies are published in Science.

For the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster the most recent male to mate with a female fertilizes most of her eggs — 80% — and his predecessors lose out.

But the mechanism by which the last male got this advantage wasn't known. "The female reproductive tract has been a black box," says Scott Pitnick of Syracuse University in New York.

Speedy sperm

Pitnick and his colleagues have shed light on the mystery by using transgenic male flies with sperm heads illuminated by green or red fluorescent protein. The researchers mated female flies with one green-spermed male and one red, and tracked the sperms' fate by freezing females at different intervals after mating and dissecting them, or examining the reproductive tract in real time under a microscope (see videos of fluorescent sperm in female reproductive tracts here and here).

They saw a complex series of events during and after mating, in which both sexes have a say.

Males transfer about 1,400 sperm per mating. The female stores about 500 of these in three storage organs — blind-ended tubes that branch off from the reproductive tract.

{“The female reproductive tract has been a black box.”}

As soon as the second mating begins, before any sperm are transferred, the female releases some of the first male's sperm from storage. This might be triggered by physical stimulation, or by chemicals in the second male's seminal fluid.

Then, the second male's sperm arrive, and seem to flush their competitors out through vigorous motion. This ousting of other sperm might be why males transfer about three times more sperm cells than females have room to store.

Several hours after mating, females bring the contest to a close by ejecting any sperm that hasn't made it to the storage organs.

The sight of sperm in motion has wowed researchers in the field. "No one knew how dynamic and fast the ejaculates are inside a female," says Tommaso Pizzari, a biologist at the University of Oxford, UK. "It's like watching schools of fish chase each other."

Long struggle

Among female insects, the champions of storing and manipulating sperm are queen ants and bees.

In the largest and most complex insect societies, such as honeybees, and leafcutter and army ants, queens mate with up to 20 males in a few hours. Males die after mating, but their sperm can live on for years.

A leafcutter ant queen, for example, takes around 100 million–400 million sperm on board. Over the next decade or two, she will use them to fertilize some 50 million–150 million eggs. Honeybee queens have shorter lives, but might still produce more than a million offspring.

Sperm don't simply wait their turn inside. "The queen's body is an arena where sperm are allowed to fight it out for a while," says Jacobus Boomsma, a population biologist at the University of Copenhagen.

To see what weapons males used in this fight, Boomsma and his colleagues put sperm from male bees and ants on a microscope slide with either saline, a male's own seminal fluid, or that of another male.

Sperm survived longer in their own male's seminal fluid, but died more quickly in another male's. The fluid seems to contain chemicals that nurture a male's own sperm and attack the sperm of other males. Studies of honeybees suggest that it is proteins that attack alien cells, in the same way the immune system does inside the body.

Uneasy truce

For species in which queens mate just once, such as bumblebees, sperm of different males never meet, so there is no competition. The seminal fluid of these species does not harm rival sperm, the researchers found.

{{Bumblebee queens mate just once so the sperm of these species d not compete.}
B. Baer}

"Self-recognition is more pronounced in species with higher levels of sperm competition. It's exactly what you'd expect," says Pizzari.

By letting sperm fight it out, females let the fittest males father their offspring. But were this competition to continue, it might threaten the long-term supplies of sperm — particularly in leafcutter ants, where queens pay out just a few sperm to fertilize each egg. "Every sperm they store is precious," says Boomsma.

To see how these queens police sperm competition, Boomsma's team added fluid from the leafcutter queen's sperm storage organ to the mix. This, they say, cancelled out the negative effect of another male's seminal fluid.

It is thought that queens benefit from multiple matings by producing more genetically diverse offspring, and so healthier colonies. If this is so, it might also be in a male's interest not to do too much damage to his rival's sperm, notes Tracey Chapman, an evolutionary biologist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. "Once they're in the storage organs, everybody had better settle down," she says.

References
1. Manier, M. K. et al. Science advance online publication doi:10.1126/science.1187096 (2010).
2. den Boer, S. P. A., Baer, B. & Boomsma, J. J. Science 327, 1506-1509 (2010).

news20100319nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 18 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.132 News
Editor says no to peer review for controversial journal

Move demanded by publisher would 'utterly destroy' Medical Hypotheses.
By Daniel Cressey

Bruce Charlton is defending the "radical and dissenting agenda" of Medical Hypotheses.University of BuckinghamThe editor of what is perhaps the world's most controversial medical journal has pledged to resist attempts by its publisher to implement radical changes to its approach.

Bruce Charlton, who is professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Buckingham, UK, has staunchly defended his journal, Medical Hypotheses, saying that it has for 35 years followed "a radical and dissenting agenda" and "tries to favour unfashionable and unpopular views".

The journal's publisher Elsevier is seeking major changes to Medical Hypotheses in the wake of a furious row over the publication last year of a paper claiming that there is no proof that HIV causes AIDS. A key part of these changes will be to implement peer review in place of the current editorial review.

Elsevier also says there will be "especially careful review" of potentially controversial articles.

{“Elsevier plan to continue a zombie Medical Hypotheses.”}

But Charlton claims that this "would utterly destroy Medical Hypotheses", and he insists that he will neither resign nor assist with the proposed reforms, as demanded by Elsevier.

"Elsevier plan to continue a zombie Medical Hypotheses — i.e. still moving around, but dead inside," he told Nature. "I have requested that they do the honest thing and kill the journal outright. I would rather Medical Hypotheses existed in its pure form for 35 years than that it has a dwindling and corrupt afterlife."

Horrobin's hypothesis

Medical Hypotheses was established in 1975 by entrepreneur David Horrobin, who wrote at the time¹, "The history of science has repeatedly shown that when hypotheses are proposed it is impossible to predict which will turn out to be revolutionary and which ridiculous. The only safe approach is to let all see the light and to let all be discussed, experimented upon, vindicated or destroyed."

{“They were withdrawn because of our concern that the papers could potentially be damaging to global public health”}

Horrobin was himself a controversial figure and a promoter of the health benefits of evening primrose oil. His obituary in the British Medical Journal provoked debate among doctors for saying that he "may prove to be the greatest snake oil salesman of his age"².

His journal's latest — and possibly fatal — brush with controversy follows the publication of a paper by Peter Duesberg at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues. This argued that "there is as yet no proof that HIV causes AIDS"³.

After receiving a raft of complaints, Elsevier had the article peer reviewed under the oversight of editors from The Lancet. Following the peer review, the article, and another by Marco Ruggiero of the University of Florence in Italy⁴, was withdrawn and a reform of the journal was mooted.

"They were withdrawn because of concerns expressed by the scientific community about the quality of the articles, and our concern that the papers could potentially be damaging to global public health," the publisher said in a statement.

The article also triggered a letter from a number of leading HIV researchers to the US National Library of Medicine. This called for the journal to be deselected from inclusion in the MEDLINE database on the grounds that it was "of low quality, lacking the proper oversight of peer review or even responsible editorial review".

The authors claimed that their analysis showed that the journal published submissions "almost immediately, with no evidence of any changes suggested or required". Analysis of 48 articles from one issue of the journal found the median time between submission and acceptance of a paper to be three days, they said.

{“This journal has published 'hypotheses' that are regrettable.”}

Robert Doms, one of the signatories to that letter and a microbiologist working on HIV at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, says: "I have no issue with the concept of medical hypotheses per se, but whenever a journal provides a forum in which literally anything can be published without review in a publication that is backed by a major publishing firm, this provides to some degree an aura of authority to the lay public."

Nature also publishes hypothesis papers, but these are peer reviewed. "Occasionally, someone has an original and untested but testable idea about how the world works and Nature views such ideas as part of its territory," a statement issued by the journal said. "But the ideas do have to be unusually strong and significant to qualify."

Charlton's future

Elsevier has confirmed that Charlton's contract will not be renewed when it expires at the end of the year. "We have made this decision in light of Professor Charlton's continuing refusal to accept our invitation to meet and consult on the proposed changes to the journal," the publisher said.

For his part, Charlton says he will respond by 22 March, as the original deadline of 15 March was "a ridiculously short time to consider my options".

He also says that he has received more than 150 letters of support. "We have seen the destruction of the last non-peer-reviewed journal — the only one outside the normal power structures of science," he told Nature. "It has now been shown that no editor, no journal, is any longer free to publish dissenting views such as those of Duesberg. This is something new to science, indeed it is not science at all — as science was done in its golden age."

Others disagree with his interpretation. "As noted in our letter, this journal has published 'hypotheses' that are regrettable," says Doms. "I do not think that the medical community will lose anything if the journal does not continue in its current form."

References
1. Horrobin, D. Med. Hypoth. 1, 1-2 (1975).
2. Richmond, C. Br. Med. J. 326, 885 (2003).
3. Duesberg, P. H. et al. Med. Hypoth. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.024 (2009).
4. Ruggiero, M. et al. Med. Hypoth. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.06.002 (2009).

news20100319nn3

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 18 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.134 News
It's a wrap for bacteria

Atomically thin carbon sheets offer bacteria a protective shell in electron microscopes.
By Geoff Brumfiel

{{Bacteria wrapped in graphene sheets could be easier to image.}
V. Berry}

A team of scientists has wrapped bacteria in one-atom thick sheets of carbon known as graphene. The carbon cloak could one day help researchers to image tiny cells at higher resolution than is currently possible, according to preliminary results presented on Monday at the meeting of the American Physical Society in Portland, Oregon.

Most images of cells and organisms are taken using light, but light can only achieve so much. A fundamental 'diffraction limit' means that images made with light cannot incorporate details that are less than a few hundred nanometres across, much larger than many features scientists want to study. One way to achieve a better result is with electrons — by shining a beam of the charged particles through a sample, scientists can achieve atomic-resolution images of materials.

But this technique, known as transmission electron microscopy, comes at a price. To be imaged, samples must be placed in a vacuum, where they are exposed to fast-moving electrons. This is problematic for living specimens. "Vacuum and electrons are very hazardous to bacteria," says Christian Kisielowski, an electron microscopist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The former can cause them to dry out and die, whereas the latter rips apart fragile hydrogen bonds that help to hold together molecules inside the microbes.

Electron protection

Graphene may offer some protection. Vikas Berry, a chemical engineer at Kansas State University in Manhattan, presented unpublished results in a 15 March session. He and his co-workers began with graphene flakes, to which they applied a common lectin protein that would cause the flakes to bond to certain kinds of bacteria known as Gram-positive bacteria. The group then put the treated graphene into a beaker filled with two types of Gram-positive bacteria: Bacillus cereus and Bacillus subtilis. Within seconds, the tiny sheets wrapped themselves around the organisms. "It's really like swaddling a baby," Berry says.

The researchers then put their shrink-wrapped bacteria under the transmission electron microscope. Preliminary results indicated that the bacteria were doing well, especially when compared with unprotected controls. Because graphene is an electrical conductor, the electrons could penetrate the shell, but Berry believes it also offered protection. Graphene is an excellent thermal conductor, and Berry suggests that it might be shunting blistering heat away from the bacteria. What's more, it seems to seal the bacteria off from the corrosive environment of the vacuum. There's even a possibility that live bacteria could be imaged, he says. "If you can keep bacteria alive in the vacuum, that would be really awesome."

"It would be a breakthrough," agrees Kisielowski. But he is quick to add that Berry and his co-workers still have a long way to go before they can prove that the graphene is offering protection. Even if the bacteria seem to be doing well, there's still a chance that the blistering electron beam is boiling off hydrogen. More systematic studies using graphene and special hydrogen-rich test crystals will be needed to show that samples really are protected, he says.

Berry admits to seeing some evidence of small amounts of hydrogen leaking from the bacteria, but he still believes they fare far better than they otherwise would. He now plans to increase the energy of his microscope's electron beam to see how far that protection extends.

news20100319bbc1

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 13:33 GMT, Friday, 19 March 2010
Large Hadron Collider smashes energy record again

{The LHC's tunnel runs for 27km under the Franco-Swiss border}

The Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest physics experiment, has broken its own record for particle collisions.

On Friday morning, the machine created two beams of protons, each with an energy of 3.5 trillion electron volts.

The effort breaks the prior record, set by the LHC in December, of just over a trillion electron volts in each beam.

The LHC will now aim to smash those two beams together, hoping to create new particles that give insight into the most fundamental workings of physics.

The experiment, housed in a 27km-long tunnel under the outskirts of Geneva in Switzerland, has only been back online since November 2009.

A breakdown and helium leak in 2008, shortly after the machine was first switched on, took some 14 months to repair.

"Getting the beams to 3.5 TeV is testimony to the soundness of the LHC's overall design, and the improvements we've made since the breakdown in September 2008," said Steve Myers, director for accelerators and technology at the Swiss laboratory Cern, where the LHC is based.

{The LHC's experiments create showers of particles}

"It's a great credit to the patience and dedication of the LHC operation team."

Since coming back online, the machine has exhibited performance that was "remarkable", according to Cern director general Rolf Heuer.

In an announcement of the 3.5 TeV result, he congratulated the LHC team and stressed the cutting-edge nature of its work.

"We must not lose sight of the fact that the LHC is new, and it wasn't bought off the shelf," he wrote.

As with all particle accelerators, the LHC will be periodically shut down for maintenance, but LHC officials recently decided to significantly lengthen the shutdown period.

This is in part because the machine takes so long to cool down to and warm up from the low temperatures required for its experiments.

But the shutdown scheduled for late 2010 will also address the joints between the machine's superconducting magnets, which must be strengthened before the LHC can run at even higher energies.

"It is a state of the art prototype that is pushing the limits of technology across a wide range of disciplines, and as such it needs to be treated with the greatest respect," Professor Heuer wrote.

"It takes time, but as we've seen this week, patience pays dividends."


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 14:09 GMT, Friday, 19 March 2010
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
Thales Alenia Space wins huge Meteosat competition

{Staring at the Earth: The MTGs will gather far more detail, faster}

A consortium led by Thales Alenia Space of France will enter into negotiations for a 1.5bn-euro contract to build Europe's next weather satellites.

The TAS group was selected after a competitive process run by the European Space Agency (Esa).

The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) system will comprise six satellites, with the first spacecraft likely to be ready for launch in 2016.

MTG is expected to bring a step change in weather forecasting capability.

The programme should guarantee European access to space-acquired meteorological data until at least the late 2030s.

MTG is a joint undertaking between Esa and Eumetsat, the international agency charged with looking after Europe's meteosats.

In the new programme, Esa will oversee the research and development phase of MTG.

{{METEOSAT - BIGGER, BETTER}
> Europe's 1st imaging satellite (800kg) was launched in 1977; it had just three channels
> Today's 2nd generation imager (above) has 12 channels; it's a 2-tonne class spacecraft
> The planned 3rd generation imager will be a two 3-tonne satellite; it will have 16 channels
> MTG adds a second platform: a sounding satellite to see the different layers in the atmosphere}

This will include two prototype Meteosats: an imaging spacecraft to picture weather systems; and a sounding spacecraft (one which can return information about different layers in the atmosphere).

Eumetsat will operate these platforms once they are launched and pay for their follow-ups. It is envisaged the satellites will be launched at intervals of a few years.

The new spacecraft will be quite unlike their forebears. The second generation satellites (MSG), for example, are spin-stabilised and build up their images as they rotate across the field of view.

The MTG spacecraft will look more like standard telecommunications platforms. They will sit and stare at the Earth.

Their image data will have a much higher resolution (details as small as 500m) and will come down in a fraction of the time - in as little as 2.5 minutes.

"The users asked for a higher spatial resolution and even a better signal to noise ratio; and for that we've had to increase the time the satellite is able to observe the Earth," explained Rolf Stuhlmann, MTG programme scientist at Eumetsat.

"So, the first and the second generation were spin-stabilised satellites - they return around their axis and the instrument on the satellite is only able to look at the Earth 5% of the time. All the other time, it is looking into space.

"To increase the time the instrument is capable of looking at the Earth, we've had to go for the first time to a three-axis stabilised satellite."

The new spacecraft will carry many innovations that should translate into more accurate and more detailed weather forecasts.

One key development is an Infrared Sounding Instrument that has been pioneered on Europe's Metop polar-orbiting Earth-observation spacecraft but which will now been flown in a geostationary orbit by MTG.

The instrument will be able to detect the layers of moisture in the atmosphere long before they have developed into weather systems.

"If you see clouds, you know you have water vapour; it's very easy to see," explained Ernst Koenemann, director of programme development at Eumetsat. "But even in blue skies you still have water vapour, and this vapour will eventually develop into weather systems.

"With the infrared sounder, we will see this vapour, and by doing that we will be able to predict much better if and how the systems will develop."

{The Meteosat-1 spacecraft returned its first weather data in 1977}

The sounding instrument should also give improved warning of extreme precipitation events, such as the one in December that saw about 25cm of rain fall in just 24 hours on Cockermouth in north-west England.

In addition, the sounding spacecraft will have an enhanced capability to study atmospheric chemistry - to track the behaviour of trace gases such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide.

Another new MTG instrument of major note is a Lightning Imager, which should provide much better information on the state of electrification in storms. This is expected to have immense benefits for the aviation sector, allowing it to route planes more safely.

The Meteosat series stretches back to 1977. Currently, two platforms - Meteosat-8 and Meteosat-9 - provide the space data on which daily weather forecasts for Europe depend.

Esa member-states committed just under a billion euros to the MTG programme at a ministerial meeting in late 2008. The details of the Eumetsat contribution, which will amount to more than 2.4bn euros, are expected to be finalised by its member-states in mid-2010.

Eumetsat is holding a special council meeting on 15 March to discuss the scope of its role in the project.

It has taken much longer than expected to sort out the industrial contract. France and Germany wanted to lead MTG and both committed 34% of the requested Esa funds.

Space agency officials have had to ensure the workshare in the contract rewards the commitment of the two nations, as demanded under Esa rules.

The consortium includes OHB Bremen and Kayser Threde Munich.

news20100319bbc2

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 08:54 GMT, Friday, 19 March 2010
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
Esa's Cryosat ice mission given launch date

Europe's Cryosat-2 spacecraft is set to launch on its mission to map the world's ice fields on Thursday 8 April.

The satellite was due to fly in late February but was held on the ground while engineers investigated concerns about the operation of its rocket.

Cryosat will ride into orbit atop a Dnepr vehicle, a converted Russian-Ukrainian nuclear missile.

The satellite is designed to make detailed measurements of the shape and thickness of Arctic and Antarctic ice.

Its data will help scientists to assess better how changing polar ice conditions affect ocean circulation patterns, sea level and global climate.

The Dnepr will lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Russian authorities overseeing the flight have advised the European Space Agency (Esa) they are ready to proceed with the mission.

The launch is timed for 1357 GMT (1457 BST; 1557 CEST).

Re-attachment task

Earlier worries that the rocket's second-stage steering engines might not have enough margin on their performance have been allayed.

Richard Francis, the Esa Cryosat project manager, said software changes had been introduced to ensure the Dnepr managed its supplies of fuel and oxidiser in the most efficient way possible, giving the engines sufficient room for contingencies.

Cryosat had already been installed on the rocket when the order came to stand down, and was removed during the delay.

{{DNEPR launch vehicle}
> The Dnepr is a converted nuclear missile that is launched out of a silo.
> Launch is initiated by firing a black powder charge under the rocket.
> Expanding gas shoots the vehicle up and out of its air-tight canister.
> The ejection system's base tray and rings are dropped above the silo. > Only when the Dnepr clears the silo are its first-stage motors ignited.}

"We took it off the day after the call was made and moved it back to the cleanroom, and it's been in a secure area ever since. We have a man who goes and monitors it every day," explained Richard Francis.

"The planning we have at the moment is to put it back on the rocket on 31 March," he told BBC News.

Cryosat carries the "2" designation because it is actually a rebuild of a mission that was destroyed in 2005 when its then launcher (also a converted missile) failed just minutes into its flight.

Esa member-states considered its polar ice measurements to be so important to the assessment of climate change that they approved the construction of a facsimile spacecraft within months of the accident.

Cryosat's radar instrument will make detailed maps of the ice that covers both the sea and land at the poles.

Data from other satellites, such as the US Icesat and European ERS/Envisat missions, has already indicated that some of this cover is diminishing at a rapid rate, with the biggest changes occurring in the Arctic.

Cryosat will add significantly to the information scientists already possess, making observations that are beyond the current generation of spacecraft.

The mission is part of Esa's Earth Explorer programme - seven spacecraft that will do innovative science in obtaining data on issues of pressing environmental concern.

The first in the series, a gravity mapper called Goce, was launched in March 2009. The second, known as Smos, is measuring soil moisture and ocean salinity, and was launched in November.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 01:34 GMT, Friday, 19 March 2010
Kilgallioch Forest 132-turbine wind farm plan submitted

An application for a 132-wind turbine project in southern Scotland has been submitted to the Scottish government.

Scottish Power Renewables wants to build the scheme at Kilgallioch Forest near New Luce in Dumfries and Galloway.

If constructed it would be one of the largest wind farms in Scotland with a capacity of up to 396 megawatts.

Representations on the plans can be put forward until 28 April and a number of public information days will take place prior to that date.

The proposed site sits on the border between Dumfries and Galloway and South Ayrshire.

Information days will be held at New Luce, Kirkcowan and Barrhill next month to outline the plans.

Scottish Power Renewables is one of the UK's largest wind farm developers with 30 projects currently operational, under construction or in planning.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 00:26 GMT, Friday, 19 March 2010
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
Velociraptor's cousin discovered

Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur that was closely related to the Velociraptor.

The 1.8m-long predator was a dromaeosaurid - a family of theropod dinosaurs from which modern birds descended.

The researchers discovered its exquisitely well preserved skeleton in sediments dating from the Upper Cretaceous period in Inner Mongolia.

They describe the find in the journal Zootaxa.

The fossilised skeleton was in almost perfect condition - with complete claws and teeth - despite being between 145 and 65 million years old.

Its examination was led by Xing Xu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

He and his colleagues described several distinguishing features, particularly of its jaw and feet, that enabled them to identify it as a dromaeosaurid - a name that means "running lizard".

It had, for example, what the researchers described as "raptorial claws" on its feet.

The highly evolved predator, which has been named Linheraptor exquisitus represents an entirely new genus within that family.

"Linheraptor is similar to Velociraptor in many features," wrote the scientists.

They pointed out, however, that it was not Velociraptor's closest relative within the dromaeosaurid family.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 05:00 GMT, Thursday, 18 March 2010
Brain stimulation a 'promising therapy' for epilepsy

{Patients in the study had electrodes implanted in their brains}

Deep brain stimulation is a promising therapy for epilepsy, US researchers from Stanford University have said.

In a clinical trial, 110 people had electrodes implanted in their brains and their seizures were monitored.

Forty-one per cent of patients showed a reduction in seizures after 13 months while 56% experienced a reduction after two years.

The patients all suffered from regular epileptic seizures and had failed to respond to drug treatment.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a surgical treatment involving the implantation of a medical device called a brain pacemaker, which sends electrical impulses to specific parts of the brain.

In the group of patients who received brain stimulation, researchers noted a 41% reduction in seizures compared to a 14.5% decline in seizures in a control group. This group did not receive stimulation.

Invasive therapy

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder which is characterised by recurrent seizures. These seizures can cause temporary loss of consciousness, convulsions, confusion or disturbances in sensations.

According to the World Health Organization, epilepsy affects 50 million people worldwide.

Previous studies indicate that one third of those with epilepsy do not respond to anti-epileptic drugs.

Dr Robert Fisher, director of the Epilepsy Centre at Stanford University and lead author of the study, said electrical deep brain stimulation does reduce seizure frequency in patients.

But he cautioned: "DBS therapy is invasive and serious complications can occur. Additional clinical knowledge would help to determine the best candidates for DBS therapy."

Simon Wigglesworth, deputy chief executive at UK charity Epilepsy Action, said: "We have been hopeful for some time that deep brain stimulation may be a treatment option for some people with epilepsy.

"This study is exciting news and could be an important development in the treatment of epilepsy in the 30% of people whose seizures don't respond to traditional drug therapies."

The research is published online in the journal Epilepsia.

news20100319reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
COPENHAGEN
Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:19am EDT
Danisco backs Novozymes' 2nd-gen biofuel cost view

(Reuters) - Danish food ingredients and enzymes maker Danisco "agrees fundamentally" with rival enzymes producer Novozymes' view of the costs of producing second-generation bioethanol, Danisco's chief executive said.

Novozymes and Danisco last month launched new enzymes for producing second-generation biofuels -- fuels made from plant waste rather than food crops -- and Novozymes said then that fuel production costs could be less than $2 per gallon.

Novozymes also said in mid-February that enzyme costs for cellulosic ethanol are now down to $0.50 per gallon.

"We are talking about the $2 range -- 50 cents on enzymes costs," Danisco Chief Executive Tom Knutzen told analysts in a conference call on the group's third-quarter results.

"We are basically saying what another big industry player is also saying, and we fundamentally agree," he said in response to a question about what he thought of Novozymes' view of second-generation bioethanol production costs.

Knutzen said that Danisco enjoyed a competitive advantage in the business through its joint venture with Dupont in helping keep down capital costs of building plants for second-generation biofuels.

"So at least we have the feeling that we are certainly on par and with a likelihood that we are ahead to come up with the best commercial offering to the market before too long," he said.

(Reporting by John Acher)


[Green Business]
Gerard Wynn - Analysis
LONDON
Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:38am EDT
Waste industry hunts energy rewards, risks abound

(Reuters) - Innovators are racing to glean heat, power and fuel from waste, seeking big rewards and subsidies for technologies which have a history of failed projects, drawing skepticism from some analysts.

Governments are sweetening waste-to-energy technologies with incentives, to try and cut carbon emissions, boost domestic renewable energy supplies and dispose of waste more cleanly.

The subsidies are encouraging entrepreneurs to push the boundaries of what is possible, whether to find new uses for established technologies or invent altogether new processes.

Some critics fear a hype which could encourage companies to make claims they may struggle to meet, and subsidies for technologies which could fail.

"I often see organizations getting involved with technologies that they don't properly understand, but they all want to be seen to be doing something and to be working with big people," said Aston University's Tony Bridgwater, who leads a UK project to tease energy from organic matter called biomass.

He was skeptical, for example, of a "plasma gasification" process to make jet fuel from food and other waste, which British Airways and U.S. biofuels company Solena Group aim to use by 2014 in plans announced last month.

"It's never taken off, it's high cost both in capital and in operation," said Bridgwater, of the super-heated process.

The technologies were proven, said Solena CEO Robert Do, but putting the process together to make jet fuel from waste was new. Higher temperatures allowed the process to extract more, cleaner energy and handle more varied types of waste, he added.

Cost is an issue generally for generating energy from waste. A recent outcry by the biomass industry in Britain over subsidy levels highlighted their dependence on support, especially after recession curbed bank debt.

Even a very simple process burning wood to drive a steam turbine is three to four times more expensive per unit of energy than a conventional gas power plant, say experts, although some developers may earn a "gate fee" for disposing of the waste.

"It's a very young industry, there's a lot to do," said Nick Dawber, head of the waste-to-energy division of European sustainable energy company ENER-G. "The stimulation is right, it is incentivizing greater levels of efficiency, but there are a number of technical challenges yet."

SYNGAS

One new approach is gasification, traditionally applied to coal, where waste is heated with only little oxygen to produce a high-energy gas containing hydrogen and other chemicals.

That so-called syngas in theory can be cleaned and mixed with natural gas, or else burned in engines rather than used to drive steam turbines, and capture more energy than incineration.

But the technique is not perfected, and instead gasification is often applied to steam turbines. Dawber's ENER-G is operating such a steam cycle gasification plant in Britain.

"In the world we're in today with financing the banks are not going to lend money to technologies which don't have a track record," said Dawber, referring to their proven but potentially less efficient process.

"We can combust the in gas in very controlled circumstances to minimize (chemical) emissions," he added.

Problems with gasification at the small scale have included sticky tars which clogged machines, and at the larger scale variable waste which led to unpredictable results in power production, and especially engines.

"The country is littered with failed gasification projects, the prize is yet to be won," said Tim Jervis at Verus Energy.

"The market over-plays its capabilities."

But Texas-based MaxWest Environmental Systems has sold and road-tested gasifiers which generate heat from poultry litter, which the company says avoids any problems of tarring and plans to use to generate power with micro-turbines.

Britain's New Earth Solutions plans to use gas engines in a new use for another established technology, heating waste without oxygen, or pyrolysis, long employed to make charcoal.

"We're dealing with novel technologies which have yet to get hours on the clock," added Chris Cox, managing director.

British waste company Biossence plans to use a gas engine at a large waste management site in London, using "advanced gasification" which it says is "at the edge of being proven."

GASOLINE

As well generating heat and power, waste could be used to produce liquid transport fuels. Aston University's Bridgwater sees prospects for converting bio-oils made from gasifying waste or wood into hydrocarbons indistinguishable from gasoline.

"The great advantage is you're making a product which is completely compatible with conventional fuels," he said. Biofuels, by contrast, are made of ethanol which only functions in certain blends in unconverted car engines.

But the process was "not less than six and probably nearer eight years" away from significant deployment, he added.

Producing liquid road fuels from waste may also pose advantages over biofuels which compete for land with food or forests because they are obtained from crops, wood or grass.

(Reporting by Gerard Wynn, Editing by Keiron Henderson)


[Green Business]
Allan Dowd
VANCOUVER
Thu Mar 18, 2010 6:34pm EDT
North American group outlines carbon trade rules

(Reuters) - Members of the Western Climate Initiative laid out some of the ground rules on Thursday on the use and timing of carbon-offset credits allowed under its planned emission cap-and-trade system.

The seven western U.S. states and four Canadian provinces have decided to stay with a plan laid out last year that would limit use of offset credits and allowances to no more than 49 percent of emission reductions.

The offset limit will be calculated as a percentage of compliance to allow the WCI to be more easily linked with other trading systems, such as one now under way in the Eastern United States, an official of the group said.

Offsets are credits for projects or technology, such as tree planting. that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Emitters such as power plants can buy offsets to meet the requirements on cutting emissions blamed for climate change.

The use of offsets is among the many details the WCI is working on for the trading system, which is set to launch in 2012 and is designed to meet a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

The recommendations endorsed by the WCI last week in Vancouver, but not made public until Thursday, will now be adopted by each of the jurisdictions as they draft their regulations.

The WCI said placing limits on the use of offsets would be easier to administer, and it rejected suggestions the offset limit be adjusted annually to allow for a carry-over of unused offsets, saying that would make it too complex.

In addition to California -- which has the eighth largest economy in the world -- the WCI's members are: Arizona, New Mexico, British Columbia, Oregon, Ontario, Montana, Utah, Washington, Quebec, and Manitoba.

Not all of the members expect to be ready when the trading system starts in 2012.

(Reporting Allan Dowd; editing by Rob Wilson)

news20100319reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Thu Mar 18, 2010 12:04pm EDT
Factbox: Shale gas stirs energy hopes, health concerns

(Reuters) - The boom in shale natural gas drilling has raised hopes that the United States will be able to rely on the cleaner-burning fuel to meet future energy needs, but concerns about its impact on water quality could slow the industry's ability to tap this resource.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday it will begin to take a closer look at the environmental and human health impact of shale gas drilling, which could mean new regulations on a booming sector of the energy market.

Following are some shale gas facts.

* Shale gas is natural gas -- largely methane -- produced and stored in shale formations a mile or more underground in many of the lower 48 U.S. states.

* Together with other "unconventional" natural gas sources such as tight sands and coalbed methane, shale gas accounts for 60 percent of technically recoverable U.S. onshore reserves, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. At least half of new reserves growth is expected to come from shale gas by 2011. In all, shale reserves are estimated to contain enough gas to meet total U.S. demand for 30 years.

* The U.S. Energy Information Administration calculated proven natural gas reserves at 244 trillion cubic feet (6.9 trillion cu meters), or about 11 years' supply, up from the agency's 2006 estimate of 211 trillion cubic feet (6.0 trillion cu meters).

* A separate estimate from the Potential Gas Committee, an industry group whose biennial estimates are seen as a benchmark, concluded in June 2009 that the U.S. has 1,836 trillion cubic feet (52 trillion cu meters) of technically recoverable natural gas reserves, up sharply from 1,321 tcf in 2007. Of the new total, 33 percent is shale gas.

* Combined with the U.S. Department of Energy's latest estimate of 244.7 tcf in proven reserves at the end of 2008, the PGC's data gives the U.S. total available future supply of 2,081 tcf, an increase of 549 tcf from the committee's previous survey in 2007. The U.S. consumption rate of about 23 tcf a year. The latest estimate represents some 90 years' supply.

* One trillion cubic feet of gas is enough to heat 15 million homes for a year or to fuel 12 million natural gas-powered vehicles for a year, according to DOE figures.

* The abundance of shale and other forms of natural gas may allow the U.S. to reduce its dependence on overseas energy sources while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas produces about half of the carbon dioxide emitted by coal, and about a third less than oil, and so is seen as a "bridge" fuel between petroleum and renewable fuels such as wind and solar. Natural gas also emits lower levels of other pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide.

* A recent boom in shale gas development in states including Texas, Wyoming and Pennsylvania has been driven by advances in hydraulic fracturing in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals are forced underground at pressures sufficiently high to open gas-bearing fissures in the shale, releasing the fuel.

* Exploitation of shale "plays" has also been aided by horizontal drilling, enabling much wider coverage of shale formations than with traditional vertical drilling, and with less surface disturbance.

* The "big four" U.S. shale plays are the Barnett in Texas, currently the most productive, with about 50 percent of total U.S. shale gas output; the Haynesville in Louisiana/Texas; the Fayetteville in Arkansas; and the Marcellus in Pennsylvania and surrounding states.

* The Marcellus is likely to become the biggest producer of shale gas, according to Chesapeake Energy Corp., the second-largest U.S. producer of natural gas overall.

* The Marcellus could contain as much as 489 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to Terry Engelder, a Penn State University geoscientist. Its value is enhanced by the high quality of its gas and the fact that it is close to the major U.S. Northeast market, keeping transmission costs relatively low. More than 800 Marcellus wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania since 2005, most of them in 2009.

* Energy companies are expected to apply for 5,200 Pennsylvania drilling permits in 2010, about triple the number in 2009.

(Reporting by Jon Hurdle in Philadelphia; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


[Green Business]
Bruce Nichols - Analysis
HOUSTON
Thu Mar 18, 2010 12:23pm EDT
Consol deal shows coal sector eyeing natgas

(Reuters) - Consol Energy's $3.5 billion purchase of shale gas assets from Dominion Resources this week could be a precursor to other coal companies diversifying toward cleaner energy sources.

U.S. coal companies, which a few years ago enjoyed a boom in coal-fired power plant development, must diversify as concern about climate change grows.

Utilities are shutting old coal plants and replacing them with generators fueled by natural gas, which when burned emits 50 percent less greenhouse gas than coal.

Other coal companies could follow Consol's lead. Massey Energy has expressed interest in gas production. Alpha Natural Resources has formed a joint venture to produce gas. And Walter Energy for years has used wells to remove potentially explosive gas from its mines.

On the supply side, environmental advocates and the government are pushing to limit the practice of leveling mountains to recover thinning seams in the U.S. coal heartland, Appalachia.

Analysts are uncertain, however, how many coal companies actually will get into the gas business, even though a lot of natural gas is found near coal seams and a number of companies already drill wells to de-gas mines.

"You may see some smaller investments like this, but Consol is in a somewhat unique situation as the company already had a decent size and growing position in natural gas," said analyst Jim Rollyson of Raymond James & Associates Inc.

Traditionally, there have been barriers to coal companies investing heavily in natural gas exploration and production.

Finding and producing gas requires a different skill set. The gas business is capital-intensive, and until recently coal companies lacked the heft. Adding a different business makes it harder for Wall Street to value a company, which in turn makes it harder to raise money by selling stock.

"You need a more sophisticated investor who understands both," said analyst Dave Khani of FBR Capital Markets. "It's a narrow community. Wider than it was eight, 10 years ago, but narrower than if you're just coal or just gas."

INVESTORS IN COAL, OIL-GAS INCREASINGLY OVERLAP

Unlike many major coal producers, Consol has been in the natural gas business for years and in 2005 formed a unit, CNX Gas, to explore for and produce the stuff. CNX Gas trades publicly as CXG on the New York Stock Exchange.

And the energy sector is changing.

Analyst Kevin Book of ClearView Energy argued that Consol's move adds value by broadening the company's footing away from a fuel considered "dirty" and into one widely seen as "clean."

Book compared it to oil refiner Valero Energy Corp buying bankrupt ethanol producer VeraSun Energy Corp, adding renewable fuel to Valero's fossil-based portfolio.

"It reflects economic fundamentals but also includes carbon optionality as an upside," Book said.

In a venture similar to but smaller than the model followed by Consol, Alpha acquired Marcellus shale gas acreage in its 2009 merger with Foundation Coal and is moving to develop it in a joint venture with Pennsylvania-based Rice Energy LLC.

Alpha and Rice, as Alpha Shale Resources LP, plan to drill four wells this year and as many as 100 eventually, depending on demand, pipeline availability and drilling results, Alpha spokesman Ted Pile said.

"It's not a huge undertaking at this point," Pile said. He did not offer a detailed development timeline.

Production from the four Alpha wells in 2010 is projected at no more than 1.3 billion cubic feet per year compared with 92 billion cubic feet CNX produced in 2009. And Consol's output is a fraction of traditional oil and gas producers' flow.

Massey Chairman Don Blankenship said in a conference call Wednesday that his company has been looking at gas properties and remains interested even after spending nearly $1 billion to buy miner Cumberland Resources this week.

"We are still looking at gas, but we haven't found anything," Blankenship told analysts.

(Additional reporting by Eileen O'Grady in Houston and Steve James in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

news20100319reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Harriet McLeod
GREENSBORO, North Carolina
Thu Mar 18, 2010 6:10pm EDT
U.S. wind power growing fast but still lags

(Reuters) - Wind-generated electricity is growing rapidly in the United States but the pace still lags far behind that in China, the organizer of an industry conference in North Carolina said.

"With the right policies in place, we can see explosive growth ... It's a global footrace," said Jeff Anthony, business development director of the American Wind Energy Association.

Although the United States has the largest amount of installed wind power capacity in the world, the wind power industry is "fighting to get on a level playing field" with other government-subsidized power-providers, Anthony told a conference of parts manufacturers, suppliers, wind project developers and economic development officers from around the southeastern United States.

"What the wind industry looks like in the U.S. in 10 years depends a lot on what comes out of Washington ... Policy does drive the industry," he told the conference in Greensboro, North Carolina.

A little more than 1.5 percent of power supplied in the United States is generated by wind, Anthony said.

"It's an important part of how we generate electricity in the U.S. today. It's still relatively small in terms of percentages, but it's growing rapidly ... Only in the last seven or eight years has the cost come down ... The price of electricity from wind projects has stabilized."

Last year, 10,000 megawatts of wind capacity were added to the grid, bringing the country's total wind power capacity to 35,000 megawatts, Anthony said. Industry growth in 2009 was 39 percent, he said.

"China is currently growing at 100 percent. They are doubling the amount of wind power capacity in their country every year," Anthony said.

To reach a goal set by the U.S. Department of Energy for 20 percent of the nation's electricity to be generated by wind by 2030, "we will need 300,000 megawatts of power generated by wind turbines," Anthony said. "So we're one-tenth of the way there."

Problems include a lag in manufacturing -- almost all manufacturers of turbine parts are based outside the United States -- and transmission.

"We need a green superhighway" to get power from the windiest parts of the country, in a north-south swath through the middle, to the areas where demand is highest, Anthony said.

"Electricity is the only commodity you can't store," he said.

The highest demand is on the East Coast, where 28 coastal states use almost 80 percent of the electricity in the country, said Nick Rigas, a Clemson University wind expert who spoke at the conference.

Offshore wind turbines, in use around the world for years, have yet to be built off U.S. coasts. Duke Energy's three proposed wind turbines in Pamlico Sound on the North Carolina coast will probably be the first in-water wind engines to be built in the country, Rigas said.

Rigas is senior scientist and director of Clemson University Restoration Institute's $98 million drive-train testing facility being built on the coast of South Carolina to test the next generation of global large wind turbines, 15-megawatt engines that can weigh up to 300 tons.

The facility is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy along with public and private partners, and will allow access to all manufacturers and protect intellectual property rights, he said.

New technology will change the wind power industry, Rigas said. Turbines will get quieter and lighter, and efficiencies in wind power will improve, he said.

"The cost of offshore is high right now," said.

But, he said "If we do not find a way to harness a large resource sitting near a big demand -- it's Economics 101 -- I think we have some issues with ourselves," Rigas said.

"It comes down to: Do we as a nation think that carbon emissions have an adverse impact on our environment and our future? The other issue with the fossil fuels is that they are a finite resource. Why are we depleting a finite resource by just burning it?"

He agreed that sustainable energy policy is crucial. Energy policy "can't come and go depending on who is in office," he said. "In China, wind power is huge and still growing while we sit here and contemplate our navels," he said.

"We still think we're the center of the universe and the big economic engine, but the world is changing. Are we going to change with it?"

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Marguerita Choy)


[Green Business]
Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON
Thu Mar 18, 2010 4:23pm EDT
U.S. mustn't discriminate against Canadian oil sands

(Reuters) - The United States should not discriminate against the Canadian oil sands industry, Canada's ambassador in Washington said on Thursday, warning that trade restrictions could cause the top energy supplier to U.S. markets to seek out other customers.

Canada's abundant oil sands resources have been threatened in the U.S. market with proposed climate change policies that would place additional costs on fuels that emit higher levels of carbon dioxide.

The policies are unfair to Canada's oil sands industry, Ambassador Gary Doer said in a wide-ranging interview with Reuters, especially since both countries have signed on to an international agreement to lower carbon emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

"We absolutely want states and provinces to not discriminate against one sector without looking at the big picture," Doer said.

With an estimated 173 billion barrels, Canadian oil sands are the largest source of crude outside the Middle East. But development of these reserves requires open pit mines and carbon-spewing processing plants, placing oil sands producers at a disadvantage under any fuel standard that rewards low-emission sources.

California has already adopted a so-called low carbon fuel standard, which attempts to limit the carbon intensity of transportation fuels burned in the state. At least 11 other states are considering similar measures.

Ultimately if the United States becomes less open to oil sands, Doer said the fuel can go elsewhere.

"This is a commodity that can sold somewhere else. It's not as if the United States is the only country interested in purchasing oil," Doer said.

Plans are already in place to build a multibillion-dollar pipeline to Canada's West Coast, where tankers could ship oil sands-derived crude to refineries in Asia, although the industry has said it could supply both markets.

Pointing out that emissions from U.S. coal plants are much higher than emissions from oil sands, Doer said both Canada and the United States have to work to limit the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"We're not saints. We don't discuss this issue as holier-than-thou," Doer said. "We all have challenges. The United States has challenges in coal. We have challenges in the oil sands."

Despite the actions from states, Doer said the Obama administration demonstrated its commitment to oil sands when it approved the $3.3 billion Alberta Clipper pipeline project last year. The pipeline will mostly transport crude from the oil sands to the United States.

President Barack Obama has voiced support for developing a national low carbon fuel standard in the past, but he has not taken a hard line against oil sands.

(Editing by Marguerita Choy)


[Green Business]
BEIJING
Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:20am EDT
China says drought now affecting 50 million people

(Reuters) - A severe drought across a large swathe of southwest China is now affecting more than 50 million people, and forecasters see no signs of it abating in the short term, state media said on Friday.

The drought began last autumn, and is the result not only of less rainfall but also unseasonably high temperatures, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing a central government meeting on the situation.

It is affecting the provinces and regions of Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan and the municipality of Chongqing. These parts of China are known for their sugar and rubber plantations.

Some areas have received 90 percent less rainfall than they should have at this time of the year, and the drought has caused economic losses of 19 billion yuan ($2.78 billion), the report said.

More than 16 million people are having difficulty accessing safe drinking water, it added.

"The drought has lasted for more than five straight months and is still developing," Xinhua said. "It is having a serious impact upon people's lives, industry and agriculture as well as general economic development. Losses are severe."

The area will experience no significant rainfall for at least the next 10 days, the report cited weather forecasters as saying.

Traders told Reuters in December they estimated sugar output in Guangxi, the country's largest sugar producing area, would fall by about 300,000 tonnes from 2008's 7.63 million tonnes. Guangxi produces 60 percent of China's sugar output, which totaled 12.43 million tonnes in 2008.

The drought is the worst in Yunnan in six decades, and has affected 85 percent of the province's agricultural land.

The drought has also been partly blamed for cracks appearing at one of the region's busiest airports, at Yunnan's provincial capital of Kunming.

($1=6.826 Yuan)

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

news20100319reut4

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Nina Chestney
LONDON
Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:06pm EDT
EU blocks re-use of offsets, BluexNext to resume

(Reuters) - The European Commission said on Thursday it would prevent from August the re-entry into its emissions trading scheme of carbon permits which companies had already used for compliance with their emissions caps.

The BlueNext carbon exchange on Wednesday had suspended CER trading after it found that "used" permits had traded on its exchange, and said on Thursday that it would resume such trade on March 22, having made it "impossible to trade recycled CERs."

The European Union executive said it would from Friday suspend the process where companies counted carbon offsets against their emissions, except during a two-week period leading up to an April 30 deadline to comply with 2009 caps.

The move would not prevent carbon trading. It was precipitated by trade of permits called certified emissions reductions (CERs) on the Paris-based BlueNext exchange, after companies had already submitted the same allowances against their targets.

The Commission said in a statement that it would amend trading rules from August to prevent "re-entry of already surrendered CERs" into emissions trading accounts, in the scheme meant to fight climate change.

"There is an urgent need to address the market uncertainty," it said.

Last week Hungary said it had sold CERs to a Hungarian trading house, after Hungarian companies had already submitted these against their emissions targets, with the understanding that they could not be re-used in the EU scheme.

The Budapest trade was legal, exploiting a loophole under the U.N.-backed Kyoto Protocol, but it would be illegal for a company to count the permits against their emissions in Europe, making them invalid there.

The EU executive's move on Thursday prevented such carbon offsets from re-entering the EU emissions trading scheme at all.

"It's the right thing to do," said one trader.

Budapest said that when it had sold the CERs it made clear these were only valid for sale to non-European buyers.

That threw a focus on Thursday on the identity of the trading firm which had subsequently sold the CERs without a buyer beware warning, leading them to appear on BlueNext.

Hungarian environment ministry chief Jozsef Molnar told Reuters that it was agreed at a meeting with BlueNext on Thursday that the name of that firm would not be revealed.

Budapest did not rule out selling more CERs, using the same loophole. "We will not take any further steps until we learn the European Commission's new rules," Molnar said.

The week's developments were the latest setback for the European Union's emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Last year fraudsters perpetrated a 5 billion euro pan-EU VAT fraud, adding to technical and over-supply glitches in its five-year history. The scheme now faces low prices in the wake of recession.

(Additional reporting by Sandor Peto in Budapest; Writing by Gerard Wynn; Editing by Anthony Barker)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Fri Mar 19, 2010 9:17am EDT
Britain's Conservatives propose carbon levy

(Reuters) - A Conservative British government would impose a carbon tax on electricity generation, to create a clear incentive for long-term investment in renewable energies, the party said on Friday.

Unveiling its energy strategy, the opposition Conservative party said it would reform an existing Climate Change Levy (CCL), imposing a levy instead on the carbon content of power production.

Utilities would only have to pay the levy if the European carbon price fell below the level of the levy, which would thereby act as a floor price for carbon emissions in Britain.

That was intended to combat volatile prices in the European Union emissions trading scheme, which some companies say has been a brake on low-carbon investment.

"Ultimately the cost of achieving a diverse and resilient energy system has to be paid for by consumers," the party said in a strategy document launched by leader David Cameron.

"Reducing that cost depends on incentivizing the necessary investment in the most economically efficient way -- which is what this reform will deliver," the document said.

By setting a floor price for carbon, the levy would provide a reliable signal for investment in all forms of low carbon energy including nuclear power, it said.

The Conservatives have been in opposition for the past 13 years but they are hoping to eject the ruling Labor Party and come back into office by winning a national election expected on May 6. If they succeed, Cameron will be prime minister.

The Conservatives are ahead in the opinion polls, although since the start of the year their lead over Labor has shrunk and many polls suggest Britain could be heading for a "hung parliament" in which no single party has overall control.

The campaign has not been officially launched yet, but the Conservatives have been releasing some policy proposals.

"Unless we diversify our energy sources, unless we upgrade our energy networks, unless we pay as much attention to energy efficiency as we do to energy production, then our energy supplies will be neither secure nor sustainable," Cameron said in a statement.

The policy document, entitled "Rebuilding Security", contained 12 key objectives including the carbon levy.

Other proposals were to facilitate nuclear power, establish capacity guarantees in the electricity market and for gas supplies, and create a Green Investment Bank that would aim to attract and package investment opportunities in energy.

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon, editing by Anthony Barker)


[Green Business]
Risa Maeda and Nina Chestney
TOKYO/LONDON
Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:16am EDT
Sale of used carbon offsets unlikely to hit prices

(Reuters) - Trade in "recycled" carbon credits, which companies have already used to offset their greenhouse gas emissions, is unlikely to become widespread enough to hit prices, analysts said on Friday.

Hungary last week carried out the first such sale of certified emissions reductions (CERs) which its own companies had already surrendered to offset against their emissions in the European Union's emissions trading scheme.

Such CERs are not valid for re-use in Europe and the EU executive Commission on Thursday amended trading rules to stop them from re-entering the EU carbon market.

But that still left about 100 million used carbon offsets, equivalent to the national greenhouse gas emissions of Austria, in the registries of European governments which they could re-sell to non-European buyers if they pleased.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, rich countries can buy carbon offsets to help them meet emissions caps, paying for carbon cuts in developing countries.

Japan has been the biggest buyer of offsets outside Europe, and if it started buying used CERs that would effectively increase the global supply and may dampen prices. Tokyo said on Friday that it would not block Japanese companies from buying recycled credits.

"It's not a problem for companies to use them here to meet their voluntary emissions targets," said Eisaku Toda, head of the environment ministry's office of market mechanisms.

But Japanese traders doubted they would find a large market there. "In Japan, the buyers are all volunteers with high morals," said one carbon trader in Tokyo. Japanese companies are using offsets to meet voluntary emissions caps, unlike the binding targets in Europe.

PRICES

International trade in recycled credits is not illegal, and exploits the fact that the greenhouse gas emissions of some former communist countries are far below their Kyoto targets, leaving them with surplus emissions rights called assigned amount units (AAUs).

Hungary last week sold some 800,000 tonnes of used CERs, saying it would put aside the equivalent number of AAUs.

That deal allowed Budapest to benefit from a higher price for CERs compared with AAUs, whose trade is also much less liquid and disparaged by some environmentalists as "hot air".

Japanese companies, mainly steelmakers and power generators, have bought about 300 million tonnes of carbon offsets under the Kyoto Protocol for delivery between 2008 and 2012, almost all of which are thought to be CERs, 2009 data show.

The companies will eventually submit these to Tokyo to count against their voluntary targets, but in the meantime in theory could exchange some for cheaper, recycled credits, effectively increasing the global CER supply and impacting prices.

"From a market impact perspective, we could see more CERs come back onto the market and it could soften prices a bit and make the market less tight, but actually the impact would be quite small," said Barclays Capital's Trevor Sikorski.

He estimated that east European countries had no more than 11.5 million CERs which they could recycle in this way.

The Hungarian deal has attracted huge market criticism, especially after the used CERs were traded on the Paris-based BlueNext exchange, meaning European companies could unwittingly buy invalid offsets which left them out of pocket.

Such negative publicity would also likely limit further trades, said Deutsche Bank's Mark Lewis. "Given the fuss this has caused I would be very surprised if we saw many more deals of this kind," he said.

(Editing by Anthony Barker)

news20100319reut5

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Sunanda Creagh
JAKARTA
Fri Mar 19, 2010 5:31am EDT
Indonesia to review forest carbon laws: official

(Reuters) - Indonesia has launched a review of laws governing a U.N.-backed carbon trading scheme aimed preserving rainforests, a forestry ministry official said on Friday.

Indonesia in 2008 became the world's first country to design a legal framework for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), a scheme that would allow rich countries to pay developing nations not to chop down their trees.

Forest preservation is seen as an important step in slowing global warming because trees soak up large amounts of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, which is emitted by burning fossil fuels, such coal, oil and gas.

Deforestation and forest fires are another major source of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly when carbon-rich peat forests are cleared and drained.

REDD aims to reward developing nations for protecting, restoring and sustainably managing rainforests. Projects would earn tradeable credits for the CO2 locked away by the trees -- a trade potentially worth billions of dollars a year.

Local communities would share a portion of the credit sales to develop alternative livelihoods as an incentive to protect surrounding forests.

The review of forestry department decrees 30, 36 and 68 is aimed at removing rules that overlap or clash and could see the creation of a new authority to monitor REDD in Indonesia, said forestry ministry official Wandojo Siswanto.

"We would like to revisit all of and make them clearer and more simple for everybody to understand and to participate in REDD," Siswanto told Reuters by phone. "We would like to have a designated national authority for REDD. I hope it will be set up by the end of the year."

Siswanto said the new authority would assess proposals from would-be REDD developers and coordinate with the finance, planning, environment and mining ministries. It may also play a role in monitoring whether or not REDD projects actually conserved carbon.

CURBING EMISSIONS

The review would also update existing laws to reflect a global move toward what is known as REDD-plus, a beefed up scheme where project developers could earn carbon credits not just for carbon preservation but extra benefits such as biodiversity protection, social development and enhancing forest cover.

"Hopefully, altogether, the review will be finished by the end of this year," he said, adding that project developers who have already applied would not have to re-apply but would be expected to follow the new decrees.

Indonesia has more than a dozen early REDD projects and has attracted funding from the governments of Norway, Australia and the United States, as well as green groups such as The Nature Conservancy and banks such as BofA Merrill Lynch and Macquarie Group.

Indonesia, with some of the world's most complex and diverse forests, also has one of the highest deforestation rates. The government says reducing deforestation and protecting forests, particularly peat lands, is central to its goal of curbing the growth of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Decree number 36, which relates to rules on how much REDD revenue should be shared with the state or local communities, would be re-assessed as part of the review, he said.

A source in the fledgling REDD industry, who asked not to be named, said he understood the finance ministry wanted more say in the revenue sharing rules.

He said more consultation with industry was needed.

"We hope these changes are for the better but this needs to involve all the stakeholders to make it work," he said.

(Editing by David Fogarty)


[Green Business]
SAN FRANCISCO
Thu Mar 18, 2010 6:52pm EDT
Ecuadoreans appeal allowing of Chevron arbitration

(Reuters) - Ecuadorean plaintiffs have appealed a U.S. judge's decision to allow Chevron Corp to seek arbitration of a case of alleged pollution in the Amazon rainforest with a potential $27 billion liability.

The plaintiffs, indigenous Ecuadoreans, filed the notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Thursday, a week after a judge ruled in favor of the second-largest U.S. oil company in its efforts to seek international arbitration.

Chevron cites violations under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty in the case, which was originally filed in New York in 1993 and is now being heard by a court in Ecuador.

The company says Ecuador breached the treaty by not forcing that court to dismiss the lawsuit, in which indigenous people say Texaco, bought by Chevron in 2001, damaged their health and the forest and polluted rivers while operating there.

"After more than 17 years of litigation fraught with delay caused largely by Chevron itself, these individuals deserve to have their claims resolved in the forum that Chevron chose," Jonathon Abady, a lawyer who represents the rainforest residents, said in a statement.

Chevron says Ecuador and state oil company Petroecuador, Texaco's partner there, released Texaco from further liability in 1998 after the U.S. company's share of remediation work was complete. The validity of that release, however, is disputed by the plaintiffs.

Chevron has also complained of government interference in the case and said last year it uncovered a $3 million bribery plot linked to the Ecuadorean judge, who later recused himself.

U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand ruled on March 11 that arbitrators would determine the parameters for any proceeding by a tribunal whose members have been chosen, but which has not yet held a hearing.

"We have a high degree of confidence in the integrity of Judge Sand's ruling and doubt an appeal will be successful," Justin Higgs, spokesman for San Ramon, California-based Chevron, said in a statement.

The appealed case was in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Yaiguaje et al v Chevron Corp and Texaco, No. 10-0316.

(Reporting by Braden Reddall, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)


[Green Business]
SINGAPORE
Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:27am EDT
Singapore jewelers selling tiger parts: report

(Reuters) - Some jewelry shops in Singapore are illegally selling tiger parts, helping fuel the disappearance of the big cat from Asia, a local animal protection group said on Friday. A three-month investigation by Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (ACRES) found that 59 out of 134 jewelry and antique shops it visited in the Southeast Asian city-state were allegedly selling tiger parts, including claws, teeth and pieces of skin.

All commercial tiger trade has been banned by the international CITES convention that Singapore has signed, and under domestic law the sale of tiger specimens is prohibited, even if the products turn out not to be real, ACRES said. Shopkeepers told ACRES that demand had been higher over Lunar New Year -- the start of the Year of the Tiger -- and more orders could be placed for parts that could take from a week to three months to be delivered.

The parts came from Southeast Asia, China and South Asia, they said.

Tiger parts are used to make jewelry and Chinese medicine.

Tigers in the Greater Mekong region face extinction, conservationists say. Global tiger populations are at an all-time low of 3,200, down from about 100,000 a century ago, as forest habitats disappear and the animals are killed for their body parts, used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Asian countries are a hotspot for the illegal wildlife trade, which the international police organization Interpol estimates may be worth more than $20 billion a year.

"As long as there is demand, there will be supply," said Singapore member of parliament Lim Wee Kiak. "Legislation alone is insufficient to bring a complete halt to the illegal trading."

(Reporting by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Sugita Katyal)