NASA study points at highest ice sheet melting in 2007

This is real cause for global concern.
A new NASA-supported study reports that 2007 marked an overall rise in the melting trend over the entire Greenland ice sheet and, remarkably, melting in high-altitude areas was the highest at 150 percent more than average. In fact, the amount of snow that has melted this year over Greenland could cover the surface size of the US more than twice.
Marco Tedesco, a research scientist at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, cooperatively managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, used satellite data to compare average snow melting from 1988-2006 with what has taken place this summer.
According to a release issued by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Tedesco found the melting index (an indicator of where melting is occurring and for how long) to be "significantly higher than average" in high altitude areas over 1.2 miles above sea level.
Melting over those areas occurred 25-30 days longer this year than the observed average in the previous 19 years.
"When snow melts at those high altitudes and then refreezes, it can absorb up to four times more energy than fresh, unthawed snow," said Tedesco. "This can affect Earth's energy budget by changing how much radiation from the sun is absorbed by the Earth versus that reflected back into the atmosphere. Refrozen snow can also alter the snow density, thickness and snow-water content." Tedesco's findings were published on Tuesday in the American Geophysical Union's Eos newspaper.
Researchers determine the melting index by multiplying how long melting took place by the area where the increased melting took place. According to Tedesco, melting in April and May of this year in high-altitude areas was very low, but in June melting jumped unexpectedly and led to the record melting index for the year.
"This record melting index in those areas came as a bit of a surprise, showing us, once again, the extreme variability and complexity of these processes," said Tedesco. His expertise in documenting melting trends produced other recent studies on increased snow melting over Greenland and the Antarctic.
The data collected by the Special Sensor Microwave Imagers on the Defense meteorological Satellite Program satellites provided Tedesco with insight into how much of an electromagnetic signal was naturally emitted by snow and ice in areas beneath the satellite overpass. The microwave instruments can detect melting above and below the snow surface. The data were processed at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, in just 24 hours after the satellite overpass, enabling Tedesco to quickly spot changes that could signal a melting trend or new record.
Tedesco's work also confirmed that the melting index this year in lower altitude areas of Greenland, though not record breaking, was higher than average by 30 percent, placing 2007 in fifth place for the highest melting index after 2005, 2002, 1998 and 2004, in that
order.

Mindset sucks Indian science

I am just back from attending the 58^th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Hyderabad. I must say there was a shocking trend that unraveled itself, opening up the very mindset of Indian scientists. It had to happen there, for all to see!

Indian space scientists were busy ranting about their achievements rather than outlaying their plans hoping to collaborate with scientists from other countries who were there as delegates.

It was almost as a rule rater than exception.

There was this session on satellite services and applications, in which all foreign scientists presented imaginative, though achievable, projects and discussed possibilities of collaboration. These presentations evoked instant responses from the audiences through bright questions that further expanded the scope of future partnerships and technologies.

Then came our Indian guy, someone named P K Jain from Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), appearing like someone with a mission in life to chatter all the achievements that ISRO has to its credit over the past 40 years.

To top it, he looks at the chairperson and says “Sir, I am sorry to rush through the presentation as you can see it is very difficult, nay almost impossible, to present what all we have achieved in the last four decades in just 15 minutes given to me for presentation.”

Wow!

One wonders whether it is an international congress meant to share and discuss future road maps or a platform to pat one’s own back over achievements in the past!

Come to think of it, it is hardly shocking. It is just an extension of the Indian mind. It is the Indian mind!

It also speaks volumes of an in-built Indian psychological complex that reflects a fear of not being acknowledged. And what better chance than an international congress where delgates from almost all space-faring nations have gathered, that too in your own home.

This fear and mounting pressures have also in the past led to a now-common feature in Indian science – plagiarism!

And how does one detect it? It is almost impossible. Thousands and thousands of papers are presented throughout the world and most are available on the net if one knows where to look for it. And you should know that Indian scientists are pretty good at that.

Why science in India suffers may not take too long for any person closely watching the “evolution of science“ in this country, if at all there is such a thing happening in India.

Forget the clichéd reasons given for the suffering of science and the scientific community – lack of infrastructure, inadequate funds, ignoring basic research due to lack of a sound foundation in school and college, dwindling scientific temper or even tendency of the youth to opt for lucrative careers rather than take up challenges posed by daily life for improving conditions of the people.

These are reasons that are easier sucked up by the mind than attack the root cause of why Indian science suffers so chronically that it has hardly got out of the bed it rests in, hoping to recover.

Looks like science would continue to suffer for eternity in India because of the very mindset of the scientists, not because of lack of assets required to boost science and technology anywhere.

Where is the direction of research? Is there dedication to help translate research into applications for people?

Former Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister of India, Prof V K Aatre, taking advantage of his presently being in retirement, mustered up enough courage to say what he would never have dared to while in service as the chief of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). He said: “Where is research in India? Is anyone conducting research here at all? Where are the research labs? Do they exist?”

That, coming from the top man of the defence labs in India is truly something to ponder over, even if it came through his retirement, it did come nevertheless.

Now these are sirens calling out the danger signals.

Aatre also pointed out that no matter how much more funding (the S&T funding in India is a mere 0.8 per cent of the GDP) is added through government sanction, it would hardly be of help because the Indian mindset lacks the spirit of questioning that is mandatory for making good scientists.

India actually provides an ideal set-up for scientists to work on the needs of people, because India is a country where needs out-run the processes meant to meet those needs. But you may never come across heartening cases of people researching towards developing applications that could make day-to-day life more convenient for people.

In fact there are applications. But these are begotten by people from glossy malls where technology wrapped up in devices land up from other countries. Then we crib and cry, not knowing that the fault lies in our own mindset!

That also explains why we are struggling with our “prided” light combat aircraft, Tejas, programme, or even its engine, Kaveri. From the initial proud position of insisting on all-indigenous products, the defence scientists are now forced into submission to accept help from the likes of Lockheed Martin, Snecma and their brood.

The result? The indigenous element would be reduced to around 40-50 percent. Not more!

The lack of indigenous foray into scientific applications has left the field open to foreign technologies coming in and exploiting the gullible masses.

But foreign ka maal is still a much sought after thing among the rural people.

In the process they end up paying many times more than what they would have to pay for indigenised technologies and services. But where are they?

Sad, but true! Science really sucks!

Stomach, the way to you lover's heart, say male chimps

Science Daily writes:
They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and the same could be said for female chimpanzees. Researchers studying wild chimps in West Africa have discovered that males pinch desirable fruits from local farms and orchards as a means of attracting female mates.
Lead researcher, Dr Kimberley Hockings from the University of Stirling's Department of Psychology said: "We believe the males may be using crop-raids as a way to advertise their prowess to other group-members, especially the opposite sex. Such daring behaviour certainly seems to be an attractive trait and possessing a sought-after food item, such as papaya, appears to draw even more positive attention from the females."

The study, which took place in the West African village of Bossou in the Republic of Guinea, is the only recorded example of regular sharing of plant foods by unrelated, non-provisioned wild chimpanzees.

Dr Hockings explained: "It is unusual behaviour as even though the major part of chimpanzees' diets consists of plant foods, wild plant food sharing (defined as an individual holding a food item but allowing another individual to consume part of that item) occurs infrequently. However, in chimpanzee communities that engage in hunting, meat is frequently used as a 'social tool' for nurturing alliances and social bonds.

This research shows that chimpanzees at Bossou use crop-raiding as an opportunity to obtain and share desirable foods, providing further insights into the evolutionary basis of human food sharing. In humans, the pursuit of certain foods is also strongly sex-biased; for example, it has been proposed that men in hunter-gatherer societies acquire large and risky-to-obtain food packages for social strategising and to garner attention."

The researchers found that adult males mainly shared the spoils of their crop-raids with females of reproductive age; particularly with a female within the group who took part in most consortships (where an adult female and an adult male chimpanzee move to the periphery of their community so that the male gains exclusive mating access).

Dr Hockings said: "The male who shared the most food with this female engaged in more consortships with her and received more grooming from her than the other males, even the alpha male. Therefore the male chimpanzees appear to be 'showing off' and trading their forbidden fruit for other currencies, i.e. 'food-for-sex and --grooming'."

The study is published in the September 12 issue of the online, open-access journal PLoS One.

The study was carried out by the following researchers: Kimberley J. Hockings (University of Stirling), Tatyana Humle (University of Wisconsin-Madison), James R. Anderson (University of Stirling), Dora Biro (University Of Oxford), Claudia Sousa (New University of Lisbon), Gaku Ohashi (Kyoto University) and Tetsuro Matsuzawa (Kyoto University).

About wild chimpanzees

Wild chimpanzees have declined by more than 66% over the last 30 years, to a mere 200,000. Although the chimpanzees of Bossou are fortunate enough to be afforded a degree of protection and tolerance by local Manon people, other chimpanzee communities throughout Africa are not so privileged. Chimpanzees and other non-human primates are threatened by an intricate web of factors including unrelenting deforestation and fragmentation, poaching, disease, and capture for the pet trade, all of which threaten their long-term survival in the wild. These are human problems, the solutions to which will benefit both people and chimpanzees.

Cultivated plant foods are shared much more frequently than wild plant foods at Bossou, even though adult male chimpanzees often appear nervous when raiding crops (rough scratching, a self-directed behavioural pattern shown in response to anxiety, was used to quantify levels of anxiety). The shared cultivated fruits are usually large and easily divisible, and adult males are most likely to share such foods obtained in exposed locations and in the presence of local people (which is also associated with increased levels of anxiety).

Citation: Hockings KJ, Humle T, Anderson JR, Biro D, Sousa C, et al (2007) Chimpanzees Share Forbidden Fruit. PLoS ONE 2(9): e886. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000886

SKEPTIC
Scientific American September 2007 issue

Rational Atheism

An open letter to Messrs. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens

By Michael Shermer in Scientific American (Sept 2007 issue)

Since the turn of the millennium, a new militancy has arisen among religious skeptics in response to three threats to science and freedom: (1) attacks against evolution education and stem cell research; (2) breaks in the barrier separating church and state leading to political preferences for some faiths over others; and (3) fundamentalist terrorism here and abroad. Among many metrics available to track this skeptical movement is the ascension of four books to the august heights of the New York Times best-seller list—Sam Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation (Knopf, 2006), Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell (Viking, 2006), Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great (Hachette Book Group, 2007) and Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)—that together, in Dawkins’s always poignant prose, “raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral and intellectually fulfilled.” Amen, brother.

Whenever religious beliefs conflict with scientific facts or violate principles of political liberty, we must respond with appropriate aplomb. Nevertheless, we should be cautious about irrational exuberance. I suggest that we raise our consciousness one tier higher for the following reasons.

1. Anti-something movements by themselves will fail. Atheists cannot simply define themselves by what they do not believe. As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises warned his anti-Communist colleagues in the 1950s: “An anti-something movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be.”

2. Positive assertions are necessary. Champion science and reason, as Charles Darwin suggested: “It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follow[s] from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science.”

3. Rational is as rational does. If it is our goal to raise people’s consciousness to the wonders of science and the power of reason, then we must apply science and reason to our own actions. It is irrational to take a hostile or condescending attitude toward religion because by doing so we virtually guarantee that religious people will respond in kind. As Carl Sagan cautioned in “The Burden of Skepticism,” a 1987 lecture, “You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don’t see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.”

4. The golden rule is symmetrical. In the words of the greatest conscious­ness raiser of the 20th century, Mart­in Luther King, Jr., in his epic “I Have a Dream” speech: “In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrong­ful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.” If atheists do not want theists to prejudge them in a negative light, then they must not do unto theists the same.

5. Promote freedom of belief and disbelief. A higher moral principle that encompasses both science and religion is the freedom to think, believe and act as we choose, so long as our thoughts, beliefs and actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe.

As King, in addition, noted: “The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”

Rational atheism values the truths of science and the power of reason, but the principle of freedom stands above both science and religion.

---

Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic (www.skeptic.com). His latest book is Why Darwin Matters (Henry Holt, 2006).

Can India make 'wonder Land' with Nano? Doubtful!

By Rana Indos

The Union Government's budgetary provision of Rs 1,000 crore for the development of nanotechnology in India is a topsy-turvy decision that is an expression of a layman political establishment's flattery of the Indian scientific community.
Suddenly, there is a lot of interest and excitement over nanotechnology, and everybody beginning with Prof C N R Rao, the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council, and a proclaimed spear-head in the "drive towards nanotechnology in India", is exhibiting it in a child-like fashion over its the future.
Nanoscience deals with study of molecules the size of which range between one nanometre and a 100 nanometre (nm). One nanometre is one-billionth of a metre -- that small! And the excitement stems from revolutionary possibilities of super-miniaturising machines that today fill up an average Indian living room.
For instance, nanotechnology can arrange atoms in such a manner that a microscopic structure of a cannon can be built in nano dimensions. These micro-cannons can be sent into the blood stream of a cancer patient to hunt and destroy cancer cells completely; or nano-particles coated on soldiers' uniforms could be able to provide bullet-proof features to save soldiers from enemy fire.
But mostly, the potential and the promise in this field is towards a huge medical revolution using nanotechnology, that could give us a world that is close to a never-land.
Now this is what has been talked about. It has not yet happened in reality anywhere in the world. But nano-scientists believe it can work.
This explains why Union Science and Technology minister Kapil Sibal pressured the government to take note of this field, especially the strides in nano research made by Japan and USA. He probably rose the fear bar to such an extent that the government finally yielded to provide for the Rs 1,000 crore for the development of nanotechnology -- lest we miss the bus, as has happened for almost always in the past in almost everything except the invention of 'zero'.
All that is not fine.
The problem here is that the government allocation is aiming at setting up six nano centres across India to facilitate catching up with nano resercah the world over.
How are we going to manage that? Where is the human resources in terms of qualified faculty members going to fill these institutions which are planned to be autonomous in nature? Will there be enough students taking up this field and plan to conduct research to make it another IT revolution?
As it is, scientists are cribbing about the lack of interest in science among the Indian youth who are preferring a more lucrative career in IT, management, or some creative field that pays (science for them is not a creative field, though it can be, but may not pay well).
There is a shocking shortage of quality research papers coming from Indian scientists. The research that happens is either mediocre, inconclusive, or inconsequential.
Such a scenario afflicting science in general has led to India not being able to manufacture its own indigenous car engine, leave alone their efforts in struggling to develop an aircraft engine, Kaveri, for an aircraft that again was once dreamt to be a completely indigenous fighter.
Sadly, neither the engine nor the aircraft can be completely indigenous as the foreign contribution in building the aircraft is only growing. Now considering the project delays and the technical snags that the Indian scientists were not able to handle foreign engine makers and aircraft manufacturers are stepping in, aiming to improve upon the existing designs or partly bring in their own designs wherever suited.
And the man who has been screaming from the top of his voice from the roof-tops about this poor trend affecting Indian science is none other than the man who is most excited about these six nano centres coming up -- Prof C N R Rao himself!
As it is, there is hardly any research coming from the universities, which should be playing the key role in rolling out applicable research to be acquired by the industry for commercial applications.
The pressure therefore lies on the few institutions like the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and the seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). But ironically, they themselves are complaining about declining interest of the youth towards science.
Now the Union government is planning more of both these too. This is happening when the new field of nanotechnology is dawning upon us with plans of the six new centres to propel this field.
Everyone is excited about a "perfect future" in which people could probably live for ever, because the verbal claims made over the futuristic prowess of nanotechnology points at something like that.
So typically an Indian response to something as "revolutionary" as nanotechnology -- a layman government, excited scientists, Rs 1,000 crore provision, .......and dreams of living in "Wonder Land"?
But how does one begin, Prof Rao? India might just replay its earlier performances. So just make sure she doesn't!

Cosmetics at the cost of science?

The multi-billion-dollar global cosmetics and skin-care-product industry sometimes is beset by a me-too mindset in which research and development focuses on matching the competition rather than applying sound science to improve products, a scientist told the 234th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

As a result, it could be missing a golden opportunity to provide consumers with more effective products, according to a Stig E. Friberg, Ph.D. a chemist who studies cosmetic ingredients.

As an example, Friberg points out that previously unknown changes occur in the structures of colloids used in skin care lotions. As a result, the lotion sitting in the bottle, he said, is actually different from the same lotion applied to the skin.

Friberg has spent years in fundamental studies of the backbone of any lotion -- a mixture or "emulsion" of oil and water. Along with a third ingredient, a surfactant that keeps the liquids from separating, emulsions are the basis of almost every skin lotion. Although the system may sound simplistic, Friberg said it's not as straightforward as scientists once believed.

Friberg's work has revealed that after application, evaporation causes a lotion's internal structure to change, a fact that has not captured the attention of the skin-care industry. Initially in a liquid phase, the structure transforms while on the skin to a more orderly state, such as a liquid crystalline or solid amorphous phase, that allows for a higher tendency for molecules to enter the skin, he said. Previously, scientists have assumed the structure of an emulsion remains intact as lotions evaporate.

But this isn't the case. "In fact, the appearance of liquid crystalline structures in the emulsion acts as if you have a much higher concentration of the active substance on the skin," said Friberg, who is with the University of Virginia. "Knowledge of the structure change will make the formulation of skin lotions more systematic."

A main goal of the system is to find the best active ingredients for a given emulsion. In the land of lotion, these ingredients do the dirty work by penetrating the skin to protect or improve it. Well known active ingredients are salicylic acid used for complexion and camphor as an analgesic. Lotions on the market today, while effective, are based on limited understanding of how the active ingredients smooth and moisturize the skin. Research therefore has been based primarily on efforts to improve traditional, successful combinations of surfactants, oils and active substances.

In a sense, studying new structures would remove some guess work in manufacturing effective lotions because it would remove an unknown from the equation: companies could work from the template of the new structure rather than one that is nonexistent or, at best, flawed.

"I think it would be possible to save some lab work by knowing what is going on, and it could open a new marketing opportunity," Friberg said.

As for cosmetics, tradition has a head start on science, Friberg said. For instance, the latest interest in skin care -- hydroxy acids, the active ingredients in anti-wrinkle creams -- have been used for thousands of years and date back to Cleopatra, whose bath contained lactic acid (a hydroxy acid) which the classic beauty obtained from sour donkey milk.

"Cosmetics have a very long period of use," he said. "The companies involved have a tremendous knowledge of what works and doesn't work just from experience. Once they show somewhere that something works, then everyone jumps on the bandwagon."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by American Chemical Society.

Nano (dwarf) may turn Goliath

Nanotechnology is going to be the next greatest revolution in the world. On the eve of India unveiling Bangalore Nano 2007, the first of its kind I would like to help sharing about nano as the next big thing. Read on.
I highly recommend that you go see this page at HowStuffWorks. It's called How Nanotechnology Will Work.
See: http://science.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology.htm.

This would help oyu realise the vast and revolutionary potential this field offers us.
Cheers to the future!