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A study by Dr. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick and co-author Matthias Hastall suggests that your grandma’s self-esteem gets a boost when she hears about the stupid things young people do. “Living in a youth centered culture, they may appreciate a boost in self-esteem. That’s why they prefer the negative stories about younger people, who are seen as having a higher status in our society,” said Dr. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick. From the article: “All the adults in the study were shown what they were led to believe was a test version of a new online news magazine. They were also given a limited time to look over either a negative and positive version of 10 pre-selected articles. Each story was also paired with a photograph depicting someone of either the younger or the older age group. The researchers found that older people were more likely to choose to read negative articles about those younger than themselves. They also tended to show less interest in articles about older people, whether negative or positive.”

Source: Old People Enjoy Reading Negative Stories About Young

When it comes to explaining why the woolly mammoths died out, “death from above” could be down for the count.

Nearly 13,000 years ago, North American megafauna like the mammoths and giant sloths—and even human groups like the people of the Clovis culture—disappeared as the climate entered a cold snap. As DISCOVER has noted before, there’s been a controversial hypothesis bubbling up saying that a comet impact caused it all, but other scientists have been shooting holes in that idea of the last couple years. In a study in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by Tyrone Daulton pooh-poohs what may be the last major evidence that supports the impact idea.

That evidence takes the shape of nano-diamonds in ancient sediment layers, a material said to form during impacts only.

These 12,900-year-old sediments were claimed to hold exotic materials: tiny spheres, ultra-small specks of diamond — called nanodiamond — and amounts of the rare element iridium that are too high to have occurred naturally on Earth. [BBC News]

Impact proponents published their own studies last year in Science and PNAS that set forth the nano-diamond argument. But when Daulton and company searched the sediment and examined it under transmission electron microscopes, they couldn’t find any.

“I’m convinced there’s no [hexagonal] diamond present,” says Daulton. Instead, the group unearthed aggregates of sheetlike forms of carbon. “If you don’t look too closely at it, you could convince yourself it is [hexagonal diamond],” says Daulton. “Theirs was a gross misidentification.” [ScienceNOW]

Unsurprisingly, the impact-backing scientists didn’t care for the assertion that they talked themselves into seeing diamonds.

The lead author of two earlier comet-impact papers, Douglas Kennett, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon in Eugene, calls the study “fundamentally flawed science”. “The claim we misidentified diamonds is false, misleading and incorrect,” he adds, although he declined to specify his objections. [Nature]

However, he did promise to write PNAS with his objections and to point out errors he says are in Daulton’s work.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Tracy O

Source: Scientist Smackdown: No Proof That a Comet Killed the Mammoths?

Mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, nickel, zinc—they’re all getting into the waters of northern Canada in dangerous amounts because of mining in the oil sands, according to a study coming out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Canada’s oil sands hold an estimated 13 percent of the proven oil reserves in the world, and the United States grows increasingly reliant upon them to meet our petroleum needs. However, the process of extracting and refining the oil is energy-intensive, and dirty. An industry-led group called Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP) oversees the pollution coming from oil sands exploration, and it has maintained that elevated levels of toxins in the nearby Athabasca River system come from natural oil seepage. However, the University of Alberta’s Erin Kelly and David Schindler say in their study that no, it’s the oil exploration that’s increasing the concentration of these elements in the water.

The researchers collected water from more than 35 sites in February and June 2008 along the Athabasca River, its tributaries, the Athabasca Delta and Lake Athabasca. They accumulated winter snowpack from 31 other sites in the region in March 2008. The researchers chose sampling sites upstream and downstream from oilsands mining, with both within 50 kilometres of oilsands developments and near undeveloped oilsands sites [CBC].

The upstream samples and the samples from spots that weren’t exposed to oil sands mining didn’t show the same rise in toxic pollutants. But the concentrations the scientists found downstream are higher than the maximum levels that Canada and the Province of Alberta set to protect marine life. The problem, Schindler says, in that those toxins can accumulate in animals.

“I don’t think the concentrations alone are dangerous. I worry about some of them, like mercury, because there, parts per trillion translate into parts per million in fish,” he said [Reuters].

Meanwhile, some of the companies that mine in the oil sands region are trying to devise new ways to keep their operations within regulation, given the billions to be made in oil exploration there. Shell last week announced a plan to tackle tailings ponds, a toxic byproduct of extracting and refining oil there.

Tailings ponds are expansive man-made lakes that hold water, leftover bitumen, clay and heavy metals from the oil sands production process. They are a major source of friction in the battle over the environmental impact of developing Canada’s oil sands, the largest crude source outside the Middle East [Reuters].

Energy companies are testing Shell’s clean-up method, as well as several other prospective ways to reclaim the material from tailings ponds.

For more about the oil sands, check out the September issue of DISCOVER, now on newsstands.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / NormanEinstein

Source: Study: Canada’s Oil Sands Mining Sends Toxins Into Rivers

Many Catholic religious orders are participating in a long range Alzheimer’s disease study. Rush University’s Religious Orders Study began in 1993 and tracks the participants mental abilities through yearly memory test. In addition to the annual tests, the study subjects agree to donate their brains. From the article: “The researchers sought members of religious orders, hoping they would be willing to donate and would not have children or spouses interfering with that arrangement at the last minute. More than 1,100 nuns, priests and brothers across the country representing a wide range of ethnic groups are taking part.”

Source: Nuns Donate Their Brains to Alzheimer’s Research

You could plant huge new forests where none have been before. You could blast particles into the sky to block the sun’s radiation. You could put mirrors in space. These planetary hacks could slow global warming, but one thing that none of them could do, most likely, is to stop the rising sea levels that a warming planet will bring.

That’s the contention of John Moore, lead author of a study out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Moore’s team examined five different means that scientists have proposed to hack the planet and save ourselves from anthropogenic global warming. The geoengineering schemes—forestation, atmospheric aerosols, space mirrors, biochar, and the use of biofuels plus carbon sequestration—are focused either on reducing the amount of energy the Earth absorbs or pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. So Moore wanted to see what they could do about a side effect of the extra heat: melting ice raising the global average sea level.

The results weren’t terribly encouraging. Sea levels respond slowly to changes in the planet’s temperature, Moore told Nature News, so “you can’t just slam on the brakes.”

Injecting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere – which reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth – had little effect. If emissions are allowed to grow at current rates, the model showed sea levels rising by 1.1 metres by 2100. Aerosols could reduce that to 0.8 metres by 2100, but with the rate of rise showing no sign of slowing down at the end of the century, this would simply delay greater rises, not prevent them. [New Scientist].

Space mirrors began to reverse the rising sea level trend, but only at about the end of the 21st century. If people quickly developed biofuels and became adept at carbon sequestration, things were even a tad better—but in Moore’s model the sea level still rose by 30 centimeters, or about a foot, mostly because of effects that are already locked into the system. Says Moore:

“I think that sucking CO₂ out of the atmosphere is the best way to stop sea-level rise before 2100.” That could be accomplished with the biomass power plants and new forests considered in the study, or by massively scaling up CO₂ removal techniques currently deployed in spacecraft and submarines” [ScienceNOW].

Given the unintended consequences that could come with tinkering with the planet on such a massive scale, keeping intervention to a minimum would seem like the ideal choice. But Moore’s study reiterates that fear that it might be too late for little steps. It might be time to consider the “extreme geoengineering”—say, atmospheric aerosol injections every year and a half instead of every four years—that potentially could slow down rising temperatures and sea levels… at an unknown cost.

But once you start, you can’t stop.

Once started, geoengineering must be continued or temperatures will quickly rebound to what they would have been without intervention. An attendant surge in sea-level rise wouldn’t occur quite as quickly, but it would follow soon enough, at a rate of up to 1–2 centimetres per year, he says. “Those are speeds that were observed during the last deglaciation,” says Moore, “so we’re not forecasting anything that is out of the geological record” [Nature].

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Nafis Ahmed Kuntal

Source: Geoengineering Could Slow—But Not Stop—Sea Level Rise

Chronic fatigue syndrome’s headaches, muscle aches, tiredness, and concentration problems have no known cause, so a paper published online yesterday, in which researchers report finding a type of virus in 87 percent of 37 chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients tested, seems a promising step. But in statements to the media the researchers stress caution in interpreting results. The group also noted that it had delayed publishing the paper, originally meant to appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in May, due to conflicting reports from other scientists.

The National Institutes of Health’s Dr. Harvey Alter, senior author of the paper,  said in a conference call with reporters, “It’s an association, but that’s all it is.” He was careful to say the findings don’t prove that a virus causes CFS. [NPR]

Alter’s caution is understandable, especially given recent CFS research history:

October 2009: A virus, XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus), is found in 68 of 101 CFS patients.
January 2010: XMRV is not found in a British study that tested CFS patients.
July 2010: XMRV is not found in a Center for Disease Control study testing CFS patients.

Though this new study did not find XMRV (a virus also associated with prostate cancer), it found other viruses in the MLV (murine leukemia virus-related viruses) family–viruses not found in July’s Center for Disease Control study. That conflicting study was the reason for the publication’s delay, despite clamoring from some chronic fatigue syndrome patients.

“My colleagues and I are conducting additional experiments to ensure that the data are accurate and complete,” wrote co-author Harvey Alter of the National Institutes of Health, in an email statement to The New York Times last month. “Our goal is not speed, but scientific accuracy,” he wrote. [Scientific American]

As Scientific American reports, some researchers believe that the previous studies’ contradictions may be explained by the variety of patients chosen for the different studies (some much sicker than others), and perhaps the existence of different causes in different geographical regions. But in a commentary (pdf) published along with Alter’s study, a group of researchers led by Valerie Courgnaud called a geographic explanation “baffling.”

Given the syndrome’s confusing past, some researchers now hope to take a different tack: Another way to see if viruses are to blame, they say, is to monitor how chronic fatigue syndrome patients respond to anti-retroviral drugs.

Andrew Mason, a University of Alberta professor, co-wrote the commentary in the journal calling for trials testing anti-retrovirals in CFS patients who are positive for one of the MLV-related viruses. “If the patients improve, after a certain point you stop debating whether it causes the disease and say, the treatment works and we’re going to use it,” said Dr. Mason. [Wall Street Journal]

Pharmaceutical companies such as Merck & Co. and Gilead Sciences Inc. say more research is needed before they start large clinical trials, The Wall Street Journal reports, but others are already trying antiviral treatments on a small scale. A New Mexico doctor and blogger, Jamie Deckoff-Jones, and her 20-year-old daughter started taking a combination of three anti-retrovirals after being diagnosed with XMRV.

Image: Whittemore Peterson Institute

Source: Chronic Fatigue Debate Goes on: New Study Links the Syndrome to a Virus

One of the top three priorities for the next decade of astrophysics and astronomy, we noted this week, is unraveling dark energy, the weird force that pushes the universe apart. Given that scientists know next-to-nothing about dark energy—besides the fact that it makes up most of the universe—any step could be an important one. Thanks to a study out this week in Science, astrophysicists at least can have more confidence in this phenomenon that can’t be directly seen or measured: Their estimates for dark matter’s extent appear to be on target.

The technique scientists used in this study is called gravitational lensing, and the lens in this case is a huge galactic cluster called Abell 1689.

Because of its huge mass, the cluster acts as a cosmic magnifying glass, causing light to bend around it. The way in which light is distorted by this cosmic lens depends on three factors: how far away the distant object is; the mass of Abell 1689; and the distribution of dark energy [BBC News].

Gravitational lensing is a trick predicted by Einstein’s general relativity, and scientists have used it before to study dark matter (which tends to be a little easier to study than its dark counterpart). But study author Priyamvada Natarajan and her colleagues got such great images from the Hubble Space Telescope that they were able to map out the dark energy distribution.

Natarajan and her colleagues carefully measured the way each image was distorted to determine how far the background galaxies were from the lens. They then combined that information with data on how far the galaxies are from Earth to come up with a parameter that describes the density of dark energy in the universe, and how the density changes with time. “Knowing exactly where the object is, and knowing about the big lump that is causing the bumps in space-time, allows us to accurately calculate the light path,” Natarajan said. “The light path depends on geometry of space-time, and dark energy manifests itself there. That’s how we get at it” [Wired.com].

The importance of Natarajan’s paper is that it backed up the earlier estimates for the matter vs. energy density of the universe by providing a robust independent measure. Specifically, the study found that the matter density of the universe is about 0.3, reinforcing the idea that dark energy constitutes nearly three-quarters of everything that is.

It’s not clear yet whether having a more refined measure of its presence will bring us any closer to identifying the properties of dark energy, but the fact that it shows up as a consistent value in a number of independent measures suggests that it may not be as mysterious as its name implies [Ars Technica].

So we can breathe a little easier that all that dark energy is really out there—just as long as we can deal with the sting of more cosmic insignificance. Dark energy is thought to comprise 72 percent of the universe and dark matter makes up another 24 percent; that means that the matter making up you and me accounts for only 4 percent of the universe.

Image: NASA?ESA, Jullo, Natarajan, Kneib

Source: Gravitational Lensing Brings Dark Energy Into Focus

Take Manhattan, turn it into oil and drop it in the Gulf: That’s the size of the submerged oil plume that scientists found near the sight of BP’s oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, casting more doubt on those claims that the plumes weren’t so bad, or that most of the oil has been accounted for.

The research was conducted in June during an expedition led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The study, which appears in Science, is the first peer-reviewed data on oil plumes from the leak in the Gulf, and comes from 57,000 direct measurements made during the visit.

The plume, which scientists said came from the busted Gulf well, shows the oil “is persisting for longer periods than we would have expected,” lead researcher Rich Camilli said in a statement issued with the study. “Many people speculated that subsurface oil droplets were being easily biodegraded. Well, we didn’t find that. We found it was still there” [MSNBC].

Indeed, the researchers say that the oil is breaking down slowly in the cold, deep water—only 10 percent the speed it’s breaking down on the surface. According to the Wall Street Journal, the droplets aren’t buoyant enough to rise from the colder, deeper water to the warmer surface water.

Monty Graham, a scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama who was not involved in the study, said: “We absolutely should be concerned that this material is drifting around for who knows how long. They say months in the (research) paper, but more likely we’ll be able to track this stuff for years.” Florida State University scientist Ian MacDonald, in testimony before Congress on Thursday, said the gas and oil “imprint of the BP discharge will be detectable in the marine environment for the rest of my life” [AP].

The team’s numbers draws them into direct conflict with those provided by the government: that three-quarters of the oil could be accounted for, including 17 percent of the total siphoned directly to the surface and 25 percent that already evaporated or dissolved. Everybody’s estimates are complicated by the sheer difficulty of tracking and predicting the flow of oil in water.

To measure what’s really happening underwater, scientists must find tiny droplets in a vast ocean, then wait for lab tests to verify it’s oil from BP’s well. In some cases, it’s not even oil: One Louisiana scientist said his lab has tested several promising samples and found that they are an apparently natural substance, now nicknamed “sea snot” [Washington Post].

Previous posts on the BP oil spill:
80beats: Mud from “Static Kill” Has Stopped BP’s Leak; Concrete Coming Today
80beats: BP Prepares for “Static Kill” Operation To Permanently Seal Leaking Well
80beats: One Cap Off, One Cap On: BP Tries Another Plan To Catch Leaking Oil
80beats: BP Oil Update: Tar Balls in Texas & Lake Pontchartrain
80beats: Gulf Coast Turtle News: No More Fiery Death; Relocating 70,000 Eggs

Image: WHOI / Science

Source: Scientists Find 22-Mile-Long Oily Plume Drifting in the Gulf of Mexico

That may seem a strange question, akin to asking who’s buried in Grant’s tomb. But a new study proposes that some athletes diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease may in fact have a different fatal disease that is set off by concussions.

Researchers have previously investigated the link between athletes and this neurodegenerative disease, more technically known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A recent study examined what seemed to be a higher than usual incidence of Lou Gehrig’s disease among soccer players, and, of course, the disease bears the name of a New York Yankee who was famously undaunted by the hard knocks of his sport. Though it’s impossible to determine now whether Lou Gehrig suffered from ALS or a different condition (Gehrig was cremated), the study’s lead author speculates that Lou Gehrig’s disease might be a misnomer:

“Here he is, the face of his disease, and he may have had a different disease as a result of his athletic experience,” said Dr. Ann McKee, the director of the neuropathology laboratory for the New England Veterans Administration Medical Centers, and the lead neuropathologist on the study. [The New York Times]

McKee’s team looked at the brains and spinal cords of deceased athletes such as former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Wally Hilgenberg and former Southern California linebacker Eric Scoggins who were thought to have died from ALS, and who had also been diagnosed with a dementia-causing disease linked to head injuries, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The researchers found two proteins in the spinal cord which are known to harm motor neurons, and would therefore cause ALS-like symptoms. A similar pattern of proteins was found in the spinal cord of a deceased unnamed boxer.

Dr. McKee said that because she has never seen that protein pattern in A.L.S. victims without significant histories of brain trauma, she and her team were confident the three athletes did not have A.L.S., but a disorder that erodes its victims’ nervous system in similar ways. [The New York Times]

The paper detailing this research will appear tomorrow in the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology, and a report on the subject will air on the HBO show Real Sports tonight.

“Most A.L.S. patients don’t go to autopsy–there’s no need to look at your brain and spinal cord,” said Dr. Brian Crum, an assistant professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “But a disease can look like A.L.S., it can look like Alzheimer’s, and it’s not when you look at the actual tissue. This is something that needs to be paid attention to.” [The New York Times]

Such distinctions are not only important for medical research. If concussions are causing disease in military veterans and athletes, they might seek compensation for treatment expenses.

Image: University Archives—Columbiana Library, Columbia University.

Source: Did Lou Gehrig Have Lou Gehrig’s Disease?

thecarchik writes “America loves to complain about gas mileage and the cost of gasoline. As it turns out, part of the problem is us. How much does it really matter? A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 1.1 percent increase in self-reported obesity, which translates into extra weight that your vehicle has to haul around. The study estimates that 1 billion extra gallons of fuel were needed to compensate for passenger weight gained between 1960 and 2002.”

Source: The Fuel Cost of Obesity