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SciDev / Latest news


Latest news on science, technology and the developing world

Sub-Saharan Africa news in brief: 10–24 March 2010
10 03 2010 Fund targets research for African small famers, maize for poor soils, researchers study East Coast fever, and more.

Dengue programmes 'too paternalistic'
10 03 2010 Routine responses to dengue fever are top-down, which discourages individual engagement in control strategies, says a study.

Wild turmeric effective in filariasis vector control
10 03 2010 Wild turmeric extract could help control the mosquito that spreads lymphatic filariasis, say scientists.

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MIT / Technology Review


Technology Review exists to promote the understanding of emerging technologies and their impact.

Faster Healing for Severe Fractures
10 03 2010 A simple method uses stem cells from bone tissue to repair serious injuries quickly and cheaply. A new surgical procedure can repair severe bone injuries and defects more quickly and simply than current methods, which include bone-grafting operations and lengthening procedures that involve inserting pins through the skin to pull bones together.

Gasifying Biomass with Sunlight
10 03 2010 A solar-driven process could yield far more fuel than conventional biomass production. Sundrop Fuels, a startup based in Louisville, CO, says it has developed a cleaner and more efficient way to turn biomass into synthetic fuels by harnessing the intense heat of the sun to vaporize wood and crop waste. Its process can produce twice the amount of gasoline or diesel per ton of biomass compared to conventional biomass gasification systems, the company claims.

Patching the Security Update Process
10 03 2010 Security firm aims to make installing updates as painless and invisible as possible. Recent research shows that the typical PC user needs to install a security update roughly every five days in order to safely use Microsoft Windows and all of the third-party programs that typically run on top of it. In response, a Danish computer security firm says it will soon debut a free new service that silently automates the installation of security updates for dozens of the most commonly used software products.

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CABI / Hand picked... and carefully sorted / Web log

What killed the dinosaurs?
09 03 2010 A new study presented this week at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, USA, gives compelling evidence, which shows the most likely cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction 65 million years ago. The two main theories up to...

Invasive plant to meet its match
09 03 2010 Today sees an important milestone in a CABI project, led by Dr Dick Shaw. Defra gave the go-ahead to release an insect, a psyllid, to stop the spread of the non-native invasive plant, Japanese Knotweed. 10 years ago a research...

Bring on the sunshine!
18 02 2010 I have recently come across a number of interesting articles highlighting the health benefits of maintaining sufficient/high levels of vitamin D. The headlines grabbing my attention include: UK experts calling for milk to be fortified to halt a rise in...

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AlterNet / Environment / News


AlterNet is a news magazine and online community that creates original journalism and amplifies the best of dozens of other independent media sources. AlterNet's aim is to inspire citizen action and advocacy on the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, and health care issues.

How Much Will Obama's Nuclear Blind Spot Cost America?
11 03 2010 Is the administration ignoring the potential financial fallout of its plans for a nuclear expansion?

Star of Oscar Winning 'The Cove' Recaps His On-Stage Political Action and the Academy's Censorship
11 03 2010 Ric O'Barry make the best of his few moments on stage at the Oscars to make a brave gesture in defense of dolphins.

Exposed: Chevron's Cover-up of Gross Environmental Abuses in Ecuador
11 03 2010 Chevron claims it's not responsible for dumping 18 billion gallons of industrial wastewater into the Amazon. A local leader says otherwise.

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The Economist / Science and technology / News

Correction: Alien life
05 03 2010 In "Signs of life" (February 27th) we said that the Square Kilometre Array radio-telescope collaboration planned to build its grid over a square kilometre of land. In fact, it is the combined collecting area of the telescopes involved that is one square kilometre. The instruments themselves would be scattered over several hundred square kilometres. ...

Palaeontology: Do the locomotion
05 03 2010 The earliest animal tracks yet found have been unearthed in Canada ONE of the greatest mysteries of the history of life is the Cambrian explosion. Prior to 560m years ago, animal fossils are rare. Then, in a geological eyeblink, they become common. Shelly creatures such as trilobites and brachiopods, of whose ancestors there is little sign in the rocks, are suddenly everywhere. Biologists would dearly love to know what happened. Recent discoveries at the delightfully named Mistaken Point, in Newfoundland, serve to lift the veil slightly. These findings are not of Precambrian animals themselves, but of their tracks. And these, paradoxically, may be more useful. ...

Weather forecasting: Flaky science
05 03 2010 How to predict the consistency of snow “THE wrong type of snow” became famous as a lame excuse in Britain in February 1991 when, caught out by a cold snap, British Rail blamed severe disruption to its services on problems clearing unusually soft and powdery snow from its tracks. But British Rail had a point. There are, indeed, different types of snow—and people who live in mountainous areas, or visit to ski, like to know which ones to expect. Forecasting what sort of snow will fall is not easy. But a pair of researchers at the University of Utah think they have cracked the problem. Jim Steenburgh and Trevor Alcott carried out their research in the Alta ski area, which is about 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) up in the Wasatch range. Good record-keeping at the resort, including precipitation measurements that are taken automatically every hour, allowed them to analyse 457 snowfalls that took place between 1999 and 2007. ...

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Discover / Technology


Discover Magazine \| Science, Technology, and The Future

What Is This? A Long, Lost Painting by Joan Miro?
09 03 2010 Hints: John Glenn had one on his historic flight. The colors were added to distinguish distance from the camera.

The Latest Trend in Aircraft: Really, Really Tiny
04 03 2010 Microfliers could search for missing people, detect bombs, and perhaps even deliver drugs inside the human body.

Destination Science: The Pretty, Desolate Spot Where the Nuclear Age Began
03 03 2010 The Trinity Site in New Mexico is safer than you'd think, and you have to look hard to see the signs of its momentous place in history.

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MSNBC / Technology / News

Officials: Ex-TSA worker tried to sabotage computers
11 03 2010 Federal prosecutors have charged a former Transportation Security Administration employee with attempting to sabotage terror watch list computers and by attempting to introduce a virus into the computer system, according to news sources.

The dark side of digital ‘love’
10 03 2010

Despite many upbeat tales of online matchups or romantic reunions through Facebook or e-mail, there are plenty of cautionary tales. They don't have the high-profile, TMZ-appeal of Tiger Woods' case, but are more devastating to the victims.

Chile quake moves city 10 feet
10 03 2010

The violent temblor — the fifth most powerful quake ever measured — shifted other parts of South America as well, from the southern tip of the continent to northern Brazil.

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Reason magazine / Science

Everyone Who Knows What They're Talking About Agrees with Me
11 03 2010 Is man-made global warming happening? Can nuclear waste bestored safely? Do concealed handguns reduce violence? Think aboutthose questions for a minute. Then think about your thinking: Whydo you hold those particular views on these controversial issues?And do scientific experts agree with you? The Yale Cultural Cognition Project has been probing the questionof cultural polarization over scientific risk issues for a numberof years. The project’s latest working paper, “CulturalCognition of Scientific Consensus,” analyzes the question: “Whydo members of the public disagree—sharply and persistently—aboutfacts on which expert scientists largely agree?” As examples ofstrong expert scientific consensus, researchers led by YaleUniversity law professor Daniel Kahan selected three recentNational Academy of Sciences (NAS) reports dealing with climatechange, nuclearwaste, and gunpossession. To get at what Americans think about each of these three issues,the Yale researchers conducted a poll of 1,500 Americans in July2009. But first the pollsters asked questions designed to eliciteach respondent’s cultural worldview. The project uses a modifiedversion of a typology devised in the 1980s by brilliant Universityof California-Berkeley sociologist Aaron Wildavskywhich divides Americans into four cultural groups: Individualists,Communitarians, Hierarchicalists, and Egalitarians. Hierarchicalists prefer a social order where people have clearlydefined roles based on stable characteristics such as class, race,or gender. Egalitarians want to reduce racial, gender, and incomeinequalities. Individualists expect people to succeed or fail ontheir own, while Communitarians believe that society is obligatedto take care of everyone. Generally speaking, Individualists tendto dismiss claims of environmental risks because they fear suchclaims will be used to fetter markets and other arenas ofindividual achievement. Hierarchicalists tend to see claims ofenvironmental risk as a subversive tactic aiming to undermine astable social order. In contrast, Egalitarians and Communitariansdislike markets and industry for creating disparities in wealth andpower. In fact, they readily believe that such disparities generateenvironmental risks that must be regulated. Once poll participants were sorted into cultural value groups,they were asked a series of questions about what experts thinkabout global warming, nuclear waste disposal, and the risks ofconcealed carry gun laws. Of course, regular citizens do not havethe time or inclination to investigate the technical details ofsuch issues, so they turn to experts to sort out the issues. “Onemight thus expect (or at least hope) that regardless of thetendency of predispositions and biased information processing topush people of opposing cultural outlooks apart, the need of all ofthem for expert guidance would cause them to gravitate toward theconsensus positions among scientists,” write the Yale researchers.The fond hope is that more information will tend to cause publicopinions on scientific risk issues to converge. But, as theresearchers show, that doesn’t happen. It turns out that peopledon’t agree on what scientific consensus is. The Yale study conducted two kinds of surveys on theirculturally-typed population. In the first one, they asked pollrespondents what the majority of experts thought about globalwarming, nuclear waste disposal, and the risks of concealed carrygun laws. In the second survey, respondents were asked to imaginethat a friend was seeking their advice about which book by anexpert to read on each of the issues. The respondents were suppliedwith alleged summaries of each book. On each issue, one summaryargued that the activity was very risky while another asserted thatit was relatively harmless. The statements were assigned randomlyto the pictures of older be-suited white guys with elite academiccredentials as the putative authors of the books. The respondentsread the summaries and were then asked if they thought eachdepicted author was a “trustworthy and knowledgeable expert.”Remember that each author was randomly assigned to either the high-or low-risk arguments. Depressingly, the Yale project study finds that people “morereadily count someone as an expert when that person endorses aconclusion that fits their cultural predispositions.” On globalwarming, the NAS clearly asserts that “most scientists” agree thatthe earth is warming and that humans are the chief cause of recentwarming. According to the Yale survey, 77 percent of EgalitarianCommunitarians (henceforth Egalitarians) believe that mostscientists agree that the global warming is occurring, while only24 percent of Hierarchical Individualists (henceforthIndividualists) thought so. On the other hand, 55 percent ofIndividualists thought that scientists were divided on whether ornot the earth is warming while only 20 percent of Egalitarians did.In addition, 67 percent of Egalitarians thought most scientistsagreed that humans are causing the warming, while 55 percent ofIndividualists believe that most scientists disagree that humansare the source of warming. On burying nuclear waste, the NAS studies maintain that there isa “strong worldwide consensus” on its safety. According to thesurvey, similar percentages of Egalitarians (43 percent) andIndividualists (44 percent) believe that experts are divided on theissue. Nevertheless, 37 percent of Individualists believe thatexperts think it’s safe to bury nuclear wastes, while only 21percent of Egalitarians do. On the other hand, 18 percent ofIndividualists believe that most experts think it’s dangerous tobury nuclear wastes, while 36 percent of Egalitarians do. With regard to the risks of violence posed by concealed carrygun laws, the cited NAS study finds no consensus among experts.Interestingly, a plurality of both Individualists and Egalitariansbelieve that most experts are divided on the issue, 40 percent and41 percent respectively. Still, 47 percent of Individualists thinkthat most experts agree that concealed carry laws prevent violence,while 48 percent of Egalitarians believe that the expert consensusis that concealed carry laws promote violence. Parenthetically, the Yale project doesn’t look at how culturalcognition shapes the values of the researchers who constructvarious scientific consensuses. For example, last July, a PewResearch Center for People & the Press survey found that 52percent of scientists described themselves as liberal while only 20percent of the public did. Conversely, 37 percent of the publiccalled themselves conservative while only 9 percent of scientistsdid. So it’s not too surprising that scientists have a morepositive view of the efficacy of government action than does thepublic. Among scientists, 58 percent disagree with the statementthat “when something is run by the government it is usuallyinefficient and wasteful” whereas only 39 percent of the publicdisagree with it. Both the public and scientists are suspicious ofbusiness, believing that business does not generally strike a fairbalance between profits and the public interest, 58 percent and 77percent, respectively. So how did the poll respondents assess the trustworthiness ofthe putative experts in the survey? When the depicted expertdeclared global warming to be risky, 89 percent of Egalitariansfound him trustworthy and knowledgeable while only 23 percent ofIndividualists did. On the other hand, when the putative expertsuggested that the dangers posed by global warming were highlyuncertain, 86 percent of Individualists found him credible, while51 percent of Egalitarians did. Division over the trustworthinessof the nuclear waste experts was not nearly as stark. When thesupposed expert asserted it was dangerous to bury nuclear waste, 63percent of Individualists found him credible, while 85 percent ofEgalitarians did. And when the expert claimed it was safe to burywastes, 78 percent of Individualists trusted him, while only 60percent of Egalitarians did. Concealed carry brought out deepdifferences between Individualists and Egalitarians. When theexpert in the survey declared concealed carry was risky, only 25percent of Individualists thought him trustworthy andknowledgeable, while 78 percent of Egalitarians did. When theexpert asserted that legally concealed handguns prevented crime, 83percent of Individualists trusted him, while only 51 percent ofEgalitarians did. So how can scientific information about risks be effectivelycommunicated to the public and policymakers? To increase thechances of securing open-minded consideration of scientificfindings, the Yale researchers argue that risk communicators “muststrive to present it in a way that avoids making it needlesslythreatening to the identities of one or another group of culturallydiverse citizens.” In other research the Yale team found thatHierarchical Individualists were more open to scientific evidenceof man-made global warming when coupled with the suggestion thatnuclear power might be a way to address the problem. In another study on cultural reactions to vaccinating adolescentgirls against human papillomavirus (HPV), the Yale researchers usedputative experts that reflected Hierarchical Individualist values(grey-haired suited men) and Egalitarian Communitarian values(denim-shirted and bearded men). When the grey-hairs opposed thevaccine, Hierarchical Individualists increased their opposition,and when the denim-shirts favored the vaccine, EgalitarianCommunitarians increased their support. Then the researchersinverted the expert-argument pairing, and they found that vaccinepolarization disappeared. The messengers mattered. In other words,trotting out Al Gore to argue that global warming is a crisis willdo nothing to convince doubters, nor will citing Sen. James Inhofe(R-Okla.) persuade believers that it’s a hoax. In fact, opinionsharden, argues Yale project researcher Kahan, when advocates clearlyidentified with particular cultural outlooks indulge in partisanrhetoric and ridicule opponents as corrupt or devoid of reason."This approach encourages citizens to experience scientific debatesas contests between warring cultural factions—and to pick sidesaccordingly," he notes. Back in December 2008, President-elect Barack Obama declared that science is “about ensuring that facts andevidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology.” Intheir latest working paper, the Yale Cultural Cognition projectresearchers conclude, “We believe it is more plausible to inferthat both hierarchical individualists andegalitarian communitarians are fitting their perceptions ofscientific consensus to their predispositions than that either hassome advantage over the other in discerning what ‘most expertscientists’ really believe.” At least we can all agree it is theother guys’ politics and ideologies that are twisting facts andobscuring evidence. Ronald Bailey isReason's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the BiotechRevolution is available from PrometheusBooks.

Wake Me Up When Men Get Pregnant
11 03 2010 “Gene therapy has had a tough decade, because of poor safetyoutcomes,” says Ramez Naam, a nanotechnology researcher, winner ofthe H.G. Wells Award for Contributions to Transhumanism, and authorof the 2005 book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise ofBiological Enhancement. Naam is referring to the case of JesseGelsinger, an 18-year-old suffering from an inherited liverdisorder who died in 1999 when an experimental genetic treatment byUniversity of Pennsylvania researchers caused a traumatic immunereaction. But he could just as well be describing the entire fieldof organic human enhancement. These days transhumanists talk a lot about subcutaneous dataports, permanent immersion in virtual reality, even extending malelife spans by removing the gonads. But they spend noticeably littletime considering enhancement through inheritable, rather thanmechanical, means. “I don’t know why biological stuff is off theplate,” says Greg Fahy, chief scientific officer at Twenty-FirstCentury Medicine Inc. “It’s just not the flavor of the day.” Human enhancement enthusiasts sing of a future, or a present, inwhich human beings have escaped all manner of physical limitation.They engage in deep conversations about the real-world ethics ofcreating superbeings, about ending suffering by “redesigning thehedonic treadmill.” Some used to wear Borg headgear, but camerasand other wearable devices have gotten small enough to beunnoticeable. Transhumanists subdivide into categories whosedistinctions are not clear to the nonenhanced eye: extropians (whobelieve self-directed people can reverse the tendency of systemstoward disorder), abolitionists (who say human suffering can beradically reduced if not eliminated), cryonicists (who want to havetheir bodies frozen for future resurrection), immortalists (self-explanatory), and many others. What these transhumanists share is a confidence that scientificprogress will broaden the definition of humanity. We’ll live wellbeyond the biblical average of threescore and ten. We’ll dosomething more interesting with our long lives than the Sphinx’sdescription of walking on four legs in the morning, two at noon,and three at dusk. I would say the transhumanists envision dandlinggreat-great-great-great-grandchildren on their still-supple knees,but the movement tends to draw people who don’t express muchinterest in old-fashioned reproduction. That’s where I part ways with the transhumanists. I’ve alwaysbeen less excited about what human enhancement can do for me thanabout what it can do for the future: manipulation of human geneticmaterial to produce lasting, reproducible new breeds ofpeople. This idea has the added benefit of being plausible: Unlike airynotions of frozen brains or cyborg implants, biological enhancementhas thousands of years of history behind it, in the form ofagricultural hybridization and animal husbandry. As Charles Darwinnoted in On the Origin of Species: “The key is man’s powerof accumulative selection: nature gives successive variations; manadds them up in certain directions useful to him. In this sense hemay be said to have made for himself useful breeds.” "Gene splicing”—a phrase that was popular back when I was inschool and Blade Runner replicant Rutger Hauer wasinforming skeptics, “We’re not computers; we’re physical”—wouldseem to have sweetened Darwin’s deal. But it hasn’t. In the lastdecade we’ve seen ever-higher orders of cloned animals. We’ve seenpuppies and marmosets that glow thanks to implanted and inheritedjellyfish DNA. Yet nobody is excited about the idea of humans withwings or extra fingers. Mainstream media outlets report constantlyabout “building designer babies,” but when you read the actualarticles they’re just talking about improvements insurrogacy. Genetic enhancement has never gotten much love in popularculture. Visions cluster around the premise (typified by the 1997movie Gattaca) that mastering genes will lead toconformity rather than variety. This is an absurd notion. Darwinagain: “As variations manifestly useful or pleasing to man appearonly occasionally, the chance of their appearance will be muchincreased by a large number of individuals being kept.” Anyway, transhumanists are largely impervious to scare tactics.So why isn’t there more energy around biological enhancement?“There is a rift, which may be growing, between those who favor thegray path [nanotechnology and mechanical enhancement] and those whofavor the red or green path [biological],” says James Hughes, aTrinity College bioethicist and author of the 2004 book CitizenCyborg. “There is a faction that says biology is a dumb way todo these things, that we need nanotechnology and A.I. to figure itout for us. The future is a lot more chaotic than when I became atranshumanist.” Is chaos necessarily bad? I regret that I won’t get the chanceto enhance my own inheritable code, and I still entertain visionsof my kids as the Three Chinese Sisters, with more useful traits: asuperstrong one, a superintelligent one, and one who can fly. Buteven this fond fantasy rests on the idea of letting new types existand seeing what happens, not on guaranteeing outcomes throughartificial intelligence or, worse, the kind of nationalconversations you see in presidential bioethics panels. There is grandeur in the view that genetic enhancement willproduce outcomes that can’t be modeled by Bayesian optimization.Better machines and longevity treatments have the attention of thehuman enhancement community now, but the real fun, and the realmystery, will be found in creating varieties of people, who in turnwill have concerns and beliefs and bodies that differ radicallyfrom our own. Will all those differences be attractive or adaptive?The beauty of evolution is that we can’t know the end—but we canget more skillful in crafting our part of the beginning. “Biologyis now an information mode,” says Naam. “So in the next 10 or 20years you could start to see something like Moore’s law ingenetics. Our most important tool is the computer.” Contributing Editor Tim Cavanaugh (simpleton.com) is a writer in LosAngeles.

The EPA’s Carbon Footprint
18 02 2010 On December 7, as delegates from around the world gathered inCopenhagen for the United Nations climate conference, EnvironmentalProtection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that herbureaucracy would begin to regulate the emission of carbon dioxideand other gases deemed to be warming the planet. “Today, I’m proudto announce that EPA has finalized its endangerment finding ongreenhouse gas pollution,” Jackson proclaimed. As a consequence,the agency “is now authorized and obligated to take reasonableefforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants under the Clean AirAct.” “Reasonable” here is in the eye of the beholder. The 1990 CleanAir Act was designed for conventional air pollutants such asparticulates and ozone smog, not for carbon dioxide. Applying thoserules to CO2 will mean imposing costly regulations not just on carsand factories but on commercial buildings, churches, and evenresidences. All told, more than 1 million entities could becomesubject to new federal controls on greenhouse emissions. The EPA power grab was no surprise; indeed, it was inevitable.The regulatory train was set in motion in 2007, when the SupremeCourt ruled by a 5-4 vote in Massachusetts v. EPAthat the Clean Air Act applied to greenhouse gases. The EPAprobably would have made the same move had John McCain beenpresident, by court order if not voluntarily. Now that the train ispicking up speed, it will be almost impossible to stop anddifficult to control. If you think federal environmental regulationis costly and inefficient, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Orders From the Court The push to extend the Clean Air Act began late in the Clintonadministration. In 1998, during a House Appropriations Committeehearing, EPA Administrator Carol Browner told Congress thatexisting law provided enough authority for the agency to beginregulating the greenhouse gases that environmentalists fear arewarming the planet past the point of no return. An EPA legalmemorandum on this point soon followed. Environmental groups thentried to force the agency’s hand by filing a petition demandingregulation, but the Clinton White House, still smarting over afailed 1993 attempt to impose a nation-wide energy tax, was in norush to adopt such far-reaching regulations. By the time the Bush administration took over, the greens weretired of waiting for an answer. In 2002, the petitioners sued theEPA for failing to act. The Bush EPA formally denied the petitionin 2003, on grounds that it lacked the authority to regulategreenhouse gases because the Clean Air Act was written to addresslocalized air pollutants, not globally dispersed emissions such ascarbon dioxide. If Washington wanted to fight climate change, theadministration argued, coordinated international efforts made moresense than haphazard regulation via a law written in a differenttime for a different purpose. The petitioners, now joined by several northeastern states andothers, promptly sued. They prevailed in 2007, when the SupremeCourt’s narrow majority concluded that the EPA had power toregulate greenhouse gas emissions and had acted arbitrarily indeclining to exercise the Clean Air Act’s underlying authority. Under the original law, the EPA is required to regulate anyemissions that “cause, or contribute to, air pollution which mayreasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”According to the five-justice majority, the six greenhouse gasescited by the petitioners—carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide,hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride—“fitwell within the Clean Air Act’s capacious definition of ‘airpollutant,’ ” as they contribute to the accumulation of greenhousegases in the atmosphere, which in turn contribute to a gradualwarming that could “threaten the public health and welfare ofcurrent and future generations.” Writing for the majority, JusticeJohn Paul Stevens brushed aside concerns that a complex regulatorystatute designed to combat local pollution problems was a poor fitfor global climate control. EPA regulation of greenhouse gases“would lead to no…extreme measures,” he wrote. The Supreme Court stopped short of ordering the EPA to regulategreenhouse gases, but the writing was on the wall. If the EPAconcluded that, per the Clean Air Act, greenhouse gas emissions“may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health orwelfare,” the agency would now be legally obligated to regulate.Since even the Bush EPA had repeatedly warned that global warmingwas a problem the nation “must address,” greenhouse gas regulationbecame a question of “when,” not “if.” Not Just Cars and Trucks The immediate consequence of the sweeping new EPA authority willbe more stringent regulation of automobiles. Section 202 of theClean Air Act requires the EPA to adopt emission controls once an“endangerment” finding is made. In September, anticipating thatfinding, the EPA and the National Highway Transportation SafetyAdministration proposed new regulations that would effectivelyrequire automakers to produce cars and light trucks with an averagefuel efficiency rating of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Accordingto the EPA’s own estimates, the regulations could cost automakersmore than $50 billion and increase new vehicle prices by an averageof $1,000. The rules could also reduce auto safety by encouragingproduction of lighter, smaller cars. With the endangerment findingon the books, a final rule should follow shortly. That won’t be the only new regulation set in motion. While theEPA made its endangerment finding under Section 202, otherprovisions of the act have virtually identical language. Forexample, Section 111, which governs emissions for newly built ormodified industrial facilities, likewise requires the agency to setstandards for stationary sources of emissions that cause orcontribute to “air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated toendanger public health or welfare.” If the EPA must regulateautomotive emissions under Section 202, it will also have to setstandards for newly constructed industrial facilities under Section111. And that just scratches the surface of the EPA’s potentialgreenhouse impact. Under Section 165 of the Clean Air Act, whencompanies construct or modify any facility that qualifies as a“major” stationary source of air pollution, they are required toadopt the “best available control technology” for all emissionssubject to regulation by any part of the act. The law defines a“major” source as a facility that has the potential to emit 250tons per year of a regulated pollutant (or, for some specifiedfacilities, 100 tons per year). For traditional air pollutants,such as sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides, these thresholds meanthat only the biggest and dirtiest facilities, amounting to severalthousand nationwide, are subject to federal controls. Carbon dioxide, however, is a ubiquitous by-product of modernindustrial society. (Indeed, some efforts to control traditionalpollutants increase carbon dioxide emissions by design, as aby-product of more complete combustion.) Plenty of industrialfacilities emit more than 250 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Sodo many commercial and residential buildings. The EPA itselfestimates that a strict application of Section 165 would increasethe number of required air pollution permits “more than 140-fold.”A study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce goes evenfurther, estimating that the 250-ton threshold would encompassnearly 200,000 manufacturing facilities, approximately 20,000farms, and at least 1 million commercial buildings, including asubstantial percentage of hospitals, hotels, large restaurants, andeven some churches. On average, the Chamber of Commerce studyreported, “a building with over 40,000 square feet uses enoughhydrocarbons to become a regulated source.” And since the actapplies to all facilities with the mere potential to emit250 tons in a year, the regulatory net could be spread evenwider. Just one EPA permit for a new or modified source can costhundreds of thousands of dollars for the applicant and require morethan 300 person-hours for a regulatory agency. Adding hundreds ofthousands of new permit seekers would likely overwhelm the stateagencies that typically implement EPA rules, causing extensivedelays and cost increases. It would be a substantial new burden onan already struggling economy. ‘Absurd Results’ The EPA is well aware of the potential regulatory nightmare—andpolitical backlash—that enforcement of Section 165 could create, sothe agency has offered to modify its carbon rules. In September,shortly after proposing the new regulations for cars and trucks,the EPA proposed a dramatically higher new threshold of 25,000 tonsper year before the new greenhouse gas requirements are imposed,even though the statute expressly sets a limit of 250. The EPAestimates that the new threshold, if adopted, would force fewerthan 15,000 facilities to obtain carbon permits, and most of thoseare already subject to other environmental regulations. “This is acommon-sense rule that is carefully tailored to apply to only thelargest sources,” the EPA’s Jackson explained. However sensible it may be, the proposal directly conflicts withthe act’s explicit text. Section 165 applies to“any…source with the potential to emit two hundred andfifty tons per year or more of any pollutant” (emphasisadded). The EPA justified its elastic reading of the law on groundsthat a lower threshold is “not feasible” for greenhouse gases.Without any statutory text to support this decision, the EPA reliedon the doctrines of “administrative necessity” and avoiding “absurdresults.” According to the EPA, applying the Clean Air Act as written togreenhouse gas emissions would “extensively disrupt” existingregulatory programs and perhaps make them “impossible” toadminister. Yet such administrative concerns did not persuade amajority of the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v.EPA. Nor did they convince the attorneys who sued the EPAto force greenhouse gas regulation in the first place, some of whomnow work for the EPA. Environmentalists were happy to pushinflexible readings of statutory provisions that expand the EPA’sregulatory power. Now that their friends are in charge, some wantregulators to have discretion over how this authority is exercised.The EPA says it won’t regulate smaller facilities now, but it’salso pledging to revisit the 25,000 ton threshold within fiveyears. The EPA’s regulatory benevolence could be even more short-lived,as the agency’s creative reading of the Clean Air Act is unlikelyto survive judicial review. During the Bush years, federal courtsrepeatedly chastised the agency for taking liberties with the CleanAir Act. “Read the statute!” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.Circuit exclaimed in one case. In another, the court declared thatthe EPA’s interpretation of the act could make sense “only in aHumpty Dumpty world.” One can imagine its response to the EPA’seffort to turn 250 into 25,000. If the text of the Clean Air Actapplies to greenhouse gases, it requires more stringent regulationthan even this administration wants. Pollute Globally, Regulate Locally Section 165 is not the only potentially massive regulatoryconsequence of the EPA’s carbon announcement. In all likelihood thefinding will force the agency to set National Ambient Air QualityStandards for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as well.This could end up making Section 165 look like a walk in thepark. Sections 108 and 109 of the Clean Air Act require the EPA to setstandards for all emissions which, in the judgment of theadministrator, “cause or contribute to air pollution which mayreasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare” and“the presence of which in the ambient air results from numerous ordiverse mobile or stationary sources.” We’ve seen this firstrequirement before; it’s the basis of the endangerment finding, soit has already been met. Emitted from countless mobile andstationary sources, greenhouse gases easily satisfy the secondcriterion as well. Air quality standards must be set at the level “requisite toprotect the public health” with “an adequate margin of safety” and“requisite to protect the public welfare from any known oranticipated adverse effects.” States then must developimplementation plans detailing how they will ensure that local airquality meets the standard before a deadline. These plans mustinclude more stringent facility permitting requirements andwhatever other measures are necessary to ensure the target is met,including regulation of automobile use. States that fail to complyrisk sanctions, including loss of highway funds and directimposition of even stricter rules. The problem: It makes no sense to set ambient air qualitystandards for greenhouse gases. There is simply no way for stateand local regulators to ensure that individual cities, or evenlarger regions, meet an air quality standard for a globallydispersed atmospheric pollutant. Local emissions could be reducedto zero, and a given area would still violate the standards ifglobal emissions did not decline. It would be a pointlessregulatory exercise. Nonetheless, some people feel the exercise is necessary. OnDecember 2, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petitionwith the EPA demanding that it adopt National Ambient Air QualityStandards for greenhouse gases. It was a petition of just this sortthat set the greenhouse regulatory train in motion in the firstplace. The Center for Biological Diversity is more than ready tofile suit if the EPA does not comply, and the Clean Air Act is ontheir side. A Done Deal Barring congressional action to amend the Clean Air Act, most ofthis mischief is a done deal. Anti-regulatory groups have alreadyannounced their intention to challenge the EPA’s endangermentfinding in court, but they are unlikely to get very far. All theEPA must show is that it could reasonably anticipate that globalwarming could threaten public health or “welfare,” an expansiveterm the act explicitly defines to include effects on climate,“economic values,” and “personal comfort and well-being.” Reviewingcourts will not substitute their reading of the relevant scientificevidence for that of the EPA, so it’s no use arguing the agencyplaced too much weight on one study while discounting another. Although EPA head Jackson would later claim the timing wascoincidental, when she announced her decision to regulate carbonshe said it would allow U.S. negotiators to “arrive at the climatetalks in Copenhagen with a clear demonstration of our commitment tofacing this global challenge.” Lacking climate change legislationwith binding targets, the White House concluded that anannouncement of EPA regulation was the next best thing. Thegreenhouse regulatory train set in motion by Massachusettsv. EPA will continue to steam ahead unless Congressintervenes. All aboard. Jonathan H. Adler (jha5@case.edu) is a professor of law andthe director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at theCase Western Reserve University School of Law. He participated inan amicus curiae brief of law professors and the Cato Instituteopposing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases inMassachusetts v. EPA.

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The Future of Things / Magazine


Online magazine dedicated to bringing original content on science, technology, and medicine from around the world. TFOT aims to provide comprehensive, accurate, and high quality coverage of emerging scientific and technological innovations.

New Era for Internet Security
03 03 2010

Internet security techniques must adapt to keep up with the rising tide of net attacks say officials. The issue is top of the agenda at the world's biggest security conference hosted by vendor RSA. Recent incidents such as the high-profile attacks on Google in China have highlighted the new challenges. Internet security techniques must adapt to keep up with the rising tide of net attacks say officials.

Plextor Jumps Into SSD Fray With 64GB, 128GB
03 03 2010

The premium optical drive maker gets into the solid state market. Plextor, the famed maker of optical drives earlier this year announced that it will be jumping into solid-state drives (SSDs). Yesterday the company announced the release of its first line of SSDs, the PX-64M1S (64GB) and the PX-128M1S (128GB). Plextor, the famed maker of optical drives earlier this year announced that it will be jumping into solid-state drives (SSDs).

Corsair Launches Reactor, Nova SSDs
03 03 2010

Early last month we learned the Corsair has prepared two new lines of 2.5-inch SSDs. Now, those SSDs, the new Reactor Series and Nova Series, are available immediately from Corsair's authorized distributors and resellers worldwide. The Reactors have 128MB of onboard cache with its second-generation JMicron JMF612 controller, and read and write speeds are quoted at 250MB/s and 110MB/s, respectively, for the 60GB drive, and the larger 120GB offering will hit 250MB/s and 170MB/s.

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The Scientist / Life sciences / News

Live! Thesis defense
11 03 2010 You can now check out a webcasted PhD thesis defense -- in case you're not satisfied with the ones you have to sit through in-person

To join or not to join
11 03 2010 The benefits of membership to a scientific society are decreasing every year. Lately, I'm asking: Why bother?

Stem cell regs to become law?
11 03 2010 New legislation would codify last year's executive order, which overturned the limitations implemented by former President George Bush

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bioethics.net / News


Bioethics news from bioethics.net/American Journal of Bioethics

Washington: First Year Under Legalized Assisted Suicide
11 03 2010 Today is the first anniversary of the law in which Washington legalized the practice through a public referendum, Initiative 1000. Dominican Sister Sharon Park, executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, states that the law places vulnerable people at risk of abuse. The legislation, she said, was written to prevent adequate safeguards for persons most in need of care and support.

Doctor Leads Quest for Safer Ways to Care for Patients
11 03 2010 Dr. Peter J. Pronovost, 45, is medical director of the Quality and Safety Research Group at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, which means he leads that institutions quest for safer ways to care for its patients. He also travels the country, advising hospitals on innovative safety measures. The Hudson Street Press has just released his book, Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctors Checklist Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out, written with Eric Vohr. An edited version of a two-hour conversation follows.

Money Talks, Nobody Walks on the Medicare Gravy Train
11 03 2010 What if Medicare were run like a corporation, with a CEO and a tightly managed budget? Thats the provocative question posed by Daniel Callahan, a healthcare expert at the Hastings Center, a nonpartisan bioethics research institute.

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FirstScience / News

More 2007 meteor showers on the way!
03 09 2009 If you were disappointed that you missed the recent Perseid meteor shower, don�t fret there�s... _{-- Delivered by Feed43 service}

Can people be influenced by subliminal messages?
03 09 2009 Banned in many countries, it may have swung a US presidential election and could be the next big... _{-- Delivered by Feed43 service}

Chaos Theory Demystified
03 09 2009 Physics has been practised, in one form or another, for thousands of years. Throughout that... _{-- Delivered by Feed43 service}

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FirstScience / Technology / News


The latest articles on the science behind the innovations in technology that are transforming our lives from nanotechnology and genetics to computers and robots, on Firstscience.com

Whatever Happened to Virtual Reality?
03 09 2009 Virtual Reality is making a comeback! Twenty years after the first wave of hype, virtual reality... _{-- Delivered by Feed43 service}

Virtual You
03 09 2009 A digital human-image animation computer system under development at NASA's Jet Propulsion... _{-- Delivered by Feed43 service}

X-Ray Image of the Cosmos
03 09 2009 Scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre have captured the first focused hard x-ray... _{-- Delivered by Feed43 service}

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The Why Files / Articles


The Science Behind The News from the University of Wisconsin.

Pahoehoe lava flow
09 03 2010 Hawaii is well known to have been created from volcanic activity, and the geologic hotspot below the islands is the most studied in the world.

Why does snow sometimes sparkle?
08 03 2010 Why does snow sometimes sparkle?Photo of snow in west Sierra Nevada by ItrovertSometimes on a sunny day, freshly fallen snow may appear to sparkle or glitter. This happens because when light hits an object light, it can be absorbed, in which case the object is heated; transmitted, in which case light passes through the object; [...]

Studying survival on a sinking ship
05 03 2010 The Titanic sank in 1912, the Lusitania sank in 1915. In each case, about 32 percent of passengers survived. But women and children did much better on Titanic, which took 160 minutes to slide underwater, than on Lusitania, which went down in 18 minutes. Ditto for rich people. Why?

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