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60 SECONDS Is McCain green? It’s mixed news for environmentalists. In response to questions from the Science Debate 2008 initiative, John McCain has promised to introduce a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions and a $300 million prize for technology that makes electric cars more commercially viable. But he also wants to build 45 nuclear reactors by 2030. Deadly milk Two babies have died and 1253 have developed kidney stones in China after drinking formula milk tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical. Sanlu Group in Hebei Province has recalled 8200 tonnes of its formula, and earlier this week four milk dealers were arrested on suspicion of selling the company tainted milk, reports the Xinhua news agency. Mars will wait A Mars probe called Maven is to investigate the climatic changes that saw the Red Planet lose its water- supporting atmosphere. It was intended to launch in 2011, but a conflict of interest in NASA’s mission selections has stayed the $485 million orbiter’s lift-off until 2013. After its mission, Maven will be used to relay communications for NASA’s Mars rovers and landers. Telomere triumph Levels of telomerase, an enzyme thought to reduce the effects of ageing by protecting the ends of chromosomes, increased in 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer after three months of healthy diet and regular exercise (The Lancet Oncology, DOI: 10.1016/S1470 -2045(o8)70234-1). It seems that lifestyle changes may slow ageing and disease. Fungus-tolerant frogs Armoured mist frogs have come back from the brink of extinction. A team at James Cook University found them prospering near Cairns, Australia, despite being infected with the global frog- killing fungus that wiped out most of them 17 years ago. The search for the key to their fungus tolerance is on. (Fisheries, vol 33, p 372). Habitat loss due to humanity’s growing thirst for water is the root cause of the problem, says Noel Burkhead from the US Geological Survey in Gainesville, Florida, and one of the report’s lead authors. Fish are not the first to feel the squeeze. Many freshwater mussel and snail species have previously become endangered for the same reasons, but the warning was ignored. “The pattern we observed in snails and mussels is now being observed in fishes,” Burkhead says. “Unless we somehow change the way we interact with the landscape, fish extinctions are going to dramatically increase.” IF YOU felt that you couldn’t get away from coverage of the LHC last week, you were right. An estimated television audience of 1 billion watched as beams of protons made their first 27-kilometre laps of the particle smasher. On 10 September alone 5853 articles about the LHC were published worldwide. “It is quite overwhelming,” says CERN spokesman James Gillies. “We weren’t just on the news, we were top of the news.” Physicists hope that what is probably the highest profile event in their history will inspire the next generation. “We expect a sort of ‘Sputnik effect’,” says CERN theorist John Ellis. “On 11 September the CERN jobs website got something like 100 times more hits than on a regular day.” With the world watching, it is perhaps just as well that the day’s tests exceeded expectations. LHC controllers sent two beams of protons in opposite directions around the ring. The test runs worked so smoothly that controllers completed four days’ worth of work in the first day. Now there is a good chance that plans to collide beams with 450 gigaelectronvolts of energy each will be brought forward, followed by the first collisions with 5000 GeV beams by day 31. HURRICANE Ike left Galveston an uninhabitable mess last week but, unlike in adjacent communities along the Texas coast, most of its buildings were still standing. That’s because Galveston learned crucial lessons from the most deadly natural disaster in US history. In September 1900, a hurricane sent a storm surge of more than 4.6 metres right across the town, which is built on a sandy barrier island. Wind-driven waves trashed most buildings and killed some 8000 people, more than four times the toll of hurricane Katrina. As a result, Galveston built a 5-metre sea wall to protect itself from waves coming off the Gulf of Mexico. But the key to limiting flooding from the back of the island – not protected by a sea wall – was raising land levels in the city by up to 5 metres, says Orrin Pilkey, a coastal geologist at Duke University in North Carolina. No other coastal city in the US has raised its land levels, even New Orleans, half of which is below sea level. “I don’t know why in 1900 we took lessons seriously, but in 2008 we brush them off,” he says. “Galveston learned crucial lessons from the most deadly natural disaster in US history” Texans, hold onto your hats: it’s going to be a bumpy ride. According to Noah Diffenbaugh of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and colleagues the weather in southern California, western Texas and northern Mexico is going to become increasingly unpredictable whatever we do. This is true in both a best-case scenario in which new technology curbs future emissions, and if the worst happens and population growth fuels a doubling in carbon dioxide levels (see maps, below). Residents in these areas will see pronounced fluctuations in temperature and rainfall from year to year – changes that will become harder to predict (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2008GL035075). “The concept of a ‘normal year’ might disappear,” says co-author Jeremy Pal of the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Diffenbaugh combined a number of global and local climate models to create the maps of climate change “hotspots” in the US. As well as looking at the two different scenarios, he also looked at differing timescales. “The pattern is consistent both in the near term and the long term,” says Diffenbaugh. He cautions that other areas may still be at risk from events not included in the model. For example, many think south-eastern states may soon have more intense hurricanes. “This is a good example of a top- down approach; it summarises the areas we need to focus on,” says climatologist Jack Williams of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. UNSETTLED WEATHER AHEAD Smashing time Water resistant www.newscientist.com 20 September 2008 | NewScientist | 5 2011-2040 Most pronounced EXPECTED TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION FLUCTUATIONS Least pronounced BEST-CASE SCENARIO WORST-CASE SCENARIO 2041-2070 2011-2040 2041-2070
