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4 | NewScientist | 23 April 2011 REUTERS/PAULO WHITAKER WHILE sewage is not something you can set your watch by, it’ll certainly tell you when the weekend has arrived. Last year Yves Levi and colleagues at the University of Paris-South found that Parisian waste water was awash with cocaine and its metabolites on Friday and Saturday nights (Forensic Science International, DOI: 10.1016/j. forsciint.2010.04.007). MDMA, the active compound in ecstasy pills, was also present, though at much lower levels. But things are different down under. This week the same journal has published the results of a similar study by a team led by Chang Chen at the University of Adelaide. They report a quintupling of MDMA levels and a 30 per cent rise in methamphetamine use in A tale of waste Adelaide at the weekend compared with midweek levels (DOI: 10.1016/j. forsciint.2011.01.037). Cocaine maintained third place all week. A UN report published in 2009 did not find such a big geographical disparity in cocaine use, Chen says. The report estimated that levels of cocaine use were similar in Europe and Australia, but Chen says the waste-water analysis suggests the drug is 30 times more prevalent in Europe. Both teams hope their studies will inform campaigns against drug abuse. Diet pill concern PRESSURE is being put on the US Food and Drug Administration to ban the weight-loss drug orlistat, following new evidence linking it to liver and kidney problems. Orlistat works by preventing the absorption of fat in the intestine. It is currently the only weight-loss drug approved by the FDA. Matthew Weir and colleagues at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, observed the rate of acute kidney injury in 953 orlistat users. In the year before orlistat use, 0.5 per cent of the group experienced kidney problems, but this leapt to 2 per cent in the year when they were taking the drug (Archives of Internal Medicine, DOI: 10.1001/ archinternmed.2011.103). Previous research has shown a link between orlistat use and liver damage, prompting adoption of a revised drug label warning of this side effect. Consumer group Public Citizen says information obtained from FDA files on adverse reactions links orlistat to 47 cases of acute pancreatitis and 73 cases of kidney stones. The drug should be removed from sale, it says. Sugar cools Brazil GROWN as a biofuel, sugar cane has a reputation for guzzling water and fertiliser. But it also has a good side: compared to other crops, it cools the landscape. Scott Loarie of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California, and colleagues used satellite data to monitor the effects of sugar cane cultivation in the Brazilian savannah. They found that converting natural vegetation to crops warmed the –Melting away– –Good for the environment?– Arctic shore is crumbling ARCTIC shorelines are crumbling in the face of climate change, as the permafrost that holds them together starts to melt. Sea ice gives permafrost shorelines some protection. When the ice clears, waves pounding the shore can thaw the permafrost, freeing the soil that it holds, which then falls into the sea. Most of the storms at the edges of the Arctic Ocean occur in the autumn. If the warming climate keeps coastal waters ice-free after summer ends, these storms can dig deep into the permafrost, according to a report issued this week by the International Arctic Science Committee. The changes are most dramatic in the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. Here ice-rich bluffs have retreated 14 metres per year on average from 2002 to 2007 – double the mean figure for the period from 1955 to 1979. Erosion has already forced some coastal communities to relocate. Another study, just published by Hugues Lantuit of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, finds that erosion along 100,000 kilometres of Arctic coast – about a quarter of the total coastline – is taking place at an average rate of about 50 centimetres per year (Estuaries and Coasts, DOI: 10.1007/s12237-010-9362-6). Worrying though they are, the new findings are not surprising: researchers have long warned that Arctic coasts are vulnerable to erosion because the region is warming faster than lower latitudes. “The waste-water analysis suggests cocaine use is 30 times more prevalent in Europe than Australia” GARY BRAASCH/ZUMA PRESS UPFRONT
