Thinking Harder
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Loss of Amazon Jungle Prods Brazil to Act
Continue reading… 5 CommentsIf a watched pot never boils, an unwatched forest is certain to burn. Researchers recently suggested that two fifths of the Amazon jungle is in danger of being deforested (requires subscription) by 2050, and the pace of forest clearance jumped in the closing months of last year. It's often fire—frequently an intentionally set fire—that delivers the first blow to an endangered patch of the jungle.
In the latest turn of events, the Brazilian government has announced a plan to increase monitoring of the Amazon, at least in part by deploying more police, in order to curtail illegal logging. That sounds great, but there will be obstacles. Early last year, U.S. News published a book excerpt that outlined some challenges facing Brazil as the country attempts to safeguard the Amazon and simultaneously exploit its tremendous natural resources. As that report indicated, decision makers in key parts of Brazil condone development of the Amazon—including the conversion of rain forest to pasture and cropland.
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Coffee? Now a Pregnancy No-No, but Other Hazards Look Overblown
Continue reading… 10 CommentsA few months ago, we published two lists of supposed hazards—including coffee, cats, and X-rays—that pregnant women are often advised to avoid. Some of these things really are best avoided. But others, experts told us, were overhyped threats. Note the past tense: were.
Medical science has since marched on, and one source of concern that then seemed overrated now appears to be a justifiable danger: A recent study found that consuming caffeine increases the miscarriage rate.
Prior studies also had linked high caffeine consumption among pregnant women to an elevated risk of miscarriage. But those studies didn't prove that drinking coffee or other caffeinated beverages can actually lead to a miscarriage; they showed only a statistical link. (Such statistical correlations are everywhere, and they can be misleading. Most people who live in nursing homes are old, for instance, but that doesn't mean you'd age more quickly if you moved to a nursing home.) The new study, in part by tracking women from early in pregnancy through delivery or miscarriage, makes a more convincing case for a cause-and-effect relationship.
Of course, pregnant women aren't the only people who need to worry about consuming too much caffeine. As my colleague Nancy Shute noted in a U.S. News cover story last year, Americans young and old are craving high-octane elixirs—and making doctors nervous. She followed up on that story by covering the controversy over caffeinated alcoholic beverages. Talk about something that pregnant women should avoid!
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A Rectum, a Finger, and a Lawsuit in New York
Continue reading… 47 CommentsSome cases are medical. Some are legal. Some, unfortunately, end up being both. New York State's Supreme Court is poised to consider the double-sided case of Brian Persaud, a 38-year-old construction worker who has reportedly sued a New York hospital for performing a rectal exam that he says he didn't want.
After receiving a head injury, Persaud was taken to the emergency room at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where ER docs conducted a work-up. The New York Times's blog City Room reports:
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How Hibernating Bears Beat Bone Loss
Continue reading… 2 CommentsThe science of hibernation, which I've written about here and here, has fascinated me for some time. How do animals go dormant—hibernation is actually not a form of sleep—for months at a time and not waste away in the process?
If I had to perform virtually no bodily functions for the entire winter, I would die of thirst, or starve, or burst my bladder long before spring arrived. Even if I could put my basic metabolic needs aside for the season, my muscles and bones would dissipate from disuse. Come March, I'd be too weak to get up, never mind see my shadow.
Hibernating animals, however, tap into some impressive physiological abilities that humans have long since lost. Scientists and medical researchers are trying to figure out how animals do it. They hypothesize that if we humans could revive our capacity to hibernate, perhaps with the aid of pharmaceutical treatments, we could improve our odds of surviving heart attacks and strokes, car accidents and war wounds, and other sorts of threats to life and limb.
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Clockwork in Orange and Black
Continue reading… 1 CommentMonarch butterflies have fascinated me since I visited them in their wintertime gathering place in Mexico five years ago. Each fall, millions of monarchs migrate from across the United States to a small cluster of overwintering sites in Mexico. In the spring, their descendants return to northern climes. A full round trip takes three generations, which means that no migrating butterfly knows from experience where it's going. I find that pretty impressive.
The southbound monarchs, moreover, have a small target: Most of the species's overwintering sites lie within just 70 square miles of forest that cover a few adjoining hillsides in central Mexico. (I've previously written about my visit to one of these sites, Sierra Chincua.) Compare the butterfly's navigational skill to that of Christopher Columbus, who set out for India and accidentally navigated to an island off the coast of the wrong continent.
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Fart Like a Kangaroo (and Save the Climate, Too)
Continue reading… 3 CommentsNever mind low-emissions vehicles and low-emissions power plants. Let's talk about low-emissions livestock. Scientists are working on a bizarre solution for an embarrassing environmental problem: farting cows and sheep that emit a stunning volume of greenhouse gases.
Bacteria that live in those animals' digestive tracts make methane, a potent greenhouse gas that's been linked to global warning. (The livestock sector accounts for 37 percent of human-related methane generation, according to the United Nations.) Kangaroos, however, have different gastrointestinal bacteria—and they don't make methane. So, those clever scientists have hit on the idea of transferring climate-friendly bugs from kangaroos into farm animals, which theoretically could put an end to the livestock emissions problem.
Now, I've heard some wacky things about the good that bacteria can do. I've even blogged about some of them. But this idea of using bacteria to manipulate cow farts opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. I've read that the flatulence of 1 in every 3 adults contains methane, and parents sometimes pass the trait to their children. Will families of methane-makers soon be encouraged to swallow little capsules of kangaroo microbes?
"Ta": (Thanks) to Inhabitat and my alert colleague Jim Bock for drawing my attention to an Australian news report on the subject.
