February 15, 2012

Good Morning,

Two harbingers of bad news in the scientific community in this issue. One study finds that electric cars in China are causing more pollution than their gas-driven counterparts. Also in light of recent research, costal wind farms are found to be in danger from too much wind. Check out the third and last articles for all the details.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Skull and photos can identity bodies

GRANADA, Spain - Spanish researchers say a new technique can identify corpses by comparing the skull to pictures taken when the person was alive. Researchers at the University of Granada say their identification technique is as reliable as DNA analysis and less costly. This system uses technique known as craniofacial superimposition, analyzing the morphology of the face by locating a set of reference points on the skull, known as craniometric points, and the same points on picture of the subject alive, known as somatometric points. Craniofacial superimposition is as reliable as other forensic identification techniques and faster, researchers said. "As this technique is much less expensive, forensic scientists might use it firstly and, only when necessary, resort then to other techniques," study author Fernando J. Navarro Merino said. "This technique can be complementary to other techniques, as it can serve to discard potential identities before using more expensive or slower identification techniques, such as DNA analysis." The technique allows the identification of a corpse from among several corpses, researchers said, because it quickly reduces the number of potential candidates for the identification of a skull. The method could be useful in the identification of missing people or the victims of mass disasters, researchers said.


Importance of corals to fish studied

TOWNSVILLE, Australia - The locations large fish choose for shelter in coral reefs could significantly influence their ability to cope with climate change, Australian researchers say. Scientists at James Cook University said they're attempting to understand the process of fish population decline when coral reefs sustain major damage. Their research found that large reef fish like coral trout, snapper and sweetlips show a marked preference for sheltering under large, flat table corals, as opposed to branching corals or massive corals known as bommies. "Like human beings, fish have strong preferences on where they like to hang out -- and it appears that they much prefer to shelter under overhanging table corals," researcher James Kerry said. This is significant in terms of climate change impacts of different type of reef corals, the researchers said. "The importance of this finding is that table corals are among the types most vulnerable to climate change," researcher David Bellwood said in a university release. "In shallow waters and on the tops of reefs, they are often the main source of cover for these big fish." "If they die back as a result of bleaching or disease, or are destroyed by storm surges, this would strip the reef of one of its main attractions, from a coral trout's viewpoint," he said. The findings may provide a useful insight to reef managers about the importance of trying to maintain a range of structures and shelters as climate change bears down on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the researchers said.


Electric cars in China bigger polluters

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Electric cars in China are having an impact on pollution more harmful to health than gasoline vehicles, U.S. researchers say. Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, analyzed the emissions and environmental health impacts of five vehicle technologies in 34 major Chinese cities. While electric cars have been seen as environmentally friendly, the researchers determined they are in fact responsible for more overall harmful particulate matter pollution than gasoline cars, a university release reported Monday. The reason, they said, is because for electric vehicles, combustion emissions occur where electricity is generated rather than where the vehicle is used, and in China 85 percent of electricity production is from fossil fuels with about 90 percent of that from coal. "An implicit assumption has been that air quality and health impacts are lower for electric vehicles than for conventional vehicles," civil and environmental engineering professor Chris Cherry said. "Our findings challenge that by comparing what is emitted by vehicle use to what people are actually exposed to." The researchers say they discovered the power generated in China to operate electric vehicles emits polluting particles at a much higher rate than gasoline vehicles do. In terms of air pollution impacts, electric cars are more harmful to public health per mile traveled in China than conventional vehicles, they said. "The study emphasizes that electric vehicles are attractive if they are powered by a clean energy source," Cherry said. "In China and elsewhere, it is important to focus on deploying electric vehicles in cities with cleaner electricity generation and focusing on improving emissions controls in higher polluting power sectors."


Cosmos mysteries to be studied

CHICAGO - The University of Chicago says $17 million in funding from the National Science Foundation will help it research three basic cosmological puzzles. The university's Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics will use the funding to delve into the mysteries of dark energy, dark matter and cosmic inflation, a release from the school said Monday. These are the three pillars of modern cosmological theory, "and none of them can be explained with physics that we know," institute director Michael Turner says. "They're all pointing to new physics." Cosmic inflation proposes the universe expanded extremely rapidly in a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang, an expansion would explain some important questions Big Bang theory alone has been unable to answer, researchers said. Dark matter, cosmologists say they suspect, may be a new form of matter consisting of something other than quarks, neutrons or protons. Dark energy is thought to create something termed repulsive gravity, causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, researchers said. "People don't even get the term 'repulsive gravity' because the defining feature of gravity is that it's attractive," Turner says. "What do you mean, repulsive gravity? Do you mean the theory is repulsive?" he jokes. The NSF funding will allow the Kavli institute to create a Physics Frontiers Center to study these cosmological conundrums, the university said.


Hurricanes seen as threat to wind farms

PITTSBURGH - Researchers say offshore wind farms planned for the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico face severe risks from hurricanes that could destroy half of them. The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of generating 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs from wind by 2030, with one-sixth of the total coming from turbines located in shallow waters offshore, researchers said. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have modeled the risk hurricanes might pose to turbines at four proposed wind farm sites and found that nearly half of the planned turbines are likely to be destroyed over the 20-year life of the farms. While turbines can be shut down in high winds, hurricane-force winds can be strong enough to topple them. A proposed location for a wind farm site near Galveston, Texas, for which the state has granted a multimillion-dollar lease, is "the riskiest location to build a wind farm of the four locations examined," researcher Stephen Rose said. A typical offshore wind turbine costs $175 million. "We want these risks to be known now before we start putting these wind turbines offshore," researcher Paulina Jaramillo told NewScientist.com. "We don't want any backlash when the first one goes down and it costs a lot to replace."

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