Science News

Claiming that something can move faster than light is a good conversation-stopper in physics. People edge away from you in cocktail parties; friends never return phone calls. You just don't mess with Albert Einstein. So when I saw a press conference at the American Astronomical Society meeting this past January on faster-than-light phenomena in the cosmos, my first reaction was to say, "Terribly sorry, but I really have to go now." Astrophysicists have been speaking of FTL motion for years, but it was always just a trick of the light that lent the impression of warp speed, a technicality of wave motion, or an exotic consequence of the expansion of the universe. These researchers were claiming a very different sort of trick. Dubious though I was, I put their press release in my "needs more thought" folder and today finally got around to taking a closer look. And what I've found is utterly fascinating.

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By Eileen O'Grady

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The Sierra Club has appealed a state utility commission vote that allows a Southern Co utility to build an expensive advanced coal-fired plant.

Editor's Note: A team of researchers led by John Kessler , Texas A&M College of Geosciences chief scientist and assistant oceanography professor, has traveled to the Deepwater Horizon disaster area to study the methane leaking into the Gulf of Mexico (along with tens thousands of barrels of crude oil) daily at the site of the damaged Macondo 252 well. Kessler, along with David Valentine (a professor of marine sediment geochemistry, biogeochemistry and geomicrobiology at the University of California, Santa Barbara) and the rest of his colleagues are hoping to come away with a rough estimate of the spill's size by the time his team returns home on June 20, followed by more accurate estimates as they complete their analysis of the information collected. Other objectives of the expedition onboard the RV Cape Hatteras include trying to determine how the methane might be removed from the water (whether eaten by waterborne microorganisms or released into the atmosphere) and how methane concentrations will change over time. The following dispatch is Kessler's second and the team's fourth blog post overall for Scientific American . [More]

Developed nations today are so dependent on fossil fuels that it is easy to forget that energy sources have changed throughout history. We first started by burning wood and other organic matter, then added in whale oil. During the Industrial Revolution, we embraced coal and petroleum in a big way. Fossil fuels now sustain much of the global economy, but at a high cost to the environment and climate. The push is on to find energy sources less harmful to life on Earth.

An exhibition, " Discoveries 2010: Energy ," opened May 20 on the island of Mainau in Germany to chart the course of human energy use and showcase future methods for sustainable energy production. The show is part of "Science Year 2010--The Future of Energy," initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and jointly organized by the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings.

Roughly five million liters of dispersants have now been used to break up the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico , making this the largest use of such chemicals in U.S. history. If it continues for 10 months, as long as Mexico's Ixtoc 1 blowout in 1979 in the same region, the Macondo well disaster has a good chance of achieving the largest global use of these chemicals, surpassing 10 million liters. [More]

LONDON (Reuters) - Global sales of electric vehicles are set to rise this year due to worries about security of oil supply, the environment and fuel costs, UK consultancy J.D. Power said on Friday.

Global sales of electric cars are expected to reach 940,000 units this year compared with 732,000 units last year, with the number jumping to 3 million in 2015, J.D. Power analysts said in a report.

Photovoltaic cells remain woefully inefficient at converting sunlight into electricity . Although layered cells composed of various elements can convert more than 40 percent of (lens-concentrated) sunlight into electricity, more simple semiconducting materials such as silicon hover around 20 percent when mass-produced. And, at best, such cells could convert only a third of incoming sunlight due to physical limits. [More]

Call it Einstein meets Einstein. A new experiment using a form of matter Albert Einstein predicted to exist might someday pave the way for fine-scale tests of general relativity, the famed physicist's phenomenally successful theory of gravitation. [More]

Prepare yourself for this year's upcoming fire season: It is going to be a mild one.

At least, that is what state and federal officials said in a briefing yesterday at the Department of Agriculture. So far this year, about 1.3 million acres have burned -- average for this time of year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC).

Editor's Note: Marine biologist William Gilly is on an expedition to study Humboldt squid on the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System research vessel New Horizon in the Gulf of California. He and other scientists are learning about the giant squid, their biology and ecology on this National Science Foundation-funded expedition. This is his second blog post about the trip. [More]

You know saving the rainforest is good for biodiversity. But it may also be a boon to human health. That's because less clear-cutting may mean less malaria, according to a paper out this week in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases . [Sarah Olson et al., http://bit.ly/b6iFgT ] [More]

When Less Is More The global challenge of addressing sustainable use of nitrogen fertilizers is well characterized in “ Fixing the Global Nitrogen Problem ,” by Alan R. Townsend and Robert W. Howarth.