Slashdot Mirror

Here is the original abstract and journal article set to be published in Science and already fast tracked to ScienceXpress

Here is the original abstract and journal article set to be published in Science and already fast tracked to ScienceXpress

Here is the original abstract and journal article set to be published in Science and already fast tracked to ScienceXpress

Here is the original abstract and journal article set to be published in Science and already fast tracked to ScienceXpress

The original source for this particular experiment is this Science article. The submission was terrible. Press releases should be banned from any site which claims to have intelligent discussion.

An indirect exciton (what these guys are using) is made using three layers. In one layer, you have extra electrons (negative charges). In another layer, you have a lack of electrons (positive charges). In between those two is an insulating layer. If you tune the charge densities and some other parameters (temperature, for example), you can get the positive and negative charges in the two charged layers to align into pairs. Each pair is an exciton.

A normal exciton is a pair like this without the insulator between them. As you might imagine, they don't last very long and pretty much instantly combine. When an exciton combines, it gives off light at a very particular wavelength. Conversely, when light at that particular wavelength is adsorbed by the material, it creates an exciton.

You could imagine creating an exciton with light, making it an indirect exciton (so that it's stable), doing something with it, and then making it a normal exciton again and waiting the picosecond or so it takes for it to collapse and emit light. That's basically what they've done... but it's much harder than I've made it sound.

I love how so many people seem to be so sure of themselves about what we're doing to the planet. In my observation, people are lazy and don't like to change their lifestyles. So they latch on to whatever allows them to justify that lifestyle.

The problem with the scientific debate on climate change is that it is so politicized. Biased media organizations try to tell people what to think, and since people are too goddamned lazy to do any research they listen to whatever sounds best to them.

So who should we listen to? In my opinion, we should listen to the scientists that study the climate every day, because they are the only ones with the expertise to understand the implications of the direction the climate is heading. If people really think that every climate scientist is involved in some huge hoax, then they probably don't understand what science is, or have some insane mistrust of the scientific community.

This article discusses a study conducted to find out how much debate there is over the reality of anthropogenic (human induced) climate change. It also acknowledges that even though there is scientific consensus (despite what you may think from what the media/politicians say), it doesn't necessarily mean that they are correct. But science is the best thing we have to understand the world around us, and we need to stop letting non-scientists convince us that experts all disagree.

This is ./. That means that TFA is an empty placeholder or, at best, pointing to a vapid bit of text between ads.
In this case however, a few levels down it appears that the science behind the journalism is decent enough, for instance:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/300/5625/1560
and
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1645290

The article itself links to an article from a year ago:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Spirit_Rover_on_Mars_finds_water_made_'silica-rich_soil'

It's taken a year for the paper to be published in Science, along with more evidence of other silica outcrops.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080522145222.htm

Original sources:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/320/5879/1063
http://www.mars.asu.edu/news/news-silica.html

First thing: yes, we actually do have some limited understanding of how memories are stored in the brain. Are you suggesting the reverse as well, that if we somehow developed memory-transfer technology (still far off, though not outside the realm of possibility) that we could bring our deceased Fido back to life?

What about a dead friend, relative, spouse, etc.? Do you think the same owuld be true?

Disclosure: I happen to believe in the existence of a soul, but perhaps not in the way a typical Judaeo-Christian does.

The short answer to your question is yes. It wouldn't even have to be multiple sources because any biological tissue is made up of uncountable numbers of cells, each with their own copy of the genome. So really if you extract DNA from a big enough sample and can sequence enough small enough pieces of DNA, the problem becomes simple a computational one of lining them all up into chromosomes based on overlap. With current technology we're on the edge of being able to sequence something like a Nanderthal. For dinosaurs, there might be almost no DNA left, since the fossils aren't biological tissue, so I don't know if that will ever be possible. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/5802/1113

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/512/1

By Richard A. Kerr
ScienceNOW Daily News
12 May 2008
Researchers fear that the magnitude-7.9 earthquake that struck near the major city of Chengdu today will easily be China's biggest killer since 1976's Tangshan quake, conservatively estimated to have taken 250,000 lives. "I would think there's going to be horrific loss of life in this one," says seismologist Lucile Jones of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) office in Pasadena, California. The all-too-familiar combination of millions of people living by a major fault rupture in quake-vulnerable structures makes for an inevitably bad outcome, she says.

The costs are overstated, and, really all you have is some anecdotal evidence and you aren't considering the benefits side of the equation at all.

Life is one cost, are you saying life isn't worth it? If so then why won't people lower their living standards, after all it's not worth it. As for the benefits it wasn't my aim to consider them, my aim was to show that even those who don't use coal are made to pay for it's usage.

1. Artic ice is actually thicker and wider this year, so the inuit are fine for now.

Oh really, that would surprise those scientists who have said the ice covering the Arctic Sea ice coverage has shrunken for the fifth year. Do you know more than they do? Scientist now say the Arctic will be ice free by 2030, decades before the models forecast. "Global Warming Is Rapidly Raising Sea Levels, Studies Warn". "Sea Level Rise During Past 40 Years Determined from Satellite and in Situ Observations". And Inuit's would either laugh or cry if you were to tell them they were fine. Oh and if it's not so bad then why is the government considering putting the polar bears on the endangered species list? But I guess you know more than the scientists, Inuits, and polar bears do, or more likely you're a troll.

I can't go on anymore with such nonsense.

It seems France is using Fast Breeder Reactors. From "Science Magazine" dated 1980 "Breeder Reactors in France". Ok, Sciam says France shut down it's breeder reactor, but it doesn't say why. However the nuclear waste, or reprocessed fuel, wasn't the only problem the Spectrum article said the French had, they also had all the toxic chemicals left over from reprocessing.

I admit research may solve all the problems with nuclear power, but so can research with alternative energy sources, geothermal, solar, wind, and others. And with these others, whereas nuclear power requires massive centralized plants that when decommissioned can't be used for anything else, they can have distributed and decentralized electrical generation. I think the energy problem comes from centralized power generation. Another is waste, conservation measures can cut the US's energy needs down a lot as well as waste heat going up smoke stacks when it can be recovered. As more and more Off Gridders are showing simple conservation measures can go a long way to satisfying US energy needs.

Here's what the diffraction pattern looks like, quite impressive.

OK, I built a simple model using the data from the ice cores from this website. The model says with 99.9% certainty that in the next 5000 years we will experience an ice age.

For the Nth time, pure statistical extrapolation is a lousy way to do prediction, compared to building a physical model which can describe the causal mechanisms involved in the glacial cycle. For instance, the Milanokovitch cycle. Hell, your model doesn't even include data from more than one glacial cycle.

Pretending that the current interglacial period will look exactly like the previous one is a really bad assumption, which is why nobody actually tries to predict using such methods.

And I although I will state this a million times here on out: No one really understands how CO2 effects global climate.

Repeating an unsupported assertion a million times doesn't make it valid.

We certainly understand that CO2 causes warming, and we have a decent estimate of the amount of warming it produces (3 +/- 1.5 degrees C for a doubling of CO2 on centennial scales, possibly larger during glacial periods when large ice sheet feedbacks can kick in).

As for the physics vs. data mining, are you kidding? I am disputing the physics behind these models.

You haven't disputed, or even mentioned, any physics so far; you've just complained about statistics. Go ahead and dispute it then.

I do question whether these models were created correctly, but even if I assume they are, they are incorrect because they are based on what I have shown to be a very weak if not false premise.

On the contrary, the temperature-CO2 record is quite consistent with the predictions of climate models.

I am disputing trusting statistics because we do not understand our climate enough to draw conclusions on what our impact on the Earth is going to be.

You use the word "we" very liberally.

Yes, CO2 has a certain effect on the earth's climate. What is that effect?

Tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling, amplified near polar regions, with a decreased diurnal temperature range. Which is what is both predicted by theory and observed in reality. Among other many other effects which you can read about in the IPCC WG1 report.

There are so many other factors that you can not even begin to tell me that simply making a model based on the premise that the only changes are going to be more greenhouse gases can be correct in any manner.

That is of course not the "premise" of climate models.

So now you argue that I am wrong simply because experiments in labortories say otherwise?

No, you're wrong because:

1. Experiments in laboratories say otherwise.
2. The laws of physics say otherwise.
3. The conclusion that CO2 causes cooling is physically absurd even in the absence of 1 or 2, purely on the basis of the observed ice core record.

It's exactly the naive correlation-causation fallacy that you incorrectly, and hypocritically, accuse scientists of. At the time when temperatures start dropping into the next glacial, CO2 increases by no more than 5 ppm. You'd have us believe that CO2 increases by 100 ppm over 100,000 years causing cooling (despite the Earth warming that whole time), but as soon as it pushes up another 5 ppm above 280 or so, it has an enormous cooling effect and plunges the planet into an ice age. Give me a break. Not to mention that we've already passed that limit this time around over a century ago, with no such cooling taking place. And we'll completely ignore your total lack of any kind of proposed physical mechanism which can cause such effects. Never mind the agreement of models, using known CO2 warming physics, with the observed data. I'm sure your totally implausible hypothesis with utterly no basis in physics is equally good.

The argument isn't that blacks are genetically predisposed to committing crime. That is a strawman and it unfairly preempts any discussion on genetic differences between races.

The argument is that groups of people who share relatively close genetic markers will share the phenotypic traits defined by the DNA. Identical twins share identical DNA, so they look and behave very similarly to each other. Not only their physical attributes, but also their mental attributes and temperament come from the sharing of DNA. Similarly, children will share traits (both physical and mental) with their parents.

As anthropological history shows, humans have lived in relatively small groups and intermarried amongst relatives for most of history. In small closed societies, specific traits become more prevalent. White skin, curly hair, bone density, height, nose shape, and yes, intelligence. These differences are real and specifically linked to the history of our genes. There is no "genetic lottery". You get the genes that your parents have, and they got theirs from their parents. The only lottery is to which parents a person is born, and except in the most colloquial of terms such a thing can hardly be called chance.

Since intelligence is one of biggest factors in societal success or failure, even a slight advantage is enough to propel one person higher than another (even at the microcosmic scale of a university classroom, the smartest students are easily identified over the lower tiers). As humanity progresses towards modernity, the impact of intelligence is much greater than in primitive hunter-gatherer societies. A group with a high average intelligence will gradually (perhaps suddenly) outperform a group with low average intelligence.

This is not to say that average group intelligence applies to any particular individual within the group. As with any distribution there are outliers on both sides of the average. An above average individual in a lower average group could definitely outperform a below average individual from a high average group. The overlap is significant. However, looking at the groups as a whole, the tendency of the high average group to outperform the low average group is consistent.

Nurture, education, and nutrition play very significant roles in the underperformance of certain groups, but to discount genetics as a factor of intelligence and thus also societal success just because it seems racist is to be putting illogic and superstition above science.

Why should we study this? What good could come out of finding a certain group sufficiently deficient? The most obvious is to find ways of structuring society to maximize their potential. By pitting underachievers against overachievers, the result is reasonbly guaranteed to fall in favor of the overachiever. If the alternative to repeated failure is crime, then the underachiever is very tempted by the easier path of crime.

It's Science

Organic farming is a pursuit of sustainable agriculture. There are many reputable articles that clearly points out the need for sustainable agriculture to prevent serious environmental degredation. Here one examples: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/full/nature01014.html There are of course examples that clearly show environmental benefits (such as increased soil fertility, increased biodiversity, higher energy efficiency etc) from organic farming. Heres one: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/296/5573/1694 As a Ag. college student, you should already be aware of this.

Ars Technica picked this up yesterday and has a pretty good run-down of how it works (complete with a pretty illustration).

They also provide Links to the Science articles themselves:

• Magnetic Domain-Wall Racetrack Memory
• Current-Controlled Magnetic Domain-Wall Nanowire Shift Register

It's promising, but there are still some lingering issues:

There is still work to do before an entire three-dimensional memory chip will replace your current memory solutions. The biggest problem may be heat; moving DWs requires a high current, which may destroy the wire or mangle the data it contains. Still, there are some ideas on how to deal with the heat, and this work represents a big step in the direction of a new dimension in memory storage.

Ars Technica picked this up yesterday and has a pretty good run-down of how it works (complete with a pretty illustration).

They also provide Links to the Science articles themselves:

• Magnetic Domain-Wall Racetrack Memory
• Current-Controlled Magnetic Domain-Wall Nanowire Shift Register

It's promising, but there are still some lingering issues:

There is still work to do before an entire three-dimensional memory chip will replace your current memory solutions. The biggest problem may be heat; moving DWs requires a high current, which may destroy the wire or mangle the data it contains. Still, there are some ideas on how to deal with the heat, and this work represents a big step in the direction of a new dimension in memory storage.

"though I haven't heard anything recently about power lines, I would not buy a house near high voltage lines."

Dude, 1995 called, they want their health scare back...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line#Health_concerns

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/285/5424/23b

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs205/en/

That experience being; "mine, mine, ALL MINE!....hahahaha!" AKA "screw you...it's all about me!"

Economists call this the Tragedy of the Commons, and it's the reason driving in traffic sucks, and also the reason public toilets are filthy.

The Internet is fundamentally a shared infrastructure. BitTorrent and other protocols intentionally utilize that infrastructure unfairly. A BitTorrent swarm is like a pack of hundreds of cars driving 90 mph, both directions, in every lane including the shoulder. They cut you off just before the overpass, and refuse to slow and let you merge from the on-ramp.

We really do need traffic police (traffic shaping) to enforce the rules of the road, because the drivers certainly will not police themselves. Internet routers cannot just forward packets on a first-come-first-serve basis anymore. Yes, the connections are getting faster, but not quickly enough to support even a few million people sharing movies via something like BitTorrent.

The more is that the researchers have shown that silane turns into a metal at very high pressures; while researchers have not managed to create metallic hydrogen, they have managed this. The less is that it's only a 17-degree Kelvin superconductor--not an extraordinary temperature--and the pressures involved are on the order of half a million atmospheres.

The original article was published in Science on 14 March 2008; Vol. 319. no. 5869, pp. 1506 - 1509; DOI: 10.1126/science.1153282. Your local library can probably get you a copy; if you are at a university you may be able to access the online version.

Here is the link to the full-text journal article in "Science" http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5869/1506

None of that messing about in newspaper sites.

To get an idea of recent R&D spending, see this graph.

While amounts have flattened out recently, the levels are much higher than during the 1990.

US public R&D is higher than EU-25 or OECD average levels as a percent of GDP (and US business R&D is much higher than EU-25 or OECD average levels as a percent of GDP, with the notable exception of Japan...More details here)

The big Federal funds go to NIH (~$30 billion), NSF (~$6 billion), NASA science ($~5.5 billion)

Best to cite TFM correctly:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/279/5347/28

The 200000 number comes from assuming constant evolutionary clock-rate, the whole thrust of the article is pointing out that this is not necessarily supported from the author's analysis!

Also see Ann Gibbons, "Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock," Science, Vol. 297, 2 January 1998, p. 29 for evidence that our common female ancestor lived approximately 6500 years ago. I'm not making this stuff up; the sources cited are evolutionists.

First, you really should link to the articles in question, as that would be the polite thing to do: Cann | Gibbons (pdf).

Second, it is obvious that you have chosen a belief system and grasp at any evidence to support it, blatantly disregarding all other evidence. A google of those papers make them look to be two "classics" that creationists refer to again and again. The youngest is over 10 years old. Where are the more recent Science/Nature papers that confirm the conclusions of these papers? They don't exist.

Here is an acid test for good research: Does it stand the test of time? Is the field explosive in the scientific field 10 years later? Some examples of paradigm shifting fields are stem cells, apoptosis, and RNA catalysis. The papers you cite do not measure up to these standards and so are highly suspect. Good science gets confirmed by other scientists and not by conjecture or preachers who thumpin bibles. Where are the papers confirming the 6500 year old mitochondrial clock or have recent advances shown problems with the previous model? Do the research yourself if you are objective like you think you are--or you can remain blinded by your belief system. But if you wish to remain blinded by your belief system, don't burden others with your belief system like you are doing here.

When uninformed people have opinions on science that smell of belief and bias, my suggestion to them is to go spend five to seven years to get a PhD in a field of natural science. Don't cop-out and pick some religious school where you end up with a thesis full of bible quotes. Find a real state-run university without any allegiance to any religion. Do actual research out in the field (dig bones, sequence DNA, dissect plants, count the strata of geological formations, etc.), synthesize the data and write your thesis on what you have discovered. Don't lie and make up data to support your belief system! Even [insert your favorite religious prophet or diety here] wouldn't do that, right? Integrate the comments of your committee and defend your thesis in front of them. Once you have your PhD from the accredited state-run university without any religious affiliation, come back and examine your belief system from the perspective of a trained scientist. Until then, you are simply fooling yourself, discrediting the members of your faith, and annoying the knowledgeable.

Laboratory experiments mimicking the temperatures and pressures found deep within those planets suggest diamond production is indeed possible, but would be more likely to be an agglomerate mass of diamond microcrystals than the yottacarat diamond solitaire envisioned by Clarke. Uranus and Neptune would probably make for better diamond production than Jupiter and Saturn due to a higher abundance of methane and thus carbon.

That being said, recent research suggests that Uranus and Neptune are not sufficiently carbon-rich to have produced an appreciable amount of diamond after all.

No. At best your going to have an average of different locations at certain temperatures but that has no real reflection of the situation.climate zones depend on climate falling within a given statistical range or anything, or that changing that range would be a change to a completely different zone. What was I thinking?

First, A feedback can have a forcing effect.

Look, you can argue against definitions all you want. Feedback is, by definition, not forcing.

That is to say that a feedback can raise temperatures which under the Co2 model would generally be a forcing.

No! That is feedback. It occurs in response to a long-lasting stimulus, and only in response to that stimulus. Feedback can be positive or negative. What you described is known as "positive feedback".

Water vapor is a feedback and a forcing though, I though I made that clear.

You made it clear that you're wrong.

But under the Co2 models, they aren't prepared to account for water vapor as a variable which is why you see explanations using it as a constant.

In *NO* model is water vapor a constant.

And no, water doesn't average 10 days in the atmosphere because the saturation points differ.

Wow, do we need to go all the way back to the definition of the word average?

I suggest you quite getting your information from loaded sites designed to convince you regardless of the truth. Real science and at least one of the scientist contributing to it is one of them.

I suggest you get your data from somewhere other than your a**^H^H^Himagination.

Looking at their licensing agreement here. it would appear that you can post your work in a very limited fashion... in some cases you'd need to ask the AAAS for permission to reprint your own material once submitted.

...but I'm not lawyer-shaped, so mayhaps one here can render an opinion...

"Harvard makes a copy of the article freely available. What about those journals (Nature and Science, maybe?) that do not allow this"

How would Havard publishing online prevent them getting published in Nature or Science. Do you have any citations that say this?

"the author grants AAAS exclusive rights to use and authorize use of the work, but retains actual copyright and substantial reuse rights"

"Nature Publishing Group offers a range of reprints and permissions services for authors, readers, writers and commercial companies"

The new policy will allow faculty members to request a waiver, but otherwise they must provide an electronic form of each article to the provost's office

But thanks for playing, "This is your Brain Fevered By Ethanol Hysteria"

Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt

Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a 'biofuel carbon debt' by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions these biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.

but i'll add anyway. David Tilman from U of MN has worked quite extensively with mono- and polycultures of plants/grass for purposes of productivity. his paper here talks about using switchgrass in combination with other plants to use degraded/poor ag. lands and still get better, even carbon negative, output than corn or soy beans for ethanol, without a lot of input. i don't know why this didn't get more press.

Oops please ignore my last post- its links are fixed here.

The direct alternative to biofuels that you speak of, which does not depend on growing biomass, was the topic of a recent Slashdot discussion (the specific Sandia technology), and I wrote a response about it and that there are other means of achieving the same end. It is definitely a good idea to cut out the biomass and eliminate all of the associated environmental issues, land area constraints, and greenhouse gas issues that are the topic of this discussion.

The journal articles that this current discussion refers to (regarding "biofuels make greenhouse gases worse") were both made available in Science a few of days ago: one, two, and they were also discussed in the New York Times.

Oops please ignore my last post- its links are fixed here.

The direct alternative to biofuels that you speak of, which does not depend on growing biomass, was the topic of a recent Slashdot discussion (the specific Sandia technology), and I wrote a response about it and that there are other means of achieving the same end. It is definitely a good idea to cut out the biomass and eliminate all of the associated environmental issues, land area constraints, and greenhouse gas issues that are the topic of this discussion.

The journal articles that this current discussion refers to (regarding "biofuels make greenhouse gases worse") were both made available in Science a few of days ago: one, two, and they were also discussed in the New York Times.

Both papers are published in Science Express rather than the regular journal yet. Here are the abstracts:

Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt
Joseph Fargione Jason Hill David Tilman Stephen Polasky, Peter Hawthorne

Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to lowcarbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential lowcarbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a 'biofuel carbon debt' by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions these biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change
Timothy Searchinger, Ralph Heimlich R. A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong, Amani Elobeid, Jacinto Fabiosa, Simla Tokgoz, Dermot Hayes, Tun-Hsiang Yu

Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. Using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.

While this work is very useful, the immediate concern would seem to be that grain carryover stocks are becoming quite low as a result of ethanol production. They are now at about 54 days worth of world consumption compared to over 100 days in 2000. Much lower stocks would mean making a choice between starvation of people or reducing feedlot operations and meat availability.

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change
Timothy Searchinger 1*, Ralph Heimlich 2, R. A. Houghton 3, Fengxia Dong 4, Amani Elobeid 4, Jacinto Fabiosa 4, Simla Tokgoz 4, Dermot Hayes 4, Tun-Hsiang Yu 4

1 Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. German Marshall Fund of the U.S., Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute.
2 Agricultural Conservation Economics, Laurel, MD, USA.
3 Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA, USA.
4 Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.

How Green Are Biofuels?
Jörn P. W. Scharlemann and William F. Laurance

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change
Timothy Searchinger 1*, Ralph Heimlich 2, R. A. Houghton 3, Fengxia Dong 4, Amani Elobeid 4, Jacinto Fabiosa 4, Simla Tokgoz 4, Dermot Hayes 4, Tun-Hsiang Yu 4

1 Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. German Marshall Fund of the U.S., Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute.
2 Agricultural Conservation Economics, Laurel, MD, USA.
3 Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA, USA.
4 Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.

How Green Are Biofuels?
Jörn P. W. Scharlemann and William F. Laurance

Since Wikipedia said it it must be true?

I will cite this refrence:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/280/5361/202

"In the wake of global controls on ozone-destroying compounds, most observers expected that the annual Antarctic ozone hole would fade, and the more modest Arctic ozone losses diminish, as atmospheric chlorine declines. But in this week's issue of Nature, a group from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City reports that their model indicates that during the next few decades, greenhouse gases will trigger a springtime ozone hole over the Arctic, much like the one now over the Antarctic."

Ok? Most observers thought that the hole would fade, but its gotten worse, and it will form over the artic. Something is missing from your theory.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5852/913b

Speaking Out About U.S. Science Output

I was amazed by J. Mervis's News of the Week story "U.S. output flattens, and NSF wonders why" (3 August, p. 582). Not by the conclusion that U.S. science productivity is flattening out, but because apparently nobody interviewed by the NSF could identify the reason. Had the question been posed of almost any working scientist I know, the simple and accurate answer would have been that the number of papers that are written is diminishing because scientists are able to spend less time writing papers! Instead, we spend ever-more time on the increasingly burdensome administrative requirements of conducting science legally, and on writing, rewriting, and re-rewriting grant applications as the NIH's pay line drops to catastrophically low levels. As the number of hours in a day is finite and unchanging, something has to give. If I didn't have to spend the rest of this month ignoring various half-complete manuscripts and rewriting a grant application, I'd be able to explain in more detail.
John P. Moore
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Weill Medical College
Cornell University
New York, NY 10065, USA

Yes, I do. The people with their names on the front kicked in a few tens of millions for construction; they rarely pay for the whole thing, plus a perpetual endowment to keep it staffed and maintained.

Normally, I don't like to link these because I'm never sure what's publicly accessible, but you sound like you're involved enough that you should be able to access Science: NIH BUDGET: Boom and Bust.