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"Oil Exploration Oil Exploration Gulf Drilling Disaster Triggers Scrutiny of Mediterranean Oil Rush 1. Laura Margottini* A rush to find and extract oil in the Mediterranean Sea is threatening one of the planet's marine biodiversity hot spots, scientists warn. PANTELLERIA, ITALY-This tiny speck in the Mediterranean, home to a few thousand people, seems like one of the most tranquil places in the world. But looks are deceptive. Pantelleria, in the Strait of Sicily halfway between Palermo and Tunis, is close to one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, and of late, its waters have also become the center of a new oil rush. Attracted by Italy's easygoing drilling regulations and low tax on oil extraction, dozens of companies have new plans for exploration and drilling in this part of the Mediterranean Sea. At a recent meeting here,* however, scientists, conservationists, and environmental activists warned that such efforts put several important biodiversity hot spots in danger. An oil disaster like the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which sent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for months, could easily ruin the Mediterranean ecology for a century or longer, some said. The Italian government has recently issued 66 permissions for drilling around its coasts and 25 concessions for exploration. Another 67 applications for exploration are under review. "Italy now represents the region that holds the most exciting and significant long-term opportunities," one company, Northern Petroleum, says on its Web site. The Strait of Sicily is the center of attention, but other biodiversity hot spots, such as the Tremiti Islands in the Adriatic Sea, could soon be explored as well. Italy isn't alone. Tunisia, for example, has granted concessions for oil exploration for most of its Mediterranean waters, without much political opposition. But the areas coveted by oil companies are ecological treasures, researchers and groups such as Greenpeace Italy stress. Last year, the Uni

Global Warming Materials for Educators Below is a list of Global Warming materials for educators produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists' (UCS) Climate Change Program. All of these materials are based on published, peer-reviewed science, and have themselves been peer-reviewed by scientific experts in the relevant fields.

Information Science Bounds and Vision Atlas of Science Visualizing What We Know by Katy Börner MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2010. 266 pp. $$29.95, £22.95. ISBN 9780262014458. 1. Mason A. Porter + Author Affiliations 1. The reviewer is at the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3LB, UK, and at the CABDyN Complexity Centre and Somerville College, University of Oxford. 1. E-mail: porterm@maths.ox.ac.uk Visualization is a crucial but underappreciated part of science. As venues like the American Physical Society's Gallery of Fluid Motion and Gallery of Nonlinear Images illustrate every year, good visuals can make science more beautiful, more artistic, more tangible, and often more discernible. Katy Börner's continuing exhibition Places & Spaces: Mapping Science (1) and her book Atlas of Science: Visualizing What We Know arise from a similar spirit but are much more ambitious. Visualization is one of the most compelling aspects of science. Breathtaking visuals from sources like fractals and Disneyland's long-dead "Adventure Thru Inner Space" ride are what originally inspired me toward my personal scientific path, so I welcome any resource that promises to bring the visual joys of discovery to a wide audience. Importantly, Börner's exhibition and book are not mere artistic manifestations, although they would be impressive accomplishments even if that were her only goal. Some scientists have occasionally had great success in the visual arts; for example, physicist Eric Heller has long exhibited the gorgeous fruits of his research on quantum chaos and other topics (2). To fully appreciate Börner's efforts, however, one must be conscious that she is deeply concerned not just with visualization itself but with the science of visualization. Accordingly, her book discusses the history of the science of visualization, where it is now, and where she thinks it can go. Atlas of Scie

Evolution Two Critics Without a Clue What Darwin Got Wrong by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2010. 286 pp. $26. ISBN 9780374288792. Profile, London. 280 pp. £20. ISBN 9781846682193. 1. Douglas J. Futuyma + Author Affiliations 1. The reviewer is at the Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, 650 Life Sciences Building, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245, USA. 1. E-mail: futuyma@life.bio.sunysb.edu Summary Objecting on both philosophical and empirical grounds, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini reject natural selection as the mechanism of adaptive evolution.

Warming and Melting Mass loss from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica account for a large fraction of global sea-level rise. Part of this loss is because of the effects of warmer air temperatures, and another because of the rising ocean temperatures to which they are being exposed. Joughin et al. (p. 1172) review how ocean-ice interactions are impacting ice sheets and discuss the possible ways that exposure of floating ice shelves and grounded ice margins are subject to the influences of warming ocean currents. Estimates of the mass balance of the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have differed greatly-in some cases, not even agreeing about whether there is a net loss or a net gain-making it more difficult to project accurately future sea-level change. Shepherd et al. (p. 1183) combined data sets produced by satellite altimetry, interferometry, and gravimetry to construct a more robust ice-sheet mass balance for the period between 1992 and 2011. All major regions of the two ice sheets appear to be losing mass, except for East Antarctica. All told, mass loss from the polar ice sheets is contributing about 0.6 millimeters per year (roughly 20% of the total) to the current rate of global sea-level rise.

"Scientific Workforce NSF Touts Family-Friendly Policies as Boon to Women 1. Jeffrey Mervis Young women are forever asking Meg Urry, an astrophysicist at Yale University, if it's possible "to have a successful scientific career and a family." A tenured professor with both, Urry tells them "yes." Perhaps more telling, however, is that the issue doesn't seem to interest half of her students. "I've never been asked that question by a man," she says. This week, the National Science Foundation (NSF) rolled out a set of family-friendly policies that it hopes will reduce the number of young women who jettison scientific careers because of responsibilities outside the lab. "Too many women give up because of conflicts between their desire to start a family and their desire to ramp up their careers," says John Holdren, the president's science adviser and head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. It was a rare moment in the spotlight for the low-profile basic research agency: First Lady Michelle Obama announced the policies at a White House ceremony touting the importance of women to the nation's economic recovery and, in particular, the need to improve the proportion of women in the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workforce. Figure View larger version: * In this page * In a new window Lending a hand. First Lady Michelle Obama applauds the work of young women in science at a White House event. "CREDIT: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION" The new policies will allow both male and female grant recipients to defer an award for up to 1 year or receive a no-cost extension of an existing grant. NSF also hopes to increase its use of "virtual reviews" of grant proposals so that scientists don't need to travel as often to the agency's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters. The only change with any price tag attached is a new program of supplemental awards to investigators going on family leave, allowing them to hi

The Education and the Environment Initiative [Pavley, Chapter 665, Statutes of 2003-AB 1548] directed the California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Integrated Waste Management Board to develop Environmental Principles and Concepts for elementary and secondary schools in cooperation with the Resources Agency, State Department of Education, State Board of Education, and Secretary for Education. The Office of the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Integrated Waste Management Board have reviewed and concur with the Environmental Principles and Concepts (PDF).

"Recognising ocean acidification in deep time: An evaluation of the evidence for acidification across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary Sarah E. GreeneCorresponding author contact information, 1, E-mail the corresponding author, Rowan C. Martindale1, E-mail the corresponding author, Kathleen A. Ritterbush E-mail the corresponding author, David J. Bottjer E-mail the corresponding author, Frank A. Corsetti E-mail the corresponding author, William M. Berelson E-mail the corresponding author Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA 90089 Received 22 July 2011. Accepted 17 March 2012. Available online 5 April 2012. While demonstrating ocean acidification in the modern is relatively straightforward (measure increase in atmospheric CO2 and corresponding ocean chemistry change), identifying palaeo-ocean acidification is problematic. The crux of this problem is that the rock record is a constructive archive while ocean acidification is essentially a destructive (and/or inhibitory) phenomenon. This is exacerbated in deep time without the benefit of a deep ocean record. Here, we discuss the feasibility of, and potential criteria for, identifying an acidification event in deep time. Furthermore, we investigate the evidence for ocean acidification during the Triassic-Jurassic (T-J) boundary interval, an excellent test case because 1) it occurs in deep time, beyond the reach of deep sea drilling coverage; 2) a potential trigger for acidification is known; and 3) it is associated with one of the 'Big Five' mass extinctions which disproportionately affected modern-style invertebrates. Three main criteria suggest that acidification may have occurred across the T-J transition. 1) The eruption of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) and the associated massive and rapid release of CO2 coincident with the end-Triassic mass extinction provide a suitable trigger for an acidification event (