Commentary: A tale of two pipelines — It’s time for common sense to prevail

Posted on January 22, 2014 at 9:51 am by David Holt in Keystone XL, Pipelines, Politics/Policy   

      

A crewman directs a pipe on a site for TransCanada's Keystone XL project in Wood County, Texas, in 2012. (Cody Duty / Houston Chronicle)

In March 2012, President Obama visited the Pipe Yard in Cushing, OK where he announced his support for the Gulf Coast Project and directed his administration “to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done.”
Today – almost two years later – the Keystone Gulf Coast Project has begun shipping about 830,000 barrels of oil a day across the 485 miles from Cushing, OK south to state-of-the-art refineries down on the Gulf Coast in Nederland, TX. The project took 4,000 tradesman and construction workers 16 months to complete.  Additional vendors and local businesses also benefited including the Read Ice Company in Kountze, Texas, 25 miles northwest of Beaumont which contracted with TransCanada to provide ice cold water to construction workers.

America’s energy consumers have reason to celebrate these jobs and the economic benefits resulting from the start of service for the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline project. But even as it launches today, delay pervades the remainder of the Keystone XL pipeline. Why more than five years after the initial filing are we still waiting for a final decision from the Obama Administration?

The Keystone XL pipeline project could be so much more. The next phase of the Keystone XL Pipeline project includes building a new pipeline from Hardisty, AB to Steele City, NE, where will it will connect with an existing pipeline that runs to Cushing. This final leg will require 9,000 more tradesman and construction workers. It could provide a $5 billion investment boost into the U.S. economy – not to mention the millions in tax revenue for cities and towns along the route.

Why is building energy pipelines to Cushing, OK so important?  It is the epicenter for storing crude oil in the United States.  From Cushing, crude oil is sent to Gulf Coast refiners where it is made into gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel and several other products which the U.S. economy uses to power businesses, manufacturing facilities, automobiles, truck fleets and airplanes.

Building the final leg of Keystone XL will connect landlocked crude oil being produced in the Bakken formation in North Dakota to Gulf Coast refiners.  In turn, there will be downward pressure on prices and a more reliable stream of crude into and out of America’s energy producing network.
 This new found reliability will make the U.S. less dependent on crude oil imports from regimes like Venezuela or Persian Gulf countries (link to other op-ed).

With all of these tremendous benefits available to the United States through the Keystone XL pipeline, why are we still waiting for a decision?

Already subjected to five years of government study and delay, the Keystone XL pipeline has been reviewed by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ). The pipeline project has now undergone multiple environmental reviews by the State Department. This new review should be completed sometime this year. After that, it’s all up to President Obama.

However, if it had followed the same regulatory process as the Gulf Coast Project, the Keystone XL pipeline would now be up and running, supplying America’s largest refineries on the Gulf Coast with a secure supply of lower-cost oil from producers in Canada and the U.S. Bakken region. It’s clear that there is a fundamental disconnect between the processes for these two pipelines.

Back in March 2012, President Obama stated to a crowd in Cushing, OK: “Today, we’re making this new pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf a priority…we’re going to go ahead and get that done. The northern portion of it we’re going to have to review properly to make sure that the health and safety of the American people are protected.  That’s common sense.”

We can all agree that a thorough review is appropriate to ensure that the health and safety of the American people are protected. However, after five years of foot dragging by the State Department, now we are past the point of common sense. Instead, political debate on what is now the most thoroughly studied and publicly discussed pipeline in American history has replaced any logical thought common sense. Instead of misinformation continuing to plague the progress of one of the nation’s largest “shovel ready” construction projects, it’s time to make the Keystone XL pipeline a priority.

As the most-studied and safest pipeline in history, the Keystone XL pipeline project is still a good idea and enjoys the support of more than 70 percent of Americans. Mr. President, it’s time for common sense to prevail. It’s time to build the Keystone XL pipeline.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/01/22/a-tale-of-two-pipelines-its-time-for-common-sense-to-prevail/

Issues and Trends: Natural Gas

Production Lookback 2013

Released: January 16, 2014

U.S. natural gas production increases by 1% in 2013

Average dry natural gas production grew modestly in 2013, despite a 35% year-on-year rise in prices. Production grew from 65.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2012 to 66.5 Bcf/d in 2013, a 1% increase and the lowest annual growth since 2005. This production growth was essentially flat when compared to the 5% growth in 2012 and the 7% growth in 2011.

Average wholesale (spot) prices for natural gas in 2013 increased significantly throughout the United States compared to 2012. The average wholesale price for natural gas at Henry Hub in Erath, Louisiana, a key benchmark location for pricing throughout the United States, rose to $3.73 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2013. However, 2013 prices were, with the exception of 2012, at their lowest level since 2002.

 

Slower demand growth, low imports limit room for gas production growth

Although prices remained relatively low, total disposition (consumption, gross exports, and net storage injections) of natural gas was flat in 2013 compared with 2012 levels, versus the annual 3% increase in 2012, and the 4% increase in 2011. Domestic consumption in 2013, which makes up 96% of total U.S. natural gas disposition, increased by 2%, despite the decrease in consumption of natural gas for electric generation (power burn) in 2013. Natural gas consumed for power burn was 2.6 Bcf/d below 2012 levels as coal regained some of its market share in response to higher natural gas prices, compared with coal, and as cooler summer temperatures in 2013 reduced total electric generation demand. Increased winter natural gas demand offset the decline in power burn, leading to a net increase in consumption for the year.

Since 2010, domestic production has satisfied 88% of U.S. natural gas disposition, as natural gas imports to the United States have continued to decline. As recently as 2007, the United States depended on imports for 16% of its natural gas needs. Although U.S. production has displaced some natural gas imports to the United States, imports continue, although as a marginal source of supply, largely during cold weather and pipeline maintenance outages.

Storage injections provided another outlet for U.S. natural gas production growth. The net withdrawal in working natural gas storage inventories in 2013 was significantly higher than 2012 because of large withdrawals in January and December. High demand at the end of the year offset the effect of end-of-October working gas inventories that had reached their third-highest level in the past 10 years. By the end of December, inventories had declined to their seventh-highest level in the past 10 years. The net withdrawal in inventories in 2013 was 537 billion cubic feet (Bcf), significantly greater than the net withdrawal of 49 Bcf in 2012. In 2011, there was a net injection into working inventories of 351 Bcf.

 

Growth in Marcellus Shale production offsets decreases in other basins

Greater levels of natural gas output in the Marcellus Shale contributed to the net increase in national production levels despite decreases in other basins. Dry natural gas production from Marcellus rose by 61%, from a 2012 average of 6.5 Bcf/d to a 2013 average of 10.4 Bcf/d (Figure 2), according to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) calculations based on data from Drillinginfo.

Marcellus production alone accounted for 75% of all production growth over the past year in the six basins covered in EIA's recently released Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), which highlights the latest regional trends in drilling, completion, and production from gas- and oil-producing wells.

Despite a 21% decline from 2012 to 2013 in the total rig count in the Marcellus, natural gas output per rig rose by 47%, according to the DPR. Production gains have come largely from northeastern portions of the basin producing drier natural gas, where output has benefitted from gathering line and pipeline capacity expansions. However, infrastructure improvements have also bolstered production in the wetter southwestern portions of the basin, which saw increased drilling in 2013.

Outside of Marcellus, the shift toward liquids-rich production continued in 2013

Wide differences in natural gas and oil prices affect the decisions that upstream operators make about where and how to deploy capital. Although natural gas prices remained at relatively low levels through the end of 2013, crude oil prices remained mostly above $100/barrel (bbl), encouraging operators to target regions with wetter gas and higher returns on investment.

The Haynesville Shale in Texas and Louisiana and the Barnett Shale in Texas generally are considered dry natural gas plays because of the low level of liquids in their production streams. Production from the Haynesville and Barnett declined by 27% and 9%, respectively, between 2013 and 2012. The Barnett and Haynesville reductions exceeded the 3% combined increase in gas production at the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas and the nearby Woodford Shale in Oklahoma. The Baker Hughes active rig count decreased significantly in all four of these basins between 2011 and 2013. Some of the production declines in these fields are also partially attributable to the normal decline or maturity of their existing wells.

At the same time, increased new production activity in wetter shale basins enabled these basins to pick up some of the drop-off in production from their drier counterparts. At the Eagle Ford in south Texas, where operators target a combination of crude oil, condensate, and natural gas liquids, average daily gas production reached 3.3 Bcf/d in 2013, 54% higher than in 2012. In 2012, the average active rig count in Eagle Ford rose by 29% before declining slightly in 2013. Production also grew by 33% in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and Montana, where operators predominantly target crude oil, following a rig count increase in 2012.

The shift in new production activity from drier to wetter production fields is demonstrated by data on Lower 48 gross withdrawals from wells producing only natural gas, versus those producing a combination of gas and oil. While gross withdrawals from wells containing only natural gas rose by 4% from 2011 to 2013, from 40.4 Bcf/d to 42.1 Bcf/d, gross withdrawals from wells producing a combination of both gas and oil increased by 7%, from 25.0 Bcf/d to 26.8 Bcf/d (Figure 3), according to EIA calculations with data from Drillinginfo.

The increased gross withdrawals from wells producing both gas and oil coincided with changes in the oil-to-natural gas price ratio. When the oil-to-natural gas price ratio increased by 49% in 2012, from $28.33/bbl of Brent crude oil in 2011 to $42.13/bbl of Brent crude oil for every $1.00/MMBtu of natural gas, gross withdrawals from wells producing both gas and oil rose by 8%. When gas prices rose and the oil-to-gas price ratio decreased by 30% to $29.61/bbl of Brent crude oil for every $1.00/MMBtu of natural gas in 2013, gross withdrawals from wells producing both gas and oil decreased by 1%. The shift in the focus of new natural gas production activity was also evident in terms of the increase since 2010 in the percentage of new wells that produced both natural gas and oil (Figure 4). In 2010, 57% of all new natural gas-producing wells produced both gas and oil. By 2012, 73% of all new natural gas producing wells produced both gas and oil. This share fell to 68% in 2013.

Other production

The shift in natural gas production also involved movement away from geologically more permeable zones that have traditionally accounted for a greater share of North American gas supply. Marketed natural gas production was generally flat or down for inland production areas outside of shale and tight formations in 2012 and 2013, except for New Mexico, and also remained relatively flat in onshore Canada. Production from offshore areas in both Canada and the United States declined between 2012 and 2013

 

More info:  http://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/issuesandtrends/production/2013/?src=home-b1

Northern Ireland Christians force cancellation of comedy based on Bible

Play is pulled from schedule of Newtownabbey theatre after calls for ban from DUP politicians   

• Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
• theguardian.com, Thursday 23 January 2014 08.36 EST

The Theatre at the Mill is run by the DUP-dominated Newtownabbey borough council. Photograph: Paul Mcerlane

 

Christians have forced the cancellation of play at a Northern Ireland theatre because it supposedly mocks the Bible, it has emerged.

The irreverent comedy The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged) has been pulled from the schedule of the Theatre at the Mill in Newtownabbey on the northern outskirts of Belfast.
Evangelical Christian politicians from the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) called for the play to be banned from the theatre, which is run by unionist-dominated Newtownabbey borough council.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company was due to start its latest UK tour by presenting the show at the venue in Co Antrim on 29 and 30 January.

But the Theatre at the Mill confirmed on Thursday that the two planned performances had been cancelled and said refunds would be available from its box office.

The Democratic Unionist councillor Billy Ball had called for the play to be banned because it would cause offence to Christians.

"For Christians, the Bible is the infallible word of God and it's not something to be made fun of. These people are treating something sacred with irreverence and disrespect," he said.

But the theatre group behind the production pointed out that they had taken the show to Jerusalem recently and had had no problems staging it, nor were there any protests from the Israeli authorities.

Before the cancellation on Thursday, Dave Naylor, the play's producer, had said: "Maybe Councillor Ball should come and see our show before denouncing it as unholy. But he'd better be quick as all his comments have done is increase ticket sales."

The drama company's production poses questions in the play such as: "Did Adam and Eve have navels? Did Moses really look like Charlton Heston?"

In its promotion for the play, the company adds: "Whether you are Catholic or Protestant, Muslim or Jew, atheist or Jedi, you will be tickled by the RSC's romp through old-time religion."
The evangelical Christian wing of the DUP has a long history of trying to ban works of art, films, exhibitions and dramas that it regards as blasphemous or offensive. DUP-controlled councils have banned Monty Python's Life of Brian and even barred the Electric Light Orchestra from playing a concert in a Ballymena-council-controlled leisure centre because the band were staging the gig on a Sunday.

The DUP also pioneered protests against the first sex shops to open in Northern Ireland during the 1980s. Outside one sex shop that had opened in the future first minister Peter Robinson's East Belfast constituency, DUP activists held up placards calling on passing motorists to "bump your horn for decency".

New Global Program Bolsters Skills of Experts in Sustainable Energy

Installing solar panels in West Africa

Energy issues facing society are one of the biggest technological and policy challenges of the twenty-first century. A new global program at Columbia Engineering is aiming to make headway in addressing this problem.

“It is absolutely critical to develop a global curriculum to prepare engineers to ensure universal access to modern energy services,” says Mechanical Engineering Professor Vijay Modi, who has been working on these issues around the world for 10 years. “For example, there are 1.4 billion people without electricity access today—We want to bring electricity access to them. We also need to increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix as it is one of the drivers of decarbonization, and accelerate the rate of improvement in energy efficiency.”

To that end, Modi has been working with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and the Engineering Department of the University of Cape Verde in Mindelo, Sao Vicente, to design an innovative distance-learning program that leads to a certification in Sustainable Energy Solutions. The program is designed to build skills of experts in the field of sustainable energy systems and solutions. In January 2014, the certification program will be offered to a pilot group of 10 students from West African countries that are members of ECOWAS. This cohort is expected to comprise current employees of utilities, regulators, or independent power producers.

The idea for the program came about during a post-event discussion hosted by Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger as part of the World Leaders Forum a few years ago. Enhanced engineering skill development was identified as an essential need. Subsequently, ECREEE and UNIDO identified a need for assistance in the areas of design and assessment capability, as well as techno-economic feasibility of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

“Our overall objective,” says Modi, “is to strengthen the long-term capabilities of these institutions, service providers, and companies to design and appraise projects, integrate renewable energy and energy efficiency into their planning, operational, and monitoring cycles, and contribute to strengthening of policy framework at the national level.”

The School’s Certification of Professional Achievement in Sustainable Energy Solutions comprises four 3-credit courses, two of which are taught by Modi. He is joined by Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Arvind Narayanaswamy and Pezhman Akbari, lecturer in the discipline of mechanical engineering. The yearlong program includes distance-learning lessons through Columbia Video Network as well as face-to-face workshops to be held at the University of Cape Verde.
ECOWAS is a regional group of 15 countries—Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo—founded in 1975. “Our Columbia Engineering program dovetails nicely with ECOWAS’s mission,” Columbia Engineering Vice Dean Soulaymane Kachani adds, “which is to create a favorable business environment for development within the region and to ensure that private enterprise is effectively supported and sustained.” Modi’s laboratory is already working in the region with a range of projects that include innovations, information systems, and/or national planning support in Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, and Liberia.

The program offers a broad overview of possible energy generation technologies, integration of renewable technologies in the larger energy system, both bottom-up and top-down approaches to achieving energy access and reliable supply, smart payment systems and business models for entrepreneurs, and devising national scale programs to achieve the above objectives along with energy efficiency technologies.

 

—by Holly Evarts

Happy Birthday, Lord Byron: His Epic Poem “Don Juan,” Annotated by Isaac Asimov and Illustrated by Milton Glaser

by Maria Popova

 

Three of history’s greatest geniuses converge around some of the finest satire ever written.

Despite having fathered Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer, Lord Byron (January 22, 1788–April 19, 1824) is best remembered for his poetry, countless collections of which have been published in the centuries since he put ink to paper. But arguably the best such volume is a rare vintage gem published by Doubleday — which also commissioned Salvador Dalí’s illustrations for the essays of Montaigne and Edward Gorey’s paperback covers for literary classics — in 1972. The lavish thousand-page tome Asimov’s Annotated Don Juan (public library) presents Byron’s Don Juan — one of the great epic poems in the English language, launching an audacious and timeless attack on greed, complacency, and hypocrisy — with annotations by beloved writer Isaac Asimov, a man of strong opinions and a large heart, and breathlessly gorgeous pen-and-ink illustrations by none other than Milton Glaser, creator of the iconic I♥NY logo and celebrated as the greatest graphic designer of our time.

What makes the pairing especially poetic is that, besides their match of cultural stature, Asimov and Glaser have in common a certain sensibility, a shared faith in the human spirit — Asimov with his religion of humanism and Glaser with his belief in the kindness of the universe.

To be sure, Asimov takes no prisoners with his annotations — or, rather, plays along with Byron — beginning with the opening verse, which reads:

FRAGMENT
I would to heaven that I were so much clay,
As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling—
Because at least the past were passed away—
And for the future—(but I write this reeling,
Having got drunk exceedingly today,
So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)
I say—the future is a serious matter—
And so—for God’s sake—hock and soda water!

Beneath it, Asimov winks:

This isolated stanza has nothing to do with the poem, but it epitomizes Byron’s utter lack of reverence for anything—even himself—and therefore sets the tone of what follows, even if it is divorced from the content.

After Byron’s third stanza, which begins with “You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know” and ends “… because you soar too high, Bob, / And fall, for lack of moisture quite a dry, Bob!,” Asimov, who wears the many hats of historian, etymologist, lexicographer, literary critic, and cultural commentator, adds an entertaining and educational clarifier:

“A dry Bob” seems to have been then-current slang for intercourse without ejaculation (“lack of moisture”). The use of the phrase shocked and (of course) titillated the public and was a particularly effective way of indicating that Southey went through the motions of writing poetry without producing anything poetic.

Though most of Asimov’s annotations offer biographical and historical context, they are by no means dry or bland. He imbues his commentary with his characteristic snark: After another Byron verse that reads “And recollect a poet nothing loses / in giving to his brethren their full meed / of merits, and complaint of present days / Is not the certain path to future praise,” Asimov snidely remarks:

It is obvious that Byron emphatically does not follow his own advice, but then few people do.

Indeed, Asimov seems entranced by Byron’s contradictions. In another note, he writes:

There was a great deal of cousin-marriage in Byron’s family. But that was not all. Perhaps the most scandalous item in the Byronic array of scandal was the fact that Byron seems to have made his half-sister, Augusta, his mistress, and to have had a daughter by her. He was fascinated by his own action in this respect and dealt with incest over and over in his writing.

Asimov’s own witty and spirited irreverence comes through once again in a comment on Byron’s usage of “wh—” and “G—d” in the fourth canto, wherein Asimov adds to literary history’s finest meditations on censorship:

Like “damn,” “whore” could not be spelled out, though what sense of purity is served by a missing “o” is known only to the Devil and to censors.
[…]
“God,” like “whore,” sometimes requires a missing “o” to be acceptable to the censor. Surely only a censor’s mind could find such neatly equal embarrassment in these two words.

Asimov weaves his own reservations about religion into the annotations, remarking in one about Byron’s line “‘But heaven,’ as Cassio says, ‘is above all—’” in canto nine:

The phrase “heaven is above all” is a kind of last resort of puzzled mankind. If problems are insoluble, leave them then to God, to whom nothing (by definition) is insoluble. THus, in Shakespeare’s Othello, when Cassio is tempted into drinking by the villainous Iago, the former quickly finds himself befuddled by alcohol and must find refuge in “Well; God’s above all…”

Above all, however, Asimov seems to peer straight into Byron’s soul, discerning his motives and intentions with equal parts clarity and compassion. In the twelfth canto, where Byron writes “I thought, at setting off, about two dozen / Cantos would do; but at Apollo’s pleading, / If that my Pegasus should not be founder’d, / I think to canter gently through a hundred,” Asimov remarks:

Byron may well have intended to keep writing Don Juan all his life as a perfect vehicle for satirizing the age. But, alas, he was approaching the end.

In his final footnote, Asimov revisits the subject of Don Juan’s intended fate:

Byron always maintained he had no plan for Don Juan, but simply improvised as he went along, taking all the world as his target. And, indeed, as we go from canto to canto, the plot grows thinner, the digressions longer, the satire deeper, so that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that no matter how long he had lived and how long written, Byron would never have finished Don Juan nor progressed enormously with the plot, even though the number of cantos had reached the century mark. At one time he said he would send Juan to every nation in turn, satirizing each in its own fashion, and have him end an extreme radical like Cloots in the Reign of Terror, or else to end by sending him either to Hell or to an unhappy marriage, whichever was worse. 

And yet — I wonder if Byron might not have relented. Might he not have had Don Juan visit Hell, but have had him saved from damnation by the intercession of the shade of Haidée, surely to be found in Heaven? Might he not, then, in the end, have married Leila, the little girl he had saved at Izmail, and settled down to the blameless life of husband, father, and country squire?

Though Asimov’s Annotated Don Juan is, sadly, long out of print, I was fortunate enough to find a surviving copy of this out-of-print treasure at Heather O’Donnell’s wonderful Honey & Wax, which is a gift to bibliophiles everywhere and a heartening game-changer for the world of rare books.
Copies can also be found elsewhere online as well as at some better-stocked public libraries, and are well worth the splurge or the trip.

Complement this treat with other rare artistic editions of literary classics, including Matisse’s 1935 etchings for Ulysses, Picasso’s drawings for a naughty ancient Greek comedy, William Blake’s paintings for Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Salvador Dalí’s prolific illustrations for Don Quixote in 1946, the essays of Montaigne in 1947, Alice in Wonderland in 1969, and Romeo & Juliet in 1975.

Physicists Produce Quantum Version of the Cheshire Cat

2014-01-22 16:45

Katia Moskvitch in ScienceNow

 

 

 

In Lewis Carroll's famous children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice meets the Cheshire Cat, which disappears and leaves only its grin behind. Now, physicists have created a quantum version of the feline by separating an object—a neutron—from its physical property—its magnetism. The experiment is the latest example of how quantum mechanics becomes even weirder using a technique called weak measurement and could provide researchers with an odd new experimental tool for performing precision measurements.

In quantum physics, tiny particles can be in opposite conditions or states at the same time, a property known as superposition. For instance, an electron can literally spin in opposite directions simultaneously. Try to measure the spin, however, and that state will "collapse" so that the electron is found spinning one way or the other. That's because quantum theory generally forbids you to measure a particle's state without altering it—at least ordinarily.

But in 1988, Yakir Aharonov, a theorist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, and colleagues dreamed up a way to measure delicate quantum states without disturbing them through so-called weak measurements. There's a price to pay, of course. A weak measurement can't reveal anything about an individual particle, but only the behavior of many particles all in the same state. And it requires not only putting the particles in just the right state to begin with, but also picking only those in a specific different state in the end, so the whole experiment has to be analyzed retrospectively. Nevertheless, weak measurements can probe phenomena that ordinary measurements can't, and last November Aharonov and colleagues described how they could be used to realize a quantum Cheshire Cat.

Here’s the idea. A beam of neutrons all magnetized in the same direction, say right, enters a device called a neutron interferometer (see diagram). The beam strikes a beam splitter, which splits not only the macroscopic beam but also the quantum wave describing each neutron. So after the beam splitter, each neutron is in the bizarre quantum state: in path 1, polarized right, and in path 2, polarized right. This is the "preselected" state. After taking different paths, the waves recombine at the second beam splitter and interfere with each other so that the neutrons all exit the interferometer through one of two "ports," the light port.

Now, here's where things get weird. Experimenters install a few gadgets before the second beam splitter that work like a filter so that if a neutron is in the state in path 1, polarized right and in path 2, polarized left—the "postselected state”—it will come out the dark port instead. That may sound superfluous, because each neutron is not in that state. However, the two states have a common part—in path 1, polarized right—and that overlap ensures that some neutrons emerge from the dark port, just by virtue of trying to filter out this postselected state.

If you look at only these postselected events, you can say for sure that the neutron went through path 1. That's because the only parts of the preselected and postselected states that overlap are the ones for path 1. On the other hand, if you try to measure the magnetism, you'll find that all the magnetism is in path 2. That's because to know the magnetism is there, you essentially have to apply a magnetic field that flips the neutron’s polarization. So after the measurement, the parts of the altered preselected state and postselected state that are identical are the ones for path 2.

The traditional interpretation is that the whole argument is moot. If you reach into path 1 with a neutron detector, then that measurement alters the original quantum state, making it pointless to speculate about what you would have seen if you'd measured magnetism in the path 2 instead, and vice versa. According to Aharonov’s theory though, the measurements could be done weakly, so that they would not alter the neutrons' state. And that's exactly what Yuji Hasegawa of the Vienna University of Technology and colleagues have done, as they report in a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server.

Using a neutron interferometer at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France, the researchers inserted an absorber that soaked up only a few percent of the neutrons—not enough to ruin the interference of the waves. When they put it in path 2, the rate of neutrons leaving the dark port remained the same. When they put it in path 1, the number decreased, proving that the neutrons in the postselected state go through path 1. Then, they applied a small magnetic field to slightly rotate the neutrons’ polarization and perturb the interference pattern. When the field was applied to path 1, it had no effect. But in path two, the number of neutrons exiting the dark port changed, proving the neutrons' magnetism was all in path 2. Thus the cat—the neutron—was separated from its grin—its magnetism.

The experiment will “surely help us understand better the counter-intuitive nature of quantum phenomena,” says Sandu Popescu, a theorist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom who was not involved in the experiment. The odd quantum phenomenon might even prove useful for making better precision measurements, he says. Some physicists have been testing whether Newton's law of gravity remains correct at distances shorter than a millimeter or so; the delicate experiments can be muddled by extraneous electromagnetic effects. But if researcher could split the mass of neutrons from their magnetism, then they might be able to study gravitational effects without being disturbed by electromagnetic ones, says Aephraim Steinberg, an experimenter at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Epigenetics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the unfolding of an organism or the theory that plants and animals (including humans) develop in this way, see epigenesis (biology). For epigenetics in robotics, see developmental robotics.

In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene activity that are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence; it also can be used to describe the study of stable, long-term alterations in the transcriptional potential of a cell that are not necessarily heritable. Unlike simple genetics based on changes to the DNA sequence (the genotype), the changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype of epigenetics have other causes. The name epi- (Greek: επί- over, outside of, around) -genetics.^[1]

 

The term also refers to the changes themselves: functionally relevant changes to the genome that do not involve a change in the nucleotide sequence. Examples of mechanisms that produce such changes are DNA methylation and histone modification, each of which alters how genes are expressed without altering the underlying DNA sequence. Gene expression can be controlled through the action of repressor proteins that attach to silencer regions of the DNA. These epigenetic changes may last through cell divisions for the duration of the cell's life, and may also last for multiple generations even though they do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;^[2] instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.^[3] (There are objections to the use of the term epigenetic to describe chemical modification of histone, since it remains unclear whether or not histone modifications are heritable.)^[4]

 

One example of an epigenetic change in eukaryotic biology is the process of cellular differentiation. During morphogenesis, totipotent stem cells become the various pluripotent cell lines of the embryo, which in turn become fully differentiated cells. In other words, as a single fertilized egg cell – the zygote – continues to divide, the resulting daughter cells change into all the different cell types in an organism, including neurons, muscle cells, epithelium, endothelium of blood vessels, etc., by activating some genes while inhibiting the expression of others.^[5]

 

In 2011, it was demonstrated that the methylation of mRNA plays a critical role in human energy homeostasis. The obesity-associated FTO gene is shown to be able to demethylate N6-methyladenosine in RNA. This discovery launched the subfield of RNA epigenetics.^[6][7]

Molecular basis of epigenetics

Epigenetic changes can modify the activation of certain genes, but not the sequence of DNA. Additionally, the chromatin proteins associated with DNA may be activated or silenced. This is why the differentiated cells in a multi-cellular organism express only the genes that are necessary for their own activity. Epigenetic changes are preserved when cells divide. Most epigenetic changes only occur within the course of one individual organism's lifetime, but, if gene inactivation occurs in a sperm or egg cell that results in fertilization, then some epigenetic changes can be transferred to the next generation.^[22] This raises the question of whether or not epigenetic changes in an organism can alter the basic structure of its DNA (see Evolution, below), a form of Lamarckism.

 

Specific epigenetic processes include paramutation, bookmarking, imprinting, gene silencing, X chromosome inactivation, position effect, reprogramming, transvection, maternal effects, the progress of carcinogenesis, many effects of teratogens, regulation of histone modifications and heterochromatin, and technical limitations affecting parthenogenesis and cloning.

 

DNA damage can also cause epigenetic changes.^[23][24][25] DNA damages are very frequent, occurring on average about 10,000 times a day per cell of the human body (see DNA damage (naturally occurring)). These damages are largely repaired, but at the site of a DNA repair, epigenetic changes can remain.^[26] In particular, a double strand break in DNA can initiate unprogrammed epigenetic gene silencing both by causing DNA methylation as well as by promoting silencing types of histone modifications (chromatin remodeling) (see next section).^[27] In addition, the enzyme Parp1 (poly(ADP)-ribose polymerase) and its product poly(ADP)-ribose (PAR) accumulate at sites of DNA damage as part of a repair process.^[28] This accumulation, in turn, directs recruitment and activation of the chromatin remodeling protein ALC1 that can cause nucleosome remodeling.^[29] Nucleosome remodeling has been found to cause, for instance, epigenetic silencing of DNA repair gene MLH1.^[19][30] DNA damaging chemicals, such as benzene, hydroquinone, styrene, carbon tetrachloride and trichloroethylene, cause considerable hypomethylation of DNA, some through the activation of oxidative stress pathways.^[31]

 

Foods are known to alter the epigenetics of rats on different diets.^[32] Some food components epigenetically increase the levels of DNA repair enzymes such as MGMT and MLH1^[33] and p53.^[34][35] Other food components can reduce DNA damage, such as soy isoflavones^[36][37] and bilberry anthocyanins.^[38]

 

^{For more details and references see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics}

 

Creationism again stalks the classroom

 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry: His state's kids won't be competing with your kids. (Michael Justus/AP / January 21, 2014)

By Michael Hiltzik

January 21, 2014, 4:47 p.m.

In a sane world, the ringing denunciation of intelligent design and creationist "science" delivered by a federal judge in 2005 would have eradicated these concepts from the schoolroom.

District Judge John E. Jones III of Harrisburg, Pa., ruled then that "intelligent design" is not science, "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," and therefore is unconstitutional as a subject to be taught in a public school.

 

Yet the creationists keep at it. A recent report, written for Slate.com by the indefatigable and implausibly youthful Zack Kopplin, involves a network of charter schools with an enrollment of 17,000 students in Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana and an incredible haul of $82.6 million a year in state, local and federal funds. 

 

As Kopplin reports, the biology workbook assigned to students in the schools operated by Responsive Education Solutions is shot through with creationist propaganda. Among its assertions: "Evolution — which is, after all, an unproved theory — has been treated as fact. It has reached the level of dogma, widely accepted, but unproven and changing school of thought that is treated as though it were fact."

 

Its section on "The Origin of Life" asserts: "There are only two ways that life could have begun: "1 - Spontaneous generation - random chemical processes formed the first cell. 2 - Supernatural intervention created the first cell."

 

As for the first living cell, the text blithers on, scientists "can only hypothesize what it might have been like." Thus it craftily attempts to undermine the scientific method. On the other hand, it says, "for many, supernatural creation (either by God or some other supernatural power) of the first cell is a more plausible explanation." 

 

One way to react to a school system that places "supernatural intervention" on the same scientific plane as a natural process, however dopily described, is with relief that these 17,000 children won't be equipped to compete in the real world with our kids. Life in modern America is hard enough, so there's something Darwinian indeed about saddling all those kids with the burden of a 16th-century education. 

 

Another way is to express dismay that taxpayer funds, including money paid by federal taxpayers, is going to this sort of effort.

 

In a reply to the Slate article posted in the Arkansas Times, Responsive Education Chief Executive Chuck Cook maintained that "the curriculum was simply providing examples of competing theories on the origin of life." He states, "Our science curriculum does examine all sides of the scientific evidence relating to the theory of evolution — both for and against — just as we are required to do by the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Biology." 

 

Jones took the measure of this "we're only teaching both sides" attack on evolution. In the case before him, a disclaimer read to school pupils in Dover, Pa., at the outset of their study of evolution, "while encouraging students to keep an open mind and explore alternatives to evolution ... offers no scientific alternative; instead, the only alternative offered is an inherently religious one."

Same here: The choice offered the schools' students is between evolution, which is chock full of uncertainties according to the text, or the supernatural.

 

Textbook publishers and responsible parents have finally started pushing back against Texas textbook standards, which because of the state's economic heft threatened to spread unscientific pap throughout the biology curricula of public schools nationwide.

 

Just last November, the Texas Board of Education approved high school texts from 14 publishers that had refused to water down their treatment of evolution. "None of those textbooks call into question the overwhelming evidence supporting evolution and climate change science," the watchdog group Texas Freedom Network reported.

 

But as the charter school case shows, creationism still has a way of sneaking in the back door. It's still not safe for parents to let down their guard. And it's high time that federal education officials took a closer look at what's being done with our money.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-creationism-20140121,0,7617205.story#ixzz2r5wUonFq

Scientists create anti-atom beam — but use it for good, not evil

    

 Alan Boyle, Science Editor NBC News    

 

N. Kuroda

The ASACUSA CUSP apparatus in the CERN Antiproton Decelerator is a tangle of equipment that's used to create, trap and send out particles of antihydrogen.

Creating an antimatter beam sounds like something only a mad scientist would do, but there's nothing mad about the beam of antihydrogen atoms that scientists generated for the first time at Europe's CERN research center.

The researchers behind the technical achievement, revealed Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, say the beam could help them shed new light on deep mysteries: Why do we see so much more matter than antimatter in the universe around us? For that matter, why is there a universe at all?

Theoretically, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created in the Big Bang that gave rise to the cosmos as we know it. But as any "Star Trek" fan knows, matter and antimatter annihilate each other in a flash of energy when they interact. Thus, physicists suspect there must have been some subtle difference that allowed matter to dominate the universe.

Previous particle-smashing experiments have provided a smattering of clues as to the difference, but physicists would really like to address the mystery by studying actual anti-atoms. The problem is that it's hard to keep the atoms in existence long enough to make fine-scale measurements.

Actually, antimatter applications have been around for a long time: Hospitals routinely make use of antielectrons, or positrons, to take internal snapshots of our bodies with PET scanners. And researchers are looking into using beams of antiprotons to treat cancer.

But it's only been in the last three years or so that physicists have been able to combine antiprotons and positrons into whole atoms of antihydrogen and hold them inside a specially designed magnetic trap at CERN's Antiproton Decelerator facility on the Swiss-French border. Even then, it's hard to analyze that antihydrogen because the magnetic field that corrals the anti-atoms also interferes with measurements.

In 2012, scientists from CERN's ALPHA collaboration announced that they finally managed to make the first spectroscopic measurements of anti-atoms inside their trap. Now scientists from a different collaboration at CERN, known as ASACUSA, say their apparatus has created a beam of antihydrogen atoms that can be measured more precisely outside the magnetic trap where they were created. At least 80 of the anti-atoms were detected, 2.7 meters (9 feet) downstream of the production region.

Stefan Meyer Institut

This schematic shows ASACUSA's scheme for creating and sending out atoms of antihydrogen. From left to right: The CUSP trap produces the atoms, a microwave cavity (shown in green) induces hyperfine transitions, and a sextupole magnet (shown in red and gray) focuses the beam, sending the atoms to an antihydrogen detector (shown in gold).

ASACUSA's apparatus makes use of devices with names that would warm the heart of a mad scientist: a superconducting anti-Helmholtz coil, multiple ring electrodes, a microwave cavity and a beam-focusing spin-selector. The result is that energetic anti-atoms can be guided to a region with a weak magnetic field.

"Antihydrogen atoms having no charge, it was a big challenge to transport them from their trap," ASACUSA team leader Yasunori Yamazaki, a researcher from Japan's RIKEN research center, said in a CERN news release. "Our results are very promising for high-precision studies of antihydrogen atoms, particularly the hyperfine structure, one of the two best-known spectroscopic properties of hydrogen. Its measurement in antihydrogen will allow the most sensitive test of matter-antimatter symmetry."

Yamazaki said his team will resume its experiments this summer with a setup that should produce higher-energy beams of antihydrogen atoms for study. Just wait until the mad scientists get wind of that.

In addition to Yamazaki, the authors of "A Source of Antihydrogen for In-Flight Hyperfine Spectroscopy" include N. Kuroda, S. Ulmer, D.J. Murtagh, S. Van Gorp, Y. Nagata, M. Diermaier, S. Federmann, M. Leali, C. Malbrunot, V. Mascagna, O. Massiczek, K. Michishio, T. Mizutani, A. Mohri, H. Nagahama, M. Ohtsuka, B. Radics, S. Sakurai, C. Sauerzopf, K. Suzuki, M. Tajima, H.A. Torii, L. Venturelli, B. Wünschek, J. Zmeskal, N. Zurio, H. Higaki, Y. Kanai, E. Lodi Rizzini, Y. Nagashima, Y. Matsuda and E. Widmann.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding +Alan Boyle to your Google+ circles. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Setting the record straight on ‘the cause of pause in global warming’

Watts Up With That?

The world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change

Setting the record straight on ‘the cause of pause in global warming’

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Anthony Watts

Guest essay by Don J. Easterbrook, Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University
Last week in my post ‘‘The cause of pause in global warming,” I presented data showing that the lack of global warming was not the ‘biggest mystery in climate science,’ “but, in fact, it really isn’t a mystery at all, it was predicted in 1999 on the basis of consistent, recurring patterns of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and global climate.” This precipitated an avalanche of caustic comments by Bob Tisdale, almost all of which were totally irrelevant to what I said. This post is to set the record straight so there is no misunderstanding of the situation.

I like Willis Eschenback’s caveat: “if you disagree with something that I or someone else said, please QUOTE THEIR EXACT WORDS and state your objection. That way we can all understand just what you are objecting to, and the nature of your objection.” With that in mind, here is the crux of what I said.

“Each time the PDO was warm, global climate warmed; each time the PDO was cool, global climate cooled.” “Each of the two PDO warm periods (1915-1945 and 1978-1998) and the three cool periods (1880-1915, 1945-1977, 1999-2014) lasted 25-30 years. If the flip of the PDO into its cool mode in 1999 persists, the global climate should cool for the next several decades. “

Figure 4. (Top) PDO fluctuations and projections to 2040 based on past PDO history.


Figure 4. (Bottom) Projected global cooling in coming decades based on extrapolation of past PDO recurring patterns.

I plotted the oxygen isotope measurements made by Stuiver and Grootes (1997) for the past 450 years, which,

”showed about 40, regularly-spaced, warm/cool periods with average cycles of 27 years, very similar to the PDO cycle. There was no way to determine what the PDO looked like that far back, but the GISP2 warm/cool cycles were so consistent that correlation with PDO 25-30 year cycles seemed like a good possibility. Historically known warm/cool periods showed up in the GISP2 curve, i.e., the 1945-1977 cool period, the 1915-1945 warm period, the 1880-1915 cool period, the Little Ice Age, Dalton Minimum cooling, the Maunder Minimum cooling, and many others, lending credence to the validity of the GISP2 measurements.”

Figure 5. Warm and cool periods to 1480 AD from oxygen isotope measurements from the GISP2 Greenland ice core. The average length of a warm or cool cycle is 27 years.

Conclusions
“The ‘mysterious pause’ in global warming is really not mysterious at all. It is simply the continuation of climatic cycles that have been going on for hundreds of years. It was predicted in 1999, based on repeated patterns of cyclical warm and cool PDO phases so it is neither mysterious nor surprising. The lack of global warming for the past 17 years is just as predicted. Continued cooling for the next few decades will totally vindicate this prediction. Time and nature will be the final judge of these predictions. 

What drives these oceanic/climatic cycles remains equivocal. Correlations with various solar parameters appear to be quite good, but the causal mechanism remains unclear.”

Bob Tisdale immediately launched an insulting verbal attack in which he said:  "Easterbrook’s post is misleading, it misinforms, it is contrived, it is far from good science”

"Easterbrook continues to present his misunderstandings of the PDO”
“Easterbrook does more to mislead and misinform than to teach and inform”
“It’s bogus!”
“He insists on misinforming readers
“Easterbrook’s bogus-looking global temperature anomaly data”
“I suspect it’s a fantasy dataset”

Now I enjoy a spirited discussion of issues as much as anyone and am always willing to discuss any scientific issue, but these unprofessional, insulting remarks are not what I call science and do nothing to advance the understanding of issues.  Tisdale completely missed the point of what I said and the basis for saying it. Virtually everything he said was irrelevant to the data that I presented and nothing he said disproves any of my data or my predictions (which so far seem to be right on track). Tisdale missed the boat when he ignored my statement at the outset, “it was clear that PDO drove global climate (Figs. 2,3), but what drove the PDO was not apparent,” and again at the end, “what drives these oceanic/climatic cycles remains equivocal. Correlations with various solar parameters appear to be quite good, but the causal mechanism remains unclear.”

In other words, I was correlating the chronology of the PDO with global climate and glacier fluctuations without worrying about the cause of the PDO. I don’t know what causes the PDO nor does anyone else, including Tisdale. I then used GISP2 Greenland ice core oxygen isotope data to show that 40 warm/cool cycles back to at least 1480 had 27 years cycle patterns very similar to those of the PDO and global warming cycles that we have observed in the past century. Tisdale vented his criticisms of my work on the basis of his interpretation of what causes the PDO, which is totally irrelevant to the data that I presented. The point here is I start with recognition of the existence of the PDO and it really doesn’t matter what the cause is—that’s a separate issue. Tisdale’s interpretations of the relationship of ENSO to the PDO may well be correct, but that does nothing to invalidate the data that I presented. As one of the commenters pointed out, “In addressing Don Easterbrook you assert repeatedly that the PDO is an “aftereffect” of the ENSO. This in no way contradicts anything that Don said, he left the cause of the PDO as unknown.” Tisdale failed to understand that none of his discussions about the cause of the PDO in any way invalidated the data presented.

Tisdale was very critical of figure 4, repeatedly calling it “bogus” (= false, fake, phony, counterfeit, sham) and “a fantasy dataset” (= made up, invented, fictional, imaginary, unreal) because the source of part of the curve from 1900-2000 wasn’t indicated. The logic of such a conclusion is not valid—just because you don’t know the source of data on a graph doesn’t render it ‘bogus’ or a ‘fantasy.’ Yes, it is perfectly reasonable to ask for source data and can reserve judgment until you get it, but Tisdale’s statements were way off base–not logical and unnecessarily insulting. Here is the original graph used for part of figure 4—it is neither ‘bogus’ nor a ‘fantasy.’

This curve is now 14 years old, but because this is the first part of the curve that I originally used in 2000, I left it as is for figure 4. Using any one of several more recent curves from other sources wouldn’t really make any significant difference in the extrapolation used for projection into the future because the cooling from 1945 to 1977 is well documented. The rest of the curve to 2010 was grafted on from later ground measurement data—again, which one really doesn’t make any difference because they all show essentially the same thing. The extrapolated parts of the curve show three possible projections: (1) cooling similar to 1945-1977, (2) somewhat deeper cooling, perhaps similar to 1880-1915, (3) somewhat deeper cooling, perhaps similar to that of the Dalton Minimum. The last two are diagrammatic only– really guesses, but are shown to illustrate possible options. Nothing that Tisdale says in his comments in any way invalids this figure.

The last three graphs in my post are intended merely as illustrations of the global cooling that has occurred since 1998, confirming (so far) the predictions that I made 14 years ago. If you don’t like figure 6, throw it out–Figures 7 and 8 make the same point. Tisdale’s conclusion that “cooling is not occurring from the peak around 2001 through 2010” is easily proven false by the Christopher Monckton graph below.

Global cooling from 1996 to 2013. Graph by Christopher Monckton http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/07/the-agu-policy-statement-as-redrafted-by-monckton/

Conclusions

1. I have neither the desire nor reason to quarrel with Bob Tisdale—I suspect our differences are less than one might imagine. His Enso interpretations may well be correct, but they have no relevance to the data presented in my WUWT post.

2. Nothing in any of Tisdale’s comments invalidates any of the data that I presented.

3. The global cooling predictions that I made in 2000, based on recurring patterns of PDO and global climate, have so far proven to be correct.

4. Nature and time will ultimately prove whether or not my all of my predictions are correct.

5. I hope that we can now move on to more productive issues, especially what is the principal driving force of climate changes. I welcome open discussions of scientific issues with anyone, including Bob Tisdale, but I confess to having little patience with argumentum ad hominem.

How Scientists Are Using Tiny Sensors To Study Decline Of Bees

          
Scientists in Australia are tracking the movements of bees in an attempt to find out why they are dying.  From Guardian on January 21, 2014. @guardian           
  

Thousands of Australian honey bees have been fitted with tiny sensors in a study to help understand what is causing the precipitous collapse of colonies around the world.
About 5,000 bees will carry the 2.5mm x 2.5mm sensors, like hi-tech backpacks, for the next two months at the study site in Hobart.

The CSIRO-led research will build data on the movements and habits of several generations of bees to shed light on the causes of colony collapse disorder, which causes the rapid loss of bees and has led to more than 10m beehives being wiped out worldwide in the past six years.
Australia is so far free of this phenomenon, as well as the deadly varroa mite, which has wreaked havoc on bee populations in almost every other country.

Researchers will place bees in a fridge set to 5C, which will send the insects to sleep. The sensors will then be carefully placed, under a microscope, onto the bees’ backs before they are returned to the hive.

CSIRO will study four hives, each with about 50 tagged bees. Two of the hives will be provided a feeder with normal nectar and pollen while the other two will feed on nectar and pollen that contains a small amount of pesticide, which is thought to cause colony collapse.

Scientists will then be able to study the impact of pesticide on the bees’ ability to complete their tasks and honey production. Bees are routine-based insects and any deviation will be observable.
CSIRO said the information would provide farmers and fruit growers with greater knowledge of bees. About a third of the food regularly eaten by humans requires pollination.

The results could also lead to government action on certain types of pesticides. Since 1 December farmers in the European Union have been banned from using three types of pesticide suspected of decimating bee populations.

“The sensors are basically a tag which lets us know how long the bees go for, how many follow them and so on,” Paulo de Souza, lead scientist at CSIRO, told Guardian Australia. “We will monitor the hives for changes, such as whether the bees are slower to come back or go to other hives.

“This will be the largest study ever done of this kind, given that there will be 5,000 sensors. Two months is quite a long time to be studying them, too.”

De Souza said that while Australian bees were in “pretty good shape” and are often exported overseas for pollination purposes, they still face looming threats.

“We don’t know how long they will stay in this condition for – pesticides are one risk as well as monocultures of pollen that bees don’t do well in,” he said. “We are doing some things that might contribute to a future collapse, so it’s important we study this area.”
CSIRO will study other potential causes of colony collapse, such as hive management, after the pesticide research has finished.

It also plans to reduce the size of the sensors to fit onto flies, mosquitos and even smaller winged insects.

“We want to go smaller, maybe to 100 micrometres, although it can be hard to manipulate the sensors at that stage,” de Souza said.

“The bees are amazing – they learn very quickly how to fly with the extra weight. They are focused on their work. Fruit flies take a little longer.”

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Image: Andreas.