Update: December 19, 2007

REPAIRING THE ARK

By Pam Eastlick for THE DEEP on line

Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond.

HANGING OUT WITH NOAH

There’s a whole cottage industry that tackles the ‘science’ behind the Bible, but one of the major tales in the Old Testament isn’t just told by the Biblical authors and that’s the story of Noah’s Ark.  Actually the ark itself isn’t a common theme in other cultures, but the flood is.  Virtually every culture that has ancient surviving legends tells a story about a great flood.  From the Babylonians and Gilgamesh to the Hindus, the Chinese and the Australian Aboriginals to the Aztecs, the Hopi Indians and the Polynesians; most world cultures have a flood myth.

A woodcut from the Nuremberg Bible of Noah's Ark, depicting the ship built by the Hebrew patriarch to save himself, his family and a pair of each species of animal and bird from the Flood (Old Testament, Genesis 6-8), circa 1493. Victoria & Albert Museum. (Credit: iStockphoto/Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

New research at the Universities of Exeter, UK and Wollongong, Australia has shed light on the impact of the collapse of the North American (Laurentide) Ice Sheet, 8000 years ago.  The results indicate a catastrophic rise in global sea level led to the flooding of the Black Sea and drove dramatic social change across Europe and in other parts of the world.

The collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet released a deluge of water that caused global sea levels to rise by as much as FOUR FEET and caused the largest North Atlantic freshwater pulse of the last 100,000 years.  Before this time, a ridge across the Bosporus Strait dammed the Mediterranean and kept the Black Sea as a freshwater lake.  With the rise in sea level, the Bosporus Strait was breached, flooding the Black Sea.

This event is now widely believed to be behind the various folk myths that led to the biblical Noah's Ark story.  Archaeological records show that around this time there was a sudden expansion of farming and pottery production across Europe, marking the end of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer era and the start of the Neolithic. 

The researchers created reconstructions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea shorelines before and after the rise in sea levels.  They estimate that nearly 73,000 square km of land was lost to the sea over a period of 34 years.  Based on our knowledge of historical population levels, this could have led to the displacement of 145,000 people. 

Professor Chris Turney of the University of Exeter, lead author of the paper, said: "People living in what is now southeast Europe must have felt as though the whole world had flooded.  This could well have been the origin of the Noah's Ark story.  Entire coastal communities must have been displaced, forcing thousands of people to migrate.  As these agricultural communities moved west, they would have taken farming with them across Europe. It was a revolutionary time."

Here’s the scary part of this story.  The rise in sea levels 8000 years ago is roughly the same as current estimates for the end of the 21st century.  And here’s the question.  Are we any better prepared to cope with this than Noah was?  When you consider the millions and millions of animals alive today; even if you only take two of them, it’s going to have to be a REALLY BIG ark!

TAKING THE SOUTH POLE’S PULSE
A team of seismologists from Washington University in St. Louis is setting foot in a place humans have never been to learn more about Antarctica.  They are traveling to remote regions of the ice-covered continent to place seismographs.  This will help us learn about the land beneath the ice, and glean information about glaciers, mountains and ice streams.  The location of their field camp, called AGAP-South, has never been visited by humans before, and this entire region of Antarctica has only been traversed by a Russian team 50 years ago and by a Chinese team last year.

No woman has been in these parts of Antarctica either, but graduate student Moira Pyle will hold the distinction of being the first woman to set foot there.   She and the other researchers will install 10 seismographs each in the east and west parts of Antarctica, and an additional 20 instruments next year.  Members of the group will spend between one to two months in Antarctica.

It’s summer in Antarctica, with temperatures maxing out at -30 Fahrenheit.  The researchers will stay in a heated tent at their base camp, 400 miles from the nearest civilization, South Pole base, and about 3000 miles from New Zealand.  They’ll wear sturdy boots, snow pants and parkas and cover their faces with masks, as the potential for frostbite to exposed skin is very high.  While two of the five will stay at base camp to prepare for the next day, three will be transported as far as 300 miles away to install the seismographs.

The surface of the Antarctic looks essentially like a snow-covered western Kansas, but mountains lurk beneath two miles of ice.  In eastern Antarctica, east, we have no idea what's beneath the ice.  No one has even taken any rock samples.  It's thought that when the Earth's climate started to cool millions of years ago, the first glaciers formed in these mountains.  But we really don't know if the mountains were there at the time the glaciers formed.

One of the things the researchers hope to determine is what's caused the elevation of the mountains.  It's probably either due to a thick crust or hot temperatures in the mantle.  If it's hot temperatures in the mantle, the mantle can't stay hot for billions of years, so that would tell us that it's due to fairly recent activity.  But if it's thick crust, we can speculate that it was formed a long time ago.

In west Antarctica, global warming is a concern.  Simulations show that the ice sheet in west Antarctica could fall apart if the Earth warms up, flooding coastal cities around the world.  (Noah’s Ark anyone?)
The research will focus on rivers of ice as much as 80 miles wide, Studies of these features over the past 40 years show some ice streams speeding up, others slowing down.  Seismographs can detect sudden motion of the ice streams to help understand what controls their motion.  Also, the rate of motion of the ice streams is related to the conditions of the rocks beneath.  If the mantle is hot the ice flows easier.  If it's cold, it won't flow at all.

The projects, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are Washington University's contribution to a celebration of International Polar Year (IPY), 125 years after the first IPY (1882), 75 years after IPY 2 (1932), and 50 years after the first International Geophysical Year.  The research period for the celebration is actually two years, March 1, 2007 through March 31, 2009. If the Ross Ice Shelf slides into the sea (it’s perched on the side of a mountain range) the resulting water displacement could raise world-wide sea levels as much as THIRTY FEET.  These researchers are going to put instruments in place that could give us some advance warning.  Noah’s Ark, indeed!

Living conditions in Antarctica for researchers are primitive and brutal. Though it will be summer in Antarctica when the team works there in December and January, temperatures will max out at -30 Fahrenheit. (Credit: Image courtesy of Washington University In St. Louis)

And now for an item that’s a little closer to home.  (Although given that we live on an island, a Noah’s Ark-level flood could be uncomfortably close to home!)

PROTECTING COPPER
We’ve all heard about (and some have been victims of) the recent rash of copper thefts.  But there are other problems with copper here and not just its disappearance.  It’s often been said that “In God we trust and in Guam we rust” and it is unfortunately true.

Researchers at the University of Madrid are testing a new technique that involves the electrodeposition of a conductive polymer (polypyrrole) over the surface of a material like copper that is easily oxidized.
Putting that in terms that you and I understand, these scientists have coated copper with a plastic that conducts electricity AND prevents the copper from corroding.

These conductive polymers are remarkable materials - plastics with a slightly altered composition that make them capable of conducting electricity. Apparently, synthesizing them isn’t complicated and the process can be varied to increase or decrease their conductivity.

So . . . science has learned how to keep copper from corroding (I wonder if it works on iron as well?) but so far they haven’t figured out how to keep people from stealing it!

And now some health news.

JUST WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING?
Researchers have discovered in a huge study that it’s not just sugary sodas that are adding to the obesity crisis -- it's fruit drinks, alcohol and a combination of other high-calorie beverages.  And during the holidays, when eggnog, cocktails and spiced cider are abundant, the problem can be even more apparent.  Over the past 37 years, the number of calories adults get through beverages has nearly doubled, according to a recently published study.

The study used nationally representative data to quantify both trends and patterns in beverage consumption among 46,576 American adults aged 19 and older.  Patterns and trends of all beverages adults consumed were examined between 1965 and 2002.  Researchers found that, over these 37 years, total daily intake of calories from beverages increased by 94 percent, providing an average 21 percent of daily energy intake among U.S. adults.  That amounts to an additional 222 calories from all beverages daily.

Water intake was measured from 1989 to 2002, and during that time, the amount of water consumed stayed roughly the same, but the average adult consumed an additional 21 ounces per day of other beverages.

Most researchers agree that beverages don’t fill you up.  Regardless of beverage type -- water, sodas, milk, orange juice or beer -- those extra calories are not compensated for by a reduction in food intake.  Equally important are the overall trends in total calories from beverages.  In 1965, beverages accounted for just 12 percent of daily energy intake.  That number jumped to 21 percent by 2002.

As noted in previous studies, 23 percent more adults reported drinking soda between 1965 and 2002 (accounting for an additional 108 calories per day) while calories from whole-fat milk declined nearly 45 percent (from 119 calories per day in 1965 to 69 calories per day in 2002).  Alcohol (up 73 calories per day) and fruit juice (up 20 calories per day) had considerable increases in their contribution to daily energy intake as well.

And if you’ve been switching from soda to energy drinks, watch out! You may want to take a long step back. 

GETTING TOO MUCH ENERGY
Researchers at the Wake Forest School of Medicine have conducted a study that shows that college students who drink alcohol mixed with so-called “energy” drinks are at dramatically higher risk for injury and other alcohol-related consequences, when compared with students who drink alcohol without energy drinks.

The researchers found that students who consumed alcohol mixed with energy drinks were twice as likely to be hurt or injured, twice as likely to require medical attention, and twice as likely to ride with an intoxicated driver, as were students who did not consume alcohol mixed with energy drinks.  Students who drank alcohol mixed with energy drinks were more than twice as likely to take advantage of someone else sexually, and almost twice as likely to be taken advantage of sexually.

“We knew anecdotally -- from speaking with students, and from researching Internet blogs and websites -- that college students mix energy drinks and alcohol in order to drink more, and to drink longer,” said Mary Claire O’Brien, M.D., associate professor of emergency medicine and public health sciences and lead researcher on the study. “But we were surprised that the risk of serious and potentially deadly consequences is so much higher for those who mixed energy drinks with alcohol, even when we adjusted for the amount of alcohol.”

O’Brien and colleagues conducted a web-based survey of 4,271 college students from 10 universities. Students were asked approximately 300 questions about alcohol use, its consequences, and other health risk behaviors.

Of students who reported drinking alcohol in the past 30 days, 24 percent said they consumed alcohol mixed with energy drinks.  Students who were male, white, intramural athletes, Greek society members or pledges, or older were significantly more likely to consume alcohol mixed with energy drinks.  O’Brien says that this is not surprising since the energy drink companies typically tout non-essential ingredients like taurine which is rumored to raise exercise capacity, and ginseng, which some companies claim enhances libido.  The main ingredient in energy drinks is caffeine.  O’Brien uses the analogy that mixing caffeine (a stimulant) with alcohol (a depressant), is like getting into a car and stepping on the gas pedal and the brake at the same time.

“Students whose motor skills, visual reaction times, and judgment are impaired by alcohol may not perceive that they are intoxicated as readily when they’re also ingesting a stimulant,” said O’Brien.  “Only the symptoms of drunkenness are reduced – but not the drunkenness.  They can’t tell if they’re drunk; they can’t tell if someone else is drunk.  So they get hurt, or they hurt someone else.”
 “Twenty-nine state attorneys general have already condemned alcoholic energy drinks,” said O’Brien.

We believe the FDA has a responsibility to investigate the health risks of energy drink cocktails, and to make that information available to consumers. Students should be informed about the risks of mixing alcohol with energy drinks, as part of an overall program to reduce high-risk drinking and its consequences. And colleges should reconsider the free distribution of energy drinks at campus-sponsored events.”

Hmmmm.  I think I can do without all that energy!

And one more quick note about the newly reported dangers of yet another vice.  And this one definitely has local implications!

SMOKIN’ JOE THE CHROME DOME
A recent report in the Archives of Dematology suggest that although the risk for androgenetic alopecia, the most common type of hair loss in men is mostly genetic, some environmental factors also may play a role.

The researchers surveyed 740 Taiwanese men age 40 to 91 (average age 65) in 2005.  At an in-person interview, the men reported information about smoking, other risk factors for hair loss and if they had alopecia (were going bald), the age at which they began losing their hair. 

The men's risk for hair loss increased with advancing age, but remained lower than the average risk among white men.  After the researchers controlled for age and family history, they discovered statistically significant positive associations between moderate or severe androgenetic alopecia and smoking status, specifically if the men smoked 20 cigarettes or more per day.

This association could be caused by several mechanisms.  Smoking may destroy hair follicles, damage the papilla that circulate blood and hormones to stimulate hair growth or increase production of the hormone estrogen, which may counter the effects of androgen.

The authors concluded "Patients with early-onset androgenetic alopecia should receive advice early to prevent more advanced progression,".  In other words, smoke and go bald!!