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April 30, 2007

Climate Change Messes With Fish

Climate change is leading to bigger fish in shallow water. But it's also making littler fish in deeper water, reports The Mercury, in Hobart, Tasmania. The study involved scientists examining 555 fish earbones aged two to 128 years, which show similar characteristics to tree-growth rings. These data were correlated with water temperature records taken over 60 years from the waters around Tasmania. The findings prove that water temperature has been a primary factor in determining juvenile growth rates in the species examined. --Julia Whitty

Biofuels Threaten Endangered Species

European Union green fuel targets will accelerate the destruction of rainforests in South-East Asia. Loss of habitat will threaten endangered species like the orangutan, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. In March, EU leaders set a target that biofuel (energy sources made from plant material) comprise 10 per cent of all Europe's transport fuels by 2020. Yet the European Commission admits that the effort to cut CO2 emissions may have the unintended result of speeding up the depletion of tropical rainforests and peatlands in South-East Asia. This would further increase, not reduce, global warming. If the target is met, European consumption of plant-based fuels will soar from about 3 million tons at present to more than 30 million tons in 2010, driving a boom in imports of cheap biofuels... How about using less? Of everything? Instead. --Julia Whitty

April 27, 2007

True Heroes

They get no recording contracts, but $125,000, good publicity, and a trip to San Francisco.
These folks are seriously idol-worthy:

2007 Goldman Prizewinners

From left, front row: Julio Cusurichi Palacios secured a rainforest reserve in Peru. Sophia Rabliauskas halted logging in Canada. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar shut down mines polluting waterways in Mongolia.
From left, back row: Hammerskjoeld Simwinga curbed elephant poaching in Zambia. Willie Corduff stopped a Shell Oil pipeline in Ireland. Orri Vigfússon slowed salmon overfishing in Iceland.

What's at Stake in the Farm Bill

Americans, their media, even most of their legislators, ignore the farm bill. But what's at stake is much more than farms and farmers. It's everything from obesity to immigration, with clean water and land-use in between. The farm bill subsidizes overproduction of soy and corn, but does nothing to promote fresh produce. It makes the most unhealthy foods the cheapest. It has pushed millions of Mexican farmers off their land. It determines what happens on nearly half the private land in America. This story by Michael Pollan in the New York Times Magazine is a good read.

April 26, 2007

Illegal Drugs Making a Legal Comeback

This is trippy. Time Magazine asks, "Was Timothy Leary right?" LSD and Ecstasy are making a comeback in high-level psychiatric research.

Last year two top journals, the Archives of General Psychiatry and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, published papers showing clear benefits from the use of psychedelics to treat mental illness. Both were small studies, just 27 subjects total. But the Archives paper--whose lead author, Dr. Carlos Zarate Jr., is chief of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Research Unit at NIMH--found "robust and rapid antidepressant effects" that remained for a week after depressed subjects were given ketamine (colloquial name: Special K or usually just k). In the other study, a team led by Dr. Francisco Moreno of the University of Arizona gave psilocybin (the merrymaking chemical in psychedelic mushrooms) to obsessive-compulsive-disorder patients, most of whom later showed "acute reductions in core OCD symptoms." Now researchers at Harvard are studying how Ecstasy might help alleviate anxiety disorders, and the Beckley Foundation, a British trust, has received approval to begin what will be the first human studies with LSD since the 1970s.

Legal, clinical studies, that is. People never stopped "studying" LSD at home. The intersection of illegal drugs and prescription medicine is fascinating, because the difference between them is not material. It's one of authority. What's illegal about most narcotics, of course, is not taking them, specifically, but taking them unsupervised. So many now-illegal drugs got a head start in the mental health field, including LSD, Ecstasy, and cocaine. While elementary schools in recent years have legally forced parents to make their children take Ritalin, adults have been legally prosecuted for crumbling up and snorting it.

Here's a story about a girl forced to take drugs. And here's a story about a medicine people are denied.

Ecuador Wants Us to Pay for the Amazon

This dilemma cuts to the core of environmentalism today. Ecuador is asking for international compensation to leave alone a major oilfield in the heart of the Amazon. Ecuador's president says he will wait up to one year for a response before drilling. At stake are not only plant and animal species, but also the homeland of several tribes living in voluntary isolation. These tribes are among the fiercest on Earth, renowned for giant spears.

"Ecuador doesn't ask for charity," said President Rafael Correa, "but does ask that the international community share in the sacrifice and compensates us with at least half of what our country would receive, in recognition of the environmental benefits that would be generated by keeping this oil underground." That could come out to about $350 million per year.

Environmental groups are in disagreement. To pay or not to pay?

Arguments against: 1) Biodiversity is priceless. Destroying this part of the Amazon is evil. But paying for abstention would implicitly legitimize its exploitation. 2) Ecuador might be ethical enough to leave it alone anyway. If we pay, who else will come out of the woodwork to demand compensation what they might have left alone? There's no money pot to pay for everything. 3) Paying for what should be a given might exacerbate the situation. A slightly-related case: When well-meaning Christian groups bought modern-day slaves in Africa in order to set them free a few years ago, they put enough cash into the system to promote more slave raids, after the market would have died on its own. Talk about a road to hell paved with good intentions.

Argument for: 1) For environmentalism to work, we need to integrate it into the economy, not just morality and law. 2) With $4,500 income per capita, Ecuador is among the poorest half of nations. Oil is its biggest source of income. 3) Again, biodiversity is priceless. Ecologists and economists have estimated that the value of all natural ecosystems across the world--in terms of their services to humanity--is about 30 trillion dollars a year. That's more than the GNP of all nations combined. But in this case Ecuador is making it easy for us by asking for just half of potential oil revenue. So the question becomes, who would pay, and how?

April 25, 2007

Next American Species To Go Extinct May Be Two Hawaiian Birds, Global Warming Amplifies Threats

There's been a dramatic drop in sightings of the Akekee and the Akikiki. These two birds from the Hawaiian Island of Kauai may be on the brink of extinction, according to the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). Hawaii leads the U.S. in the total number of endangered and threatened species (329), and in extinctions, with over 1,000 plants and animals having disappeared since humans colonized the islands. Several Hawaiian bird species, the Poouli and the Ou are assumed to have recently gone extinct before captive-breeding or other protection measures could be implemented.

David Kuhn and Doug Pratt who lead birding tours on Kauai recently alerted scientists, state officials, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to their concerns about the drop in sightings. "I and others paying attention to Kauai's endangered endemics have supposed that the Akikiki would be the next species to disappear--now it is more like a race to the finish," said Kuhn. "While the Akikiki depopulation and range contraction has been linear and relatively slow, Akekee is suddenly crashing." Doug Pratt says the Akekee "was common when I was last here in fall of 2004, and has apparently crashed drastically in the last three years."

The Akikiki is a small bicolored bird from the wet montane forests in central Kauai, with less than 1,500 remaining individuals occupying less than 10% of its former range, the population declining 64% due to habitat loss and alteration, the introduction of invasive species, mosquito-born diseases such as avian malaria and pox, and the impacts of hurricanes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in 2005 that the Akikiki should be officially designated an endangered species, but declined to move forward with the listing for budgetary reasons, reports the ABC.

The Akekee, a small yellow and green bird that lives in the high-elevation rainforests of Kauai, was until recently thought to have a stable population, estimated at 20,000 individuals. It's also threatened by habitat loss, invasive species and disease. Evidence suggests that rising average temperatures could allow mosquitoes to survive at higher, elevations, exposing the birds to deadly diseases. Researchers for the U.S. Geological Survey conclude that even a small increase in temperatures in Hawaii's forests will eliminate much of the mosquito-free safe zone that once existed for Kauai's birds.

Read gone, and why many biologist consider the sixth great extinction underway a more dangerous threat to life on Earth than even global warming. --Julia Whitty

Good News In Uganda, Mountain Gorillas Increase In Number

The most recent census of mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park finds the population has increased by 6 percent since 2002. ScienceDaily reports Bwindi's gorilla population now numbers 340 individual gorillas, up from 320 in 2002, and 300 in 1997. Bwindi is one of only two places in the world where the rare gorillas exist. "This is great news for all of the organizations that have worked to protect Bwindi and its gorilla population," said Wildlife Conservation Society researcher Dr. Alastair McNeilage, who is also the director of the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation in Bwindi. "There are very few cases in this world where a small population of a endangered primates is actually increasing."

Reading this makes me realize how rare good news is in this trade and what a strange, alien feeling hope is. May there be more of it.

For more on the sixth great extinction underway and the fate of at least half of all lifeforms on Earth, read MoJo's latest cover piece. --Julia Whitty

One Down, 33 To Go, Rare Leopardess Found Shot

A female Amur leopard has been found killed. She was one of only 25 to 34 of the Amur or Far Eastern leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) remaining in the wild, according to a report by the World Wildlife Fund. Anonymous tips led an anti-poaching squad to the body of the leopardess about two miles from Bamburovo village in the territory of Barsovy National Wildlife Refuge in the Russian Far East.

The next day veterinarians from the Zoological Society of London found the 77 pound mature female leopard had been shot in the back side, the bullet coming through the tail bone, crushing the hip bones, and lodging in the belly. She was then beaten to death with a heavy object. "The killing of even one female is a huge loss for a cat on the brink of extinction, " said Darron Collins, managing director of the Amur-Heilong Program, World Wildlife Fund. "This year’s census showed a desperate situation, with just seven female Amur leopards left in the wild and four rearing cubs. Now we've lost a mature, reproductive leopardess and her potential cubs in a senseless killing. This is the third leopard killed within this area over the last five years and underscores the desperate need for a unified protected area with national park status if the leopard is to survive in the wild."

Just in case you're entertaining the notion that the loss of remote leopards won't impact your life, read on--MoJo's latest cover story, GONE.--Julia Whitty

Arnold Serves Notice at EPA

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger officially notified the EPA today that he will sue in 6 months if the agency hasn't granted California a waiver for stricter air quality standards by then. (Six-months' notice is required by law.) The state first started trying to implement the standards in 2005, but officials had to wait for the ruling in this month's Supreme Court decision, which debunked the EPA's claim that it doesn't have the authority to regulate emissions. You go, Manlie Man!

PCBs Cause the Equivalent of Autism in Baby Rats

PCB exposure caused defects in rats similar to autism in humans, in a study at the University of California at San Francisco.

Marla Cone, who wrote Dozens of Words for Snow, None for Pollution for us in 2005, broke the PCB story today in the Los Angeles Times. She writes:

Rats exposed to low levels of PCBs in the womb and during nursing had disorganized, malfunctioning auditory centers. The auditory cortex controls the brain's processing of sounds, which is essential for language development.

PCBs were one of the world's most widely used chemicals, their use peaking in the 1970s, mostly as insulating fluids in large electrical equipment. Although banned in the United States in 1977, they are still among the most pervasive contaminants on the planet, and exposure is difficult to avoid because they have spread globally and built up in food chains.

Last year, two internationally known environmental scientists reported in a medical journal that industrial chemicals may be causing a "silent pandemic" of learning disorders. Dr. Philippe Grandjean of Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Philip J. Landrigan of Mount Sinai School of Medicine identified 202 chemicals — including PCBs and mercury — that could be contributing to autism, attention deficit disorders and other neurological disorders, and they urged more human studies.

In 2004, we investigated whether the CDC, the FDA, and other health agencies were covering up evidence that a mercury preservative in children's vaccines has contributed to a rise in autism. About 1 in every 150 children now has autism or a related disorder.

April 24, 2007

Sheryl Crow Under Fire for Toilet Paper Proposal

I've come across less than effective environmentalism over the years. The least effective ever had to be bathwater recycling in an area with no drought at all. This was accomplished by plugging the bathtub drain, scooping out the water with a bucket, and using it to flush the toilets. Standing in previous bathers' scummy water made showering quite unpleasant. But none of those radicals ever scolded me to conserve toilet paper.

That's why I was surprised to read that Sheryl Crow had literally proposed rationing toilet paper to stave off global warming. She had also designed washable clothing to take the place of napkins at the dinner table, the BBC reported. In fact, she was just clowning around on her blog:

I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares [sic] of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required. When presenting this idea to my younger brother, who's judgement [sic] I trust implicitly, he proposed taking it one step further. I believe his quote was, "how bout just washing the one square out.

I also like the idea of not using paper napkins, which happen to be made from virgin wood and represent the heighth of wastefullness.[sic] I have designed a clothing line that has what's called a "dining sleeve". The sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another "dining sleeve," after usage. The design will offer the "diner" the convenience of wiping his mouth on his sleeve rather than throwing out yet another barely used paper product.. I think this idea could also translate quite well to those suffering with an annoying head cold.

What's funniest was how many news reporters took the spoof seriously, after the BBC took the quotes out of context. Today, she had to spell out "just kidding" to the gullibles: "We're just so happy that people are talking about global warming, even if it's brought on by a joke." Sorry to disappoint, guys, but the "dining sleeve" clothing line will not hit stores anytime soon.

April 23, 2007

Canadian Sealer Admits Hunting is All About Fun Not Money

The Canadian sealing fleet is still stuck in the ice off Newfoundland. The Toronto Star reports conditions are moderating, the icebreakers are free, and many of the longliners, which hunt seals on the side, may be freed tomorrow. But the Star also reports a Newfoundland sealer, Desmond Adams, as saying, "we all go out for the love of it rather than the money, which isn't there anymore." He adds, "No one's going to stop hunting if they don't have to. We need someone to tell us, 'No, this is too dangerous. You can't do it.' Newfoundlanders are good at following orders. They've told us we can't fish and we can't do this or that. And we don't."

"No one's getting rich from the seal hunt," he said, "at least not among the hunters. The price of pelts is down to about $55, about half what it used to be." That means the Canadian taxpayer is footing a bill worth millions of dollars to provide four full time ice-breakers, plus the cost of the Canadian Coast Guard flying in groceries, to assist the lads on their seasonal slaughter gone bad.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society reports that over 60,000 seal pups are available under the quota of 275,000. Over 200,000 have already been clubbed or slaughtered, not taking into account the estimated 250,000 pups killed by melting ice from global warming in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last month.

The Canadian government has acted very irresponsibly in allowing vessels that are not ice-strengthened to venture into these conditions, says Sea Shepherd founder, Captain Paul Watson. "There is a double standard. My ship the Farley Mowat is an ice-class ship and I have more experience in navigating in ice conditions than most of these sealers, but the Coast Guard did everything they could to prevent us from going into the ice to save seals citing their concerns for our 'safety'."

Come on, Canada. Stop it. Stop lying about the economic necessity of the hunt. Stop awarding the permits. Stop wasting money on the seaboys with clubs and a twisted sense of fun. --Julia Whitty

Omega Fat Ratio Linked to Depression and Heart Disease

A recent study buttresses one explanation for the rise of depression and heart disease in recent generations: an increase in processed vegetable oil in the diet. Doctors at Ohio State University measured blood ratios of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids and found....

The more omega-6 fatty acids people had in their blood compared with omega-3 fatty acid levels, the more likely they were to suffer from symptoms of depression and have higher blood levels of inflammation-promoting compounds.... The 6 individuals diagnosed with major depression had nearly 18 times as much omega-6 as omega-3 in their blood, compared with about 13 times as much for subjects who didn't meet the criteria for major depression.

That's a striking correlation.

Omega-3 fatty acids are found in foods such as fish, flax seed oil and walnuts, while omega-6 fatty acids are found in refined vegetable oils used to make everything from margarine to baked goods and snack foods. The amount of omega-6 fatty acids in the Western diet increased sharply once refined vegetable oils became part of the average diet in the early 20th century.

According to the Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom, a reliable source of omega-3 is ground flax seed. Tofu, apparently, is only so-so.

Get Toyota To Bring Its Hybrid Minivan To America

Sadly, the trend in the U.S. car market is on producing and importing hybrid models that focus on increased muscle rather than mileage. Well, it doesn't have to be that way. The Union of Concerned Scientists says that Japanese families have a choice unavailable in America--a hybrid minivan with fuel economy as good as a compact car. They estimate that the Toyota Estima Hybrid could reach around 35 miles per gallon in the United State--a 50 percent improvement.

Even if you're a minivanophobe (like me), you want to help get this car into the U.S. market. Here's how. Toyota's aiming to sell about 8,400 Estimas in Japan this year. We can show Toyota that the demand for more fuel-economy-focused hybrids is even stronger in America. Please sign the petition here, and get others to join you by May 28, 2007. The Union of Concerned Scientists will deliver your signatures to Toyota executives on Memorial Day--the unofficial start of the summer driving and higher gas price season. Just in time for the Toyota annual shareholders' meeting.

Plus, there's a contest and prizes. --Julia Whitty

April 20, 2007

Sealing Vessels Stuck In Ice, Rescue Vessels Stuck Too

I’ve spent a lot of time at sea and wish no mariner harm. But… the Canadian sealing fleet is stuck in heavy ice off Newfoundland! CTV reports the Canadian coast guard estimates that between 400 and 500 people are stranded in as many as 100 vessels. "It's a dangerous situation,'' Eldred Burden, 48-year-old skipper who is trapped aboard his 18-meter vessel, told the Canadian Press via telephone. "There's not one thing you can do ... We're getting dragged out pretty good. You're up all night and the boat is heaving and twisting.''

Supplies and fuel are running low for many of the ships -- most of them longliner fishing vessels waylaid off the coast of northeast Newfoundland and southern Labrador, while on their way home from last week's seal hunt. Even a Coast Guard ice breaker, the Sir Wilfred Grenfell, sent to help, was stuck in the ice Wednesday as the massive sheets closed in around it. It’s since been freed, but another icebreaker, the Ann Harvey, is now stuck.

Some of the ships have been stuck in the ice for as long as eight days, and it appears that conditions wouldn't improve until at least next week. In total three icebreakers are working the rescue, with three helicopters delivering supplies, and another three Cormorant search and rescue helicopters on standby. As many as a dozen of the ships are extensively damaged and some could even begin to take on water as the ice pressure subsides and they begin to slip back into the water.

If only Neptune had waylaid them before the seal hunt. Altogether a bad season for sealers (and seals), since the southern slaughter grounds were decimated by ice melt earlier this spring, drowning the baby seals and forcing even the hard-hearted Canadians to call off that stage of the hunt.--Julia Whitty

April 19, 2007

Hot Air: Tracing the Roots of Global Warming Denial

If you're reading this, chances are you're well-versed in global warming, maybe even "eco-anxious." But to get inside the heads of those still in denial, there's a helpful piece by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books. Since it's an 8,000-word essay, here are some of the most provocative passages:

"It is strange and striking that climate change activists have not committed any acts of terrorism. After all, terrorism is for the individual by far the modern world’s most effective form of political action, and climate change is an issue about which people feel just as strongly as about, say, animal rights."

"Unfortunately, the climate debate came along at a time when the Republican Party was wilfully embracing anti-scientific irrationalism. One way of telling this story – adopted by Kim Stanley Robinson in his novel Forty Signs of Rain – begins with the Scientists for Johnson Campaign, run by a group of eminent scientists who were worried about Barry Goldwater’s apparent eagerness to wage nuclear war. Their campaign had a considerable impact, and when Richard Nixon got to the White House four years later he was convinced that scientists were a dangerously anti-Republican political lobby. Nixon shut down the Office of Science and Technology, and kicked the presidential science adviser out of the cabinet – an effective and still unreversed removal of science from the policy-making arena in the US."

"I suspect we're reluctant to think about it because we're worried that if we start we will have no choice but to think about nothing else."

He quotes James Lovelock: "I am old enough to notice a marked similarity between attitudes over sixty years ago towards the threat of war and those now towards the threat of global heating. Most of us think that something unpleasant may soon happen, but we are as confused as we were in 1938 over what form it will take and what to do about it. Our response so far is just like that before the Second World War, an attempt to appease. The Kyoto agreement was uncannily like that of Munich, with politicians out to show that they do respond but in reality playing for time."

He very briefly touches on the energy-industry's war on science: "The techniques in play were learned by the tobacco lobby in the course of the fights over smoking and health."

For Mother Jones coverage of global warming denial, read here, here, here, and here.

April 18, 2007

Worried About Global Warming? Go See an Eco-Therapist

Are you petrified by the thought of mass extinction, extreme weather, and global warming? If so, you're not alone in your fears, and there's even a word for them: eco-anxiety. It was only a matter of time before the now-trendy prefix was added to the ever-growing list of diagnoses.

According to the Philadelphia Enquirer, you can now see an eco-therapist to address your fears. Melissa Picket in Santa Fe sees between 40 and 80 patients each month suffering from eco-anxiety. For panic attacks and loss of appetite triggered by environmental concerns, she recommends that patients make lifestyle changes and even carry natural objects around.

This treatment might sound a bit less than serious, but there is a real weight to the issue. A growing number of people are concerned about, even petrified by climate change. The Philadelphia Enquirer blames media hype and scientists' poor PR skills for inducing eco-anxiety. Maybe scientists do have trouble communicating with laymen, and maybe there's shock-value in environmental horror stories. But I really doubt that putting a feather in your hat or a rock in your pocket will counteract the doom and gloom of melting polar ice-caps and disappearing bees that we read about every day.

--Rose Miller

Marijuana Cuts Lung Cancer Tumor Growth In Half

The active ingredient in marijuana cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread. This according to Harvard University researchers at who tested the chemical in both lab and mouse studies, as reported by the American Association for Cancer Research. The compound Delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) inhibits lung cancers that are usually highly aggressive and resistant to chemotherapy. Although the researchers don't know why THC inhibits tumor growth, they say the substance could be activating molecules that arrest the cell cycle. THC may also interfere with processes that promote cancer growth. --Julia Whitty

Breast Cancer Declines along with "Hormone Therapy"

Breast cancer rates dropped immediately after a major study in 2002 cast doubt on the wisdom of hormone supplements for menopause, and prompted millions of women to stop taking them.

"An awful lot of breast cancer was caused by doctors' prescriptions," Larry Norton of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, tells Rob Stein of the Washington Post. "That's a very serious and sobering thought."

Stein writes, "The findings also help explain one of the biggest mysteries about breast cancer -- why the number of cases rose steadily for decades."

"This is colossal," said Rowan Chlebowski of the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, who helped conduct the analysis. "It translates into thousands of fewer breast cancers that have been diagnosed in women in the United States and could be in the future."

Ethanol Vehicles A Threat To Human Health

A new Stanford University study predicts that if every vehicle in the United States ran on fuel made primarily from ethanol the number of respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations would increase. "Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution," says atmospheric scientist Mark Z Jacobson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. "But our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage." Jacobson used a computer model to simulate air quality in 2020, when ethanol-fueled vehicles are expected to be widely available.

While E85 vehicles (those running on 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline) reduced two carcinogens, benzene and butadiene, they increased two others, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. In some parts of the country, E85 also significantly increased ozone, a prime ingredient of smog. The World Health Organization estimates that 800,000 people die each year from smog. Furthermore, the deleterious health effects of E85 will be the same, whether the ethanol is made from corn, switchgrass or other plant products.

"There are alternatives, such as battery-electric, plug-in-hybrid and hydrogen-fuel cell vehicles, whose energy can be derived from wind or solar power," Jacobson says. These vehicles produce virtually no toxic emissions or greenhouse gases and cause very little disruption to the land--unlike ethanol made from corn or switchgrass, which require millions of acres of farmland to mass-produce. “It would seem prudent, therefore, to address climate, health and energy with technologies that have known benefits."

Foresight. Wow. What a notion.--Julia Whitty

Boys Are on the Decline

Seriously. This is scary. From William Saletan: Birth ratios have shifted so much since 1970 that the U.S. and Japan are "missing" about 260,000 men. Researchers say environmental toxins can prevent men from passing on the Y-chromosome. The full report here.

The scariest thing about "endocrine disrupters" are that they too tiny to research. Only in the past few years have we developed machines precise enough to test the presence of some of these chemicals in the body, in parts per million, billion, and even trillion. The machines cost a million dollars. So we can't run test thousands of people and aggregate the statistics.

The most shocking evidence of the effect of pesticides came out of comparing drawings by Mexican children in an agricultural valley to those by children in foothills nearby. Here's the story. And here are their drawings:

April 17, 2007

Chimpanzees Are Like People Too

Knuckels has cerebral palsy. He's the chimp clowning around in this photo, the one on top. The disability makes him an easy target, but scientists have never seen any fellow apes taking advantage of him. That's pretty humane of them.

Some evolutionary psychologists have sought false connections between apes and human behavior. One psychologist, for example, found "evidence" that female monkeys have a fondness for pots and pans.(Chimps may use stones to crack open nuts, but do they have an innate grasp on the concept of stove-top cooking?) However, this New York Times story points out strikingly humane behavior that primatologists have noticed over the years of close observation:

•Chimps mourn. One chimp mom carried her her young daughter's corpse on her back for a few days.
•After fights between two chimps, scientists have seen other chimps consoling the loser and otherwise trying to restore peace.
•Chimps outperformed humans in some memory tasks.

For more on apes, check out the Great Ape Project, which seeks to extend basic human rights to chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans. That includes "the right to life, the freedom from arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and protection from torture." In their eyes, it may be narrow-minded of me just to call chimpanzees "humane." However provocative, their concept makes more sense now than ever, with some great ape species on the verge of extinction, such as orangutans, known in Southeast Asia as "the people of the forest."