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Study Links Tropical Ocean Warming to Greenhouse Gases
By ANDREW C. REVKIN, The New York Times, September 12, 2006
Rising ocean temperatures linked by some studies to tropical storms are very likely a result of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research.
The lead author of the new study, Benjamin D. Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of the Energy Department, said the findings suggested that further warming would probably make hurricanes stronger in coming decades.
But while environmentalists and some researchers have asserted that storms like Hurricane Katrina were already measurably stronger because of warming caused by humans, Dr. Santer said his study did not address that issue.
The study was published online yesterday by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers compared a century of observed temperature changes with those produced in more than 80 computer simulations of how oceans respond to natural and human influences on the climate. The simulations were generated on 22 different computer models at 15 different research centers.
The simulations correctly mimicked the cooling caused by plumes from volcanic eruptions, which temporarily block the sun. At the same time, the authors said, the only warming influence that could explain the changes in the oceans was the buildup of heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases in the air.
Earlier studies concluded that greenhouse gases from human activities were warming the oceans, but this analysis was the first to examine thoroughly trends in particular tropical regions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that serve as nurseries for the destructive storms.
Several climate experts said that while debate persisted about the role of warming in pumping up hurricanes, there was little doubt about the long-term trend should warming continue as projected.
“Even under modest scenarios for emissions, we’re talking about sea surface temperature changes in these regions of a couple of degrees,” Dr. Santer said. “That’s much larger than anything we’ve already experienced, and that is worrying.”
A Celebrity Among Ungulates May Soon Be Dismissed as a Poseur
By MARK DERR, The New York Times, September 12, 2006
In the 1930’s, the kouprey trotted like a revelation out of the forests of central Indochina and into the world of modern science. Here, after all, was a large wild ox with the speed and grace of a deer and an impressive set of horns, yet it had been hiding in plain view, having never been officially discovered by science.
But now, just 70 years after the first captive kouprey was sent to France from Cambodia for study, the last species of wild Asian cattle to become known scientifically may become the first to vanish in modern times — and not necessarily through extinction. Rather, three biologists from Northwestern University and the Cambodian Forestry Administration have proposed a taxonomic demotion. In a paper published online in July by The Journal of Zoology, they say the kouprey (koh-PRAY) is probably a domestic hybrid that became feral, a zoological poseur, not a valid species.
The biologists’ proposal has met stiff opposition within the small group of scientists who study Asian wild cattle. Several say the paper misinterpreted the genetics and history of the kouprey, which may still exist in domesticated form. Although rare, elusive and enigmatic, kouprey are recognizable enough, longer-legged, more graceful, faster and slightly larger than the closely related banteng, and slightly smaller than the gaur, the largest of the wild cattle.
Kouprey bulls stand just over six feet tall and weigh up to 1,800 pounds, with a humpback, a dewlap — the loose fold of skin dangling from the neck — that can drag the ground and elaborate curved horns. Females are about three-quarters the size of males, have little or no dewlap, and their horns spiral at the ends. Kouprey are probably extinct in the wild, victims of overhunting, war and habitat loss. There have been no confirmed sightings in more than 20 years, and even unconfirmed sightings have been rare since the 1990’s. There are no kouprey in any of the world’s zoos.
But if the kouprey is not a species, then the word “extinction” does not have its usual meaning. Or as Gary J. Galbreath, the lead author of the paper, put it in an e-mail message, “It is pleasant to realize that humans have probably not, after all, caused the extinction of a species in this case.”
In their Journal of Zoology paper, Dr. Galbreath and his colleagues say the kouprey most likely originated as a cross between two domesticated species, the banteng and the zebu. Dr. Galbreath said in an interview that the animal might have become wild in the 19th century as a result of the societal disruption that followed an invasion of Cambodia by Thailand, then called Siam. Although the kouprey reproduced in the wild, they were in decline almost from the moment of their escape from domesticity.
The researchers say their conclusions are based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA, or DNA inherited only from the mother, taken from two living Cambodian banteng and from the taxidermic remains of that first captive kouprey shipped to France in 1936.
Essentially, they found that the mitochondrial DNA sequence of the kouprey matched that of the Cambodian banteng, indicating a common maternal original. Anticipating criticism, Dr. Galbreath and his colleagues considered two alternative interpretations. A vast genetic mixing hundreds of thousands of years ago involving banteng and a zebu-like wild ox could have produced the kouprey, they said, but that was unlikely because such events were rare, and there was no evidence that the wild ox existed.
It is also possible the kouprey was a naturally occurring species whose females, as its numbers declined, mated occasionally with banteng. But the researchers doubt that could have produced two captive banteng with kouprey mitochondria.
Here is the twist: in 2004, two French scientists, Alexandre Hassanin and Anne Ropiquet of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, sequenced the taxidermic kouprey’s DNA to show that the kouprey was a natural species, not a hybrid. They posted the sequence in a public genetic data bank, where it was available to Dr. Galbreath’s team, which turned the French scientists’ conclusion on its head.
Dr. Hassanin and Dr. Ropiquet have fired back. In a recently submitted paper, they argue hypothetically that if the Cambodian banteng represents a separate species from the Javan banteng, then the kouprey could have derived from the Cambodian version, as the Galbreath team proposes. But it was more likely, Dr. Hassanin said in an e-mail message, that the kouprey was a natural species that evolved in Southeast Asia. On at least one occasion more than 100,000 years ago, a kouprey mated with a banteng. Their descendants are Cambodia’s banteng, with mitochondrial DNA more closely resembling kouprey than banteng.
To complicate matters further, last February Dr. Hassanin and other colleagues published a paper in the journal Comptes Rendus Biologies arguing that a specimen mounted in 1871 in Paris and thought to be a domestic ox from Indochina was, in fact, a domesticated kouprey. The specimen has been at the museum in Bourges since 1931.
Dr. Hassanin said several indigenous Asian breeds of cattle might be derived from kouprey. Herds, especially in Cambodia, should be tested to see whether any are pure kouprey, Dr. Hassanin and his colleagues said, adding that if they are, steps should be taken to preserve them.
Where Dr. Hassanin sees pure kouprey, Dr. Galbreath finds his banteng-zebu hybrid. Independently, both say that more extensive sampling and analysis of mainland banteng are needed to determine who is correct. Commenting on the papers, Simon Hedges, an Asian cattle specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Society who was not involved in either study, tended to agree that the Cambodian banteng had probably hybridized with the kouprey. But he also suggested that the kouprey both groups studied might itself have been a banteng-kouprey cross.
“A key message to take out of this debate is that the same forces — overhunting, war, habitat fragmentation and loss — that caused the likely extinction of the kouprey are still at work on other species, such as the banteng,” Mr. Hedges said. “The challenge is to keep them from suffering the same fate as the kouprey, whatever it was.”
Probing the Mysterious Migration of Swans Suspected in Spread of Avian Flu
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, September 12, 2006
Tracking avian flu sometimes comes down to moves that have a lot of slapstick potential, like sprinting down a muddy Mongolian beach trying to tackle a scared but temporarily flightless swan.
“They’re pretty fast, even when they can’t fly, and the 100-yard dash is not my specialty,” said John Takekawa, a research wildlife biologist with the United States Geological Survey.
Dr. Takekawa was part of an international team that spent part of August on the shores of Lake Khorin Tsagaan in Mongolia catching whooper swans and strapping tiny transmitters to their backs. If all goes well, the transmitters will help unveil an ornithological mystery: which way whoopers migrate.
The issue became more important last year when field veterinarians from the Wildlife Conservation Society who were investigating the deaths of hundreds of migratory birds on remote lakes in China and Mongolia found that whoopers were among those infected with A(H5N1) influenza. Their migration patterns are poorly understood, but they may have played a role in the brief appearance of the disease all across Europe early this year.
Some scientists think whooper swans only circle Asia, Dr. Takekawa said, but others believe they cross Siberia into Europe. A dead infected bird found on the Scottish coast in March, originally identified as a local mute swan, was actually a whooper, he said.
Catching the birds was possible only in late summer and only in Mongolia, because they molt, losing their flight feathers. For about two weeks, they can be corralled by a combination of kayaks, trucks and fleet-footed young scientists.
The solar-powered transmitters weigh only 2.3 ounces, “which is nothing to a 20-pound bird,” Dr. Takekawa said. The Teflon straps are designed to fall apart in a few years.
“You have to put them on loosely so they have room to grow for the migration,” said Dr. Kristine Smith, a Wildlife Conservation Society veterinarian who was also on the team. “But not so loosely that they can slip.”
Wild animals and birds have been tracked by satellite since the 1980’s, but transmitters have steadily shrunk in size and now include global-positioning satellite technology accurate to 30 feet.
They have also become very expensive, leading to the study’s major limitation: the team could afford to tag only 10 of the 600 swans they saw.
“We would have loved to do more, but those radios cost $4,000 apiece,” Dr. Takekawa said.
The birds’ migratory paths can be followed on www.werc.usgs.gov/sattrack/.
As of this writing, six were still at the lake, three had slipped north over the Russian border and one seemed to be moving off into the dry Mongolian southwest.
Biofuels Come of Age as the Demand Rises
By SUSAN MORAN, The New York Times, September 12, 2006
BARACK OBAMA is not a farmer, but he believes in biodiesel and the votes of farmers who produce soybeans and other crops for it. Senator Obama, Democrat from Illinois, spoke last month at an event to celebrate plans for a new biodiesel plant in Cairo, Ill. His presence was a welcome endorsement for a budding industry.
On the day that Mr. Obama joined the Renewable Energy Group in announcing that it would build a 60-million-gallon-a-year refinery, the company said it had garnered $100 million in financing, the largest equity investment in biofuels so far. The infusion came from the American division of Bunge Ltd., a major food processor; two venture-capital funds controlled by Natural Gas Partners of Irving, Tex.; and ED&F Man Holdings Ltd., a global shipper of grains.
The investment underscores how the biodiesel industry is coming of age as demand for renewable fuels increases. The businesses range from soybean farmers in the Midwest seeking new markets to coastal start-ups with an environmental mission. Both camps are attracting a flow of money from venture capitalists and corporations alike.
Traditionally, soybean farmers dominated the biodiesel business, but lately a broader array of entrepreneurs is joining the pack, creating a curious convergence of environmentalists, farmers and investment bankers. Growth in the last year has been “phenomenal, almost frightening,” said Joe Jobe, chief executive of the National Biodiesel Board, a trade association.
But the ability of entrepreneurs to succeed in the long term will depend on much more than acres of oil-rich crops or deep pockets, industry players and analysts say.
“You don’t necessarily have to be a national player, but you need to optimize distribution within your region,” Mr. Jobe said.
And you need to make high-quality commercial biofuel while promising consistent quality to your customers, he added.
“Some people say anybody can make biodiesel if he can bake a cake,” Mr. Jobe said. “Have you ever baked a cake involving methanol, sodium hydroxide and other chemicals that could start fires?”
About 76 commercial biodiesel plants are in production today, up from 22 in 2004. The average business operates one plant that yields 30 million gallons a year of fuel and costs up to $20 million to build. Some companies are planning refineries capable of brewing up to 100 million gallons a year.
Nationwide production of the fuel tripled last year over 2004 to 75 million gallons. The board estimates that production will double this year, but Mr. Jobe estimates that the number could reach as much as, if not more, than 250 million gallons by year’s end.
That’s still a drop in the bucket compared with the nearly 140 billion gallons of gasoline the United States consumes each year. It also pales in comparison with ethanol. Last year, the global biofuels market totaled $15.7 billion in sales, of which only $1.6 billion came from biodiesel. That number could jump to $7.1 billion by 2015, says Clean Edge, a research company in Portland, Ore. But biodiesel has immediate appeal in that it does not require modifications of a diesel engine. It also requires far less fossil fuel to make than, say, corn-based ethanol.
Biodiesel comes from soybean, palm or oil-seed plants like canola and mustard, as well as from animal fats. Corn oil can also be extracted for fuel. Some start-up companies and university scientists are testing algae, which is attractive because it would not dip into the nation’s feedstock reserve.
Typically blended with conventional diesel, biodiesel burns cleaner and releases fewer pollutants, including carbon monoxide and particulate matter. Several factors are driving growth, including a federal ruling on low-sulfur diesel, state mandates on renewable fuels and concern about climate change and dependence on foreign oil.
But the strongest incentives are high petroleum prices and federal tax credits. “If one of those two fall, the industry’s growth would slow significantly, but would survive,” said Eric Bowen, a lawyer who helped found San Francisco Biodiesel, which plans to build refineries based on rendered animal fat and recycled vegetable oil from restaurants. “But if both fall away, the biodiesel industry would be in serious trouble.”
The federal excise tax credit, aimed at curbing pollution, offers producers and distributors of agri-biodiesel, which comes from virgin crop oils and animal fats, $1 for every gallon of biodiesel they blend with regular diesel. This means that even producers who blend their 100-percent pure biodiesel with only 1 percent of petroleum-based fuel can reap the credit.
Most biodiesel sold in the United States is a blend of 20-percent pure biodiesel and 80-percent conventional diesel fuel, called B20.
So far, commercial demand has outpaced supply. Renewable Energy plans to produce 460 million gallons from several of its plants. The company was spun off from a soybean farmer cooperative called West Central, which built its first biodiesel plant in Ralston, Iowa, in 1996. Nile Ramsbottom, the president of Renewable Energy, said he expected sales to reach $740 million in 2010, a rise from $116 million last year.
Without forming alliances and not managing risk between energy and agriculture commodities, many start-ups will falter, some industry experts contend.
“Plants are going up everywhere,” said Gene Gebolys, founder of World Energy Alternatives in Chelsea, Mass. “But individual plants must be part of a network in which products can get to the best markets.” The company expects to exceed $100 million in sales this year from producing biodiesel from soybeans, canola and animal fat.
The first biodiesel business to receive venture-capital financing was Seattle Biodiesel, which recently changed its name to Imperium Renewables. Since spring of last year, three firms have invested $10 million in the company: Nth Power of San Francisco; Technology Partners in Palo Alto, Calif.; and Vulcan Capital, led by Paul G. Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft.
Imperium’s Seattle refinery produces five million gallons a year, and the company is building a refinery in Grays Harbor, Wash., able to produce 100 million gallons a year. Imperium now buys soybean oil from the Midwest, a costly business. But it is seeking crop sources closer to home.
Another biofuel company, Greenshift Corporation, based in New York, announced in June that it had received $22 million from Cornell Capital Partners for its GS AgriFuels division, mostly to build a plant that will produce 45 million gallons of fuel a year.
Major food processors like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland Company are investing heavily in biofuels. On the energy front, Chevron and BP are pouring millions into biofuels production or processing.
Small businesses will have to reckon with big players. As Mr. Gebolys of World Energy says of the biodiesel business: “It’s still fun, it’s cool, it’s dynamic and it’s global. And you get to make a contribution.”
Lady Macbeth Not Alone in Her Quest for Spotlessness
By BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times, September 12, 2006
Liars, cheats, philanderers and murderers are not renowned for exquisite personal hygiene, but then no one has studied their showering habits.
They may scrub extra hard after a con job, use $40 hyacinth shampoo after a secret tryst or book a weekend at a spa after a particularly ugly hit. They are human beings, after all, and if a study published last week is any guide, they feel a strong urge to wash their hands — literally — after a despicable act in an unconscious effort to ease their consciences.
And it works, at least for minor guilt stains. People who washed their hands after contemplating an unethical act were less troubled by their thoughts than those who didn’t, the study found.
“The association between moral and physical purity has been taken for granted for so long that it was startling that no one had ever shown empirical evidence of it,” said Chen-Bo Zhong, an author of the new research and a behavioral researcher at the University of Toronto. The study, which he wrote with Katie Liljenquist, a graduate student at Northwestern University, appeared in the journal Science.
The researchers call this urge to clean up the “Macbeth effect,” after the scene in Shakespeare’s tragedy in which Lady Macbeth moans, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” after bloodying her hands when her husband, at her urging, murders King Duncan.
In one of several experiments among Northwestern undergraduates, the researchers had one group of students recall an unethical act from their past, like betraying a friend, and another group reflect on an ethical deed, like returning lost money. Afterward, the students had their choice of a gift, either a pencil or an antiseptic wipe. Those who had reflected on a shameful act were twice as likely as the others to take the wipe.
In another experiment, the researchers found that students who had been contemplating an unethical deed rated the value of cleaning products significantly higher than peers who had been thinking about an ethical act.
Psychologists have known for years that when people betray their values, they feel a need to compensate. Christians who have read a blasphemous story about Jesus express a desire to go to church more frequently; social liberals who feel they have discriminated express an increased desire to volunteer for civil rights work. “It’s sometimes called symbolic cleansing, or moral cleansing, and it’s an attempt to repair moral identity,” said Dr. Philip Tetlock, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of California, Berkeley.
Sure enough, Mr. Zhong and Ms. Liljenquist found that students who had been thinking about past sins were very likely to agree to volunteer their time to help with a graduate school project — unless they had been allowed to wash their hands, which cut their willingness to volunteer roughly in half.
Several people known to have expressed guilt over spreading rumors were asked to comment for the record on the findings, but all declined. And efforts to contact hit men to inquire about personal hygiene were deemed unwise; none had publicists.
But Macbeth was available for comment. Liev Schreiber, who played Macbeth to critical acclaim this summer at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, said the moral weight of the murder in the play was exhausting. And he said that cast members lined up to shower at the theater, rather than waiting until they got home.
“That was unusual — usually no one uses those theater showers,” Mr. Schreiber said in an interview. “I had to shower. I was covered in eight gallons of fake blood by the end.” He said he had no idea how much the cast’s cleansing was because of to the moral horror of the play and how much was because of the muggy summer weather.
Either way, the Macbeths, by the last act, have fallen to pieces, physically and mentally, despite compulsive efforts to purge their sins. Mr. Zhong said in an interview that for this couple at least, all the kingdom’s washbasins were not enough to ease their consciences.
But the murder of a king, he acknowledged, falls into a different category from the confessed sins of the undergraduates, which included shoplifting, lying and “kissing a married man.”
“We do believe there might be limits to how well simple hand washing can clean your slate,” he said, “but it remains to be seen where that limit is.”
By ANDREW C. REVKIN, The New York Times, September 12, 2006
Rising ocean temperatures linked by some studies to tropical storms are very likely a result of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research.
The lead author of the new study, Benjamin D. Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of the Energy Department, said the findings suggested that further warming would probably make hurricanes stronger in coming decades.
But while environmentalists and some researchers have asserted that storms like Hurricane Katrina were already measurably stronger because of warming caused by humans, Dr. Santer said his study did not address that issue.
The study was published online yesterday by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers compared a century of observed temperature changes with those produced in more than 80 computer simulations of how oceans respond to natural and human influences on the climate. The simulations were generated on 22 different computer models at 15 different research centers.
The simulations correctly mimicked the cooling caused by plumes from volcanic eruptions, which temporarily block the sun. At the same time, the authors said, the only warming influence that could explain the changes in the oceans was the buildup of heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases in the air.
Earlier studies concluded that greenhouse gases from human activities were warming the oceans, but this analysis was the first to examine thoroughly trends in particular tropical regions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that serve as nurseries for the destructive storms.
Several climate experts said that while debate persisted about the role of warming in pumping up hurricanes, there was little doubt about the long-term trend should warming continue as projected.
“Even under modest scenarios for emissions, we’re talking about sea surface temperature changes in these regions of a couple of degrees,” Dr. Santer said. “That’s much larger than anything we’ve already experienced, and that is worrying.”
A Celebrity Among Ungulates May Soon Be Dismissed as a Poseur
By MARK DERR, The New York Times, September 12, 2006
In the 1930’s, the kouprey trotted like a revelation out of the forests of central Indochina and into the world of modern science. Here, after all, was a large wild ox with the speed and grace of a deer and an impressive set of horns, yet it had been hiding in plain view, having never been officially discovered by science.
But now, just 70 years after the first captive kouprey was sent to France from Cambodia for study, the last species of wild Asian cattle to become known scientifically may become the first to vanish in modern times — and not necessarily through extinction. Rather, three biologists from Northwestern University and the Cambodian Forestry Administration have proposed a taxonomic demotion. In a paper published online in July by The Journal of Zoology, they say the kouprey (koh-PRAY) is probably a domestic hybrid that became feral, a zoological poseur, not a valid species.
The biologists’ proposal has met stiff opposition within the small group of scientists who study Asian wild cattle. Several say the paper misinterpreted the genetics and history of the kouprey, which may still exist in domesticated form. Although rare, elusive and enigmatic, kouprey are recognizable enough, longer-legged, more graceful, faster and slightly larger than the closely related banteng, and slightly smaller than the gaur, the largest of the wild cattle.
Kouprey bulls stand just over six feet tall and weigh up to 1,800 pounds, with a humpback, a dewlap — the loose fold of skin dangling from the neck — that can drag the ground and elaborate curved horns. Females are about three-quarters the size of males, have little or no dewlap, and their horns spiral at the ends. Kouprey are probably extinct in the wild, victims of overhunting, war and habitat loss. There have been no confirmed sightings in more than 20 years, and even unconfirmed sightings have been rare since the 1990’s. There are no kouprey in any of the world’s zoos.
But if the kouprey is not a species, then the word “extinction” does not have its usual meaning. Or as Gary J. Galbreath, the lead author of the paper, put it in an e-mail message, “It is pleasant to realize that humans have probably not, after all, caused the extinction of a species in this case.”
In their Journal of Zoology paper, Dr. Galbreath and his colleagues say the kouprey most likely originated as a cross between two domesticated species, the banteng and the zebu. Dr. Galbreath said in an interview that the animal might have become wild in the 19th century as a result of the societal disruption that followed an invasion of Cambodia by Thailand, then called Siam. Although the kouprey reproduced in the wild, they were in decline almost from the moment of their escape from domesticity.
The researchers say their conclusions are based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA, or DNA inherited only from the mother, taken from two living Cambodian banteng and from the taxidermic remains of that first captive kouprey shipped to France in 1936.
Essentially, they found that the mitochondrial DNA sequence of the kouprey matched that of the Cambodian banteng, indicating a common maternal original. Anticipating criticism, Dr. Galbreath and his colleagues considered two alternative interpretations. A vast genetic mixing hundreds of thousands of years ago involving banteng and a zebu-like wild ox could have produced the kouprey, they said, but that was unlikely because such events were rare, and there was no evidence that the wild ox existed.
It is also possible the kouprey was a naturally occurring species whose females, as its numbers declined, mated occasionally with banteng. But the researchers doubt that could have produced two captive banteng with kouprey mitochondria.
Here is the twist: in 2004, two French scientists, Alexandre Hassanin and Anne Ropiquet of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, sequenced the taxidermic kouprey’s DNA to show that the kouprey was a natural species, not a hybrid. They posted the sequence in a public genetic data bank, where it was available to Dr. Galbreath’s team, which turned the French scientists’ conclusion on its head.
Dr. Hassanin and Dr. Ropiquet have fired back. In a recently submitted paper, they argue hypothetically that if the Cambodian banteng represents a separate species from the Javan banteng, then the kouprey could have derived from the Cambodian version, as the Galbreath team proposes. But it was more likely, Dr. Hassanin said in an e-mail message, that the kouprey was a natural species that evolved in Southeast Asia. On at least one occasion more than 100,000 years ago, a kouprey mated with a banteng. Their descendants are Cambodia’s banteng, with mitochondrial DNA more closely resembling kouprey than banteng.
To complicate matters further, last February Dr. Hassanin and other colleagues published a paper in the journal Comptes Rendus Biologies arguing that a specimen mounted in 1871 in Paris and thought to be a domestic ox from Indochina was, in fact, a domesticated kouprey. The specimen has been at the museum in Bourges since 1931.
Dr. Hassanin said several indigenous Asian breeds of cattle might be derived from kouprey. Herds, especially in Cambodia, should be tested to see whether any are pure kouprey, Dr. Hassanin and his colleagues said, adding that if they are, steps should be taken to preserve them.
Where Dr. Hassanin sees pure kouprey, Dr. Galbreath finds his banteng-zebu hybrid. Independently, both say that more extensive sampling and analysis of mainland banteng are needed to determine who is correct. Commenting on the papers, Simon Hedges, an Asian cattle specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Society who was not involved in either study, tended to agree that the Cambodian banteng had probably hybridized with the kouprey. But he also suggested that the kouprey both groups studied might itself have been a banteng-kouprey cross.
“A key message to take out of this debate is that the same forces — overhunting, war, habitat fragmentation and loss — that caused the likely extinction of the kouprey are still at work on other species, such as the banteng,” Mr. Hedges said. “The challenge is to keep them from suffering the same fate as the kouprey, whatever it was.”
Probing the Mysterious Migration of Swans Suspected in Spread of Avian Flu
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, September 12, 2006
Tracking avian flu sometimes comes down to moves that have a lot of slapstick potential, like sprinting down a muddy Mongolian beach trying to tackle a scared but temporarily flightless swan.
“They’re pretty fast, even when they can’t fly, and the 100-yard dash is not my specialty,” said John Takekawa, a research wildlife biologist with the United States Geological Survey.
Dr. Takekawa was part of an international team that spent part of August on the shores of Lake Khorin Tsagaan in Mongolia catching whooper swans and strapping tiny transmitters to their backs. If all goes well, the transmitters will help unveil an ornithological mystery: which way whoopers migrate.
The issue became more important last year when field veterinarians from the Wildlife Conservation Society who were investigating the deaths of hundreds of migratory birds on remote lakes in China and Mongolia found that whoopers were among those infected with A(H5N1) influenza. Their migration patterns are poorly understood, but they may have played a role in the brief appearance of the disease all across Europe early this year.
Some scientists think whooper swans only circle Asia, Dr. Takekawa said, but others believe they cross Siberia into Europe. A dead infected bird found on the Scottish coast in March, originally identified as a local mute swan, was actually a whooper, he said.
Catching the birds was possible only in late summer and only in Mongolia, because they molt, losing their flight feathers. For about two weeks, they can be corralled by a combination of kayaks, trucks and fleet-footed young scientists.
The solar-powered transmitters weigh only 2.3 ounces, “which is nothing to a 20-pound bird,” Dr. Takekawa said. The Teflon straps are designed to fall apart in a few years.
“You have to put them on loosely so they have room to grow for the migration,” said Dr. Kristine Smith, a Wildlife Conservation Society veterinarian who was also on the team. “But not so loosely that they can slip.”
Wild animals and birds have been tracked by satellite since the 1980’s, but transmitters have steadily shrunk in size and now include global-positioning satellite technology accurate to 30 feet.
They have also become very expensive, leading to the study’s major limitation: the team could afford to tag only 10 of the 600 swans they saw.
“We would have loved to do more, but those radios cost $4,000 apiece,” Dr. Takekawa said.
The birds’ migratory paths can be followed on www.werc.usgs.gov/sattrack/.
As of this writing, six were still at the lake, three had slipped north over the Russian border and one seemed to be moving off into the dry Mongolian southwest.
Biofuels Come of Age as the Demand Rises
By SUSAN MORAN, The New York Times, September 12, 2006
BARACK OBAMA is not a farmer, but he believes in biodiesel and the votes of farmers who produce soybeans and other crops for it. Senator Obama, Democrat from Illinois, spoke last month at an event to celebrate plans for a new biodiesel plant in Cairo, Ill. His presence was a welcome endorsement for a budding industry.
On the day that Mr. Obama joined the Renewable Energy Group in announcing that it would build a 60-million-gallon-a-year refinery, the company said it had garnered $100 million in financing, the largest equity investment in biofuels so far. The infusion came from the American division of Bunge Ltd., a major food processor; two venture-capital funds controlled by Natural Gas Partners of Irving, Tex.; and ED&F Man Holdings Ltd., a global shipper of grains.
The investment underscores how the biodiesel industry is coming of age as demand for renewable fuels increases. The businesses range from soybean farmers in the Midwest seeking new markets to coastal start-ups with an environmental mission. Both camps are attracting a flow of money from venture capitalists and corporations alike.
Traditionally, soybean farmers dominated the biodiesel business, but lately a broader array of entrepreneurs is joining the pack, creating a curious convergence of environmentalists, farmers and investment bankers. Growth in the last year has been “phenomenal, almost frightening,” said Joe Jobe, chief executive of the National Biodiesel Board, a trade association.
But the ability of entrepreneurs to succeed in the long term will depend on much more than acres of oil-rich crops or deep pockets, industry players and analysts say.
“You don’t necessarily have to be a national player, but you need to optimize distribution within your region,” Mr. Jobe said.
And you need to make high-quality commercial biofuel while promising consistent quality to your customers, he added.
“Some people say anybody can make biodiesel if he can bake a cake,” Mr. Jobe said. “Have you ever baked a cake involving methanol, sodium hydroxide and other chemicals that could start fires?”
About 76 commercial biodiesel plants are in production today, up from 22 in 2004. The average business operates one plant that yields 30 million gallons a year of fuel and costs up to $20 million to build. Some companies are planning refineries capable of brewing up to 100 million gallons a year.
Nationwide production of the fuel tripled last year over 2004 to 75 million gallons. The board estimates that production will double this year, but Mr. Jobe estimates that the number could reach as much as, if not more, than 250 million gallons by year’s end.
That’s still a drop in the bucket compared with the nearly 140 billion gallons of gasoline the United States consumes each year. It also pales in comparison with ethanol. Last year, the global biofuels market totaled $15.7 billion in sales, of which only $1.6 billion came from biodiesel. That number could jump to $7.1 billion by 2015, says Clean Edge, a research company in Portland, Ore. But biodiesel has immediate appeal in that it does not require modifications of a diesel engine. It also requires far less fossil fuel to make than, say, corn-based ethanol.
Biodiesel comes from soybean, palm or oil-seed plants like canola and mustard, as well as from animal fats. Corn oil can also be extracted for fuel. Some start-up companies and university scientists are testing algae, which is attractive because it would not dip into the nation’s feedstock reserve.
Typically blended with conventional diesel, biodiesel burns cleaner and releases fewer pollutants, including carbon monoxide and particulate matter. Several factors are driving growth, including a federal ruling on low-sulfur diesel, state mandates on renewable fuels and concern about climate change and dependence on foreign oil.
But the strongest incentives are high petroleum prices and federal tax credits. “If one of those two fall, the industry’s growth would slow significantly, but would survive,” said Eric Bowen, a lawyer who helped found San Francisco Biodiesel, which plans to build refineries based on rendered animal fat and recycled vegetable oil from restaurants. “But if both fall away, the biodiesel industry would be in serious trouble.”
The federal excise tax credit, aimed at curbing pollution, offers producers and distributors of agri-biodiesel, which comes from virgin crop oils and animal fats, $1 for every gallon of biodiesel they blend with regular diesel. This means that even producers who blend their 100-percent pure biodiesel with only 1 percent of petroleum-based fuel can reap the credit.
Most biodiesel sold in the United States is a blend of 20-percent pure biodiesel and 80-percent conventional diesel fuel, called B20.
So far, commercial demand has outpaced supply. Renewable Energy plans to produce 460 million gallons from several of its plants. The company was spun off from a soybean farmer cooperative called West Central, which built its first biodiesel plant in Ralston, Iowa, in 1996. Nile Ramsbottom, the president of Renewable Energy, said he expected sales to reach $740 million in 2010, a rise from $116 million last year.
Without forming alliances and not managing risk between energy and agriculture commodities, many start-ups will falter, some industry experts contend.
“Plants are going up everywhere,” said Gene Gebolys, founder of World Energy Alternatives in Chelsea, Mass. “But individual plants must be part of a network in which products can get to the best markets.” The company expects to exceed $100 million in sales this year from producing biodiesel from soybeans, canola and animal fat.
The first biodiesel business to receive venture-capital financing was Seattle Biodiesel, which recently changed its name to Imperium Renewables. Since spring of last year, three firms have invested $10 million in the company: Nth Power of San Francisco; Technology Partners in Palo Alto, Calif.; and Vulcan Capital, led by Paul G. Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft.
Imperium’s Seattle refinery produces five million gallons a year, and the company is building a refinery in Grays Harbor, Wash., able to produce 100 million gallons a year. Imperium now buys soybean oil from the Midwest, a costly business. But it is seeking crop sources closer to home.
Another biofuel company, Greenshift Corporation, based in New York, announced in June that it had received $22 million from Cornell Capital Partners for its GS AgriFuels division, mostly to build a plant that will produce 45 million gallons of fuel a year.
Major food processors like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland Company are investing heavily in biofuels. On the energy front, Chevron and BP are pouring millions into biofuels production or processing.
Small businesses will have to reckon with big players. As Mr. Gebolys of World Energy says of the biodiesel business: “It’s still fun, it’s cool, it’s dynamic and it’s global. And you get to make a contribution.”
Lady Macbeth Not Alone in Her Quest for Spotlessness
By BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times, September 12, 2006
Liars, cheats, philanderers and murderers are not renowned for exquisite personal hygiene, but then no one has studied their showering habits.
They may scrub extra hard after a con job, use $40 hyacinth shampoo after a secret tryst or book a weekend at a spa after a particularly ugly hit. They are human beings, after all, and if a study published last week is any guide, they feel a strong urge to wash their hands — literally — after a despicable act in an unconscious effort to ease their consciences.
And it works, at least for minor guilt stains. People who washed their hands after contemplating an unethical act were less troubled by their thoughts than those who didn’t, the study found.
“The association between moral and physical purity has been taken for granted for so long that it was startling that no one had ever shown empirical evidence of it,” said Chen-Bo Zhong, an author of the new research and a behavioral researcher at the University of Toronto. The study, which he wrote with Katie Liljenquist, a graduate student at Northwestern University, appeared in the journal Science.
The researchers call this urge to clean up the “Macbeth effect,” after the scene in Shakespeare’s tragedy in which Lady Macbeth moans, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” after bloodying her hands when her husband, at her urging, murders King Duncan.
In one of several experiments among Northwestern undergraduates, the researchers had one group of students recall an unethical act from their past, like betraying a friend, and another group reflect on an ethical deed, like returning lost money. Afterward, the students had their choice of a gift, either a pencil or an antiseptic wipe. Those who had reflected on a shameful act were twice as likely as the others to take the wipe.
In another experiment, the researchers found that students who had been contemplating an unethical deed rated the value of cleaning products significantly higher than peers who had been thinking about an ethical act.
Psychologists have known for years that when people betray their values, they feel a need to compensate. Christians who have read a blasphemous story about Jesus express a desire to go to church more frequently; social liberals who feel they have discriminated express an increased desire to volunteer for civil rights work. “It’s sometimes called symbolic cleansing, or moral cleansing, and it’s an attempt to repair moral identity,” said Dr. Philip Tetlock, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of California, Berkeley.
Sure enough, Mr. Zhong and Ms. Liljenquist found that students who had been thinking about past sins were very likely to agree to volunteer their time to help with a graduate school project — unless they had been allowed to wash their hands, which cut their willingness to volunteer roughly in half.
Several people known to have expressed guilt over spreading rumors were asked to comment for the record on the findings, but all declined. And efforts to contact hit men to inquire about personal hygiene were deemed unwise; none had publicists.
But Macbeth was available for comment. Liev Schreiber, who played Macbeth to critical acclaim this summer at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, said the moral weight of the murder in the play was exhausting. And he said that cast members lined up to shower at the theater, rather than waiting until they got home.
“That was unusual — usually no one uses those theater showers,” Mr. Schreiber said in an interview. “I had to shower. I was covered in eight gallons of fake blood by the end.” He said he had no idea how much the cast’s cleansing was because of to the moral horror of the play and how much was because of the muggy summer weather.
Either way, the Macbeths, by the last act, have fallen to pieces, physically and mentally, despite compulsive efforts to purge their sins. Mr. Zhong said in an interview that for this couple at least, all the kingdom’s washbasins were not enough to ease their consciences.
But the murder of a king, he acknowledged, falls into a different category from the confessed sins of the undergraduates, which included shoplifting, lying and “kissing a married man.”
“We do believe there might be limits to how well simple hand washing can clean your slate,” he said, “but it remains to be seen where that limit is.”
