Cool spots mean hot evolution
You’ve probably never thought of Canada as an evolutionary hot spot, but new research suggests that more species become extinct and evolve in temperate climes than in tropical zones. UBC zoologists have analyzed the genetic family trees of 618 species that existed in the last several million years, charting the rates of speciation-the branching-off of new species-throughout the Americas. The tropics contain more species, but the UBC group found it takes three to four million years for tropical species to evolve, whereas in temperate zones, speciation can occur in one million years. The team suggested that the more extreme seasonal climate fluctuations in the temperate zones lead to a higher extinction rate as well as higher rates of speciation. Tropical zones have more stable environments, meaning a lower extinction rate and a higher chance for new species to survive and add to the generally higher number of tropical species. This research busts the myth that more species means more evolution.
Source: Science
-Sandy Huen
Lessons in political ‘science’
Pseudoscientific political ruckus broke out at last Thursday’s House Committee of Science and Technology, a hearing that implicated the U.S. government for inadequatly funding many NASA programs. But space exploration was not the only hot topic of the committee.
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, wanted to prioritize the hunt for asteroids with the potential to strike and devastate Earth. He said that a fraction of the billions of dollars spent “proving” global warming should have been directed to finding and dealing with asteroid threats. A disbeliever in man-induced global warming, Rohrabacher had previously been quoted as suggesting dinosaur flatulence could have been a cause of cyclical changes in climate in the past.
Asteroid threats have been surveyed for the past decade in an international effort to detect and understand possible space-borne hazards. Last month, astronauts at the Association of Space Explorers determined that the asteroid Apophis has a one in 45,000 chance of striking Earth.
Rohrabacher also commented on recent reports from St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory implying that climactic warming on Mars and Earth-both today and in the past-could be caused by solar activity and not by man.
Rohrabacher’s comments elicited responses defending scientific findings of man-induced global warming, and drew a challenge from Mark Undall, a Democrat from Colorado who demanded Rohrabacher acknowledge and move to reduce humanity’s effect on climate before focusing on possible asteroid damage.
Luckily, peace was re-established by the chairman of the committee, Bart Gordon.
“NASA does not have to spend any more money proving global warming. It’s already been done,” he said.
After all, the $2.26 billion cut in NASA’s five-year budget is a more serious matter than whether or not Rohrabacher can be made to believe in global warming.
“I think it’s clear we have a budgetary situation that bears little resemblance to the rosy projections offered by the administration when the president announced his ‘Vision for Space Exploration’ three years ago-a vision that is now growing increasingly blurred,” concluded Gordon.
Source: New Scientist and Committee on Science and Technology news service
-S.H.
