Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: The Human Experiment V « Result #1 Today at 12:25am »
How the Brain Encodes Memories at a Cellular Level
This is a neuron. (Credit: Sourav Banerjee)
ScienceDaily (Dec. 25, 2009) — Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a major discovery in how the brain encodes memories. The finding, published in the December 24 issue of the journal Neuron, could eventually lead to the development of new drugs to aid memory.
The team of scientists is the first to uncover a central process in encoding memories that occurs at the level of the synapse, where neurons connect with each other.
"When we learn new things, when we store memories, there are a number of things that have to happen," said senior author Kenneth S. Kosik, co-director and Harriman Chair in Neuroscience Research, at UCSB's Neuroscience Research Institute. Kosik is a leading researcher in the area of Alzheimer's disease.
"One of the most important processes is that the synapses -- which cement those memories into place -- have to be strengthened," said Kosik. "In strengthening a synapse you build a connection, and certain synapses are encoding a memory. Those synapses have to be strengthened so that memory is in place and stays there. Strengthening synapses is a very important part of learning. What we have found appears to be one part of how that happens."
Part of strengthening a synapse involves making new proteins. Those proteins build the synapse and make it stronger. Just like with exercise, when new proteins must build up muscle mass, synapses must also make more protein when recording memories. In this research, the regulation and control of that process was uncovered.
The production of new proteins can only occur when the RNA that will make the required proteins is turned on. Until then, the RNA is "locked up" by a silencing molecule, which is a micro RNA. The RNA and micro RNA are part of a package that includes several other proteins.
"When something comes into your brain -- a thought, some sort of stimulus, you see something interesting, you hear some music -- synapses get activated," said Kosik. "What happens next is really interesting, but to follow the pathway our experiments moved to cultured neurons. When synapses got activated, one of the proteins wrapped around that silencing complex gets degraded."
When the signal comes in, the wrapping protein degrades or gets fragmented. Then the RNA is suddenly free to synthesize a new protein.
"One reason why this is interesting is that scientists have been perplexed for some time as to why, when synapses are strengthened, you need to have proteins degrade and also make new proteins," said Kosik. "You have the degradation of proteins going on side by side with the synthesis of new proteins. So we have now resolved this paradox. We show that protein degradation and synthesis go hand in hand. The degradation permits the synthesis to occur. That's the elegant scientific finding that comes out of this."
The scientists were able to see some of the specific proteins that are involved in synthesis. Two of these -- CaM Kinase and Lypla -- are identified in the paper.
One of the approaches used by the scientists in the experiment was to take live neuron cells from rats and look at them under a high-resolution microscope. The team was able to see the synapses and the places where proteins are being made.
The first author on the paper is Sourav Banerjee, a postdoctoral fellow with the Neuroscience Research Institute and the Department of Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology. The other author is Pierre Neveu, who is affiliated with the Neuroscience Research Institute and the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: The Propaganda Continues V « Result #2 Today at 12:21am »
China defends Wen Jiabao's role in Copenhagen talks
Posted 2009/12/25 at 2:44 am EST
BEIJING, Dec. 25, 2009 (Reuters) — China on Friday defended the role played by premier Wen Jiabao at climate change talks in Copenhagen this month after a barrage of international criticism blaming China for obstructing negotiations.
The Copenhagen meeting ended with a broad political agreement but left specifics to be ironed out in 2010, angering many of the poorest nations as well as Western groups who had hoped for a more ambitious commitment.
China insisted that firm targets agreed to by European nations not be included in the final deal, and Wen himself was absent from a final round of direct negotiations between national leaders. British climate minister Ed Miliband said China and its allies had "hijacked" talks, according to the Guardian newspaper.
In a long account of the Copenhagen meeting, Xinhua gave Wen credit for "the last minute attempt to exchange ideas and reach consensus" despite his belief that it was "impossible" to reach a legally binding agreement.
"China showed the greatest sincerity, tried its best and played a constructive role," Xinhua said.
Issues of verification of emissions cut pledges plagued the meeting, with rich nations saying China's efforts to slow greenhouse gas growth should be subject to international verification to ensure that Beijing is keeping its word. China has said such checks would violate its sovereignty.
"On the transparency issue in self-mitigation actions, Wen said China was willing to conduct talks and cooperation," Xinhua said.
China has made its own pledges to reduce carbon intensity, or the amount of emissions produced per unit of GDP, but blocked European countries from including their commitment to cut absolute emissions by 80 percent by 2050, as well as commitments to specific dates when emissions would peak.
Other Reuters sources had also said China blocked the inclusion of specific targets.
Xinhua acknowledged Wen's absence from the late night meetings on Dec 17, saying that Wen had not been informed, and had learned the Chinese delegation was included in the meeting list from another, unidentified foreign leader.
"Premier Wen felt quite astonished and was vigilant," Xinhua said, adding that China sent a vice foreign minister instead.
The U.S. administration has played up President Barack Obama's role in breaking through a deadlock by arriving unannounced at a meeting of the heads of China, Brazil, India and South Africa, all powerful developing countries concerned that emissions concessions could impede growth.
Xinhua said that meeting -- which occurred as the U.S. sought a meeting with China and was rebuffed from meeting the others -- represented Wen's efforts to reach consensus before bringing a final deal to the Western nations and poorest developing nations.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: There's a new polar bear in the world... II « Result #3 Today at 12:17am »
Kew discovers new plant species in one of its own glasshouses
Botanists at Kew unveil a bumper crop of new plant species for 2009 including one that had been growing under their noses for 50 years
* Ian Sample, science correspondent * The Guardian, Tuesday 22 December 2009
Isoglossa variegata was discovered in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Photograph: RBG Kew
The quest to catalogue Earth's rich flora has taken botanists to the farthest flung and most treacherous corners of the world, from the humid rainforests of the Amazon to the highest peaks of Borneo.
Which made it all the more surprising when Iain Darbyshire stumbled upon a species of plant unknown to science while taking a lunchtime stroll around the Royal Botanic Gardens in west London.
Darbyshire, an expert in African botany at Kew, happened upon the foot-tall plant in full bloom, its striking green and grey heart-shaped leaves set off by tiny white and pink flowers.
"I just happened to take a different route through the glasshouse that lunchtime and stumbled across it," Darbyshire told the Guardian. "I knew instantly that it was a new species. It was just sat there waiting for someone to study it."
Record books revealed the plants had been donated by Swedish botanists in the 1990s after an expedition to the Eastern Arc mountains of Tanzania. Unsuspecting gardeners had tended them for more than a decade, using them as tropical bedding in Kew's Princess of Wales Conservatory.
The plant was officially named Isoglossa variegata last month and is among more than 250 new plant and fungus species discovered and described by the gardens' botanists in the past year.
Almost a third of all the species are believed to be facing extinction as their habitats are eroded or destroyed by logging, climate change and other environmental disruption.
In western Madagascar, Kew botanists hiked across extraordinary landscapes of limestone pinnacles and discovered several new species of wild coffee plant, the most traded commodity in the world after oil.
This unique environment has given rise to coffee plants that look nothing like those found elsewhere. Some of the species are conspicuously hairy, and two, Coffea labatii and Coffea pterocarpa, have colourful winged fruit.
The region experiences torrential seasonal downpours that create ephemeral rivers and pools across the stoney forest floor. "These winged fruit float very well, so the feature might be an evolutionary adpatation to aid their dispersal," said Aaron Davis, a coffee expert and taxonomist at the Gardens.
Alternatively, the wings may ensure the fruit are scattered far and wide by making them more visible to lemurs, which feed on the coffee beans.
The hirsute coffee plants might have sprouted hair to protect against harsh ultraviolet rays in the dry season.
"There's a misconception that we've found all the plants there are to find, but we are still in a golden age of discovery," said Davis. "We don't know our planet well enough and we are running out of time. Species are going extinct before we even know about them."
Around 70% of wild coffee species are in danger of extinction.
Elsewhere in Madagascar, botanists noticed two new species of small flowering plants called Gymnosiphon. The bizzare plants draw their energy not from the sun, but from fungi that live underground.
Further expeditions to the rainforests of Cameroon led to the discovery of three giant trees that grow to more than 30m high. One, Berlinia korupensis, is a member of the pea family. The tree towers above its neighbours at 42m high and produces foot-long pods that explode when they ripen, propelling seeds far across the forest floor.
Among some of the smallest species identified this year are tiny wood-rotting fungi from Australia that are less than a millimetre wide and cover trees like a thin coating of paint.
"They are small, but they perform a vital role in decomposition of plant material and recycling of nutrients," said Brian Spooner, a Swedish fungus expert working with Kew researchers.
In South Africa, botanists spotted a plant with lumpy wooden tubers that grow up to a metre high. The species was identified as a yam, but only 200 or so are known to exist in the wild. It is under threat from local medicinal plant collectors who use it as a treatment for cancer.
Some 20 new species were discovered in Brazil alone, the most striking being a red passion flower that is probably pollinated by hummingbirds and produces edible egg-shaped fruit. The plant was spotted in an expedition to the Amazon rainforest in Mato Grasso, Brazil.
The largest haul of new species came from Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in Borneo, where botanists Jeff Wood and Phil Cribb have identified 38 new species of orchid. Nearly 900 different species live in a 1,200sq km area of the island.
Each new species is identified by detailed visual inspections that are often backed up my genetic analyses. To identify all the world's flora could take another 50 years, but the effort is crucial for conserving rare species and reintroducing species that only exist in protected areas.
Stephen Hopper, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, said the speed of discovery and classification of new species is increasing under the organisation's Breathing Planet Programme.
"These new discoveries highlight the fact that there is so much of the plant world yet to be discovered and documented. Without knowing what's out there and where it occurs, we have no scientific basis for effective conservation," said Hopper.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: The Propaganda Continues V « Result #4 Today at 12:11am »
China fears climate change openness
Beijing, which fears that external monitoring might reveal internal dysfunction, was backed into a corner by the US at Copenhagen
o John Lee o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 December 2009 14.00 GMT
During the frantic final two days of negotiations at Copenhagen over the weekend, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton set a clever trap for Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao. Having just announced that the US would establish and contribute to a $100bn international fund by 2020 to help poor nations cope with the challenge of climate change, they added a non-negotiable proviso: all major nations would first be required to commit their emissions reduction to a binding agreement and submit these reductions to "transparent verification".
Everyone in the room knew that "all major nations" primarily meant China. From the beginning, China has steadfastly refused to accept outside monitoring and verification of its progress toward any promised targets. But the 11th-hour US proposal immediately isolated China. The onus was now on Beijing to agree to standards of "transparent verification". If it did not, poorer countries standing to benefit from the fund would blame China for breaking the deal.
Clinton's proposal had cunningly undermined Beijing's leadership over the developing bloc of countries. In anger, Chinese officials responded that such demands were an insult to China and would be a violation of Chinese sovereignty and national interests. Wen had been outflanked and was angry, even leaving the conference centre and subsequently snubbing Obama in a couple of previously planned bilateral and multinational meetings involving the US president.
Which raises the question: why the extreme response? China has long been engaging in a dangerous game of manipulating important economic numbers and concealing domestic commercial realities. Despite all its progress over 30 years, Beijing is afraid to shine too bright a light in dark places, and even more afraid that outsiders might be allowed to do so. In important respects, the government actually embraces opaqueness as a perceived advantage. The thought of "transparent verification" was seen as the thin end of the wedge, allowing outside experts broad authority to peer into the workings of middle China.
Teams of international economists, scientists, inspectors and statisticians roaming China to gather information on carbon emissions and reduction initiatives would have been unprecedented. In promoting China, Beijing projects an image of order and competence to the world. In parts of its wealthier coastal cities, China is that. But these international teams would undoubtedly discover exactly how dysfunctional the heart of the country really is. They would see first hand and report back how China's 45 million local officials remain the most formidable obstacle to improving transparency in China's sprawling economic structure – protecting their turf, defending their privileges, arbitrarily enforcing the law, and when it comes to economic performance blatantly cooking the books. Beijing still wants to assure outsiders that it remains in charge even though in important respects it is not.
This lack of accountability and transparency strikes at the heart of China's credibility in any global climate change agenda. Wen would not want foreign experts reporting to political masters in America and Europe that Beijing's capacity for compelling local officials and locally managed, state-controlled enterprises – some 120,000 companies and countless other subsidiaries – to implement climate change initiatives is extremely low. This would simply strengthen suspicions that decentralised China cannot actually honour future commitments despite promises that it intends to.
Then there is the further problem of cheating in current and future carbon reduction schemes. Developed countries need to feel confident that incentives offered to developing countries to cut emissions (in both absolute terms and emissions relative to economic growth) can be verified. Indeed, earlier this month, the UN body in charge of the clean development mechanism – a proviso under the Kyoto protocol allowing developed countries to purchase carbon offsets for funding "clean energy" developments elsewhere – suspended approvals for dozens of Chinese windfarms over suspicions that China had held back the building of planned windfarms and deliberately lowered previously allocated subsidies to make the wind farms eligible for earning credits – industrial policies that would disqualify these farms from benefiting under the scheme. China has so far received carbon credits worth more than $1bn, which is almost half of the total issued under the UN-run programme.
China's government has vigorously denied that it is attempting to illegitimately manipulate the scheme. But the point is that there is no system for independent and external verification; nor is Beijing proposing to allow one. Meanwhile, China had previously pledged that 15% (and possibly 20%) of its energy would come from renewable sources by 2020 and that special efforts would be made to close dirty power plants and impose world-class vehicle efficiency standards and proposed various other measures to cut emissions. Again, developed countries suspect that China will receive plaudits and concessions from any future carbon emissions regime without actually keeping its promises.
Alas, given the desperation to announce a "deal", Obama backed down. The so-called "Copenhagen accord" merely compels developing nations to self-report their emissions every two years and allow outside scrutiny of the data. China is off the hook for the moment, but whether this is enough to satisfy the US Congress when deciding whether to approve any future binding agreement is another matter.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: MASS EXTINCTION UNDERWAY VI « Result #5 Today at 12:04am »
Plants and animals race for survival as climate change creeps across the globe
Lowland tropics, mangroves and deserts at greater risk than mountainous areas as global warming spreads, study finds
* David Adam * guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 December 2009 18.20 GMT
Mangroves are some of the areas most vulnerable to climate change, as a new study by the Carnegie Instuttion in California reveals the rapid movement of global warming across the world. Photograph: Corbis
Global warming creeps across the world at a speed of a quarter of a mile each year, according to a new study that highlights the problems that rising temperatures pose to plants and animals. Species that can tolerate only a narrow range of temperatures will need to move as quickly if they are to survive. Wildlife in lowland tropics, mangroves and desert areas are at greater risk than species in mountainous areas, the study suggests.
"These are the conditions that will set the stage, whether species move or cope in place," said Chris Field, director of the department of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution in the US, who worked on the project. "Expressed as velocities, climate change projections connect directly to survival prospects for plants and animals."
The study, by scientists at the Carnegie Institution, Stanford University, the California Academy of Sciences, and the University of California, Berkeley, combined information on current and projected future climate to calculate a "temperature velocity" for different parts of the world.
They found that mountainous areas will have the lowest velocity of temperature change, meaning that animals will not need to move very far to stay in the temperature range of their natural habitat. However, much larger geographic displacements are required in flatter areas such as flooded grasslands, mangroves and deserts, in order for animals to keep pace with their climate zone. The researchers also found that most currently protected areas are not big enough to accommodate the displacements required.
Healy Hamilton, director of the centre for applied biodiversity informatics at the California Academy of Sciences, said: "One of the most powerful aspects of this data is that it allows us to evaluate how our current protected area network will perform as we attempt to conserve biodiversity in the face of global climate change."
He added: "When we look at residence times for protected areas, which we define as the amount of time it will take current climate conditions to move across and out of a given protected area, only 8% of our current protected areas have residence times of more than 100 years. If we want to improve these numbers, we need to both reduce our carbon emissions and work quickly towards expanding and connecting our global network of protected areas."
The study found that global warming would have the lowest velocities in tropical and subtropical coniferous forests, where it would move at about 80 metres a year, and montane grasslands and shrublands - a biome with grass and shrubs at high elevations - with a projected velocity of about 110 metres each year.
Global warming is expected to sweep more quickly across flatter areas, such as mangrove swamps and flooded grasslands and savannas, where it could have velocities above 1km a year. Across the world, the average velocity is 420 metres each year. The results are published in the journal Nature.
Wildlife in areas with low projected climate change velocities are not necessarily better protected, the scientists point out. Habitats such as broadleaf forests are often small and fragmented, which makes it harder for species to move.
The study examines the movement of climate zones, not species, the scientists stress, which means it is difficult to predict what the impacts may be on individual trees, insects and animals. Some are more tolerant to changing temperature than others, and the movement of species can be difficult to track. While trees are estimated to have spread northwards through a warming Europe after the end of the last ice age at a speed of about 1km per year, this could be down to dormant seeds reseeding the landscape, which would not be possible if species are forced to shift to new territories.
The scientists say that global warming will cause temperatures to change so rapidly that almost a third of the globe could see climate velocities higher than even the most optimistic estimates of plant migration speeds.
Some plants and animals may have to be physically moved by humans to help them cope, the scientists say, while protected areas must also be enlarged and joined together.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: Digging In The Dirt IV « Result #6 Today at 12:01am »
Threshold to Cleopatra's mausoleum discovered off Alexandria coast
* Helena Smith in Athens * guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 December 2009 22.10 GMT
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Antony and Cleopatra. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
They were one of the world's most famous couples, who lived lives of power and glory – but who spent their last hours in despair and confusion. Now, more than 2,000 years since Antony and Cleopatra walked the earth, historians believe they may finally have solved the riddle of their last hours together.
A team of Greek marine archaeologists who have spent years conducting underwater excavations off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt have unearthed a giant granite threshold to a door that they believe was once the entrance to a magnificent mausoleum that Cleopatra VII, queen of the Egyptians, had built for herself shortly before her death.
They believe the 15-tonne antiquity would have held a seven metre-high door so heavy that it would have prevented the queen from consoling her Roman lover before he died, reputedly in 30BC.
"As soon as I saw it, I thought we are in the presence of a very special piece of a very special door," Harry Tzalas, the historian who heads the Greek mission, said. "There was no way that such a heavy piece, with fittings for double hinges and double doors, could have moved with the waves so there was no doubt in my mind that it belonged to the mausoleum. Like Macedonian tomb doors, when it closed, it closed for good."
Tzalas believes the discovery of the threshold sheds new light on an element of the couple's dying hours which has long eluded historians.
In the first century AD the Greek historian Plutarch wrote that Mark Antony, after being wrongly informed that Cleopatra had killed herself, had tried to take his own life. When the dying general expressed his wish to pass away alongside his mistress, who was hiding inside the mausoleum with her ladies-in-waiting, he was "hoisted with chains and ropes" to the building's upper floor so that he could be brought in to the building through a window.
Plutarch wrote, "when closed the [mausoleum's] door mechanism could not open again". The discovery in the Mediterranean Sea of such huge pieces of masonry at the entrance to what is believed to be the mausoleum would explain the historian's line. Tzalas said: "For years, archaeologists have wondered what Plutarch, a very reliable historian, meant by that. And now, finally, I think we have the answer.
"Allowing a dying man to be hoisted on ropes was not a very nice, or comforting thing to do, but Cleopatra couldn't do otherwise. She was there only with females and they simply couldn't open such a heavy door."
The threshold, part of the sunken palace complex in which Cleopatra is believed to have died, was discovered recently at a depth of eight metres but only revealed this week. It has yet to be brought to the surface.
The archaeologists have also recovered a nine-tonne granite block which they believe formed part of a portico belonging to the adjoining temple of Isis Lochias. "We believe it was part of the complex surrounding Cleopatra's palace," said Zahi Hawas, Egypt's top archaeologist. "This is an important part of Alexandria's history and brings us closer to knowing more about the ancient city."
According to Plutarch, who based his accounts largely on eyewitness testimonies, Antony died within seconds of laying eyes on his beloved queen and mother of his children.
Cleopatra, the most powerful woman of her day and Egypt's most fabled ruler, is believed to have taken her own life just days later, legend has it with the aid of an asp.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: The Propaganda Continues V « Result #7 Yesterday at 11:54pm »
How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room
As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed
o Mark Lynas o guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 December 2009 19.54 GMT
A woman listens to Barack Obama's speech at the Copenhagen climate change conference on 18 December. Photograph: Axel Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was "the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility", said Christian Aid. "Rich countries have bullied developing nations," fumed Friends of the Earth International.
All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday's Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying "no", over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as "a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries".
Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.
Here's what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.
What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors".
Shifting the blame
To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China's representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can't we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil's representative too pointed out the illogicality of China's position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord's lack of ambition.
China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak "as soon as possible". The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.
Strong position
So how did China manage to pull off this coup? First, it was in an extremely strong negotiating position. China didn't need a deal. As one developing country foreign minister said to me: "The Athenians had nothing to offer to the Spartans." On the other hand, western leaders in particular – but also presidents Lula of Brazil, Zuma of South Africa, Calderón of Mexico and many others – were desperate for a positive outcome. Obama needed a strong deal perhaps more than anyone. The US had confirmed the offer of $100bn to developing countries for adaptation, put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was obviously prepared to up its offer.
Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China's negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity ("equal rights to the atmosphere") in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.
With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. "How can you ask my country to go extinct?" demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.
China's game
All this raises the question: what is China's game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, "not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?" The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now "in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years' time".
This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.
Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: The Propaganda Continues V « Result #8 Yesterday at 11:50pm »
Copenhagen is a disaster for Africa
African countries, worst hit by the effects of climate change, were bullied into a deal that does little to help them
o William Gumede o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 December 2009 17.00 GMT
Climate change is frequently a matter of life and death for many Africans. From whatever angle you look at it, the climate change "deal" that was bulldozed through by rich nations at the Copenhagen climate conference was a disaster for Africa.
Compared with rich nations who dictated the terms of the "deal", African countries contribute the least to greenhouse emissions. However, they suffer the consequences the most. African nations will again disproportionally feel the pinch of this deal.
All the PR coming thick and fast from the architects of the Copenhagen deal will not ease the real life impact of climate change on Africa: water shortages, hunger and the possible disappearance of entire island states at risk of being submerged because of rising sea levels.
In September this year, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation warned that poor crops, forced migration and conflict will drive millions more people to starvation across the continent. Food production has been plummeting across Africa because of increasingly irregular rainfall. In Uganda, this year the country will post its fourth successive poor harvest of first season crops. In countries such as Somalia, half of the population now depends on food aid.
Many nomadic peoples in East Africa are in a battle for survival because of increasingly severe and frequent droughts. New conflicts are arising in places such as Uganda, northern Kenya and Ethiopia, this time over access to increasingly rapidly diminishing water sources.
The World Bank, in its April 2009 report Sea-level rise and storm surges: a comparative analysis of impacts in developing countries, in which it compared population, economic and elevation maps to analyse countries most at risk from rising sea levels, identified 10 African countries as the most vulnerable to storm surges. Islands are particularly at risk: the Seychelles fear that they may lose 60% of their land because of rising sea levels.
In southwestern Uganda, temperatures have risen so much that there is now a real danger of the return of old pests such as malaria, and the outbreak of new ones. Staple crops such soya and cassava are at risk.
It is not surprising then that countries such as Sudan, Ethiopia and Ghana rejected the final Copenhagen conference document in the strongest terms possible. Lumumba Di-Aping, the lead Sudanese negotiator, said the deal was "devoid of any sense of responsibility or morality".
Many Africans were convinced the final text was cobbled together by rich nations long before the start of the conference. The role of Africans was to turn up, rubber-stamp it and then appear, smiling, next to leaders of the rich countries as props at the photo shoots later. This suspicion was confirmed at the start of the conference when a leaked Danish document proposed industrial nations cut fewer emissions, while the developing world should face tougher limits on greenhouse gases. This outraged African negotiators and activists such that many stormed out of the meeting room.
The final "deal", signed by 28 countries, kicked aside a UN-brokered deal that was more inclusive, financially more generous and more sensitive to the needs of African and developing countries – and which was backed by Africans. In Copenhagen, industrial nations have again successfully managed to divide African and developing countries, by co-opting the bigger developing countries, such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa, in private deals.
Such co-opting often starts with the demonising of these countries: those who insist on a fair deal are being mercilessly portrayed as stubborn obstacles in the march for a greener future, or as much to blame for global problems as industrial nations, and therefore should make the same compromises – and pay for it also. Of course, the big developing countries – China, India, Brazil and South Africa – are not blameless when it comes to polluting the earth.
Industrial nations also isolated certain African nations into allying with them, either by promising or withdrawing future aid. That is why Sudan and Ethiopia, among the African countries that stand to lose the most from this bad deal, were there among those signing the accord, although they afterwards attacked it as unfair.
African countries lack the money and access to technology – restricted by patent laws in industrial nations – to counter the effects of climate change, or to build green economies. The offer of $100bn a year by 2020 to be financed by governments and the private sector not only ridiculously lacks the detail, it is simply inadequate. The big fear among African nations is that the financial mathematics to finance the deal is all a con: industrial dangers will just transfer existing aid commitments to this fund, as they did before. It is not surprising that the deal is rather vague on just how the private sector is going to partially finance African and developing countries' efforts to overcome the effects of climate change – as it proposes.
It is imperative that African and developing countries understand that progressive efforts to tackle climate change in Africa and the developing world are unlikely to happen, unless there is also a parallel reform of the global political, trade and finance rules.
Yet Africans can take some good also from this climate talk failure. In spite of the divide-and-rule tactics of industrial nations, there are positive signs that African countries may yet be able to unite in seeking solutions to important global problems that affect them. Africans need such a genuine common union.
Civil society groups in these countries will have to provide the intellectual leadership that is lacking among the political leaders. The political leaders who led the African delegations, many of them ruling their own countries undemocratically, did their countries a disservice.
In African countries, civil society, together with ordinary citizens and communities, must keep the pressure on their leaders and hold them accountable. They must start national conversations in which their governments must account for what happened in Copenhagen, and how to rectify it.
In industrial countries, civil society organisations and individuals must expose their leaders' bullying of African countries to their citizens and unmask the blame-shifting (to developing countries) used by their leaders to cover up the bullying. A failed climate change deal is not only bad for citizens of African and developing countries – it is for industrial nations too.
• William Gumede is co-editor (with Leslie Dikeni) of The Poverty of Ideas
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: MedTech IV: R & D « Result #9 Yesterday at 11:42pm »
'Switch' could block Huntington's
A "molecular switch" that can prevent Huntington's disease from developing has been found in mice.
A US study concluded the mutated huntingtin protein, which causes the disease, could be stopped in its tracks by a subtle chemical modification.
It is hoped the work could lead to much-needed treatments for the inherited disorder.
The study, by the University of California, Los Angeles, is published in the journal Neuron.
It is thought between 6,000 and 8,500 people in the UK have Huntington's disease - a neurological condition that starts to show in mid-life and slowly impairs a person's ability to walk, talk and reason.
Children who have one parent with the condition have a 50% chance of developing it themselves and often it is passed on before people are aware that they have it.
There is no cure for the illness and treatment focuses on managing the symptoms.
Although it is known that a protein mutation underpins the disease, it is not exactly clear how that mutation causes the damage seen in those with the condition.
In the latest study, researchers found a small section of the mutated protein that can be modified by phosphorylation - a chemical process in the body that alters how proteins function.
In mice they found blocking this phosphorylation caused the animals to develop disease symptoms.
But when they tried to mimic the process the disorder did not develop.
It follows previous work showing phosphorylation reduced the tendency of the mutant huntingtin protein to form clumps and another study showing it could help cells get rid of the toxic version of the protein.
Study leader Dr William Yang said together the studies suggested a new direction of research into the formation and clearance of the huntingtin protein in the disease process.
"We were surprised to find that subtle modification of only two amino acids in this very large protein can prevent the onset of disease.
"This finding suggests an exciting new avenue to develop therapeutics for Huntington's disease."
Huntington's Disease Association head of care services Cath Stanley said: "Although in the very early stages, this research offers an exciting avenue of exploration in the quest to prevent or slow down the disease process."
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
Joined: Apr 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 37,705 Location: Sydney, Australia
Re: Gene Explorations III « Result #10 Yesterday at 11:38pm »
Troubleshooters that block cancer
Scientists have shown how a family of "limpet-like" proteins play a crucial role in repairing the DNA damage which can lead to cancer.
They hope the finding could pave the way for a new type of drug which could help kill cancer cells, and promote production of healthy replacements.
The proteins seem to have a remarkable ability to zero in on damaged areas.
The breakthrough, uncovered independently by two teams, appears in the journal Nature.
The family of Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO) proteins track down sites in the body where DNA damage has occurred.
They attach themselves to normal proteins, and guide them in to fix the genetic faults.
Using this method, the proteins are even able to repair double strand DNA breaks - the most severe type of DNA damage.
When their work is done, the proteins detach themselves and move on.
Breast cancer gene
One of the study teams was able to follow this process of repair taking place on the BRCA1 gene, which, if damaged, is associated with a very high risk of breast cancer.
SUMO was shown to attach to the damaged gene, and switch it back on - helping prevent breast cancer forming.
Researcher Dr Jo Morris, from King's College London, said: "This new insight is the first step towards developing drugs which may protect normal cells from the side effects of chemotherapy, or improve the effectiveness of current breast cancer treatments."
Dr Lesley Walker, of Cancer Research UK, which part-funded the study, said: "DNA damage, particularly double strand DNA breaks, are a fundamental cause of cancer and we know that people who have mutations in the BRCA1 gene have a higher risk of developing some kinds of cancer.
"Discovering that these limpet-like proteins play such an important role in repair may provide new opportunities to stop cancer from growing."
But she added: "This is an extremely complex and intricate biological process so it may be many years before we can use this knowledge to safely intervene and help treat cancer patients."
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
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