Science News Digest- 10th May 2010
In the science news this week, we take a look at the most invasive species plaguing Europe, testing the final piece in Einstein’s theory of relativity, the noise being made about electric cars, new research into the morality of babies and finally…. a dictionary disaster!
Oh rats!
A wide ranging assessment by a team of Swiss researchers has found that brown rats are among the most invasive species in Europe, along with sika deer and muskrats.
The team looked at the impact the rats were having on a range of different criteria, including the threat they posed to native species, the transmission of diseases they facilitate and their impact on agriculture.
The team said that ‘"Alien invasive species are a large threat to biodiversity and the economic damage that they cause exceeds 5% of the global gross product."
The brown rat was thought to have been introduced to Europe during the 18th Century as a result of the increased maritime traffic. They are now found across Europe in all habitats except high mountain ranges.
Once they invade a new area, other rodent species begin to decline alongside marine and land birds. Furthermore, they cause damage to crops, food stores and people’s homes.
The team behind this new scoring system, which looks at the ecological and economic impacts of species, have said that the system could be applied to other taxonomic classes of species, such as birds or fish, to allow resources to be carefully allocated towards controlling the species that cause the most damage.
Read more at the BBC
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Child’s Play
More evidence that may help settle the nature/nurture debate has come from researchers at Yale University in the USA this week.
The team looking into the moral judgments of babies, have discovered evidence that the infants can begin making moral judgments by the age of six months.
This research flies in the face of the widely held belief that children are born with a moral ‘blank slate’ and need to be taught right from wrong.
The study asked the children to decipher between helpful and unhelpful behaviour by watching animated videos or puppet shows.
According to the Times, ‘In one test groups of babies aged between six months and a year watched an animated film of simple geometric shapes. A red ball with eyes tries to climb a hill. At different times, a yellow square gets behind it to help push it up the hill and a green triangle forces it back down again.
The babies watched it between six and 14 times, depending on their powers of concentration. They were then asked to “choose” between the “good guy” square, and the “bad guy” triangle. In 80% of cases the infants chose the helpful character against the unhelpful one.’
Paul Bloom, professor of psychology who heads the study team, said “There is a growing body of scientific evidence that supports the idea that perhaps some sense of good and evil is bred in the bone,”
Other tests used identical teddy bears and puppets to test the theory more conclusively, as it could be argued that babies simply prefer red squares to green triangles.
Other criticisms of the research have come from Nadja Reissland, a behavioural psychologist at Durham University. “Everything hinges on who decides what is moral,” said Reissland. “By saying pushing the ball up the hill is helpful, the researchers are making a moral judgment. The babies might just prefer to see things go up rather than down.
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It’s all relative.
The final piece of Einstein’s theory of relativity that is yet to be proven correct is on course to being tested by scientists in a new space mission.
The combined operation between Nasa and the European Space Agency will see the largest scientific instrument ever created sent into space to investigate the existence of gravitational waves.
Three spacecraft will orbit the sun in formation and will fire lasers at each other to try and detect if the ripples in space that were predicted by Einstein to have come from collisions between large objects such as black holes, actually exist.
Professor Jim Hough, an expert on gravitational waves at Glasgow University and a member of the committee that drew up the plans, said: "Unfortunately we haven't been able to detect them (gravitational waves) yet because they are very weak. However, the new experiments we are working on have great potential to allow detection."
The project dubbed LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), will be preceded by the LISA Pathfinder mission, which is being built by British engineers to pave the way for the more ambitious mission.
The main mission is due to be launched by 2020 and if it manages to detect gravitational waves, it could provide us with a whole host of information about the universe that has previously been out of our grasp.
Read more in the Telegraph
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The silent killer…
No, not carbon monoxide, this time it’s… electric cars!
One of the raft of benefits of using an electric car is now being listed as one of its fatal flaws. Using batteries rather than a petrol engine has meant that the vehicles have greatly reduced sound outputs while in motion.
This has resulted in concerns being raised over the safety of pedestrians as the chances of them not noticing an oncoming electric car are greatly increased as reported in Sky News this week.
The European Commission is now planning to introduce warning sounds to combat the danger posed by the ‘silent killers’.
Apparently Lotus Engineering is already using a "futuristic sound a bit like Star Wars" for the new Evora 414E Hybrid.
Furthermore, the sounds can help drivers as it is "disconcerting for drivers to accelerate and not hear anything".
On the plus side, the sound would only be fired in the direction the car is moving to limit the disturbance it causes.
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And finally…
Dictionary Disaster!
Siphon noun
A pipe or tube of glass, metal or other material, bent so that one leg is longer than the other, and used for drawing off liquids by means of atmospheric pressure, which forces the liquid up the shorter leg and over the bend in the pipe.
Spot anything incorrect with this listing in the Oxford English Dictionary?
After nearly a century of being incorrectly defined by the OED, an eagle eyed scientist has highlighted the inaccuracy of the above statement.
Claiming that siphons move liquid by "the force of atmospheric pressure", they fail to mention that the help of gravitation forces are also required.
Dr Stephen Hughes, a physics lecturer at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane discovered this inaccuracy and publicised the discrepancy to the OED’s editors.
"An extensive check of online and offline dictionaries did not reveal a single dictionary that correctly referred to gravity being the operative force in a siphon," Dr Hughes said.
A spokesperson from the OED responded with;
"The OED entry for siphon dates from 1911 and was written by editors who were not scientists ... Our files suggest that no one has queried the definition before. We are revising that entire dictionary text now, and I have copied your helpful comments to the revision file, to ensure they are taken into account when the entry is rewritten."
Read more in the Guardian
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