Nature and Education: Both a Good Buy
A team of researchers at the University of Vermont has begun designing a set of computer programs that will be able to determine the value of an ecosystem on any given plot of land. Robert Costanza, the team's leader, co-authored a paper in 1997 that valued the total price of the services provided by nature at $33 trillion; that paper gave rise to the science of "ecosystem services." Instead of calculating what people are willing to pay for a service, as is done in traditional economics, Costanza is "looking for effects of ecosystems on human welfare."
No matter what you choose to do with your life after college, having a science or engineering bachelor's degree is a boon, according to a National Science Foundation survey released last week. In a survey of adults with science and engineering undergraduate degrees, only 27 percent had science or engineering occupations, but 63 percent working in non-technical fields still said that their jobs related in some way to their degrees. Even those who had followed up their science and engineering degrees with advanced degrees in other fields reported that scientific knowledge remained necessary for them.
One in three American adults do not believe in evolution, a far larger fraction than in most European countries, a new study revealed. Michigan State University's Jon D. Miller, who carried out the research, theorized that the effects of fundamentalist religious beliefs were much stronger in the US than in most other countries surveyed. "Individuals who hold a strong belief in a personal God—and who pray frequently—were significantly less likely to view evolution as probably or definitely true than adults with less conservative religious views," Miller said. Of the 34 countries surveyed, only Turkey had a smaller percentage of adults who believed in evolution.
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Expanding the Planetary Family
Pluto counts. That's the decision of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which has, after two years of deliberation, arrived at a set of criteria that defines planets. The resolution defines a planet as "a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet." Using this definition, the number of planets in our solar system jumps from nine to 12: the new ones are Ceres, formerly an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter; Charon, formerly a moon of Pluto; and Xena, formerly a trans-Neptunian body.
NASA personnel are continuing the search for 37-year-old tapes documenting the original Apollo 11 moon landing of 1969. The magnetic tapes depict Neil Armstrong's historic first steps on the lunar surface. The man in charge of the Apollo records, Stan Lebar, claims the tapes were simply filed and forgotten about as personnel retired or died. "I just think this is what happens when you have a large government bureaucracy that functions for decade after decade," said Keith Cowing, editor of the Web site NASA Watch.
Water, Water Nowhere
A month-long drought in southwest China has caused economic losses of $1.15 billion—a result of withered crops—and left some 17 million people without clean drinking water. The Chongqing and Sichuan regions were hardest hit by the drought; the Chingquing section of the Yangtze River hit its lowest level in 100 years. The World Wildlife Fund warned last week that even wealthy countries will need to consider conserving water or risk suffering the kinds of water shortages that plague poorer nations. "Supporting large-scale industry and growing populations using water at high rates has come close to exhausting the water supplies of some First World cities and is a looming threat for many, if not most, others," the report says. The report proposes several solutions, including repairing aging infrastructure, increasing charges for water use, and reducing water contamination.