Electoral Design
Tuesday's senatorial race in Pennsylvania was a big loss for incumbent Rick Santorum—the third most powerful Republican in the Senate—and a big win for opponents of intelligent design. Santorum was known as one of ID's biggest advocates in Congress; his campaign ads cited his attempt to amend the "No Child Left Behind Act" to teach the controversy between evolution and intelligent design. Democratic state treasurer Bob Casey defeated Santorum by a margin of 18 percent.
Forest Dangers
Scientists at the U.K.'s University of Leicester have developed a technique to uncover hidden earthquake fault lines. Many fault lines can go undetected because of forest cover, but the new method uses an aircraft-mounted laser to map forest floor topography by virtually deforesting land areas. The laser will allow scientists to identify fault lines and, therefore, better anticipate earthquakes in Indonesia, India, the Andes, the Alps, and other locations. The fault line in the 2005 earthquake in Kashimir went unnoticed because of tree cover.
Advertisement
Pervasive forest fires, often created intentionally by farmers to clear land, have created a thick smoke covering vast areas of Indonesia and its neighbors, Singapore and Malaysia. About 1,000 orangutans have died during this year's dry season as a result of the fires, according to conservationist group Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. The fires deprive the animals of food, forcing them to enter human settlements where residents attack them for damaging their crops.
The American Bird Conservancy has stressed that the Federal Communications Commission should act more quickly to consider a plan to make communications towers less dangerous and deadly for migratory birds. The Conservancy, along with the Forest Conservation Council and Friends of the Earth, filed suit against the FCC in 2002, claiming that the lighting and support wires on towers kill up to 50 million birds from 230 species every year. The lights interfere with the birds' migratory clues, throwing them off and causing them to fly toward the towers or continuously circle them. The Conservancy is asking that the solid lights on towers be replaced by red or white strobe lights, which are less confusing for the birds, and that shorter towers, which don't have to be lit, be built.
Three Formerly Blind Mice
A team of British ophthalmologists has restored sight in blind mice by transplanting developing retinal cells into their eyes, they reported in Nature on Nov. 8. The scientists used retinal cells that had started to differentiate but had not yet become fully developed photoreceptor cells. (Previous attempts to transplant undifferentiated stem cells were unsuccessful.) The results suggest that using embryonic stem cells for retinal transplants may not be necessary. It turns out that some cells located on the margin of the adult retina have stem-cell like properties—that is, they're capable of self-renewal. Researchers now say these cells could be harvested—which is a minor surgery—and grown in the lab to become photoreceptor precursors to be re-implanted in a blind patient's retina.
Bring on the American siesta, a study from Stanford University recommends. The study found that emergency room doctors working the night shift were more alert and in a better mood if they took a nap during their shift. At the end of their shifts, doctors were asked to perform several assessments, including a simulated car drive and a virtual I.V. insertion. Doctors who had napped did better on the tests. The study's authors argue that napping is an important, inexpensive way to improve performance among health care workers.
Planet in Transit