The Imagine Cup, now in its eighth year, encourages high school and university students around the world to develop software aiming to solve global problems.

Team Skeek from Thailand took home the top prize for software design for creating a program that translates text into sign language using speech and facial recognition. Their application eyeFeel lets hearing impaired people communicate using a visual augmented reality environment.

Team Skeek Wins Top Prize at Imagine Cup, photo courtesy of Microsoft

SmarterME from Taiwan won the embedded development category with a device that targets the biggest energy-suckers in the home. The application lets homeowners see the appliances that use the most power and raise the electric bill.

By Implication from the Philippines won in game design for an X-Box enabled game that allows players to perform human intelligence tasks and gets young people interested in volunteering. It uses an X-Box controller and social media to encourage youth to help battle some of the worlds biggest problems, ranging from poverty to environmental disasters.

The game Wildfire was inspired byTyphoon Ketsana, a devastating storm that ravaged the island nation.

The winning team in each of the five categories took home $25,000. The other winners were:

• WeiQiu Wen from China, IT Challenge
• Mirror Vita from Taiwan, Digital Media
• Jigga-Dongxi from Taiwan, Envisioning 2020 Award
• Xormis from Jamaica, Interoperability Award
• Wanna Be Alice from Korea, Next Generation Web Award
• Team Note-Taker from the United States, Touch and Tablet Accessibility Award
• Beastware from the United States, Windows Phone 7 Rockstar Award
• Rhea from Poland, Internet Explorer 8 Award

With a tight new cap freshly installed on its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, BP planned gradual tests starting Tuesday to see if the device can stop oil from pouring into the sea for the first time in nearly three months.

The next step will be to slowly close the valves on that cap to see if it can withstand the pressure of the oil pushing out of the seabed.

“The goal is to slowly close that down and understand the changes in pressure.” — National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen

Some scientists, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu and U.S. Geological Survey’s Marcia McNutt are worried that when the new cap is tightly fitted, the pressure of oil trying to escape will cause tiny ruptures in the pipeline and cause oil to leak through rock formations in the seabed.

Update

A pivotal moment in the Gulf oil crisis hit an unexpected snag Tuesday evening when officials announced they needed more time before they could begin choking off the geyser of crude at the bottom of the sea.

President Obama unveiled his new plan(PDF) for NASA. After scrapping the manned space program Constellation last fall the President pushed back plans to return to the moon and send a manned mission to Mars. This announcement and policy reversal struck some stargazers and scientists as disappointing.

The President’s plan reverses former President Bush’s plan for a new moon shot and focuses on private space flight, international cooperation and near-earth environmental observation.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke says the new space policy will be good for business and inspire new jobs in the burgeoning private space industry.

“This policy is about energizing competitive domestic industries through innovation, entrepreneurship and technological leadership in space. It recognizes the sea changes occurring in the space community, with federal budgets tightening at the same time that commercial space capabilities and markets are gaining momentum.”– Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke

The new plan includes robotic probes to the sun, a manned mission to an asteroid and to Mars. It also puts new emphasis on near-Earth monitoring satellites to study climate and other environmental changes.

“Fifty years after the creation of NASA, our goal is no longer just a destination to reach. Our goal is the capacity for people to work and learn and operate and live safely beyond the Earth for extended periods of time, ultimately in ways that are more sustainable and even indefinite. And in fulfilling this task, we will not only extend humanity’s reach in space—we will strengthen America’s leadership here on Earth.”—President Barack Obama

Falcon Rocket, courtesy of SpaceX

Goals for Space Science, Exploration, and Discovery

The Administrator of NASA shall:
•Set far-reaching exploration milestones. By 2025, begin crewed missions beyond the moon, including sending humans to an asteroid. By the mid-2030s, send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth

•Continue the operation of the International Space Station (ISS), in cooperation with its international
partners, likely to 2020 or beyond, and expand efforts to: utilize the ISS for scientific, technological, commercial, diplomatic, and educational purposes; support activities requiring the unique attributes of humans in space; serve as a continuous human presence in Earth orbit; and support future objectives in human space exploration

•Seek partnerships with the private sector to enable safe, reliable, and cost-effective commercial spaceflight capabilities and services for the transport of crew and cargo to and from the ISS

•Implement a new space technology development and test program, working with industry, academia, and international partners to build, fly, and test several key technologies that can increase the capabilities, decrease the costs, and expand the opportunities for future space activities

•Conduct research and development in support of next-generation launch systems, including new U.S. rocket engine technologies

•Maintain a sustained robotic presence in the solar system to: conduct scientific investigations of other planetary bodies; demonstrate new technologies; and scout locations for future human missions

•Continue a strong program of space science for observations, research, and analysis of our Sun, solar system, and universe to enhance knowledge of the cosmos, further our understanding of fundamental natural and physical sciences, understand the conditions that may support the development of life, and search for planetary bodies and Earth-like planets in orbit around other stars

•Pursue capabilities, in cooperation with other departments, agencies, and commercial partners,
to detect, track, catalog, and characterize near-Earth objects to reduce the risk of harm to humans from an unexpected impact on our planet and to identify potentially resource-rich planetary objects.

New research from the National Center for Atmospheric Research has solved the mystery of so-called hole punch clouds. As turboprop and jet aircraft climb or descend under certain atmospheric conditions, they can inadvertently seed mid-level clouds and cause narrow bands of snow or rain to develop and fall to the ground.

“Any time aircraft fly through these specific conditions, they are altering the clouds in a way that can result in enhanced precipitation nearby.” — Andrew Heymsfield, NCAR scientist

Dr. Heymsfield flew through a hole punched cloud and realized that the air is forced back as a plane flies through it and cools rapidly, forming ice crystals. This can lead to bands of airplane-induces snow under the right conditions.

Full Transcript of President Obama’s speech, “A Faith in the Future that Sustains us as a People”

President Obama addressed the nation last night, assuring all Americans that he is working hard, with scientists, engineers, oil company executives and 30,000 volunteers and aid workers to help stop and clean up the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the April 20 BP Horizon Deepwater oil rig explosion. The President called this the greatest environmental disaster in the history of the United States of America.

That’s why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge — a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s Secretary of Energy. Scientists at our national labs and experts from academia and other oil companies have also provided ideas and advice.

He talked about the cleanup effort, already underway, to prevent oil from reaching beaches and shorelines along Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Because of our efforts, millions of gallons of oil have already been removed from the water through burning, skimming and other collection methods. Over five and a half million feet of boom has been laid across the water to block and absorb the approaching oil. We’ve approved the construction of new barrier islands in Louisiana to try to stop the oil before it reaches the shore, and we’re working with Alabama, Mississippi and Florida to implement creative approaches to their unique coastlines.

President Obama asked Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy to lead the development of the Gulf Coast Restoration Plan.

The plan will be designed by states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents.

To ensure a disaster like this doesn’t happen again, the President has launched an investigation to find out why this oil spill happened. After issuing permits for experimental offshore drilling, he has placed a six-month moratorium on offshore drilling until he is satisfied that this type of deep-oil extraction can be done safely.

And so I’ve established a National Commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what additional safety and environmental standards we need to put in place.

On Monday, President Obama appointed members of the new BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Commission, which consists of scientists, academics and environmental experts.

They are:

Frances Beinecke is currently the President of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-profit corporation that works to advance environmental policy in the United States and across the world.
Don Boesch is the President of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, where he is also a Professor of Marine Science and Vice Chancellor for Environmental Sustainability for the University System of Maryland.
Terry D. Garcia is currently Executive Vice President for Mission Programs for the National Geographic Society. Prior to joining the Society in 1999, Mr. Garcia was Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Dr. Cherry Murray is the Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and is currently the Past President of the American Physical Society. Dr. Murray’s expertise is in condensed matter and materials physics, phase transitions, light scattering and surface physics, including the study of soft condensed matter and complex fluids, as well as the management of science and technology.
Fran Ulmer is Chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), Alaska’s largest public university. In addition to serving as UAA’s Chancellor, Ms. Ulmer is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Arctic Climate Change and holds Board positions with the Alaska Nature Conservancy, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

President Obama took the opportunity the BP oil spill afforded to make a plea for all Americans to band together to wean ourselves off fossil fuels and to innovate toward a new alternative energy future.

So I’m happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party -– as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels. Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development -– and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development.

The President challenged the nation to turn this tragedy into an opportunity to do something unexpected and very difficult to secure a brighter energy future and at the same time reduce the effects of climate change.

But the one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet. You know, the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough planes and tanks in World War II. The same thing was said about our ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely on the surface of the moon. And yet, time and again, we have refused to settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom.

The White House warns that oil from the Gulf of Mexico disaster will likely continue leaking until August after BP declares its ‘top kill’ operation a failure, the CBC’s David Common reports.

Editor’s note: Why doesn’t a consortium of structural, ocean and even geo engineers get together and start looking at quick and innovative approaches to stopping what is now the worst oil spill in U.S. history?

Researchers at University of Alaska Fairbanks are afraid the permafrost in the Siberian continental shelf is beginning to fail. If it does the trapped methane below will release into the ocean and eventually into the atmosphere. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas — about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Dr. Natalia Shakhova says the concentrations of atmospheric methane measured in the Arctic are the highest in 400,000 years. More research is underway to determine how much methane is capped below the permafrost under the Arctic Ocean so scientists can better understand the near and long term consequences to the sudden release of trapped methane.

University of Alaska Fairbanks Professor Katey Walter Anthony takes us onto a frozen lake in Fairbanks, AK to demonstrate why methane gas has “exploded” onto the climate change scene. DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.

An iceberg about the size of Luxembourg, which struck a glacier off Antarctica dislodging another massive block of ice, could lower oxygen levels in the world’s oceans, affect ocean currents and even change global weather patterns.

With the equivalent of the world’s annual freshwater consumption frozen in these slow moving islands of ice, scientists believe it could take up to 30 years to reach warm enough waters where the bergs will melt away.

Right now, the freshly-calved iceberg that broke off from the Mertz Glacier in eastern Antarctica, is floating in the Southern Ocean with the larger iceberg which broke off in 1987. Both icebergs are heading in the general direction of Australia and New Zealand.

During the International Polar Year, scientists outfitted the new iceberg with GPS beacons so they can study the calving of large icebergs and measure their environmental impact. The two-year study is called Cooperative Research into Antarctic Calving and Iceberg Evolution or CRACICE.

With California’s governor and a former Secretary of State on hand, Bloom Energy held its official launch. The clean-energy startup revealed some of its plans for making fuel-cell technology affordable enough for people to buy for their homes.

With roots in NASA’s Mars program, here’s what Bloom Energy says about its solid oxide fuel technology.

Derived from a common sand-like powder, and leveraging breakthrough advances in materials science, our technology is able to produce clean, reliable, affordable power,… practically anywhere,… from a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels.

The initial rollout is underway at big companies like eBay, Google and Bank of America but the plan is to get these generators to power homes in the near future.

Each year, scientists at NASA’S Goddard Institute for Space Studies analyze global temperature data. The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year since global instrumental temperature records began 130 years ago.

Worldwide, the mean temperature was 0.57°C (1.03°F) warmer than the 1951-1980 base period. And January 2000 to December 2009 came out as the warmest decade on record.

An ice-free Arctic in the summer may just be a few years away, according to preliminary Canadian Research that began during the International Polar Year.

And less sea ice this winter allowed the coast guard icebreaker Amundsen to spend the whole winter research season in the Arctic, studying the climate changes at are changing life in the high latitudes.

The federal agencies submitted their budget requests to Congress this week, marking a big moment for all things science. According to preliminary reports about $148 billion of the Presidents full $3.8 trillion budget is heading for scientific research programs.

Photo courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory

Millions of tilapia, an invasive fish species, have been wiped out. It has put a temporary dent in commercial fishing, but now biologists say other fish will have a chance to flourish. The tilapia has made its home in Florida lakes for decades since being first brought in to control out of control vegetation.

But the recent cold blast in the Sunshine state wiped out most of the tilapia in Polk County when water temperatures in Lake Hancock dipped below 50 degrees, leaving behind a stinky reminder of the harsh winter.

The sun is one-stop shopping when it comes to finding an unlimited supply of power. But harnessing light and turning it into electricity has proven to be a tricky and expensive proposition.

But if we could squeeze our huge thirst for power from the sun, one way to go may be something called “solar chemical“.

It uses a chemical process to break the bonds of molecules like water or carbon dioxide in order to create a solar fuel. Using solar energy to turn a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide into electricity and fuel would be a simple way capture that nuisance greenhouse gas and create a clean fuel at the same time.

Some people, including Bill Gates, are suggesting more funding for basic solar chemical research as one way to solve the ever present solar storage problem.

Much of the country and for that matter the Northern Hemisphere has been locked in an icy weather pattern that sent records tumbling and even forced Florida produce growers to seal oranges and strawberries in ice to protect them from frigid temperatures.

Some scientists are saying this is yet another sign of the extreme temperature fluctuations that climate change is bringing. Others are quick to dismiss this cold stretch as evidence of anything but a cold winter.

But there is a climate force at work. Called the Arctic Oscillation, scientists noticed that the air pressure that usually remains high at the top of the world weakened and became very low in December. That allowed the coldest Arctic air to flow south and cover large swaths of the Northern Hemisphere.

One thing is for sure. Science doesn’t do certainty. No matter how close a researcher gets to complete certainty there is always room to know more. Therefore uncertainty is a scientific fact. And we need to get comfortable with it.

From taxonomic tussles over classifying the giant panda to more controversial science like climate change and genetics, uncertainty is a driving force pushing science forward and opening up the opportunity for insight and breakthrough discoveries.

Dedicated environmentalists, or eccentric architects? Nearly a decade ago, the Jimenez family moved from the Colombian city of Cali to a humble home in the jungle made entirely out of paper.

They keep cool, cook, do laundry and demonstrate how to live off the grid by generating their own energy.

The last time a big volcano in the Philippines rumbled to life like this was in 1991. Within 60 days Mt. Pinatubo exploded sending the largest sulfur dioxide ever observed into the stratosphere. And that eruption alone offset global warming by cooling the average air temperature by one degree for almost 18 months.

The Philippines’ most active volcano could have a huge eruption within days, officials warned on Sunday. Thousands have been evacuated, and red-hot lava has already started to flow down the mountainside.

Many scientists are disappointed after two weeks of climate change negotiations resulted in a toothless agreement that didn’t limit carbon dioxide, the main culprit of global warming. The new Copenhagen Accord(PDF) did not cut emissions as previously thought, dimming some hope that a global treaty would help improve the climate.

Some are calling for Plan B just in case reducing emissions ends up being too little, too late. Intervening in the climate is considered a last-ditch effort if we find ourselves in dire climate straits. But now geoengineering is starting to get some attention as several top scientists are calling for new research initiatives and its inclusion as part of broader climate solutions.

Even former Microsoft technology guru and physicist Nathan Myhrvold thinks we need to start preparing for every eventuality.

Owning the Weather, panel discussion on geoengineering, from COP 15 in Copenhagen.

Artist rendering of blimps spewing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, courtesy of The Atlantic.

Matschie's Tree Kangaroo courtesy of Woodland Park Zoo

Climate negotiations over how to limit carbon dioxide emissions are heating up in Copenhagen. But one other important area negotiators are addressing — how to sequester existing CO2.

Climate sinks — like oceans, forests and permafrost — are natural solutions. But tropical rain forests are falling faster than they can be preserved.

One cute and cuddly (looking) tree kangaroo may become the unwitting ambassador for forest conservation.

Biologist Lisa Dabeck, from the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, is the director of the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Project, which has been able to set aside almost 200,000 acres of pristine forest, where the matschie’s tree kangaroo lives.

Here is the National Geographic tree kangaroo critter cam.

Here is the Lincoln Zoo tree kangaroo critter cam. (Sad news. One of the twin joeys died in September after falling from a branch in the exhibit.)

Nightline followed Dr. Dabeck to New Guinea in search of tree kangaroos. Here’s a link to Dan Harris’ report, which includes a roo named Dan.

Two Yeshiva University students are introducing science to religion in the wind tunnel of New York where powerful blasts of air rip down skyscraper lined streets. Wind power offers a new way to power Hanukkah.

On November 19, a computer hacker penetrated the internal e-mail system at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit and began posting 13 years worth of internal correspondence and documents online, in an effort to show that a small group of climate scientists has been deliberately suppressing important data and trying to block publication of papers that called their work into question. The resulting political firestorm is now being referred to as ClimateGate.

Most scientists agree that this controversy does not endanger the well-established theory that global warming is real and is already under way. But for those who deny global warming altogether this event has given them more fuel for their fire.

Here’s what primary British climate denier, Lord Christopher Monckton says in a summary of a new booklet he’s already written. And here is a reasoned response to those accusations from leading climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry, the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

As the Copenhagen Climate Conference opens tomorrow, it’s a good time to look at the information or misinformation that is flowing fast and furious across the online world and coloring the overall discussion of climate change.

NBCLA 4 interview with Dr. Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University climate scientist and author of Science as a Contact Sport. Dr. Schneider received the 2007 collective Nobel Peace Prize. Here he talks about the politics of climate change and the important role dissenters have played in advancing science for hundreds of years. He also distinguishes between climate skeptics — who have legitimate scientific questions — and deniers — who ignore a vast amount of evidence to push an agenda.

The Wallstreet Journal editorial page has taken the e-mails at face value and elevated this illegal hack attack to the level of an international scandal. Unfortunately, WSJ’s Kelsie Hubbard gets it wrong, including the name of the university that was hacked. It’s East Anglia not East Anglican. Dan Henniger says, “I think their stature and credibility has fallen and the rest of the scientific community has to realize what’s going on.”

Here is a CNN report that provides some background on the e-mail hack attack that send hundreds of private e-mails into the public domain and put new heat on scientists, who are now accused of faking climate data to make global warming seem worse than it is.

Here is a searchable database with all the hacked e-mails. Look for yourself and be sure to comment below on what you find.

Over the course of the next few weeks we are going to be hearing a lot about carbon emissions–the gas released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and a whole host of other human activities. While the catch-all is called “carbon emissions” they aren’t confined to carbon dioxide gas.

During the Copenhagen Climate Conference we are going to be hearing a lot about what will follow the Kyoto Protocol, the global treaty aimed at reducing carbon emissions to help reduce the effects of man-made global warming.

just as world leaders are getting ready to head to Denmark for a big climate negotiations conference that will determine the treaty to follow the Kyoto Protocol, a new scientific assessment is painting a dark picture of the future, based on recent climate science.

Though not an official report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 14 of the 26 authors are scientists who helped construct the scientific assessment in 2007. Since then, they felt that so much new data shows that the previous estimates were too conservative and the rate of global warming was significantly underestimated.

Here are some key points of the 64-page Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science (PDF).

Greenhouse gas emissions–namely carbon dioxide–in 2008 were 40% higher than in 1990.

The human induced global warming trend is still active, despite less solar activity and seasonally cool temperatures.

Glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets have been melting at an accelerated pace since 1990, especially on Greenland and Antarctica.

Arctic sea ice has been melting at a rapid rate, making parts of the Arctic ice-free in summer for the last three years.

Sea levels are rising much faster than previously thought–two inches in the last 15 years.

The report finds suggests that vulnerable elements of the climate system could push us past tipping points if emissions reductions are delayed. And in order to meet the globally-determined safe threshold of less than two degrees Celsius, carbon emissions must peak by 2015 and then rapidly decline to almost zero by 2050.

To underscore the importance of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, President Obama will appear during the proceedings on Dec. 9 to urge world leaders to reduce emissions right away.

Scientists within the most venerated science organizations in the United States are mounting rebellions against those organizations and their somewhat unified policy on the science of climate change–that it is real and being driven by human activities.

A group of several hundred of 47,000 physicists have unsuccessfully proposed new language for the American Physical Society.
It reads

Greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, accompany human industrial and agricultural activity. While substantial concern has been expressed that emissions may cause significant climate change, measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today. In addition, there is an extensive scientific literature that examines beneficial effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide for both plants and animals.

Studies of a variety of natural processes, including ocean cycles and solar variability, indicate that they can account for variations in the Earth’s climate on the time scale of decades and centuries. Current climate models appear insufficiently reliable to properly account for natural and anthropogenic contributions to past climate change, much less project future climate.

The APS supports an objective scientific effort to understand the effects of all processes – natural and human –on the Earth’s climate and the biosphere’s response to climate change, and promotes technological options for meeting challenges of future climate changes, regardless of cause.

On Tuesday, the APS decided to let its current national climate policy statement, which was adopted in November 2007 and reaffirmed last year, stand.
It reads:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms. The APS also urges governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

In October the 18 leading science organizations sent a letter (PDF) to the U.S. Senate, pledging assistance as the Congress enters deliberations to pass a law that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It reads:

Dear Senator:

As you consider climate change legislation, we, as leaders of scientific
organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view.

Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is
occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the
greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.
These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence,
and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of
the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong
evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on
society, including the global economy and on the environment. For the
United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal
states, greater threats of extreme weather events, and increased risk of
regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the
disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The severity
of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the
coming decades.

If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions
of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced. In addition,
adaptation will be necessary to address those impacts that are already
unavoidable. Adaptation efforts include improved infrastructure design,
more sustainable management of water and other natural resources,
modified agricultural practices, and improved emergency responses to
storms, floods, fires and heat waves.

We in the scientific community offer our assistance to inform your
deliberations as you seek to address the impacts of climate change.

Gary Wesche is counting the days. It’s down to 14 now before he heads to Antarctica as part of a scientific expedition. KMBC’s Bev Chapman reports from St. Regis Catholic School in Kansas City.

Wesche’s expedition to study ice sheets is organized by PolarTREC where you can follow Gary’s adventure.

Other teachers are embarking on similar adventures, Sarah Diers to study dissolved organic matter on the Cotton Glacier and Casey O’Hara will participate in cutting edge physics at the IceCube Neutrino Lab.

Engineers compete and test the potential reality of the science fiction concept of space elevators. The AP’s John Mone on why leaving the Earth, may not require rocket science.

Members of the Surui tribe in Brazil test Open Data Kit, photo courtesy of Carl Hartung, UW

Cell phones are coming to the aid of international health workers, environmental monitors and even citizen scientists. Now loaded with a data collection tool, Open Data Kit is the brainchild of some doctoral students at University of Washington.

But early deployment into the Amazon Rainforest and Tanzania will give the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December better information when it comes to global deforestation.

Measuring of the size of rainforests is helping to deter illegal logging practices that so often escape the watchful eye of satellites. Now on the ground monitoring is turning members of the Surui tribe into citizen scientists and helping them break into the emerging carbon market in Brazil.

They call William Kamkwamba “the boy who harnessed the wind.” At 14, after dropping out of school, the African boy in a rural Malawi village taught himself how electricity works, and built a windmill from scraps and pieces of a bicycle.

Now 22, Kamkwmaba has a book, detailing how he built his windmill and he outlines his plan for his next invention–a steam engine run by a solar oven.

Here’s an interview with the author at Amazon.com.

A little green frog is causing big problems across Hawaii, where the coqui has become the latest invasive species to get a strong foothold.

But Hawaii may be the only place experiencing a surging frog population. Around the world, frogs are dying in droves from a fungus called a chytrid.

What can we learn from the little coqui?

Evidence of global warming is hitting the Arctic harder than anywhere else. The rate of climate change is twice that of the rest of the world.

And, now scientists are discovering the Arctic region plays an important role in capturing atmospheric carbon, both in the ocean and on land.

But that delicate system might be in jeopardy as the polar ice caps melt, triggering a feedback loop of increased warming and melting.

As permafrost melts for the first time ever, there might be a big threat looming–methane–which could help convert the Arctic carbon sink into a big greenhouse gas emitter.

The biggest business lobby in the U.S. is pushing for the EPA to hold a public hearing to debate the science of global warming.

The move, calling for the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st Century, is proving too much for some chamber members, from big utilities to Nike and Johnson & Johnson.

Yesterday, the EPA announced it was moving forward with its plan to regulate stationary sources of greenhouse gas, including some 14,000 coal-fired power plants and refineries.

Now the ball is back in the chamber’s court and it’s time for it to decide whether it wants to sue the EPA and try to put the science on trial.

REALscience dissects the petition submitted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which reads like an anti-global warming play book.

President Obama Addresses UN Climate Summit

In what could be considered his most strongly-worded warning about the threat of climate change, U.S. President Barack Obama told the United Nations that there is little time to act before permanent environmental damage is irreversible.

In a stirring speech, he called upon Congress, scientists, engineers and citizens to take climate change seriously and work toward solutions to prevent the worst and adapt to the inevitable.

He also announced that the U.S. would begin tracking greenhouse gas emissions across the country and work toward eliminating long-standing fossil fuel subsidies.

Video of President Obama’s UN climate speech:

A Yeast Cell with Synthetic Genes, courtesy of Dr. Pamela Silver, Harvard Medical School

Life is often stranger than fiction. But the direction that biology is heading, synthetic life could be stranger than science fiction.

The emerging field of synthetic biology is moving closer and closer to creating new forms of life in the lab.

AltaRock Energy Site in California

After hitting a fault in Basel, Switerland and triggering a 3.4 earthquake that shook the city, Markus Haring shut down his project. In August German geothermal company Geox caused a few quakes and is investigating. And, in California, AltaRock Energy just suspended it’s exploration of an area north of San Francisco.

Is Geothermal energy too dangerous? Or do the small micro-seismic events resulting from drilling deep and fracturing hard rock relieve built-up pressure and prevent bigger quakes?

Science is still trying to decide. But the search for renewable power sources has led many to the core of the planet, where a seemingly unending source of heat can be found and captured.

Scientists on Svalbard near the North Pole are drilling one kilometer into the ground where they hope to store carbon dioxide, given off by a coal-fired power station.

The project is part of a new wave of technology designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming. This decade’s long study will determine if sandstone will act as a good container to keep the liquefied carbon dioxide underground for up to 10,000 years.

The University of Washington is spearheading a giant construction project to create a power and Internet grid along the ocean floor as part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative that will dramatically change the way we do ocean research.

The National Science Foundation grant of $126 million is the largest in the history of the university. And, $35 million came from stimulus money to accelerate the program which will start relaying real-time video across the Internet in a few years.

KING 5’s Lori Matsukawa reports.

Route of Ocean Watch Through the Northwest Passage

Ocean Watch, the 64-foot sailboat that also doubles as a voyage of scientific discovery is traveling over the top of North America, in an effort to traverse the rapidly melting yet still dangerous Northwest Passage.

The fabled shipping route has been long sought by explorers as a quick way from Europe to the far East. Thanks to a little help from Mother Nature in the form of climate change the passage is now passable for a few weeks each summer.

And sailors of all levels of experience are flocking to the far north in an effort to be part of an elite group traveling through this largely unexplored area.

Despite annual melting of the sea ice, sailing through the Canadian archipelago is a tricky business.

REALscience continues its coverage of the voyage of Ocean Watch as it makes an attempt to circumnavigate North and South America.

If runaway global warming gets the better of humanity, then some fairly drastic measures will be needed to stave off the worst effects. That’s where a group of futurists start talking about geoengineering some extreme solutions to the problem.

The latest plan to limit the effects of global warming comes in the form of reducing the strength of hurricanes, which get their power from super-heated sea surface water.

A group, which includes Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, has patented a device that will try to chill the ocean to slow or divert big and damaging hurricanes.

Is the science sound? or is this just another work of fiction?

With the money and influence of one of the richest men behind it, global warming may face a threat from a new force of nature.

Just over a year old, the Apple iTunes App Store is churning out–or rather independent developers are–applications to calculate tips, find restaurants and even play countless games. But there is little for the science-interested smart phone users.

Oh sure, among the tens of thousands of applications currently available there are a handful of sci apps but relatively few. The subject doesn’t even merit its own category.

But several lists have been generated, touting the few useful science applications currently available.

And, we’ve tried to separate the intelligent from the app crap.

Listen here.

A few Select SciApps:
Atoms in a Box
Molecules
EleMints
Starmap
Formul8
Genetic Decoder
Get All the Science
The Extraordinaires

The Extraordinaires–on-demand volunteering for citizen scientists

Story written and produced by Michelle Ma

The fabled Northwest passage that claimed the lives of many explorers including Sir John Franklin is now open to small boats for a few weeks each summer thanks to a rapidly changing climate in the high Arctic.

The 64-foot Ocean Watch sailboat is parked behind a 45-mile chunk of sea ice, waiting for open water to be among the first American boats to sail the fabled shipping route.

For the last two summers, ice-free conditions in the Canadian archipelago allowed smooth sailing across the top of North America for the first time. This year’s late and heavy winter is making navigating the passage more difficult this year. But sailors are certain the thick ice will melt enough to allow boats to travel successfully from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic.

For daily updates, follow the crew log aboard Ocean Watch.

Map of Northwest Passage

The western half of North America has been baking in a heat wave that shattered all-time records while the east coast is shivering in one of the coldest summers on record.

A giant ridge of high pressure and a giant low pressure trough that span the continent set up and became locked, creating a formidable weather pattern that has everyone talking.

And many are wondering whether the record-breaking 103 temperature is the first evidence of global warming in Seattle.

Listen here.

Whether the 64-foot sailboat Ocean Watch will make it through the fabled Northwest Passage–all indications point to yes, though–remains to be seen. But that’s what what voyages of discovery are all about. Follow the daily updates on the Around the Americas crew log and stay tuned for regular REALscience updates.

We talked to Captain Mark Schrader on Friday and he gave us an report on the first two months of the 25,000-mile circumnavigation of North and South America.

The first major sailing challenge, getting through the stormy Bering Sea, is a distant memory for the seasoned crew, as they prepare for a west-to-east transit of the Northwest Passage.

Listen here.

Photos courtesy of Dave Thoreson: cover, Captain Mark Schrader on ice duty, Ocean Watch crew playing soccer at Barrow sports field.

There appears to be a huge disconnect between the public and scientists, as evidenced through a Pew Research Center report that came out last week.

Science writer Chris Mooney, the author of Republican War on Science and Stormworld has a new book, titled, Unscientific America, showing just how un-science-focused most Americans are.

While the Pew report and Mooney both paint a gloomy picture of science in the U.S. there is still hope for a science rich future.

Are you science literate? Take this quiz and find out. (it’s only 12 questions.)

Listen here.

Scientists are starting to see jellyfish as a symptom of a sick ocean. More and larger jellyfish blooms are crippling fisheries that are already struggling. They are closing beaches and stinging bathers. But they are also moving toward the poles as the world’s oceans warm.

New research shows the threat to fishing, the monoculture of jellyfish and how the gelatinous critters can be used to gauge overall ocean health.

The crew of Ocean Watch, a 64-foot sailboat on a trip around the Americas is conducting a 13-month jellyfish survey to help fill in some of the scientific gaps in our jellyfish knowledge. They will collect samples–trying not to get stung in the process–and take pictures and video of the colonies they encounter as they hug the coasts of North and South America.

Listen here.
Photo: Jellyfish mosaic, courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/learnscope

WTNH meteorologist Gil Simmons explains why abnormal Connecticut weather may be caused in part by a volcano in Alaska.

It’s all about condensation nuclei.

British naturalist Dr. James Lovelock has some strong words for the world. The futurist warns that the Earth is a living organism that is undergoing massive changes.

He believes the Earth is sick and in order to heal itself it may need to get rid of a few billion people. But Dr. Lovelock delivers his dire message with a charming accent and the wisdom befitting his advanced years.

Some will be terrified by what he and other scientists are observing as the Earth gets remarkably warmer but Dr. Lovelock sees hope and opportunity to adapt.

Photo: Dr. James Lovelock, Town Hall Seattle, by Michael Bradbury

Some say to truly understand lightning’s power, you need to know the science behind it. The flash may be brilliant. That’s because a bolt of lightning packs a 10,000-degree punch and strikes an area no bigger than the width of a thumb.

As the thunderstorms of a balmy summer gather, here are some resources to stay clear of lightning’s wrath.

NOAA’s Lightning Safety page

how Lightning is Created

Types of Lightning

And, the odds of being struck by lightning? About 1 in 600,000.

In a move to take science from the lab and place it in the public square, the World Science Festival is about to start its second year of inciting curiosity.

REALscience talked with organizer and physicist Brian Greene to hear what we can expect at this year’s festival.

Photo: Physicist and Co-Founder Brian Greene
Credit: Suzie Horgan for World Science Festival

Listen here.

Buy Tickets (if you are in the New York City area.)

REALscience correspondent Richard Romano will have a full report from the festival next week.

Festival highlights:
Opening Gala to celebrate E.O. Wilson’s 80th Birthday.

Pioneers in Science, a discussion with Harold Varmus and Sylvia Earle led by New York City high school students.

Transparent Brain, a neurological exploration of how close we are to reading the mind of others.

Watching Wilson and Watson, actress Anna Deavere Smith’s trip down the rabbit hole and into the minds of these two mega scientists.

Notes & Neurons, a musical adventure with Bobby McFerrin (of Don’t Worry, Be Happy fame.)

World Science Festival Street Fair, an all-day outdoor science fair with the Math Midway, Discovery Labs, CSI, and much, much more.

As the Arctic heats up, indigenous people seem to bearing the brunt of global warming. The village of Kivalina, in northwestern Alaska is the latest victim and is being forced to relocate in a safer spot.

The village is suing the largest oil companies in the world–blaming the warming world on them. And, they are suing for damages in excess of $100 million. The lawsuit also includes conspiracy as one of the charges, which sets this suit apart from others that have tried to sue for global warming damages.

Greenpeace International has built a Web site called ExxonSecrets.org to show how the energy companies conspired against the American people to create a false scientific debate.