Here are some local science-related events coming up within the next few days.

Learning from China’s food system

China faces the challenge of feeding 22 percent of the world's population on 9 percent of its arable land. What does this really mean for China's farmers, the environment and the world?

And what can we learn from China's experience as we grapple with challenges of development, environment and hunger?

Jim Harkness, who lived and worked in China for 16 years, will examine the challenge of feeding China and explain why, despite two decades of dire warnings, China’s growing appetite has not brought famine to the rest of the world...yet.

Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis.

His talk, part of the Institute on the Environment’s fall 2010 Frontiers lecture series, is scheduled for noon to 1 p.m., Nov. 17, at 380 VoTech Building, 1954 Buford Avenue, St. Paul.

The road from Copenhagen

Since last year’s Copenhagen climate change conference, the world has undergone wrenching political and economic changes that could affect climate policy in the future.

Against that uncertain backdrop, environmental law Prof. Daniel Bodansky of the Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Conner College of Law is coming to Minneapolis to speak about the outcomes of the Copenhagen conference.

Bodansky will examine: Was it a success or failure? And what are the prospects for the United Nations climate-change regime going forward? Is an upcoming conference in Cancun this December likely to do better than Copenhagen? What are the chances for a new legal agreement on climate change, either to supplement or replace the Kyoto Protocol?

Bodansky has received a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship, a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs and a Jean Monnet Fellowship from the European University Institute in Florence. He currently serves on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law and is the U.S.-nominated arbitrator under the Antarctic Environment Protocol.

His lecture is the second in the 2010-11 Lecture Series on Law, Health & the Life Sciences on "From Climate Change to the Gulf Oil Spill: Law and Science in Times of Crisis." It is sponsored by the University of Minnesota's Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences.

The lecture, free and open to the public, is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Nov. 17 in the Mississippi Room at Coffman Union, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis. More information is available here.

Global temperatures are projected rise 3.5 degrees C. over the next 25 years, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, meaning that governments worldwide will have failed in their pledge to hold global temperature at a 2-degree increase.

But there's hope yet, says Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA).

If governments remove subsidies for fossil fuels and increase investments in renewable energy to make them cost competitive, then the Copenhagen Accord can still be upheld. The voice of guarded optimism comes just ahead of a summit starting Nov. 29 in Cancún, Mexico, for another round of climate talks.

“Renewable energies need substantial subsidies from governments,” Dr. Birol said in a telephone interview. “The important task [for governments] is to decide whether they will support energy renewables in the future. It could be bad news for energy security and climate change if they don’t."

None of that may be surprising, considering the 28-nation Copenhagen Accord signed in December 2009 was not legally binding and also fell short of recommendations from the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for how to prevent temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C. Yet if global warming is going to be curtailed, then governments must support the development and use of renewable energy.

“Renewable energy can play a central role in reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and diversifying energy supplies, but only if strong and sustained support is made available," IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka said in a statement upon Tuesday's release of the 2010 World Energy Outlook.

The IEA projects global energy demand to surge 36 percent over the next 25 years. As that happens, use of modern renewable energy sources will triple as their share in total primary energy demand increases from 7 percent to 14 percent, the IEA said.

According to current government commitments and policies, the IEA projects government intervention in support of renewables (electricity from renewables and biofuels) will increase from $57 billion in 2009 to $205 billion (in 2009 dollars) by 2035. Still, these current government policies “are collectively inadequate to meet the Copenhagen Accord’s overall goal of holding the global temperature increase to below 2 degrees C.,” according to the report.

As carbon dioxide emissions rise 21 percent to 35 billion tons, temperatures will rise 3.5 degrees C.

To keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C., the share of renewables among total energy use must reach to 38 percent by 2035, governments must end their subsidies on fossil fuels, and global demand for coal, oil, and gas must plateau before 2020.

The longer the world waits to tackle the issue the more expensive it will become. The IEA estimates the price tag of meeting the Copenhagen Accord pledges at $11.6 trillion through 2030, which is a $1 trillion increase from the IEA's projection once year ago.

NEW ORLEANS — The well responsible for the Gulf oil spill was permanently sealed on Sept. 19. Since then, little else regarding an event many consider the worst environmental disaster in American history has been so categorical.

The presidential commission investigating the accident is searching for what caused the explosion, but is not yet assessing blame. Government scientists are offering relatively positive observations about state of the Gulf, which are being vociferously questioned by some independent scientists and fishermen. The government also differs with oil industry economists on how much the now-ended moratorium on deep-water drilling hurt the Gulf economy.

The effects of the spill are so complex that they may not be fully known for years. But they are emerging.

What is known about the cause?

Investigators know that a huge bubble of flammable methane gas escaped the well and ignited after shooting up the drill pipe, past several seals that were meant to suppress it. How and why the gas escaped is one focus of the presidential commission looking into the accident and its implications for offshore drilling.

The commission's final report is due Jan. 12. A second report, by the US Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, will be available March 27.

So far, the three companies involved — Transocean (owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig), BP (holder of the lease for the well), and Halliburton (a contractor) — are engaged in a mutual blame game.

A BP report published in September suggests the explosion was the result of an interlinked series of missteps, including mechanical failures and human errors, among all partners. Transocean called the report "self-serving" and called BP's well design flawed. Halliburton said the report had "substantial omissions and inaccuracies."

Halliburton received its own share of blame in late October when the investigator for the presidential commission issued a report saying that the company had used a cement mixture it knew was unstable. The commission did not blame the accident on Halliburton's cementing job, though.

A lead investigator on the presidential commission reported this week that BP does not share sole responsibility for the accident, indicating that it was likely due to several missteps among all the partners. One example is the decision by BP and Transocean to operate the well after a pressure test suggested that it was not stable enough to handle the explosive gas and oil mixture.

Is the oil cleaned up?

The cleanup efforts — paid for by BP, directed by the US Coast Guard — continue in the Gulf, with about 9,200 workers and 200 local vessels. At the height of the crisis, more than 48,000 workers and 3,200 vessels were involved.

Oil is still being discovered along the shorelines of all four coastal states, even appearing in areas that were once cleaned, a frustrating situation caused by unpredictable tidal patterns.

In an Oct. 27 briefing, the oil spill response command said 93 miles of coastline had moderate to heavy oil. Two months earlier, on Aug. 24, that number was 135 miles.

There is no determination yet on how to define when the job will be finished. Officials say beach cleanup efforts will likely end by early 2011. But critics say that despite the cosmetic cleaning being performed by work crews, oil will continue to smear shorelines for the foreseeable future.

To date, BP has paid $11.6 billion in recovery costs, which includes cleanup and is part of the estimated $40 billion total it expects to pay.

What is the economic toll so far?

The oil spill particularly affected the tourism, seafood, and oil and gas industries of the Gulf Coast.

Revenue at Gulf Coast hotels in Alabama and the Florida panhandle dropped as much as 29 percent from 2009, according to the Santa Rosa Island Authority. But New Orleans expects its best tourist year since hurricane Katrina, and tourism in Florida is up 3.4 percent statewide.

For the seafood industry, only 4 percent of Gulf federal waters remained closed as of Oct. 29 — down from a high of 37 percent. But the spill could cost the seafood industry as much as $172 million from 2011 to 2013, according to a study by Greater New Orleans Inc., an economic development agency. The Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board reports that demand outside the region remains low.

The oil and gas industry and state leaders, meanwhile, have been at odds with the federal government regarding the effects of the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. A US Commerce Department survey found that 2,000 people directly involved in the offshore industry lost their jobs. By contrast, a study by Louisiana State University economist Joseph Mason said 8,000 people lost their jobs, and more would follow.

Industry officials also note that though the moratorium was lifted early, the US has not yet issued any new deepwater permits, raising fears of long delays. Thirty-three deepwater drilling projects in the Gulf were shut down by the moratorium. Three have since relocated to other countries.

What about water quality and wildlife?

Some 5 million barrels (205 million gallons) of oil entered the Gulf. Where it all is now is a question that continues to be fiercely debated. Federal officials first argued that the "vast majority" of oil is gone, but then had to backtrack. Different teams of independent scientists have reported that as much as 80 percent of the oil remains.

Some is on the surface, with local fishermen insisting that huge patches of weathered oil were still floating off the coast Oct. 23. Government scientists said tests showed it was an algae bloom.

Similarly, independent scientists have said that oil remains on the ocean floor and suspended in the water column in plumes. Government scientists say they have found only trace amounts of undersea oil.

Nearly 7,000 animals have been found dead, which scientists say is probably a small portion of affected wildlife.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — A runway in an otherwise vast, empty stretch of desert in southern New Mexico will soon become the starting point of weekly sightseeing trips to space for anyone who can afford the $200,000 ticket, and with NASA retiring the Space Shuttle, that might eventually include traditional astronauts as well.

This flat and arid landscape near Upham was named Jornada del Muerto — or Journey of the Dead Man — by the Spanish explorers who traveled through the area on horseback north from what is now Mexico.

Journey of the Dead Man is an ominous name to associate with a key piece of land in humankind's space-faring future. Yet, when Virgin Galactic's VSS Enterprise did a fly-by of the two-mile-long Spaceport America runway at its dedication on Oct. 22, it was more than just a step forward for space tourism. The commemoration signaled that the culmination of a 20 year effort is finally within sight and as NASA is soon to be dependent on Russia for space access, the timing may be ideal for its organizers.

"We are celebrating the world’s first spaceway at the world’s first purpose-built, commercial spaceport," Gov. Bill Richardson said in a press release. "New Mexico is not only helping to launch the commercial spaceflight industry, but we are launching new jobs and opportunities for the people of southern New Mexico. Today marks a significant milestone on our historic and exciting journey."

In the four years since New Mexico announced its $200 million partnership with Virgin Galactic, other spaceports in places like Oklahoma, Florida, Virginia and Alaska were green-lit as well. Yet many of these projects have either faded away or struggled to gain momentum, making Spaceport America possibly the world's most viable commercial spaceport to date.  

At the beginning of the year, Discover magazine named Spaceport America's pending completion as one of the top 100 discoveries that will change the world in 2010; the magazine also named the spaceport's groundbreaking last June in its top 100 for 2009. Rocket launches are already taking place, but Virgin Galactic could begin flights as early as next year.

While previous NASA policy shifts have left Spaceport America without a partner, the space shuttle program's end could force officials to rely on private companies to bring crew and cargo into low earth orbit and is expected to make the site even more important.

On Oct. 22, Virgin Galactic owner Sir Richard Branson announced that the company will seek to provide NASA with crew transport to the International Space Station. The current plans and licensing for the spaceport may only allow for suborbital access, but managers envision a day when both commercial enterprise and government agencies can make routine trips safely from New Mexico to orbit.

New Mexico intends to develop Spaceport America into a space tourism hub.

In 1990, a Stanford University graduate student named Burton Lee was working on a NASA project to find recovery landing sites for a commercial reentry space vehicle called COMET. At the time, his mother was living in the Las Cruces area. "One day I was just driving around and I saw there's obviously a lot of usable space out here," Lee said.

The site's founders alluded to many obstacles along the way including constant change in the commercial space industry, policy shifts from NASA, government regulations, local resistance and in-state political power grabs. Richardson and Branson took much of the hype at the ceremonial runway opening, but it's taken a much larger cast of engineers and advocates to bring the spaceport to this point.

Lee would eventually gather support from engineers and physicists at New Mexico State University's Physical Science Laboratory before proposing a commercial spaceport to be built in the area around White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. When he eventually wrote an earmark for then New Mexico Sen. Pete V. Domenici, it was just one sentence in a much larger budget bill, but would snag $1.4 million to study the area's feasibility as the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport.

"I was as surprised as everyone else when it actually came through," Lee said. "Up until that point it was just this kid from California and a few other people from New Mexico working on it."

The COMET program died when its first vehicle burned up 46 seconds after launch and NASA canceled any future missions, but by that time the idea of a commercial spaceport in the area had caught hold with a core group of enthusiastic people at New Mexico State University.

For more than a decade after that, contractor after contractor showed interest in a New Mexico spaceport, but advocates struggled to bring in a major partner. "The biggest thing is the $200 million," said Spaceport America co-founder Bernie McCune. "Where does that [the money to build the spaceport] come from?"

It wasn't until the Ansari X-Prize that they found their answer. The competition featured a $10 million award to the first private ship to reach space twice within two weeks.

According to Gutman, as soon as SpaceShipOne — the original model of the spaceplane now used by Virgin Galactic — was awarded the prize, the spaceport started pursuing a partnership. McCune was among those tasked with making a presentation to woo Virgin Galactic into choosing New Mexico as its future launch site.

Spaceport America administration set out to determine what Virgin Galactic was looking for and then put together a report based on that, McCune said. "Later we were told that nobody — meaning Florida or California — talked to them about airspace control or winds in the upper atmosphere," McCune said. "It was a marketing thing for California and Florida; we treated it as a technical challenge."

The spaceport's founders said taking commercial spaceflight seriously allowed them to attract the kind of successful private industry partners — such as Virgin Galactic and other companies who are already launching rockets — that other spaceport projects couldn't. This early lead could place Spaceport America in an ideal spot to take advantage of a transitional period for human spaceflight.

"It's New Mexico itself they're interested in, it's not called the 'land of enchantment' for nothing," McCune said. "From 20 miles up I think you're gonna see beauty like nothing else, because there's nothing out here. There's no cities, it's just open."

Here’s a fresh list of local science-related events coming up in the next few days.

Nano? Bio? What?

Nano...bio...synbio. How’s a person to keep track of all the new technologies bursting from labs these days?

The role of these emerging technologies in addressing pressing global environmental problems will be the focus of a lecture by Prof. Jennifer Kuzma of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

Questions Kuzma will address include: What is the right balance for using emerging technologies with unknown consequences when they show promise but also may present irreversible harm?  What is driving their use now?  Who should make decisions about their use in the future, and what should those decisions be based upon?

She also will present case studies, for example, of nanoparticles for pollution remediation and synthetic organisms for cleaner fuels.

The talk, part of the Institute on the Environment’s fall 2010 Frontiers lecture series, is scheduled for noon to 1 p.m., Nov. 10, at 380 VoTech Building, 1954 Buford Avenue, St. Paul.

Consequences of dams

The consequences, intended and otherwise, of the many dams built on rivers in the Midwest and across the world will be the focus of a two-day University of Minnesota conference.

The keynote speaker — Christopher Sneddon, professor of environmental studies and geography at Dartmouth College — is to set the historical context in a talk titled “Concrete Revolution: Cold War Geopolitics and the Proliferation of Large Dams, 1933-1975.” His research has focused on the political ecology of river basin development, primarily in Southeast Asia.

Other sessions will cover issues of dams and rivers from a variety of scales and perspectives, including governance and human rights in the Global South; dams as part of water rights and sovereignty issues for American Indians; the hydrological impacts of dam removal; and dams and culture.

The overall goal is to develop a research and policy agenda around the long-term future of dams and other large-scale engineered structures in rivers.

The conference, free and open to the public, is scheduled for Thursday and Friday, Nov. 11-12, at the university's Nolte Center, 315 Pillsbury Drive S.E., and the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory auditorium, 2 3rd Ave. S.E., Minneapolis.

Space is limited and pre-registration is advised. To register, contact the Institute for Advanced Study at (612) 626-5054. For more information, go here. 

Farms and clean water

Long before the recent flap over the University of Minnesota’s handling of the documentary film “Troubled Waters,” agriculture’s impact on water was a nagging worry.

The Citizen’s League had weighed in on the discussion with a report, “To the Source: Moving Minnesota’s Water Governance Upstream.”  It concluded that in order to address the kinds of water pollution problems we face today, we must set up environments where individuals, businesses, farms and other organizations work together with government for clean water.

This pulling-together model rests on the expectation that all of the diverse players can meet their own interests in the process.

Now, the League has organized a discussion of the model for the agricultural setting.

The featured speaker is Tim Gieseke, a farmer and environmental scientist who also is president of Ag Resource Strategies in New Ulm, Minn. Gieseke has developed an index that assesses a farm's impact on a variety of factors and gives them an overall "water quality score." This score opens up a way for the many people and entities working on a farm to communicate and helps them coordinate their efforts towards the goal of clean water.

The event is set for 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 15 at Aloft Minneapolis, 900 Washington Ave. South. There is a $5 charge for Citizens League members and $10 for non members. You can find more information and register here.

This year’s high school graduates were babies when the Hubble Space Telescope fully opened its sharp eye and treated us to unprecedented views of the universe.

It would be so easy for a new generation to take Hubble’s long gaze for granted. By now, it’s revelations regarding the evolution of the galaxies, the births of new stars and the mysteries of dark matter are standard material in museums and textbooks.

Thanks to a new film, though, that is opening today at the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Omnitheater, we can relive Hubble’s history — savor the dazzling images of the cosmos, sweat the mechanical challenges and applaud the astronauts who risked their lives to keep the telescope operating.

All in a mere 45 minutes!

Hubble & shuttle, fading together
This movie opens its Minnesota run at a critical juncture in the U.S. space program. Hubble depended entirely on the space shuttles, and now the two programs are winding down together.

The shuttle Discovery — the oldest active shuttle in NASA’s fleet — is starting its final mission but won't launch until next week after another delay today over a leak problem. Discovery launched the Hubble in 1990.

After more than three sometimes-tragic and often awe-inspiring decades, the shuttle program is set to make just one or two more missions and then shut down by next summer.

Meanwhile, Hubble’s replacement — the James Webb Space Telescope — is slated to launch in 2014.

The remaining shuttles, no doubt, will go to museums. As things stand now, Hubble will slowly degrade and slip out of orbit some 350 miles from Earth. Whatever parts survive the fiery plunge through the atmosphere will fall into the ocean.

Ideal time
The sum of these developments make this the ideal time to see "Hubble," the movie, to relive the history and celebrate the contributions this school-bus-size observatory has made to our quest to understand the cosmos.

The film’s best feature is the chance to relish Hubble’s imagery on Omnitheater’s giant screen. You travel across vast canyons of gaseous clouds, visit a star nursery in the Orion nebula and look back to some great views of planet Earth, too.

You also get a fresh slice of the life of astronauts on a mission. In footage shot by the astronauts themselves, you see the STS-125 crew aboard the shuttle Atlantis on their 2009 mission to repair and upgrade Hubble. The filmmakers trained the crew in advance of the mission to operate an Imax camera aboard the shuttle.

The scenes the astronauts captured alternate between the breathtaking (dangerous space walks) and the mundane (making a burrito in zero gravity).

If the film has a weak spot, it’s the cliché-ridden and cheesy script. Leonardo DiCaprio, the narrator, gushes that Hubble gives us a new appreciation “for the perfect utopia” we inhabit on planet Earth. Tell that to the earthquake victims in Haiti and the flood survivors in Pakistan.

Astronauts as icons for an era
Some of the video segments could be considered clichés, too, at this point in the shuttle program. How many times have we seen the parade of the orange-suited astronauts preparing to board the shuttle? How many ground-shaking launches of the shuttles?

I have to admit that I loved those familiar images, though, because I knew they were among the last original footage that Americans will see from the programs that have given us so many proud and wonder-filled moments for nearly half a century.

And the film’s final images of galaxies forming a dazzling array of cosmic light erased my irritations about the script.

The film was produced by IMAX and Warner Bros. Pictures in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. More information about show times and the film itself is available at the Science Museum’s website.

You can find more information about Hubble and the 20-years worth of the images it has captured at this NASA site. More information about the James Webb Space Telescope is available here.

VATICAN CITY — Some of the world’s top scientists gathered at the Vatican last week to discuss the scientific advances of the 20th century and their compatibility with religion.

The scientists are members of the Roman Catholic Church's papal advisory council known as the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. They largely agreed that modern science does not have to be at odds with religious faith.

In speaking to academicians during the conference, Pope Benedict XVI praised the achievements of modern science. He said that the Catholic Church "both encourages and benefits from" scientific research and told his audience that people must neither fear science nor hold it up as a panacea capable of answering all of our deepest existential questions.

"Scientific activity ultimately benefits from the recognition of man’s spiritual dimension and his quest for ultimate answers," Benedict explained.

But some scientists present said the Catholic Church must do more to convince people that it is not anti-science.

Catholicism's most sensational run in with science was its condemnation of Galileo Galilei for his support of Nicolaus Copernicus’ heliocentric sun-centered model of the solar system. Catholicism also took a dim view of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, initially banning books on the subject and then waiting more than a century to acknowledge the large amount of supporting evidence. Benedict himself has talked of scientists' "arrogance," and a close colleague of the Pope, the Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schönborn, created controversy in 2005 when he wrote an article in the New York Times that appeared to support the idea of "intelligent design" in nature.

The existence of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, however, allows the Catholic Church to interface with modern science. Set up originally by Roman prince Federico Cesi in 1603, the academy was reinstated in its current form in 1936 by Pope Pius XI to ensure that the Catholic Church is kept up to speed with modern science and briefed on topics of particular interest to the Vatican. The academy has had among its membership some of the most distinguished scientists of the 20th century, such as radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi and the founder of quantum mechanics, Max Planck. It continues to attract the cream of the scientific world. Its current 80 members include a host of Nobel Prize winners and other eminent researchers including National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins and the U.K.’s Royal Society president Martin Rees. Members are drawn from across the scientific spectrum, come from many different countries, and have many different religious beliefs and orientations.

Scientific quality is not the only criterion for membership. The pope accepts or rejects nominations from existing academicians on the basis of a candidate’s “high moral profile,” although it is not clear exactly what this phrase means.

UCLA Biological Chemistry professor Edward De Robertis said that his recent entry into the academy was only granted following a chat between a colleague of his and a priest who had been sent by the cardinal of Los Angeles to ascertain his moral fiber.

It has been suggested that Albert Einstein, a very conspicuous non-member, did not pass this test because the physicist had an extramarital affair.

The weekend meeting was held at the academy’s sumptuous headquarters, a 16th century villa in the Vatican gardens replete with frescoes and gleaming white marble. Inside, members discussed the scientific legacy of the 20th century, getting to grips with everything from particle physics and climate change to neuroscience and genetic engineering. There were also a few personal reflections on individuals' research, including that of physicist Charles Townes, who described to delegates the story of his invention of the laser some 50 years ago.

Biologist Werner Arber attended the meeting and said that he is confident that the academy influences the pope's thinking on science. He pointed out that plenary sessions have been the setting for important papal pronouncements, such as Pope John Paul II's statement in the 1992 meeting that the Catholic Church had been wrong to condemn Galileo.

Arber also believes in the impact of smaller meetings held by the academy, which are devoted to specific subjects such as genetically modified crops, nuclear weapons or astrobiology. He maintains that a series of meetings dedicated to discussing the definition of death helped the Vatican analyze the relative importance of the brain and the heart in this matter.

Townes too believes that the work of the academy shapes the pope's understanding of science. But he described Benedict as "maybe a little less responsive" than John Paul and "religiously conservative," pointing out that academicians had direct discussions with John Paul but have yet to do this with his successor.

Other members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences said that the Catholic Church simply refuses to discuss controversial topics such as contraception.

Even astronomer and priest Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti sounded a note of caution regarding the Catholic Church's place in modern society. He said that science and religion have never been in conflict, but that there is instead an "image of conflict, brought about by specific events" and believes that in order to combat this the Catholic Church must give priests a better education in science.  

Tanzella-Nitti said that only then will priests be able to "talk about God in a way that is credible in the 21st century."

Nature’s capacity to store carbon and thereby curb global warming is steadily eroding as farmers around the world seek to feed more people by opening more land at the expense of forests, says a new study led by researchers at the universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The tradeoff between agricultural production and maintaining nature’s carbon reservoirs — native trees, plants and their carbon-rich detritus in the soil — is more pronounced in tropical regions where ever more of the natural ecosystems succumb to the plow, says the study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 “This study is important, because it asks how we make tradeoffs between producing more food and sustaining key aspects of the environment, especially our tropical forests," said a statement by Jonathan Foley, director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, and a co-author on the study.

Carbon is one of the planet’s most abundant elements. It is present in all known life forms, and it moves naturally between the biosphere, oceans and atmosphere in a process that allows the element to be continuously recycled.

Humans have accelerated the process by rapidly converting carbon stocks in trees, other plants and the soil to carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. The problem is most acute in the tropics where forests act as massive carbon sinks because of their rich diversity and abundance of plant life.

This new study documents the problem in a comprehensive and fine-grained analysis of the world’s existing carbon stocks and global crop yields.

“We analyzed the tradeoffs between carbon storage and crop production at a level of detail that has never been possible before,” said Prof. Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin Madison, another author of the study.

“The main news is that agricultural production by clearing land in the tropics releases a lot of greenhouse gases per unit of food produced,” Carpenter said.

Compared to the world’s temperate regions, the tropics release nearly twice as much carbon to the atmosphere for each unit of land cleared, said Paul C. West, also of the UW Madison and the lead author of the study.

And when a forest is cleared, not only do you lose more carbon, but crop yields are not nearly as high as they are in temperate areas, he said.

“This creates a kind of ‘double whammy’ for a lot of tropical agriculture: we have to clear carbon-rich ecosystems to create tropical croplands, and unfortunately they often have lower yields than temperate systems,” Foley said. “In terms of balancing the needs of food production and slowing carbon dioxide emissions, this is a tough tradeoff.”

In the tropics, for example, for every ton of crop yield, carbon stocks are diminished by as much as 75 tons. Such attrition makes a strong case for intensifying agriculture on already-converted land instead of putting new fields into production.

But meanwhile, pressure to plant more land is growing fastest in the tropics because of burgeoning population, changing diets, food security concerns, and a rising demand for the raw materials of biofuels.

A huge sinkhole appeared this week in the central German town of Schmalkalden, swallowing a parked car and a garage door but causing no injuries.

The circular hole, which is about 98 feet across and 65 feet deep, appeared at around 3 a.m. Monday in a residential area, reports Der Spiegel, forcing the evacuation of 25 people.

Experts are pointing to natural causes for the hole, but they have yet to determine the exact cause.

Sinkholes are often caused by the underground erosion of salt beds or soluble sedimentary rocks, such as limestone or dolomite. Groundwater flows through these rocks, creating subterranean caverns that can suddenly collapse.

In the past year, large sinkholes have appeared in Guatemala City; Tampa, Fla.; Quebec; and Milwaukee.

Officials from Schmalkalden, a town of 20,000 that was formerly part of East Germany, say that they plan to fill the hole with gravel.

Here’s a provocative Election Day twist on the longstanding nature-nurture argument: Your DNA may play a role in determining whether you are politically liberal or conservative — whether, by extension, you’re inclined to vote for DFLer Mark Dayton or Republican Tom Emmer in Minnesota’s gubernatorial contest.

With caveats galore, researchers from Harvard University and the University of California San Diego report that a dopamine receptor gene, dubbed DRD4, appears to play a role in shaping political views.

It’s well established that children generally cleave to their parents’ political ideologies. And studies of twins have led scientists to think that as much as a third of the variation in political attitudes can be explained by genes.

In other words, something more basic is at play than the political rants kids hear across the dinner table night after night.

This new finding is the first to identify a specific gene-environment interaction that can be associated with the direction of a person’s political ideology, say the researchers who report their study in The Journal of Politics. Two of the researchers — UC San Diego Professor James Fowler and Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard — were co-authors of the acclaimed book “Connected: The Surprising Power of our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.”

Their latest findings were based on genetic data regarding 2,574 young adults who had participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The research team gathered information about the individuals’ social networks, political behavior, civic activity and political ideology.

Putting it all together, they found a complex connection: People who had a specific variation of the DRD4 gene and also had many friends in high school were far more likely to identify themselves as politically liberal.

They emphasize that the genetic variant “cannot by itself predispose someone to a liberal ideology.”

In other words, you couldn’t predict your child’s future political stripes by getting her DNA tested.

What it takes, the researchers said, is a crucial interaction of two factors — the genetic predisposition of having this particular gene variant and the environmental condition of having a lot of friends as an adolescent.

Seeking novelty

What is there about the dopamine receptor gene that might tilt a person toward liberal views?

The study doesn’t answer that question, but it does say that dopamine is one of many different neurotransmitters found in the nervous system. Genes in our cells carry codes for proteins called dopamine receptors which effectively act as dopamine’s signaling agents.

In particular, the DRD4 has been shown to play a role in a person’s interest in taking risks, seeking novelties and new sensations.

“People who score high on measures of novelty seeking have less tolerance for monotony and constantly seek the new and unusual (to them) in order to alter dopamine levels to affect mood; at the extremes, they are characterized as impulsive, exploratory, fickle, excitable, quick-tempered, and extravagant,” the study says.

On the other hand, it says, “People who score low on this measure tend to be more inclined to follow the rules...to be more reflective, rigid, loyal, stoic, slow tempered, and frugal.”

Well! You can decide for yourself whether those sets of traits square with your notion of what constitutes a liberal or a conservative. I know many a frugal Democrat and quite a few extravagant Republicans too.

No one gene acting alone

But the study’s authors stress that the findings are one faint point in the complicated picture that is the interaction between all of our genes and all of our experiences.

While the study doesn’t speak to the effectiveness of political debates and advertising, the researchers leave plenty of room for political tacticians to sway our votes: “Our findings do not undermine the rich body of literature that has developed regarding the environmental influences that shape political behavior.”

Further, they say we shouldn’t get too hung up on DRD4 or even on novelty-seeking: “Genetic effects take place in complex interaction with other genes and environments, and it is likely the combination of hundreds if not thousands of genes interacting with each other and with external stimuli that influence political attitudes and behavior.”

Their main finding goes beyond this one gene to a better understanding of the role physical heredity plays in political orientation.

“Perhaps the most valuable contribution of this study is not to declare that 'a gene was found' for anything, but rather, to provide the first evidence for a possible gene-environment interaction for political ideology,” they said.

Many large-scale studies of political behaviors have ignored the potential for genetic effects.

“In light of these and other findings, political scientists can no longer afford to view ideology as a strictly social construct, perfectly malleable and completely subject to historically changing circumstances,” they say. “Political scientists have a wealth of material from which to form hypotheses about potential gene-environment interactions that influence deeply held political ideas and values.”