"Complaints are everywhere heard that the public good is disregarded in the conflict of rival parties." — James Madison, The Federalist, No. 10 Gilbert Cosio stands with his feet spread, one foot higher than the other, astride a sloping, 100-year-old levee surrounding Bouldin Island, 40 miles due south of Sacramento, Calif. We're here to take a look at improvements that Cosio, a civil engineer, has made to this levee, part of a serpentine network of flood control infrastructure that was imposed piecemeal over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries on the largest estuary on the West ... Read More
Micro-Reserves Renew Life in Oaxacan Agriculture
December 29, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
In 2010, Mexico suffered "one of the most intense rain and hurricane seasons in its history, after having experienced, in 2009, the second-worst drought in 60 years," noted President Felipe Calderon during his opening remarks at the recent Cancun conference on climate change. How does this actually play in people's lives? Far away from Cancun, I visited a small community on the Oaxacan coast to find out. Although the municipality of San Pedro Tututepec looks like one of the many anonymous communities along the highway, it is unique in offering people hope. It is near Lagunas de Chacahua ... Read More
Next They’ll Tell Us Germs Can Dance
December 23, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Anyone who's ever visited a male collegiate dorm room can testify to the amazing properties of bacteria, but not even the guys in Animal House could have seen this one coming: Bacteria can stand up — gulp — and walk around. University of Notre Dame researcher Joshua Shrout, co-author of a new study with UCLA scientist Gerard Wong in the journal Nature, reports that he and his colleagues have observed very specific patterns in the movement of bacteria, which has important implications for the treatment of infections. "The significance of the work is that we show bacteria are capable ... Read More
Your Brain: A User’s Guide
December 22, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
In light of recent research into the workings of the mind, personal responsibility is threatening to become a casualty of science, and free will is looking like a frighteningly fragile construct. Our carefully considered decisions often turn out to be rationalizations for conclusions we have already come to on an unconscious, emotion driven level. Renowned brain researcher Antonio Damasio and veteran science writer Wray Herbert each address this accountability issue in their newly published books, and both come to the same conclusion: We're not off the hook. Herbert insists "we are capable ... Read More
Debunking Theories of a Terrorist Power Grab
December 17, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
You know all those doom-and-gloomers who get up before Congress and testify about how terrorists are going to attack America's electric grid, sending blackouts toppling across the country like dominoes? Well, here's what Seth Blumsack, a power-system expert at Pennsylvania State University, has to say about the terrifying prospect: "That's a bunch of hooey." Blumsack and his colleague Paul Hines at the University of Vermont have just published a report in the journal Chaos — and we can only imagine what the deadlines there are like — that refutes the drumbeat of warnings, many of which ... Read More