ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 699

Road Noise Takes Toll On Migrating Birds

Building a road through wilderness certainly has a visible impact on local flora and fauna—you're physically paving over a slice of what was once habitat. But roads have less obvious effects, too. Like the introduction of traffic noise, which also takes a toll. "You can see an oil spill but you can't see a traffic noise spill. So convincing people that it's important is a little more difficult." 

Heidi Ware, an ornithologist at the Intermountain Bird Observatory in Boise, Idaho. She and her colleagues studied the reactions by birds to the sounds of vehicles. And they did it without paving the great outdoors. Instead, they mounted 15 pairs of speakers on Douglas fir trees, along a ridge near Boise, and played traffic noise. <> They thus created what they call a "phantom road" through the wilderness, which boosted local noise levels 10 decibels higher than those in the surrounding forest.

Turns out just the sounds of traffic scared away a third of the area’s usual avian visitors, and cut species diversity too. And birds of multiple species were not able to pack on as much fat to fuel their migrations, when they were forced to dine to the soundtrack of traffic. 

Follow-up experiments in the lab found that, when it's noisy, birds spend a lot less time head down, pecking at food, and a lot more time scanning their surroundings. "You can imagine if you take away that ability to listen for predators, birds have to compensate by looking around more. It sort of wastes their time, right? Instead of spending their time eating they have to spend their time doing other things." The study is in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Heidi E. Ware et al, A phantom road experiment reveals traffic noise is an invisible source of habitat degradation]

Ware says Yosemite, Glacier and Rocky Mountain National Parks all have roads that are busy enough to produce these effects. And, short of closing park roads to traffic, she says things like rubberized asphalt and lower speed limits could help cut the noise. "Glacier National Park is going to put up signs, that instead of showing your speed and preventing people from speeding, it's going to show how loud their car is on the road." Which, hopefully, will continue to encourage wilderness lovers to leave no trace—visible or audible.

—Christopher Intagliata

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]

Carbon nanofibres made from CO2 in the air

By Jonathan Webb

Scientists in the US have found a way to take carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and make carbon nanofibres, a valuable manufacturing material.

Their solar-powered system runs a small current through a tank filled with a hot, molten salt; the fluid absorbs atmospheric CO2 and tiny carbon fibres slowly form at one of the electrodes.

It currently produces 10g per hour.

The team says it can be “scaled up” and could have an impact on CO2 emissions, but other researchers are unsure.

Nonetheless, the approach offers a much cheaper way of making carbon nanofibres than existing methods, according to Prof Stuart Licht of George Washington University.

“Until now, carbon nanofibres have been too expensive for many applications,” he told journalists at the autumn meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

Carbon nanofibres are already used in high-end applications such as electronic components and batteries, and if costs came down they could be used more extensively – improving the strong, lightweight carbon composites used in aircraft and car components, for example.

The question is whether the “one-pot” reaction demonstrated by Prof Licht and his team could help to drop that cost.

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The brutal fight of Bangladesh’s secular voices to be heard

Muni Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images

By Samira Shackle

In February 2015, Avijit Roy and his wife, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, travelled from their home in Atlanta, Georgia, to Dhaka, the capital Bangladesh. This was their home town, and they were attending the annual Ekushey book fair, which runs all month. They had been unable to attend in 2014 because Roy had received death threats after the publication of his book The Virus of Faith, which criticised religion.

The couple were familiar with controversy. They ran a Bengali-language web forum called Mukto-Mona, or Free Minds, promoting rationalist thought, and had been threatened by Islamic fundamentalists. During their trip to Dhaka, they avoided being out late at night, varied their routines and checked in regularly with relatives. For the first 10 days, the strategy seemed to work.

On 26 February, they attended a series of events at the University of Dhaka, where the book fair is held. They left in the evening, walking back to their car through a crowded and well-lit area. Suddenly, they were surrounded by a group of masked men with machetes. Ahmed doesn’t remember what happened next, as the knives rained down upon them. There were hundreds of people around, including police officers. They did not step in. After the attack, a young journalist intervened and drove them to the hospital. Ahmed survived, severely injured. It was too late for Roy, who died during the drive.

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Creating Change through Humanism

By Herb Silverman

Humanist leaders look for media opportunities to explain our positions to the general public, and are usually countered by decidedly non-humanist opponents. In his new book, Creating Change through Humanism, American Humanist Association Executive Director Roy Speckhardt describes one such exchange:

When the AHA ran the “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake” bus advertisements in 2008, I was called to appear on CNN Headline News opposite the demagogue Catholic League President Bill Donohue. Donohue had the audacity to call our open-ended question “hate speech” while simultaneously comparing humanists to Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler. He said that it was impossible to be good for goodness’ sake and that our ad was a personal attack on his faith.

Fittingly, that exchange appears in a chapter titled, “Prejudice Humanists Face.” I view the conversation be-tween Donohue and Speckhardt as a humanist version of “the good news.” The author’s gentle demeanor and rational arguments made humanists proud and earned respect even from many Christians who are continually embarrassed by Donohue’s victimhood rants.

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Woman Who Claims She Is “Allergic” To Wi-Fi Signals Given Compensation By French Court

Health and Medicine





Photo credit:

tororo reaction/Shutterstock

A court in France has ruled that a woman can claim a disability allowance for an illness, which she claims is caused by exposure to electromagnetic radiation from man-made sources. Known as electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), no scientific evidence exists for the condition described by the woman.

Ants Might Be Cheap, Effective Alternatives To Chemical Pesticides

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

Red weaver ants making their nest. PI/shutterstock

While some ants are considered pests themselves, weaver ants from the genus Oecophylla are good pest controllers that actually help improve crop yields for farmers. According to a new review published in the Journal of Applied Ecology this week, these ants are the best documented example of biological control on open farms. Their efficiency rivals that of chemical pesticides, and they cost less too.

Scientists Discover Enormous Sea Scorpion

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

An artist's impression of the sea scorpion. Patrick Lynch - Yale University.

Millions of years ago, something nightmarish scuttled along the ocean floor, something that we have only recently found any evidence of. And its fossil is monstrous. An ancient, giant sea scorpion, measuring over 1.5 meters (5 feet) long. Its closest modern relatives are the arachnids, such as the house spider.

Island Lizards Digest More Efficiently Than Their Mainland Counterparts

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

Adult Lacerta trilineata. Kostas Sagonas

For insect-eating lizards, island living means going hungry every now and then. To make the most of scarce food resources on isolated Greek isles, Balkan green lizards (Lacerta trilineata) have evolved a special digestive system that allows them to absorb nutrients better. The work, published in The Science of Nature, helps explain how animals are able to successfully colonize islands.

99% Of All Seabird Species Will Likely Be Eating Plastic By 2050

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

Albatross carcass found on Midway Island in the central Pacific Ocean in the 1990s. Image courtesy of Britta Denise Hardesty.

We’ve known for at least half a century that plastic debris in the ocean poses risks to wildlife. And now, according to researchers modeling debris exposure, 99% of all seabird species are likely to ingest plastic by 2050. The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.

Supreme Court Rules Against Kentucky Clerk in Gay Marriage Case

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

By Elisha Fieldstadt

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Kentucky county clerk’s request to deny gay marriage licenses on the basis of religious objections.

The court issued the one-line order without explanation.

Kim Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, “holds an undisputed sincerely held religious belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, only,” her lawyers had said in an application after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer that same-sex marriage was legal across the country.

Immediately after the Supreme Court’s June 26th gay marriage ruling, Kentucky’s governor, Steve Beshear, ordered all the state’s county clerks to comply with the decision and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

When Davis refused, citing her religious objection, couples seeking licenses sued, and a federal judge ordered her to comply. Last week a three-judge panel of the Sixth Court of Appeals agreed. The Supreme Court decision on Monday denied Davis’ request for a stay while she pursues an appeal.

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