DAILY QUICK READ - SEPTEMBER 23, 2016

On Thin Ice

The United States may be on its way to electing a president who thinks global warming and climate change are hoaxes.  If Trump wins, it is likely Republicans will control both houses of Congress and potentially achieve a Supreme Court majority as older justices retire.  So, all three branches of the U.S. government would then be dedicated to climate change denial.  We are so screwed it this happens.  Oh, by the way scientists have discovered the rate of ice sheet melt in Greenland is much worse than the very bad original projections.

Researchers have been tracking Greenland's ice sheet melt by measuring the shrinking mass of the island via satellite. It now seems there was an error in measurement. A new study published in the journal Science Advances finds the ice is melting 7 percent faster than previously thought.

Scientists use satellites to map Earth's gravity field, gathering information about the distribution of mass around the globe. Earth doesn't exert gravity equally in all directions. Where there is more mass, satellites detect a stronger gravitational pull.

Using satellite data, scientists can measure various geophysical phenomena, including the melt of the Greenland ice sheet. As ice dissolves, the island loses mass and exerts a weaker gravitational pull—at least that's the idea.

Mall Animals

While the world’s best zoos are under fire for keeping wild animals captive, the Chinese have been industriously laboring to turn a wide variety of wild creatures into shopping mall attractions. Which is worse – highly dedicated professionals working to save entire species or shopping mall proprietors stuffing whales, wolves and polar bears into mall displays to attract a few more shoppers?

The Grandview, a glitzy shopping mall in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is home to the “world’s saddest polar bear,” three-year-old Pizza. Pizza was brought to the world’s attention in March by NGO Animals Asia, which published a video of her lying on the ground, blinking morosely as visitors banged on the glass, aspiring for the perfect selfie.

It’s part of a huge investment by the mall to attract new visitors that’s being replicated across southern China. Exotic animals, and particularly ones that naturally live in cold weather and icy waters, have become key attractions at southern Chinese private businesses including amusement parks, malls, restaurants and even new resorts.

Even as animal parks in the west move away from keeping large sea creatures in captivity, or allowing humans to interact with them, these new businesses in China are stocking up on rare whale sharks and arranging penguin encounters. And because China has no laws that dictate how animals should live in captivity, and awareness about animal welfare is in its infancy, many of these animals are living in unnatural conditions that are making their lives miserable, animals rights activists say.

Humans are the only species that really doesn’t belong on this planet.

Cats…The Anti-Dog

You knew that when scientist began to conclude than humans would still be hunter gathers living in isolated tribes, that cat people would demand some credit to cats. Sad situation.

Cat populations seem to have grown in two distinct waves. First, Middle Eastern wildcats expanded with early farming communities to the eastern Mediterranean some 12,000 years ago. Presumably, newly founded grain stockpiles became infested with rodents and cats helped purge the pests earning their keep alongside humans.

Rat hunts will begin soon.  Right.

It’s not clear when cats became domesticated but the Egyptians might have had the first some 6,000 years ago. From Egypt, the felines rapidly expanded across the rest of Africa and Eurasia. For instance, a mitochondrial line common in Egyptian cats from the fourth century B.C.E. was found in cat DNA collected from samples in Bulgaria, Turkey and sub-Saharan Africa from around the same time. This was the second major wave of feline expansion. Cats made their way along with sea-faring people too, as evidenced by DNA found on a Viking site dating to between the eighth- and eleventh-century A.D. in northern Germany.

Rats Pants

The Ig Nobel prize isn’t just a funny, quirky event.  Some of this research is really interesting.  The rats pants experiments explain why polyester pants are no longer popular – natural selection, rules.

Investigations into rats wearing pants, the personalities of rocks and the truthfulness of 1,000 liars won Ig Nobel prizes on Thursday night at Harvard, where Nobel-winning scientists gathered to honor the strangest research of the year.

The ceremony, now in its 26th year, delivered a $10tn Zimbabwean bill (about 40 cents in US money) to winners. Those who traveled to Boston received their prizes from Nobel laureates: chemist Dudley Herschbach, economist Eric Maskin, Dr Rich Roberts and physicist Roy Glauber.