All posts by LL

Blog, Indian Ocean

Malaspina Expedition: Gearing up

I’m joining the Malaspina expedition, a Spanish oceanographic cruise
circling the globe in the wake of Alessandro Malaspina’s 1789-1794
exploratory voyage (http://www.expedicionmalaspina.es). I will embark
on the Hespérides in Cape Town later this week bound for Perth, a
months’ voyage across the Indian Ocean, all told.

During the cruise I’ll be writing about the science and the scientists
for Nature. The blog posts should appear on The Great Beyond:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/.

I’ll also tweet about my experiences aboard @lucaslaursen
(http://twitter.com/#!/lucaslaursen), in the grand tradition of my
previous short-form reporting adventures: @apolloplus40
(http://twitter.com/#!/apolloplus40) and the Harvard Borkoldoy
expedition (http://www.harvardmountaineering.org/borkoldoy/updates/),
which took place back before Twitter even existed!

Got tips for me? This is my first long ocean voyage and my first time
in the southern hemisphere, not to mention the first time I’ve ever
had to buy a pair of steel-toed, calf-height rubber boots for a
reporting trip!

-Lucas

Earth Magazine, Features, Obertraun, Photos

Caves of Ice: The Next Frontier in Paleoclimatology?

It’s early June in the Austrian Alps. Tourists in shorts sweat their way up a trail from the cable car above Lake Hallstatt. But the summer heat doesn’t stop a group of scientists from pulling on brightly colored jumpsuits over their hiking clothes at the entrance to Mammuthohle, one of the many limestone caves that riddle the Dachstein Massif. Lukas Plan, a geophysicist at the University of Vienna, straps on his headlamp and pauses to warn the crowd of researchers about the cave they are about to enter. It won’t just be chilly inside, he cautions; it will be an Alpine meat locker.

The crowd, part of the fourth international ice cave workshop organized by a network of European geophysicists and glaciologists, is gathered to visit the cave’s year-round ice formations.

Plan turns toward the tunnel in the mountainside and opens the metal door. A rush of wind bursts out. The group prepares to enter, hoping to read the history of the region’s climate in the cave’s ice.

Continue reading Caves of Ice: The Next Frontier in Paleoclimatology? →

Nature, News

Peruvian biologist’s defamation conviction overturned

A defamation case that hinges on a dispute over the presence of genetic modification in Peruvian maize crops, and that has attracted international attention, has moved back to square one — with a twist.

Biologist Ernesto Bustamante Donayre was last April found guilty of defamation — a criminal offence in Peru — for publicly criticizing a report published by a fellow biologist. Last month, however, the conviction was overturned: the appeal judge found that a lower court had not demonstrated that Bustamante had sufficient motivation to harm or defame his alleged victim. A recent government study of the crops in question may shape the outcome of any subsequent proceedings, Bustamante says.

Continue reading Peruvian biologist’s defamation conviction overturned →

Features, Madrid, Nature Outlook

Big science at the table

José Ordovas sips a mint tea in a languid café in Madrid, Spain. His eyes scan two mobile phones as he confirms his next appointments. In conversation, he switches effortlessly between Spanish and English to find the right expressions. If the geneticist seems to be moving on a different wavelength from the other patrons, he could blame it on the jet lag: he has just flown from Boston where it’s now 5am. This is his third overseas trip this month, but Ordovas contends his frequent visits from Tufts University, where he’s based, to Europe have no adverse effects. “For me the time difference doesn’t matter, I’m up at 4am to make calls to Europe when I’m home anyway, and then I’m up late on calls to California,” he says.

Ordovas embodies the hustle and bustle of the ‘big science’ approach that has changed nutrition research in the past decade. This field, once confined to small groups of researchers studying the effects of single nutrients — such as particular vitamins or proteins — on a few dozen volunteers, is now adopting the heavy-lifting tools developed for genetics and pharmaceutical research. It also has a catchy name: nutrigenomics. And the more that researchers learn how our genes interact with our diet, the more they appreciate the deeper insight gained by an interdisciplinary approach. Such knowledge could lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease or, for example, improve the design of weight-loss diets.

Continue reading Big science at the table →