A tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean is finally up and running a year and a half after the devastating tsunami that claimed over 200,000 lives in the region. The United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which oversees the project, made the announcement last Wednesday. The system includes 26 national tsunami information centers, 25 new seismographic stations and three deep-ocean sensors.
On June 21, 300 scientists at a United Nations conference in Tunis called on governments to make fighting desert spread a "major priority." The phenomenon threatens some 250 million people on five continents and has the potential to affect up to 1.2 billion people in the world's 110 poorest countries. The UN emphasized that only through more widespread scientific understanding can desertification be effectively managed.
Princeton scientists have found that the circulation of waters around Antarctica may regulate the planet's absorption of carbon dioxide. When water wells up, the researchers found, it forms two streams—a northern stream that provides nutrients to the world's oceans and a southern stream that acts as a carbon sink by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air. The finding could help explain past fluctuations in greenhouse gases and provide scientists with new ways to combat global warming.
Europe Goes Nuclear
Gordon Brown, Britain's finance minister and Tony Blair's likely successor as leader of the Labor Party, declared on June 21 that if he becomes Prime Minister he will ensure Britain's continued status as a nuclear power. Britain currently controls four nuclear-armed submarines equipped with US-built Trident missiles. The missiles will become unusable around 2020 due to the decay of their nuclear fuel, so Brown said he would spend billions of pounds on new weapons.
The United States gave a European-led consortium permission to build a uranium enrichment plant on US soil—the first in 30 years. Work on the facility, which will be located in Eunice, New Mexico, is scheduled to begin in August and may finish in 2009. The new plant already has contracts worth three billion dollars.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that the government will spend $170 million over a three-year period to make solar energy cost competitive by 2015. Samuel Bodman, the DOE secretary, said the move is part of President Bush's commitment to diversify America's energy resources through grants, incentives for private businesses and tax credits.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) announced on June 21 that by applying currently available clean energy technologies, the world could cut its oil and electricity consumption in half. Technologies recommended by the IEA include carbon capture and storage, renewable energy and nuclear energy. The IEA called for improved energy efficiency as essential to slowing consumption.
Comings and Goings
The International Astronomical Union has officially approved the names of the two recently discovered Plutonian moons: Nix and Hydra. In Greek mythology, Nyx is the goddess of darkness and night, and Hydra is a many-headed serpent. The spelling of the former was changed because an asteroid already bears the name Nyx. Scientists discovered the moons using the Hubble Space Telescope. The group chose a name beginning with an h, Hydra, in honor of Hubble.
Harriet the tortoise, who is believed to have traveled with the legendary Charles Darwin, died last week in an Australian zoo. She was 176 years old. Harriet was about the size of a dinner-plate during the 1835 voyage with Darwin, but her final weigh-in put her at a substantial 330 pounds. While undeniably old, Harriet falls short of oldest creature ever recorded— that honor goes to a Madagascar radiated tortoise named Tu'i Malila who died in 1965 at the age of 188.