Magic Statistics

And not a moment too soon.

In research recently completed at Emory University School of Medicine, scientists have discovered a mutant enzyme that could enable plants to use and convert carbon dioxide more quickly, effectively taking more of that gas out of the atmosphere.
. . .
During photosynthesis, plants and some bacteria convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into usable chemical energy. Scientists have long known that this process relies on the enzyme rubulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, also called RuBisCO. While RuBisCO is the most abundant enzyme in the world, it is also one of the least efficient. As Dr. [Ichiro] Matsumura [assistant professor of biochemistry at Emory University School of Medicine] says, "All life pretty much depends on the function o[f] this enzyme. It actually has had billions of years to improve, but remains about a thousand times slower than most other enzymes. Plants have to make tons of it just to stay alive."

RuBisCO's inefficiency limits plant growth and stops organisms from using and assimilating all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, even as the amount of gas in the atmosphere continues to grow. The resulting gas buildup is one cause of global warming.

Basically, what they did was engineer a genetic mutation of RuBisCO to make it far more efficient at assimilating carbon dioxide.

Read the whole thing.

via Faith-Science News from The American Scientific Affiliation.

But of course! [slaps forehead] Now it all makes sense. Avian flu virus and other diseases have been developed by wily Zionist scientists specifically to attack genes carried only by Arabs. A column by Abd Al-Rahman Ghunaym, published on 31 January in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra finally pulled the curtain back on this nefarious plot. MEMRI has the goods.

Israel may have planted the virus in East Asia in order to mislead the world, and . . . this is why the disease first appeared in that remote region. Another possibility given is that the virus was created to attack the yellow race - especially in China and Vietnam which are rising powers threatening American hegemony over the world.

Where would the Muslim world be without investigative reporting of this calibre?

via The Free West, which praises the columnist as one of the finest among many high-quality science journalists writing for the Syrian press.

Global warming hits the North hard. Arctic sea ice is quickly melting away according to scientists from nearly a dozen nations attending the meeting of the Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study in Winnipeg. In fact, some say, the Arctic may be ice-free during summer within fifteen years.

Scientists say dramatic recent melting of sea ice in the Arctic may lead to the lowest level yet of ocean ice cover in the Arctic this summer, and warn drastic changes to the northern ecosystem could result.
. . .
University of Manitoba sea-ice specialist Dr. David Barber estimates that the sea-ice cover in the Arctic is now decreasing by 74,000 square kilometres a year. He says last year the extent of Arctic sea ice shrunk to the lowest level recorded by satellites, to a minimum he says that has never been seen before in modern times.

Let's see: 74,000 square kilometres. That’s more than the surface area of Lake Huron, but not as much as that of Lake Superior.

The last time the Arctic was ice-free was over a million years ago.

A news broadcast on a local Whitehorse radio station (transcript not available online) provided some confounding details.

[Dr David] Barber says there’s no way to reverse the warming trend and there are many signs it’s actually speeding up. Louis Portiere, a researcher from Université Laval in Quebec City who led the study says the Kyoto Accord is only a small first step and countries will need to go well beyond that to tackle the problem.

Dr Barber says the warming trend is too far advanced to reverse, but Mr Portiere says we need to go beyond Kyoto to "tackle the problem". Well, fellas, which is it? In any case, Canada is not going to meet its 2008 Kyoto target. So, wouldn't Canada be better off preparing to adjust to climate change, rather than expending resources in a losing battle to avert it?

Fortunately, there is a bright spot for the soon-to-be-formerly-frozen North.

Simon Prinsenberg, who's with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Halifax, says less ice could be positive for northern economies. "A lot of people think that with less ice we might see more fisheries up there and since there's less ice it's also easier to get up there," he says.

Other economic benefits are mentioned here.