What's New March 21, 2008

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 21 Mar 08   Washington, DC

1.  EXOPLANETS: THE SEARCH FOR LIFE BROADENS.
The great discovery in astronomy at the beginning of the third millennium 
is that there are planets around other stars - lots of planets around lots 
of stars.  But is there life?  If there is it won’t be on HD 189733b in 
the constellation Vulpecula 63 light years distant.  A "hot-Jupiter" 
planet hugging the skirts of a star a bit smaller than our sun, HD 189733b 
is too hot and too massive for life.  Nevertheless, the detection of 
methane and water in its atmosphere, reported in this week’s issue of 
Nature, is an important step in the search.   Not that the presence of 
these gases tells us anything about life, rather it confirms the 
technique.  As the planet passes in front of the star the absorption 
spectra of the light at the rim of the planet gives its atmospheric 
composition. The measurement stretched the capability of Hubble’s near 
infrared spectrometer to the limit, but should be much easier with the 
more powerful James Web Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013.  

2. SOLAR SYSTEM:  NO EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE - YET.  
The search for life to which we are not related is the great science quest 
of this century.   Spirit and Opportunity are still hunting for the most 
likely spots on Mars.  In the highly unlikely event that Bush’s Moon-Mars 
proposal ever lands people on Mars, the first mission is unlikely to find 
life.  The odds of finding life, however, will increase sharply with each 
subsequent landing.   Any life they find is going to look very familiar. 

3. PEER REVIEW: COURT UPHOLDS CONFIDENTIALITY.            
The guarantee to reviewers of confidentiality is regarded by editors as 
essential to candid commentary.  Pfizer however, sued by patients who 
suffered serious side effects from the arthritis drugs Celebrex and 
Bextra, sued three major medical journals for their files related to the 
drugs.  Pfizer said they could be useful to its defense.  A federal judge 
in Chicago has denied Pfizer’s effort to obtain the files from two 
journals.   

4.  WATER: TOO LITTLE WATER, OR TOO MANY PEOPLE?
"More than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and 
two billion have inadequate sanitation."  So begins a special 
section “Water under Pressure” in this week’s Nature.  No matter what 
fixes science comes up with, they will in time be inadequate if population 
continues to grow.   Global warming, energy crisis, and clean water 
supplies are the current warning signs.    Before that it was hunger, but 
in a triumph of science, the Green Revolution turned hunger into a 
political problem.  The man most responsible for the Green Revolution, 
Norman Borlaug, said in his 2003 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance 
speech, "...we are dealing with two opposing forces, the scientific power 
of food production and the biologic power of human reproduction."   In the 
end, human reproductive instinct always wins; ask Elliot Spitzer.  
Reproduction means increased food production, that means irrigation, 
irrigation means wells, that means less ground water.  In coastal regions, 
the wells are  bringing in saltwater.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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