The temperature anomalies in the RSS dataset for the two most recent months of November 2007 and December 2007 are below the long term (1979-1998) mean. This is the first time that this has occurred since January 2000. It’ll be interesting to see how temperatures evolve over the next couple of months. Will the global temperature anomaly stay close to, or even below the average for a while, effectively resetting global temperature back to the levels characteristic of the mid-1990s—and wiping out a good 3 or 4 tenths of a degrees C of warming? Or is this venture to cooler than normal conditions just a short-lived climate fluctuation? If the pattern of temperatures during the past three years is any indication then perhaps the past two months are not an unusual fluctuation, but part of a longer period cooling trend. The next several months should shed more light on this …

A new generation of nuclear power stations will be encouraged to supply unlimited amounts of electricity to the national grid, The Times has learnt.

The Cabinet will give the go-ahead for the new building programme today and John Hutton, the Business Secretary, will announce the decision on Thursday.

He will pave the way for the nuclear industry to play a much bigger part in meeting Britain’s energy needs by making plain that there will be no limit on the amount of electricity it can supply to the grid. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3149243.ece

With a surfeit of the old and a shortage of the young, Japan is on course for a population collapse unlike any in human history.

What ails this prosperous nation could be treated with babies and immigrants. Yet many young women here do not want children, and the Japanese will not tolerate a lot of immigrants. So government and industry are marching into the depopulated future with the help of robots—some with wheels, some with legs, some that you can wear like an overcoat with muscles.

A small army of these machines, which has attracted huge and appreciative crowds, is on display this winter at the Great Robot Exhibition in Tokyo’s National Museum of Nature and Science.

The Japanese are delighted by robots that look human. Honda’s ASIMO can dance and serve tea. Toyota has a humanoid robot that plays “Pomp and Circumstance” on …

Claims that tropical forests are declining cannot be backed up by hard evidence, according to new research from the University of Leeds.

This major challenge to conventional thinking is the surprising finding of a study published today in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences by Dr Alan Grainger, Senior Lecturer in Geography and one of the world’s leading experts on tropical deforestation.

“Every few years we get a new estimate of the annual rate of tropical deforestation,” said Dr Grainger. “They always seem to show that these marvellous forests have only a short time left. Unfortunately, everybody assumes that deforestation is happening and fails to look at the bigger picture – what is happening to forest area as a whole.”

In the first attempt for many years to chart the long-term trend in tropical forest area, he spent more than three …

As adherents of moderate religious and intellectual trends within the Islamic global community, the signatories of this column view with dismay a report in The Washington Post of Dec. 16, 2007, on a “partnership” between the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). This new alliance was announced by the URJ’s president, Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, at his organization’s biennial convention in San Diego. 

We do not presume to judge the political or theological outlook of Rabbi Yoffie or his organization, except with regard to his and their comments about Islam. We, however, know the Muslim community, worldwide and in North America, and we do not recognize or otherwise support ISNA as a legitimate representative of mainstream Islamic believers in the West.

Rabbi Yoffie was cited by the Post in a number of statements with which we disagree. He said, …

Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy group, is seeking to win access to vast energy reserves in Nigeria in a move that will heighten concerns among western governments over its increasingly powerful grip on gas supplies to Europe.

A senior Nigerian oil industry official, who declined to be named, said the company was offering to invest in energy infrastructure in return for the chance to develop some of the biggest gas deposits in the world.

The Russian move is part of a courtship that saw Vladimir Putin writing to Nigeria’s leader, Umaru Yar’Adua, last year to seek energy co-operation.

Gazprom’s efforts are likely to cause concern among European governments anxious about their dependence on Russia for a quarter of gas imports. The country’s readiness to cut off supplies has alarmed EU governments.

“What Gazprom is proposing is mind-boggling,” the Nigerian oil official told the …

Seit vielen Jahren wird auf dem von mir herausgegebenen Wissenschaftsnetzwerk CCNet das Ausmaß und die Ursachen des Artensterbens am Ende der Kreidezeit, der sogenannte K/T mass extinction event, debatiert. Eine Reihe der wichtigsten Diskussionsbeiträge findet sich hier: http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/CCNet-K-T-Schulte-2006.htm

Wegen der enormen Popularität des Dino-Themas sind Massenmedien gerne dazu geneigt, von Zeit zu Zeit besonders sensationelle neue Theorien und Spekulationen zu verbreiten.  So etwa auch heute. Der interessierte Leser sollte freilich die Skepsis meines Kollegens David Morrison zu Herzen nehmen, der solchen Sensationsmeldungen wenig abgewinnen kann:

Saurier-Sterben: Die Fliegen sind schuld

US-Wissenschaftler haben herausgefunden, dass Insekten und Parasiten eine entscheidende Rolle beim Aussterben der Dinosaurier gespielt haben.

An der weit verbreiteten These, dass ein Meteoriteneinschlag oder Vulkanausbrüche den Untergang der Giganten befördert hat, hegen die beiden Wissenschaftler George und Roberta Poinar von der Oregon State University grosse Zweifel. Sie sind der Überzeugung, …

After years of secret preparation, the world’s cheapest car will be unveiled in Delhi this week - delighting millions of Indians as much as it is horrifying environmentalists.

At 100,000 rupees (£1,290), the People’s Car, designed and manufactured by Tata, is being marketed as a safer way of travelling for those who until now have had to transport their families balanced on the back of their motorbikes.

Ratan Tata, 70, chairman of the family-run business, who has spearheaded the race for a cut-price car, wrote on the company website: ‘That’s what drove me - a man on a two-wheeler with a child standing in front, his wife sitting behind, add to that the wet roads - a family in potential danger.’

But Tata hopes also to create a ‘new market for cars which does not exist’, making them accessible to India’s booming middle classes …