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Bangladesh's sea walls may make floods worse

BANGLADESH is one of the countries at most risk from climate change, as it is low-lying and
could be swamped by rising seas particularly if they rise by several metres (see "Ice sheets
on course for collapse"). Now it seems the very embankments built to protect its people could
be making them more vulnerable to floods.
Bangladesh is about to upgrade 600 kilometres of coastal embankments in
the Sundarbans delta region in its south-west. It is using $400 million from the World Bank.
The bank says the upgrade will "build resilience to climate change".
But British geomorphologist John Pethick says the upgraded embankments will put millions at
risk. He has angered Bangladeshi scientists by arguing that coastal defences in the
Sundarbans delta are doing more harm than good.
In the past 50 years, Bangladesh has built 4000 kilometres of embankments along the coast.
About 30 million people live on polders land enclosed by embankments or in areas
earmarked for poldering. Most of them are fishers or farmers. Many don't own their land, and
must move around as shifting tides move the sand bars on which they live.
The area's low-lying river deltas are disappearing beneath the waves faster than can be
explained by global sea level rise. Conventional thinking points the finger at land subsidence,
but Pethick has evidence that the embankments are the problem.
"Embankments create floods if you don't do them right. That has certainly been the case in
Bangladesh," says Colin Thorne of the University of Nottingham in the UK, who wasn't
involved in Pethick's research.
With Julian Orford of Queen's University Belfast in the UK, Pethick found that on the Pussur
estuary, high tides are rising 16 millimetres a year, five times faster than mean sea level.
That is partly because the delta is subsiding. But the pair say the embankments must take
much of the blame. They constrict the width of the delta's estuaries. As the same volume of
water now has to pass through a narrower channel, high tides rise higher, causing deeper and
more widespread floods (Global and Planetary Change, doi.org/s8h).
Pethick says this funnelling effect causes many of the rising tides. He calls flooding in the
Sundarbans "mainly a self-inflicted wound", and advocates both abandoning some of the
polders and setting embankments further back from estuaries to reduce the funnelling effect.
The findings are controversial. Bangladeshis don't want to give up land to rising tides, and
local scientists complain that Pethick's analysis relies on only three tidal gauges.
"I do think that the data show an increase in the tidal range, and the impact of poldering is a
reasonable explanation," says Michael Steckler of Columbia University in New York. He is
making the first GPS measurements of sea levels in the area.
Tidal amplification is common in estuaries and river deltas around the world, agrees coastal
engineer Marcel Stive of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Despite Pethick's work, Bangladesh is going ahead with upgrading the embankments. The
World Bank's Bangladesh director, Johannes Zutt, says Pethick's findings will be taken into
account.

Unique California dataset links pesticides to
autism
Light the blue touchpaper and stand back. The environmental autism debate is about to catch
fire again.
Children of women exposed to organophosphate pesticides during pregnancy were about two-
thirds more likely to develop autism spectrum disorders than children of women not exposed,
claims a study from the University of California Davis MIND Institute. However, other
researchers have questioned the robustness of the results.
Opinion is polarised over whether or not environmental toxins have a role in autism. The
greater Sacramento area in California provides a unique opportunity to study the link because
of the wide variety of agricultural pesticides used and the strict monitoring regulations. Farm
workers have to report the chemicals they use as well as the day and exact GPS location.
A team led by Irva Hertz-Picciotto mapped the locations of the homes of nearly 1000 families
who had a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), another developmental disorder or
had developed normally. The data used had been collected as part of the separate
ongoing CHARGE (Childhood Autism Risks from Genes and Environment) study that aims to
look at a range of factors that may contribute to autism.
Families mapped
The researchers then drew circles with varying radii around the homes to identify how close
they were to sites where four classes of pesticide had been used during the mother's
pregnancy.
Around one-third of mothers lived within a 1.5 kilometre radius of such a site during pregnancy.
When the results were adjusted to take account of parental education, prenatal vitamin intake
and other variables, the researchers found that homes closest to the pesticide sites were more
strongly associated with the unborn child subsequently developing ASD.
For example, women living 1.5 kilometres away from sites where organophosphates the
most toxic pesticide of the four were used were 54 per cent more likely to have a child with
ASD than those not exposed. For pyrethroids, a commonly used pesticide, women were 41
per cent more likely to have a child diagnosed with ASD. It is estimated that in the US 1.5 per
cent of children have ASD.
The findings don't prove that pesticide exposure causes autism but Hertz-Picciotto says they
strengthen an association found by two earlier, smaller studies.
Pesticide culprits
"We are missing the boat if we don't look at environmental factors for autism," says
epidemiologist Joseph Braun at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who was not
involved in the study but has carried out similar work. He says a recent study from Sweden
found that genetic and non-genetic factors each contribute about half the risk for autism.
"A major strength of the study is that they identified specific pesticides that could be culprits,"
says Andrey Rzhetsky of the University of Chicago, who recently carried out a large study on
the environmental contributions to autism.
David Coggon from the University of Southampton in the UK suggests that other chemicals,
such as those used within the home, could also play a role. "If it is true that most exposure is
from other sources, then the reported correlation between agricultural use and developmental
disorders is likely to be spurious," he says.

Roadkill app tracks animal deaths in car collisions
An estimated 1 million animals are killed by cars each day in the US, costing the nation around
$8.4 billion annually. Despite the magnitude of the problem, tracking and analysing those
fatalities is difficult. A new app could help.
The app was born out of necessity, says Daniel Olson, a wildlife biologist at Utah State
University who took on the task of sorting through all of the state's roadkill data for his
dissertation. Traditionally, state contractors collect such information with old-fashioned pen
and paper, and then manually enter it into a digital database. They use mile markers to roughly
estimate location, and if a map was needed, they had to import entries into a database. Semi-
legible handwriting, lost notes and formatting mix-ups meant frequent errors. "It was my job to
make sense of all of it, but it was really hard," Olson says.
Other groups have developed electronic systems to track roadkill, but those sites and apps
require mobile broadband internet rarely available in rural areas and location entries have to
be entered by hand. To increase efficiency and accuracy, Olson and his colleagues designed
a smartphone app that seamlessly loads GPS-tagged entries into a central database that can
be accessed through a website, both in text and map form.
Olson and his colleagues recruited around 50 state employees to test the app. For one year,
the contractors conducted twice-weekly patrols over 1700 miles (about 4 per cent of the state's
roads). They recorded nearly 7000 animals. The app reduced the normal data entry error rate
about 10 per cent to virtually zero, while location errors decreased by 99 per cent. The
increased efficiency also saved around 150 hours of work.
"This is an elegant way of presenting this kind of tool," says Fraser Shilling, co-director of the
Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis. "Understanding where these
wildlife-vehicle collisions occur allows us to try to prevent them."
The data recorded by the app can be used to pinpoint the most effective places for building
fences or wildlife crossings, Olson says. Or it could be used to design a warning system that
alerts drivers when they are entering a wildlife crossing hot zone.
For now, only Utah state workers are using the new app, but Olson hopes to offer it to
everyone eventually. "If we want a complete handle on what is happening," he says, "we'll
need to extend it to citizen scientists."


Robots can grip anything thanks to hands that can
see
Robots sent in to clean up disaster zones like the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan need a
strong, secure grip. A robotic hand that can "see" in three dimensions could help.
London-based Shadow Robot is testing its Dexterous Hand with a Kinect depth-sensing
camera that would allow it to analyse the 3D shape of any object a mobile robot is focusing on
- or which is being held out to it by a human. Software then builds a 3D computer model of the
approaching object and works out the arrangement of the four fingers and thumb that will most
securely grip the object.
Developed by Shadow Robot and King's College London with funding from the UK Technology
Strategy Board, the technology is being demonstrated at theAutomatica 2014 robotics
exhibition in Munich, Germany, this week.
In an exclusive demonstration for New Scientist, it was fascinating to see the visual "thought"
processes underway on a screen beside the hand. As an object approached the hand -
whether a delicate light bulb, a tough metal drinks flask or a copy of New Scientist (see video)
- the software not only scanned its shape but also estimated its position, with a large 3D arrow
representing the way up it thought the object was.
"Once it has seen an object, and worked out its orientation with respect to itself, it works out
the best way to grasp it," says Shadow Robot's head of operations, Gavin Cassidy. "Even
when it is holding the object it continually monitors the stability of the grasp using its pressure
and touch sensors."
This means that if a small piece of fruit is offered to it, the system will just use two fingers and
a thumb to hold it in a light, almost genteel fashion. But a larger object will get the full four
fingers and thumb in a wraparound grasp. Once an object has been identified by the system it
can be placed in an archive to speed recognition the next time around, says Mark Addison, a
Shadow Robot software developer.
For test purposes, the system uses an external depth-sensing camera close to the hand. But
the aim is to build a microchip-sized high resolution depth camera into the hand itself, says
Cassidy.
That makes sense, says Tony Belpaeme, a robotics researcher at Plymouth University, UK.
He says that similar systems using a depth camera at a distance sometimes can't get the full
picture of the target object. "So your grasp might be right for the part of the object you can see,
but wrong for the 'dark side' of the object," he says.
"Having a depth sensor on the hand offers a lot of promise, as the hand could scan the object
from all sides and then compute an optimal grasp."



School food fight rages on in the US
In the blue corner: US first lady Michelle Obama, champion of healthy eating. In the red:
Congressional Republicans, who want to roll back federal standards for healthy school meals.
It's a partisan food fight, over the meals served daily to more than 30 million schoolchildren.
And Obama is taking heavy flak, with a barrage of media reports last week suggesting that
kids are rejecting their new-look healthy lunches, leading to massive waste.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was intended to improve school meals across the
nation, requiring the US Department of Agriculture to draw up national standards that upped
fruits and vegetables, while cutting sugar and fat. These were introduced in 2012, but now
Congressional Republicanswant to let schools that are struggling to implement the standards
opt out. The main complaints: healthy meals are too costly, and children aren't eating the fruit
and veg they are being served, so food is ending up in the trash.
Few people question the wisdom of improving school nutrition: according to an analysis of the
World Health Organization's Global Burden of Disease Study published last week, around 13
per cent of US children and adolescents are clinically obese a rate that could reduce the
nation's average life expectancy.
There is evidence that stricter standards for school lunches can help. Obesity and poverty go
hand-in-hand , so kids who qualify for free or subsidised meals are more likely to be obese
than those who don't. But a 2013 study from the University of Illinois in Chicago found that
the difference was smallerin states that have adopted stricter nutritional standards for school
meals.
Waste woes
On the contentious issue of waste, two studies have produced conflicting results although
both suggest that the rules are increasing the amount of fruit and veg eaten.

A team led by Juliana Cohen at the Harvard School of Public Health studied four schools in
low income urban areas of Massachusetts. In April, they reported that kids at these schools
consumed more fruit and vegetables, after the new nutritional standards were introduced.
Children were leaving food on their plates but that was an existing problem, and didn't get
worse after the new rules were introduced. "We do need to deal with waste, but rolling back
the school nutrition standards won't help that," Cohen says.
A study of schools in Utah by Joseph Price of Brigham Young University in Provo and David
Just of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, found that requiring children to put fruit and
vegetables on their lunch trays increased the fraction of kids who ate a serving of fruit of
vegetables, but led to an extra 0.7 servings being thrown away per lunch served.
But the researchers agree that it is possible to reduce food wastage. Just has found that subtle
changes, such as adding labels giving vegetable dishes attractive-sounding names, can
help. Marion Nestle, a specialist in nutrition and public health at New York University, suggests
that interaction between staff and children is key. She says she can tell whether kids will eat
what they are served just by listening to the servers: "Do they call the kids by name? Do they
say, 'I made these peas just for you because I know you like them'?"
"We can find ways to get kids to eat fruit and vegetables," says Just. "I'd like to see us try that
before we abandon this effort."
What the data says about Europe's lurch to the
right

It was called a "black day for Europe", as far-right parties gained anunprecedented share of
the vote in European elections.
Such right-wing swings are sometimes attributed to harsh economic times, but data from 12
European countries showed that right-wing parties in half of these states were doing worse
after the 2008 economic crisis.
For example, although France's Front National and Greece's Golden Dawn improved their
share of the vote, the Norwegian Progress Party and the Swiss People's Party did worse after
the crisis. This makes the suggestion that economic recovery may counter the lurch seem less
likely, but Doru Frantescu, co-founder of VoteWatch Europe thinks in general there is a link.
"We would expect that if the economy gets better, support for the more extreme parties will
shrink in two to three years, but only if the recovery is consistent," he says.
"There's definitely a role played by the economy in this, but it's not the full picture by a long
way," says Marley Morris of political research consultancy Counterpoint, in London.
Higher voter turnouts in national compared with European elections could help make the
political landscape less extreme. Typically in the UK, for example,only a third of the electorate
votes in the European elections. "If you get very low turnouts, it's much easier for smaller
parties to make an impact," says Ed Fieldhouse of the University of Manchester, UK, who
directs the British Election Study.
He says that many voters who backed the UK Independence Party may well return to
supporting their usual party when the UK holds its national election next year. However, his
latest study showed that 60 per cent of those who said they intended to vote UKIP in last
week's election said they would also vote UKIP in the general election. Before the
corresponding European elections in 2009, only 25 per cent said they would do the same.
Refugees forced to return to Syria for cancer
treatment
Refugees from Syria and other middle-eastern countries are fleeing one disaster, only to face
the costs of fighting another: cancer. In some cases they are even having to return home for
treatment.
Cancer may not be the first thing that springs to mind when considering the challenges facing
refugees, but it is a growing problem for the host countries that provide them with healthcare,
says a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published this
week.
In many previous conflicts, medical care for refugees has focused on curbing infectious
diseases and malnutrition. However, recent waves of refuges from middle-income countries
like Syria have different, and often costlier, needs.
"We are seeing many more humanitarian emergencies in middle-income countries where non-
communicable diseases are more prevalent," says UNHCR chief medical expert Paul Spiegel,
who led the report. "Not just cancer, but diabetes, renal disease, hypertension and
hypercholesterolemia."
Although host countries can apply to the UNHCR for help with healthcare costs, a shortage of
funding has caused the agency to tighten up its criteria, prioritising basic healthcare and
treatment for life-threatening emergencies, and capping spending at $1000 to 2000 per person
per year. Refugees with serious medical problems who need more costly treatment are
referred to an exceptional care committee, which assesses their situation. "They have to make
very difficult decisions about who should receive treatment," Spiegel says.
Illness or debt
When he and his colleagues assessed UNHCR applications from Iraqi and Syrian refugees
living in Jordon between 2010 and 2012, they found that around a quarter were for help with
cancer treatment costs. More than half of these were declined, either because the patient
faced a poor prognosis or the costs of treating them were too high.
This has left many refugees living with cancer and other long-term illnesses having to forgo
treatment or face crippling debts, according to a separate report issued by Amnesty
International last week.
It focused on the health needs of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, many of whom rely on care
subsidised by the UNHCR. Even when people are eligible for funding, recent rules mean that
individuals must pay 25 per cent of the cost themselves although there are exceptions for the
very vulnerable.
"Some refugees with cancer have not received treatment since fleeing Syria; whatever money
they have is spent on rent and food. In some cases, refugees have to return to Syria several
times a month to receive treatment," says Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty International's head of
refugees and migrants. "In such a large crisis, the international community as a whole must
take responsibility for meeting the needs of refugees, but at the moment it is miserably failing."
One 43-year-old Syrian man who was declined UNHCR funding for brain cancer treatment told
Amnesty: "I have no hope that the hospital will afford me radiotherapy. I am asking if they can
simply afford me the medicines [to combat the dizziness]."
Given limited funding, Spiegel says that more emphasis needs to be placed on cancer
prevention as well as treatment, by providing regular screening, for instance. Health insurance
systems have also been implemented in other refugee settings such as Iran and Congo, with
some success, he adds.

Vermont is first to label genetically modified food
Vermont has become the first US state to require that food containing genetically modified
ingredients be labelled. The law is presented as increasing consumers' access to information,
but it is unclear how it will help because scientists believe these widely-used ingredients are
harmless.
From 1 July 2016, all genetically modified (GM) food sold in Vermont must have the words
"produced with genetic engineering" emblazoned on the packaging in a "clear and
conspicuous" way. The bill was signed into law on 8 May by the state's governor Peter
Shumlin.
Connecticut and Maine have passed similar laws, but these will only take effect once other
states join in. Vermont is the first state to require that GM food be labelled unconditionally.
Almost everything in an average grocery store in the US contains an ingredient with some
level of genetic modification. Most US-grown corn and soy is genetically modified, and these
are present in a wide variety of foods. The chemical used to break down milk to make cheese,
chymosin, was previously made from the processed stomachs of young calves but is now
mostly produced using genetically-engineered bacteria.
Label this!
Plant geneticist Patrick Byrne of Colorado State University in Fort Collins says he is unaware
of any evidence that GM foods are harmful to humans. "Given all the hype and the fearful
messages being circulated, I think a label would likely be interpreted as a warning that you
might want to avoid this product, not a neutral message," he says.
There is no parallel campaign to label foods that have been exposed to heavy pesticide or
herbicide use, says Byrne, even though both have damaging impacts on human health and the
environment. "You would think there would be more concern over pesticide residues, or
whether manure was used to produce this food," says Byrne.
Labelling alone doesn't put consumers off GM crops without an anti-GM campaign, says Elise
Golan, director for sustainable development at the United States Department of Agriculture in
Washington DC. GM crops aren't sold in Europe, and it was an anti-GM campaign, rather than
labelling laws, that caused this result. "It was the accompanying campaign by Greenpeace that
swayed consumer attitudes," says Golan. "A few words on a label are rarely enough to grab a
consumer's attention."
Golan and Byrne say US consumers can already avoid genetically modified foods by choosing
certified GM-free or organic products, both of which are legally bound to avoid genetically
modified ingredients.




Soil samples don't prove who's behind Syria gas
attack

Syria's chemical weapons are supposed to be well on their way to destruction, yet several
times in the last month, most recently on 30 April, the Bashar al-Assad regime has been
accused of turning chemical weapons on civilians. This time it's chlorine gas.
In response, Ahmet zmc, head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons, announced on 29 April that OPCW inspectors would again go to Syria to investigate
the charges.
What is supposed to have happened?
On 11 April and three more times in the following week, residents of the besieged rebel-held
town of Kafr Zita reported that barrels containing cylinders of chlorine gas equipped with small
explosive charges were dropped on the town from helicopters. Around a dozen such attacks
have now been reported in rebel-held towns, with several deaths and dozens injured. The
charges are supported by videos of victims and bomb remnants.
This week UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, reported that it had sponsored a Syrian doctor
to collect soil samples from alleged attack sites. An industrial gas detector picked up the signal
of both chlorine and ammonia in the samples. They reported this as "proof that [the] Assad
regime [is] launching chlorine attacks on children".
Does this count as proof?
Not quite. Charges that the chemicals were launched by Assad, and not a rival rebel faction,
rely on the assumption that only Assad's forces have helicopters. Eliott Higgins, whose Brown
Moses blog is a respected source of military analysis on Syria, says this is probably the
case. X-rays of people killed in the attacks, brought back by the Syrian doctor, are also
consistent with a chlorine gas attack.
As for the soil samples, however, Ralf Trapp, a former OPCW inspector, says their origin is
"well documented" with photos, videos and GPS, but there is no way to "ascertain that the soil
samples taken had a direct link to the pictures of the helicopter drops of gas cylinders".
Assertions that the sample's chain of custody ensured no tampering are also not verifiable.
"Samples with no chain of custody have no value whatsoever," says chemical weapons
consultantJean Pascal Zanders.
Meanwhile, he says, ammonia and chlorine are volatile and reactive, and should have
disappeared quickly. "Two weeks after a release I would expect no traces of chlorine or
ammonia to be present in a soil sample," says Trapp. There are other common industrial
sources for each gas. Zanders says he would expect to see evidence of corroded metals near
the attack the hallmark of a chlorine release.
It is also not clear why a bomb should have included both ammonia and chlorine: they react
with each other to produce chloramine, which is noxious, but not a potential chemical weapon
like chlorine gas.
Trapp says The Daily Telegraph's published analysis of the soil provides "circumstantial
evidence at best" of ammonia and chlorine. It was done with simple litmus paper to detect pH,
and a hand-held device usually used to test for gas build-up in mines or factories. "These
devices have significant false-alarm rates and should really only be used to state that these
samples are worth investigating further," says Trapp. "They don't identify any chemical. The
same applies to the pH test."
"I am not saying that it wasn't the Syrian regime," he says, "just that there is not sufficient
evidence at the moment to be certain what happened and who was responsible for what
appear to be incidents related to the use of a gas that could have been chlorine."
What can the OPCW inspectors do now?
They'll use the same approach they took to investigate the sarin attacks near Damascus last
August. This will involve using more sophisticated gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy to
analyse soil and ordnance from the attacks, taking medical samples from victims and carrying
out detailed interviews of witnesses.
Why would chlorine be used?
After the OPCW linked last August's attacks to Assad, Syria agreed to give up its chemical
weapons. The OPCW says all its declared chemical weapons delivery systems have now been
destroyed. As of this week, 92 per cent of the most dangerous declared chemicals have
arrived at the port of Latakia, where they will be shipped to a US vessel to be destroyed.
So it seems surprising that after all that, Assad would still be launching chemical attacks.
Chlorine is also an odd choice if the goal is to kill large numbers of people as it must be
inhaled in high concentrations to kill, and dissipates quickly.
However, chlorine is readily available: it is used for water purification, and did not have to be
declared by Syria as a chemical weapon. Iraqi insurgents have been using it in truck bombs for
years, to sow panic among civilians, which may have been the goal in Syria.
It has also been deployed as a weapon of war. zmc announced the latest Syrian
inspections in the Ypres room of the OPCW headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands,
named after the first gas attack on the Western Front in the first world war, 99 years earlier
almost to the day. That attack was with chlorine gas.








The Offering
Two beggars were sitting on a busy street corner in the downtown
section of the city. It was quite clear for a night in December, but the
cold wind made them huddle together for heat and comfort. They
watched helplessly as scores of people walked by, some purposely
ignoring them and others too caught up in their own cares to even
notice their existence. Every so often, a kind-hearted woman or a
small child would drop a few coins in the hats which lay in front of
them on the icy sidewalk. Some people, feeling particularly generous,
would even pull out a bill or two from their wallets and stuff them
into the beggars' hats, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
Today was not a bad day for begging. The men were able to collect
enough for a decent meal at the coffee shop down the street and a few
candles to light up their lean-to shacks in the alley behind the train
station. As the crowd began to die down, they started to pack up their
bundles and head for their evening shelter.



Just as they were getting ready to leave the street corner, they noticed a man walking
toward them. He was obviously a wealthy man--they could tell that from the finely tailored
business suit he was wearing and the gold watch chain that adorned his left pocket.
The first beggar nudged the second and whispered with excitement, "He's coming our
way!"
The two tried not to look directly at the man as he stepped closer to them, but they couldn't
help gazing up with anticipation as he reached into his pocket and took something out.
"Thunk" was the only sound they heard as what looked like a piece of hard candy, wrapped
doubly in tissue paper and cellophane hit each of their waiting hats. The rich man turned
and continued on his way, not making a backward glance.
"How insulting!" said the first beggar, as soon as the rich man was out of sound range. "He
could have easily left us a few coins or a spare bill, but he mocks us with a piece of rock
candy." He looked at the wrapped offering with disgust. "Who does he think we are--
children? There's no way we can even eat this--we have no teeth."
The beggar picked up the object with the very tips of his fingers and flicked it into the
gutter. He watched as it floated a few yards in the stream of muddy water and disappeared
into the drain at the end of the street. Then, he gathered up his things and walked away.
The second beggar looked down at the morsel in his hat, then at his departing friend. His
first impulse was to toss the donation in the trash can under the street light. But his second
thought made him change his mind.
"I haven't had anything like this for ages," he thought. "I can't chew it, but I can suck on it
for awhile, and the sugary juices will stay in my mouth for a long time. How nice of that
man to offer me something so sweet."
He opened the cellophane eagerly, then paused as his hands touched the white tissue paper
inside. "Maybe I should save it for another time," he thought. "It won't spoil, and I could
eat it later when I'm really hungry."
The beggar debated for a moment, then exclaimed aloud, "What the heck. He wanted me to
have it anyway. I might as well enjoy it now."
With that, he unfolded the white tissue paper, but to his surprise, there was no hard rock
candy inside. Instead, into his fingers fell a shiny white pearl worth thousands of dollars.

Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium (or simply Wembley) is a football stadium located in Wembley, north west
London, which opened in 2007 on the site of the old Wembley stadium. The 90,000 capacity
venue is second largest stadium in Europe, and serves as England's national stadium. It is the
home venue of the England national football team, and hosts the latter stages of the top level
domestic club cup competition, the FA Cup. It is owned by English football's governing body, the
Football Association (The FA) through their subsidiary Wembley National Stadium Ltd (WNSL). The
old Wembley stadium, which opened in 1923 as the Empire Stadium, often referred to as "The
Home of Football", was one of the world's most famous football stadiums until its demolition in
2003.

Designed by Foster and Partners and Populous, the new Wembley is the largest and tallest
stadium in the world, and includes a partially retractable roof. A signature feature of the
stadium, following on from the the old Wembley's distinctive Twin Towers, is the 134 metres (440
ft) high Wembley Arch. With a span of 317 metres (1,040 ft), this steel arch is the longest single
span roof structure in the world. The stadium was built by Australian firm Multiplex at a cost of
798 million. The old Wembley closed in October 2000, with demolition originally intended for
that December and the new stadium due to open in 2003. After delays to the project, the old
Wembley was not completely demolished until 2003, with the new stadium scheduled to open in
time for the 2006 FA Cup Final. After further delays, the stadium was delivered nearly a year
late, leading to legal disputes between WNSL and Multiplex, who ultimately made a significant
loss on the project. The stadium was handed over on 9 March 2007, in time to host the 2007 FA
Cup Final.

In international football, the stadium is a central component of the English 2018 and 2022 FIFA
World Cup bids. In 2012 it will also host the football finals of the London Olympics. In club
football, the stadium also hosts the showpiece season opening game the FA Community Shield
match, played in August between the winners of the FA Cup and the top-level Premier League. In
February, it also hosts the final of the England's other top level cup tournament, the Football
League Trophy. At the end of the domestic season the stadium also hosts the latter stages of the
Football League play-offs. In European football, it is due to host the 2011 Champions League
Final. In friendly tournaments, since 2009 it has been the venue of the summer Wembley Cup.
Outside of football, the stadium also hosts major rugby games, such as the Rugby League
Challenge Cup. The stadium is also an annual regular season venue for the American National
Football League's International Series, the first such venue outside North America. Non-sporting
uses include large concerts by artists such as U2 and Madonna, as well as hosting in July 2007 the
Concert for Diana and Live Earth.







EU Reaches Agreement on Climate Aid
European Union leaders overcame differences on funding for climate change, and moved forward
on new leadership posts for the 27-member block as they wrapped up a two-day summit.
Transcript of radio broadcast. Source: VOA
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels hailed an agreement on climate change, reached
after weeks of wrangling over how much members should contribute to developing countries to
adapt to global warming.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the deal an important breakthrough
at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which currently
holds the rotating European Union presidency.

"We can now look the rest of the world in the eyes and say we Europeans, we have done our job.
We are ready for Copenhagen. We have agreed on a negotiating mandate, we have a clear
endorsement on some of the [European] Commission's proposals, notably on financing. I think this
is essential."

Under the deal, the 27-member bloc would contribute to an overall annual aid fund of $74 billion
for poorer nations. But they didn't specify how much Europe would contribute compared with
other nations. Mr. Barroso and Mr. Reinfeldt will be discussing climate change next week with
U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington.

The Europeans also began discussing the broad outlines of future leadership posts for the
European Union, once a reforming charter known as the Lisbon Treaty is fully ratified. Members
hope that will happen before the year's end. The charter sets up new offices, including the
powerful post of president of the European Union.

And Mr. Barroso says they agreed to keep in place stimulus measures to fight the economic crisis.

"We must maintain efforts until the moment we finally overcome the crisis. At the same time, we
need to prepare exit strategies in a coordinated way."

The heads of state are expected to hold another summit next month to discuss candidates for the
new EU presidency job. Possible contenders include former prime minister Tony Blair of Britain
and current prime minister Jean-Claude Junker of Luxembourg.








NASA Crafts Smash into Moon in Search for Water
Transcript of radio broadcast. Source: VOA
The U.S. space agency has smashed a pair of heavy space craft into the moon's surface in the
hopes of finding evidence of frozen water or other potential resources. It may take weeks of
analyzing data before NASA scientists announce their findings.

Scores of telescopes and other monitoring equipment turned toward the moon early Friday to
watch two NASA craft crash into the south pole of the Moon.

Flight director Paul Tompkins led the mission team as the first payload hit the surface.

"All stations, flight," said Paul Tompkins. "Mark Centaur impact."

Scientists with the Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite mission, or LCROSS, said the
payloads hit their target - the dark and frigid side of a crater near the south pole. The mission
however did not live up to expectations that the payloads would create a cloud of debris visible
to telescopes on Earth.

NASA officials had encouraged both academic and amateur space observers to view what they
thought would be an exciting sight.

The mission's lead investigator Tony Colaprete said the debris plume was not seen in the first set
of images, but it should have been detected with other scientific measurements.

"We saw a crater, we saw a flash [afterward]," said Tony Colaprete. "So something had to happen
in between."

The NASA team used a series of photographic cameras and infrared sensors to document the
moment of impact and the resulting debris cloud. Additional data was collected at observatories
around the United States, as well as satellites including the Hubble Space Telescope. The hope is
the spectrum data will produce evidence of water, hydrocarbons or other organic material in the
debris cloud.

But lead investigator Colaprete said it may take weeks to analyze the information and arrive at a
conclusion.

"Life is full of surprises," he said. "We want to be careful not to make a false negative or a false
positive claim. I am excited we saw variations in the spectra because that means we saw
something, that was not just blackness. The information is there we just need to get to it."

One thing the team did confirm was the presence of sodium. Colaprete said the impact of the
payloads apparently caused a reaction with sodium which was easily spotted from Earth.

Regardless of the final scientific conclusions, NASA researchers said they were pleased with the
LCROSS mission. NASA's chief lunar scientist Mike Wargo said officials are hoping to change the
image of the moon as a desolate, unchanging place.

"We've really been thinking about the moon in a different way," said Mike Wargo. "Who thought
just a month ago we would be talking about the water cycle or the hydration cycle of the moon?"

The LCROSS mission launched in June along with a separate mission to study the moon's surface.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is surveying possible landing areas and other conditions for the
possible return of astronauts to the moon.
Landmark to Freedom Stands Above Mean Streets
An abolitionist firebrand's writings composed there inspired millions. Transcript of radio
broadcast. Source: VOA
The Anacostia neighborhood - named for the polluted branch of the Potomac River that runs past
it - is the poorest, most run-down section of Washington, D.C.
It encompasses most of the city's public-housing projects and burned-out homes.
But among them, in what had been Washington's first suburb, are some beautiful places and
significant historical sites.
One sits on a high spot called Cedar Hill, from which one gets a magnificent view of the distant
U.S. Capitol, Library of Congress, and Supreme Court Building.
A small but elegant mansion was built there in 1852, when that part of Anacostia was for white
Protestants only - no Catholics, Jews, or, certainly, African-Americans were welcome.
The owner got into financial trouble, and the property was taken over by an institution called the
Freedman's Bank, which was set up after the Civil War to help former southern slaves.
And the Freedman's Bank sold Cedar Hill to a black man who broke the color line in Anacostia. He
was the bank's own president, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who had become the most
rapturous speaker in the abolitionist movement.
Douglass, who had learned to read from little white boys to whom he sneaked food when he was
a slave, inspired other slaves to learn to read as the path to freedom and a full life.
His home in Anacostia contains hundreds of Douglass artifacts, including his walking sticks, swamp
hats, and pens that he used to write his speeches and books in the little, windowless building
called a growlery out back.
The main house looks like a smaller version of his master's old manor home.
That's why he bought it, Frederick Douglass said. He couldn't pass up the opportunity because of
the irony of it all.







European Union
The European Union (EU) is a unique political and economic
community with supranational and intergovernmental dimensions. It is
composed of twenty-seven member states primarily located in
Europe. In 1957, six European countries formed the European
Economic Community (EEC) by the Treaty of Rome. Since then the EU
has grown in size through the accession of new member states and has
increased its powers by the addition of new policy areas to its remit. In 1993, the Maastricht
Treaty established the base of the current legal framework.

The EU created a single market which seeks to guarantee the freedom of movement of people,
goods, services and capital between member states. It maintains a common trade policy,
agricultural and fisheries policies, and a regional development policy. In 1999 the EU introduced
a common currency, the euro, which has been adopted by thirteen member states. It has also
developed a role in foreign policy, and in justice and home affairs. Passport control and customs
checks between many member states were abolished under the Schengen Agreement.

With over 492 million citizens the EU generates an estimated nominal GDP of 8.6 ($10.7) trillion
in 2007. It represents its members in the WTO and observes the G8 summits. Twenty EU countries
are members of NATO. Important institutions of the EU include the European Commission, the
European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European
Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. EU citizens elect the Parliament every five
years.














Butterfly wings inspire cosmetics and
bomb detectors
By Andrew BomfordBBC Radio 4's PM programme
The iridescent effect in the wings of the blue morpho has a structural origin, not one based in
pigments
A tropical butterfly might not be the first place to look when seeking
inspiration for the latest bomb sniffing technology for the US military,
but the brightly coloured iridescent wings of a blue morpho provides
one example of a promising branch of science - bio-inspiration.
Other varied applications inspired by the South American butterfly's
shimmering wings include high-tech textiles, self-cleaning surfaces,
cosmetics, and security tags.
An exhibition called the Invisible Garden at the Royal Horticultural Society's
Hampton Court Flower Show is enthralling visitors with its displays of the
microscopic world in gardens.
"Oh wow!" cried one six year old school girl as she squinted into an optical
microscope at the wings of a blue morpho. "It's really shiny. It's a really
pretty one, that."
"They're just like scales, like fishes have," said her class-mate, "They're
really nice."
He was right about the scales. Lepidoptera is the Latin name for butterflies,
which means "scaly wing".
But when an electron microscope is used to zoom in to the nano-structure of
the wing scales themselves, a new world is revealed. This is what is
inspiring scientists, like Professor Peter Vukusic, an optical physicist, at
Exeter University.
"They are aesthetically beautiful," he said, "But scientifically, from the
perspective of the physics which underpin the colour, they are hugely
interesting. They are complicated. They are adapted to serve a set of
complicated functions. The optical ingenuity that's responsible for the
appearances which we see is tremendous."
A scaled-up model of the wing structure reveals features that Prof Vukusic (pictured) calls
"Christmas Trees"
The exhibition at Hampton Court allowed children to explore a microscopic world for themselves
At the nano scales revealed by an electron microscope there are structures
which can only be described as Christmas Trees, standing up from the
surface of the wing scale in long lines.
Made of chitin, these Christmas Trees are just one micron high - one
thousandth of one millimetre.
The iridescent effect, which changes according to the angle of vision, is
produced by light reflecting off the different structures in the Christmas
Trees, rather like the effect of light on a soap bubble.
This is known as structural colour, which is not produced by pigments.
Professor Vukusic and some of his colleagues have been at the forefront of
these discoveries. "I remember 15 years ago sitting and marvelling at this,
realising at that time that I and my colleagues were some of the first to really
look at this from a physicist's perspective," he says.
"We shone a laser through a single one of those wing scales and we saw a
wonderful diffraction pattern produced. I had goose-bumps along the back of
my neck because no-one had done that previously. It gave rise to a depth of
understanding of how the system works which was unparalleled at the time.
It was a life changing moment."
Professor Vukusic and his colleagues have gone on to examine many other
butterflies, moths, beetles and seeds, all of which have structural colour.
But it is more than just scientific curiosity.
The structure which gives the beetle Cyphochilus its extraordinary whiteness
is contributing to the development of a type of super light white paper.
The shimmering green surface of the Margaritaria nobilis seed (common
name - the bastard hogberry) has inspired scientists to design a fibre which
changes colour as it is stretched. As tension is applied to the thread it
changes from red to green and then yellow. The colour is determined by the
thickness of the nano-structures.
This has great potential for use in micro-surgery. A surgeon operating
remote equipment would know exactly how much tension to apply to surgical
thread by observing the colour change.
The beetle Cyphochilus is inspiring the development of a type of super light white paper
Scientists are using the Margaritaria nobilis seed to design a fibre which changes colour as it is
stretched
Other more well-known examples of bio-inspiration include Velcro, which
was invented by Swiss engineer George de Mestral who returned from a
walk with his dog in 1941 and noticed the burdock seeds caught in his dog's
fur. On closer inspection the seeds had hooks on them which attached
securely onto the loops in the fur.
The way water runs off a lotus leaf is due to the rough nano structure of the
plant's surface. Water forms droplets and rolls off, inspiring the invention of
self-cleaning glass, which is cleaned when rain rolls off collecting dust and
dirt as it goes.
But for perhaps the most unlikely example of bio-inspiration we must return
to the blue morpho butterfly. The air gaps between the Christmas Tree
structures can be used to trap other vapours, changing the optical
appearance of the surface accordingly.
"The American military are particularly interested in explosive agent vapour
detectors," said Professor Vukusic, "Can such a system be ultra-sensitive to
a range of explosive materials? In the long term there is certain potential for
it. The morpho wing itself would not be used, but a mimic of it, more highly
applied, is currently being developed."
Back at Hampton Court, the comedian Bill Bailey was delighted at the rapt
attention being shown to the microscopic structures of butterflies, bees and
beetles, particularly by the children.
"I was really drawn to this because I think this is where a lot of people's
interest begins. It begins with the familiar - what you see around you," he
said.
"I became fascinated and a bit obsessed by the Victorian naturalist Alfred
Russel Wallace, and I made a documentary about him for the BBC. What is
so charming about his love of the natural world, and indeed Darwin's, is that
it began with the tiny creatures. It began with beetles."
"You start with the small creatures you see around you and that gives you
this life-long love and curiosity to pursue these interests in later life."