Daily Briefing: Tues.

ROLLER COASTER OF EMISSIONS: It's hard to know what to expect anymore out of next month's Copenhagen climate talks. The summit was hyped for more than a year as the Super Bowl of climate conferences, only to see hopes fade in recent months as China, India and the U.S. Senate all dragged their feet on the issue of legally binding emissions cuts. President Obama even acknowledged as much over the weekend, endorsing a Danish plan to push back the climate treaty's finish line into 2010, possibly at next year's Mexico City summit. But now, after hunkering down with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday, Obama is singing a slightly different tune. "Our aim there ... is not a partial accord or a political declaration, but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations and one that has immediate operational effect," Obama said after the talks in Beijing. "This kind of comprehensive agreement would be an important step forward in our effort to rally the world around a solution to our climate challenge." The pair released a joint statement calling for a Copenhagen treaty to produce specific emissions targets for rich countries and an action plan to scale back emissions in developing nations. (Sources: Guardian, Agence France-Presse)

 

APOCALYPSE LATER: Anyone who's worried about the world ending soon — maybe due to a cataclysmic solar alignment, a rogue planet smashing into the Earth or black holes spontaneously appearing in Switzerland — can relax, writes Dennis Overbye in today's Science Times. NASA has already reassured us that the world won't end in 2012, despite what Roland Emmerich says, and the European Center for Nuclear Research has similarly tried to assuage our fears that its Large Hadron Collider near Geneva won't generate planet-eating black holes. Yet plenty of people are still terrified, and it's just the latest example of a long-running problem in the way science fiction clouds our understanding of science nonfiction, Overbye points out. NASA astronomer David Morrison, who made the YouTube video debunking the 2012 myths, agrees. "I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money," Morrison says. "There is no ethical right to frighten children to make a buck." We're in much greater danger from Earthly threats like volcanoes, earthquakes and climate change than we are from aliens, black holes or freewheeling planets, Overbye writes, adding that not even ancient Mayan astronomers were this easily scared — their inscriptions occasionally referred to dates before and after their current calendar's beginning and end. (Source: New York Times)

 

WEBB 2.0: Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., has become the latest moderate Democrat to bail on the Senate climate bill, Politico reports. The bill was pushed through committee earlier this month by co-sponsor Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., using an obscure Senate rule to move forward with no Republican support, while its other sponsor, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, has begun working with Sens. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., on a compromise version that places more emphasis on nuclear power. Unsatisfied with Boxer's bill and suspicious of cap-and-trade in general, Webb on Monday unveiled his own energy bill along with Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander. Like the forthcoming Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill — which is expected before next month's Copenhagen climate summit — it's much more focused on nuclear power. The $20 billion bill would fund loan guarantees, worker training and additional research for nuclear power plants, which already have a significant presence in both Webb's and Alexander's home states. "This is a piece of legislation that could stand on its own and could be supported by senators who favor economy-wide cap-and-trade and senators who don't favor one," Alexander said, although the bill is likely to face opposition from Democrats worried about disposal of nuclear waste. (Source: Politico)

 

SHOOTING BLANKS: Insecticides are often seen as a necessary evil in parts of the world where malaria is rampant, but they have some serious down sides. They only kill a percentage of the disease-carrying mosquitoes they target, they pose a health risk to the people they're supposed to be protecting, and they leave behind a population of mosquitoes that's potentially resistant to them. But with climate change threatening to expand the ecosystems where malaria flourishes, some kind of mosquito controls are needed, and a new study offers a novel idea — releasing sterile mosquitoes into the wild. By genetically engineering male mosquitoes that are sexually active but incapable of producing offspring, the researchers believe they can whittle away at the malaria problem since female mosquitoes only mate once during their lifetimes. If a female happens to mate with one of these sterile males, she'll never lay eggs; on a large enough scale, this could theoretically push mosquito populations toward collapse. (Source: e! Science News)

 

TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF: A synthetic version of a chemical found in kudzu could help treat alcoholism, USA Today reports. The fast-growing vines were first brought to the U.S. Southeast from Asia more than a century ago to control erosion, and have since become an invasive species that dominates native vegetation. But, in addition to its erosion-controlling and tree-smothering habits, kudzu has also been used in Chinese folk medicine to clean up alcoholics for some 1,000 years. Harvard researchers confirmed its effects on alcoholism in 1997, but now a duo of scientists from the University of California-San Francisco and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has taken that research a step further. Their synthetic version of a chemical called "daidzin" in kudzu is even more efficient at spoiling alcoholics' taste for booze than the natural version. It works by inhibiting a specific enzyme to create a buildup of acetaldehyde in the body, which can make a person feel flushed or generally ill when drinking. It then suppresses dopamine in the brain, a chemical that's believed to spur alcoholics' desire to drink. (Source: USA Today)

 

— Russell McLendon