Climate research excrementally better!

One thing in science journalism has always struck me as odd, how very few science stories contain something which make them interesting reading from the title on. 'Humans made from arsenic' is hardly going to catch your eye and imagination on the tube into work is it? So when I found this press release from the University of Leicester about how a weird rodents urine can be used to detect climate change I was shocked. I mean, it has everything; cuddly furry animals? Check. Toilet humor? Check. Politically sensitive topic? Check. And (my favourite) it proves just how un-geeky scientists can be, what with the leader of the research group having to use his intensive rock climbing skills to scale mountains in South Africa to cut samples out with giant angle grinders. Brilliant!

The Rock Hyrax is the closest relative of the elephant (despite looking like a giant guinea pig) and whilst sharing similar tusks is always a giveaway of a genetic relationship, the fact that they both have similar toilet habits is what really gets scientists going. Rock Hyrax's share communal toilet spaces (called middens) over generations spanning thousands of years, and as these build up and crystallise they form perfect, stratified samples of climate history. 

In South Africa it can be hard in the dusty and dry deserts to get any organic material with which to sample past climate change. The Rock Hyrax's fossilised urinals contain metabolites and plant matter which can be dated and analysed to test how their habitat changed over the generations which used the midden. These can then be compared with deep ocean core data which has been taken nearby to get an incredibly accurate picture of how climate has varied in southern Africa over the past 30 000 years. And this new data will help produce ever more accurate climate modelling systems, and with this new found use for urine historical climate records can only get excrementally better!

Ain't no mountain high enough

Two of my favourite things in the world are geology and Christmas, and rarely do they interact so neatly as with the Christmas lectures at  the Royal Institute. Although, since they require all adults to bring a child, (and I do not own one of these, nor know of one I could legally borrow) I cannot gleefully whoop as they  suscept clearly unstable models to the effects of gravity, or Ahhh over the timelapse images of erosion on Earth's largest mountains. 

This year Dr Mark Miodownik discusses how size is limited on Earth. It's always intrigued me how our planet keeps itself so carefully within it's most suitable limits, in particular how our planet works hard to make sure nothing grows too large, yet humans strive for the biggest things we can get, biggest house, biggest christmas tree and tallest buildings. 

Despite being the product of the biggest building events in history, mountains are in fact dominated by erosional processes; mass wasting, glaciers and rivers all try their damndest to bring mountains back down to sea level. Although most of these processes are affected by climate, does this mean that with global warming the erosional processes will dry up and our mountains will keep growing until they reach the moon? 

Well which planet, despite a cooler climate and far less water, is the overly-confident guy insisting size matters? Winning the blue ribbon for the largest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons, it's Mars! The unseen force of gravity is the biggest factor in building things high above the planet's surface and Mars has the smallest values in the solar system, which is what gives it such impressive building power. 

And gravity will have it's say even in human construction. As clever building methods and lighter materials mean new buildings go up every  year claiming to be 'the tallest building in the world"  soon a natural homeostatic level will be reached where our greed for ever taller buildings will be quashed. Gravity will decide we've had enough and will prevent our buildings climbing into the stratosphere. As these buildings only get a fraction taller every year, it suggests we're reaching that limit soon. 

Although there's still plenty of time for us to genetically modify a Christmas Tree to 1200ft high!