Beyond Copenhagen, Mammograms Around the World

This week:  World leaders have put off deciding on a climate treaty till next year. You’ll hear what that means for climate negotiations from hereon.  Then, a story about international guidelines about mammograms. You’ll also hear about China’s new interest in removing small dams on the Yangtze. Then some news about plans to paint the Andes white to slow down the melting of glaciers. And new findings about arsenic contamination of groundwater.

Beyond Copenhagen: The climate summit in Copenhagen is set to begin in a few weeks. But President Obama and leaders of other nations have postponed discussions over a new climate treaty to 2010. Find out about the likely direction of post-Copenhagen climate talks.
Report: By Jeb Sharb.
Links:
Collection of BBC stories on the Copenhagen summit.
More environment stories on The World.
The summit Website.

Mammograms Around the World: Most women should start regular breast cancer screening at age 50, not 40, according to new guidelines released in the US. The new guidelines have unleashed a heated debate and caused confusion for women and their doctors. International guidelines also call for screening to start at age 50.
Guest: David Dershaw, Director of Breast Imaging at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Links:
The new breast cancer screening guidelines.
Information on mammography from the New York Times.

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• Ponds Contribute to Arsenic in Groundwater: Millions of people in Bangladesh, India, and other parts of Southeast Asia are poisoned from drinking arsenic contaminated groundwater. A new study suggests that human made ponds may be contributing to the problem by helping release arsenic from the soil and rocks into groundwater.  But the researchers sampled around just one village. Whether the results apply to all areas with arsenic contamination remains to be seen.
  Image credit: Charles Harvey
  

  The study.
  More information about arsenic contamination.
  

• Plans to Paint the Andes White: Global warming is causing the Peruvian glaciers to melt rapidly.  Mountains with less snow and ice will absorb more sunlight, and exacerbate warming. That’s why a Peruvian group wants to paint the Andes white, or at least a part of it for now. They will then watch to see if the paint reflects more light and thus slow the melting of glaciers. The World Bank has awarded them $200,000 to do a test run.
  Glaciares Peru, the organization planning the whitewash efforts.
  How light-colored surfaces keep the Earth cooler.
  See this year’s other winners of World Bank Development Marketplace grants.
• Preparing for Exploding Lakes: Scientists are meeting in Rwanda, in January of next year to decide how to deal with Lake Kivu. The lake is one of only three exploding lakes in the world, and two million people live near it. The international group of researchers that will congregate in January hope to devise a solution for a possible explosion in the near future.
  Information about the meeting from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
  How exploding lakes work.
  More about the 1986 eruption of Lake Nyos.

China Learns about Dam Removal from the US: China wants to remove some small dams on the Yangtze River. And Chinese engineers traveled all the way to Maine to learn more about dam removal.
Report: By The World’s Marina Giovanelli.
Links:
The Nature Conservancy’s Yangtze River Program.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Open Rivers Initiative.
Read a transcript of this story.
Video: A time-lapse video showing one of NOAA’s dam-removal and river restoration projects. (Credit: NOAA.)

Science Stories on Tech Podcast: The World’s technology correspondent, Clark Boyd has a couple of really nice science stories on this week’s Technology Podcast. One is the story of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind. That boy is  now a man named William Kamkwamba. The other is an interview with the Eoin Colfer, the author of a new science fiction book, the sequel to Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So, don’t forget to check out The World’s Technology Podcast this week.

Tags: arsenic, cancer, China, climate change, Copenhagen, dams, drinking water, glacier, mammogram, Yangtze