Science miscellany

From Farms in Brazil and India must adapt or roast in heat:
"For a temperature increase of 3.5% from late 20th-century averages, the model predicts that India will lose between 7 and 17% of its income from farming.
Studies that focus on the biological relationship between weather and crop yield instead of the economic connection between weather and farming revenue, on the other hand, predict a 30 to 40% loss of yield.
Survival tactics
"Our forecast is lower, but I think it's also more realistic," says Mendelsohn. "By studying how well farmers do financially, we take adaptation into account. The income from farming will depend not only on the direct effect of the weather on the crops and livestock but also on whatever the farmers do to cope with this," he says.
Brazil is predicted to lose 10 to 30% of its farming income under the same scenario. The difference between the countries is most likely due to India's agriculture being less sensitive to climate-dependent changes in rainfall because agriculture there relies more heavily on irrigation, argue the researchers.
However according to the World Bank, farming makes up a whopping 23% of Indian GDP as opposed to only 6% of Brazilian GDP, so the country as a whole may be hit harder by a more modest loss in income from agriculture."
FromWorld's farmers turn to raw sewage for irrigation:
"Half of urban fields are irrigated with sewage, suggesting that a tenth of the world’s food is already grown this way. IWMI’s director Colin Chartres warned this week: “This figure is bound to increase as growing cities coincide with escalating food shortages to create a squeeze on agricultural water supply.”
Theoretically, irrigating food crops with untreated wastewater is banned in many countries, one reason why there is virtually no research on the practice. But “while it may be theoretically forbidden, it is unofficially tolerated”, says the report’s authors, who found that city authorities in Faisalabad in Pakistan auction untreated sewage to farmers during droughts."

From Remembrance of viruses past:
"Nearly a century after the 1918 influenza pandemic claimed 50 million lives, survivors continue to produce powerful antibodies against the virus, researchers have found......The results suggest that the antibodies could be used therapeutically should an outbreak of a similar virus occur. What’s more, one of the antibodies reacted not only with the 1918 flu strain, but with several other strains as well. "It’s probably binding to something that’s really important for the flu virus – possibly so important that the virus can’t change it to avoid immunity," says immunologist Patrick Wilson of the University of Chicago. "As a target for drug development, that would be ideal.""

From More Women at the Top:
"Few programs address the leaks as women progress at midcareer level and beyond. One is the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women, within the Institute for Women's Health and Leadership at Drexel University College of Medicine. When ELAM welcomed its first class in 1995, it was a trailblazer and is now viewed by many as a virtual prerequisite for women aspiring to high-level leadership positions in academic health centers.
In addition to the widespread belief that participation in the ELAM program is highly beneficial to a woman's career, there is a growing body of evidence to demonstrate that ELAM works at the institutional level as well.
First, there are the statistics. ELAM alumnae currently represent nearly 30% of the female deans of schools of medicine, dentistry, and public health in the United States and Canada. About 25% of ELAM graduates hold a variety of high-level positions in university administration, industry, foundations, and organizations. Additionally, from its inception ELAM has emphasized rigorous research and impact evaluation. In a longitudinal study, ELAM graduates were compared with a matched cohort of women from the Association of American Medical Colleges' Faculty Roster and with a group of women who applied but were not accepted into the AAMC program. ELAM graduates scored higher on 15 of 16 leadership indicators than did the women in the other two groups; for 12 of the 15 indicators, the difference was significant."

From A New State of Mind:
"New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process." As usual, an excellent article by Jonah Lehrer.
See also the same issue of Seed for the portraits five young researchers crossing disciplinary boundariesRevolutionary Minds. And Handle With Care on possible dangerous technologies.