Fast,cheap, and imperfect? US public opinion about solar geoengineering

ABSTRACT

Solar geoengineering, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting a small fraction of sunlight back into space, has drawn the attention of scientists and policymakers as climate change remains unabated. Unlike mitigation, solar geoengineering could quickly and cheaply lower global temperatures. It is also imperfect. Its environmental impacts remain unpredictable, and its low cost and immediate effects may result in ‘moral hazard,’ potentially crowding out costly mitigation efforts. There is little understanding about how the public will respond to such tradeoffs. To address this, a 1000-subject nationally representative poll focused on solar geoengineering was conducted as part of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) of the US electorate in October–November 2016. The importance that individuals place on solar geoengineering’s speed and cost predicts their support for it, but there is little to no relationship between their concerns about its shortcomings and support for its research and use. Acquiescence bias appears to be an important factor for attitudes around solar geoengineering and moral hazard.     

Dandy – Walker syndrome and corpus callosum agenesis in 5p deletion

5p deletion syndrome commonly known as cri du chat is well described in affected neonates with catlike cry and hypotonia. Karyotyping will usually show a deletion of the short arm of one chromosome 5 with variable breakpoints. Only a few cases have been reported prenatally, and the fetal form of the syndrome has not been clearly individualised. We report a new case of 5p deletion syndrome diagnosed prenatally in association with Dandy–Walker syndrome and agenesis of the corpus callosum. Other brain anomalies have been reported previously, but this unusual association suggests the use of a specific probe in the investigation of these malformations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis and structure-activity relationship of diene modified analogs of<Emphasis Type="Italic"> Matsucoccus</Emphasis> sex pheromones

The biological activity of the Matsucoccus spp. sex pheromones and diene modified analogs has been tested in forests of Israel and Portugal in order to explore the structure-activity relationship of the pine bast scale pheromone/kairomone system. The response of the adult predatory bugs, Elatophilus hebraicus and E. crassicornis and of the brown lacewing, Hemerobius stigma is more selective than that of the conspecific Matsucoccus males. The removal of the terminal methyl group from the diene terminus of both pheromones 1 and 2 eliminates all kairomonal activity but retains moderate pheromonal activity. Addition of a methyl group to the diene terminus of pheromones 1 and 2 sustains full pheromonal and kairomonal activities of the Elatophilus spp. but eliminates entirely the kairomonal activity of H. stigma. Subtle designed alterations in the structure of the diene group, typical of all Matsucoccus pheromones, change the mode of the kairomonal activity markedly.