Ships travel through the Suez Canal. Photo by Thomas Abercrombie.

According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations agency responsible for the prevention of marine pollution by ships, water carried in ships’ ballasts is a top threat to global biodiversity and marine ecosystems. How? By transporting thousands of species out of their native environments and depositing them elsewhere around the world, where they can wreak havoc on their new host environments, devastate local ecologies, contaminate food sources, and cost millions or even billions of dollars in control measures.

Ballast water has been blamed for bringing the European zebra mussel to North America’s Great Lakes region, where it has nearly wiped out native mussel species. Likewise the jellyfish Mnemiopsis leidyi, which took up residence in the Black Sea three decades ago and has since helped devastate local fisheries.

A potential solution to the problem, International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships Ballast Water & Sediments, has been on the table since 2004. But so far, it hasn’t been ratified by enough nations to come into force.

This opinion piece in New Scientist argues against continued complacence.

Boys watch Christmas Eve broadcast from Apollo 8 astronauts in space. Photo by Bruce Dale.

It’s a common question. Very common, in fact.  Just how do astronauts answer nature’s call?

Stop by the National Air and Space Museum’s “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibit and you can see a replica of the space toilet–a $30 million investment–used by NASA’s space shuttle astronauts.  The mechanism, visible in this panoramic photo of Discovery’s “mid-deck,” required training and practice.  (Ironically, female astronauts had an easier time using the toilet’s funnel device than their male colleagues did.)

And what became of the waste? Liquids were vented into space, but solids were stored on board for the duration of the mission. Because, as museum staff member Michael Hulslander points out, releasing a solid-waste projectile into space, where it would travel at nearly 5 miles per second, could be “bad for business.”

Photo by Jodi Cobb.

Because their brains may be built that way. So says a University of Maryland School of Medicine study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, which found that young girls have a greater abundance of a protein that’s associated with language development in mammals. And this might explain why men tend to be less talkative than women.

The Maryland study measured the amount of the Foxp2 protein in the brains of rat pups. Their findings: four-day-old male rats had higher levels of Foxp2 and were more vocal than females.

In a subsequent investigation, the researchers found that young girls also have higher levels of Foxp2, sometimes knows as the “language gene,” than equally aged boys.

“This study is one of the first to report a sex difference in the expression of a language-associated protein in humans or animals,” said Margaret McCarthy, PhD, one of the study’s authors. “The findings raise the possibility that sex differences in brain and behavior are more pervasive and established earlier than previously appreciated.”

As might be expected, reactions are mixed. Some observers think the study is “very exciting“; others are a bit more skeptical.

Beijing at sunrise.

Particulate levels in Beijing broke records last weekend, when the Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center recorded levels of PM_2.5 that Reuters said may have reached 900 micrograms per square meter–more than 30 times what the World Health Organisation considers a safe daily level.

Environmental contamination, and not the holiday season, has caused the International Prototype Kilogram to put on some extra pounds over the decades. Scientists are now looking for a safe and reliable method of cleaning the cylinder so that its mass remains stable and equal to that of several dozen copies around the world.

Painting by William H. Bond.

Bomb Sight, a year-long project to map Nazi Germany’s bombing campaign against London, is now complete. The interactive tool, based on Bomb Census Survey maps from the United Kingdom’s National Archives, depicts the location and type of bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe from Oct. 7, 1940 through June 6, 1941.

Photo by James L. Stanfield

For urbanites, rats are an often unavoidable by-product of city living. Though well-known as disease vectors, they’re probably more cringe-worthy than genuinely threatening to most human inhabitants. But on South Georgia island, rats are an invasive species, introduced more than two centuries ago by sealing boats. And now, their population estimated in the millions, they’re on the verge of wiping out several native bird species.

That is, unless Team Rat has anything to say about it.

Photo by W.E. Garrett

Laos has announced plans to proceed immediately with the construction of an 820-meter-long hydroelectric dam across the Mekong River. Critics of the project say the Xayaburi dam, to be located in northern Laos, would be an ecological disaster for the Mekong and millions of people in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, who rely on it for food. The project is largely funded by Thailand, which would receive 95% of the generated electricity. A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for November 7.

Mallards wade in the shallow water of a large puddle in Kersey, England. Photo by Robert Madden.

According to a recent study, large numbers of waterfowl in the United Kingdom are being poisoned. The alleged perpetrator? Lead gunshot the birds ingest after–perhaps long after–it was initially fired. Scientists involved in the research contend that British hunters aren’t complying with laws that phased out the use of lead shot in the late 1990′s. British hunting groups say otherwise. What’s apparently not in dispute: birds frequently graze on the toxic lead pellets and can later suffer organ failure or paralysis.

Photo by George F. Mobley

For decades ski resorts around the world have used snowmaking equipment to supplement nature’s sometimes erratic bounty. But a resort in the western U.S. will this season arm its snow cannons with a controversial form of ammo: sewage effluent purchased from a local municipality. Needless to say, the plan has its detractors.