plastic planet

I have covered the catastrophic accumulation of plastic waste in the oceans a couple of times before, but a recent analysis of all the plastic ever produced suggested that this is only the beginning of the problem. Production keeps growing exponentially and faster than the global economy, and the waste produced will follow that curve with only a short delay.

So, time for another feature on the horrible things we're inflicting on our home planet:

Our planet wrapped in plastic

Current Biology Volume 27, Issue 16, 21 August 2017, Pages R785–R788

Free access to full text and PDF download



Beaches even on remote and uninhabited islands can accumulate large quantities of plastic waste delivered by the ocean gyres. This picture was taken on Laysan Island in the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo: Susan White/USFWS.)


PS other recent news on plastic waste:

Fish mistaking plastic particles for food (16.8.2017)

David Attenborough on plastic pollution (25.9.2017

how life shaped Earth

History of Life on Earth - a special issue of Current Biology with lots of goodies is now online.

For my contribution, I looked at Earth from an astrobiology angle and examined some of the many ways in which life caused it to become different from our neighbouring planets and much more complex in its chemistry and geology.

How life shaped Earth
Current Biology Volume 25, Issue 19, pR847–R850, 5 October 2015

Open access

Table of Content

digging deep

The Deep Carbon Observatory is an international interdisciplinary project studying the hidden carbon fluxes deep within the earth, along with implications for life in the subsurface and on planet formation and development.

I've written a feature about this work which is out in Chemistry & Industry:

Carbon deep

Chemistry & Industry March 2013, pp 32-35

The full text is freely accessible here.

The article is also featured on the cover of the issue:

In the same issue, I also have a review of the book "Synthetic biology: a primer", which appears on page 50.

oxidation and procrastination

Ooops, now it's March and I haven't done the roundup of the German pieces published in February yet. Time, you're moving too fast.

So in Feb, we had quantum procrastination, reduction and oxidation at the sea floor, and cycloaddition with triple bonds:

Organische Synthese: Drei mal drei
Chemie in unserer Zeit 47, 6
FREE ACCESS (PDF file)

Neuartige Redox-Biochemie im Meeresboden
Nachrichten aus der Chemie 61, 134-135

Proquastination
Nachrichten aus der Chemie 61, 111

And talking of which, a late arrival: a short piece on addiction biochemistry that is nominally in the issue for the 4th quarter of 2012 of the magazine:

Trillium Report 10, 200-201
Die Biochemie der Sucht

rocking the planetary boat

One of the most fascinating books I got to review in recent years was The goldilocks planet by Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams, which covers the history of our planet from the perspective of climate history, as deduced from geological evidence.

It is a very scary rollercoaster ride through 4 billion years. But maybe the scariest part is the ending - we humans came to populate the planet in a period of surprising stability, and now, as the authors put it, we're rocking the boat that has shown a marked tendency to capsize in the past.

My long essay review, discussing the issues involved from an astrobiological perspective, is out in Chemistry & Industry this month, page 46-47. It is premium content, but if you ask me nicely I can send a pdf reprint.

atlantic insights

Last month I visited Hamburg and attended the joint meeting of the research projects THOR and Nordatlantik. I learned many interesting things there about the complex relationships between oceans and climate and the research that aims to understand these.

You can read all about this in my latest feature in Current Biology which is out now and freely accessible(NB: my features remain on free access only until the next issue appears, i.e. normally 2 weeks, sometimes 3, and they return to free access a year after publication):

Atlantic circulation keeps turning

Current Biology, Volume 22, Issue 20, R853-R856, 23 October 2012 doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.10.013

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PDF file

I also took lots of photos at Hamburg - one of them appears on the first page of the feature, another below (that's not the hotel where I stayed) and another half dozen on my flickr photostream.

mysteries of diatoms

I have covered the research relating to the silica shells of diatoms - their morphogenesis and use in bio-nanotechnology - for many years, but have now for the first time taken a look at the wider context of diatom biology and its links to climate change and other earth systems. The resulting epic feature article is out in today's issue of Current Biology:

Current Biology, Volume 22, Issue 15, R581-R585, 7 August 2012 doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.07.041

HTML text Free access to PDF file (NB: my features remain on free access only until the next issue appears, i.e. normally 2 weeks, sometimes 3, and they return to free access a year after publication)

photo: Wikipedia

the rocks are alive

as living organisms tend to produce minerals, I am not terribly surprised to read in Astrobiology magazine that the diversity of rocks has increased along with the diversity of of species. And if rocks evolve, does that mean they are alive ? well, ok, probably not. but worth looking into.

earthshattering news

Britain has had the biggest earthquake since 1984 and I slept right through it, didn't feel a thing. At 5.2 it's not much to people in places with proper earthquakes, but here we're used to have smaller versions of everything: summer, winter, tornadoes, etc. and talk about them as if we had the real thing.