Deception Island – the Antarctic volcano that just doesn't make any sense

Deception wrong-footed scientists three times in ten years, and remains a mystery Wikimedia

Only two volcanoes in Antarctica are active. There is Mount Erebus, which is roughly due south of New Zealand, and Deception Island, which lies about 850km south east of Cape Horn.

Mt Erebus has been erupting continuously over the last few decades. Yet the rather smaller Deception Island, in the South Shetland archipelago, is responsible for the largest known eruption in the Antarctic area.

This horseshoe-shaped cauldron-like structure, or caldera, was produced more than 10,000 years ago by an explosive eruption that scattered more than 30km³ of molten rock. The result is an enclosed welcoming bay called Port Foster.

Deception Island from above Wikimedia

Deception was officially discovered by the British sealing captain William Smith in 1820 and was subsequently used for purposes such as seal hunting and whaling before finding its modern calling as a site for science and tourism. Maybe because you cannot see most of the volcano above the sea, tourists rarely appreciate its hidden destructive potential.

The big blunder

Claimed in the past by the UK, Chile and Argentina, it provides a unique enclosed environment in which to monitor a “volcano under the ice”. All three of those aforementioned countries financed observatories there in the 1960s (Spain added its own in 2000).

Yet two consecutive volcanic eruptions in 1967 and 1969 went unpredicted – remarkable failures in the history of volcano monitoring. Only the Argentinian and the Spanish observatories still exist.

Google Maps

Mud from down below

The volcanic events at Deception fall into a rare category called subglacial eruptions. The island is situated in a place where there is a glacier on the ocean floor about 100m thick. Scientists would normally expect that if this were hit by lava from below, it would evaporate benignly into steam.

But the lava moving upwards at Deception has several qualities that made things happen differently: it moves slowly and it has high water content. This meant that it turned the glacier into meltwater as well as steam, creating a large overflow of mud to the surface. This was the main cause of the destruction of the UK and Chilean stations.

The reason why this melting was unexpected was because in scientific terms the glacier was “deceptively thin”. The scientists were not expecting it to produce much more than steam. Ironically, the absence of larger glaciers is what made the island the most hospitable location in Antarctica.

We understand these subglacial eruptions much better now than we did in the 1960s. Nowadays there are hazard maps to make visitors aware of the higher-risk spots on the island.

The Deception enigma

Yet from a volcanic point of view, Deception is a great puzzle. Many volcanoes are caused by subduction, which is where two of the Earth’s tectonic plates crash against one another, sending one plate down and pushing the other upwards. A classic example is the Cascade range in the north-western US, whose most famous volcano is Mt St Helens. The ones that scientists have observed happen on land.

Most volcanoes at sea are like Hawaii and the Azores, which we describe as hot spots. Instead of taking place near the points between tectonic plates, these are holes in the ocean floor where there is a direct line to the Earth’s mantle. The same goes for submerged calderas in the middle of the ocean, of which there are some examples near Japan.

For a time, scientists thought that Deception might be an unusual example of subduction happening in the ocean. But a more recent hypothesis is that the South Shetlands may be what we call a rift zone. This would mean that it is on a point where plates meet, but instead of colliding, there are gaps from them moving away from each other, creating new oceanic crust in the process. A good example of a rift zone is the Iceland, as can be seen in the video eruption below.

The hydrocarbon connection

Detailed geophysical surveys have been carried out across Deception since 2000, mainly financed by Spanish projects. UK geological research on the island has also been extensive.

You may be wondering why governments have spent so much on research there. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is some kind of place of virtue where different nations fund research just to understand how our Earth works.

Rifts fill up with the remains of volcanic explosions and other sediment eroded from the margins of the valley. This process is critical for the production of oil. Located at the western edge of the arc, Deception is the ideal place to observe rift processes because of the natural harbour, which shelters scientists from the harsh Antarctic weather.

Maybe he can shed light on the situation Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA

Rifting is the reason for all the oil in the North Sea. The oil is not deposited where the rift is located, but some distance away. In the same way, there is almost no likelihood of an oil discovery on Deception. But understanding the process of rifting there will be a strong indication that there is oil to the north of the South Shetland Islands. It would also confer an exploration advantage worldwide – so Deception without oil is as valuable as Deception with oil.

So Deception could be the key to unveiling how rifts form and where oil is, in places where resources are unexploited. In an era where the political claims to the Antarctic have long since receded, that should ensure that this frozen corner of the world remains important for some time to come.

Lemurs may hold secrets to living longer, but they won't increase our lifespan

Jonas the lemur defied his small size by living to the age of 29. David Haring, Duke Lemur Center, Author provided

When Jonas the fat-tailed dwarf lemur died recently in captivity at the ripe age of 29 years, he was the oldest known of his species. But Jonas not only outlasted members of closely related lemur species held in captivity; he also lived much longer than science would predict based on his small size.

A new study in the Journal of Zoology attributed this exceptional longevity to the fact that this lemur species are able to readily enter a low energy state. They can do this for both for long periods of days to months (hibernation), as well as shorter periods of a few hours (known as torpor), which can be used in response to harsh conditions. The researchers suggest that increased longevity in hibernators could be the result of cellular machinery that makes them resilient to metabolic stress, which is associated with ageing.

Among mammals, body size correlates with lifespan: larger species live longer than smaller species. This relationship is not perfect and there are sometimes major exceptions. Jonas and other fat-tailed dwarf lemurs are one of these, meaning they might carry clues to what determines lifespan.

The flame that burns twice as bright

In 1908, Max Rubner proposed the first evidence-based theory of ageing. He noticed that the bigger a species of mammal was, the lower its metabolic rate, meaning that bigger mammals use less energy per kilogramme of body mass than small ones.

But species with bigger body size are also longer-lived. Putting these together, it becomes clear that shorter-lived mammals have a faster metabolic rate. To quote Lao Tzu (and the movie Blade Runner): “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”

Rubner showed that horses, cows, dogs, cats and guinea pigs each use about 200 kilo-calories for each kilogramme of body weight over the course of their lifetime. So over their lives, each animal, per kg body weight, does the same amount of metabolic work; short-living animals do it faster, longer living do it slower.

This became the Rate of Living Theory. It says that energy metabolism is unavoidably associated with damage which accumulates over time, eventually causing decline in cell function and ultimately death. The faster the metabolism, the more the damage, the shorter the life. In 1956, the Free Radical Theory of Aging proposed that reactive forms of oxygen formed during energy production in cells are what lead to the damage which causes ageing. It’s not proven, but there is much supporting evidence and it’s the best explanation so far.

Evolution shapes the genetics which controls and deals with all this. Natural selection maximises the species productivity in their particular ecologies. In high mortality environments, fast growth and reproduction is required, and ageing is fast. If there is a chance for longer survival, fast growth and reproduction are sacrificed in favour of maintenance of the body, leading to slower ageing and an extended reproductive life. In some species, hibernation has evolved to allow an organism more flexibility in a changeable environment, allowing survival through lean times so that reproduction can re-start when conditions improve.

In hibernating fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, the heart rate drops from 200 to eight beats per minute. Both body temperature and metabolic rate can also drop for up to three months at a time, though they can also enter torpor; a milder state of lower activity. As the Rate of Living Theory predicts, this reduction in metabolic rate is associated with a longer life.

Could humans achieve a similar state?

So if lemurs can do it, why can’t we? There’s one little hiccup in this idea which you may have already noticed: humans can’t hibernate.

Though some yogic practices do allow substantial slowing of breathing and heart rate, this is for short periods. There is no posture or practice in yoga so far known as “the torpid lemur.”

Extreme depth free-divers can slow heart rate as an enhanced form of the diving reflex. Some sort of trance-like focus is often used. Holding your breath results in substantial brain cooling by as much as one degree per minute. But this form of control is associated with significant incidences of abnormal heart rhythms, and deaths among free-divers are not uncommon.

Or holding your breath? Ben Baker Photography, CC BY-SA

Medicine: the real beneficiary

In 1999, 29-year-old Norwegian Anna Bågenholm survived 80 minutes in freezing water following a skiing accident. She was in extreme hypothermia; her core temperature, even after an hour’s journey to hospital, was just 13.7°C. Although there was significant cold damage to her body, there was no apparent brain damage at all. This was probably because, when her heart eventually stopped, her brain was so cold its metabolic rate was sufficiently slow it required almost no oxygen. Her heart stopped for at least three and a half hours and her metabolism is thought to have slowed down to just 10% of its normal rate.

The use of therapeutic hypothermia for treatment of cardiac arrest has become more common in Norway since this case. This can reduce core temperature to 32°C, five degrees lower than usual body temperature. But slowing the heart substantially requires even lower temperatures, and surviving this slowing of the heart would require substantial cooling of the brain and other energy-hungry organs. All which would need a lot of fine tuning to get right.

At this point, at least, I’m not holding my hand up to volunteer.

Saturday’s lunar eclipse will be total, but brief

The moon will enter the outer part of Earth’s shadow (the penumbra) at 4:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 4. Totality won’t occur until the moon passes through the umbra, or deepest part of the shadow.

Moon: G.H. Revera (CC BY-SA 3.0); C. Crockett/

Primordial stars left their imprint on dwarf galaxy

Explosions of very massive stars in the early universe (illustrated) seeded a handful of stars in a nearby galaxy with unusual amounts of various elements.

NASA, CXC, M.Weiss

A handful of ancient stars outside the Milky Way witnessed the explosive deaths of the first generation of stars, researchers report in the April 1 Astrophysical Journal. The eyewitnesses harbor unusual amounts of heavy elements, such as magnesium and silicon, which means they were probably bystanders to a few supernovas from primordial stars up to about 20 times as massive as the sun.

The stars live about 290,000 light-years away in the puny Sculptor galaxy. Astronomers think that dwarf galaxies like Sculptor are relics from the early universe, which makes these galaxies useful laboratories for studying conditions from not too long after the Big Bang.

Five years ago the iPad changed clicks to touches – but another tablet revolution is coming

This sort of 3D display you can't buy in the shops. Jason Alexander/Lancaster University , Author provided

Apple’s iPad arrived five years ago. It is a device that changed the way we think about computing, marking a seismic shift from keyboard and mouse to direct manipulation with our fingers. The iPad wasn’t the first tablet computer – it wasn’t even Apple’s first tablet computer – but it was the first to capture the world’s imagination and sell tens of millions of devices.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the hands of children, who these days will walk up to any screen and expect to be able to interact with and shift content with the prod of a finger. This style of interaction has even followed us to our workstations where, despite their questionable use, touchscreens now frequently come as standard or are common options when buying a personal computer.

Touchscreens bring the user’s fingers into direct contact with the virtual objects onscreen, but still fundamentally present data representing a 3D visual environment through the medium of a flat 2D screen. Fully comprehending the interface relies almost entirely on our own visual sense, rather than exploiting our other, well-trained sense of touch.

From the pixel to the physical

Touchscreen tablets free us from the constraints of working at a desk and are more liberating due to their smaller size and weight. But, to make better use of all our highly-tuned senses, the next generation of displays will not be 2D and flat, but will have self-actuated, physically re-configurable surfaces. Flat screens will be able to deform themselves into other shapes. These interfaces will change the shape of their display surface to better represent on-screen content and provide additional means to pass on information by touch rather than vision alone.

Screen interaction gets physical. Jason Alexander/Lancaster University, Author provided

Dynamic physical geometry – tablets with interfaces that morph in three, real dimensions, rather than simply displaying 2D representations of them – will fundamentally change the way we approach computer interaction. Displays with pixels that can physically protrude from the surface will allow developers to enhance familiar applications such as architecture, design, terrain modelling and photography by rendering computer-generated 3D scenes in three dimensions in the real world. This will opens all sorts of opportunities for novel applications in team collaboration, tangible entertainment and ways to make computing more accessible to those with disabilities.

Devices will be able to change their form and function: a mobile phone that mutates into a TV remote control, and then into a videogame controller, re-configuring itself to provide appropriate interfaces. Apps will not only be able to modify a visual display, but also dynamically change the physical properties of the device.

This display revolution is closer than we think: commercial ventures such as Tactus Technology’s Phorm already provide a way to generate fixed-position buttons that protrude from the screen by filling small pockets with liquid on command.

Building a physical screen

In our lab, we’ve begun to explore the implications of users interacting with shape-changing displays. We’ve created a 10×10 interactive bar chart with which to represent common data visualisation tasks such as displaying data, filtering data, organising it into different rows and columns, navigating between large datasets, and making annotations. We’ve found that the physical nature of dynamic bars encouraged users to directly manipulate data points for annotation and comparison-style tasks and that traditional touch-based controls work well for navigation and organisation tasks.

Certainly, constructing these shape-changing displays requires expert electronic and mechanical knowledge. There’s a need to involve people with a wide range of interaction design skills to drive forward early prototype design, so we developed a tool that allows non-technical researchers to experiment with shape-changing displays.

ShapeClip is a tool to transform any computer screen from a flat viewing surface to a 3D one, transforming light from the screen into movement through coordinates in physical space above it. By adding a z-axis to the screen’s x- and y-axes, designers can produce dynamic physical content by adding ShapeClip tools to screens. ShapeClip displays are portable, scaleable and can be re-arranged to suit need. They are also fault-tolerant. Users need no knowledge of electronics or programming and can develop motion designs with presentation software, image editors, or web sites.

The iPad shifted our approach from pressing buttons to pressing with our fingers. Future displays will not be flat glass screens we prod, but physically dynamic surfaces capable of reconfiguring themselves in order to better present information to the user through a rich tactile experience that offers more to our senses.

Revealed: why your Pinot noir is actually a Pinot blanc (or was that a Pinot gris?)

Heard it on the (research) grapevine. Naotake Murayama, CC BY

The diversity within grapevine varieties is incredibly rich. This is good news for viticulturists – grape cultivators – and wine makers because it allows them to adapt their wine production according to the conditions in their vineyards and to the wines they want to make.

Pinot is one of the most ancient grapevine varieties and the Pinot family is an invaluable source for the production of a wide range of wines from around the world. There’s the Pinot noir from Burgundy, California or New Zealand, Pinot Meunier in Champagne, Pinot gris in Alsace or Pinot blanc in Italy.

Cultivating pinot. Jim Fischer, CC BY

The vine stocks used in viticulture are obtained by grafting. It means that for any given variety, all stocks are identical – or almost all. Spontaneous events in the genomes of some vines can arise which leads to differences between individual plants.

Along with colleagues, we’ve been studying the fascinating Pinot family for 15 years at a special wine research unit at INRA Colmar, in France. In a new study, published in PLOS Genetics, we revealed for the first time the molecular and cellular mechanisms that lead to differences between plants of the Pinot family. And, in particular, on the spontaneous mutations that underpin the change of berry colour.

Spontaneous mutations

A unique chromosomal region in the grapevine genome controls berry colour. Two genes located in this region can induce the biosynthesis pathway – the biochemical reactions that create anthocyanins, the complex red pigment molecules that give a grape variety its berry colour. But when the two genes are inactivated by a mutation, this pathway stays switched off and the variety is white (as Pinot blanc).

Different varieties. Fast Forward Event Productions, CC BY

Almost all coloured varieties, including Pinot noir, display both the active (leading to the black colour) and the inactive form of these genes. Through a detailed molecular analysis of a collection of 33 clones of Pinot noir, Pinot gris and Pinot blanc, we showed that large-scale exchanges between the maternal and paternal (homologous) chromosomes in the grape, leads to the replacement of the chromosomal region that enables the creation of anthocyanins by the corresponding region on the other chromosome that prevents it.

Thanks to this transfer of information between these two chromosomes, which is a rare naturally-occurring event, Pinot blanc-type cells can emerge from a Pinot noir. In the 33 clones we studied, we identified four new chromosomes displaying independent replacements that were responsible for the loss of the anthocyanin-making mechanism, with a size reaching up to a quarter of the length of the entire chromosome.

After occurring in a cell, these mutations then propagate progressively to form a distinct cell layer in the shoot, leading to what is called chimeric plants. This is how Pinot gris arises from Pinot noir: a Pinot noir skin surrounds internal cells that have mutated to Pinot blanc. All of the known Pinot gris are chimeras that associate these two types of tissues.

Pinot noir (left), Pinot gris (centre), and Pinot blanc (right). Agne27, CC BY-SA

In a previous study, we reported multiple occurrences of chimerism by using molecular markers. Such cellular structures do not threaten the plant’s fitness and stay stable through vegetative propagation of the plant by grafting.

Occasionally, cellular rearrangements in the chimera lead to the homogenisation of the whole plant. This is how Pinot gris can emerge from a Pinot blanc – by invading the internal mutated cell into the coloured skin, which then spreads the mutations throughout the plant.

Diversity within varieties is the result of a series of rare events. It implies that a mutation must first occur in a cell that is, or will become, part of the shoot. Then the mutated cell must multiply to form a distinct cell layer. If it is formed, the chimera must then survive the annual pruning of shoots and be selected for vegetative propagation.

In this study, berry colour was used as a model trait to shed light on the molecular and cellular mechanisms behind the colour variations of the Pinot family. Through these mechanisms, the grapevine stocks drift over time and grapevine genome evolves. Of course, similar molecular and cellular mechanisms may impact other propagated plants, which creates diversity.

Viticulturists can only select these very rare events when they observe them (though some viticulturists pretend to have selected specific stocks fully adapted to their terroir, it is possible that they use diversity created by spontaneous mutations). But the diversity created when these mutations happen are great for creating flavour – the difference, for example, between a chardonnay and chardonnay muscaté. There are also different clones of Syrah that show very different levels of resistance to the Syrah decline (a disease) – a result of this clonal diversity.

If intelligence services want more powers they must learn to live with increased oversight

Who is watching them while they are watching you? sacred_destinations, CC BY-NC

The UK’s security and intelligence services face a “technology arms race” against terrorists and criminals' use of the internet and encryption, the head of MI6, Alex Younger, has said.

The internet and big data, he said, can “combine to our advantage, allowing us to know more about the people we meet”. But their opponents have the same tools – opponents “unconstrained by consideration of ethics and law”.

The implication is clear: give us more powers in order to meet the threat. The British spy chief echoes similar comments from the FBI and CIA, from police chiefs, and now from Europol.

But the stream of revelations stemming from the Edward Snowden documents reveal an altogether different view of surveillance carried out by GCHQ and other agencies. The subsequent inquiry by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) into surveillance practices found reasons to worry about acceding to demands for greater powers, and missed opportunities to hold the agencies to account.

Nothing to see here

The ISC inquiry examined the range of surveillance techniques and how they were used, the scale of use and nature of their breach of privacy, and the legal safeguards surrounding their use.

The committee’s report may be readily characterised as seeking to reassure the public that the immense amount of surveillance does not amount to anything untoward occurring. The committee found GCHQ has “neither the legal authority, the technical capacity nor the resources” for “blanket coverage” of all internet communications. Committee member Hazel Blears MP declared that “the way in which the agencies use the capabilities they have is authorised, lawful, necessary and proportionate”.

On the other hand, there was no shortage of criticism; Privacy International pithily summed it up in saying:

No jargon can obscure the fact that this is a parliamentary committee, in a democratic country, telling its citizens that they are living in a surveillance state and that all is well.

Consolidating power and responsibility

The main recommendation of the report was that the current out-dated, fragmented, over-complex and unclear legislative legal framework should be replaced by a single new comprehensive act, one that “must clearly set out the intrusive powers available to the Agencies, the purposes for which they may use them, and the authorisation required before they may do so".

A number of intelligence-based activities, such as data-sharing with foreign intelligence bodies, currently have no clear statutory basis and in some cases are likely to be unlawful. Putting surveillance activity on a firmer legal footing is to be welcomed, especially considering that current laws date from before the recent explosion in social media use. The opportunities to gather personal information from data online have exponentially increased; inevitably, legal safeguards and regulations have failed to keep pace.

England’s doughnut of knowledge. Ministry of Defence

Snoopers' Charter?

The concern is that the proposed new legislative framework, while much more comprehensive, still doesn’t address the key concerns raised by what we’ve learned from the Snowden files. To give any reassurance that privacy will be respected and protected, progressively more intrusive surveillance measures should warrant progressively higher levels of authorisation. This would suggest granting a greater role to judges, as a more independent check and balance; instead the committee proposes to give the authority to government ministers.

It has been suggested that this report may pave the way for a so-called “Snoopers’ Charter”, forcing data controllers and ISPs to hand over details of emails, social media messages, texts and voice calls.

In the context of a legislative overhaul, the system of oversight provided by the ISC might also have been expected to come under scrutiny. Yet the fact that it took the Snowden revelations to stir up any action over GCHQ’s bulk collection of data suggests that it was a role that had hardly been rigorously discharged.

Power without control

So the findings of the ISC’s report, and the committee’s tendency to exonerate agencies from wrongdoing seem in harmony with calls for more powers for the likes of MI6, MI5, GCHQ – not in opposition. Whether or not there are extensive statutory guidelines for the agencies’ activities does not in itself create any confidence that mass surveillance is not occurring. Greater transparency, in the sense of providing more information or clarification of the law, doesn’t necessarily demonstrate that powers are not being abused – as indicated by what we’ve learned from the Snowden files.

The fact that the agencies’ opponents are “unconstrained by consideration of ethics or law” does not, and should not, provide an argument that the agencies should be less constrained. Younger accepted that the difference between the agencies and their opponents was the rule of law. So demands for greater powers should concentrate their focus on the constraints that legal reform could impose, because the rule of law is not something that the UK or any of its government agencies should start considering as optional.