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Mr. Lynas takes on a controversial article by David Whitehouse published online by the New Statesman in December (we wrote about it here). Mr. Whitehouse, a former longtime science journalist for the BBC who holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics, said that while carbon emissions are clearly rising, temperatures increases have leveled off since 1998. The latest temperature readings suggest that the prevailing scientific wisdom about global warming is incorrect, Mr. Whitehouse wrote, a view that prompted a heated debate on New Statesman’s Web site and elsewhere.

That Mr. Whitehouse’s article opened the door to climate-change skeptics is unfortunate, says Mr. Lynas, because the analysis was fundamentally flawed. Mr. Whitehouse relied erroneously on year-to-year temperature changes instead of long-term averages. Many variables cause temperatures to fluctuate widely over the short term. To calculate climate change by starting with a very warm year — 1998, in this case — is a form of scientific cherry-picking, says Mr. Lynas.

There is an overwhelming consensus with the scientific community that the planet is getting hotter as a result of human activities, says Mr. Lynas. To halt steps to combat climate change simply because not everything about it is known could be catastrophic. Even if the 99% of scientists who support global-warming findings are proved wrong, shifting away from fossil fuels — which are a finite resource with many other drawbacks — would hardly be ruinous. – Wendy Pollack

In a cover story some two months after U.S. intelligence services concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, the British newsweekly says the report undid five years of painstaking diplomacy aimed at keeping the bomb out of Tehran’s hands.

Why not applaud what might be an olive branch from Washington toward its longtime adversary? The problem is that the intelligence estimate played down Iran’s ability to produce uranium, which the authors call the toughest skill in bomb-making. The design and engineering work needed to turn fissile material into weapons, the focus of the National Intelligence Estimate assembled by 16 U.S. agencies, would be relatively easy to hide, and to restart. No one knows how much progress Iran achieved toward building a nuclear warhead before 2003.

Moreover, Iran can’t be trusted to use its nuclear program, run by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, toward only peaceful ends, given the country’s track record of stonewalling and misleading the diplomatic community.

The idea that a nuclear-armed Iran wouldn’t be the disaster some fear is mistaken, says the Economist. A nuclear Iran might prompt other countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria, to go nuclear, too, greatly increasing the risk a weapon will be used.

A military strike against potential nuclear sites likely poses too many security and diplomatic risks. But there is still hope that the U.S. and its allies can salvage the situation, chiefly if the U.S. drops the precondition to negotiations that Iran suspend uranium enrichment. At the same time, Russia and China need to agree to much tougher sanctions against Iran. It isn’t clear, as the U.S. and its allies have hoped, that tightening the financial screws will sway ordinary Iranians against the country’s nuclear program. But it might be the best option to repair a policy that the authors say is at the point of collapse. – Wendy Pollack

According to legends, villagers in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges that span the India-Pakistan border areas have been building artificial glaciers for centuries – even using one to stop the advance of Gengis Khan in the 13th century. The artificial versions are far smaller than regular glaciers, but can reach 800 feet in length. Usually, the glaciers are built in rocky areas 14,800 feet above sea level. Villagers pack ice and snow in the shadows of boulders. When winter arrives, snow bridges the areas between the ice and, over a few years, forms into a self-sustaining glacier.

Still, scientists have yet to systematically establish whether the intentionally assembled ice masses are behind those higher water flows. Ingvar Tveiten of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, who has studied artificial-glacier-growing techniques, thinks that glaciers would have formed anyway in such prime ice-forming locations. But other scientists believe that villagers’ efforts have increased the stock of ice around them. Kenneth Hewitt of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, who says he observed a glacier planting in the early 1960s, says the idea of creating an artificial glacier isn’t as scientifically far-fetched as it might seem. — Robin Moroney

Late last year, she reported on a little-noticed order for policewomen to give up their guns, which Iraqi officials said was necessary to prevent women from giving the weapons to male relatives or selling them.

The policewomen themselves and a U.S. Army general who led a recruiting drive for female police officers attributed the decree to the rising influence of religious conservatives. Even with guns, policewomen say, continuing cultural pressures mean they stand little chance of leaving the desk jobs to which most of them have been relegated. – Robin Moroney

The most important confidential information these days no longer involves theoretical questions such as the most effective shape of uranium in a bomb — most scientists in the field can figure that out. The really valuable secret is how to process the uranium into the required shape. “While some theoretical ideas can make the dirty work easier,” says Mr. Levi, “many would not contribute materially to anyone’s efforts to build a bomb.”

The U.S. would be better off with a more subtle policy that balances the risk of information disclosure with the potential benefits for U.S. security, says Mr. Levi, who has written extensively about nuclear terrorism. For example, the current policy prevents police offers and customs officials from obtaining information that might help them detect a nuclear weapon as it was being smuggled into the U.S. Similarly, the majority of inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have never seen the inside of a nuclear bomb. The U.S. could allow them to do so without giving away crucial secrets, a step that would greatly help the IAEA determine whether a country is making nuclear weapons.

Some nuclear secrets could even be effectively shared with enemies, says Mr. Levi. If the U.S. released certain technical details of its radiation detection equipment, for instance, it might convince terrorists that preparations for an attack on the U.S. could be spotted.
In each case, a delicate balance needs to be struck, says Mr. Levi. But making the effort to use openness strategically would make the U.S. safer than continuing to rely on obsessive secrecy. – Robin Moroney

That is the conclusion of some university administrators, who have found that removing trays from dining halls cuts down on the amount of food and drink that gets thrown in the trash. The idea is that without the convenience and space that trays afford, students don’t get overly ambitious when it comes to portions.

Tests seem to back this up, Elia Powers reports in online publication Inside Higher Ed. At Alfred University in upstate New York, food and beverage waste dropped between 30% and 50% on two days when trays were removed.

At Colby College in Maine, roughly one-third less waste is generated on days when trays aren’t available. The drop is so predictable that dining officials know to purchase less food for those days.

Students generally haven’t enjoyed going without trays, dining-hall administrators say. Some come up with enterprising alternatives. Varun Avasthi, director of dining services at Colby, has heard of students piling food onto chair seats during trayless days. He says members of Colby’s woodsmen team (who, according to its Web site, mixes traditional woodsmen skills like “standing-block chop” with “newer events such as axe throw”) have crafted their own wooden trays. – Robin Moroney

With a length somewhere between a short story and a novel, the novella can deliver a sophisticated read without draining the amount of time a novel does, she says. It only takes a few hours to read, making it no more of a time commitment than a reality-television program or a movie. Thanks to the amount of paper they require, novellas can profitably sell for the price of a magazine.

Best of all, growth in novellas would bolster intellectual standards in an industry that lately has been accused of dumbing down literature. The novella’s shortness tends to bring out “care and thought and the extra level of creative gusto” in authors. Revered examples from the past include “Ethan Frome” by Edith Wharton, “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Truman Capote.

Despite these advantages, the novella is still treated with skepticism. Many critics last year considered Ian McEwan’s novella-length “On Chesil Beach” too short to earn respect. That’s just being “sizeist,” says Ms. Edelstein. — Robin Moroney

Nevada’s terrain generates strong winds that can floor even experienced pilots like Mr. Fossett, whose plane disappeared in September. Even on clear days, search pilots get headaches from trying to keep a steady gaze while being bounced by the wind. On the ground, the remains of old mining equipment are hard to distinguish from downed planes. It took Mr. Behar four passes before he was able to spot a wreck of an already identified plane far larger than the one Mr. Fossett flew.

In Nevada, the newest technology often isn’t helpful. The jagged terrain can block signals from emergency locator transmitters. (Last year, a locator device drew Mississippi rescuers to a crashed pilot who had been hanging upside down in his wrecked plane, hidden beneath a thick canopy of trees, for 56 hours.)

The wide distribution of Nevada satellite photographs on the Web led to so many distracting false tips that the Civil Air Patrol had its office phone number changed. The hunt for Mr. Fossett was called off in October. Volunteers suspect that despite their far-flung search, Mr. Fossett crashed relatively close by, soon after taking off from his ranch, as is the case with most private plane crashes. — Robin Moroney

Found in oxygen-starved burrows in East Africa, naked mole rats lack a chemical called Substance P, which causes the sensation of burning pain in mammals. The chemical’s absence probably helps the rodents cope with the acid that builds in their tissues as they breath in the high levels of carbon dioxide in their underground dens.

Since acid-sensing is thought to play a key role in chronic inflammatory pain, the mole rat’s unusual pain-receptor system could help scientists unravel what causes humans to experience persistent aching.

As if it wasn’t enough to feel no pain from acid and to be a rare mammal with cold blood, the naked mole rat also usually enjoys a mysteriously long life. — Robin Moroney