Spreading Altruism By Jumping On A Live Grenade

On the comments thread of Why Evolution Is True, Prof. Jerry Coyne uses a fun example to explain the concept of inclusive fitness to a reader:

josh ozersky-
Can someone please explain what inclusive fitness is?

whyevolutionistrue-

Basically, it’s calculated for a gene that does something like affect behavior, and it’s the relative fitness of that form of a gene compared to other forms that don’t have that behavior, counting the copies of that gene in related individuals. For example, a gene that codes for this behavior: “commit suicide (e.g. by falling on a grenade) if you can save more than two brothers or sisters by doing so” has a higher inclusive fitness than a gene that says “don’t fall on the grenade”, because if you die you lose one copy of that gene but save 1.5 others (you’re 50% related to those three siblings), while if you don’t fall on the grenade (and run away), you save your own copy but lose 1.5 others. The gene for the “altruisitc” behavior will spread because genes for it have a higher INCLUSIVE FITNESS than the other form of the gene.

Is that clear?

The discussion is with reference to Prof. Coyne's post on E.O. Wilson's book Sociobiology and his recent profile by Jenny Schuessler in the New York Times. 

Head In The Sand On Global Warming

 A most telling observation on social attitudes to global warming from @TheTweetOfGod, retweeted by @callanbentley

"U.S. Records Warmest March in History". Na na na na not listening na na na Mad Men na na na baseball na na na lifestyle just fine na na na.

One talking point that comes up in debates is the connection between extreme weather events like a heat wave and long term climate change.  Questioning this connection is not just a tactic of warming deniers or skeptics but is of genuine interest to people who are curious and want to know more about how global warming may be impacting weather patterns today.

Real Climate clarifies the impact  long term changes in climate has on extreme weather events accompanied by a terrific graphic:

Source: IPCC (2001)

A Plea To Change The American Research University

An Inside Higher Ed essay by Hunter R Rawlings:

The combination of drastic state disinvestment in public universities, student careerism, and pedagogical failings of our own has serious consequences for the country. To take one significant example, we now know that more than 50 percent of the students starting college with a stated desire to major in science or engineering drop out of those majors before graduating.

We can no longer blame this problem entirely on the nation’s high schools. A substantial body of research demonstrates conclusively that the problem is frequently caused by poor undergraduate teaching in physics, chemistry, biology, math, and engineering, particularly in the freshman and sophomore years. Students are consigned to large lecture courses that offer almost no engagement, no monitoring, and little support and personal attention.  The combination of poor high school preparation and uninspiring freshman and sophomore pedagogy has produced a stunning dearth of science and engineering majors in the U.S.  Our country now falls well behind countries like China and India in turning out graduates with strong quantitative skills.

Among other things one complaint I have heard is the excessive importance given to research.  All roads on campus are seen to lead to the research lab, an intellectual mecca where all the "important" work takes place. Undergraduate teaching is often seen to suffer as research oriented faculty are not that interested in teaching freshman and introductory level courses.

In India, the exact opposite has been diagnosed as the problem, which is that our Universities have too little research! One view here is that the biggest mistake India made is to create elite research institutes as an entity separate from the University, which remained mostly a degree giving teaching institution with less than desirable amount of in-house research capability. University students especially undergraduates, since most Universities conduct undergraduate degree courses in separate colleges,  have little exposure and interaction with top level researchers. The quality of undergraduate teaching has suffered not because researchers punt teaching responsibilities to graduate students but because of the complete absence of researchers from undergraduate campuses.

Estimating Coal Bed Methane Volume And Some Other Energy News

Via Geology.com I came across this short tutorial on estimating available coal bed methane. Gas is adsorbed in the micro-pores within the coal with smaller amounts available as free gas in fractures. The gas content available is estimated using a Langmuir isotherm:

Source: Baker Hughes Reservoir Blog

Short but effective presentation I thought.

In other energy news, India is ready to open up bidding for exploration of shale gas in six basins, namely Cambay, Assam-Arakan, Gondawana, KG onshore, Cauvery onshore and the Indo Gangetic basin by end of 2013. Early estimates suggest that four of these basins, Cambay, KG onshore, Cauvery and part of the Gondwana (Damodar valley basin) contain up to 63 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas. These numbers are sure to be modified as these and other basins are probed in more detail.

Finally, Amol Sharma at India Real Time takes a closer look at "Coalgate", a controversy over the Indian government allocating coal mining blocks to companies instead of auctioning them in an open bidding process. The loss to the exchequer according to the Comptroller and Auditor General calculation is about $200 billion.

What all the media hype though has missed is that the report has a lot to say about the shortfall in coal production:

The lion’s share of the report doesn’t deal with any of the issues above that have caused such an uproar, but rather India’s coal production shortfall. There’s plenty of blame for Coal India, which produces 81% of the coal in the country and is a lifeline for power generation firms. Between March 2008 and March 2011, Coal India failed to supply 54 million tons of coal it had promised companies. The report also asks why the private companies that have been “captive mines” – the so-called windfall gainers – have been so slow to get going with production. It says only 28 captive coal blocks are producing out of 194 allocated by the government. It is fair to ask why this is the case. Are there delays in getting government clearances, or are companies being inefficient?

Indian potential coal reserves are about 350 billion tons, making it the fourth largest reserves in the world, but according to coal market consultants Wood McKenzie, the future marketable reserve i.e. marketable production by 2030 is just 18 billion tons. That estimate might reflect a complex mix of conditions such as a lack of confidence in India sorting out issues related to regulatory clearances and land acquisition problems along with shortage in skilled manpower and advanced technology.  India has to import coal to meet shortfalls in domestic supply.

The Economic Times reports that coal imports could increase substantially in the future from 80 million tons per year in 2011 to 400 million tons per year by 2030, especially if domestic prices are raised to be on par with international prices.  Australia and Indonesia are major suppliers of coal to India.

World Water Day: Water Water Everywhere ...And Shale Gas

Its World Water Day.

Near my house a big site is being developed. The builder excavated a huge pit about 40-50 feet deep for underground parking only to find he had hit a prolific aquifer.

My rough calculations suggest that the hole contains on the order of 15 -20 million liters of water. That sounds a lot but I was struggling to give it a context. Then this morning I read an article on Fracking, Methane and Food Security. Fracking or hydraulic fracturing is the process of injecting shale rock with a mixture of water, sand and chemicals to pry open the shale and release the tightly bound natural gas.

Here is what the article says about the amount of water used by each well being fracked -

 “Every time a gas well is fracked, 4 to 9 million gallons of water are injected into the ground. A single well can be fracked up to 12 separate times, adding up to over 100 million gallons of freshwater used in the lifetime of a well.” (waterdefense.org)

4-9 million gallons injected every time a gas well is fracked. That's on the order of 20 odd million liters of water, as much as is contained in that hole near my house.

My neighborhood is not depending on groundwater right now, but may have to in the not so distant future. Shale gas though will be extracted in the future from wells drilled in rural India, which depends a lot on groundwater. Farmers use it for drinking purposes as well as irrigating their fields. The gas will be in sedimentary formations a couple of kilometers below the surface, but the water for fracking will be taken from much shallower aquifers that the farmers rely on for their livelihood.

Each time a gas well is fracked, 20 million liters of water will have to be diverted from aquifers underlying their fields for getting the natural gas out. Over the lifetime of a well over 400 million liters of water may be consumed by one well and in an area few tens of sq km, there may be scores of such shale gas wells.

Its early days in our goal to exploit shale gas from various Indian sedimentary basins. Let us quantitatively assess the state of our aquifers besides exploring for shale gas. Let's educate our farmers on how much water shale gas drilling is likely to use up. The residents of central Pune can afford to pump all of 20 odd million liters of groundwater away and still see water gushing out of their taps.

Farmers in the dusty hinterlands may not afford that luxury.