State University in East Lansing, said the WRI project is laudable. However, he ... eutrification. Robert Wayland, III, director of EPAs Office of Wetlands Oceans ...
Eos,Vol. 83, No. 16,16 April 2002 hundreds of scientists who have taken time from their work to talk with me. "They welcomed me into their labs and offices and let me follow them around in the field. They gave me their home phone numbers, and other peoples' home phone numbers.They sneaked me into places I was not supposed to go, allowing me to get a closer look at the first flyby of Neptune and the workings of the Hub
ble Space Telescope.They answered my stupid questions and patiently explained the fine points.They also bounced me around in boats until I was violently ill and caused me to spend a stormy, miserable night sleeping on the floor of a public restroom. But all is forgiven. "To all of you, I would like to say:Thanks for trusting me to interpret your work through the highly imperfect medium of the popular
press. I know how scary that can be, and I deeply appreciate it."—Glennda Chui, San Jose Mercury News, Calif., USA
In Brief
undisturbed tracts—just 5% of that area is fed erally protected. That lack of forest protection also was found in other countries WRI studied, including Venezuela, Chile, the United States, and Canada. The group notes that of 13,500 square kilo meters of remaining intact, or "frontier" forests, 39% are under moderate or high threat. David Skole, director of the Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative at Michigan State University in East Lansing, said the WRI project is laudable. However, he said there is a need for a global and more comprehensive study that incorporates finer measurements of forest area and changes over time. For more information, visit the Web site: http://www.globalforestwatch.org. Asteroids in infrared The first systematic infrared search for asteroids in the Solar System estimates that there are about twice as many objects than are indicated in two recent visiblelight surveys. Between 1.1 million and 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1 kilometer are in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to results from the Deep Asteroid Search conducted with the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory The results were reported by Edward Tedesco and Francois-Xavier Desert in the April 2002 issue of The Astronomical Journal. The authors extrapolated their estimate for the number of asteroids by observing a middle region of the asteroid belt, and then applying a model that Tedesco developed with astronomers Alberto Cellino and Vincenzo Zappala of the Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino in Italy.
Tedesco said the best estimate for the number of asteroids might be derived by considering near-simultaneous surveys using visible and infrared light, since each on its own may con tain some biases. He added that improved knowledge of asteroids also would help to better estimate the number of near-Earth asteroids larger than one kilometer that scien tists estimate may impact the Earth every 100,000-300,000 years. U.S. coastal waters graded A comprehensive summary of the condition of U.S. coastal con ditions, released 29 March, grades the nation's coasts as fair to poor. The "National Coastal Conditions Report," prepared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal agencies, found that 44% of the nation's estuarine areas are impaired for use by people and aquatic life. Regions fairing the worst are the Northeast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes. Con ditions in the West and Southeast were better. The report summarized the ecological and environmental conditions in US. coastal waters by measuring seven indicators: water clarity, dissolved oxygen, sediment, benthos, fish contamination, coastal wetlands loss, and eutrification. Robert Wayland, III, director of EPAs Office of Wetlands Oceans and Watersheds, said,"It took decades for the coasts to get this way, and though progress has been made, there is much work still to do."
PAGE 174 Intact forests at risk Many of the world's remaining intact forests are at risk from degra dation due to unsustainable development practices, according to a series of new reports issued by the World Resources Institute's (WRI) Global Forest Watch on 3 April. In six regional reports covering nearly half of the world's forests, the group used a combi nation of remote sensing and ground-based data to chart where a number of remaining intact forests are and to analyze the various threats they face. The reports point to legal and illegal logging, agriculture, overgrazing, infrastructure development, and other threats. The loss and degradation of forests is linked to a number of environmental concerns including carbon sequestration and global greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient cycling, and erosion. Tony Janetos,WRI senior vice president for programs and chief of science and research, said the reports focus on current forest cover as well as potential future threat. Janetos is former senior scientist for the Land-Cover and Land-Use Change program in NASAs Office of Earth Science. In the report on Russia, which includes the first-ever detailed atlas of Russian forests, the group found that although the country harbors the largest forested area in the world—with about 289 million hectares in large, relatively
Randy Showstack,
Staff Writer
