I’m immediately suspicious about “miracle cures”, so I’m less than enthused by the idea of sequestering all of that excess greenhouse gas we’re producing underground. “Hey, let’s dump the problem and forget about it” – that was the approached used, to disastrous, expensive, effect, with chemical weapons from World War I, and by far too many industries since then.

So I’m not surprised by a nasty surprise for those testing out the idea of “burying” carbon dioxide:

It’s staying where they put it, but it’s chewing up minerals. The reactions have produced a nasty mix of metals and organic substances in a layer of sandstone 1550 meters down, researchers report this week in Geology. At the same time, the CO2 is dissolving a surprising amount of the mineral that helps keep the gas where it’s put. Nothing is leaking out so far, but the phenomenon will need a closer look before such carbon sequestration can help ameliorate the greenhouse problem, say the researchers.

Reminders to the human race of how much more powerful “Nature” is than its technology are never a bad thing, so one has to laugh that Tokyo is unable to control its crows, which are eating up its fibre-optic cable links.

Crows have discovered that the broadband cables, which are strung from telegraph poles across Tokyo, are the perfect consistency for building nests….Engineers called out to repair crow-ravaged cables say that the centre of destruction is generally around junction boxes, where an average of 30 cables meet and provide rich pickings.

Following earlier problems, the city had trapped 11,000 crows in a drive to reduce the population. They were, however, immediately replaced by crows flying in from the countryside.

There has to be a horror movie in there somewhere … Perhaps it isn’t the cockroaches that will take over from us.

… in recognising rights for our nearest relatives.

Spain is likely to pass legislation recognising rights for the great apes, species that share so many of our characteristics.

The law would eliminate the concept of “ownership” for great apes, instead placing them under the “moral guardianship” of the state, much as is the case for children in care, the severely handicapped and those in comas, said the MP behind the project, Francisco Garrido. … The law would also make it a criminal offence to mistreat or kill a great ape, except in cases of self-defence or medical euthanasia.

New Zealand and the UK have already banned medical experiments on great apes.

This reminds me of a short story I read many years ago that made a great impression. It was a Swiftian-style satire that had, as I recall, a human society passing a law saying animals could be used for food if there IQ was a certain percentage below the human average. Then aliens with a far higher intelligence arrive, and use that law against its makers. Anyone know the story?