ON THE RADAR

The pick of the science news

"The students who win these awards are the natural resource that will power this island in five, 10, 15 years' time"

– BT Ireland chief executive Chris Clark, presenting the 2009 BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition top prize to John OCallaghan, 14, and Liam McCarthy, 13, from Kinsale

Dropping short

Faeces from extinct birds in New Zealand are shedding light on how some giant creatures, such as the moa, lived. A study of more than 1,500 faecal samples from caves and rock shelters shows that at least some of these enormous birds – which could tip the scales at 250kg – mainly ate herbs. Commenting on the findings, Prof Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide, lamented the lack of material to inspect in his own country.

“Given the arid conditions, Australia should probably have similar deposits from the extinct giant marsupials,” he said. “A key question for us is ‘where has all the Australian poo gone?’.”

A change in the political climate

As Barack Obama moves into the presidential hot seat, what environmental challenges and opportunities do his administration – and the rest of the world – face? And how will our energy future shape up?

Prof Michael McElroy should have plenty to say on the matter later this month when he and the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan, engage in a public conversation about climate change at the Royal Irish Academy. This will be followed by a question-and-answer session chaired by Dick Ahlstrom, science editor of The Irish Times.

Belfast-born McElroy has worked closely with Al Gore over the last two decades and is currently the Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies at Harvard University.

Booking is essential and a limited number of places remain for the free event, which starts at 7pm on Tuesday, January 27th at the RIA, Dawson Street, Dublin 2. For details, e-mail mcelroy@ria.ie or telephone 01-6090635.

Pointing the way

Want to know how to predict which financial trader will be successful? The key is to measure the length of his ring finger, according to a report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The 20-month study of 44 male stock traders in London found that the men with the longest ring fingers relative to their index fingers made 11 times more money than those with the shortest ring fingers. The index-to-ring-finger ratio is determined in the womb, and a relatively long ring finger indicates greater exposure to male hormones.

By numbers

70,000

The sum, in Canadian dollars, paid by a bidder for a full triceratops skull at an auction of dinosaur bones at Science World in Vancouver. The item was expected to sell for twice that amount

12

The number of new gamma-ray-only pulsars (burnt-out stars) discovered by Nasa's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, announced this week