24 November 2012 | NewScientist | 7

spend the money on conservation projects in the Gulf region.

The crux of the civil damages case lies in whether BP is shown to have displayed “gross negligence”. Under the Clean Water Act, the company would be liable for a $1100 fine for every barrel of oil leaked into the environment, going up to $4300 per barrel in the case of gross negligence. BP leaked 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf over three months, so could be facing a $21 billion fine.

The company said it would “vigorously defend itself” against the civil claims. The civil trial is due to begin early next year.

Emit now, pay laterEMISSIONS are still way too high to stop dangerous climate change, warns a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

To stop the Earth warming more than 2 °C above preindustrial levels, global emissions must peak at 44 gigatonnes in 2020 and then fall. However, the report says that 2020 emissions are likely to be between 8 to 13 gigatonnes higher. This range is calculated on how well or not countries deliver on their pledges to cut emissions. So in the best-case scenario, where everyone meets their targets, emissions are still 8 Gt too high.

This “emissions gap” has grown: first estimates by UNEP in 2010 put it at between 5 and 9 Gt.

Unless drastic action is taken soon, we are likely to see a 4 °C rise this century, warns Simon Anderson at the International Institute for Environment and Development in Edinburgh, UK.

A report from the World Bank, also published this week, paints a stark picture of a 4 °C warmer world riven by severe heatwaves, floods and droughts. “It will be absolutely catastrophic for certain parts of the world,” Anderson says.

By delaying emissions cuts, the world is simply deciding to pay more for them later, he says.

Safety on MarsYOU needn’t fry on Mars. Readings from NASA’s Curiosity rover suggest radiation levels on the Red Planet are the same as those in low-Earth orbit, where astronauts hang out for months on the space station. A Mars visit would still be dangerous though, due to the years-long return trip.

Though Mars, unlike Earth, has no magnetosphere shielding it from solar and galactic radiation, it does have a thin atmosphere. The latest Curiosity readings suggest this provides about the same protection as Earth does to

low-Earth orbit. “It’s roughly what we were expecting,” says astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell of University College London.

The biggest threat to Mars voyagers is radiation exposure during the long, unshielded trip.

Solar flares – which Curiosity hasn’t examined – would also be a problem. Once on Mars, people could shelter underground, but that isn’t possible on the journey.

“The biggest threat to Mars voyagers is radiation exposure during the long, unshielded journey”

IS THE moon open for business? That’s the prospect raised by rumours that a private firm is aiming to send astronauts to the moon by 2020.

Cryptic tweets and posts from the websites NASASpaceFlight.com and NASA Watch, neither of which is affiliated with NASA, said former NASA astronauts and engineers would soon announce such a venture. This led various bloggers to point to the company Golden Spike. It is registered in Colorado to Alan Stern, a former administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, who now works on the New Horizons Pluto mission at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Golden Spike has not revealed its plans, and Stern told New Scientist

that he “can’t comment either way” on the purported mission. There may be a niche for a private crewed moon venture, says Fred Bourgeois, a competitor in the Google Lunar X-Prize, a race to land a rover on the moon. Though the firm Space Adventures wants to send tourists to the moon , it has no suitable craft as yet. Open Luna, an open source effort, lacks cash.

NASA and China have vague plans to return astronauts to the moon, but Bourgeois says private players will do it more cheaply. Commercial missions will also help establish the moon as a new frontier, which is important for humanity’s development, he says. “If we’re not going up and out, we’re going to fall back in on ourselves.”

Private moon trips on the horizon

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60 SEcondS

Meningitis vaccineFor the first time, a vaccine for meningitis B – the most common strain of the disease in Europe and North America – has been backed by the European Medicines Agency. The vaccine, called 4CMenB and developed by Novartis, should receive full approval from the European Commission within the next three months.

End of the roadThe first space telescope to hunt for transiting exoplanets may be on its deathbed. High doses of radiation caused a computer failure on the international COROT satellite. Attempts to recover any new data are underway.

Speed record smashedThe world sailing speed record was shattered on 16 November by the Vestas Sailrocket team who reached 120 kilometres per hour at Walvis Bay in Namibia, in their custom-designed, carbon-fibre boat. “It’s the hydrodynamic version of going supersonic… and it feels like it,” said pilot Paul Larsen.

Carry on beetleSmall children love being carried around. In Cambodia, a newly discovered species of scarab beetle, Eocorythoderus incredibilis, pulls the same trick, hitching a lift with worker termites. The beetle has a suitcase-like handle on its back that makes it easier for the termites to grab them with their jaws (Zootaxa, vol 3555, p 83).

Walk the dogSeveral dogs semi-paralysed by accidents or slipped discs have recovered mobility in their hind legs following spinal injections of stem cells extracted from their nose. Dogs treated with the olfactory “ensheathing” cells showed significantly more improvement in their coordination than those that received a placebo (Brain, DOI: 10.1093/brain/aws268).

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