A group of expert climate researchers has rounded robustly on 16 scientists who complained in the Wall Street Journal (No Need to Panic About Global Warming) that presidential candidates should understand that the statement that “nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming” is not true.

New Zealander Kevin Trenberth

The complaint used Auckland academic Dr Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research — and a vocal critic of some aspects of climate change science — as a poster boy for its argument that “many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse”.

It said that when Dr de Freitas published a peer-reviewed article in 2003  “with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years” members of a “warming establishment”  mounted a determined — though unsuccessful — campaign to have him removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position.

It also re-visited “Climategate” allegations against another New Zealander,  Dr  Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the climate analysis section of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research.

A response — also published in the WSJ — was signed by Dr Trenberth and over 30 other scientists — from Australia, Canada, Britain, France and the USA — and referred to the group of 16 as the “climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology”.

“Most of these authors have no expertise in climate science,” it said. “The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert”.  Observations showed unequivocally that the planet was getting hotter, and computer models had shown that during periods when there was a smaller increase of surface temperatures, “warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean”.
It noted that a quote attributed to Dr Trenberth was used out-of-context and misrepresented .

Science clearly showed the world was heating up and that humans were primarily responsible: “It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses”.

The row has been followed-up on science news websites, such as Discovery.com, where the headline read:  Climate Scientists Occupy Wall Street Journal, and in mainstream media such as London’s  Guardian, and the New York Times.

Similar  issues have previously been canvassed by Physics Today.

Lisa Harvey-Smith, a scientist working for the CSIRO in Australia, writes about the impending decision on the Square Kilometre Array for the science website The Conversation. (reproduced here under Creative Commons licence).

Australia’s bid for the Square Kilometre Array – an insider’s perspective

Australia and New Zealand could be on the brink of a major scientific coup. In roughly a month’s time, the site for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope will be announced.

Australia and New Zealand are competing against a consortium of nine African countries – led by South Africa – for the right to host this A$2 billion mega-science project – one of the largest and most ambitious scientific projects ever conceived.

Last year, representatives from Australia-New Zealand prepared a detailed submission to assist the SKA Site Advisory Committee with its deliberations. I was lucky enough to be a part of that team.

The document, which exceeded 1,000 pages and included input from more than 40 organisations and agencies, provided data in sometimes eye-watering detail on the physical and environmental characteristics of our candidate site. It also described the social, political and legal structures relevant to administering the project in Australia and New Zealand.

For several weeks, submissions from both candidate sites were scrutinised by an international panel of experts. Very shortly, in the next few weeks, the committee will deliver its recommendation of the preferred site to the SKA Board of Directors. The board will then have the final responsibility for choosing a site. This decision is expected to be announced in mid- to late-March.

The level of anticipation within the scientific community is palpable. Astronomers, engineers and officials are collectively holding their breath, awaiting the announcement.

Potential SKA array station placement in Australia and New Zealand.

I have witnessed a remarkable level of enthusiasm from the general public. At an ABC “meet a scientist” event last year I asked a young girl – of around 11 years old – if she knew what a radio telescope was. Her reply stunned me: “Is that like the SKA?”, she asked, before proceeding to tell me there was competition between Australia and South Africa to host the telescope.

So what makes the ideal site for the world’s most sensitive radio telescope?

The primary consideration is, unsurprisingly, the suitability of the location for radio astronomy. With the rapid expansion of electronic communications devices such as mobile phones, radio astronomers around the world have experienced a large negative impact from the encroachment of stray “radio frequency interference” into their telescope receiver systems.

This can be extremely damaging to science output and costly to mitigate. CSIRO’s existing observatories in rural New South Wales – such as the Parkes Observatory – are increasingly suffering from population growth and the associated radio interference. The problem will be much more acute for the SKA, which will be more sensitive and observe over a very large frequency range, in order to pick up signals from the distant universe.

To avoid such man-made interference, CSIRO, working with WA State and Federal Governments, has established the Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory in one of the most remote areas of Western Australia.

By way of contrast, the region within 100km of CSIRO’s Paul Wild Observatory near Narrabri, NSW, has a population density of one person per square kilometre. Within 100km of our candidate SKA site, the figure is 100 times lower.

In order to protect this extraordinarily radio-quiet region, CSIRO and government agencies have negotiated a strong legal framework to protect the Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory for generations to come.

The SKA will comprise a number of different receiver systems, which will enable observations over a large frequency range. There are strong scientific advantages of placing these systems at a single, high-quality site:

• the infrastructure cost is shared between the high- and low-frequency receivers, increasing the available budget for the (scientifically productive) hardware and active components of the telescope
• the scientific return of a geographically distributed telescope is diminished because simultaneous observations of the sky over a large frequency range would be impossible
• if man-made interference were greater at one location, it would inevitably diminish the science return to place any antennas on the site more afflicted by radio interference.

For these reasons, I have no doubt that the merit-based process to identify a single site for the telescope is the correct approach. Given the SKA will inhabit one of the last remaining radio-quiet sites on Earth, the quality of science is not an area in which we can afford to compromise.

I have heard the SKA site bid compared to an Olympic bid, but in many ways that understates the significance of the project. A successful SKA telescope will provide a massive boost for science worldwide, together with the spin-off benefits that flow from such internationally focused innovative technology projects.

This will happen, provided the very best site is chosen to enable maximum potential for scientific discovery and maximum engagement from the global technology community.

Australia and New Zealand have incredibly strong credentials to support the SKA on behalf of the whole world for the 50-year lifetime of the instrument. I hope in 2012 – an Olympic year – we ensure scientific excellence emerges from this process victorious.

In a ‘provocative’ commentary article, several scientists have called for sugar to be regulated as a harmful substance like alcohol and tobacco, prompting debate over individual liberty and the western diet.

In the article, published in the leading science journal Nature,  international scientists argue that added sweeteners pose dangers to health that justify controlling them like alcohol.

Highlighting the myriad of negative health impacts – and subsequent healthcare costs- caused by added sweeteners such as high-fructose corn syrup, the authors call for government intervention to reduce the level of sugar added to foods.

“Ultimately, food producers and distributors must reduce the amount of sugar added to foods. But sugar is cheap, sugar tastes good and sugar sells, so companies have little incentive to change”, the article states.

The authors suggest that the US Food and Drug Administration should no longer list sugar as ‘generally regarded as safe’ (meaning manufacturers can add as much as they want to foodstuffs) and that authorities should tax or place other limitations on high sugar foods.

Our colleagues at the Australian Science Media Centre contacted experts for further comment and context on the arguments put forward in the Nature article:

Prof Leonie Segal is Foundation Chair of the Health Economics & Social Policy Group at the University of SA, with an international profile in the economics of nutrition. She was a member of the Ministers Preventative Health Taskforce

“A focus on added sugar is most timely, with increasing evidence of its negative health effects.
“The public health arguments for intervening are indeed strong, with perhaps the most important consideration, not highlighted by the authors, the imperative of governments to protect vulnerable members of society, especially where the capacity for well-informed decision making is limited or non-existent.

“Because eating habits and taste tend to be influenced by what we eat as infants and young children, an unhealthy habituation or addiction to sugar, which influences lifetime health, can be established from a very young age when the ability and capacity to make informed eating choices are simply unavailable. This provides a strong case for governments to intervene to encourage healthy food choices, by children and thus families. And as the authors argue excess sugar is a crucial aspect of current poor food choices and thus an important focus of such policies.

“While at its extreme alcohol may have more damaging effects than sugar, excessive consumption of sugar is considerably more prevalent than excessive alcohol consumption, part of the reason why population level strategies make sense.”

Prof Peter Clifton is Head of Nutritional Interventions at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute

“Alcohol toxicity is not just metabolic – it causes violence and road deaths and sugar in any of its forms cannot compete with this statistic. Almost all of the evidence against sugar is epidemiological – that is association not necessarily causation.

“In intervention studies with fructose, up to 10% of calories show no metabolic effects while a few studies with fructose at 25% of energy do show a modest increase in triglycerides but not high enough to cause pancreatitis.

“There are no controlled interventions that show feeding fructose or sucrose causes hypertension and none that show that a controlled reduction in sugar alone reduces blood pressure. However, there is evidence to show that increasing sugar-sweetened beverage intake does cause modest weight gain as the liquid calories are not compensated by a reduction in calories from other foods.

“Sugar is just another form of over-consumed calories – easily available and very palatable but no more metabolically deadly than starch or fat calories and certainly not equivalent to alcohol.”

Dr Alan Barclay is an accredited practicing dietitian and nutritionist, Chief Scientific Officer for the Glycemic Index Foundation Ltd and head of research at the Australian Diabetes Foundation

“This commentary is a provocative piece intended to encourage debate. Many of the statements simply do not apply to Australia and on certain issues there is little evidence to support their views. ‘Sugar’ is not the issue, it is far more complicated than that.

“The authors state that over the past 50 years, consumption of sugar has tripled worldwide. However, in Australia sugar consumption has dropped 23% since 1980. Despite this, during that time cases of overweight or obese people have doubled, whilst diabetes has at least tripled.

“The authors believe that attention should be turned to ‘added sugar’, which they have defined as any sweetener containing the molecule fructose that is added to food in processing. The authors suggest that fructose can trigger processes that lead to chronic diseases including liver toxicity, however one would need to eat at least 135g, or about 32 teaspoons, of pure added fructose per day on top of what one already eats. Only one per cent of Americans eat more than 100g per day of total fructose. The only disease proven to be related to excess frequent sugar consumption is tooth decay – a significant problem – but even then, refined starch is at least equally as cariogenic but is rarely acknowledged as a problem.

“Lustig and his colleagues claim that sugar should be regulated like alcohol because it is unavoidable, toxic, has potential for abuse and has a negative impact on society. However, it is certainly not unavoidable, it is only ‘toxic’ in unrealistic amounts and to suggest that consuming sugar is a form of abuse is one of the worst cases of puritanism that I have seen in a while. It’s worth noting that soft drinks and other non-core ‘party’ foods are already taxed (GST) in Australia.

“Just like anything else, sugar should only be eaten in moderation. As we continue our research we are finding out more and more about the importance of refined starch and specific fatty acids and the average Australian can do a lot to improve their diet, but casting sugar as the ultimate villain and calling for regulation is misleading, unfounded and unnecessary.”

Article: The toxic truth about sugar, A Comment piece, Lustig et al., Nature, 2012 (482), pp27-29

As New Zealand policy-makers examine ways to help consumers make healthy food choices, a new Otago study has shown that keeping it simple works best.  

Traffic Light Label

Researchers at Otago University have shown that a front-of-pack ‘Traffic Light system’ (see image) using a red-yellow-green colour code  for high, medium and low salt content helps consumers make healthy choices.

The full study, published in the journal Public Health Nutrition, is available to registered journalists in our Resource Library.

Last year the traffic light labelling system was recommended to a trans-Tasman food regulation forum by an expert review panel. The forum agreed that a standardised, easy-to-undertand front-of-pack nutrition label should be introduced – and now aims to have one in place by the end of the year. See more below.

It is estimated that consumers typically spend between four and ten seconds choosing a product in a supermarket.

The SMC contacted New Zealand experts for further comment on the research. Feel free to use these quotes in your reporting.  To talk to one of these experts, please contact the SMC (04 4995476; smc@sciencemediacentre.co.nz).

Dr Racheal McLean, a Research Fellow at the Edgar National Centre for Diabetes research, University of Otago, explained the study to the Science Media Centre:

“Reducing dietary salt intake is an important way to reduce blood pressure and risk of heart disease and stroke, especially if it is done across the whole population.  New Zealanders, on average, consume more salt than is recommended by dietary guidelines, as do people in most countries around the world.  In a western style diet, around three quarters of salt consumed is already in processed foods, with only around 10% added at home- in cooking or at the table.

“Ensuring that consumers are able to identify the amount of salt in processed food is vital if people are going to regulate their own intake.  Food labelling is an important tool, as many products that are high in salt do not necessarily taste salty.

Percentage Daily Intake

“Our research tested New Zealand consumers’ ability to use a range of currently available food labelling formats to discriminate between products when grocery shopping.  We used a large national online panel to simulate in-store behaviour.  We tested the Nutrition Information Panel (mandatory in New Zealand since 2002), two front of pack labels: the Percentage Daily Intake label used voluntarily by several food manufacturers in New Zealand, and the Traffic Light Label which has been in use as a voluntary system in the United Kingdom for a number of years.  We also tested the ‘low salt’ and ‘reduced salt’ nutrition claims currently in use in New Zealand in combination with the various labels.

Nutrition Information Panel

“The results showed that both front-of-pack labels (percentage daily intake and traffic light labels) enabled people to better identify products with high and low salt content, however the traffic light label enabled them to do this more effectively.  In particular, the traffic light label enabled people to identify the high-salt product more easily. The traffic light label also performed better than the percent daily intake label in enabling people to identify high and low salt products when they were faced with products labeled with a  ‘reduced salt’ nutrition claim.

“We believe that the simple colour coded message of the traffic light makes them easier to understand than the more detailed information in the other labels tested.

“These findings are consistent with international research that shows that people find simple colour coded food labels such as the traffic light allow them to easily identify more healthy foods across a range of nutrients.  Traffic light labels, if widely implemented, could be a useful tool to improve nutrition in New Zealand.

Prof Elaine Rush, Professor of Nutrition, AUT, commented:

“This report provides evidence that a front-of-pack traffic light labeling system is more effective than other labelling systems in allowing normo – and hypertensive consumers to discriminate between high and low sodium foods, even in the presence of misleading nutrition claims on the label. Those with known (self-reported) hypertension were more likely to have been advised to reduce the salt in their diet, read nutrition labels and choose a product with front of pack traffic light labelling that identified the product as low sodium.

“This evidence adds to the understanding of the effectiveness of clear front of pack labelling and supports its use.  The simplicity of three colours (red, amber, green) and four nutrients (fat, saturates, sugar and salt) is attractive but has a number of detractors.

“It is nutrient-based and does not give a rating to the whole food. The nutrients profiled are considered “bad” – what about the good ones – like fibre, protein and fruit and vegetable content – they should be shown too.  (Water would be a perfect food based on this system– low in salt, sugar and fat – but where are vitamins and minerals and macronutrients?) It is not black and white,

“People eat foods not nutrients.  Foods make up meals. Dietary advice should be in context. Once a condition is diagnosed and linked with a nutrient e.g. high blood pressure with salt, diabetes with sugar, obesity with fat, heart disease with saturates, then the importance o the overall nutritional quality of the diet and foods eaten may be lost.

“In New Zealand we have food based dietary guidelines for different ages and stages which guide the choice of foods – not nutrients.

“Front of pack labelling such as:

• Watties with the number of vegetable serves in a can,
• Sanitarium with their healthy eating system with gives dietary advice such as eat often, eat occasionally and eat sparingly, and
• Ministry of Health (school) food-based classification system of everyday, sometimes and occasional foods

should also be considered

“Another consideration for many New Zealand people and families is cost.

“There is a need for better communication with consumers about the quality of foods – front of pack labelling is one important step as is robust evidence that the communication is effective.”

A green light for front-of-pack labelling?

A recent government-commissioned review of food labelling in New Zealand and Australia, Labelling Logic, found that “existing labelling requirements do not appear to have been adequate to encourage reformulations in line with healthy eating principles.”

The review supported front-of-pack nutritional labelling which provides a simple way to understand nutrition content, so that children and adults with low literacy and numeracy skills can make informed, healthy choices easily.

Specifically, the review recommended a traffic-light style system stating: “the colour-coded multiple traffic lights system has been consistently found to be most effective in facilitating consumers’ understanding of the nutrient profiles of foods within and across food categories”.

Although they stopped short of recommending mandatory traffic light labels for all food products, the review panel did suggest that such a label be required for all foods making nutritional claims such as, ‘low in salt’.

A trans-Tasman policy forum responding to the report agreed to the need for an easily understood, interpretive front-of-pack labelling system for packaged foods. In June the forum will provide a report on front-of pack-labelling, with the aim to implement a system by the end of 2012.

Prominent scientists — including a New Zealander who is one of the world’s leading virologists — have published commentaries on whether American biosecurity experts were correct to call for suppression of details of Dutch-based research that created a potentially lethal strain of birdflu (H5N1) potentially capable of killing 50 percent of the people it infects.

The commentaries in the journal mBio included one by New Zealander Professor Robert Webster, an influenza expert at St Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and a consultant to both the World Health Organisation and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He said: “The question before the scientific community is how to preserve scientific openness while minimising risk to the public”.

Professor Webster’s laboratory tracks emerging new flu viruses and guides the development of flu vaccines to stop them. His work is vital to meeting the yearly challenge of stemming the seasonal flu epidemics which circle the globe.

The journal, published by the American Society for Microbiology has also canvassed whether the biosecurity recommendations were necessary and what role biosecurity considerations should play in the dissemination of research findings.

The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) is expected to today explain how it decided late last year to recommend “that two scientific papers describing research that created strains of bird flu potentially transmissible in humans should be published only if key details are omitted,” for fear “that terrorists or hostile nations could learn how to cause a pandemic.

A New York Times science editorial writer, Philip Boffey, has predicted the NSABB document is unlikely to settle the argument, as it fails to deal with the “even greater risk” should the virus escape or be stolen from the laboratory.

And Professor Vincent Racaniello of Columbia University, says in mBio that such redaction would undermine modern scientific publishing. Adapting viruses to living in lab animals is actually a common strategy for reducing their suitability and virulence to human hosts.

Professor Webster says that suppressing scientific knowledge was in the public interest in this instance, but that so-called dual-use research will continue to raise many questions about where to draw the line between freedom of information and public safety. He points to an urgent need for general guidance and indicates an international panel could consider approaches to promoting research while maintaining biosecurity.

Later in the week, the Emerging Infectious Diseases & Microbiology Discussion Group of the New York Academy of Sciences will also canvas the key issues.

Log into the SMC Resource Library to access the editorial and commentaries.

The Science Media Centre is gathering comment from New Zealand experts on the issue.

Comments gathered earlier from Dr Siouxsie Wiles — Auckland University’s HRC Hercus Fellow at Molecular Medicine & Pathology — are available here.

Barry Scott FRSNZ, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Head of Molecular BioSciences at Massey University, comments:

“While there is considerable uncertainty around whether the results obtained in ferrets will translate to humans the scientists were concerned that if such transmissibility could occur in humans then the global risk to human health would be very difficult to manage. Racaniello dismisses the arguments as “a severe case of scientific hubris”.

“He does raise some good points about how unlikely such an event might be to occur. Despite these criticisms the NSABB in weighing up the risks associated with the alternative usage of this scientific information decided to take a cautionary approach and restrict access to key scientific information, in particular the amino acid sequence changes that enhance transmissibility.

“As Webster, an ex pat, notes, the decision is reminiscent of the 1975 self imposed decision by the scientific community to put a moratorium on the use of recombinant DNA technology until working guidelines and practices were established to manage the risks. But in this case there is not universal acceptance of the approach been taken. Both Klein and Webster point out that the globe is ill prepared for an outbreak of a highly transmissible strain of H5N1 and therefore advocated this precautionary approach. This seems to be a wise decision at this point in time.

“Even without the key methodology the publications by the Fouchier and Kawaoka groups will be of considerable interest to the scientific community and bring greater awareness to the scientific community of dual-purpose research. It is very important at this juncture that public safety is not compromised by expediency in revealing all the information. The decision appears to be a wise one.”

Professor Scott’s comments are available in full here.

Prominent scientists — including a New Zealander who is one of the world’s leading virologists — have published commentaries on whether American biosecurity experts were correct to call for suppression of details of Dutch-based research that created a potentially lethal strain of birdflu (H5N1) potentially capable of killing 50 percent of the people it infects.

Barry Scott

The Science Media Centre gathered the following commentary on the issue from Barry Scott FRSNZ, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Head of Molecular BioSciences at Massey University

In a highly unusual move, and the first such recommendation of its kind, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) has recommended to the US government that some of the experimental details be redacted from two papers about to be published on the transmissibility of H5N1 flu virus in ferrets.

This is a very controversial decision that has sparked outrage by some in the scientific community (e.g. see Palese 2012) as full and complete disclosure of methodology in publications is a key tenet of the scientific publication process as it enables others to repeat the experiments and design new experiments to progress the work and provide support for or against the hypotheses proposed. While the recommendation by the NSABB committee is not binding the journals involved in publishing this work have decided to abide by the recommendations of this committee.

Commentaries on the this extraordinary decision by the NSABB to redact scientific information is discussed in three commentaries published in mBio today; two in support of the decision (Klein 2012; Webster, 2012) and one against (Racaniello 2012).

These commentaries will help promote healthy and open debate on this very controversial issue. Given the scientific standing of the scientists on the NSABB committee and their considerable expertise on transmissible human viruses and other biosecurity risks, Prof Scott says it is important to respect their decision.

While there is considerable uncertainty around whether the results obtained in ferrets will translate to humans the scientists were concerned that if such transmissibility could occur in humans then the global risk to human health would be very difficult to manage.

Racaniello dismisses the arguments as “a severe case of scientific hubris”. He does raise some good points about how unlikely such an event might be to occur. Despite these criticisms the NSABB in weighing up the risks associated with the alternative usage of this scientific information decided to take a cautionary approach and restrict access to key scientific information, in particular the amino acid sequence changes that enhance transmissibility.

As Webster, an ex pat, notes, the decision is reminiscent of the 1975 self imposed decision by the scientific community to put a moratorium on the use of recombinant DNA technology until working guidelines and practices were established to manage the risks.

But in this case there is not universal acceptance of the approach been taken. Both Klein and Webster point out that the globe is ill prepared for an outbreak of a highly transmissible strain of H5N1 and therefore advocated this precautionary approach. This seems to be a wise decision at this point in time.

Even without the key methodology the publications by the Fouchier and Kawaoka groups will be of considerable interest to the scientific community and bring greater awareness to the scientific community of dual-purpose research. It is very important at this juncture that public safety is not compromised by expediency in revealing all the information. The decision appears to be a wise one.

Klein PS (2012). The NSABB recommendations: rationale, impact and implications. mBio 3: e00021-12

Palese P (2012). Don’t censor life-saving science. Nature 481: 115

Racaniello VR (2012). Science should be in the public domain. mBio 3: e00004-12

Webster RG (2012) Mammalian-transmissible H5N1 influenza: the dilemma of dual-use research. mBio 3: e00005-12

New Kiwi research has found that biofouling mussels may be more likely to make their home on the hull of  noisy ship than on a quiet one. 

The research, recently published in the journal Biofouling, reported that mussel larvae settle faster on surfaces when exposed to underwater noise. Scientists from NIWA and Auckland University undertook the research to learn more about what factors are involving in biofouling, a phenomenon which costs the shipping industry millions of dollars.

Biofouling occurs when organisms, such as algae or shellfish, accumulate on wet surfaces. This accumulation of living material  is a problem particularly for ships as the layer of organic matter causes drag and may carry invasive species between ports.

The specific noise used in the experiments was an underwater recording of a ship docked with the on board generator running. The recording was played to tanks of green lipped mussel (Perna canaliculus) larvae at either high or low volume, or not all in the case of the control group. The researchers found that the larvae exposed to the loudest playback of the noise through submersible speakers were the fastest to settle on a surface and start growing.

The authors of the research noted possible implications of their findings, stating in the article:

“If vessel sound is found to be an important factor in promoting hull fouling by mussels, then dampening or eliminating sound production in vessels, such as by switching to a shore-based electrical supply whilst vessels are at berth, would have the potential to reduce the extensive range of problems that fouling and translocation of mussels creates.”

The research has been noted by several media outlets:

MSN NZ News: Noisy ships attract fouling: NZ research

Radio New Zealand: Noise draws mussels to ships

TV3 News:  Noisy ships attract fouling – NZ research

The original NIWA release can be found here.

Associate Professor Marc Wilson, from the Department of Psychology, Victoria University, talked to TVNZ’s Breakfast show about the Mayan calendar, doomsday theories and why some people truly believe the end is nigh.

Watch Prof Wilson on Breakfast here.

From the TVNZ website:

Belief in doomsday stems from distress – expert

Believing the end of the world is nigh is not as crazy as some may think, a psychology professor believes.

The latest Doomsday date is December 21, this year. Last year, according to elderly US preacher Harold Camping, the world was to come to an end on May 21.

Marc Wilson, Associate Professor of Psychology at Victoria University, said the reason people choose to believe in doomsday prophecies is because they hope there is a better alternative to the “bad stuff” they see everyday.

“We run the risk of characterising people as crazy if they believe these sorts of things but actually it makes sense to them,” he told TV ONE’s Breakfast.

“One of the ways you can deal with the distress that comes from seeing bad things happen is the belief that something good is going to happen at some point in the imminent future, after all of the bad stuff gets wiped away.”

Wilson adds that although the 2012 prophecy may seem significant, it is only because of the attention it has received in the media.

Keep reading…

The Science Media Centre’s latest Heads-Up newsletter is out – bringing you the latest science and tech news and a peek at what’s coming up in the week ahead. Click on the image below to read the Heads-Up.