Methane researchers will all be accustomed to the old jokes about flatulent cows, but fewer will be familiar with the debate about the possible role of methane emissions from other large bodied herbivores in an earlier era.

I expect most MethaneNet users spotted last month’s announcement that private business is to get involved in collecting atmospheric greenhouse gas data. 

Head over to www.mikewhitfield.co.uk for my blog!

We are sharing pictures of our ongoing field trip to Northern Alaska to survey methane bubbling on http://marielaureinalaska.wordpress.com/ (posts starting October 28th, 2010) Marie Geai (Katey Walter Anthony's lab, University of Alaska Fairbanks)

In the book ‘Methane and Climate Change’ edited by Dave Reay, Pete Smith and André van Amstel, and published in May 2010, research from many disciplines is brought together to provide an overview of the different methane sources and the potential for controlling emissions.

Earlier in the year, we reported on a paper published in the journal Science which presented results from an extensive survey of methane emissions on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (Shakhova et al., 2010) and highlighted a methane source of previously unrecognised magnitude. (See ‘Supersaturated Siberian Seas’ in News).

Air capture of carbon dioxide (CO₂) has been proposed as a solution to climate change but the grand challenge is to scale up prototypes to provide cost-effective solutions. Surprisingly air capture of methane (CH₄) has not received the same attention as air capture of CO₂.

Most readers will be familiar with the notion of ‘six degrees of separation’. The idea that, by linking ‘a friend of a friend of a friend’, no person is more than six steps away from any other human being on the planet. What started out as an academic theory about networks eventually morphed into the parlour game most commonly associated with the Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon.

First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Gail Riekie and I am the new Methane Network Co-ordinator, reporting to Dr. Vincent Gauci at the Open University.