Fossils Suggest An Ancient CO2-Climate Link

Mark Pink / Alamy

From Time Magazine:

Some of the best evidence linking rising carbon dioxide levels to a warmer world comes from the coldest places on earth. Samples of ancient air extracted from deep inside the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps make it clear that CO2 is scarce in the atmosphere during ice ages and relatively abundant during warmer interglacial periods — like the one we're in now.

The relationship between CO2 and climate is clear going back about 800,000 years. Before that, however, it gets murkier. That's largely because ice and air that old haven't yet been found. So scientists rely instead on indirect measurements — and these have led to a climate mystery: some episodes of past warming, including a planetary heat wave about 15 million years ago and another about 3.5 million years ago, seem to have happened without a rise in CO2. No one quite understands why. Maybe other greenhouse gases were the cause — methane, for example. Or maybe it had to do with changes in ocean circulation.

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Europa, Jupiter's Moon, Could Support Complex Life

Europa, pictured above, may have enough oxygen to support complex, animal-like organisms, according to a new study. NASA

From Discovery:

Jupiter's moon Europa should have enough oxygen-rich water to support not only simple micro-organisms but also complex life, according to a University of Arizona researcher who studies ice flows on the frozen moon.

Judging by how quickly Europa's surface ice is replenished, Richard Greenberg estimates that enough oxygen reaches the subterranean ocean to sustain "macrofauna" -- more complex, animal-like organisms.

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The Fatal Consequences Of Counterfeit Drugs

From Smithsonian Magazine:

In Southeast Asia, forensic investigators using cutting-edge tools are helping stanch the deadly trade in fake anti-malaria drugs

In Battambang, Cambodia, a western province full of poor farmers barely managing to grow enough rice to live on, the top government official charged with fighting malaria is Ouk Vichea. His job—contending with as many as 10,000 malaria cases a year in an area twice as large as Delaware—is made even more challenging by ruthless, increasingly sophisticated criminals, whose handiwork Ouk Vichea was about to demonstrate.

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PCs Are Best For E-Reading, Microsoft's Ballmer Says

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft Corporation Steve Ballmer gestures during a news conference to present the new Windows 7 operating system in Munich October 7, 2009. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

From The Reuters:

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) - Microsoft has no plans to develop a digital book reader to compete with the fast-growing popularity of Amazon's Kindle or a device that rival Apple is reportedly developing.

Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Microsoft had no need for its own e-reader, since it already supplies the software that runs the most popular device for electronic reading.

"We have a device for reading. It's the most popular device in the world. It's the PC," Ballmer said on Thursday on the sidelines of television show recording at Erasmus University in the Netherlands.

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NASA Catches Two Black Holes Sucking Face

Black Hole Merger: Two pinpoints of light represent black holes in the center of this combined X-ray/optical image NASA/CXC/MIT/C.Canizares, M.Nowak/STScI

From Popular Science:

The Chandra X-ray Observatory helped discover two merging black holes a mere 3,000 light years apart

Colliding black holes may prove more interesting to scientists than the immovable object versus the unstoppable force. New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has combined with optical images from Hubble to show off a merging black hole pair in all its glory.

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Why NASA Barred Women Astronauts

From New Scientist:

About 50 years ago, as the US worked towards putting its first men in space, a few people thought there was another option: women in space. The facts about this episode have been somewhat obscured by the myths that have grown up around it.

In 1960-61, a small group of female pilots went through many of the same medical tests as the Mercury astronauts, and scored very well on them – in fact, better than some of the astronauts did. A new study that presents the first published results of their physiological tests shows that much is fact.

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Twitter On The Verge Of Big Search Deals?

From CNET:

Are Microsoft and Google hoping to get into Twitter's treasure trove of real-time information? Yes, says Kara Swisher of AllThingsD, citing sources who indicate that the two companies are separately in talks with Twitter about data licensing deals.

This would involve the exchange of several million dollars plus a revenue-share to "compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets of its 54 million monthly users," Swisher wrote.

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'Significant Risk' Of Oil Production Peaking In Ten Years, Report Finds

Offshore oil rig at sunset. (Credit: iStockphoto/Kristian Stensønes)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 8, 2009) — A new report, launched by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), argues that conventional oil production is likely to peak before 2030, with a significant risk of a peak before 2020. The report concludes that the UK Government is not alone in being unprepared for such an event - despite oil supplying a third of the world's energy.

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New Shroud of Turin Evidence: A Closer Look

From Live Science:

An Italian scientist and his team claim to have replicated the Shroud of Turin, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus. Luigi Garlaschelli, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pavia, used linen identical to that on the famous shroud, made an impression over a volunteer's face and body, and artificially aged the cloth with heat.

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Unmanned Helicopter Hunts Drug Smugglers

From Popular Mechanics:

The Fire Scout unmanned helicopter got its first job—hunting drug smugglers.

MQ-8B became the first unmanned helo to deploy on a naval anti-narcotics mission when it left port in Florida on Monday aboard the USS McInerney (FFG-8). The ship hosted the unmanned aerial vehicle during developmental testing, and crew of Northrop Grumman engineers are also on board to help the aircraft stay healthy.

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Electron Microscopes Powered by Quantum Mechanics Could See Through Living Cells

Butterfly Wing Under an Electron Microscope MIT and NSF

From Popular Science:

Electron microscopes are great and all, but the problem is that you can't use them to get up close and personal inside a living cell without killing it. That might change, however, as scientists are working to use quantum mechanics to overcome this obstacle.

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Make Your Own Barcode, Just Like Google

Can you decode our secret message?
(http://www.barcodesinc.com)

From the Christian Science Monitor:

What’s black and white and read all over? Barcodes. And boy do you people like them.

The Web was buzzing about barcodes today because Google decided to commemorate the 57th anniversary of the first ever patent on them with one of their popular doodles.

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Learning A Musical Instrument Helps To Boost Children's Memory

Children playing musical instruments in Scotland.
Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Murdo Macleod

From Times Online:

Learning a musical instrument is beneficial for children’s behaviour, memory and intelligence, a government-commissioned study suggests.

Research found that learning to play an instrument enlarges the left side of the brain, enhancing pupils’ power of memory by almost 20 per cent.

Susan Hallam, of the University of London’s Institute of Education, carried out the research as part of a drive to encourage more children to take up a musical instrument.

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England Footballers Miss Penalties As They See The Goal As Smaller Than Their Rivals

From The Telegraph:

England footballers have been handed another excuse for why they keep missing penalties – they perceive the goalmouth as narrower than their successful rivals, claim scientists.

Researchers have discovered that confident sportsman who always score actually see a larger target in their mind's eye.

Conversely those who miss all the time come to see it as smaller.

Jessica Witt, assistant professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University in Indiana, found sportsmen who had been previously successful were more likely to see the goal as wider because their perception had been altered by their success.

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Albatross-cam Reveals Amazing Relationship Between Birds And A Killer Whale

A rookery of albatrosseses glide behind a killer whale, which churned up food scraps from the deep

From The Daily Mail:

Albatrosses have been captured feeding alongside killer whales for the first time, thanks to tiny cameras fitted on the seabirds' backs.

The amazing pictures reveal albatrosses foraging in groups while at sea collecting food for their chicks.

They followed hunting killer whales who drove food to the ocean surface and tucked into the scraps left behind.

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Private Space Technology Powers Up

Photo: Rocket science: Franklin Chang Diaz (top) is a former NASA astronaut and founder of Ad Astra Rocket Company. The company has developed a prototype plasma rocket, the VX-200 (bottom), that recently achieved 201 kilowatts of power.
Credit: José Díaz, La Nación (top); Ad Astra Rocket Company (bottom)

From Technology Review:

Former astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz says the private sector can help NASA, and reckons he has the rocket to prove it.

In the coming weeks the Obama administration will decide the future of U.S. human spaceflight. A summary report by the committee tasked with reviewing NASA's current plans and providing recommendations suggests utilizing the commercial sector for unmanned, and perhaps manned, missions as a way to reduce government costs. Franklin Chang Diaz, a former NASA astronaut and founder and president of Ad Astra Rocket Company, agrees.

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DNA Sequencing In A Holey New Way

DNA molecules will be held in place by tiny voltages within the nanohole

From The BBC:

IBM will announce on Tuesday how it intends to hold DNA molecules in tiny holes in silicon in an effort to decode their genetic secrets letter by letter.

Their microelectronic approach solves one of two long-standing problems in "nanopore" DNA sequencing: how to stop it flying through too quickly.

The aim is to speed up DNA sequencing in a push toward personalised medicine.

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Do Dust Particles Curb Climate Change?

Every cloud is different from the next. It is therefore important to study the types of cloud systems in which aerosols have the greatest influence. (Credit: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology / Stevens)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 7, 2009) — A knowledge gap exists in the area of climate research: for decades, scientists have been asking themselves whether, and to what extent man-made aerosols, that is, dust particles suspended in the atmosphere, enlarge the cloud cover and thus curb climate warming. Research has made little or no progress on this issue.

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Underground City Envisioned In Nevada

This illustration depicts how urban life would be among the water bank canals of an underground city. Credit: Andrew Kudless (Design), Nenad Katic (Visualization), Tan Nguyen, Pia-Jacqlyn Malinis, Jafe Meltesen-Lee, Benjamin Barragan (Model), Matsys Designs

From Live Science:

Sietch Nevada is a fascinating concept exhibited in Innovative Technologies and Climates at the University of Toronto. Fans of the science fiction novel Dune will immediately recognize this proposal - to build semi-subterranean terraced geometries in the Nevada desert.

"In Frank Herbert’s famous 1965 novel Dune, he describes a planet that has undergone nearly complete desertification. Dune has been called the “first planetary ecology novel” and forecasts a dystopian world without water. The few remaining inhabitants have secluded themselves from their harsh environment in what could be called subterranean oasises.

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Astronomers Discover Solar System's Largest Planetary Ring Yet Around Saturn

RING LEADER: An artist's conception of the faint, newfound ring around Saturn. The ring dwarfs the scale of the familiar system of rings closer to the planet. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Keck

From Scientific American:

A diffuse, newfound ring encircles the gas giant planet at an extraordinary distance.

A speculative search for a belt of debris stemming from one of Saturn's outer moons has turned up what appears to be the largest known planetary ring in the solar system.

The newfound ring, associated with the far-flung moon Phoebe, stretches to roughly 12.5 million kilometers from Saturn, if not more, according to a paper announcing the finding in this week's Nature. (Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.) For comparison, the outer bound of Saturn's next largest known ring, the E ring, is less than half a million kilometers from the planet.

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