Friday, January 23, 2009
Biomass-Burning 'Behind Asian Brown Clouds'
From SciDev.net:
[NEW DELHI] Burning biomass is the main cause of the dense 'brown clouds' that plague South Asia each winter, and both biomass and fossil fuel burning should be targeted to combat climate change and improve air quality.
These are the conclusions of a study published today (23 January) in Science. The study, conducted at two sites in South Asia, attempted to find the main source of the carbon soot particles that comprise much of the clouds.
While the brown cloud acts as a 'global dimmer' by absorbing heat trapped by greenhouse gases, it also affects the regional climate by melting glaciers, affecting crop growth and impacting the Asian monsoon.
Read more ....
Scientists Unlock Possible Aging Secret In Genetically Altered Fruit Fly
Using fruit flies, Brown University researchers have identified a cellular mechanism that could someday help fight the aging process. (Credit: Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2009) — Brown University researchers have identified a cellular mechanism that could someday help fight the aging process.
The finding by Stephen Helfand and Nicola Neretti and others adds another piece to the puzzle that Helfand, a professor of biology, molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry, first discovered in 2000. Back then, he identified a mutation in the Indy (“I’m Not Dead Yet”) gene that can extend the life span of fruit flies.
Subsequent studies of the Indy flies have led to the new finding that a mechanism in those genetically altered fruit flies appears to reduce significantly the production of free radicals, a cellular byproduct that can contribute to the aging process. This intervention takes place with few or no side effects on the quality of life for the fruit fly. The discovery could lead to the development of new anti-aging treatments.
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F.D.A. Approves A Stem Cell Trial
Photo: Geron’s trial with embryonic stem cells will involve people with severe spinal injuries, and will mostly test the therapy’s safety. GeronFrom The New York Times:
In a research milestone, the federal government will allow the world’s first test in people of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells.
Federal drug regulators said that political considerations had no role in the decision. Nevertheless, the move coincided with the inauguration of President Obama, who has pledged to remove some of the financing restrictions placed on the field by President George W. Bush.
The clearance of the clinical trial — of a treatment for spinal cord injury — is to be announced Friday by Geron, the biotechnology company that first applied to the Food and Drug Administration to conduct the trial last March. The F.D.A. had first said no, asking for more data.
Thomas B. Okarma, Geron’s chief executive, said Thursday that he did not think that the Bush administration’s objections to embryonic stem cell research played a role in the F.D.A.’s delaying approval.
“We really have no evidence,” Dr. Okarma said, “that there was any political overhang.”
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How Cobras Spit With Perfect Accuracy
Spitting cobra takes aim at a human face.Credit: Frank Luerweg/University of Bonn.
From Live Science:
Spitting cobras don't truly spit venom. But they are incredibly accurate shooters, hitting a target — the victim's eyes — from 2 feet (60 cm) away with impressive accuracy, studies have shown.
New research confirms how they do it.
Scientists have long known that spitting cobras don't actually spit. Rather, muscle contractions squeeze the cobra's venom gland, forcing venom to stream out of the snake's fangs, explains Bruce Young, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts. The muscles can produce enough pressure to spray venom up to 6 feet (nearly 2 meters).
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Going To Ground The Breakdown -- A Short Circuit On A Large Scale
From Popular Science:
Here's a vivid example of an electrical short circuit in a beautiful natural setting. In brief, a short circuit occurs when the normal path of current is bypassed via an alternate route with very low resistance. Since current likes to take the path of least resistance, most of it will flow through the short circuit. Also, according to Ohm's Law (V = IR), reducing the resistance of the circuit will drive up the current. Large currents result in excessive resistive heating in circuits, and we usually want to avoid them.
In the video an unfortunate tree has fallen onto a high-voltage power line. This provides a direct path for current to go into the ground, rather than travelling the normal route through the electrical grid. The resulting surge of moving charge results in sufficient resistive heating to ignite the tree and potentially start a forest fire.
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Thursday, January 22, 2009
Mating Game Is A Waiting Game
From Live Science:
How long do you wait before having sex with a new sweetie? Three dates? 10?
A new study suggests that both males and females benefit from extended courtships in which mating is delayed: By holding out, females can more accurately screen for potential providers, while waiting males can prove they're suitable mates.
The study, published this month in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and conducted by researchers at University College London, University of Warwick, and London School of Economics and Political Science, invoked game theory to examine the strategies used by potential partners of various species, including humans; the game ended when either the male or female quit, or when the female accepted the male as a mating partner. Scientists used a mathematical model dependent upon evolutionarily stable equilibrium behaviors, in which both males and females are doing as well as possible against the other's actions.
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Did You Know A Solar Flare Can Make Your Toilet Stop Working?
Auroras over Blair, Nebraska, during a geomagnetic storm in May 2005. Photo credit: Mike Hollingshead/Spaceweather.com.From NASA:
That's the surprising conclusion of a NASA-funded study by the National Academy of Sciences entitled Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts. In the 132-page report, experts detailed what might happen to our modern, high-tech society in the event of a "super solar flare" followed by an extreme geomagnetic storm. They found that almost nothing is immune from space weather—not even the water in your bathroom.
The problem begins with the electric power grid. "Electric power is modern society's cornerstone technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend," the report notes. Yet it is particularly vulnerable to bad space weather. Ground currents induced during geomagnetic storms can actually melt the copper windings of transformers at the heart of many power distribution systems. Sprawling power lines act like antennas, picking up the currents and spreading the problem over a wide area. The most famous geomagnetic power outage happened during a space storm in March 1989 when six million people in Quebec lost power for 9 hours: image.
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Do Naked Singularities Break the Rules of Physics?
Image: Kenn brown Mondolithic StudiosFrom Scientific American:
The black hole has a troublesome sibling, the naked singularity. Physicists have long thought--hoped--it could never exist. But could it?
* Conventional wisdom has it that a large star eventually collapses to a black hole, but some theoretical models suggest it might instead become a so-called naked singularity. Sorting out what happens is one of the most important unresolved problems in astrophysics.
* The discovery of naked singularities would transform the search for a unified theory of physics, not least by providing direct observational tests of such a theory.
Modern science has introduced the world to plenty of strange ideas, but surely one of the strangest is the fate of a massive star that has reached the end of its life. Having exhausted the fuel that sustained it for millions of years, the star is no longer able to hold itself up under its own weight, and it starts collapsing catastrophically. Modest stars like the sun also collapse, but they stabilize again at a smaller size. Whereas if a star is massive enough, its gravity overwhelms all the forces that might halt the collapse. From a size of millions of kilometers across, the star crumples to a pinprick smaller than the dot on an "i."
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Dark Matter Filaments Stoked Star Birth In Early Galaxies
From The New Scientist:Tendrils of dark matter channelled gas deep into the hearts of some of the universe's earliest galaxies, a new computer simulation suggests. The result could explain how some massive galaxies created vast numbers of stars without gobbling up their neighbours.
Dramatic bursts of star formation are thought to occur when galaxies merge and their gas collides and heats up. Evidence of these smash-ups is fairly easy to spot, since they leave behind mangled pairs of galaxies that eventually merge, their gas settling into a bright, compact centre.
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Spring Is Arriving 'Two Days Earlier Than Half A Century Ago' As Global Temperatures Rise
From Daily Mail Online:
Spring is arriving earlier than it was half a century ago, a definitive new study has shown.
After analysing temperature records from across the northern hemisphere since 1850, researchers say the seasons have shifted by at least two days.
They also found that the difference between summer and winter temperatures has become less extreme.
The new research adds to the growing evidence that plants, insects, birds and mammals are waking up from winter earlier each decade.
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First Americans Arrived As Two Separate Migrations, According To New Genetic Evidence
Bering Strait. After the Last Glacial Maximum some 15,000 to 17,000 years ago, one group entered North America from Beringia following the ice-free Pacific coastline, while another traversed an open land corridor between two ice sheets to arrive directly into the region east of the Rocky Mountains. (Beringia is the landmass that connected northeast Siberia to Alaska during the last ice age.) (Credit: NOAA, NPO)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Jan. 21, 2009) — The first people to arrive in America traveled as at least two separate groups to arrive in their new home at about the same time, according to new genetic evidence published online in Current Biology.
After the Last Glacial Maximum some 15,000 to 17,000 years ago, one group entered North America from Beringia following the ice-free Pacific coastline, while another traversed an open land corridor between two ice sheets to arrive directly into the region east of the Rocky Mountains. (Beringia is the landmass that connected northeast Siberia to Alaska during the last ice age.) Those first Americans later gave rise to almost all modern Native American groups of North, Central, and South America, with the important exceptions of the Na-Dene and the Eskimos-Aleuts of northern North America, the researchers said.
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It’s Official: La Niña Is Back
(Click the Image to Enlarge)From Watts Up With That?:
UPDATE: There’s some question about NCEP’s communications intent with this paper. While they cite “La Niña conditions” in the language, and the visual imagery lends itself to that, the numerical threshold of ONI hasn’t been reached, as has been pointed out in comments. Yet NCEP made no mention in the summary that the threshold had not been reached. I’ll see if I can locate the authors and get a clarification. - Anthony
In a document published January 19th, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (NCEP) has officially put the stamp on the cold water conditions we’ve seen growing in the equatorial mid and eastern Pacific. I first reported on this on December 4th, 2008. This does not bode well for California’s drought conditions, which are likely to continue due to this renewed La Niña event.
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Antarctica Is Warming: Climate Picture Clears Up
This illustration depicts the warming that scientists have determined has occurred in West Antarctica during the last 50 years, with the dark red showing the area that has warmed the most. Credit: NASAFrom Live Science:
The frozen desert interior of Antarctica was thought to be the lone holdout resisting the man-made warming affecting the rest of the globe, with some areas even showing signs of cooling.
Some global warming contrarians liked to point to inner Antarctica as a counter-example. But climate researchers have now turned this notion on its head, with the first study to show that the entire continent is warming, and has been for the past 50 years.
"Antarctica is warming, and it's warming at the same rate as the rest of the planet," said study co-author Michael Mann of Penn State University.
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Quotas For Women In Science?
In ‘Geek Chic’ And Obama, New Hope For Lifting Women In Science -- New York TimesWith the inauguration of an administration avowedly committed to Science as the grand elixir for the nation’s economic, environmental and psycho-reputational woes, a number of scientists say that now is the time to tackle a chronic conundrum of their beloved enterprise: how to attract more women into the fold, and keep them once they are there.
Researchers who have long promoted the cause of women in science view the incoming administration with a mix of optimism and we’ll-see-ism. On the one hand, they said, the new president’s apparent enthusiasm for science, and the concomitant rise of “geek chic” and “smart is the new cool” memes, can only redound to the benefit of all scientists, particularly if the enthusiasm is followed by a bolus of new research funds. On the other hand, they said, how about appointing a woman to the president’s personal Poindexter club, the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology? The designated leaders so far include superstars like Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate, and Eric Lander, genome meister.
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Why People Fake Their Deaths
From Live Science:
When people die, sometimes it's hard to believe they are really gone — and for good reason.
Rumors of faked deaths have followed many famous people, including comedian Andy Kaufman, Elvis Presley, John F. Kennedy, and (up until October 2008) pilot Steve Fossett. Rumors and conspiracy theories aside, faked deaths are a perpetually popular subject in fiction, from Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to today's soap operas.
And, of course, it happens in real life. Last week, Wall Street investor Marcus Schrenker disappeared while flying his plane over Alabama. He radioed a distress call, and his plane was found — without him — in a swamp. He was later discovered in a campground and arrested.
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Source Of Moon's Magnetism Found
From Yahoo News/Space.com:
Moon rocks delivered to Earth by Apollo astronauts held a mystery that has plagued scientists since the 1970s: Why were the lunar rocks magnetic?
Earth's rotating, iron core produces the planet's magnetic field. But the moon does not have such a setup.
Now, scientists at MIT think they have a solution. Some 4.2 billion years ago, the moon had a liquid core with a dynamo (like Earth's core today) that produced a strong magnetic field. The moon's magnetic field would have been about 1-50th as strong as Earth's is today, the researchers say.
Read more ....
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The 'Toxic' Web Generation: Children Spend Six Hours A Day In Front Of Screens
From The Daily Mail:Youngsters are shunning books and outdoor games to spend up to six hours a day in front of a screen, a survey has revealed.
Children as young as five are turning their bedrooms into multi-media 'hubs' with TVs, computers, games consoles, MP3 players and mobile phones all within easy reach.
The trend triggered warnings that the next generation will struggle to compete in the adult world because they lack reading and writing skills.
At the same time their mastery of technology is not widely appreciated by their parents.
The market research involving 1,800 children aged five to 16 found that they spend an average of 2.7 hours a day watching TV, 1.5 on the internet and 1.3 playing on games consoles, although in some cases these activities are simultaneous, such as watching TV while playing on a console.
In contrast, youngsters spend just over half an hour reading books, according to the survey by ChildWise.
Almost a third take a games console to bed rather than a book, while a quarter never read in their own time.
Read more ....
Monday, January 19, 2009
What Went Right: Flight 1549 Airbus A-320's Ditch Into The Hudson
US Airways A320 N106US, the same aircraft that landed in the Hudson River, is seen here approaching LAX on a better day. (Photograph by code20photog, via Flickr)From Popular Mechanics:
Miraculous. That’s the descriptor that continues to pop up in many accounts of the successful landing of US Air Flight 1549 in the Hudson River on Thursday. Aviation experts see the events a little differently. What happened to captain Chesley Sullenberger III and his crew was a piece of tremendously bad luck, mitigated by a few turns of equally stunning good fortune and a sequence of smart decisions by the captain and his crew. Here’s a pilot’s eye view of what went right during the emergency, the landing and the rescue that saw all 150 passengers rescued safely from the plane. –Allen St. John
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Heavy Rains Damage Peru's Nazca Lines
From Yahoo News/AP:
LIMA, Peru – Heavy rains have damaged part of one of Peru's top tourist destination, depositing clay and sand on mysterious figures etched in the desert sand by indigenous groups centuries ago, an archaeologist said Monday.
The rains, which are uncommon on Peru's dry coastal desert, washed off the nearby Panamerican highway and pushed sand on top of three fingers of a geoglyph in the famed Nazca lines, said Mario Olaechea of Peru's National Culture Institute. The fingers form part of a pair of hands.
Olaechea told The Associated Press that the damage is minor and the institute plans to clear the material and restore the geoglyph.
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If There IS Life On Mars, This Is Where It Lives
Plumes of up to 19,000 tons of methane, pictured red,were detected in Mars' northern hemisphere
From The Daily Mail:
If there is life on Mars as NASA scientists claim, this is where it lives.
This extraordinarily detailed picture shows exactly where the most methane, taken as an indication of life, can be found.
Appropriately enough for the sphere dubbed the Red Planet , the scarlet areas are the places where scientists have detected the most of the gas.
The picture was released by NASA just days after the U.S. space agency confirmed the presence of methane on Mars.
It is the first 'definitive proof' of plumes of the gas seeping from the planet's northern hemisphere.
And it is the strongest hint yet that alien microbes could be thriving deep below the red, dusty surface.
On Earth, 90 per cent of the methane produced is released by living organisms far beneath the soil.
'It might be possible for similar organisms to survive for billions of years below the permafrost layer on Mars, where water is liquid, radiation supplies energy, and carbon dioxide provides carbon,' said NASA scientist Professor Michael Mumma.
Read more ....
Sunspot Lapse Exceeds 95% of Normal
Above: The solar cycle, 1995-2015. The "noisy" curve traces measured sunspot numbers; the smoothed curves are predictions. Credit: D. Hathaway/NASA/MSFC.From Watts Up With That:
Well John Christy gave me a lot to think about in satellite temp trends as far as an improved correction over my last post. Steve McIntyre pitched in some comments as well. It is going to take a bit to work out the details of that for me but I think I can produce an improved accuracy slope over my last posts. In the meantime, I downloaded sunspot numbers from the NASA.
Cycles are interesting things. There are endless cycles in nature, orbits, ocean temp shifts, solar cycles, magnetic cycles the examples are everywhere. What makes a cycle unusual is also an interesting topic. Some solar scientists have claimed that our current solar cycle is not unusual by the record. They are certainly the experts but recently the experts have been forced to update their predictions for the next solar cycle.
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Scientists To Solve Astronomical Riddle Using Galileo DNA
NASA image shows hot blue stars deep inside an elliptical galaxy. Italian scientists are trying to get Galileo's DNA in order to figure out how the astronomer forged groundbreaking theories on the universe while gradually becoming blind, a historian said Monday. (AFP/NASA/File)From Yahoo News/AFP:
ROME (AFP) – Italian scientists are trying to get Galileo's DNA in order to figure out how the astronomer forged groundbreaking theories on the universe while gradually becoming blind, a historian said Monday.
Scientists at Florence's Institute and Museum of the History of Science want to exhume the body of 17th Century astronomer Galileo Galilei to find out exactly what he could see through his telescope.
The Italian astronomer -- who built on the work of predecessor Nicolaus Copernicus to develop modern astronomy with the sun as the centre of the universe -- had a degenerative eye disease that eventually left him blind.
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DNA Testing May Unlock Secrets Of Medieval Manuscripts
From E! Science News:Thousands of painstakingly handwritten books produced in medieval Europe still exist today, but scholars have long struggled with questions about when and where the majority of these works originated. Now a researcher from North Carolina State University is using modern advances in genetics to develop techniques that will shed light on the origins of these important cultural artifacts. Many medieval manuscripts were written on parchment made from animal skin, and NC State Assistant Professor of English Timothy Stinson is working to perfect techniques for extracting and analyzing the DNA contained in these skins with the long-term goal of creating a genetic database that can be used to determine when and where a manuscript was written. "Dating and localizing manuscripts have historically presented persistent problems," Stinson says, "because they have largely been based on the handwriting and dialect of the scribes who created the manuscripts – techniques that have proven unreliable for a number of reasons."
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Growing Bird Populations Show Conservation Successes
The Canada goose (Branta canadensis), which is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Canadian goose, has a wingspan of 50 to 67 inches (127 to 170 centimeters) and can weigh from more than 6 pounds to nearly 20 pounds (3 kg to 9 kg). Credit: Stock.xchng.From Live Science:
At a time when scientists are sounding ever more frequent alarms on the potential extinction of this creature or that, yesterday's collision with a flock of geese that put an airliner in the Hudson River is a reminder that some species are doing just fine.
Many birds have been faring well in the United States, even in urban environments (and in some cases especially in them), over the past few decades, say two bird experts and conservationists.
"Birds are increasing and that's good," said Kevin McGowan of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in New York. "People have worked hard to do that kind of thing. Most people like it. We don't always hear enough about the fact that a lot of things are doing well."
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Scientists Resolve Mystery Of How Massive Stars Form
Volume renderings of the density field in a region of the simulation at 55,000 years of evolution. The left panel shows a polar view, and the right panel shows an equatorial view. The fingers feeding the equatorial disk are clearly visible. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Jan. 18, 2009) — Scientists may have solved one of the most longstanding astrophysical mysteries of all times: How massive stars – up to 120 times the mass of our sun – form without blowing away the clouds of gas and dust that feed their growth.
New research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California, Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley has shown how a massive star can grow despite outward-flowing radiation pressure that exceeds the gravitational force pulling material inward. The study appears in the Jan. 15 online edition of Science Express.
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Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Afterlife Of Near-Death
From International Herald Tribune:
Every experienced flier has sensed a whisper of death in a blast of turbulence at 25,000 feet, and many will swear they've heard their names called, loud and clear.
It's not a moment people forget.
"All I could think about," said a 50-year old nurse who'd recently been in a plane that lost an engine, "was my garage. How I hadn't cleaned it, and how messy it would be when someone came in and saw it. It's crazy what you think about."
The mind reels in the presence of death.
From the shore and TV screens, the evacuation of a US Airways jet that ditched in the Hudson River on Thursday looked almost stage-managed, a slow-motion rescue complete with heroes and zero death.
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Liquid Wood Is Plastic of Tomorrow, Say Scientists
The new substance would be safe for use in toysFrom Deutsche Welle:
Plastic was one of the great innovations of the 20th century, but German scientists believe a new invention, liquid wood, could soon supplant the chemical in terms of everyday usefulness.
Though it has proven to be extremely useful in the modern world, plastic still has a number of negative selling points. It is non-biodegradable and can contain carcinogens and other toxic substances that can cause cancer.
It is also based on petroleum, a non-renewable resource that will soon be harder to come by. Increases in the price of crude oil leads to parallel rises in the price of plastics.
But there is a new chemical invention that could do away with these long-standing concerns.
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Friday, January 16, 2009
Science Closing In On Cloak Of Invisibility
From Breitbart/AP:WASHINGTON (AP) - They can't match Harry Potter yet, but scientists are moving closer to creating a real cloak of invisibility.
Researchers at Duke University, who developed a material that can "cloak" an item from detection by microwaves, report that they have expanded the number of wavelengths they can block.
Last August the team reported they had developed so-called metamaterials that could deflect microwaves around a three-dimensional object, essentially making it invisible to the waves.
The system works like a mirage, where heat causes the bending of light rays and cloaks the road ahead behind an image of the sky.
The researchers report in Thursday's edition of the journal Science that they have developed a series of mathematical commands to guide the development of more types of metamaterials to cloak objects from an increasing range of electromagnetic waves.
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Scientists Left Baffled As Mysterious Columns Of Coloured Light Appear In The Night Skies
Beam me up: Mysterious columns of light stream into the air above the town of SiguldaFrom The Daily Mail:
These stunning images show mysterious columns of light streaming into the sky above the town of Sigulda in Latvia at the end of last month.
Taken by designer Aigar Truhins with a standard digital camera, the photographs have prompted excited online discussions among amateur astronomists all over the internet.
'My son exclaimed, 'The aliens are coming!'' Truhins was quoted as saying.
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Thursday, January 15, 2009
Exoplanet Atmospheres Detected From Earth
This artist's impression shows the star OGLE-TR-56 and its planet, as it passes behind the star. (Credit: Copyright D. Sing (IAP) / A&A)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2009) — Two independent groups have simultaneously made the first-ever ground-based detection of extrasolar planets thermal emissions. Until now, virtually everything known about atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars in the Milky Way has come from space-based observations.
These new results open a new frontier to studying these alien worlds and are especially critical because the major space-based workhorse to these studies, the Spitzer telescope, will soon run out of cryogens, highly limiting its capabilities.
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How Birds Can Down a Jet Airplane
The result of bird striking the jet engine of a Delta MD 11 on Jan 21, 2001. Credit: FAAFrom Live Science:
Early reports suggest that a bird strike caused a jet plane to crash in the Hudson River near Manhattan today, leaving questions about how a little flying animal could down a big airliner.
More than 200 people have been killed worldwide as a result of wildlife strikes with aircraft since 1988, according to Bird Strike Committee USA, and more than 5,000 bird strikes were reported by the U.S. Air Force in 2007. Bird strikes, or the collision of an aircraft with an airborne bird, tend to happen when aircraft are close to the ground, which means just before landing or after take-off, when jet engines are turning at top speeds.
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Life On Mars? Methane 'Plumes' Raise Tantalising Prospect Of Organisms On Red Planet
NASA's latest findings have been heralded as the strongest indicator yet of life on MarsFrom The Daily Mail:
The prospect of finding life on Mars came a step closer yesterday after Nasa revealed it had discovered 'plumes' of methane gas seeping from the planet.
When methane was first found in the Martian atmosphere in 2003, some scientists claimed it could have been dumped on the planet by comets.
But the latest discovery is proof that it is actually produced on the Red Planet.
The pinpointing of the location of the plumes of gas also offers scientists likely places to dig for life.
Nasa's announcement yesterday is highly significant because most of the methane on Earth is produced by living organisms - raising the possibility that some form of life, even if just microbes, are alive deep within the soil.
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Inside the Savant Mind: Tips for Thinking from an Extraordinary Thinker
Daniel Tammet. Photo by Jerome TabetFrom Scientific American:
Daniel Tammet is the author of two books, Born on a Blue Day and Embracing the Wide Sky, which comes out this month. He’s also a linguist and holds the European record for reciting the first 22,514 decimal points of the mathematical constant Pi. Mind Matters editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Tammet about how his memory works, why the IQ test is overrated, and a possible explanation for extraordinary feats of creativity.
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Wednesday, January 14, 2009
High Caffeine Intake Linked To Hallucination Proneness
People with a higher caffeine intake, from sources such as coffee, tea and caffeinated energy drinks, are more likely to report hallucinatory experiences such as hearing voices and seeing things that are not there. (Credit: iStockphoto/Ong Kok Keat)From Science Daily:
High caffeine consumption could be linked to a greater tendency to hallucinate, a new research study suggests.
People with a higher caffeine intake, from sources such as coffee, tea and caffeinated energy drinks, are more likely to report hallucinatory experiences such as hearing voices and seeing things that are not there, according to the Durham University study.
‘High caffeine users’ – those who consumed more than the equivalent of seven cups of instant coffee a day - were three times more likely to have heard a person’s voice when there was no one there compared with ‘low caffeine users’ who consumed less than the equivalent of one cup of instant coffee a day. With ninety per cent of North Americans consuming some of form caffeine every day, it is the world's most widely used drug.
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My Comment: OK .... I Confess. I need at least 2 cups of coffee a day .... minimum.
History Corrected By 400-Year-Old Moon Map
(Click The Image To Enlarge)Thomas Harriot's map of the whole Moon, made after looking through an early telescope. This image accurately depicts many lunar features including the principal Maria (lunar 'seas' - actually lava-filled basins) and craters. Labelled features include Mare Crisium ('18') on the right hand side and the craters Copernicus ('b') and Kepler ('c') in the upper left of the disk. Credit: © Lord Egremont
From Live Science:
Galileo Galilei is often credited with being the first person to look through a telescope and make drawings of the celestial objects he observed. While the Italian indeed was a pioneer in this realm, he was not the first.
Englishman Thomas Harriot made the first drawing of the moon after looking through a telescope several months before Galileo, in July 1609.
Historian Allan Chapman of the University of Oxford details that 400-year-old breakthrough in astronomy in the February 2009 edition of Astronomy and Geophysics, a journal of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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Revealed: Why Beautiful Women Are More Likely To Be Unfaithful... It's The Marilyn Hormone
Marilyn Monroe's hourglass figure was caused by the same hormonethat triggered her affairs according to scientists
From The Daily Mail:
With her drop-dead curves, Marilyn Monroe's voluptuous hourglass figure has long been regarded as the absolute essence of what it means to be a sexy woman.
But the female hormone that made the film star so desirable was the key behind her inability to hold down a steady relationship, according to scientists.
Those with the most oestradiol, a form of oestrogen, are usually more physically attractive and find it easier to snare a man.
But they are also less satisfied with their current lovers - and therefore more likely to cheat, according to the findings published in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters.
Read more ....
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Misuse Of Vicks VapoRub May Harm Infants And Toddlers
From E! Science News:Vicks® VapoRub®, the popular salve used to relieve symptoms of cough and congestion, may be harmful for infants and toddlers. New research appearing in the January issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), shows that Vicks® VapoRub® (VVR) may stimulate mucus production and airway inflammation, which can have severe effects on breathing in an infant or toddler. Research findings are consistent with current VVR labeling which indicates the product should not be used on children under 2 years of age. "The ingredients in Vicks can be irritants, causing the body to produce more mucus to protect the airway," said Bruce K. Rubin, MD, FCCP, the study's lead author from the Department of Pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston Salem, NC. "Infants and young children have airways that are much narrower than those of adults, so any increase in mucus or inflammation can narrow them more severely."
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Is A 'Katrina-Like' Space Storm Brewing?
In this file photo, the sun-orbiting SOHO spacecraft has imaged many erupting filaments lifting off the active solar surface and blasting enormous bubbles of magnetic plasma into space. U.S. scientists worry we aren't ready for a solar space storm which could knock out our electricity, cell phones, even our water supply. Collapse. (Courtesy NASA/JPL )From ABC News:
Scientists Worry We Aren't Prepared for Event That Could Zap Government, Cost Trillions.
U.S. scientists worry we aren't ready for a solar space storm that could knock out our electricity, our cell phones, even our water supply.
The chances of that happening are small, but it is a possibility as we move into an active period of solar storms.
How do they know? Well, it's happened before. Back in 1859, a solar eruption resulted in telegraph wires burning up.
Of course, the world is now covered in wires and wireless devices that could be vulnerable.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) gathered experts from around the country to look at the economic and social costs from these space storms. While they didn't make any recommendations, the scientists hope their report is a wake-up call.
Read more ....
Monday, January 12, 2009
Chew On This: We'll Soon Be Able To Grow Replacement Teeth
A liquid-nitrogen tank is used to preserve tooth pulp. The first whole tooth may be grown in a human within five to 10 years. The Washington PostFrom The Seattle Times:
It turns out wisdom teeth are prolific sources of adult stem cells needed to grow new teeth for you. From scratch. In your adult life, as you need them. In the near future. According to the National Institutes of Health.
WASHINGTON — As long as there are hockey players, there will be niche markets for false teeth. But the real news about the future of dentures is that there isn't much of one.
Toothlessness has declined 60 percent in the United States since 1960. Baby boomers will be the first generation in human history typically to go to their graves with most of their teeth.
And now comes tooth regeneration: growing teeth in adults, on demand, to replace missing ones. Soon.
Read more ....
Hazards Of Severe Space Weather Revealed
A solar storm, aurora from space, and aurora on Earth.(Credit: Solar & Heliospheric Observatory)
From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Jan. 12, 2009) — A NASA-funded study describes how extreme solar eruptions could have severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth.
The National Academy of Sciences in Washington conducted the study. The resulting report provides some of the first clear economic data that effectively quantifies today's risk of extreme conditions in space driven by magnetic activity on the sun and disturbances in the near-Earth environment. Instances of extreme space weather are rare and are categorized with other natural hazards that have a low frequency but high consequences.
Read more ....
Super-Predators: Humans Force Rapid Evolution of Animals
Bighorn sheep are one of many species now documented as getting smaller, on average, due to trophy hunting that targets larger specimens and leaves smaller members of a population, and their genes, to reproduce. Image credit: Paul PaquetFrom Live Science:
Acting as super-predators, humans are forcing changes to body size and reproductive abilities in some species 300 percent faster than would occur naturally, a new study finds.
Hunting and fishing by individual sportsmen as well as large-scale commercial fishing are also outpacing other human influences, such as pollution, in effects on the animal kingdom. The changes are dramatic and may put the survival of some species in question.
In a review of 34 studies that tracked 29 species across 40 different geographic systems, harvested and hunted populations are on average 20 percent smaller in body size than previous generations, and the age at which they first reproduce is on average 25 percent earlier.
Read more ....
Bad Weather in 2008, At A Glance
(Click The Above Image To Enlarge)The National Climatic Data Center has a huge graphic that summarizes the big weather moments on the planet last year.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Saturday Night Special: Biggest Full Moon of 2009
From Yahoo News/Space:
If skies are clear Saturday, go out at sunset and look for the giant moon rising in the east. It will be the biggest and brightest one of 2009, sure to wow even seasoned observers.
Earth, the moon and the sun are all bound together by gravity, which keeps us going around the sun and keeps the moon going around us as it goes through phases. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days.
But the orbit is not a perfect circle. One portion is about 31,000 miles (50,000 km) closer to our planet than the farthest part, so the moon's apparent size in the sky changes. Saturday night (Jan. 10) the moon will be at perigee, the closest point to us on this orbit.
It will appear about 14 percent bigger in our sky and 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during 2009, according to NASA. (A similar setup occurred in December, making that month's full moon the largest of 2008.)
Read more ....
NASA: Continued Shuttle Use Would Be Risky
NASA's Space Shuttle STS-1 Columbia launch on April 12, 1981. Photo from NASAFrom The CBS:
(AP) The cost of continuing the life of the U.S. space shuttle past next year's planned retirement is $3 billion a year plus extending the risk of a deadly accident, NASA's chief said Thursday.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told an industry group that NASA has looked into what it would take to keep flying the aging shuttle past 2010. Otherwise, it will mean five years of relying on Russia to get astronauts to the international space station.
After the 2003 Columbia tragedy, President George W. Bush declared that the U.S. should head back to the moon in a new spaceship and to pay for that, the space shuttle would have to be retired.
President-elect Barack Obama has proposed delaying the shuttle's retirement. He and others have expressed concern about the gap between the shuttle's retirement and the new ship's maiden launch.
Read more ....
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Report: Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months
Photo: A big solar flare in December 2006. NASAFrom FOX News:
A new study from the National Academy of Sciences outlines grim possibilities on Earth for a worst-case scenario solar storm.
Damage to power grids and other communications systems could be catastrophic, the scientists conclude, with effects leading to a potential loss of governmental control of the situation.
The prediction is based in part on major solar storm in 1859 caused telegraph wires to short out in the United States and Europe, igniting widespread fires.
It was perhaps the worst in the past 200 years, according to the new study, and with the advent of modern power grids and satellites, much more is at risk.
"A contemporary repetition of the [1859] event would cause significantly more extensive (and possibly catastrophic) social and economic disruptions," the researchers conclude.
Read more ....
Astronauts Threatened By Cosmic Rays As Sun Becomes Less Active
European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang works during his second spacewalk in 2006. The Sun's ability to shield the solar system from harmful radiation could falter in the early 2020s, increasing the risk of such spacewalksFrom The Daily Mail:
Astronauts returning to the moon could be threatened by cosmic rays as a result of the sun becoming less active, scientists have said.
The sun's ability to shield the solar system from harmful radiation could falter in the early 2020s, research from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology claimed.
At about the same time, the American space agency Nasa plans to send astronauts back to the moon.
Read more ....
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
U.S. Scientists Learn How To Levitate Tiny Objects
Photo: An artist's rendition shows how the repulsive Casimir-Lifshitz force between suitable materials in a fluid can be used to quantum mechanically levitate a small object of density greater than the liquid. (Courtesy of the lab of Federico Capasso, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences/Handout/Reuters)From Yahoo News/Reuters:
CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. scientists have found a way to levitate the very smallest objects using the strange forces of quantum mechanics, and said on Wednesday they might use it to help make tiny nanotechnology machines.
They said they had detected and measured a force that comes into play at the molecular level using certain combinations of molecules that repel one another.
The repulsion can be used to hold molecules aloft, in essence levitating them, creating virtually friction-free parts for tiny devices, the researchers said.
Federico Capasso, an applied physicist at Harvard University in Massachusetts, whose study appears in the journal Nature, said he believed that detection of this force opened the possibility of a whole new class of tiny gadgets.
Read more ....
Sunday, January 4, 2009
What Science Says About Enlightened Sex By Sally Law, Special to LiveScience
Women who practiced the Eastern techniques of mindfulness and yoga reported improvements in levels of arousal and desire, as well as better orgasms. Image credit: DreamstimeFrom Live Science:
Another year, another batch of resolutions: eat right, exercise more, pay bills on time etc. All good in theory, but potentially dull in practice.
In 2009, then, resolve to have better sex. According to a recent review article in the Dec. 3 issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, sexually unsatisfied women who practiced the Eastern techniques of mindfulness and yoga reported improvements in levels of arousal and desire, as well as better orgasms. In addition, yoga has been found to effectively treat premature ejaculation in men.
Eastern practices have been touted as sexually beneficial for years — as the article states, the techniques have "their origin in the Kama Sutra of the fourth to sixth centuries."
Read more ....
Breakthroughs That Will Change Everything
From Live Science:Will humans go extinct? Or will we instead evolve into divergent species? Can we stop killing each other? Perhaps old-fashioned wisdom will return and save the day.
These are just some of the compelling thoughts generated when the forward-thinking Edge Foundation recently asked scientists, authors, futurists, journalists and other offbeat thinkers the question: "What will change everything?" To refine the question, Edge further asked: "What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?"
Among the dozens of responses, from such diverse sources as Alan Alda (actor and now TV science personality) to Ian Wilmut (cloned Dolly the sheep), LiveScience picked out five, each notable for its ingenuity and ability to provoke thought.
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Is Anybody In Charge Of Keeping Satellites From Colliding?
From The Straight Dope:
Dear Cecil:
As I stare into the beautiful dark sky above my home in Hawaii and see all the stars and satellites, I ponder the possibility of "space accidents." With all those satellites up there, are there any collisions? I don't suppose anybody is handing out OUIs (for orbiting under the influence), but how do they decide what satellite should go where? Who oversees all those orbits? Is it just a stellar free-for-all?
— Roy Orbits Son
Cecil replies:
No, but it's not iron discipline either. To date we've been content to let just about anybody heave stuff into orbit, requiring only minimal reporting for most launches. But with increasing commercialization of space, things are starting to get crowded up there — the Union of Concerned Scientists lists 898 active satellites, operated by everybody from the U.S. to Luxembourg. Given the vastness of space, even in earth's immediate vicinity, it's not like we're talking bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Read more ....
73.4 Percent of All Wikipedia Edits Are Made By Roughly 1,400 People
From College On The Record:
Most college professors discourage students from using Wikipedia as a reliable source of information, and if you’ve ever wondered why, here is the reason:
There are millions of people who browse Wikipedia in any given month, but only 2 percent of them (roughly 1,400) are responsible for editing nearly 75 percent of the information on the entire website.
In other words, Wikipedia, while editable by anyone, is fueled almost entirely by the knowledge of a small, select group of individuals.
Consider them the Illuminati of Wikipedia; they control the flow of information that often finds its way into our college essays, despite our professors’ best attempts to dissuade us from citing it.
The source of this startling revelation? The face of Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales.
But, [Wales] insisted, the truth was rather different: Wikipedia was actually written by "a community ... a dedicated group of a few hundred volunteers" where "I know all of them and they all know each other". Really, "it's much like any traditional organization."
Read more ....
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