UFO Hoax Was A Social Experiment

Joe Rudy releases a burning flare along side the smoke trail left by a vanished balloon while Chris Russo kneels down to get the next flare ready. Credit: Chris Russo & Joe Rudy via Skeptic.com.

From Live Science:

Strange lights appeared over Morris County, New Jersey, on Jan. 5 this year. The bright red lights were first noticed in the night sky by an eleven-year-old girl, who pointed out three lights grouped together, and another pair some distance away.

The lights moved silently and slowly, then disappeared one by one.

The girl's father, a pilot, said he was baffled: "I've been in aviation for 20 years and never seen anything like it." Police fielded calls from alarmed residents, and the supposed UFO made national news.

Read more ....

Source Of Major Health Benefits In Olive Oil Revealed

Scientists have pinned down the constituent of olive oil that gives greatest protection from heart attack and stroke. (Credit: iStockphoto/Leslie Banks)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 2, 2009) — Scientists have pinned down the constituent of olive oil that gives greatest protection from heart attack and stroke. In a study of the major antioxidants in olive oil, Portuguese researchers showed that one, DHPEA-EDA, protects red blood cells from damage more than any other part of olive oil.

"These findings provide the scientific basis for the clear health benefits that have been seen in people who have olive oil in their diet," says lead researcher Fatima Paiva-Martins, who works at the University of Porto.

Read more ....

Who Gets The Girl? Funny Men Have The Last Laugh...

Photo: Who gets the girl? Funny men like David Walliams, seen with model Lauren Budd, are luckier in love

From The Daily Mail:

It has long been noted that women love a man who can make them laugh - just look at 'sex thimble' Dudley Moore or serial dater David Walliams.

And now scientists believe they know why.

Being funny apparently makes men seem more intelligent, trustworthy - and a better bet for a relationship.

Psychologist Kristofor McCarty said: 'A quick browse of lonely hearts ads will confirm that women look for a good sense of humour in a potential partner - our research may explain why this is the case.'

Mr McCarty drew his conclusions after a study where he asked 45 women to rate the personalities behind a selection of 'lonely hearts' adverts.

Some of these were funny, others were entirely factual.

Read more ....

Fruit Flies Earn No Respect, Except Among Scientists

These humble fruit flies, clinging to a matchstick, may be kitchenpests, but they contribute enormously to biological and medical science. New South Wales Department of Primary Industries/MCT

From McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — That annoying kitchen pest, the fruit fly, occupies an honored place in science and medicine, despite slurs from politicians such as Sen. John McCain and his 2008 sidekick, Sarah Palin.

Scientists have been studying these dinky insects for more than a century, but they say that they're still turning up valuable new information in more than 1,000 laboratories all over the world.

Read more ....

Astronomers Find Hidden Exoplanet in Hubble's Dustbin

From Wired Science:

An exoplanet hidden in the Hubble Space Telescope's archival images has been revealed by data miners using a new technique for spotting the satellites of distant stars.

In search of more information about a known exoplanet orbiting the star HR8799 about 130 light-years from Earth, astronomers turned to the catalog of images Hubble has been amassing for more than 15 years. Using an algorithm that can block the bright light of observed stars allowing the much fainter exoplanets circling them to be seen, the team spotted the planet in an image from 1998.

Read more ....

The Five Ages Of The Brain:

From The New Scientist:

Throughout life our brains undergo more changes than any other part of the body. These can be broadly divided into five stages, each profoundly affecting our abilities and behaviour.

But we are not just passengers in this process, so how can we get the best out of our brains at every stage and pass the best possible organ on to the next? New Scientist investigates

Read more ....

Early Galaxies Surprise With Size

NASA/JPL-Caltech

From Nature News:

Astronomers revise galaxy-formation models with the discovery that early galaxies could have grown fat — fast.

Slurping up cold streams of star fuel, some of the Universe's first galaxies got fat quickly, new observations suggest. The findings could overturn existing models for the formation and evolution of galaxies that predict their slow and steady growth through mergers.

Researchers using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii have identified five distant galaxy clusters that formed five billion years after the Big Bang. They calculated the mass of the biggest galaxy in each of the clusters and found, to their surprise, that the ancient galaxies were roughly as big as the biggest galaxies in equivalent clusters in today's Universe.

Read more ....

Cracking The Crusts Of Neutron Stars

NSCL professor Bill Lynch inspects the mini-ball, a detector at the MSU laboratory used to analyze fragments produced when nuclei collide at high velocities. (Credit: Harley Seeley, MSU)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 31, 2009) — Research by Michigan State University scientists is helping shed light on neutron stars, city-sized globs of ultra-dense matter that occasionally collapse into black holes.

A team led by Betty Tsang, a professor at MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, has had some success in measuring a key nuclear quality that may make it easier to describe the outer crusts of such stars.

Read more ....

Humans Losing Touch With Nature

From Live Science:

With so much of life based on electronic representations of reality, humans risk losing touch with nature, says University of Washington psychologist Peter Kahn.

From web cams that offer views of wildlife to virtual tours of the Grand Canyon to robotic pets, modern technology increasingly is encroaching into human connections with the natural world. Kahn and his colleagues believe this intrusion may emerge as one of the central psychological problems of our times.

Read more ....

Sounds Good: The Flat Loudspeaker That Is As Thin As A Sheet Of Foil

The speaker is so thin it resembles a sheet of tin foil

From The Daily Mail:

A groundbreaking new loudspeaker that can be printed on and used as a wall poster has been developed by British engineers.

The lightweight and flexible speakers are less than 0.25mm thick and could also be concealed in car interiors or ceiling tiles.

They were developed by the University of Warwick spin-out company, Warwick Audio Technologies, who plan to start selling them later this year.

Read more ....

Giza Pyramids Align Toward City of Sun God

The Giza Pyramids of ancient Egypt, pictured here, were built along an invisible diagonal in orientation toward Heliopolis, the center of worship for the sun god in ancient Egypt, suggests new research.

From Discovery:

March 24, 2009 -- Some of Egypt's most magnificent pyramids were deliberately designed to follow a pattern of invisible diagonal lines, an Italian study has concluded.

According to Giulio Magli, professor of archaeoastronomy at Milan's Polytechnic University, these invisible lines would connect most of the funerary complexes raised by the kings of the Old Kingdom between 2630 and 2323 B.C.

Read more ....

Airport Body Scans Reveal All

Millimeter wave technology produces whole body images (woman at left, man at right) that reveal what's under your clothes, including Metallic or non-metallic devices and objects are displayed, including weapons, explosives and other items that a passenger is carrying on his/her person. The images are viewed by a Transportation Security Officer in a remote location. According to the TSA: To ensure privacy, the setup "has zero storage capability and images will not be printed stored or transmitted. Once the transportation security officer has viewed the image and resolved anomalies, the image is erased from the screen permanently. The officer is unable to print, export, store or transmit the image." Credit: TSA

From Live Science:

New airport security scanners could become a popular alternative to body searches, but have also prompted some privacy concerns.

Whole-body imaging technologies can see through clothing to reveal metallic and non-metallic objects, including weapons or plastic explosives. They also reveal a person's silhouette and the outlines of underwear.

That hasn't stopped security officials from implementing them. The U.S. Transportation Security Agency (TSA) started using whole-body imaging at six airports this year, and plans are in the works to expand it to airports in several more U.S. cities later this year.

Read more ....

NASA Headline: Deep Solar Minimum

Above: The sunspot cycle from 1995 to the present. The jagged curve traces actual sunspot counts. Smooth curves are fits to the data and one forecaster’s predictions of future activity. Credit: David Hathaway, NASA/MSFC. [more]

From Watts Up With That?

The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year’s 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year’s 90 days (87%).

Read more ....

'First Economical Process' For Making Biodiesel Fuel From Algae

This is the feedstock transferring system for algae biodiesel.
(Credit: United Environment & Energy LLC)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 31, 2009) — Chemists reported development of what they termed the first economical, eco-friendly process to convert algae oil into biodiesel fuel — a discovery they predict could one day lead to U.S. independence from petroleum as a fuel.

The study was presented recently at the 237th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

One of the problems with current methods for producing biodiesel from algae oil is the processing cost, and the New York researchers say their innovative process is at least 40 percent cheaper than that of others now being used. Supply will not be a problem: There is a limitless amount of algae growing in oceans, lakes, and rivers, throughout the world.

Read more ....

Deformed Skull Suggests Human Ancestors Had Compassion

A newly reconstructed deformed fossil skull suggests our human ancestors probably cared for deformed offspring for years.

From Wired Science:

The skull indicates that the child who lived about 530,000 years ago would have been severely handicapped — and yet survived at least five years and possibly several years longer. That suggests the parents or community provided the child with care, despite his or her obvious deformities.

"Her/his pathological condition was not an impediment to receiv[ing] the same attention as any other Middle Pleistocene Homo child," the the team of Spanish researchers write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more ....

When Did April Fool's Day Begin?

From Live Science:

Though pranksters and joke-lovers in many countries now gleefully prepare to dupe friends and loved ones on April Fool's Day, no one knows exactly when or why, or even where, this tradition began.

A giddy spurt of practical joking seems to have coincided with the coming of spring since the time of the Ancient Romans and Celts, who celebrated a festival of mischief-making. The first mentions of an All Fool's Day (as it was formerly called) came in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Read more ....

Tipping Point In The Media: Global Warming

From Watts Up With That?

Over the last year or so I have been taking an informal survey of a key news metric - Google news searches for the term “global warming.” A year ago, the ratio of alarmist/skeptical articles was close to 100/1. About six months ago, the ratio was 90/10, Two months ago it was 80/20, and today it hit 50/50 for the first time - including the lead skeptical story “A Cooling Trend Toward Global Warming“. One thing that has changed is the rise of blogs written by informed citizens, complemented by the demise of corporate newspapers which make money from keeping people continually alarmed about one thing or another.

Read more ....

What Is Norovirus? How Contagious Is It? Can It Be Fatal?

NASTY NOROVIRUS: Virus particles like these are responsible for sickening 23 million people in the U.S. every year. GrahamColm via Wikimedia Commons

From Scientific American:

A Massachusetts college closes down after over 100 students fall ill with norovirus infections.

An outbreak of stomach flu believed to be caused by norovirus has prompted a temporary shutdown of Babson College, a small business college and graduate school in Babson Park, Mass. School officials announced that classes, meetings, athletic events and all other activities would be canceled until Wednesday, when the school is expected to have the outbreak under control.

Dennis Hanno, Babson's undergraduate dean, says that 131 students have visited the school's health services clinic since Wednesday complaining of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea—all symptoms associated with norovirus, a group of viruses formerly known as Norwalk-like viruses. "We saw a high of 40 reported cases on Friday," Hanno told ScientificAmerican.com, noting that the numbers have dropped significantly since then with only four cases reported today. The main concern with this stomach virus, Hanno says, is that it may cause severe dehydration; 12 of the students received fluids intravenously to replenish those lost.

Read more ....

New Theory On Largest Known Mass Extinction In Earth's History

Hypothetically speaking, large areas of the hyper saline Zechstein Sea and its direct environment could have looked like this, which in the Permian Age was situated about where present day Central Europe is. At the end of the Permian Age the Zechstein Sea was irrevocably disconnected from the open sea and the remaining sections of sea soon dried out after that. As a result the microbial-limited halogenated gases from the Zechstein Sea stopped and vegetation was able to regenerate again. The pink colour of the Zechstein Sea was probably brought about by microbes with an extreme preference for salt, as is the case with salt lakes today. In the background sand dunes can be recognised from a landscape with hardly any water. (Credit: Dr. Karsten Kotte/Universität Heidelberg)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 31, 2009) — The largest mass extinction in the history of the earth could have been triggered off by giant salt lakes, whose emissions of halogenated gases changed the atmospheric composition so dramatically that vegetation was irretrievably damaged.

At least that is what an international team of scientists has reported in the most recent edition of the Proceedings of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Dokladi Earth Sciences). At the Permian/Triassic boundary, 250 million years ago, about 90 percent of the animal and plant species ashore became extinct. Previously it was thought that volcanic eruptions, the impacts of asteroids, or methane hydrate were instigating causes.

Read more ....

Coffee Lessens The Pain Of Exercise

Former competitive cyclist Robert Motl, now a professor of kinesiology and community health, is studying the effects of caffeine on pain during exercise. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

From Live Science:

That cup of coffee that many gym rats, bikers and runners swill before a workout does more than energize them. It kills some of the pain of athletic exertion, a new study suggests. And it works regardless of whether a person already had a coffee habit or not.

Caffeine works on a system in the brain and spinal cord (the adenosine neuromodulatory system) that is heavily involved in pain processing, says University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Robert Motl. And since caffeine blocks adenosine, the biochemical that plays an important role in energy transfer and thus exercise, he speculated that it could reduce pain.

Read more ....

Women Excluded From 'Mars Mission' Crew To Prevent Sexual Tension Ruining 105-Day Voyage

Five of the crew during survival training near Star City, Russia.
They will live together for 105 days in cramped conditions.

From The Daily Mail:

Today an all-male crew of six space enthusiasts were shut inside the Mars-500 'spaceship' in Moscow, for a simulated 105-day mission.

The purpose of the reality TV-like mission is to study the psychological and physiological effects of isolation on stress levels, sleep quality, mood and immunity levels.

The experiment paves the way for a 500 day mission which will completely replicate the conditions of a real mission to Mars.

Read more ....

Cosmonaut: Russians Can't Use American Toilet in Space

Which bathroom do I use? The International Space Station as seen from the departing space shuttle Discovery on March 25. NASA

From FOX News:

MOSCOW — Squabbles on Earth over how cosmonauts and astronauts divide up the space station's food, water, toilets and other facilities are hurting the crew's morale and complicating work in space, a veteran Russian cosmonaut said, according to an interview published Monday.

Gennady Padalka told the Novaya Gazeta newspaper as saying space officials from Russia, the United States and other countries require cosmonauts and astronauts to eat their own food and follow stringent rules on access to other facilities, like toilets.

Read more ....

My Comment: This news is getting better everyday.

Hobbit Skeleton Replica Goes On Display

Image: Artist's rendition of Homo floresiensis. Credit: National Geographic Society/ Peter Schouten

From Live Science:

A cast of a "hobbit" skeleton will go on public display for the first time as part of a human evolution symposium April 21 on Long Island, New York.

The hobbit fossils (and near fossils) were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. Some scientists think the discovery represents a new species of human. Others argue it was human like us, only with a disorder called microcephaly which gave it an unusually small head.

The skeleton is set to go on display at Stony Brook University's Staller Center for the Arts as part of the 7th Human Evolution Symposium there.

Read more ....

Why Some People Shake Off The Flu In A Couple Of Days, While Others Suffer Longer, Or Die

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2009) — For some people it is a certainty: as soon as the annual flu season gets underway, they are sure to go down with it. It is little comfort to know that there are other people who are apparently resistant to flu or overcome the illness after just a couple of days. It is this phenomenon that is now being investigated by researchers at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, using various strains of mice.

"Where there are many scientific works dealing solely with the flu virus, we have investigated how the host reacts to an infection," says Klaus Schughart, head of the Experimental Mouse Genetics research group. In infection experiments the researchers have now discovered that an excessive immune response is responsible for the fatal outcome of the disease in mice. This overreaction has genetic roots.

Read more ....

Discover Interview The Man Who Found Quarks And Made Sense Of The Universe

From The Discover Magazine:

Murray Gell-Mann had a smash success with particles, notorious dustups with Feynman, and a missed opportunity with Einstein.

It is no accident that the quark—the building block of protons and neutrons and, by extension, of you and everything around you—has such a strange and charming name. The physicist who discovered it, Murray Gell-Mann, loves words as much as he loves physics. He is known to correct a stranger’s pronunciation of his or her own last name (which doesn’t always go over well) and is more than happy to give names to objects or ideas that do not have one yet. Thus came the word quark for his most famous discovery. It sounds like “kwork” and got its spelling from a whimsical poem in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. This highly scientific term is clever and jokey and gruff all at once, much like the man who coined it.

Read more ....

How Enormous Batteries Could Safeguard The Power Grid

Big battery: Wind turbines charge these large-scale batteries in Luverne, Minn., while the wind blows. If the breeze calms, the batteries keep power flowing into the utility grid. (Courtesy of XCel Energy)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Since sunlight and wind can be unreliable, renewable utilities install big backups.

One evening in late February 2008, the famously steady winds of west Texas began to wane until, at last, hundreds of giant wind turbines were becalmed – their enormous blades slowed or stilled.

In just three hours, grid operators at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas watched wind power output fall by 1,400 megawatts – power needed to supply roughly 600,000 homes. Following emergency procedures, a blackout was avoided by quickly cutting power to several industrial customers.

Read more ....

Giant Laser Experiment Powers Up

From BBC:

The US has finished constructing a huge physics experiment aimed at recreating conditions at the heart of our Sun.

The US National Ignition Facility is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of nuclear fusion, a process that could offer abundant clean energy.

The lab will kick-start the reaction by focusing 192 giant laser beams on a tiny pellet of hydrogen fuel.

To work, it must show that more energy can be extracted from the process than is required to initiate it.

Professor Mike Dunne, who leads a European venture that is also pursuing nuclear fusion with lasers, told BBC News that if NIF was successful, it would be a "seismic event".

Read more ....

Volcanoes Spawn Mini-Cyclones, Then Lightning "Sheaths"

A waterspout forms offshore from an erupting Kilauea volcano vent in Kilauea, Hawaii. A March 2009 study revealed a newfound link between two of nature's most violent phenomena that could explain how volcanic ash clouds can generate lightning and tornado-like dust devils and waterspouts. Photograph by Steve and Donna O'Meara

From National Geographic:

A newfound link between two of nature's most violent phenomena could explain how volcanic ash clouds can generate bolts of lightning and tornado-like dust devils and waterspouts.

Scientists have long known that tornadoes are the products of colossal columns of spinning air—mesocyclones—inside large storm clouds.

A new study suggests mesocyclones can also form in the ash plumes of volcanic eruptions.

Under certain circumstances, these volcanic mesocyclones can aid in lightning production and create tornado-like structures that corkscrew toward the Earth, said study team member Pinaki Chakraborty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Read more ....

Cosmonaut Grumbles About Space Bureaucracy

Image top: The International Space Station, the largest scientific
cooperative program in history Credit: NASA

From Yahoo News/AP:

MOSCOW – Squabbles on Earth over how cosmonauts and astronauts divide up the space station's food, water, toilets and other facilities are hurting the crew's morale and complicating work in space, a veteran Russian cosmonaut said, according to an interview published Monday.

Gennady Padalka told the Novaya Gazeta newspaper as saying space officials from Russia, the United States and other countries require cosmonauts and astronauts to eat their own food and follow stringent rules on access to other facilities, like toilets.

Read more ....

New Portable Energy Source Utilizes Microbes To Turn Electricity Directly To Methane

This photo shows Bruce E. Logan, Shaoan Cheng and Defeng Xing with a microbial cell that produces methane directly from electricity. (Credit: Bruce Logan's Lab, Penn State)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2009) — A tiny microbe can take electricity and directly convert carbon dioxide and water to methane, producing a portable energy source with a potentially neutral carbon footprint, according to a team of Penn State engineers.

"We were studying making hydrogen in microbial electrolysis cells and we kept getting all this methane," said Bruce E. Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering, Penn State. "We may now understand why."

Read more ....

Mysterious East Coast Boom Was Falling Russian Rocket

A look at Russia's Soyuz rocket stages. Credit: SPACE.com Graphic.

From Live Science:

The mysterious boom and flash of light seen over parts of Virginia Sunday night was not a meteor, but actually exploding space junk from the second stage of a Russian Soyuz rocket falling back to Earth, according to an official with the U.S. Naval Observatory.

"I'm pretty convinced that what these folks saw was the second stage of the Soyuz rocket that launched the crew up to the space station," said Geoff Chester of the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

Read more ....

Nathan Wolfe: Did We Mention This Guy Was Brilliant?

From Popsci.com:

PopSci "Brilliant 10" alum takes the TED stage to talk about his groundbreaking work as a virus hunter; see the video!

When it comes to viruses, especially the serious kind that can make you bleed from your eye sockets and wipe out entire villages, most people naturally prefer to keep their distance. Not Nathan Wolfe. The 39-year-old epidemiologist has spent the past 10 years hunting them down in the jungles of Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By collecting thousands of blood samples from wild animals and the people who live in close contact with them, Wolfe and his team have uncovered new viruses related to HIV and smallpox. He's even documented how these animal-borne killers leap to humans, with blood serving as a vector in transmitting viruses from slaughtered animals to hunters.

Read more ....

A (Radioactive) Cut in the Earth That Will Not Stay Closed

DANGEROUS ELEMENT: The uranium for the original atomic bombs came from a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Shinkolobwe. ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/DAVID FREUND

From Scientific American:

Tom Zoellner's book Uranium explores how a historic mine in Africa poses an existential threat in this excerpt.

One of the most potentially dangerous places in the world is called Shinkolobwe, the name of a now-destroyed village in central Africa which took its name from a thorny fruit resembling an apple. After boiling, the outside of the fruit cools quickly but the inside is like a sponge. It retains hot water for a long time. Squeezing it results in a burn.

The word is also local slang for a man who is easygoing on the surface but becomes angry when provoked.

Read more ....

The Tech Behind 3D's Big Revival

Left: James Cameron on the set of his 3D epic Avatar. Right: An NFL Films cameraman captures last season’s San Diego—Oakland game using a stereo­scopic camera rig built by 3ality. (Photograph by Associated Press)

From Popular Mechanics:

3D has been around for a century, but only now are we seeing 3D in Super Bowl ads and in big Hollywood 3D releases like Coraline and Monsters vs. Aliens. So what has convinced Hollywood that 3D is finally ready for its closeup? The short answer is that technology has finally caught up with the concept.

Hollywood is buzzing about 3D. Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg has compared it to the introduction of color. Director James Cameron delayed the release of his stereoscopic epic Avatar in part to give theaters more time to convert to 3D capability. A dozen or more stereoscopic films will be released in 2009, and more than 30 movies are in production. But stereoscopic films are not a revolutionary concept; in fact, audiences have been paying for them since The Power of Love in 1922. The golden age of 3D was in the 1950s, with a brief resurgence in the 1980s. Each time experts heralded the format as the next big thing in filmmaking, and each time, the surge quietly subsided.

Read more ....

Solar Activity And Climate Change: New Sun-Watching Satellite To Monitor Sunlight Fluctuations

During periods of peak activity (front three images) sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections are more common, and the sun emits slightly more energy than during periods of low activity (back images). The amount of energy that strikes Earth's atmosphere -- called total solar irradiance (TSI) -- fluctuates by about 0.1 percent over the course of the sun's 11-year cycle, even though the soft X-ray wavelengths shown in this image vary by much greater amounts. (Credit: Steele Hill, SOHO, NASA/ESA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2009) — During the Maunder Minimum, a period of diminished solar activity between 1645 and 1715, sunspots were rare on the face of the sun, sometimes disappearing entirely for months to years. At the same time, Earth experienced a bitter cold period known as the "Little Ice Age."

Were the events connected? Scientists cannot say for sure, but it's quite likely. Slowdowns in solar activity -- evidenced by reductions in sunspot numbers -- are known to coincide with decreases in the amount of energy discharged by the sun. During the Little Ice Age, though, few would have thought to track total solar irradiance (TSI), the amount of solar energy striking Earth's upper atmosphere. In fact, the scientific instrument needed to make such measurements -- a spaceborne radiometer -- was still three centuries into the future.

Read more ....

Perfect Running Pace Revealed

The kinematics of walking (left) and running are quite different. © Nature

From Live Science:

Most regular runners can tell you when they reach that perfect equilibrium of speed and comfort. The legs are loose, the heart is pumping and it feels like you could run at this pace forever.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison now have an explanation for this state of running nirvana, and we can thank our ancestors and some evolutionary biology for it.

Read more ....

Scientists Map The Brain, Gene By Gene

"The brain is details on top of details on top of details." — Michael Hawrylycz
Photo: David Clugston

From Wired Magazine:

The human brain is surprisingly bloody. I've worked in neuroscience labs, and I'm used to seeing brains that are stored in glass jars filled with formaldehyde, the preserved tissue a lifeless gray. But this brain—removed from a warm body just a few hours ago—looks bruised, its folds stained purple. Blood drips from the severed stem, forming puddles on the stainless steel table.

I'm in the dissection room of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, and the scientist next to me is in a hurry: His specimen—this fragile cortex—is falling apart. Dying, the gray matter turns acidic and begins to eat away at itself; nucleic acids unravel, cell membranes dissolve. He takes a thin, sterilized knife and slices into the tissue with disconcerting ease. I'm reminded of Jell-O and guillotines and the meat counter at the supermarket. He saws repeatedly until the brain is reduced to a series of thin slabs, which are then photographed and rushed to a freezer. All that remains is a pool of blood, like the scene of a crime.

Read more ....

Leaving Computers On Overnight = $2.8 Billion A Year

Vice President Gore's Office

From Yahoo Tech:

Admittedly I don't think much about it at all. I leave my laptop running overnight because I know it'll take five minutes or more to get things going in the morning -- not just booting up, but launching the various apps I start the day with, downloading my overnight email, filtering out the spam, and otherwise "getting settled."

But all the power wasted while computers are sitting idle overnight adds up, and one study has finally tried to measure it. The tally: An estimated $2.8 billion wasted on excess energy costs each year in the U.S. alone.

Read more ....

My Comment: I think it is more than that. I have 3 computers in my office. I have always left them on 24 hours. About 6 months ago I started to shut them down when I was no longer working with them. My electricity bill has dropped appreciably since then.

Another Volcano In Alaska Erupts?

From Watts Up With That?:

(h/t to Ron de Haan) This time it appears to be Mount Gareloi, something big is going on there seismically. The webicorder is going nuts.

Update: I double checked the webicorder to see if it was still operating, and it appears to be. Still no word on the AVO website about the status of Gareloi.

UPDATE2: About an hour after I posted this, seeing nothing from AVO, I decided to call them. They answered right away and were quite surprised that anyone was watching. The scientist there said “we don’t see anything unusual on our trace” but when I pointed out the webicorder trace below, she said “ah yes it’s a noisy signal, I was looking at our internal trace, not the public one”. She also confirmed my initial speculation listed in the CAVEAT below that it was a windstorm, as evidenced by the gradual onset and lack of transients.

Read more ....

The (Real!) Science Behind Lie to Me

As the foremost deception expert in the country, Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth) knows when someone is lying. He oversees The Lightman Group, a private agency hired to expose the truth behind the lies in the new series Lie to Me. (Photograph by Mike Yarish/FOX)

From Popular Mechanics:

In Lie to Me, Tim Roth plays Dr. Cal Lightman, a deception consultant and expert. But Lightman doesn't rely on some futuristic mind-reading tricks cooked up by TV writers. Instead, his character is based on clinical psychologist Paul Ekman, a leading expert on lie detection. PM's Digital Hollywood asked Ekman how well his life and research translate to the small screen, delving into the science behind Fox's latest drama.

If Fox's Fringe is full of junk science (including people who walk through walls and communicate with the dead), then Lie to Me, the network's newest law enforcement-themed drama, is just the opposite.

Read more ....

Rise Of Sea Levels Is 'The Greatest Lie Ever Told'

From The Telegraph:

The uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story, writes Christopher Booker.

If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe.

Although the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only predicts a sea level rise of 59cm (17 inches) by 2100, Al Gore in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth went much further, talking of 20 feet, and showing computer graphics of cities such as Shanghai and San Francisco half under water. We all know the graphic showing central London in similar plight. As for tiny island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu, as Prince Charles likes to tell us and the Archbishop of Canterbury was again parroting last week, they are due to vanish.

Read more ....

20 Years Later: Exxon Valdez Spill Lingers

Exxon Valdez

From ScienCentral:

Just after midnight on this day in 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez crashed against a reef off the coast of Alaska. Within six or so hours of the incident, nearly 10.8 million gallons of crude oil had spilled into the surrounding waters of the Prince Island Sound. Within a few days, that oil had spread 90 miles from the accident site. And now, two decades later, the after effects of the Valdez spill linger.

Oil and Water

In 1989, America consumed over 252 billion gallons of oil. Compared to that number, the 10.8 million gallons that was dumped from the Valdez and into Prince Island Sound seems insignificant. In fact, the Exxon Valdez spill was by no means the largest spill in history. It wasn’t even the tenth largest.

Read more ....

Airborne Dust Reduction Plays Larger Than Expected Role In Determining Atlantic Temperature

A dust storm off the coast of Morocco was imaged by NASA's MODIS Aqua meteorological satellite on March 12, 2009. A new study by UW-Madison researcher Amato Evan shows that variability of African dust storms and tropical volcanic eruptions can account for 70 percent of the warming North Atlantic Ocean temperatures observed during the past three decades. Since warmer water is a key ingredient in hurricane formation and intensity, dust and other airborne particles will play a critical role in developing a better understanding of these storms in a changing climate. (Credit: Photo: courtesy Amato Evan)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2009) — The recent warming trend in the Atlantic Ocean is largely due to reductions in airborne dust and volcanic emissions during the past 30 years, according to a new study.

Since 1980, the tropical North Atlantic has been warming by an average of a quarter-degree Celsius (a half-degree Fahrenheit) per decade. Though this number sounds small, it can translate to big impacts on hurricanes, which thrive on warmer water, says Amato Evan, a researcher with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies and lead author of the new study. For example, the ocean temperature difference between 1994, a quiet hurricane year, and 2005's record-breaking year of storms, was just one degree Fahrenheit.

Read more ....

The World's Biggest Laser Powers Up

Fusion central: 192 lasers will shoot through openings in this spherical chamber, focusing near the tip of the cone projecting from the right. A worker in a service module can be seen at the left. Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy

From Technology Review:

Now complete, the National Ignition Facility could soon create controlled fusion using lasers.

The most energetic laser system in the world, designed to produce nuclear fusion--the same reaction that powers the sun--is up and running. Within two to three years, scientists expect to be creating fusion reactions that release more energy than it takes to produce them. If they're successful, it will be the first time this has been done in a controlled way--in a lab rather than a nuclear bomb, that is--and could eventually lead to fusion power plants.

Read more ....

How Cell Towers Work

From Gizmodo:

I recently visited a cell site shared by Clearwire and two other unnamed carriers—without frying my nuts. We've all driven past them so many times, but have you ever actually wondered how they work?

How They Work
Whether it's handling simple phone calls or 12Mbps WiMax data, cell sites are organized with more or less the same flow:

Read more ....

British Engineer Blows Away Land Speed Record For Wind-Powered Vehicles After 10-Year Quest

Record-breaker: The Greenbird clocked up 126.1mph

From The Daily Mail:

A British engineer has smashed the land speed record for wind powered vehicles, becoming the fastest naturally powered human on the planet.

Richard Jenkins clocked 126.1mph in his Ecotricity 'Greenbird' powered only by 30mph winds. He eclipsed the previous record of 116 mph, set by American Bob Schumacher ten years ago.

Read more ....

Archaeologist: Oldest Cyprus Temple Discovered

From The International Herald Tribune:

NICOSIA, Cyprus: An Italian archaeologist claimed Friday to have discovered Cyprus' oldest religious site, which she said echoes descriptions in the Bible of temples in ancient Palestine.

Maria Rosaria Belgiorno said the 4,000-year-old triangular temple predates any other found on the east Mediterranean island by a millennium.

"For sure it's the most ancient religious site on the island," she told The Associated Press from her home in Rome. "This confirms that religious worship in Cyprus began much earlier than previously believed."

Read more ....

Do Animals Enjoy Sex?

From Live Science:

Animals obviously hook up, at least during mating season. But do they like it? According to experts, there are two answers: "yes" and "it is impossible to know."

"Mosquitoes, I don’t know," hedged Mark Bekoff, a University of Colorado biologist and author of "The Emotional Lives of Animals" (New World Library), "but across mammals, they enjoy sex."

In fact the enjoyment of sex among humans and among animals may be similar in that it's all experienced in very primitive parts of the brain.

Read more ....

Erratic Black Hole Regulates Itself

This optical and infrared image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows the crowded field around the micro-quasar GRS 1915+105 (GRS 1915 for short) located near the plane of our Galaxy. The inset shows a close-up of the Chandra image of GRS 1915, one of the brightest X-ray sources in the Milky Way galaxy. (Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/Harvard/J.Neilsen); Optical & IR (Palomar DSS2))

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2009) — New results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have made a major advance in explaining how a special class of black holes may shut off the high-speed jets they produce. These results suggest that these black holes have a mechanism for regulating the rate at which they grow.

Black holes come in many sizes: the supermassive ones, including those in quasars, which weigh in at millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, and the much smaller stellar-mass black holes which have measured masses in the range of about 7 to 25 times the Sun's mass. Some stellar-mass black holes launch powerful jets of particles and radiation, like seen in quasars, and are called "micro-quasars".

Read more ....

How to Prevent the Next Pandemic

DANGER: Wild animals can carry pathogens capable of jumping into humans—the first step toward becoming a major infectious killer—so a new plan for avoiding pandemics begins with them. Oxford Scientific Getty Images; JEN CHRISTIANSEN (photoillustration)

From Scientific American:

* Most human infectious diseases originated in animals.
* Historically, epidemiologists have focused on domestic animals as the source of these scourges. But wild animals, too, have transmitted many diseases to us, including HIV.
* To address the threat posed by wild animals, researchers are studying the microbes of these creatures and the people who come into frequent contact with them.
* Such monitoring may enable scientists to spot emerging infectious diseases early enough to prevent them from becoming pandemics.

Sweat streamed down my back, thorny shrubs cut my arms, and we were losing them again. The wild chimpanzees my colleagues and I had been following for nearly five hours had stopped their grunting, hooting and screeching. Usually these calls helped us follow the animals through Uganda's Kibale Forest. For three large males to quiet abruptly surely meant trouble. Suddenly, as we approached a small clearing, we spotted them standing below a massive fig tree and looking up at a troop of red colobus monkeys eating and playing in the treetop.

Read more ....

Space Smells Funny, Astronauts Say

Astronaut Richard Arnold, STS-119 mission specialist, participates in the mission's first scheduled session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the ISS on March 19, 2009. Credit: NASA.

From Live Science:

The smell of space will linger for the seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Discovery long after they return to Earth on Saturday.

"One thing I've heard people say before, but it wasn't so obvious, was the smell right when you open up that hatch," Discovery pilot Dominic "Tony" Antonelli said after a March 21 spacewalk. "Space definitely has a smell that's different than anything else."

The odor, Antonelli said, could be smelled once spacewalkers locked the station airlock's outer hatch and reopened the inner door.

Read more ....