The Science Of Spring

From Live Science:

The first day of spring is no guarantee of spring-like weather, but officially the season's start comes around at the same time each year nonetheless.

Well, sort of.

The first day of spring arrives on varying dates (from March 19-21) in different years for two reasons: Our year is not exactly an even number of days; and Earth's slightly noncircular orbit, plus the gravitational tug of the other planets, constantly changes our planet's orientation to the sun from year to year.

And weather-wise, Earth's seasons have shifted in the past 150 years or so, according to a study that came out last month. The hottest and coldest days of the years now are occurring almost two days earlier.

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West Antarctic Ice Comes And Goes, Rapidly

From E! SCience News:

Researchers today worry about the collapse of West Antarctic ice shelves and loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet, but little is known about the past movements of this ice. Now climatologists from Penn State and the University of Massachusetts have modeled the past 5 million years of the West Antarctic ice sheet and found the ice expanse changes rapidly and is most influenced by ocean temperatures near the continent. "We found that the West Antarctic ice sheet varied a lot, collapsed and regrew multiple times over that period," said David Pollard, senior scientist, Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences' Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. "The ice sheets in our model changed in ways that agree well with the data collected by the ANDRILL project."

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Nobody Listens To The Real Climate Change Experts

Cold comfort: If the present trend continues, the world will be 1.1C cooler in 2100
Photo: Getty

From The Telegraph:

The minds of world leaders are firmly shut to anything but the fantasies of the scaremongers, says Christopher Booker.

Considering how the fear of global warming is inspiring the world's politicians to put forward the most costly and economically damaging package of measures ever imposed on mankind, it is obviously important that we can trust the basis on which all this is being proposed. Last week two international conferences addressed this issue and the contrast between them could not have been starker.

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General Fusion Research Update

From The Next Big Future:

General Fusion is using the MTF (Magnetized Target Fusion) approach but with a new, patent pending and cost-effective compression system to collapse the plasma. They describe the injectors at the top and bottom of the above image in the new research paper. The goal is to build small fusion reactors that can produce around 100 megawatts of power. The company claims plants would cost around US$50 million, allowing them to generate electricity at about four cents per kilowatt hour.

If there are no funding delays, then in 2010-2011 for completion of the tests and work for an almost full scale version (2 meters instead of 3 meter diameter).

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Green Beer For Fewer Greenbacks

DRINKING UP THE SUN: Brewer and co-owner Alex Stiles toasting the sun in front of the Lucky Lab's solar array. He drinks Solar Flare Ale, which is "light and balanced with a slight malty character and a refreshing hops bitterness," according to co-owner Gary Geist. IMAGE COURTESY OF GROVER P. THUMPER

From Scientific American:

You have probably heard of green buildings, green cars and, perhaps, even green phones. But were you aware that green beer is flowing from the taps of some U.S. breweries, and not the kind for St. Patrick's Day tomorrow? Among the leaders of the movement is Lucky Labrador Brewing Company in Portland, Ore., which for the past year has been saving big bucks by using solar energy to heat water used in the brewing process.

Lucky Labrador's first green beer, "Solar Flare Ale," was an instant sensation when it was introduced in February 2008, according to brewery co-owner Gary Geist. Sales spiked in the month following the beer's debut, Geist says. But, he notes that going solar is more about long-term benefits than about temporary sales spurts.

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Edmonton Canada Bests All Time Record Low By -12 Degrees, Columnist Questions Climate Situation

From Watts Up With That?

UPDATE: The author’s (Lorne Gunter) claim of breaking a record by -12 degrees is only partially correct. The phrase “smashing the previous March low” should have read “smashing the previous March 10th low”

The previous March record Tmin occurred in 2003 and was -42.2°C details here (Thanks to reader K Stricker for the link) - Anthony

So why are eco types moaning about record highs while ignoring record lows?

By Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal

So far this month, at least 14 major weather stations in Alberta have recorded their lowest-ever March temperatures. I’m not talking about daily records; I mean they’ve recorded the lowest temperatures they’ve ever seen in the entire month of March since temperatures began being recorded in Alberta in the 1880s.

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My Comment: I live north of Montreal in the Laurentians. The winters for the past 3-4 years have been very hard, and while we have not broken any records, it has been very very cold. Even the summers have been below normal temperatures. So .... while other parts of the world are experiencing "global warming", this definitely has not been the case here.

Where Does Consciousness Come From?

New research suggests that four specific, separate processes combine as a "signature" of conscious activity. (Credit: iStockphoto/Linda Bucklin)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 17, 2009) — Consciousness arises as an emergent property of the human mind. Yet basic questions about the precise timing, location and dynamics of the neural event(s) allowing conscious access to information are not clearly and unequivocally determined.

Some neuroscientists have even argued that consciousness may arise from a single "seat" in the brain, though the prevailing idea attributes a more global network property.

Do the neural correlates of consciousness correspond to late or early brain events following perception? Do they necessarily involve coherent activity across different regions of the brain, or can they be restricted to local patterns of reverberating activity?

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Saturn Photographed with Four Moons

This sequence of images captures the parade of several of Saturn's moons transiting the face of the gas giant planet. This is a rare event because the rings are tilted edge on to Earth every 15 years. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

With Live Science:

A new Hubble photograph captured a rare alignment of four of Saturn's moons lining up in front of their planet.

The snapshot, taken on Feb. 24 with the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope, shows the moons transiting in front of Saturn. The moons, from far left to right, are the white icy moons Enceladus and Dione, the large orange moon Titan, and icy Mimas. Due to the angle of the Sun, they are each preceded by their own shadow.

These rare moon transits only happen when the tilt of Saturn's ring plane is nearly "edge on" as seen from the Earth. Saturn's rings will be perfectly edge on to our line of sight on Aug. 10 and Sept. 4, 2009. Unfortunately, Saturn will be too close to the Sun to be seen by viewers on Earth at that time. This "ring plane crossing" occurs every 14-15 years. In 1995-96 Hubble witnessed the previous ring plane crossing, as well as many moon transits, and helped to discover several new moons of Saturn.

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Probe Launches To Map Earth's Gravity In Best Detail Yet

From New Scientist:

A sleek satellite that is set to make the most detailed map of the Earth's gravity took to the skies on Tuesday. The probe is expected to make important contributions to ocean current measurements and climate models.

If all goes well, the satellite will assume an orbit some 285 km above the Earth, gradually falling to an altitude of 268 km, where the probe will take much of its science data. It will remain in orbit for at least two years, beginning science operations in late August or early September when the probe will have sufficient solar power to do its observations.

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The Chemistry of Life: Where Oil Comes From

The generally accepted theory for the origin of petroleum a geologic processing of the dead remains of ancient ocean life. Credit: DOE

From Live Science:

Editor's Note: This occasional series of articles looks at the vital things in our lives and the chemistry they are made of.

Oil, the lifeblood of U.S. transportation today, is thought to start with the remnants of tiny organisms that lived millions of years ago, but the exact chemical transformation is somewhat mysterious. New research is looking at the role played by microorganisms that live in the deep dark bowels of the Earth.

A minority of scientists say otherwise, but most geologists think that the petroleum we pump from the ground (and later refine into gasoline and other fuels) comes predominantly from the fossils of marine life, such as algae and plankton.

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A Cyber Sensation: World's First Robotic Model To Star In Her Own Fashion Show

The 'cybernetic human' has been designed to look like an average Japanese woman and portrays anger (L) and surprise (R)

From Daily Mail:

Robots could soon be gracing the catwalk, thanks to a black-haired cybernetic beauty who is preparing to make her debut at a fashion show in Japan.

Fetchingly named HRP-4C, the humanoid has 30 motors in her body that allows her to walk and move her arms as well as eight motors on its face to create expressions like anger and surprise.

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Scientists Aim To Replicate The Sun

NASA's STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft observed this visually stunning prominence eruption on the Sun in the 304 angstrom wavelength of extreme UV light. Prominences are relatively cool clouds of gas suspended above the sun and controlled by magnetic forces.

From UPI:

LIVERMORE, Calif., March 15 (UPI) -- Scientists in California say they're trying to replicate the power of the sun by firing laser beams at a tiny pellet of hydrogen.

Physicists at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore say the nuclear fusion experiments may offer the world a clean source of energy
, The Times of London reported Sunday.

The hydrogen pellet will be hit with 192 laser beams capable of generating 500 trillion watts -- 1,000 times the power of the U.S. national grid, said the scientists.

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What Happens At The Moment Of Death?

Peering Down The Tunnel Beyond Death -- Globe And Mail

Hollywood favours, for simplicity's sake, the instant flat-line death; the hero gasps a brilliant line, his eyes dim and he's gone. But in real life, dying has more drama. The heart and lungs quit, the blood, carrying its life-giving oxygen, stops flowing and the brain, without its generator, chugs to a standstill. Abandoned in the dark, the cells take their last stand, firing off chemicals like distress flares. When no rescue comes, they begin to suffocate one by one. The cell membranes rupture, spilling out the insides. Or they implode.

Yet now and then there is Hollywood-style rescue: The heart is kick-started back to life, blood pumps, the brain sucks in oxygen in time to save itself. We've all heard the stories of people who return from the edge of death: bright tunnels, visions of dead relatives and, most logic-defying of all, floating above themselves watching the doctors trying to save them.

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Young Dinosaurs Roamed Together, Died Together

While approaching the edge of a lake in what is today the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, a herd of young Sinornithomimus dinosaurs suddenly finds itself hopelessly trapped in mud some 90 million years ago. (Credit: Art by Todd Marshall, courtesy of Project Exploration)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — A herd of young birdlike dinosaurs met their death on the muddy margins of a lake some 90 million years ago, according to a team of Chinese and American paleontologists that excavated the site in the Gobi Desert in western Inner Mongolia.

The Sudden sudden death of the herd in a mud trap provides a rare snapshot of social behavior. Composed entirely of juveniles of a single species of ornithomimid dinosaur (Sinornithomimus dongi), the herd suggests that immature individuals were left to fend for themselves when adults were preoccupied with nesting or brooding.

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Robot Madness: Preventing Insurrection of Machines

USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) conducts a Phalanx live fire training exercise. The Phalanx is a fast-reaction, rapid-fire 20-millimeter gun system that automatically detects, tracks and engages threats such as anti-ship missiles and aircraft. Credit: U.S. Navy

From Live Science:

In Robot Madness, LiveScience examines humanoid robots and cybernetic enhancement of humans, as well as the exciting and sometimes frightening convergence of it all. Return for a new episode each Monday, Wednesday and Friday through April 6.

A robotic future holds the promise of providing tireless workers and companions for humans, but it can also evoke worries about an armed machine insurrection along the lines of the "Terminator" movies.

Experts consider that dark vision to be on the distant horizon, although they now point to other ethical issues that arise from the growing presence of battlefield bots and their potential to decide to attack autonomously, possibly as soon as in the next 20 years .

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People With Higher IQs Live Longer

From The Telegraph:

People with higher IQs are more likely to live into healthy old age, according to a study.

Unfortunately, those who do not perform so well in intelligence tests could suffer a higher risk of heart disease, fatal accidents and suicide.

The discovery was made after researchers looked into the medical records of one million Swedish army conscripts.

After taking into account whether they had grown up in a safer, more affluent environment, they established the connection between IQ and mortality.

One of the researchers, Dr David Batty, said the statistics showed "a strong link between cognitive ability and the risk of death."

He added: "People with higher IQ test scores tend to be less likely to smoke or drink alcohol heavily. They also eat better diets, and they are more physically active. So they have a range of better behaviours that may partly explain their lower mortality risk."

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Fossil Hunters Find Sea Monster ... And A Dinosaur The Size Of A Skinny Chicken

Artist's impression of a 45-tonne Pliosaur attacking a Plesiosaur.
Photograph: Atlantic Productions

From The Guardian:

The giant meat-eating reptile, known as a pliosaur, had a bite four times as powerful as T. rex. The second creature, on the other hand, may be the least scary dinosaur ever discovered.

The remains of a giant meat-eating sea monster that patrolled the oceans during the reign of the dinosaurs have been unearthed on an island in the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

Norwegian fossil hunters recovered the rear half of the formidable reptile's skull in south-west Spitsbergen in what has been described as one of the most significant Jurassic discoveries ever made.

The predator has been identified as a new species of pliosaur, a group of extinct aquatic reptiles that had huge skulls, short necks and four flippers to power them through the water.

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Who Protects The Internet?

Webmaster: John Rennie and "the Beast" aboard the Wave Sentinel in
the port of Dorset, England Jonathan Worth

From Popsci.com:

Pull up the wrong undersea cable, and the Internet goes dark in Berlin or Dubai. See our animated infographics of how the web works!

For the past five years, John Rennie has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by U.K.-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie--a congenial, 6'4", 57-year-old Scotsman--patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables. The cables, thick as fire hoses and packed with fiber optics, run everywhere along the seafloor, ferrying phone and Web traffic from continent to continent at the speed of light.

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Quantum Physicist Wins $1.4M Templeton Prize For Writing on “Veiled Reality”

From Discover:

French physicist Bernard d’Espagnat has won the annual Templeton Prize with its purse of $1.4 million; the prize is often given to scientists who find common ground between religion and science. Professor d’Espagnat, 87, worked with great luminaries of quantum physics but went on to address the philosophical questions that the field poses [BBC News].

Physicists may be more open to seeing a higher power behind the great mysteries of the universe than scientists in other disciplines: Including Dr. d’Espagnat, five of the past 10 Templeton winners have been physicists or have had strong connections to the discipline [The Christian Science Monitor].

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Watery Asteroids May Explain Why Life Is 'Left-Handed'

Image: Amino acids, such as isovaline (illustrated), come in left- and right-handed forms, but almost every living organism on Earth uses left-handed forms. New research suggests that water on asteroids amplified a bias - possibly caused by polarised starlight - towards left-handed amino acids (Illustration: NASA/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith)

From New Scientist:

Soggy rocks hurtling through the solar system gave life on Earth an addiction to left-handed proteins, according to a new study. The research suggests that water on asteroids amplified left-handed amino acid molecules, making them dominate over their right-handed mirror images.

Curiously, almost every living organism on Earth uses left-handed amino acids instead of their right-handed counterparts. In the 1990s, scientists found that meteorites contain up to 15% more of the left version too. That suggests space rocks bombarding the early Earth biased its chemistry so that life used left-handed amino acids instead of right.

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