Curious Pair Of Galaxies: Best Image Ever Of Strange And Chaotic Duo

This colour composite image of Arp 261 was created from images obtained using the FORS2 instrument on the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. Located 2600 m above sea level, in the mountains of the Atacama Desert, the Paranal Observatory enjoys some of the clearest and darkest skies on the whole planet. (Credit: Image courtesy of ESO)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2009) — The ESO Very Large Telescope has taken the best image ever of a strange and chaotic duo of interwoven galaxies. The images also contain some surprises — interlopers both far and near.

Sometimes objects in the sky that appear strange, or different from normal, have a story to tell and prove scientifically very rewarding. This was the idea behind Halton Arp’s catalogue of Peculiar Galaxies that appeared in the 1960s. One of the oddballs listed there is Arp 261, which has now been imaged in more detail than ever before using the FORS2 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The image proves to contain several surprises.

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Drink Up: Taking the Salt Out of Seawater

FREE FROM SALT: Special membranes help desalinize 25 million gallons of water a day at the Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant in Florida. COURTESY OF DOW

From Scientific American:

Removing the salt from briny water is becoming more affordable.

Almost three quarters of Earth's surface is covered with water, but most of it is too salty to drink. And the 2.5 percent that is freshwater is locked up either in soil, remote snowpacks and glaciers or in deep aquifers. That leaves less than 1 percent of all freshwater for humans and animals to drink and for farmers to use to raise crops—and that remnant is shrinking as rising global temperatures trigger more droughts. The upshot: it's becoming increasingly difficult to slake the world's thirst as the population grows and water supplies dwindle. Analysts at the investment bank Goldman Sachs estimate that worldwide water use doubles every 20 years.

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The Physicists Killed Wall Street

From Discover Magazine:

A couple of weeks ago there was an interesting opinion piece in the NYTimes about how physicists are the harbingers of doom, and are responsible for the end times. Or, more specifically, it’s because of physicists that the financial markets are in tatters all around us.

The basic idea is that greedy physicists have gone to Wall Street, cooked up all sorts of arcane derivative products, and subsequently unleashed these weapons of mass destruction on the financial markets. This sentiment is best epitomized by a statement from none other than Warren Buffett (perhaps the world’s most successful investor, and certainly the world’s richest): “beware of geeks bearing formulas”

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Can Science Reveal The Truth?

From First Science:

In St John's gospel, Jesus Christ tells Pilate that he has come into the world to bear witness to the truth. To which, Pilate famously responds: "What is truth?" - a question that, for me at least, makes Pontius Pilate leap off the page as one of the most human of Biblical characters.

Perhaps the single greatest strength of science is that doesn't have to face up to the meaning of truth: Science's very methodology allows it to sidestep the whole issue of truth. The scientific method is a way of translating our individual responses to the world into something that's collective.

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A Machine That Speeds Up Evolution

Photo: Better bugs: Using a specially designed machine (shown here), scientists can rapidly engineer up to 50 genetic changes in bacteria, dramatically speeding the quest to design bacterial factories capable of efficiently producing drugs, biofuels, and other chemical products. Credit: George Church

From Technology Review:

A genome-wide approach to genetic engineering greatly speeds the manufacture of bacteria for making drugs and biofuels.

Rather than changing the genome letter by letter, as most genetic engineering is done, George Church and his colleagues have developed a new technology that can make 50 changes to a bacterial genome nearly simultaneously--an advance that could be used to greatly speed the creation of bacteria that are better at producing drugs, nutrients, or biofuels.

"What once took months now takes days," says Stephen del Cardayré, vice president of research and development at LS9, a biofuels company based in South San Francisco of which Church is a founder. LS9 soon plans to use the technology--called multiplex-automated genomic engineering, or MAGE--to accelerate development of bacterial cells that can produce low-cost renewable fuels and chemicals.

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Physics In The Oil Sands Of Alberta

Figure 1. Crushed oil-sands ore. (Photograph from Suncor Energy Inc image bank.)

From Physics Today:

Alberta’s petroleum reserves are comparable to Saudi Arabia’s, but accessing that oil poses challenges in the physics of fluids and particulates.

The recent spike in the price of oil to over US$140 per barrel focused worldwide attention on the need for more diverse supplies of fuel from unconventional sources and renewable resources. The oil sands of Alberta, the largest source of unconventional fuel for North America, are also the largest petroleum deposit on Earth. Sometimes called tar sands, they contain an estimated 2.5 trillion barrels of crude oil over an area of more than 140 000 square kilometers, but that oil, called bitumen, is too viscous to be extracted by conventional drilling. Large oil-sands deposits also exist in Venezuela, and smaller ones are found in Utah, western Africa, and Russia, but production from the Canadian deposits is the largest.

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Alaska's Mt. Redoubt Volcano Is Erupting; Large Explosions Recorded

Alaska's Mt. Redoubt Volcano, which had been in a tempestuous mood for two months,
began erupting early this morning.

From the L.A. Times:

Alaska's Mt. Redoubt Volcano, which had been in a tempestuous mood for two months, began erupting early this morning.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory recorded four large explosions at Redoubt volcano in the predawn darkness Monday, and at 7 a.m. the website anounced, "Another large explosion has just occurred."

The height of the eruption cloud is estimated to be 50,000 feet above sea level, but it remains unclear what direction the enormous plume will travel.

Two calls to the AVO/U.S. Geological Survey operations center went unanswered.

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More News On Alaska's Mt. Redoubt Volcano

Mount Redoubt Volcano Erupts Five Times, So Far -- Live Science
Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupts after weeks of waiting -- McClatchy
Alaska's Mount Redoubt has 5th eruption -- UPI
Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupts -- Examiner
Mount Redoubt blows its top -- CBS 12

Carbon Nanotube Muscles Strong As Diamond, Flexible As Rubber

From Wired News:

For the next installment of the Terminator franchise, Hollywood might skip the polymimetic liquid alloys — they're so 2003 — and turn to the laboratory of Ray Baughman, who has created a next-generation muscle from carbon nanotubes.

Baughman and his colleagues have produced a formulation that's stronger than steel, as light as air and more flexible than rubber — a truly 21st century muscle. It could be used to make artificial limbs, "smart" skins, shape-changing structures, ultra-strong robots and — in the immediate future — highly-efficient solar cells.

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Language Of Music Really Is Universal, Study Finds

A saxophonist. Native African people who have never even listened to the radio before can nonetheless pick up on happy, sad, and fearful emotions in Western music. (Credit: iStockphoto/Richard Clarke)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 20, 2009) — Native African people who have never even listened to the radio before can nonetheless pick up on happy, sad, and fearful emotions in Western music, according to a new report published online on March 19th in Current Biology. The result shows that the expression of those three basic emotions in music can be universally recognized, the researchers said.

"These findings could explain why Western music has been so successful in global music distribution, even in music cultures that do not as strongly emphasize the role of emotional expression in their music," said Thomas Fritz of the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.

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Living Model Of Basic Units Of Human Brain Created

An isolated astrocyte shown with confocal microscopy. (Credit: Image created by Nathan S. Ivey at TNPRC / courtesy of Wikipedia)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 22, 2009) — Researchers in the School of Life & Health Sciences at Aston University in Birmingham, UK are developing a novel new way to model how the human brain works by creating a living representation of the brain.

They are using cells originally from a tumour which have been ‘reprogrammed’ to stop multiplying. Using the same natural molecule the body does to stimulate cellular development, the cells are turned into a co-culture of nerve cells and astrocytes - the most basic units of the human brain.

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Star Explodes, And So Might Theory

This artist's illustration provided by NASA shows what the brightest supernova ever recorded, known as SN 2006gy, may have looked like when it exploded. Photo: AP/NASA

From Live Science:

A massive star a million times brighter than our sun exploded way too early in its life, suggesting scientists don't understand stellar evolution as well as they thought.

"This might mean that we are fundamentally wrong about the evolution of massive stars, and that theories need revising," said Avishay Gal-Yam of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

According to theory, the doomed star, about 100 times our sun's mass, was not mature enough to have evolved a massive iron core of nuclear fusion ash, considered a prerequisite for a core implosion that triggers the sort of supernova blast that was seen.

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'Star Wars' Scientists Create Laser Gun To Kill Mosquitoes

From CNN:

LONDON, England -- Scientists in the U.S. are developing a laser gun that could kill millions of mosquitoes in minutes.

The laser, which has been dubbed a "weapon of mosquito destruction" fires at mosquitoes once it detects the audio frequency created by the beating of its wings.

The laser beam then destroys the mosquito, burning it on the spot.

Developed by some of the astrophysicists involved in what was known as the "Star Wars" anti-missile programs during the Cold War, the project is meant to prevent the spread of malaria.

Lead scientist on the project, Dr. Jordin Kare, told CNN that the laser would be able to sweep an area and "toast millions of mosquitoes in a few minutes."

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The New King Coal: The Unlikely Comeback Of The Mining Industry

The Dosco machine bores access routes to the coal face at Daw Mill, the most productive colliery in British history. Last year it produced 3.17 million tons of coal

From The Daily Mail:

Oil is running out, Russia controls most of Europe's gas and our weary nuclear generators are on their last legs. So what will power Britain in the future?James Delingpole reports on the unlikely comeback of coal.

'Some people can't handle it,' says the pit manager, raising his voice above the trundle of the battery-powered train and nodding to the walls of the dimly lit passageways taking us to the coal face in the Warwickshire Thick seam at Daw Mill colliery, near Coventry.

'They'll suddenly freeze and refuse to go any further.'

'What - here?' I ask, secretly thinking how pathetic that would be. So far on our descent the tunnels have been surprisingly broad and high. There's plenty of air and lots of joking, confident miners to keep spirits high.

'No. Further on. Where the tunnel starts to narrow.'

'How narrow?'

'You'll see.'

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Could A Helmet Have Saved Natasha Richardson?

Natasha Richardson. Andrew Crowley / Telegraph UK / Zuma

From Time Magazine:

There is still more speculation than information surrounding actress Natasha Richardson's fateful ski accident. Part of the confusion is the very nature of the accident — an improbable injury, little more than a head bump on a bunny slope, that has felled an otherwise healthy 45-year-old woman. It has also left onlookers wondering not just what happened to Richardson, but whether a helmet could have prevented it.

The details of Richardson's accident are sketchy, but what is known sounded benign — at first. She was taking a lesson on a beginner slope at the Mont Tremblant ski resort north of Montreal, with an instructor but without a helmet. She fell at the end of the lesson and struck her head, but was alert and conversational afterward and did not complain of any ill effects. An hour later, in her hotel room, she developed a severe headache. The next day, she was flown to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City in critical condition, where she died on Wednesday.

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Knowing Blends Science Fact With Fiction (Beware: Spoilers!)

From Popular Mechanics:

In Knowing, numbers predict every major disaster for 50 years—and the upcoming end of the world. But just how much can scientists predict? PM talks to MIT physicist Dr. Edward Farhi to find out. Beware: Spoilers ahead!

In Knowing, Nicholas Cage plays John Kessler, an MIT astrophysicist who believes that the universe's course is caused by random events and circumstances with no grand plan—until a mysterious numerical code, unearthed from a time capsule buried for half a century, correctly predicts every major disaster of the last 50 years. The catch? It also predicts the upcoming end of the world. Knowing's plot is part real astrophysics and part mysticism; PM's Digital Hollywood got to the bottom of what is fact—and what's science fiction.

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How Pterosaurs Could Improve Robot Planes

Hop, Skip, and Away: Paleontologist Michael Habib theorizes that pterosaurs, which lived between 250 million and 65 million years ago, used their legs and wing “knuckles”—not just their hind legs, as previously believed—to leapfrog into flight. Kevin Hand

Flight School -- Popsci.com

A new take on pterosaurs could improve robot planes

If it looks like a duck and flies like a duck, it must take off like a duck. Paleontologists long speculated that this was the case for pterosaurs, but new research shows that the prehistoric winged lizards employed a smarter launch strategy, using all four limbs to hop, skip, and jump their way into flight, instead of pushing off with two legs and flapping their wings as most birds do.

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Earth's Future: Scary Ozone Scenario Thwarted

Simulations of global ozone concentration show the real-world ozone layer (left) versus a "world avoided," in which CFCs had never been banned. Reds depict high concentration; dark blues show low concentrations. Note the seasonal pulse of ozone over the poles, how it declines to holes (blue), then becomes global depletion by the 2050s. 2009 shown here. Credit: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio

From Live Science:

If 193 nations hadn’t agreed in 1989 to ban the chemicals that eat up the Earth’s protective ozone layer, the world would have been a much different place later this century, with nearly two-thirds of the ozone layer gone and the ozone hole a permanent fixture over Antarctica, a new simulation shows.

Sunburns would occur in a matter of minutes and skin cancer-causing radiation would soar.

Ozone is the Earth's natural sunscreen, absorbing and blocking most of the incoming ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun and protecting life from the DNA-damaging rays.

The gas is naturally created and replenished by a photochemical reaction in the upper atmosphere where UV rays break oxygen molecules (O2) into individual atoms that then recombine into three-part molecules of ozone (O3).

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First 'Rule' Of Evolution Suggests That Life Is Destined To Become More Complex

Spiny lobster. In complex crustaceans, such as shrimps and lobsters, almost every segment is different, bearing antennae, jaws, claws, walking legs, paddles and gills. (Credit: iStockphoto/Tammy Peluso)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2008) — Researchers have found evidence which suggests that evolution drives animals to become increasingly more complex.

Looking back through the last 550 million years of the fossil catalogue to the present day, the team investigated the different evolutionary branches of the crustacean family tree.

They were seeking examples along the tree where animals evolved that were simpler than their ancestors.

Instead they found organisms with increasingly more complex structures and features, suggesting that there is some mechanism driving change in this direction.

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Robot Octopus Will Go Where No Sub Has Gone Before

From New Scientist:

INVEST €10 million in a robotic octopus and you will be able to search the seabed with the same dexterity as the real eight-legged cephalopod. At least that's the plan, say those who are attempting to build a robot with arms that work in the same way that octopuses tentacles do. Having no solid skeleton, it will be the world's first entirely soft robot.

The trouble with today's remote-controlled subs, says Cecilia Laschi of the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, is that their large hulls and clunky robot arms cannot reach into the nooks and crannies of coral reefs or the rock formations on ocean floors. That means they are unable to photograph objects in these places or pick up samples for analysis. And that's a major drawback for oceanographers hunting for signs of climate change in the oceans and on coral reefs.

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Another Space Walk At The Space Station

In this image from NASA TV, international crew members, from left, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov, American commander Lee Archambault and American astronaut Sandy Magnus participate in an interview while orbiting Earth, Friday, March 20, 2009. (AP Photo/NASA TV)

Astronauts Go On 2nd Spacewalk At Space Station -- Yahoo News/AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Astronauts took another spacewalk at the international space station Saturday, this time to lighten the workload for future crews.

As soon as they floated outside, Steven Swanson and Joseph Acaba made their way all the way to the end of the space station's power-grid framework. They loosened bolts holding down batteries that will be replaced on the next shuttle visit in June, and deployed an equipment storage platform.

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