Sunspot Activity At Its Lowest Level Since The Space Age Started

Table From Watts Up With That

NASA: Sun Is “Blankety Blankest” It’s Been In The Space Age -- Watts Up With That?

From NASA Science News h/t to John-X

Spotless Sun: 2008 is the Blankest Year of the Space Age

Sept. 30, 2008: Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the “blankest year” of the Space Age.

As of Sept. 27, 2008, the sun had been blank, i.e., had no visible sunspots, on 200 days of the year. To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go back to 1954, three years before the launch of Sputnik, when the sun was blank 241 times.

“Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. “We’re experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle.”

Read more ....

HIV/AIDS Is Not A New Disease

HIV-infected T cells. (Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Tom Folks, NIAID)

HIV/AIDS Pandemic Began Around 1900, Earlier Than Previously Thought; Urbanization In Africa Marked Outbreak -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2008) — New research indicates that the most pervasive global strain of HIV began spreading among humans between 1884 and 1924, suggesting that growing urbanization in colonial Africa set the stage for the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The estimated period of origin, considerably earlier than the previous estimate of 1930, coincides with the establishment and rise of urban centers in west-central Africa where the pandemic HIV strain, HIV-1 group M, emerged. The growth of cities and associated high-risk behaviors may have been the key change that allowed the virus to flourish.

The research, led by Michael Worobey, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at The University of Arizona in Tucson, was co-sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal Nature.

Read more ....

Why Will It Take So Long to Fix the Large Hadron Collider?

CERN Lab

From Live Science:

After all the hooplah over firing up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the party turned out to be short-lived. On Sept. 20, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland announced that a large helium leak, likely due to a faulty electrical connection, would require at least a two-month delay for repairs. A week later, scientists said they would not restart the machine until next spring.

This lengthy shutdown is necessary because scientists need to warm up the faulty area of the machine from its standard operating temperature of minus 456 degrees Fahrenheit — that’s a few degrees colder than outer space and only 3 degrees above absolute zero, the temperature where all molecules stop moving. It will take weeks to warm this errant area back up to room temperature so engineers can venture in and fix it. Then, assuming they can quickly detect and remedy the problem, scientists would need to lower the temperature again before turning the LHC back on.

Read more ....

Japan's Tsunami History Shows What's In Store

December 28, 2004

From MSNBC:

Tsunami from huge quake could destroy 5,600 homes, kill 850 people

Newly discovered tsunami deposits suggest the Japanese coastline was hammered by a series of massive waves thousands of years ago. The finding adds to growing evidence that the region is regularly pounded by killer waves, and could help in planning for future inundations.

The northern Japanese island of Hokkaido is nestled up against the Kuril-Kamchatka trench, a place where the Pacific tectonic plate dives beneath the Eurasian plate, and home to terrible earthquakes in excess of magnitude 8.0.

Now Wesley Nutter and a team of researchers say nine waves, each at least 33 feet high, battered the coastline before the dawn of civilization on the island.

Read more ....

During Exercise, Human Brain Shifts Into High Gear On 'Alternative Energy'

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2008) — Alternative energy is all the rage in major media headlines, but for the human brain, this is old news. According to a study by researchers from Denmark and The Netherlands, the brain, just like muscles, works harder during strenuous exercise and is fueled by lactate, rather than glucose.

Not only does this finding help explain why the brain is able to work properly when the body's demands for fuel and oxygen are highest, but it goes a step further to show that the brain actually shifts into a higher gear in terms of activity. This opens doors to entirely new areas of brain research related to understanding lactate's specific neurological effects.

"Now that we know the brain can run on lactate, so to speak, future studies should show us when to use lactate as part of a treatment," said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "From an evolutionary perspective, the result of this study is a no-brainer. Imagine what could have or did happen to all of the organisms that lost their wits along with their glucose when running from predators. They were obviously a light snack for the animals able to use lactate."

Read more ....

In Baseball, Head-First Slides Are Best

Seattle Mariners' Luis Valbuena, right, slides into third base as Oakland Athletics' Daric Barton waits for the ball in the ninth inning of a baseball game Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008, in Oakland, Calif. Valbuena was called out. Credit: AP Photo/Ben Margot

From Live Science:

A player's slide to beat the throw at home plate is one of baseball's big thrills, especially during the postseason, which begins today. But of the two sliding styles — head-first and feet-first — which is faster?

Head-first, says David A. Peters of Washington University in St. Louis, an engineer and avid baseball fan.

The reasons that it's faster to lead off with your noggin all have to do with physics, Peters said.

Specifically, it's a matter of the player's center of gravity (or center of mass) — essentially the point where gravity exerts its tug. For most people, their center of gravity is right around the stomach area, Peters said.

Whenever you leave the ground, no matter which end of your body you lead with, your center of gravity will move forward with the speed (and momentum) you left the ground with, Peters explained.

Read more ....

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Genius

From Discover Magazine:

1 The latest winners of the Nobel Prize—the big kahuna of genius awards—will be announced this month. Were you nominated? To find out, you’ll have to either win or wait 50 years, which is how long the Nobel committee keeps secret the list of also-rans.

2 Nyah, nyah. William Shockley, who won the 1956 Nobel in physics for inventing the transistor, was excluded as a child from a long-term study of genius because his I.Q. score wasn’t high enough.

3 History repeated itself in 1968 when Luis Alvarez won a Nobel for his work on elementary particles. He had been excluded from the same research program as Shockley. Who set up that study, anyway?

4 The genius study was created in 1928 by Louis Terman at Stanford University, who pioneered the use of I.Q. tests to identify geniuses, defined by him as those with an I.Q. greater than 140.

5 None of the children (known as “Termites”) in the study has won a Nobel.

Read more ....

New Thinking On When The Arctic Froze

Courtesy: NASA

From Live Science:

The Arctic may be a frigid, ice-covered area today, but it hasn't always been quite so cold.

Scientists have long wondered when the Arctic first transitioned to its ice-covered state; a new study suggests this could have happened millions of years earlier than was previously thought.

The standard view of the formation of the huge ice sheets that cover Earth's poles was that continental-scale glaciation of Antarctica occurred about 34 million years ago, while the Arctic wasn't covered by ice until some 31 million years later — much more recently geologically-speaking.

But the new findings hint that Arctic ice may not have taken quite as long to form, with evidence placing its formation closer in time to that of Antarctic ice. Now researchers say Arctic ice could have formed about 23 million years ago.

A group of U.S. and U.K. climatologists, led by Robert DeConto of the University of Massachusetts, used a model to test the idea that Arctic ice formed much earlier than thought. Their work was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the results are detailed in the Oct. 2 issue of the journal Nature.

Read more ....

Galileo Satellite Knocked Offline

Artist's view of a Galileo satellite. Crédits : ESA-J. Huart

From the BBC News:

A test spacecraft for Europe's future satellite-navigation system has been rocked by a surge of space radiation.

The incident forced the Giove-B satellite to adopt a "safe mode" for two weeks in which only essential power systems were kept running.

European Space Agency (Esa) engineers have brought the satellite back up and are now studying what happened.

Giove-B carries the technologies that will be incorporated into the Galileo network when it becomes operational.

These include the atomic clocks which provide the precise timing that underpins all sat-nav applications.

Read more ....

50 Highlights of Space Travel -- 50 Years Of NASA

NASA Mission Apollo 16

Photo NASA No AS16-114-18422 - Mission Apollo 16 on the Moon.
View of Plum crater photographed by Apollo 16 crew during EVA.

From National Geographic:

From Sputnik to Apollo 11 to Saturn's moons, click through our time line to tour 50 highlights from 50 years of space exploration.

The link is HERE.

Happy Birthday NASA!

From Popular Science:

The space agency celebrates it's 50th anniversary today and PopSci is on hand for the occasion. Find out the science behind space food, the history of the Apollo hoax and more.

The Link is HERE.

In The Language Of Love, Money Talks

From ABC News:

New Study Finds Women are More Likely to Marry Men with Money.

Money can't buy love, but it seems to earn you more babies. Rich men sire more children than paupers, according to a new study of thousands of middle-aged British men.

Women are more likely to marry men who can provide for them and their children than penniless men, says Daniel Nettle, a behavioural scientist at Newcastle University, UK, who led the new study.

"It's not that if you're richer you'll have more children – if you're richer you're less likely to be childless," he says.

For much of civilization, females have tended to mate with better providers, but many sociologists argue that the industrial and sexual revolutions have immunised people in developed countries such evolutionary pressures.

Read more ....

Unknown Earth: Our Planet's Seven Biggest Mysteries

From The New Scientist:

It's the place we call home, but there is much about planet Earth that remains frustratingly unknown. How did it form from a cloud of dust? How did it manage to nurture life? And just what is going on deep within its core? New Scientist investigates these and other fundamental questions about our beautiful, enigmatic world.

How come Earth got all the good stuff?

What happened during Earth's dark ages?

Where did Earth's life come from?

Why does Earth have plate tectonics?

What is at the centre of the Earth?

Why is Earth's climate so stable?

Can we predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions?

Explore an interactive map of our Unknown Earth

Read more ....

'Hub' Of Fear Memory Formation Identified In Brain Cells

From Science Blog:

A protein required for the earliest steps in embryonic development also plays a key role in solidifying fear memories in the brains of adult animals, scientists have revealed. An apparent "hub" for changes in the connections between brain cells, beta-catenin could be a potential target for drugs to enhance or interfere with memory formation.

The results are published online this week and appear in the October issue of Nature Neuroscience.

The protein beta-catenin acts like a Velcro strap, fastening cells' internal skeletons to proteins on their external membranes that connect them with other cells. In species ranging from flies to frogs to mice, it also can transmit early signals that separate an embryo into front and back or top and bottom.

During long-term memory formation, structural changes take place in the synapses – the connections between neurons in the brain, says Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Ressler is a researcher at Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center, where the research was conducted, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Read more ....

Melamine Contaminated Milk

From Science Base:

A brief summary and update to the Sciencebase original posts on Melamine in Milk and Melamine Scandal Widens.

Dairy farmers have been feeling the squeeze for years, particularly in parts of the world where technological advancement has been slow in coming and so their profit margins on their milk output have not been lifted by improved efficiency. In order to boost profits milk has been diluted. However, this brings with it the problem of falling quality - dilute with water and measurable concentrations of milk proteins, fats, and sugars fall. Dilution by up to 30% has not been uncommon, which is where melamine (as I’ve mentioned) comes in. Melamine is a small organic molecule with a high nitrogen content that can easily fool the quality control equipment into thinking that nitrogen (from protein) is present at normal levels and so the milk is passed as good.

Unfortunately, it is possible that melamine accumulates in the body and causes toxicity problemsmelamine accumulates in the body and causes toxicity problems - basically damaging the kidneys and forming stones (solid deposits within the kidneys or bladder). Infants fed regularly with milk containing melamine will be particularly susceptible to these effects. As we have seen tens of thousands have been affected and several have died in China. Why this problem is not more widespread, given the rather large number of infants potentially having been drinking contaminated formula-milk for months is unclear.

Read more ....

World’s Largest Study Of Near-Death Experiences To Start

From World-Science:

The Uni­ver­s­ity of South­amp­ton, U.K. an­nounced it is launch­ing this week the world’s largest-ever study on wheth­er peo­ple have thoughts for a time while they are clin­ic­ally “dead.”

The AWARE (A­WAre­ness dur­ing RE­sus­cita­t­ion) study is to be launched by the Hu­man Con­scious­ness Proj­ect at the uni­ver­s­ity, an in­terna­t­ional col­la­bora­t­ion of sci­en­tists and physi­cians who study the brain, con­scious­ness and clin­ical death.

The study is led by Sam Par­nia of Weill Cor­nell Med­i­cal Cen­ter in New York, with Uni­ver­s­ity of South­amp­ton re­search­ers. Fol­low­ing an 18-month pi­lot phase at some U.K. hos­pi­tals, the study is now be­ing ex­pand­ed to in­clude oth­er cen­tres with­in the U.K., main­land Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca, Par­nia said.

“Con­trary to pop­u­lar per­­cep­tion,” Par­nia said, “death is not a spe­cif­ic mo­ment. It is a pro­cess that be­gins when the heart stops beat­ing, the lungs stop work­ing and the brain ceases func­tion­ing—a med­i­cal con­di­tion termed car­di­ac ar­rest, which from a bi­o­log­i­cal view­point is syn­on­y­mous with clin­ical death.

“Dur­ing a car­di­ac ar­rest, all three cri­te­ria of death are pre­s­ent. There then fol­lows a per­i­od of time, which may last from a few sec­onds to an hour or more, in which emer­gen­cy med­i­cal ef­forts may suc­ceed in restart­ing the heart and re­vers­ing the dy­ing pro­cess. What peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing this per­i­od of car­di­ac ar­rest pro­vides a un­ique win­dow of un­der­stand­ing in­to what we are all likely to ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing the dy­ing pro­cess.”

Some stud­ies have found that 10 to 20 percent of peo­ple who go through car­di­ac ar­rest and clin­ical death re­port lu­cid, well struc­tured thought pro­cesses, rea­son­ing, mem­o­ries and some­times de­tailed re­call of events dur­ing their en­coun­ter with death, Par­nia said.

Dur­ing the AWARE stu­dy, doc­tors will use soph­is­t­icated tech­nol­o­gy to study the brain and con­scious­ness dur­ing car­di­ac ar­rest. At the same time, they plan to test the val­id­ity of out of body ex­pe­ri­ences and claims of be­ing able to “see” and “hear” dur­ing car­di­ac ar­rest.

New Facility Uses Algae to Turn Coal Pollution Into Fuel

From Gas2.org:

A coal fired power-plant in Oregon has started a pilot project to curb pollution by using algae to harvest greenhouse gases and make fuel and other useful products.

The power plant in Boardman, Oregon, is the state’s only coal-fired facility — and also the the state’s largest single emitter of carbon dioxide. To deal with this problem, Portland General Electric and Columbia Energy Partners have started a pilot project to turn the otherwise nasty emissions into biodiesel, ethanol, and even livestock feed.

How does it work? Just like you and I breathe in oxygen to make energy, algae breathe in carbon dioxide to make energy. So, if you capture all that carbon dioxide and feed it to the algae, they grow. Algae are particularly oily little buggers so after they’ve matured they can be squeezed to make oil. The leftover algae carcasses can then be converted to ethanol and used as feed for livestock.

Right now, the project’s scale is so tiny that it’ll hardly scratch the surface of the 600-megawatt facility’s 5 million tons of annual carbon dioxide emissions. But project proponents are quick to point out that when the project goes full scale in 2½ years, it should reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 60% during daylight hours and produce 20 million gallons of biodiesel per year.

Read more ....

Scientists Work With Algae To See If It Could Become The Fuel Of The Future

From Sympatico.ca:

BORCULO, Netherlands - Set amid cornfields and cow pastures in eastern Holland is a shallow pool that is rapidly turning green with algae, harvested for animal feed, skin treatments, biodegradable plastics - and with increasing interest, biofuel.

In a warehouse about 200 kilometres southwest, a bioreactor of clear plastic tubes is producing algae in pressure-cooker fashion that its manufacturer hopes will one day power jet aircraft.

Experts say it will be years, maybe a decade, before this simplest of all plants can be efficiently processed for fuel. But when that day comes, it could go a long way toward easing the world's energy needs and responding to global warming.

Algae is the slimy stuff that clouds your home aquarium and gets tangled in your feet in a lake or ocean. It can grow almost everywhere there is water and sunlight, and under the right conditions it can double its volume within hours. Scientists and industrialists agree that the potential is huge.

Read more ....

Second-hand Smoke May Trigger Nicotine Dependence Symptoms In Kids

Second-hand smoke may trigger symptoms of nicotine dependence in children, a new study has found. (Credit: iStockphoto/Thomas Pullicino)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 30, 2008) — Parents who smoke cigarettes around their kids in cars and homes beware – second-hand smoke may trigger symptoms of nicotine dependence in children.

The findings are published in the September edition of the journal Addictive Behaviors in a joint study from nine Canadian institutions.

"Increased exposure to second-hand smoke, both in cars and homes, was associated with an increased likelihood of children reporting nicotine dependence symptoms, even though these children had never smoked," says Dr. Jennifer O'Loughlin, senior author of the study, a professor at the Université de Montréal's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine and a researcher at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal.

Read more ....

Earth's Air Divided By Chemical Equator

This model representation shows the chemical equator found in the study. The colors indicate the carbon monoxide concentrations on 30 January 2006; red is polluted air and blue is clean air.Credit: Glenn Carver, Cambridge University

From Live Science:

Scientists have found a temporary "chemical equator" that separates the heavily polluted air of the Northern Hemisphere from the cleaner air of the Southern Hemisphere over the Western Pacific — only it isn't where they expected to find it.

The Northern Hemisphere tends to have more polluted air than the Southern Hemisphere because it has more cities, more population in those cities on average and more industry. And each hemisphere's air masses tend to stay segregated from one another. That allows scientists to "see" chemical boundaries between the air masses of hemispheres by monitoring big changes in levels of air pollution.

These boundaries, or chemical equators, can typically be found at a "wall" created by global air circulation patterns that separates Northern and Southern hemispheric air. Called the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), it is a belt of low pressure that circles the Earth roughly at the equator.

This is a good place to look for chemical equators, or partial ones, between the two hemispheres, but it is not where Geraint Vaughan of the University of Manchester in England and his colleagues found one in the Western Pacific.

Read more ....