Atomic Weight: Balancing The Risks And Rewards Of A Power Source

DAVIS BESSE: The nuclear power plant near Toledo, Ohio, was shut down for two years due to an equipment failure that might have resulted in a catastrophic meltdown if it had continued to go without detection. Courtesy of NRC

From Scientific American:

Nuclear power--like most forms of electricity generation--carries inherent risks. Is it worth the minor chance of a major catastrophe?

On Feb. 16, 2002, the nuclear power plant called Davis–Besse on the shores of Lake Erie near Toledo, Ohio, shut down. On inspection, a pineapple-size section on the 6.63-inch- (16.84-centimeter-) thick carbon steel lid that holds in the pressurized, fission-heated water in the site's sole reactor had been entirely eaten away by boric acid formed from a leak. The only thing standing between the escape of nuclear steam and a possible chain of events leading to a meltdown was an internal liner of stainless steel just three sixteenths of an inch (0.48 centimeter) thick that had slowly bent out about an eighth of an inch (0.32 centimeter) into the cavity due to the constant 2,200 pound-per–square-inch (155-kilogram-per-square-centimeter) pressure.

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Alaska Volcano Appears Close to Eruption

Mount Redoubt: A group of dipnetters float down the Kenai River with Mount Redoubt volcano on the horizon, near the mouth of the river at Kenai, Alaska. Mount Redoubt is showing signs that it may erupt soon.AP Photo/Al Grillo

From Discovery News:

Jan. 29, 2009 -- Mount Redoubt, a volcano 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, is rumbling and simmering, prompting geologists to warn that an eruption may be imminent.

Scientists from the Alaska Volcano Observatory have been monitoring activity round-the-clock since the weekend.

On Thursday, the observatory said: "Seismicity remains above background and largely unchanged with several volcanic earthquakes occurring every hour."

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Great Bright Hope To End Battle Of The Light Bulbs

Cambridge University professor Colin Humphreys with his newly developed LED
that has a lifespan of 60 years and costs just £2

From The Daily Mail:

A lighting revolution is on the way that could end at the flick of a switch the battle between supporters of conventional bulbs and the eco-friendly variety.

Cambridge University researchers have developed cheap, light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs that produce brilliant light but use very little electricity. They will cost £2 and last up to 60 years.

Despite being smaller than a penny, they are 12 times more efficient than conventional tungsten bulbs and three times more efficient than the unpopular fluorescent low-energy versions.

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Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis?

As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved. (Credit: iStockphoto/Jim DeLillo)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2009) — As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.

Learners have changed as a result of their exposure to technology, says Greenfield, who analyzed more than 50 studies on learning and technology, including research on multi-tasking and the use of computers, the Internet and video games. Her research was published this month in the journal Science.

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Women Have Nightmares, Men Dream of Sex

Photo from (Diets In Review)

From Live Science:

Women have more nightmares than men, a British researcher says, but men are more likely to dream about sex.

Psychologist Jennie Parker of the University of the West of England asked 100 women and 93 men between the ages of 18 and 25 to fill out dream diaries, priming participants before dreams occurred to record them. The research was part of her doctoral dissertation.

"My most significant finding is that women in general do experience more nightmares than men," she said. "An early study into dreams led to my discovering that normative research procedures into dream research often considered the structure of dreams, but that there is a gaping hole in terms of academic study that investigates emotional significance in the analysis of dreams."

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What's Happening To The Sun?

The First Cycle 24 Sunspot: NOAA

From Popular Science:

Could its unusual behavior herald a new ice age?

For about 50 years from roughly 1650 to 1700, the Sun took a break from its typical sunspot activity. That phase of solar rest coincided with what we now refer to as "The Little Ice Age" -- a period of cooling on the Earth that resulted in bitterly cold winters, particularly in Europe and North America. Scientists attribute the Little Ice Age to two main causes: increased volcanic activity and reduced solar activity.

Could it happen again? And are we headed there now?

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Scientists Not So Sure 'Doomsday Machine' Won't Destroy World

Photo: March 22, 2007: Magnet core of the largest superconducting solenoid magnet at European Organization for Nuclear Research's Large Hadron Collider. AP

From FOX News:

Still worried that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth when it's finally switched on this summer?

Um, well, you may have a point.

Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC, the world's largest particle collider, and determined that they won't simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.

Rather, Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna in Italy and Sergio Fabi and Benjamin Harms of the University of Alabama say mini black holes could exist for much longer — perhaps even more than a second, a relative eternity in particle colliders, where most objects decay much faster.

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Fringe Fact v. Fiction: Could Your Brain Actually Turn to Goo?

From Popular Mechanics:

In its 12th episode, Fringe brought back one of the all-time greatest, grossest sci-fi horrors: Liquefied brains.

While investigating a string of murders, the agents find viscous liquid oozing from victims' orifices–something has turned their brains into nothing but goo. Sure enough, drilling a hole into a victim sends brown goo, all that's remaining of his brain, dripping out of his skull. "The brain goo that they made is maybe the most disgusting thing I've ever seen," Fringe star Joshua Jackson said in a promo for last night's episode, "The No-Brainer." But is the brain science as far off the mark as it has been in past episodes?

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Staying Afloat -- Treading Water In A Sea of Data

From The New Atlantis:

In March 1997, Wired magazine, ever the zealous prophet of near-future consumer tech, breathlessly trumpeted the imminent death of the Internet browser and the rise of so-called “push media.” In short, the idea was that the Web would expand beyond the confines of the browser, both to additional desktop applications and to a host of other devices: phones, televisions, appliances, and even wallpaper. Next, all of these devices would coordinate their information delivery, transforming the Web from a passive medium, in which users request information, to an active medium, in which information “pushes” itself toward users. This new medium, we learn, would not “wait for clicks”: it’s “always-on, mildly in-your-face” and will “bombard you with an intensity that invitational media never muster.” Content, we are promised—or warned?—“will not hesitate to find you.”

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The Workings Of An Ancient Nuclear Reactor

Uranium ore.
United States Geological Survey and the Mineral Information Institute

From Scientific American:

Two billion years ago parts of an African uranium deposit spontaneously underwent nuclear fission. The details of this remarkable phenomenon are just now becoming clear.

In May 1972 a worker at a nuclear fuel–processing plant in France noticed something suspicious. He had been conducting a routine analysis of uranium derived from a seemingly ordinary source of ore. As is the case with all natural uranium, the material under study contained three isotopes— that is to say, three forms with differing atomic masses: uranium 238, the most abundant variety; uranium 234, the rarest; and uranium 235, the isotope that is coveted because it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. Elsewhere in the earth’s crust, on the moon and even in meteorites, uranium 235 atoms make up 0.720 percent of the total. But in these samples, which came from the Oklo deposit in Gabon (a former French colony in west equatorial Africa), uranium 235 constituted just 0.717 percent. That tiny discrepancy was enough to alert French scientists that something strange had happened. Further analyses showed that ore from at least one part of the mine was far short on uranium 235: some 200 kilograms appeared to be missing— enough to make half a dozen or so nuclear bombs.

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Mars Rover Disoriented Somewhat After Glitch

Nasa's Spirit

From The New York Times:

On the 1,800th Martian day of its mission, NASA’s Spirit rover blanked out, and it remains a bit disoriented.

Mission managers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported Wednesday that the Spirit had behaved oddly on Sunday — the 1,800th Sol, or Martian day, since Spirit’s landing on Mars in January 2004.

(A Martian Sol is 39.5 minutes longer than an Earth day. The Spirit and its twin, the Opportunity, were designed to last just 90 Sols each, but both continue to operate more than five years later.)

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Ten Sci-Fi Devices That Could Soon Be In Your Hands

The briefcase-sized Prism 200 from UK firm Cambridge Consultants can detect people through brick walls by firing off pulses of ultra-wideband radar and listening for returning echoes. According to the company, these pulses can pass through building materials over 40 centimetres thick, and spot activity over a range of up to 15 metres. (Image: Cambridge Consultants)

From The New Scientist:

Cast your mind back 30 years, if you are old enough, and you may just remember a rather humdrum, though retrospectively momentous, event. In 1979, the Japanese firm NET launched the first cellular phone network in Tokyo.

For decades the objects remained toys of the super-rich. Who would have thought that today there would be enough cellphones for half the world's population to have one.

That's not the only recent technological revolution. Would you have dreamed that an entire record collection could one day fit in your pocket? How about a system that helps you communicate and share information across the world instantly?

Crystal-ball gazing is a fraught endeavour, but we've decided to take the plunge. In this special feature, we assess the prospects of 10 of the coolest gadgets that in 30 years' time may change our lives as much - or maybe more - than cellphones, iPods and the internet.

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People With Super-Memories Forget Nothing

From Live Science:

Imagine never forgetting anything. Virtue? Curse?

Four people are said to have such "super-memories," including the latest case, a Southern California man who researchers don't plan to identify by name. According to USA Today, the man recalls in detail most days of his life, as well as the day and date of key public events, said researchers Larry Cahill.

The newspaper interviewed Jill Price, another person with a super memory. Price discussed her mind lat year in the book "The Woman Who Can't Forget."

There is much about memory that scientists don't understand. Only this month, in fact, they found that a single brain cell can hold a memory for a brief period before it's put in long-term storage, a feat that requires connections between brain cells.

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Six Biggest Mysteries Of Our Solar System

So far as we know, our solar system is unique in the universe (Image: Nigel Hawtin)

From The New Scientist:

ONCE upon a time, 4.6 billion years ago, something was brewing in an unremarkable backwater of the Milky Way. The ragbag of stuff that suffuses the inconsequential, in-between bits of all galaxies - hydrogen and helium gas with just a sprinkling of solid dust - had begun to condense and form molecules. Unable to resist its own weight, part of this newly formed molecular cloud collapsed in on itself. In the ensuing heat and confusion, a star was born - our sun.

We don't know exactly what kick-started this process. Perhaps, with pleasing symmetry, it was the shock wave from the explosive death throes of a nearby star. It was not, at any rate, a particularly unusual event. It had happened countless times since the Milky Way itself came into existence about 13 billion years ago, and in our telescopes we can see it still going on in distant parts of our galaxy today. As stars go, the sun is nothing out of the ordinary.

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Astronomers Get A Sizzling Weather Report From A Distant Planet

Photo from Spitzer Space Telescope (Wikipedia)

From E! Science News:

Astronomers have observed the intense heating of a distant planet as it swung close to its parent star, providing important clues to the atmospheric properties of the planet. The observations enabled astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to generate realistic images of the planet by feeding the data into computer simulations of the planet's atmosphere. "We can't get a direct image of the planet, but we can deduce what it would look like if you were there. The ability to go beyond an artist's interpretation and do realistic simulations of what you would actually see is very exciting," said Gregory Laughlin, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Laughlin is lead author of a new report on the findings published this week in Nature.

The researchers used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to obtain infrared measurements of the heat emanating from the planet as it whipped behind and close to its star. In just six hours, the planet's temperature rose from 800 to 1,500 Kelvin (980 to 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit).

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Ancient Meteorites Reveal Early Magnetic Fields

Image: New research suggests that some of the small rocky bodies that smashed together to form planets, called planetesimals, had magnetic fields. Damir Gamulin, courtesy of Benjamin Weiss

From Earth Magazine:

Even before the birth of the planets, our solar system was hardly a lonely place. Small rocky bodies, called planetesimals, filled the inner solar system, eventually colliding together to form the planets. Now a new look at a group of ancient meteorites shows that at least some planetesimals generated their own magnetic fields — a feat many scientists thought extremely difficult for such small astronomical bodies. The work also has scientists rethinking how planets formed.

Most meteorites don’t make it to Earth unscathed. After repeatedly smashing into other objects and traveling through Earth’s harsh atmosphere, they can be substantially altered before crash-landing on the planet. But not angrites — a group of 12 stony meteorites that, at an age of about 4.56 billion years old, are among the oldest-known rocks in the solar system and somehow “got here without being messed up,” says Benjamin Weiss, a planetary geologist at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. Because these meteorites are pristine, angrites retain information about the larger body from which they came.

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Danube Delta Holds Answers To 'Noah's Flood' Debate

Giosan and his colleagues estimate that the Black Sea was around 30 meters below present day levels (Black Lake is represented by dark blue water) before a breach of the Bosporus sill 9,500 years ago raised levels to a maximum of 20 meters |(the flooded area is represented by light blue water). Their estimates mean that the magnitude of the Black Sea flood was 5 or 10 meters but not 50 to 60 meters. (Credit: Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2009) — Did a catastrophic flood of biblical proportions drown the shores of the Black Sea 9,500 years ago, wiping out early Neolithic settlements around its perimeter? A geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and two Romanian colleagues report in the January issue of Quaternary Science Reviews that, if the flood occurred at all, it was much smaller than previously proposed by other researchers.

Using sediment cores from the delta of the Danube River, which empties into the Black Sea, the researchers determined sea level was approximately 30 meters below present levels—rather than the 80 meters others hypothesized.

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Alcohol Makes Men BETTER In The Bedroom, Scientists Claim

Drinking effects: A study has suggested that alcohol improves rather than damages
a man's performance in the bedroom

From The Daily Mail:

Men who worry about the effect drinking has on their sex life should raise a glass to the latest research.

Alcohol actually improves rather than damages male performance in the bedroom, it is claimed.

Until now it has been widely believed that alcohol consumption can cause erectile dysfunction, or 'brewer's droop'.

But a study of 1,580 Australian men found drinkers reporting up to 30 per cent fewer problems than teetotallers.

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My Comment: What happens if the ladies drink. A study should also be done there.

Study: Gamblers Who Lose Bet More

From Live Science:

People who carefully budget their bets before they hit the casinos — say setting a betting limit of $200 per day — routinely go against their plan when they lose.

University of California marketing professors Eduardo Andrade and Ganesh Lyer found that experiencing the pain of actual loss often results in people abandoning their plans and betting more money. "When gamblers haven't experience the actual pain of loss, they make cold and deliberate assessments of how much to bet in case of a future loss," Andrade said.

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Global Warming 'Irreversible' For Next 1000 Years: Study

The Department of Water and Power (DWP) San Fernando Valley Generating Station is seen in Sun Valley, California, 2008. Climate change is "largely irreversible" for the next 1,000 years even if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted, according to a new study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). (AFP/Getty Images/File/David Mcnew)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Climate change is "largely irreversible" for the next 1,000 years even if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abruptly halted, according to a new study led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The study's authors said there was "no going back" after the report showed that changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level are "largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after CO2 emissions are completely stopped."

NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon said the study, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, showed that current human choices on carbon dioxide emissions are set to "irreversibly change the planet."

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