[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
The Daily Galaxy: News from Planet Earth & Beyond's LiveJournal:
| Monday, November 24th, 2008 | |
| 12:40 am | The Earth's 6th Great Mass Extinction is Occurring as You Read This -A Galaxy Classic
"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos." Edward O. Wilson, The world's leading authority on Biodiversity, Emeritus Professor of Biology at Harvard and author of "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth." There is little doubt left in the minds of professional biologists that Earth is currently faced with a mounting loss of species that threatens to rival the five great mass extinctions of the geological past, the most devasting being the Third major Extinction (c. 245 mya), the Permian, where 54% of the planet's species families lost. As long ago as 1993, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson estimated that Earth is currently losing something on the order of 30,000 species per year -- which breaks down to the even more daunting statistic of some three species per hour. Some biologists have begun to feel that this biodiversity crisis -- this "Sixth Extinction" -- is even more severe, and more imminent, than Wilson had supposed. With the human population expected to reach 9-10 billion by the end of the century and the planet in the middle of its sixth mass extinction — this time due to human activity — the next few years are critical in conserving Earth’s precious biodiversity. The cause of the Sixth Extinction, Homo sapiens, means we can continue on the path to our own extinction, or, preferably, we modify our behavior toward the global ecosystem of which we are still very much a part. At a casual glance, the physically caused extinction events of the past might seem to have little or nothing to tell us about the current Sixth Extinction, which is a human-caused event. For there is little doubt that humans are the direct cause of ecosystem stress and species destruction in the modern world through transformation of the landscape, overexploitation of species, pollution, and the introduction of alien species The Sixth Extinction can be characterized as the first recorded global extinction event that has a biotic, rather than a physical, cause, due to massive asteroid impact, volcanic eruptions. Yet, looking deeper, human impact on the planet is a similar to the Cretaceous cometary collision. Sixty-five million years ago that extraterrestrial impact -- through its sheer explosive power, followed immediately by its injections of so much debris into the upper reaches of the atmosphere that global temperatures plummeted and, most critically, photosynthesis was severely inhibited -- wreaked havoc on the living systems of Earth, which is precisely what we are doing to the planet right now. Phase two of the Sixth Extinction began around 10,000 years ago with
the invention of agriculture-perhaps first in the Natufian culture of
the Middle East. Agriculture appears to have been invented several
different times in various different places, and has, in the
intervening years, spread around the entire globe. Yet, upon further reflection, human impact on the planet is a direct analogue of the Cretaceous cometary collision. Sixty-five million years ago that extraterrestrial impact -- through its sheer explosive power, followed immediately by its injections of so much debris into the upper reaches of the atmosphere that global temperatures plummeted and, most critically, photosynthesis was severely inhibited -- wreaked havoc on the living systems of Earth. That is precisely what human beings are doing to the planet right now: humans are causing vast physical changes on the planet. "In terms of scale, it’s hard to put a figure on it," Wilson adds: "We’re in a pronounced early stage of an extinction event that would probably be, by the end of this century if human activities continue unabated, right up to the Cretaceous level. We’re part way there. Whether you can say its 10 percent there or 25 percent there, a lot of it depends on the organisms you’re talking about. One estimate has it that, particularly when you throw in the mass extinction of the Pacific Island birds, which are the most vulnerable on Earth, something like 20 percent of bird species has been extinguished by human activities." Biocide is occurring at an alarming rate. Experts say that at least half of the world’s current species will be completely gone by the end of the century. Wild plant-life is also disappearing. Most biologists say that we are in the midst of an anthropogenic mass extinction. Numerous scientific studies confirm that this phenomenon is real and happening right now. Should anyone really care? Will it impact individuals on a personal level? Scientists say, “Yes!” Critics argue that species disappear and new ones emerge all the time. That’s true, if you’re speaking in terms of millennia. Scientists acknowledge that species disappear at an estimated rate of one species per million per year, with new species replacing the lost ones at around the same rate. Recently humans have accelerated the extinction rate to where several entire species are annihilated every single day. The death toll artificially caused by humans is mind-boggling. Nature will take millions of years to repair what we destroy in just a few decades. A recent analysis, published in the journal Nature, shows that it takes 10 million years before biological diversity even begins to approach what existed before a die-off. Over 10,000 scientists in the World Conservation Union have compiled data showing that currently 51 per cent of known reptiles, 52 per cent of known insects, and 73 per cent of known flowering plants are in danger along with many mammals, birds and amphibians. It is likely that some species will become extinct before they are even discovered, before any medicinal use or other important features can be assessed. The cliché movie plot where the cure for cancer is about to be annihilated is more real than anyone would like to imagine. Research done by the American Museum of Natural History found that the vast majority of biologists believe that mass extinction poses a colossal threat to human existence, and is even more serious of an environmental problem than one of its contributors- global warming. The research also found that the average person woefully underestimates the dangers of mass extinction. Powerful industrial lobbies would like people to believe that we can survive while other species are quickly and quietly dying off. Irresponsible governments and businesses would have people believe that we don’t need a healthy planet to survive- even while human cancer rates are tripling every decade. A lot of us heard about the recent extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin. It was publicized because dolphins are cute and smart, and we like dolphins. We were sort of sad that we humans were single-handedly responsible for destroying the entire millions-of-years-old species in just a few years through rampant pollution. Unfortunately the real death toll is so much higher than we hear on the news. Only a few endangered “celebrity favorites” get any notice at all. Since animals and plants exist in symbiotic relationships to one another, extinction of one species is likely to cause ”co-extinctions”. Some species directly affect the health of hundreds of other species. There is always some kind of domino effect. This compounding process occurs with frightening speed. That makes rampant extinction similar too disease in the way that it spreads. Sooner or later- if gone unchecked- humans may catch it too. Amphibians are a prime example at how tinkering with the environment can cause rapid animal death. For over 300 million years frogs, salamanders, newts and toads were hardy enough to precede and outlive the dinosaurs up until the present time. Now, within just two decades many amphibians are disappearing. Scientists are alarmed at how one seemingly robust species of amphibians will suddenly disappear within a few months. The causes of biocide are a hodge-podge of human environmental “poisons” which often work synergistically, including a vast array of pollutants, pesticides, a thinning ozone layer which increases ultra-violet radiation, human induced climate change, habitat loss from agriculture and urban sprawl, invasions of exotic species introduced by humans, illegal and legal wildlife trade, light pollution, and man-made borders among other many other causes. Is there a way out? The answer is yes and no. We’ll never regain the lost biodiversity-at least not within a fathomable time period, but there are ways to prevent a worldwide bio collapse, but they all require immediate action. Wilson, and other scientists point out that the world needs international cooperation in order to sustain ecosystems, since nature is unaware of artificially drawn borders. Humans love to fence off space they’ve claimed as their own. Sadly, a border fence often has terrible ecological consequences. One fence between India and Pakistan cuts off bears and leopards from their feeding habitats, which is causing them to starve to death. Starvation leads to attacks on villagers, and more slaughtering of the animals. Some of the most endangered wildlife species live right in between the borderland area of the US and Mexico. These indigenous animals don’t know that they now live between two countries. They were here long before the people came and nations divided, but they will not survive if we cut them off from their habitat. The Sky Islands is one of many areas smack in the middle of this boundary where some of North America's most threatened wildlife is found. Jaguars, bison, and Wolves have to cross through international terrain in the course of their life's travels in order to survive. Unfortunately, illegal Mexican workers cross here too. People who know nothing of the wildlife’s biological needs want to create a large fence to keep out Mexicans, regardless of the fact that a fence would devastate these already fragile animal populations. Wilson says the time has come to start calling the "environmentalist view" the "real-world view". We can’t ignore reality simply because it doesn’t conform nicely within convenient boundaries and moneymaking strategies. What good will all of our money and conveniences do for us, if we collectively destroy the necessities of life? There is hope, but it requires radical changes. Many organizations are lobbying for that change. One group trying to salvage ecosystems is called The Wildlands Project, a conservation group spearheading the drive to reconnect the remaining wildernesses. The immediate goal is to reconnect wild North America in four broad "mega-linkages". Within each mega-linkage, mosaics of public and private lands, which would provide safe migrations for wildlife, would connect core areas. Broad, vegetated overpasses would link wilderness areas normally split by roads. They will need cooperation from local landowners and government agencies. It is a radical vision to many people, and the Wildlands Project expects that it will take at least 100 years to complete. Even so, projects like this, on a worldwide basis, may be humanity’s best chance of saving what’s left of the planets eco-system, and the human race along with it. Posted by Casey Kazan and Rebecca Sato. If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on Digg, Reddit, or StumbleUpon.Thanks! Related Galaxy posts: The Shiva Impact & Extinction of the Dinosaurs Story Link: E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Organization http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfront Related Blogs: http://www.radioopensource.org/eo-wilson-d http://www.isteve.com/ |
| 12:24 am | Blankets of Soil May Hide Vast Glaciers on Mars
James W. Head of Brown University. Vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris persist today at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on Mars, says new research using ground-penetrating radar on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. "Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that's not in the polar caps. Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles, and up to one-half-mile thick, and there are many more," said John W. Holt of The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences, lead author of a report on the radar observations in the Nov. 21 issue of the journal Science. "In addition to their scientific value, they could be a source of water to support future exploration of Mars," said Holt. The concealed glaciers extend for tens of miles from edges of mountains or cliffs and are up to one-half mile thick. A layer of rocky debris covering the ice may have preserved the glaciers as remnants from an ice sheet covering middle latitudes during a past ice age. The gently sloping aprons of material around taller features have puzzled scientists since NASA's Viking orbiters revealed them in the 1970s. One theory contended they were flows of rocky debris lubricated by a little ice. The features reminded Holt of massive ice glaciers detected under rocky coverings in Antarctica, where he has extensive experience using airborne geophysical instruments such as radar to study Antarctic ice sheets. The Shallow Radar instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provided an answer to this Martian puzzle, indicating the features contain large amounts of ice. "These results are the smoking gun pointing to the presence of large amounts of water ice at these latitudes," said Ali Safaeinili, a shallow-radar instrument team member with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The radar's evidence for water ice comes in multiple ways. The radar echoes received by the orbiter while passing over these features indicate that radio waves pass through the apron material and reflect off a deeper surface below without significant loss in strength, as expected if the aprons are thick ice under a relatively thin covering. The radar does not detect reflections from the interior of these deposits as would occur if they contained significant rock debris. Finally, the apparent velocity of radio waves passing through the apron is consistent with a composition of water ice. Developers of the Shallow Radar had the mid-latitude aprons in mind, along with Mars' polar-layered deposits, long before the instrument reached Mars in 2006. "We developed the instrument so it could operate on this kind of terrain," said Roberto Seu of Sapienza University of Rome, leader of the instrument science team. "It is now a priority to observe other examples of these aprons to determine whether they are also ice." The buried glaciers reported by Holt and 11 co-authors lie in the Hellas Basin region of Mars' southern hemisphere. The radar has also detected similar-appearing aprons extending from cliffs in the northern hemisphere. "There's an even larger volume of water ice in the northern deposits," said the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Jeffrey J. Plaut, whose paper on that discovery has been accepted for publication by the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "The fact that these features are in the same latitude bands—about 35 to 60 degrees—in both hemispheres points to a climate-driven mechanism for explaining how they got there." The rocky-debris blanket topping the glaciers has apparently protected the ice from vaporizing as it would if exposed to the atmosphere at these latitudes. "A key question is 'How did the ice get there in the first place?'" said James W. Head of Brown University. "The tilt of Mars' spin axis sometimes gets much greater than it is now, and climate modeling tells us that ice sheets could cover mid-latitude regions of Mars during those high-tilt periods," said Head. He believes the buried glaciers make sense as preserved fragments from an ice age millions of years ago. Posted by Casey Kazan. Adapted from University of Texas materials. |
| 12:16 am | Are Earth's Natural Radio Emissions a Signal to Exo-Worlds -Experts Say Yes
AKR is generated high above the Earth, by the same shaft of solar particles that then causes an aurora to light the sky beneath. For decades, astronomers had assumed that these radio waves traveled out into space in an ever-widening cone, rather like light emitted from a torch. Based on Cluster, astronomers now know this is not true. By analyzing 12,000 separate bursts of AKR, a team of astronomers have determined that the AKR is beamed into space in a narrow plane, similar to placing a mask over the torch with just a small slit in the middle for light to escape. "Whenever you have aurora, you get AKR," says Mutel. That includes aurora on other planets, too. Visiting spacecraft have seen aurora and detected AKR on Jupiter (image above) and Saturn, the two largest gas giants in our Solar System. Not only will this new understanding of how the AKR is beamed into space help astronomers understand the magnetic environment of those gas worlds, it will also help them search for similar planets around other stars. Although looking for AKR from extra solar planets will require much larger radio telescopes than are currently available, these instruments are on the drawing boards. Once these planets have been identified, the AKR can be monitored for how it winks on and off, allowing astronomers to calculate how long the planet takes to rotate. "We can now determine exactly where the emission is coming from," says Robert Mutel, University of Iowa, who conducted the three-year study with colleagues. For each of the AKR bursts they analyzed, the astronomers pinpointed its point of origin to regions in Earth's magnetic field just a few tens of kilometers in size. These were located a few thousand kilometers above where the light of the aurora is formed. "This result was only possible because of the Cluster mission's four spacecraft," says Mutel. Consisting of four nearly identical spacecraft flying in formation, Cluster allowed the scientists to precisely time when the AKR washed over each of the satellites. Using this information, the scientists triangulated the points of origin, in a similar way to the way GPS navigation works. AKR was discovered by satellites in the early 1970s. It is blocked from reaching the ground by the ionosphere, the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere. This is just as well because otherwise it would overwhelm the transmissions from all our radio stations. It is 10,000 times more intense than even the strongest military radar signal. It also provides new routes of investigation into the magnetic fields of other stars, many of which have magnetic fields thousands of times stronger than the Sun. They too, will produce radiation similar to AKR and these can be monitored. Posted by Casey Kazan. ESA Cassini Image shows radio emissions from Saturn. Related Galaxy posts: NASA's "New Worlds Observer" Will be Able to Spot Oceans, Continents and Clouds on Small Rocky Planets Source link: Eurekalert.org |
| 12:50 am | Helsinki's "City Wall" -A Collaborative Social Space
The content displayed on the CityWall is periodically organized into themes or events that are currently taking place in the city such as festivals, carnivals or sports events. The CityWall is designed to support the navigation of media, specifically annotated photos and videos which are continuously gathered in realtime from public sources such as Flickr and YouTube. To contribute content to the CityWall, you can send pictures and videos via MMS or email to post@citywall.org. Alternatively, tag your media on YouTube or Flickr with 'Helsinki' and they will pick up your media and display it on the CityWall. Using a series of intuitive gestures users can navigate and arrange media as if you were manipulating physical pictures. The touchscreen technology which enables this direct interaction has been specifically designed so that several people can interact directly with display at the same time; the maximum number of people who can interact is limited only by physical space. The current CityWall installation measures 2.6 meters wide but the technology would allow displays that are theoretically 16 meters wide. The CityWall is located in downtown Helsinki, Finland. It can be found in Lasipalatsi opposite Forum. Related Post: Urban Life -An Organism "Beyond the Bounds of Biology" |
| 12:14 am | Malcom Gladwell on "Outliers" -Phenomena that Lead to Extraordinary Success VIDEO |
| 12:12 am | The Future of Food: Will We Be Buying Meals Cultivated in Labs? -A Galaxy Insight
How it works is you take some myoblasts (stem cells) that are pre-programmed to grow into muscle. Then you place them in a nutrient-rich fluid called the “growth medium”. Next they are poured on to a spongy scaffold where the cells can attach. They are then “shocked” into growing using electrical impulses. The resulting sheet of meat can then theoretically be ground up and consumed like any other piece of boneless, processed meat. Now, just when the idea is starting to pick up steam, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has jumped on board with its support. The organization, which has long advocated animal rights and vegetarianism, recently offered a $1 million prize to “the first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012”. The stipulation is that the meat must be chicken, with the same taste and texture as meat taken from a living bird. Why chicken? Because PETA says that the worldwide abuse of chickens is the most pressing issue that needs to be addressed. Commercially raised chickens often live out their shorts lives crammed with other birds into small cages. Billions of them are slaughtered each year, which is 100 times more than pigs and 200 times more than cattle. But not everyone at PETA is on board with the “lab meat” agenda. Some members of the organization are angry that PETA would support eating meat—even brainless meat. Ingrid Newkirk, its co-founder and president, admits it has caused “near civil war” in the PETA offices. Some purist animal rights activists consider it a “moral” surrender. On the other side of the debate are those who believe that humans as a whole are unlikely to kick the meat habit altogether, so they may as well come up with a more humane and healthy alternative. Artificially produced meat will be kinder to the animal kingdom, the environment, and the human body, they argue. The “petri dish” meat would not be pumped full of steroids and antibiotics and fed on questionable foodstuffs, they point out, so theoretically it should be healthier. The science of it would even allow for variations such as “saturated fat-free”, or replace “bad fats” with healthy fats such as omega-3, which could conceivably lead to fewer health problems and heart attacks. If you think this kind of technology is far off, think again. Researchers have already started producing meat in laboratories. But there is a major roadblock from doing so commercially at this point: Cost. At the present moment it would cost nearly $1 million to purchase a 250g piece of beef. But many scientists are confident that with the proper research and funding there’s no reason why they can’t eventually find a way to produce meat relatively cheaply. The other major roadblock is the “ick” factor. Many people shudder at the idea of eating “headless” meat. However, not everyone feels that way. Vegetarian Carol Midgley, a writer for Times Online claims that the idea that petri dish meat is somehow any grosser than “real” meat is absurd. “How can it possibly be more disgusting than, say, eating chickens that have ulcered backsides from sitting for weeks in their own excrement, bodies five times their natural size, with leg abscesses the size of 50p pieces, and end their lives strung upside down with their heads hacked off? Personally I would have nothing against eating in vitro meat in principle, because it was never a conscious animal,” Midgley writes. “If it supported an industry that would eradicate the need to keep animals in factory conditions, then I'd not only eat it, I'd buy shares in it.” Not only that, but natural animal meat has its own increasing yuck factor in terms of spreading diseases. Food-borne diseases, which mostly come from meat, are responsible for more than 76 million episodes of illness, 325,000 admissions to hospital and 5,000 deaths each year in America alone. While lab meat will likely be considered a “frankenfood”, espectially at first, it would potentially be much safer than traditional meat. But either way, some scientists argue that the world will have no choice but to eventually get used to the idea, because current meat production is simply not sustainable. Each year people around the world eat 240 billion kilos of meat. In the US, about one million chickens are eaten every single hour. Livestock production accounts for about 18 per cent of the global warming effect, which is more than the whole transport sector combined. Lab meat would be near zero-emission, and would not use up valuable land, water and grain resources to produce. The amount of grain used to feed farmed animals is a large contributing factor of the global food crisis. Apparently cutting back on traditional meat isn’t just humane to animals, it’s more humane to humans. For example, there’s been a lot of complaining about biofuels contributing to world food shortages, but farmed animals are by far and away a bigger culprit to the problem. About 760 million tons of grain are used to feed farmed animals, which is over seven times the amount used to produce biofuels. In fact, it can easily take up to 16lb (7.3kg) of grain to produce just 1lb of meat. Earth's population is predicted to grow to nine billion people around 2050. PETA campaigner Bruce Friedrich puts it this way: “We will have to stop eating animals in the way that we do for simple self-preservation.” Personally, I am not a vegetarian, and there are few things I love as much as bacon. However, if a scientist can at some point hand me a healthy, cruelty-free version of it, I’d like to think I’d be willing to try it for the sake of pigs, future kids and the environment. Who knows, maybe it will turn out like the popular Dr Seuss book Green Eggs and Ham—sounds gross, tastes fine. We’ll see. Posted by Rebecca Sato |
| 12:08 am | Better Place Global Electric Car Network Gains Foothold in Silicon Valley
Building the network of charging stations will require an untold amount of permits and, obviously, cooperation with the local electric utility, which is something that politicians can help with more. The three mayors have outlined a nine point plan for making the Bay Area the “electric vehicle capital of America”. Among those points are helping out with the aforementioned permits, as well as buying lots of Better Place cars for municipal fleets and providing incentives for businesses to build charging stations on their property. |
| 12:06 am | Extremophiles: Prep for New Search for Life on Mars -AUDIO
|
| 12:05 am | The Daily Flash: Eco, Space, Science (11/24)
Britain's first mission to the Moon to probe mysterious moonquakes Astronauts step out for longest, hardest spacewalk Solar panels on graves give power to Spanish town |
| Friday, November 21st, 2008 | |
| 12:06 pm | Inter(planetary) Internet
The first is that space is big. We're planning a network so vast that the speed of light becomes a serious issue, and that alone makes this one of the most awesome things the species has ever imagined. Building an information system so vast we have to account for the universe's limited ability to transmit data. The human urge to not only explore but to share what we find has now become an engineering challenge, as well as our most admirable feature. The solution is a new communications protocol. Instead of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) used on Earth, which depends on constant connection, the space network will use Disruption-or-Delay Tolerant Protocol (DCP) whereby data will be stored at each node until a secure connection can be established with another node, at which point the current caches are exchanged. Remember, this network won't have to just deal with bandwidth bottlenecks and unplugged routers - this is a system where "There's a planet in the way" will be a valid concern. The ability to deal with problems will be important. Another concern is security. By its nature this system will be incredibly physically open. It has to be built to prevent outside interference, like those who would hack into the system and fake or destroy data just for the hell of it (which the Earth-bound internet has proven is another very strong human drive, on of our worst). Every exchange between nodes will involve secure identification and coded data, every point programmed to view everyone else as a liar until proved otherwise. NASA are planning to share the protocols with other space services, setting up the first permanent node on the International Space Station (the test network point on the Epoxi probe has been deleted to allow it to be reprogrammed for its new mission). The aim is to create an open, shared system whereby human knowledge can be vastly expanded and communicated between intelligent beings. You know, like the first internet was meant to be. Let's hope this one has better luck. --- By Luke McKinney Interplanetary Internet on New Scientist Image credit: NASA/JPL |
| 4:30 pm | The Happiness Gene -Is it Inherited?
Abd Er-Rahman III of Spain (960 C.E.) A study of nearly 1,000 pairs of identical and non-identical twins found genes control half the personality traits that make people happy while factors such as relationships, health and careers are responsible for the rest of our well-being. "We found that around half the differences in happiness were genetic," said Tim Bates, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh who led the study reported in the journal Psychological Science. "It is really quite surprising." The study confirms our common sense awareness that individuals who are sociable, active, stable, hardworking and conscientious tend to be happier. The researchers asked the volunteers -- ranging in age from 25 to 75 -- a series of questions about their personality, how much they worried and how satisfied they were with their lives. Because identical twins share the same genes and fraternal twins do not, the researchers were able to identify common genes that result in certain personality traits and predispose people to happiness. "What this study showed was that the identical twins in a family were very similar in personality and in well-being, and by contrast, the fraternal twins were only around half as similar," Bates said. "That strongly implicates genes." The findings are an important piece of the puzzle for researchers trying to better understand depression and what makes different people happy or unhappy, Bates said. Personality traits of being outgoing, calm and reliable provide a resource, we called it 'affective reserve,' that drives future happiness" Bates said. People with positive inherited personality traits may, in effect, also have a reserve of happiness to draw on in stressful times, he said. Posted by Casey Kazan. If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on Digg, Reddit, or StumbleUpon.Thanks! Related Galaxy posts: The Wisdom of Walden Pond
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNe |
| 12:12 am | Better Place -Pioneering the Planet's Electric Car Infrastructure |
| 12:20 am | The Vanishing Sunspot Mystery: What Does it Mean for Earth's Climate? -A Galaxy Insight
Although periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, this current period has gone on much longer than usual and scientists are starting to worry—at least a little bit. Recently 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered to discuss the issue at an international solar conference at Montana State University. Today's sun is as inactive as it was two years ago, and solar physicists don’t have a clue as to why. "It continues to be dead," said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission, noting that it is at least a little bit worrisome for scientists. Dana Longcope, a solar physicist at MSU, said the sun usually operates on an 11-year cycle with maximum activity occurring in the middle of the cycle. The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. But so far nothing is happening. "It's a dead face," Tsuneta said of the sun's appearance. Tsuneta said solar physicists aren't weather forecasters and they can't predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period coincided with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700. Coincidence? Some scientists say it was, but many worry that it wasn’t. Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut with NASA, said pictures from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory also show that there are currently no spots on the sun. He also noted that the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C. "This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," Dr Chapman noted in The Australian recently. If the world does face another mini Ice Age, it could come without warning. Evidence for abrupt climate change is readily found in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica. One of the best known examples of such an event is the Younger Dryas cooling, which occurred about 12,000 years ago, named after the arctic wildflower found in northern European sediments. This event began and ended rather abruptly, and for its entire 1000 year duration the North Atlantic region was about 5°C colder. Could something like this happen again? There’s no way to tell, and because the changes can happen all within one decade—we might not even see it coming. The Younger Dryas occurred at a time when orbital forcing should have continued to drive climate to the present warm state. The unexplained phenomenon has been the topic of much intense scientific debate, as well as other millennial scale events. Now this 11-year low in Sunspot activity has raised fears among a small but growing number of scientists that rather than getting warmer, the Earth could possibly be about to return to another cooling period. The idea is especially intriguing considering that most of the world is in preparation for global warming. Canadian scientist Kenneth Tapping of the National Research Council has also noted that solar activity has entered into an unusually inactive phase, but what that means—if anything—is still anyone’s guess. Another solar scientist, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, however, is certain that it’s an indication of a coming cooling period. Sorokhtin believes that a lack of sunspots does indicate a coming cooling period based on certain past trends and early records. In fact, he calls manmade climate change "a drop in the bucket" compared to the fierce and abrupt cold that can potentially be brought on by inactive solar phases. Sorokhtin’s advice: "Stock up on fur coats"…just in case. Posted by Rebecca Sato Related posts:
The Milky Way Enigma -How Galactic Forces May Control Life on Earth Sources:
http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.p |
| 12:06 am | The Daily Flash: Eco, Space, Science (11/21)
16 Kyoto Protocol Nations On Track to Meet Emissions Reductions, Through No Fault of Their Own Why You Can’t Travel Back in Time and Kill Hitler Did Asteroid Cause Ancient N.Y. Tsunami? |
| 12:04 am | TGIF
|
| Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | |
| 12:30 am | What Do Our Brains Do While Sleeping?
Throughout the ages, scientists and thinkers have been trying to determine why people have to sleep. But so far all they know is what any parent of a newborn quickly discovers: sleep loss makes it harder to cope with stress, our thoughts more mentally foggy and our bodies more prone to get sick. Neuroscientists have long wondered if sleep is somehow tied to learning and memory, or other cognitive processes. Now new findings suggest that sleep does indeed appear to play a crucial role in sorting and storing our memories. Harvard and McGill Universities have reported that participants who napped after playing a memory game score significantly higher on a retest than those who did not sleep. “We think what’s happening during sleep is that you open the aperture of memory and are able to see this bigger picture,” said the study’s senior author, Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist who is now at the University of California, Berkeley. He added that many such insights occurred “only when you enter this wonder-world of sleep.” But the theory that a sleeping brain can do things an awake brain can’t is still controversial. But the new research highlights a transformation in the way scientists are now viewing the sleeping brain. It was once seen as a blank screen, but has now emerged as an active, secretive intelligence that comes out for its “nightshift” to do some serious work. Researchers say that studies are even showing that taking naps improves memory as well. “We are finding that if a person takes a nap that contains slow-wave sleep — deep sleep — that performance on declarative memory tasks, which require the memorization of fact-based information like word-pairs, is enhanced compared to a person who doesn’t take a nap,” researcher Matthew Tucker said. Previous studies of nocturnal sleep have found the same thing. In one 2003 study, Sara Mednick, then at Harvard and now at the University of California, San Diego, led a team that had 73 people come into the lab at 9 a.m. and learn to discriminate between a variety of textured patterns. Some of the participants then took a nap of about an hour at 2 p.m. and the others did not. When retested at 7 p.m. the rested group did slightly better. When tested again the next morning, after everyone had slept the night, the napping group scored much higher. The naps included both REM and deep sleep. “We think that a nap that contains both these states does about the same for memory consolidation as a night’s sleep,” when it comes to pattern recognition learning, Dr. Mednick said. In series of experiments that he began in the early 1990s, Dr. Carlyle Smith of Trent University in Canada has found a strong association between the amount of Stage 2 sleep a person gets and the improvement in learning motor tasks. Mastering a guitar, a hockey stick or a keyboard are all motor tasks. Musicians, among others, have sensed this instinctually. A piece that is difficult during and evening practice will often flow better in the morning for some reason. But only in recent years has the science caught up and given their hunch some scientific backing. For instance, Dr. Smith said that people typically got most of their Stage 2 sleep in the second half of the night. “The implication of this is that if you are preparing for a performance, a music recital, say, or skating performance, it’s better to stay up late than get up really early,” he said in an interview. “These coaches that have athletes or other performers up at 5 o’clock in the morning, I think that’s just crazy.”
So here’s the big question: is something going on with memory processing that is unique to sleep? Subimal Datta, a neuroscientist across the river at Boston University School of Medicine, says yes. In his studies of animals, he has documented that during sleep the brain is awash in a chemical bath unlike any during waking. Levels of inhibitory transmitters increase sharply, and levels of many activating messengers drop, or shut down entirely. Even before REM is detectable, Dr. Datta said, a small pocket of cells in the brainstem spurs a surge in glutamate — an activating chemical — which leads to protein synthesis and other changes that support long-term memory storage. “During waking we have a thousand things happening at once, the library is filling up, and we can’t possibly process it all,” Dr. Datta said. While awake the brain is also gathering lots of valuable information subconsciously, he said, without the person’s ever being aware of it. “It’s during sleep that we have this special condition to clear away this overload, and these REM processes then help store what’s important,” Dr. Datta said. Dreams still defy scientific understanding but they also appear to play a role in the evolving theory of sleep-dependent learning. Some scientists argue that during REM sleep, or dream mode, the brain will mix, match and make sense of the memory traces it has preserved, as it looks for connections that help make sense of life. It was during sleep that the Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev was reported to have developed the periodic table of the elements. Friedrich August Kekule, a 19th-century chemist, said he worked out the chemical structure of the benzine ring after dreaming of a snake biting its tail. Athletes like Jack Nicklaus, have also mentioned insights discovered while sleeping. “It does make sense these insights come during REM,” Dr. Walker said. “I mean, what better time to play out all these different scenarios and solutions and ideas than in dreams, where there are no consequences?” The problem, he says, is how to study it. Few of us would venture to say we know what goes on in our heads while sleeping, but to quantify and generalize such an elusive state has been quite a journey. Posted by Rebecca Sato Related posts: What do Robots Dream Of? Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/health/2 |
| 12:40 am | The Biological Universe -A Galaxy Insight
Richard Dawkins, famed Oxford evolutionary biologist and author of The Ancestor's Tale. Steven Dick, NASA's chief historian and former astronomer of the United States Naval Observatory, has a vastly different view of the emergence of life in the universe: to Dick the emergence of life and the evolution of intelligence is literally pre-programmed by the laws and constants of physics, which function similar to cosmic DNA. The emergence of life and intelligence, according to Dick, was coded into the cosmic playbook from the first moment of the Big Bang. Intelligent life is destined to eventually dominate the cosmos and ultimately to serve as the instrument of cosmic replication. In his famous essay, Our World View at the Turn of the Millennium, Dick argues that at the dawn of the 21st century calls for us to take into account the Copernican principle that life on earth and humanity is in no way physically central in the universe: "we are located on a small planet around a star on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy." The first concept, the question of life beyond our home planet, Dick explained in his essay, has exercised human imagination, and has stirred irrational fears, since the ancient Greeks, fears that in large part were responsible for the death more than 400 years ago, on February 17, 1600, when Giordano Bruno was summoned from his Inquisition prison cell in Castel S'ant Angelo across the Tiber from the Vatican, marched to the Campo dei Fiori, and burned at the stake in large part for his belief in an infinite number of inhabited worlds. So anathema, Dick writes, was the subject of other worlds that even historians of science avoided it until the 1970s. This worldview of the cosmos as a biological universe is a revolutionary perspective as profound a revision in our way of think as the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions. It is a worldview that believes that "planetary systems are common, that life originates wherever conditions are favorable, and that evolution culminates with intelligence." The Noble Laureate, Christian de Duve, describes the biological cosmos as: "The universe is not the inert cosmos of the physicists, with a little life added for good measure. The universe is life, with the necessary infrastructure around; it consists foremost of trillions of s generated and sustained by the rest of the universe." Posted by Casey Kazan Related Galaxy Posts: |
| 12:06 am | The Deep-Freeze Organ Transplant
Why can't you freeze organs like any other meat? Because you care a bit more about them being intact. Freezing creates ice crystals throughout flesh, and thanks to water's peculiar trick of expanding between four degrees celsius and zero the expanding crystals can destroy the cells in the tissue. Not such a big deal for the succulence of beef, but a bit of a problem if you're planning on a heart transplant. The Israeli Agricultural Research Organization have developed a device which expands upon current techniques to prevent this ice-damage. First you drain out all the blood, which must be a lovely horror-movie moment for all involved, then place the organ inside a pair of hollow brass blocks. Cooled by liquid nitrogen, the blocks slowly cool the organ - it's important to cool it, because in case you haven't noticed that organ is now out on its own (not a naturally tenable environment for internal organs - that's why they're called "internal") and fresh out of blood. It's also important to do it slowly, as this avoids the formation of large cell-rupturing ice crystals. The organ can then be thawed and implanted. They know this because they've done it, freezing and thawing a pig liver which they then implanted into a pig. A pig which already had a liver, so if nothing else the new pig-piggybacking-organ should render it impervious to hangovers. The transplant was a complete success - for the liver, at least, but not for the pig because they killed it hours later to analyze the organ. David Winter has criticized the results, claiming they prove nothing, but then Mr Winter does run a rival company so perhaps his opinion can be discounted for the moment. The Israeli team are already planning further trials. The pig is, understandably, not planning much. ___ By Luke Mckinney Cryogenic Pig on New Scientist Image Dr. I-Chen Tsai, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan (from wikipedia) |
| 12:05 am | The Daily Flash: Eco, Space, Science (11/20)
Enceladus: Secrets of Saturn's Strangest Moon Antarctic balloon on the trail of dark matter? Mysterious Source of High-Energy Cosmic Radiation Discovered New excavations strengthen identification of Herod’s grave at Herodium Is Cheap, Efficient Storage for Wind Power Finally Here? |
| Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 | |
| 12:20 am | Nanoneural Upgrade Creates Something Half Brain, Half Ultra-Tech
The work clamps a bunch of hippocampus cells to a fullerene nanotube. Trials have shown that the brain cells grow very effectively on the nanomaterial, indicating that this junction could be a biocompatible link between mind and machine. Even better, the single-walled nanotubes can actually accelerate signaling between neural cells. Electrical signals can be conducted by the tube, and are transmitted faster than by the cells' own axon connections. The team intend to use this nanoneurology to repair spinal cord injuries. The scaffold can steer the cells between the existing cells, while newly grown nerves can complete the connection. When the chance to heal people otherwise thought permanently paralyzed is just the first test of a new technique? That's when you know that science is awesome. Faster signalling doesn't mean faster thinking - the cells can still only fire at a certain speed. But the ability to provide extra connections between brain cells, and use the nanoscaffold to steer their development, offers limitless possibilities. By their very nature brain cells learn and adapt to form a network - faster connections doesn't mean faster thinking, but extra connections and new architectures offer the chance for entirely new modes of thought. The problem is that tinkering with the human mind is pretty much every moral and ethical minefield on the planet jammed together (all the experiments so far have been on rat cells). If somebody wants to engineer a hyperbrain they'll have to do it in secret. But then again, if someone is working to use the latest nanotechnology to create a race of ultraintelligent cyborgs it's certain that they'll be working in secret. To avoid James Bond killing them. ___ By Luke McKinney Image credit: PLoS Biology Sources: jneurosci.org and nature.com |
NASA have proved that they're definitely both geeks and rocket scientists by testing protocols for the first interplanetary internet. Before you start with your facebook status "I'm on top of the world!" gags, understand that this is serious business. Off-planet internet poses unique challenges which require design solutions.
You've always been told that you can "improve your mind" by learning, but a group of European scientists have decided to be more direct about it. They've learned that neural activity can be increased by grafting brain cells onto nano-tubes, thereby creating something that's half brain, half ultra-tech, all awesome.