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Chinese population study reveals schizophrenia gene mutations


Medical Daily
Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:49 UTC
Chinese People
© Medical Daily
A team of Chinese researchers has identified a group of genes that may hold the key to the genetic basis of schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric condition that affects up to 1% of the world's population, with many heritable factors that are passed down through generations.

Symptoms typically appear late in life, with patients experiencing disordered thought and disturbances in cognition and emotion like hallucinations, psychosis, delusions, and apathy. If not treated effectively, it can be debilitating.

The discovery of a genetic screen for schizophrenia could allow people at risk to take precautions against developing it, or learn to cope with symptoms before they get out of hand.

Recently, scientists have been using genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to analyze genetic variations across entire populations. The technology used in GWAS allows the identification of specific genetic markers for many complex human diseases.
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Solar Flares

NASA sees monster sunspot growing fast, solar storms possible

Tariq Malik
Space.com
Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:01 UTC
sun black spots
© SPACE.com/NASA/SDO/AIA/HMI/Goddard Space Flight CenterThe bottom two black spots on the sun, known as sunspots, appeared quickly over the course of Feb. 19-20, 2013. These two sunspots are part of the same system and are over six Earths across.
A colossal sunspot on the surface of the sun is large enough to swallow six Earths whole, and could trigger solar flares this week, NASA scientists say.

The giant sunspot was captured on camera by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory as it swelled to enormous proportions over the 48 hours spanning Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb. 19 and 20). SDO is one of several spacecraft that constantly monitor the sun's space weather environment.

"It has grown to over six Earth diameters across, but its full extent is hard to judge since the spot lies on a sphere, not a flat disk," wrote NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox, of the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in an image description.

The sunspot region is actually a collection of dark blemishes on the surface of the sun that evolved rapidly over the last two days. Sunspots form from shifting magnetic fields at the sun's surface, and are actually cooler than their surrounding solar material.
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Saturn

Saturn's shockwaves reach supernova force


The Daily Galaxy
Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:49 UTC
saturn
© NASA/JPL
During a chance encounter with what appears to be an unusually strong blast of solar wind at Saturn, NASA's Cassini spacecraft detected particles being accelerated to ultra-high energies. This is similar to the acceleration that takes place around distant supernovas. "Cassini has essentially given us the capability of studying the nature of a supernova shock in situ in our own solar system, bridging the gap to distant high-energy astrophysical phenomena that are usually only studied remotely," said Adam Masters of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Sagamihara, Japan.

Scientists are particularly interested in "quasi-parallel" shocks, where the magnetic field and the "forward"-facing direction of the shock are almost aligned, as may be found in supernova remnants. The new study, led by Masters describes the first detection of significant acceleration of electrons in a quasi-parallel shock at Saturn, coinciding with what may be the strongest shock ever encountered at the ringed planet.
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Bulb

Has evolution given humans unique brain structures?

Wim Vanduffel
KU Leuven
Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:41 UTC
Our ancestors evolutionarily split from those of rhesus monkeys about 25 million years ago. Since then, brain areas have been added, have disappeared or have changed in function. This raises the question, 'Has evolution given humans unique brain structures?'. Scientists have entertained the idea before but conclusive evidence was lacking. By combining different research methods, we now have a first piece of evidence that could prove that humans have unique cortical brain networks.

Professor Vanduffel explains: "We did functional brain scans in humans and rhesus monkeys at rest and while watching a movie to compare both the place and the function of cortical brain networks. Even at rest, the brain is very active. Different brain areas that are active simultaneously during rest form so-called 'resting state' networks. For the most part, these resting state networks in humans and monkeys are surprisingly similar, but we found two networks unique to humans and one unique network in the monkey."
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Fireball

Astronomer sleuths find clues to 100-year-old meteor mystery

Miriam Kramer
SPACE.com
Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:00 UTC
1913 Meteor Procession
© University of Toronto Archives/Natalie McMinnThis painting by artist and amateur astronomer Gustav Hahn depicts the meteor procession of Feb. 9, 1923 as observed in High Park, Toronto. Hahn estimated that the fireballs passed about halfway between Rigel and the Belt of Orion.
It may be the ultimate cosmic cold case, but the 100-year-old mystery of a huge group of fireballs flying in formation through Earth's atmosphere is finally a bit closer to being solved, scientists say.

By sifting through the archival records from the meteor procession that took place on Feb. 9, 1913, sleuthing stargazers pieced together the surprisingly large path of the rare astronomical event.

From Canada to Brazil, observers watched as hundreds of meteors streaked across the sky, but this wasn't any ordinary annual meteor shower. Because these meteors were traveling nearly parallel to the surface of the Earth, each piece of space dust and rock stayed visible for about a minute as each burned up in Earth's atmosphere. The procession lasted for several minutes.

"To most observers, the outstanding feature of the phenomenon was the slow, majestic motion of the bodies; and almost equally remarkable was the perfect formation which they retained," said Clarence Chant, a University of Toronto astronomer who observed the procession in 1913.

But 100 years later, scientists were still missing a piece of the astronomical puzzle. No one knew exactly how wide-reaching the meteor procession was.
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Info

Bizarre star-shaped gravity waves created

Charles Choi
LiveScience
Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:31 UTC
Gravity Waves
© Jean Rajchenbach, Alphonse Leroux, and Didier Clamond (CNRS and Université de Nice, France)Researchers have discovered a new type of gravity wave, one that is shaped like a star. Such bizarre waves result from a property called nonlinearity, in which a small or simple change results in a disproportionately large or complex effect. For instance, aspects of weather behave chaotically, in a nonlinear manner.
Star-shaped waves can form in vibrating tanks of liquid oil, researchers say.

Learning more about such bizarre waves could shed light on counterparts that may exist elsewhere in nature, researchers added.

Waves of all kinds often behave in an intuitively linear manner. For instance, a weight on a spring will bob up and down in a manner directly proportional to the force that the weight exerts on the spring.

However, a number of strange waves can also form. They come from what is called nonlinearity, in which a small or simple change results in a disproportionately large or complex effect. For instance, aspects of weather behave chaotically, in a nonlinear manner.

The waves seen on the surface of water also behave in a nonlinear manner, and bizarre phenomena can result, such as X- and Y-shaped ocean waves or monstrously large freak waves that seem to come out of nowhere. Scientists have spotted similar nonlinear effects elsewhere in nature, such as with super-cooled atoms or light traveling in fiber optics.
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Bulb

Oil sands mining uses up almost as much energy as it produces

Rachel Nuwer
Inside Climate News
Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:41 UTC
Image
© David Dodge, Pembina InstituteSuncor Millenium oil sands mine on the east side of the Athabasca River in Alberta, Canada.
Thanks to high global oil prices, industry can afford the large amount of energy needed to extract the oil and turn it into a usable fuel.

The average "energy returned on investment," or EROI, for conventional oil is roughly 25:1. In other words, 25 units of oil-based energy are obtained for every one unit of other energy that is invested to extract it.

But tar sands oil is in a category all its own.

Tar sands retrieved by surface mining has an EROI of only about 5:1, according to research released Tuesday. Tar sands retrieved from deeper beneath the earth, through steam injection, fares even worse, with a maximum average ratio of just 2.9 to 1. That means one unit of natural gas is needed to create less than three units of oil-based energy.
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Comet

When asteroids become comets: Both are fundamentally the same


Thunderbolts.info
Fri, 07 Apr 2006 06:42 UTC
Image
© Pedro Lacerda (Univ. Hawaii; Univ. Coimbra, PortugalOrbits of the three known main-belt comets (red lines), the five innermost planets (black lines; from the center outward: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter), a sample of 100 main-belt asteroids (orange lines), and two "typical" comets (Halley's Comet, and Tempel 1, target of the recent Deep Impact mission) as blue lines. Positions of the main-belt comets and planets on March 1, 2006, are plotted with black dots.
The surprising discovery of asteroids with comet tails supports the longstanding claim of the electrical theorists - that the essential difference between asteroids and comets is the shape of their orbits.

According to a recent story in USA Today, astronomers are "rethinking long-held beliefs about the distant domains of comets and asteroids, abodes they've always considered light-years apart". The discovery has forced astronomers to speculate that some asteroids are actually "dirty snowballs in disguise".

For many years the standard view of asteroids asserted that they are composed of dust, rock, and metal and that most occupy a belt between Mars and Jupiter. In contrast, comets were claimed to arrive from a home in deep space, most coming from an imagined "Oort Cloud" at the outermost reaches of the solar system, where they are supposed to have accreted from leftover dust and ices from the formation of the solar system.

But now, "the locales of comets and asteroids may not be such a key distinction", states Dan Vergano, reporting on the work of two University of Hawaii astronomers, Henry Hsieh and David Jewitt. In a survey of 300 asteroids lurking in the asteroid belt, the astronomers detected three objects that "look a lot like comets ... ejecting little comet tails at times from their surfaces". The three red circles in the illustration above describe the orbits of these bodies.
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Comet 2

Rare 'asteroid' sporting tail spotted


UPI
Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:27 UTC
Image
© Kevin HeiderA picture showing the faint tail of the celestial body 596 Scheila, which was once thought to be an asteroid. Government researchers now think it may be a 'dormant comet coming back to life'. What they don't seem able to grok is that comets and asteroids are essentially the same thing.
Asteroids, unlike comets, are seldom seen sporting a tail as they orbit the sun, but Spanish astronomers say they've observed one of these rare exceptions.

Using a telescope in the Canary Islands, they spotted an asteroid dubbed P/2012 F5 that displayed a trail like that of comets.

Its emission of dust or gas may have been caused by internal rupture or collision with another asteroid, a release from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology reported Wednesday.

"Our models indicate that [the trail] was caused by an impulsive short-lived event lasting just a few hours around the July 1st, 2011, with an uncertainty of 20 days," Fernando Moreno, researcher at the Astrophysics Institute of Andalusia said.

Comment: The answer is staring them in the face: we live in an Electric Universe!

The asteroid "sported a tail" because it became electrically charged.

The Electric Comet: The Elephant in NASA's Living Room?

When Asteroids Become Comets

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Fireball 5

Supersonic boom of the Russian meteor explosion

ctrlAG
YouTube
Fri, 22 Feb 2013 05:37 UTC
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