Science & TechnologyS


Bizarro Earth

Dramatic Ocean Circulation Changes Revealed

Shells
© Cardiff UniversityThese are shells of a type of foraminifers used in this study.

The unusually cold weather this winter has been caused by a change in the winds. Instead of the typical westerly winds warmed by Atlantic surface ocean currents, cold northerly Arctic winds are influencing much of Europe.

However, scientists have long suspected that far more severe and longer-lasting cold intervals have been caused by changes to the circulation of the warm Atlantic ocean currents themselves.

Now new research led by Cardiff University, with scientists in the UK and US, reveals that these ocean circulation changes may have been more dramatic than previously thought.

The findings, published today (14 January 2011) in the journal Science, show that as the last Ice Age came to an end (10,000 - 20,000 years ago) the formation of deep water in the North-East Atlantic repeatedly switched on and off. This caused the climate to warm and cool for centuries at a time.

The circulation of the world's ocean helps to regulate the global climate. One way it does this is through the transport of heat carried by vast ocean currents, which together form the 'Great ocean conveyor'. Key to this conveyor is the sinking of water in the North-East Atlantic, a process that causes warm tropical waters to flow northwards in order to replace the sinking water. Europe is kept warmer by this circulation, so that a strong reduction in the rate at which deep water forms can cause widespread cooling of up to 10 degrees Celsius.

Lead author Dr David Thornalley, Cardiff School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, explains how the scientists studied changes in ocean circulation: "We retrieved ocean sediment cores from the seafloor of the Northeast Atlantic which contained the shells of small organisms. We used these shells to examine the past distribution of radiocarbon in the ocean. Radiocarbon is a radioactive form of carbon that acts like a natural stopwatch, timing how long it has been since water was last at the sea surface. This allows us to determine how quickly deep water was forming in the Northeast Atlantic at different times in the past."

Telescope

New Telescope Is Exploring Solar System 'Outback'

Image
© CfAThis artist's conception shows the dwarf planet Haumea, which is in the Kuiper Belt. Pan-STARRS is expected to find hundreds of new Kuiper Belt Objects during its operational lifetime.
In the outer reaches of our solar system lies a mysterious region far more remote and difficult to explore than the Australian outback. It remains the only part of our solar system not visited by spacecraft. Called the Kuiper Belt, this area beyond Neptune is home to the dwarf planets Pluto, Eris, Makemake, and Haumea. It also harbors thousands of smaller objects that form a second, icy asteroid belt (or more appropriately, comet belt). In this realm of perpetual twilight, the distant sun looks like just another bright star

Saturn

Strange Mini-Asteroid Born by Huge Space Rock

mini asteroid vesta
© Ben Zellner (Georgia Southern University) / Peter Thomas (Cornell University) / NASAOn its southern side the asteroid Vesta shows a huge crater. This picture shows the asteroid in an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (top, left), as a reconstruction based on theoretical calculations (top, right), and as a topological map (bottom).
Astronomers have discovered a new kind of asteroid - a strange mini-world with a unique and violent history that could reveal more clues about the early solar system.

The asteroid, called 1999 AT10, is a miniature space rock born when a collision blasted it out of its rocky parent Vesta, which is the second-largest asteroid in the solar system. The mineralogical composition of 1999 AT10 suggests that unlike many other asteroids, it did not originate from the outer rocky crust of its parent asteroid Vesta, but from the deeper layers underneath. Until now, no asteroid like it has ever been seen.

Vesta is of particular interest because this summer it will be the first destination of NASA's Dawn spacecraft.

The discovery of 1999 AT10could help determine the thickness of Vesta's crust, and reveal details about its internal structure, scientists say. With a body approximately 326 miles (525 kilometers) wide, Vesta is believed to be the only remaining protoplanet from the early phase of our solar system.

Evil Rays

The App That Can Read Your Mind: iPhone Brainwave Detector Arrives

xwave headset
© Daily MailNo-brainer: The XWave allows users to control on-screen objects with their minds as well as train their brains to control attention spans and relaxation levels
(It was only a matter of time)

It's a device that would be more at home on the set of a Star Wars movie than the streets of Britain.

But an iPhone application has been developed that can read minds.

The XWave allows users to control on-screen objects with their minds as well as train their brains to control attention spans and relaxation levels.

The device - that could confuse Luke Skywalker himself - is the latest in the field of emerging mind-controlled games and devices and works via a headset strapped around the user's forehead, plugging into the iPhone jack.

A state-of-the-art sensor within the device can then read the user's brainwaves through the skull, converting them into digital signals before displaying them in various colours on the iPhone screen.

And as the mind focuses on a particular task the graphics change, indicating the user's level of concentration or relaxation.

The high-tech sensor was developed by innovations giant PLX Devices using technology that has for years been used by doctors to treat epilepsy and seizures in patients.

Arrow Down

Decline in U.S. fire ant population unexplained

Fire Ant
It was so dry and so cold yesterday with a prediction of no precipitation for the next 7 days - I just had to find something good to put in a column.

The best I could come up with at the drop of a hat was the fact fire ant numbers and activity appears to be declining. But let's face it no one is keeping count!

Hardhat

New Glass Stronger than Any Known Material

palladium based metallic glass
© Ritchie and DemetriouMicrograph of deformed notch in palladium-based metallic glass shows extensive plastic shielding of an initially sharp crack. Inset is a magnified view of a shear offset (arrow) developed during plastic sliding before the crack opened.
Glass stronger and tougher than steel? A new type of damage-tolerant metallic glass, demonstrating a strength and toughness beyond that of any known material, has been developed and tested by a collaboration of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the California Institute of Technology. What's more, even better versions of this new glass may be on the way.

"These results mark the first use of a new strategy for metallic glass fabrication, and we believe we can use it to make glass that will be even stronger and more tough," says Robert Ritchie, a materials scientist who led the Berkeley contribution to the research.

The new metallic glass is a microalloy featuring palladium, a metal with a high "bulk-to-shear" stiffness ratio that counteracts the intrinsic brittleness of glassy materials.

Telescope

Ice Volcano on Saturn's Moon Titan

Saturn Titan ice volcano
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS/University of Arizona
Based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, this image shows an area of Saturn's moon Titan, known as Sotra Facula. Scientists believe Sotra is the best case for a cryovolcano, or ice volcano. The flyover shows two peaks more than 3,000 feet (about 1,000 meters) tall and multiple craters as deep as 5,000 feet (1,500 meters). The image also shows finger-like flows, which also indicate the presence of cryovolcanism.

Telescope

Sloan Digital Survey captures stunning images

The Sloan Digital survey has put our Universe in a new perspective. The Images are made of more than 1 trillion pixels from at least 7 million Digital images. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is one of the most ambitious and influential surveys in the history of astronomy.


Radar

Invisibility Cloak Hides Objects From Sonar

Image
© Brian StaufferResearchers have created an acoustic cloaking material that guides sound waves around the hidden object.
A new material that bends and twists sound waves could allow stealth submarines to evade underwater sonar.

The material essentially tricks the sonar - a system used to identify underwater objects by analyzing the differences between the emitted sound waves and the returning waves, which have bounced off of the submarine, for example.

Frog

'Astonishing' rare black penguin living on South Georgia

black penguin
© Andrew Evans/National Geographic/BarcroftThe rare melanistic penguin, photographed by Andrew Evans on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia
The penguin, believed to be suffering from a condition known as melanism, was spotted on Fortuna Bay, a sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, about 860 miles off the Falklands.

A group of travellers had travelled to the island to watch local wildlife and one of the group, Andrew Evans, took this picture of the penguin, one of several thousand.

"Observing this black penguin waddle across South Georgia's black sand beach revealed no different behaviour than that of his fellow penguins. In fact, he seemed to mix well," he wrote on a National Geographic blog.

"Regarding feeding and mating behaviour there is no real way to tell, but I do know that we were all fascinated by his presence and wished him the best for the coming winter season."

Biology experts say that because black penguins are particularly rare there is very little research discussing the subject. Melanism is however, common on other animal species such as squirrels.

It is estimated that about one in every 250,000 penguins shows evidence of the condition.