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Scientists uncover invisible motion in video

Motion Captured in Video
© MITAn example of using our Eulerian Video Magnification framework for visualizing the human pulse. (a) Four frames from the original video sequence. (b) The same four frames with the subject's pulse signal amplified. (c) A vertical scan line from the input (top) and output (bottom) videos plotted over time shows how our method amplifies the periodic color variation. In the input sequence the signal is imperceptible, but in the magnified sequence the variation is clear.
A 30-second video of a newborn baby shows the infant silently snoozing in its crib, his breathing barely perceptible. But when the video is run through an algorithm that can amplify both movement and color, the baby's face blinks crimson with each tiny heartbeat.

The amplification process is called Eulerian Video Magnification, and is the brainchild of a team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

The team originally developed the program to monitor neonatal babies without making physical contact. But they quickly learned that the algorithm can be applied to other videos to reveal changes imperceptible to the naked eye. Prof. William T. Freeman, a leader on the team, imagines its use in search and rescue, so that rescuers could tell from a distance if someone trapped on a ledge, say, is still breathing.

"Once we amplify these small motions, there's like a whole new world you can look at," he said.

Fireball

Close approach of Asteroid 2013 ET

M.P.E.C. 2013-E14, issued on 2013 March 04, reports the discovery of the asteroid 2013 ET (discovery magnitude 16.9) by Catalina Sky Survey (mpc code 703) on images taken on March 03.3 with a 0.68-m Schmidt + CCD.

2013 ET has an estimated size of 64 m - 140 m (based on the object's absolute magnitude H=23.1) and it will have a close approach with Earth at about 2.54 LD (Lunar Distances = ~384,000 kilometers) or 0.0065 AU (1 AU = ~150 million kilometers) at 1207 UT on March 09 2013. This asteroid will reach the peak magnitude ~15.0 on the first hours of March 09.

We performed some follow-up measurements of this object on 2013, March 04.4, while it was still on the neocp, remotely from the Haleakala-Faulkes Telescope North, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD (Faulkes Telescope is operated by Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network). Below you can see our image, stack of 5X10-second exposures, taken with the asteroid at magnitude ~16.9 and moving at ~6.15"/min. At the moment of the close approach 2013 ET will move at ~ 153"/min. Click on the image below to see a bigger version. North is up, East is to the left.
Asteroid 2013ET
© Remanzacco Observatory
Here you can see a short animation showing the movement of 2013 ET (three consecutive stacks of 5X10-second exposures each). North is up, East is to the left.

Solar Flares

Plasma Loops on the Electric Sun

A recent NASA video reveals in extraordinary detail what the agency describes as "plasma rain" falling on the Sun. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a medium strength solar flare, which scientists say generated these enormous plasma loops. But does NASA's interpretation provide real understanding of what we are seeing?


Sherlock

'Junk' DNA clue boosts hope for Parkinson's treatment

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© Shutterstock
A flawed gene implicated in Parkinson's disease lets proteins build up dangerously in key brain cells, according to a study on Sunday that throws open new paths for tackling the tragic disorder.

Parkinson's patients suffer from progressive stiffness, slowing of movement and problems in coordination resulting from the loss of nerve cells that make a muscle-controlling chemical, dopamine.

A hallmark of the disease is the presence of so-called Lewy bodies, an accumulation of toxic proteins in these vital cells.

But how the proteins - the byproducts of normal cellular processes - are allowed to pile up within the cell, eventually killing it, has remained unclear.

Fireball 5

Newly found asteroid to pass within moon's orbit on March 4, 2013

2013 EC
© Virtual TelescopeA newly found asteroid, 2013 EC can be seen in the lower left corner of the red box in this image. Screen capture from Virtual Telescope webcast on 3/3/2013.
A newly found asteroid will pass just inside the orbit of the Moon, with its closest approach on March 4, 2013 at 07:35 UTC. Named 2013 EC, the asteroid is about the size of the space rock that exploded over Russia two and a half weeks ago, somewhere between 10-17 meters wide (the Russian meteorite is estimated to be about 15 meters wide when it entered Earth's atmosphere). 2014 EC was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Observatory in Arizona on March 2. . There is no chance this asteroid will hit Earth.

2013 EC will come within 396,000 kilometers from Earth, (246,000 miles, or around 1.0 lunar distances, 0.0026 AU.

The Moon's distance from the Earth varies between 363,104 km (225,622 miles) at perigee (closest) and 406,696 km (252,088 miles) at apogee (most distant point).

Nebula

Birth of a giant planet? Candidate protoplanet spotted inside its stellar womb

Planet birth
© ESO/L. CalçadaArtist's impression of a gas giant planet forming in the disc around the young star HD 100546. This system is also suspected to contain another large planet orbiting closer to the star. The newly-discovered object lies about 70 times further from its star than the Earth does from the Sun. This protoplanet is surrounded by a thick cloud of material so that, seen from this position, its star almost invisible and red in colour because of the scattering of light from the dust.

Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have obtained what is likely the first direct observation of a forming planet still embedded in a thick disc of gas and dust. If confirmed, this discovery will greatly improve our understanding of how planets form and allow astronomers to test the current theories against an observable target.

An international team led by Sascha Quanz (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) has studied the disc of gas and dust that surrounds the young star HD 100546, a relatively nearby neighbour located 335 light-years from Earth. They were surprised to find what seems to be a planet in the process of being formed, still embedded in the disc of material around the young star. The candidate planet would be a gas giant similar to Jupiter.

"So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations," says Sascha Quanz. "If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage."

HD 100546 is a well-studied object, and it has already been suggested that a giant planet orbits about six times further from the star than Earth is from the Sun. The newly found planet candidate is located in the outer regions of the system, about ten times further out [1].

The planet candidate around HD 100546 was detected as a faint blob located in the circumstellar disc revealed thanks to the NACO adaptive optics instrument on ESO's VLT, combined with pioneering data analysis techniques. The observations were made using a special coronagraph in NACO, which operates at near-infrared wavelengths and suppresses the brilliant light coming from the star at the location of the protoplanet candidate [2].

According to current theory, giant planets grow by capturing some of the gas and dust that remains after the formation of a star [3]. The astronomers have spotted several features in the new image of the disc around HD100546 that support this protoplanet hypothesis. Structures in the dusty circumstellar disc, which could be caused by interactions between the planet and the disc, were revealed close to the detected protoplanet. Also, there are indications that the surroundings of the protoplanet are potentially heated up by the formation process.

2 + 2 = 4

Brain-to-brain interface transmits information from one rat to another

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© Katie Zhuang/ Miguel Nicolelis/ Duke University
Electronically linked brains could facilitate rehabilitation and revolutionise computing

In Star Trek, the Borg is a menacing race of cybernetically-enhanced beings who conquer other races and assimilate them. They do not act as individuals, but rather as an interconnected group that makes decisions collectively. Assimilation involves integrating other life forms into the Collective, using brain implants that connect them to the "hive mind," such that their biology and technology can help the Borg to become the perfect race. This is a popular concept that can be found elsewhere in science fiction, but scientists have now moved a step closer to making it a reality.

Earlier this month, Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University Medical Center and his colleagues reported the development of a brain-machine interface that enables rats to detect infrared light via their sense of touch. Now, the same group of researchers has taken this technology in an entirely new direction - they have developed a brain-to-brain interface that can transmit information from one rat directly to another, enabling the animal on the receiving end to perform behavioural tasks without training.

In one experiment, Nicolelis and his colleagues placed rats into a box containing two levers, and trained the animals to press one of them whenever it lit up, or to poke their noses into one of two different-sized holes in order to get a drink. They then trained another group of rats to perform both tasks while their brains were stimulated with electrodes implanted into the motor cortex, which controls movement, or the somatosensory cortex, which processes touch information, mostly from the whiskers. In this way, the second group of animals learned the gist of both tasks and became accustomed to pressing one of the levers and poking their noses into one of the holes, depending on the frequency of the electrical stimulation.

Cell Phone

Research: Brain can't cope with making a left-hand turn and talking on hands-free cell phone

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© Unknown
Making a left-hand turn requires a huge amount of brain activation and involves far more areas of the brain than driving on a straight road or other maneuvers.

Most serious traffic accidents occur when drivers are making a left-hand turn at a busy intersection.

When those drivers are also talking on a hands-free cell phone, "that could be the most dangerous thing they ever do on the road," said Dr. Tom Schweizer, a researcher at St. Michael's Hospital.

Researchers led by Dr. Schweizer tested healthy young drivers operating a novel driving simulator equipped with a steering wheel, brake pedal and accelerator inside a high-powered functional MRI. All previous studies on distracted driving have used just a joy-stick or trackball or else patients passively watching scenarios on a screen.

Immersing a driving simulator with a fully functional steering wheel and pedals in an MRI at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre allowed researchers to map in real time which parts of the brain were activated or deactivated as the simulator took them through increasingly difficult driving maneuvers.

Question

Whoa! Scientists graft eye tissues onto tails of blind tadpoles which gives tadpoles sight

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© Douglas Blackiston Researchers grafted the tails of blind tadpoles of the African frog with eye tissue, which gave the tadpoles sight.
Eyes hooked up to the tail can help blinded tadpoles see, researchers say.

These findings could help guide therapies involving natural or artificial implants, scientists added.

A major roadblock when it comes to treating blindness and other sensory disorders is how much remains unknown about the nervous system and its ability to adapt to change. To learn more about the relationship between the body and the brain, researchers wanted to see how capable the brain was of interpreting sensory data from abnormal "ectopic" locations from which it normally does not receive signals.

Info

Blood's stretchy properties

Blood Plasma
© http://bit.ly/YECC6M | Public domain
Blood has long been the focus of research -- but it still offers some surprises. A new study reveals that plasma, the fluid in which blood cells travel, behaves a bit like a solid on small scales.

Blood is a suspension of cells inside a liquid. As it flows, it delivers vital oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body. By better understanding blood plasma -- a solution mostly made up of water that transports red and white blood cells, platelets, salts, proteins, and fats -- researchers can more accurately model the motion of blood within the human body and use that information to help develop artificial substitutes.

On a small scale, whole blood, like ketchup, acts elastic. Consider that scourge of restaurant diners: ketchup in a glass bottle. You shake and shake the bottle, but like a solid mass, the stubborn substance refuses to budge. Finally, the ketchup goes into fluid mode all at once, flooding the plate in red.

Scientists previously attributed this behavior to the blood cells floating in the plasma, not to the plasma itself. And tests suggested that plasma was indeed a normal fluid, exhibiting no side-to-side elasticity.

However, not all scientists agreed with the assumption that plasma was normal. With the rise of affordable high-speed cameras, they could attempt new tests of plasma's elongational elasticity. And one such experiment, published in Physical Review Letters, has shown that plasma is not as simple as once believed.