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Radioactive Decay Fuels Earth's Inner Fires

Charles Q. Choi
OurAmazingPlanet
Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:48 UTC
Earth's Core
© Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryA main source of the 44 trillion watts of heat that flows from the interior of the Earth is the decay of radioactive isotopes in the mantle and crust. Scientists using the KamLAND neutrino detector in Japan have measured how much heat is generated this way by capturing geoneutrinos released during radioactive decay.

Half of the extraordinary heat of the Earth that erupts on its surface volcanically and drives the titanic motions of the continents is due to radioactivity, scientists find.

This new discovery shows that the planet still retains an extraordinary amount of heat it had from its primordial days.

To better understand the sources of the Earth's heat, scientists studied antineutrinos, elementary particles that, like their neutrino counterparts, only rarely interact with normal matter. Using the Kamioka Liquid-scintillator Antineutrino Detector (KamLAND) located under a mountain in Japan, they analyzed geoneutrinos - ones emitted by decaying radioactive materials within the Earth - over the course of more than seven years.

The specific amount of energy an antineutrino packs on the rare occasions one does collide with normal matter can tell scientists about what material emitted it in the first place - for instance, radioactive material from within the Earth, as opposed to in nuclear reactors. If one also knows how rarely such an antineutrino interacts with normal matter, one can then estimate how many antineutrinos are being emitted and how much energy they are carrying in total.
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Frog

Scientists rediscover rainbow toad


Press TV
Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:20 UTC
rainbow toad
The rainbow toad was last spotted in 1924
A team of scientists from the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) have rediscovered a colorful, spindly-legged toad, which they believed to have gone extinct.

Three of the missing long-legged rainbow toads were found up a tree after the team scoured the remote mountain forests of the Gunung Penrissen range of Western Sarawak, a boundary between Malaysia's Sarawak State and Indonesia's Kalimantan Barat Province for months.

"Thrilling discoveries like this beautiful toad, and the critical importance of amphibians to healthy ecosystems, are what fuel us to keep searching for lost species," the state-funded BBC quoted leader of the team Dr. Indraneil Das as saying.
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Book

Coimbra, Portugal: Bats care for books in libraries


Twit Longer
Thu, 14 Jul 2011 05:36 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Hundreds of bats watch over two of the oldest Portuguese libraries daily, in the University of Coimbra and the palace of Mafra. It's their ability to catch bugs that makes sure the books are kept safe.

Bats are the only mammal capable of flying and only do it during the night, making high-pitched sounds inaudible to the human ear, making it hard to study the 26 species known to exist in Portugal.

One night in 2008, Professor Jorge Palmeirim from the Science Faculty in the University of Lisbon, gathered his sound-equipment and went to King John's Library in Coimbra to try and understand which bats have been using the shelters in that place for over 200 years.

"I couldn't see them, just hear them, but according to the droppings I found, I can say that there live at least 2 different species of bats", says the professor.
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Info

Scientists Aglow After Big Discovery During Tsunami

Jim Borg
Star Advertiser
Fri, 15 Jul 2011 07:30 UTC
Image
© Star-Advertiser
Researchers using a camera on Maui have photographed the glow from atmospheric pressure disturbances generated by the March 11 tsunami, raising hopes that the technique could be used to predict the arrival of future waves.

The first observation of its kind was made from the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Station atop Haleakala by scientists in France, Brazil and the United States.

The March 11 earthquake in Japan generated a seismic sea wave that devastated parts of northern Honshu and caused millions of dollars of damage in Hawaii.

On the open ocean, such waves move at 500 mph but are only an inch high. Nevertheless, they put pressure on the atmosphere, scientists say.

"The atmosphere gets less and less dense as you get higher, and that allows the amplitude of the wave to grow," Jonathan Makela, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said by phone Thursday.
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Info

Engineering a New Face After Injury

Emerson Mello Silva
Live Science
Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:53 UTC
Facial Reconstruction
© Hanlon, Beckman ITG, University of IllinoisThis image portrays the evolution of a patient's recovery from facial injury through the use of topological optimization.

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Today, surgeons face many limitations when it comes to helping a patient who suffers from a severe craniofacial injury, or an injury pertaining to the skull and the face. Most often a result of cancer or war-related circumstances, the injury is both psychologically and physically damaging.

Will the patient ever recover their appearance? Or more importantly, recover their ability to speak, breathe or eat correctly again?

Rebuilding the delicate facial bone structure of an individual is a complicated procedure. The surgeon constructs a facial frame with bone from other parts of the body (called autologous tissue), in order to guarantee the functionality of the specialized organs responsible for vital roles such as breathing, seeing, communicating and eating. Since there are no analogous bone structures to a person's face, the procedure depends on experience and skill. As Glaucio Paulino, program director of Mechanics of Materials at the National Science Foundation, noted, this procedure does not always generate the desired outcome.

"The middle of the face is the most complicated part of the human skeleton," said Paulino. "What makes the reconstruction more complicated is the fact that the bones are small, delicate, highly specialized and located in a region highly susceptible to contamination by bacteria."

Facial bones are unique and using bone tissue extracted from different parts of the body, such as the bones of the forearm, isn't the most effective form of recovery.

"The patient may be improved, but still suffer from significant deformity," said Paulino.
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Magic Wand

Fowl Language: Do Some Birds have Comprehensive Communication?

Micah
The Gralien Report
Wed, 06 Jul 2011 05:12 UTC
Image
© John Haslam
Have you ever thought that relatively advanced communication among animal species could be possible, or is the idea really just for the birds? Either way, you'd be right, as illustrated in the following guest-contribution from TGR correspondent Matthew Oakley, who is already familiar to many readers here for his work each week as engineer of The Gralien Report Podcast.

In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock bestowed upon the world his unsettling psychological thriller The Birds. Based on a short story by acclaimed author Daphne du Maurier, the film portrays the decimation of a small island's populace by birds. The film is a classic, and a must see for any film lover, as well as anyone with a true sense of imagination regarding the realm of possibilities existing beyond our known world. The idea that something so seemingly harmless - like, for instance, a flock of birds soaring through the sky - could at any point turn on us for the worse in such a way is terrifying, to say the least. And still, though based in science fiction as this story is, there may actually be real world evidence too that would entertain the idea that events like these could in fact occur.
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Satellite

Destination Asteroid: NASA Probe Arrives at Ancient "Mini Moon"

Brian Vastag
The Washington Post
Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/NASAAn artist's concept showing Dawn spacecraft with Ceres and Vesta.
After spiraling outward from Earth for four years, NASA's Dawn probe is set to slide into orbit around the potato-shaped asteroid Vesta early Saturday for a year-long look at an ancient "mini moon."

Three hundred fifty miles wide and heavily cratered, Vesta formed some 4.5 billion years ago, when the sun was still young. By probing its secrets, scientists hope to catch a glimpse of how the planets, including Earth, formed out of a swirling disk of gas and dust.

"We are exploring backward in time as far as we can," said lead mission investigator Christopher Russell of the University of California at Los Angeles. "There's going to be a whole bunch of surprises."

Unlike most smaller asteroids - thought to be nearly uniform lumps of rock - Vesta is a "mini moon," Russell said, made up of three layers: an iron core, a rocky mantle and an upper crust. Early in Vesta's existence, Russell said, lava welled up from its interior and cooled to form a crust of volcanic rock.

"Vesta is unique among the large asteroids," said Richard Binzel, professor of planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's the only one covered with a volcanic surface."
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Satellite

Two New Brown Dwarf Solar Neighbors Discovered


PhysOrg
Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© AIP, NASA/IPAC Infrared Science ArchiveFalse-colour images of the two brown dwarf discoveries WISE J0254+0223 and WISE J1741+2553.
Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) have discovered two new brown dwarfs at estimated distances of only 15 and 18 light years from the Sun. For comparison: The next star to the Sun, Proxima, is located slightly more than 4 light years from the Sun, whereas the nearest known brown dwarfs, epsilon Indi Ba and Bb, also found at the AIP several years ago, are about 12 light years away.

Ralf-Dieter Scholz and his AIP colleagues used the recently published data of the NASA satellite WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) for their discovery. The two new Solar neighbors, named WISE J0254+0223 and WISE J1741+2553, attracted attention by the extreme contrast between their strong brightness in the infrared and their almost invisible appearance in optical light. In addition, both objects move at comparably large speed across the sky (proper motion), i.e. their positions are remarkably different with respect to earlier observations. This was a first hint of their vicinity that was confirmed by the comparison of their colours and magnitudes with those of other similar objects. The brighter of the two objects was visible on the night sky at the time of its discovery so that the AIP team could use the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona/USA for determining the spectral type and distance more accurately. Both objects belong to the coolest representatives of T-type brown dwarfs, just at the boundary to the predicted but not yet well-defined class of Y-type ultracool brown dwarfs.

Brown dwarfs are also called failed stars, since during their formation, they could not accumulate enough mass to ignite the natural nuclear fusion reactor in their core, that is the long-living energy source of stars. Therefore, their brightness decreases strongly with time. Presumably, most brown dwarfs have reached surface temperatures below the "oven temperature" of about 500 Kelvin (about 230 degrees Celsius), may be even as cool as the temperature at the surface of the Earth.
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Magnify

New Gene for Intellectual Disability Discovered


ScienceDaily
Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:00 UTC
A gene linked to intellectual disability was found in a study involving the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) -- a discovery that was greatly accelerated by international collaboration and new genetic sequencing technology, which is now being used at CAMH.

CAMH Senior Scientist Dr. John Vincent and colleagues identified defects on the gene, MAN1B1, among five families in which 12 children had intellectual disability. The results will be published in the July issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Intellectual disability is a broad term describing individuals with limitations in mental abilities and in functioning in daily life. It affects one to three per cent of the population, and is often caused by genetic defects.

The individuals affected had similar physical features, and all had delays in walking and speaking. Some learned to care for themselves, while others needed help bathing and dressing. In addition, some had epilepsy or problems with overeating.

All were found to have two copies of a defective MAN1B1 gene, one inherited from each parent. These were different types of mutations on the same gene -- yet the outcome, intellectual disability, was the same in different families -- confirming that this gene was the cause of the disorder.
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Evil Rays

The South Atlantic Anomaly: Understanding the SAA Phenomenon

Mohit
Marine Insight
Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:22 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The South Atlantic Anomaly, more commonly known as SAA is an occurrence that takes place due to something known as the Van Allen Radiation Belts. These Van Allen radiation belts are responsible for trapping radioactive particles near the coast of Brazil, which creates the SAA phenomenon.

However, one good thing about the South Atlantic Anomaly caused due to the naturally occurring Van Allen radiation belts is that, they do not cause any harm to humans and their bodies. The main effects of the SAA phenomenon are exhibited only in air crafts and air vessels which take that route while flying.

Comment: Despite the article's claim that Van Allen radiation belts do not cause any harm to humans and their bodies (and there is no way of knowing it for sure), there is a high chance that these belts carry serious implications for the Earth's climate.

From Chemtrails? Contrails? Strange Skies by Laura Knight-Jadczyk:
Comment: Regarding these layers of electromagnetism surrounding the Earth, in 1958 some things were done that may very well have a strong bearing on the conditions of our planet in the present day. I would like for you to think about this in respect of climate change, so-called "chem-trails" and HAARP.
"Between August and September of 1958, the US Navy exploded three fission type nuclear bombs 480 km above the South Atlantic Ocean, in the part of the lower Van Allen Belt closest to the earth's surface. In addition, two hydrogen bombs were detonated 160 km over Johnston Island in the Pacific. The military called this "the biggest scientific experiment ever undertaken." It was designed by the US Department of Defense and the US Atomic Energy Commission, under the code name Project Argus. The purpose appears to be to assess the impact of high altitude nuclear explosions on radio transmission and radar operations because of the electromagnetic pulse (EMP), and to increase understanding of the geomagnetic field and the behavior of the charged particles in it. This gigantic experiment created new (inner) magnetic radiation belts encompassing almost the whole earth, and injected sufficient electrons and other energetic particles into the ionosphere to cause world wide effects. The electrons traveled back and forth along magnetic force lines, causing an artificial "aurora" when striking the atmosphere near the North Pole. This was reported only much later, on August 13-20th of 1961 in Keesings Historisch Archief (K.H.A.). The report said that the US Military planned to create a "telecommunications shield in the ionosphere at 3,000 km height, by bringing into orbit 350,000 million copper needles, each 2-4 cm long [total weight 16 kg], forming a belt 10 km thick and 40 km wide, the needles spaced about 100 m apart." This was designed to replace the ionosphere "because telecommunications are impaired by magnetic storms and solar flares." The US planned to add to the number of copper needles if the experiment proved to be successful. This plan was strongly opposed by the International Union of Astronomers."
Then:
On July 9th, 1962, the US began a further series of experiments with the ionosphere. From their description: "one kiloton device, at a height of 60 km and one megaton and one multi-megaton, at several hundred kilometers height". (K.H.A., 29 June 1962).

These tests seriously disturbed the lower Van Allen Belt, substantially altering its shape and intensity. "In this experiment the inner Van Allen Belt will be practically destroyed for a period of time; particles from the Belt will be transported to the atmosphere. It is anticipated that the earth's magnetic field will be disturbed over long distances for several hours, preventing radio communication. The explosion in the inner radiation belt will create an artificial dome of polar light that will be visible from Los Angeles". (K.H.A. 11 May 1962).

This was the experiment which called forth the strong protest of the Queen's Astronomer, Sir Martin Ryle in the UK. On the 19th of July... NASA announced that as a consequence of the high altitude nuclear test of July 9th, a new radiation belt had been formed, stretching from a height of about 400 km to 1600 km; it can be seen as a temporary extension of the lower Van Allen Belt" (K.H.A. 5 August 1962).

"... Starfish made a much wider belt [than Project Argus] that extends from low altitude out past L=3 [i.e. three earth radiuses or about 13,000 km above the surface of the earth]."Later in 1962, the USSR undertook similar planetary experiments, creating three new radiation belts between 7,000 and 13,000 km above the earth. According to the Encyclopedia, the electron fluxes in the lower Van Allen Belt have changed markedly since the 1962 high-altitude nuclear explosions by the US and USSR, never returning to their former state. According to American scientists, it could take many hundreds of years for the Van Allen Belts to destabilize at their normal levels."
Keep in mind now that, while they are out there blowing up our atmosphere, they want to blame Global Warming on the masses of regular people!


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