Science & TechnologyS


Saturn

Our solar system might have once had an extra gas planet

Rogue Planet
© NASA/JPLArtist's conception of rogue planet.
This solar system just doesn't work. According to a new computer simulation, the planets could never have come together in their current configuration. The only explanation is that we once had a fifth gas giant...and it's still out there somewhere.

That's a pretty big claim to make, so let's see how David Nesvorny of Colorado's Southwest Research Institute reached that particular conclusion. The key idea here is that our solar system wouldn't have formed in its present configuration - the planets would have tugged on each other as they formed, pulling each other out of their original orbits and into new ones. The solar system doesn't begin fully-formed, even once the various planets are complete. It's still a long evolutionary process.

We can't know exactly how the planets first fit together, so Nesvorny simply tried a bunch of different possible starting positions and ran simulations to find out which could conceivably result in the present solar system. The problem is that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are just so damn big that they can barely move around without violently disrupting each other's orbits.

Comment: In this study researchers aren't considering the obvious: that their assumptions about the formation of the solar system are wrong to start with. Instead of all the planets forming in their current orbits as the solar system 'cooled', it could be that the rocky planets and numerous moons were acquired rather than created as a process of solar system formation. The ideas put forth by James McCanney discuss this possibility of planetary capture. One of the main blind spots that keep astronomers from accepting the possibility of planetary capture is the understanding of electrical forces in space. With 'gravity only' models, the numbers only show a low probability of this happening.

However, it is interesting to note here that some researchers are considering the possibility that there might be more than meets the eye when it comes to the solar system. Could there be another Jovian-size planet or brown-dwarf star out there that we're not seeing?


Cloud Lightning

What is 'Atmospheric Blocking'? MU researchers to study this dangerous, deadly weather phenomenon

Tony Lupo
© University of MissouriTony Lupo, professor and chair of the Department of Soil, Environmental and Atmospheric Science, is partnering with researchers from Russia to study atmospheric blocking, which can result in deadly heat waves.
Researchers awarded $100,000 from Russian Academy of Sciences to study atmospheric blocking

Atmospheric blocking is a relatively unknown weather phenomenon responsible for prolonged bouts of extreme conditions, such as the summer 2011 Midwest heat wave that led to destructive wildfires in Texas. Now, University of Missouri researchers will collaborate with the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in a 3 million Russian ruble (about $104,000) project to understand and predict blocking patterns.

"Atmospheric blocking occurs when a high pressure system gets stuck in one place," said Tony Lupo, professor and chair of the Department of Soil, Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences in the School of Natural Resources. "If hot, dry weather doesn't move, it can lead to extreme heat and drought conditions. If a rainy pattern becomes stuck, it can lead to flooding."

Atmospheric blocking occurs between 20-40 times each year throughout the world and usually lasts between 8-11 days, Lupo said. Although atmospheric blocking is one of the rarest weather events, it can trigger dangerous conditions, such as a 2003 European heat wave that caused 40,000 deaths. Blocking usually results when a powerful, high-pressure area gets stuck in one place. Because they cover a large area, fronts behind them are blocked.

Telescope

NASA'S WISE Mission Captures Black Hole's Wildly Flaring Jet

Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.

Scientists study jets to learn more about the extreme environments around black holes. Much has been learned about the material feeding black holes, called accretion disks, and the jets themselves through studies using X-rays, gamma rays and radio waves. But key measurements of the brightest part of the jets, located at their bases, have been difficult despite decades of work. WISE is offering a new window into this missing link through its infrared observations.
Image
© NASA

"Imagine what it would be like if our sun were to undergo sudden, random bursts, becoming three times brighter in a matter of hours, and then fading back again. That's the kind of fury we observed in this jet," said Poshak Gandhi, a scientist with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). He is lead author of a new study on the results appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "With WISE's infrared vision, we were able to zoom in on the inner regions near the base of the stellar-mass black hole's jet for the first time and the physics of jets in action."

Info

Eating Plants May Change Our Cells

Carnaroli Rice
© Myrabella / Wikimedia CommonsA bag of Carnaroli, an Italian variety of rice.

How much does what we eat influence our bodies? Of course, the amount of fat, sugar or proteins we take in can influence our weight, but new research is suggesting that special compounds in plants could change how our bodies use our genes and proteins.

Called microRNAs, these compounds are the movers and shakers of our cells, as scientists have found they turn up and down levels of human proteins. However, until now scientists thought these chemicals were only made and used inside our bodies, but new research shows that microRNAs from plants can enter the human body.

Chen-Yu Zhang at Nanjing University in Nanjing, China, found low levels of plant microRNAs from rice in human tissues. After testing the effects of these chemicals on mice, Zhang concluded microRNAs from plants could actually impact how the human body functions.

"These microRNAs may, therefore, represent a new class of universal modulators that mediate animal-plant interactions at the molecular level," Zhang told LiveScience in an email. "Plant microRNAs may represent essential functional molecules in food and herbal medicine, and also provide a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of diseases."

Not all researchers agree with the findings, though.

Petr Svoboda, a researcher at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in the Czech Republic, told LiveScience that the concentrations of plant microRNA found in samples of human tissues were much lower than those in the lab experiments, and he doubts such low levels could have any physiological consequences on the human body.

Meteor

New Video Reveals Giant Asteroid Vesta as Seen by Spacecraft

A new video from a NASA spacecraft takes viewers on a flyover journey of Vesta, the second-largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Scientists constructed the two-minute video from images taken by NASA's Dawn probe, which has been orbiting Vesta since July.

In addition to giving armchair astronomers around the world a great look at Vesta, the video should help scientists better understand the forces that shaped the massive space rock, researchers said.


In the video, the 330-mile (530-kilometer) Vesta is not entirely lit up; its northern latitudes are shrouded in darkness. That's because the giant asteroid Vesta has seasons just like Earth, researchers said.

It is currently winter in the Vestan north, and the north pole is in perpetual darkness.

Info

Return of a Killer Volcano

Killer Volcano
© A. Schmidt, PNAS Early Edition (2011)The redder, the deader. An 8-month-long eruption of an Icelandic volcano could send emissions of noxious sulfur dioxide over Europe, significantly boosting cardiopulmonary death rates during the following year in southwestern England, France, the Netherlands, and Germany.

What if one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recent history happened today? A new study suggests that a blast akin to one that devastated Iceland in the 1780s would waft noxious gases southwestward and kill tens of thousands of people in Europe. And in a modern world that is intimately connected by air traffic and international trade, economic activity across much of Europe, including the production and import of food, could plummet.

From June of 1783 until February of 1784, the Laki volcano in south-central Iceland erupted. Although the event didn't produce large amounts of volcanic ash, it did spew an estimated 122 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide gas into the sky - a volume slightly higher than human industrial activity today produces in the course of a year, says Anja Schmidt, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

Historical records suggest that in the 2 years after the Laki eruption, approximately 10,000 Icelanders died - about one-fifth of the population - along with nearly three-quarters of the island's livestock. Parish records in England reveal that in the summer of 1783, when the event began, death rates were between 10% and 20% above normal. The Netherlands, Sweden, and Italy reported episodes of decreased visibility, respiratory difficulties, and increased mortality associated with the eruption. According to one study, an estimated 23,000 people died from exposure to the volcanic aerosols in Britain alone. But elsewhere in Europe, it's difficult to separate deaths triggered by the air pollution from those caused by starvation or disease, which were prominent causes of death at the time.

Info

Death by Roller Coaster

Death Rollercoaster_1
© Discovery News

Want to enjoy the ride of your life along with the last ride of your life? That's what Julijonas Urbonas envisions with his Euthanasia Coaster.

The 3-minute ride involves a long, slow, climb -- nearly a third of a mile long -- that lifts one up to a height of more than 1600 feet, followed by a massive fall and seven strategically sized and placed loops. The final descent and series of loops take all of one minute. But the 10g force from the spinning loops at 223 mph in that single minute is lethal.

According to Urbonas, the "Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetic euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely -- with elegance and euphoria -- take the life of a human being."

While the thought of merging the fun (and perhaps fear) of a rollercoaster with suicide, doesn't occur to most people, but it was a no-brainer for designer Urbonas: "Briefly put, [the inspiration was] my PhD study and my long-term affair with amusement parks," he said via email to Discovery News.

Urbonas, who once worked at an amusement park in his native Lithuania, is a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art's Design Interactions department. He considers this research in "Gravitational Aesthetics."

Info

Genes Linked to Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder

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© zeenews.india.comGenes linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder
Broad sweeps of the human genome have exposed genetic mutations that boost the risk of the devastating yet baffling diseases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to two studies published Sunday.

The independent studies, each conducted by a consortium of about 200 scientists, also found significant genetic overlap between the debilitating mental disorders.

Schizophrenia patients typically hear voices that are not real, tend toward paranoia and suffer from disorganized speech and thinking. The condition is thought to affect about one percent of adults worldwide.

Previously known as manic depression, bipolar disorder is characterised by hard-to-control mood swings that veer back-and-forth between depression and euphoria, and afflicts a similar percentage of the population.

The biological profile of both conditions remain almost entirely unknown. Doctors seek to hold them in check with powerful drugs.

Laptop

Online Gamers Crack AIDS Enzyme Puzzle

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© Agence France-PresseYouths play a computer online game at an IT fair. Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade
Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

The exploit is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where -- exceptionally in scientific publishing -- both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.

Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.

Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.

But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3-D picture that "unfolds" the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs.

This is where Foldit comes in.

Document

Scientific Evidence Appears to be Becoming Steadily More Unreliable

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© overexpressed.com
I am a relative fan of science. I say 'relative' because while it can often afford considerable illumination, it's most certainly not the be-all-and-end all. For example, there are plenty of things that may have merit that have not even been subjected to proper scientific study. For example, there are no studies (in the form of 'randomized controlled trials') that conclusively prove stopping smoking is beneficial to health, but that wouldn't stop me from suggesting that someone stop smoking if they asked for my advice on the matter.

Also, even when something has been subjected to systematic scientific study, the evidence base can actually give a very skewed version of reality. One way this can happen is as a result of what is known as 'publication bias'.

Imagine there's a widely held belief that, say, saturated fat causes heart disease. Studies that support this idea are viewed as 'positive' studies, while those that don't are 'negative'. There can be a tendency for medical and scientific journals to preferentially publish positive studies. In other words, studies that are in line with current thinking are more likely to make their way into the scientific literature than negative ones. In this way, existing dogma can essentially go unchallenged - something that is inherently unscientific.

Comment: To learn more about how 'Scientific Evidence is becoming more unreliable' read the excellent article in The Dot Connector Magazine Issue 14 - 'The Corruption of Science'

The Corruption of Science in America
Truth is the pillar of civilization. The word 'truth' occurs 224 times in the King James Version of the Holy Bible; witnesses testifying in American courts and before the United States Congress must swear to tell the truth; and, laws and civil codes require truth in advertising and in business practices, to list just a few examples.

The purpose of science is to discover the true nature of Earth and Universe and to convey that knowledge truthfully to people everywhere. Science gives birth to technology that makes our lives easier and better. Science improves our health and enables us to see our world in ways never before envisioned. It uplifts spirits and engenders optimism. And, science provides a truth-standard, securely anchored in the properties of matter, a means to expose and debunk the charlatans and science-barbarians who would lie, cheat, steal, and tyrannize under the guise of science.