Science & TechnologyS


Info

Fairy circle mystery solved by computational modelling


MIT Technology Review
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:18 UTC
Fairy Circles
© MIT Technology Review
Fairy circles are mysterious barren patches of land that are surrounded by healthy vegetation. The circles are common in many parts of the world but particularly in the arid grasslands of southern Africa where they range in size from 2 metres to 10 metres across (see picture left).

Plant biologists know these circles are stable having watched them over periods of decades. So these structures are clearly no accident. Indeed, exactly why fairy circles appear is something of a mystery. In particular, nobody has been able to explain why the patches are circular and not some other shape.

That changes today thanks to the work of Cristian Fernandez-Oto at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and a few pals who have used computer simulations to show that fairy circles are emergent patterns that occur naturally when plants compete for water in arid conditions.

Their model is relatively straight forward. It is based on the fact that a single plant can generate a root system below ground that is many times larger than the structure above the surface. The size of these roots determines how close together the plants can grow.

Next they assume that the land can exist in two stable states: either it is uniformly covered in vegetation or uniformly devoid of vegetation.
Read More...
Black Cat 2

Cats don't actually ignore us

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 06:40 UTC
Cat
© Corbis Cats may be hard to read, but research shows they do pay attention to their owners.
Cats may try to hide their true feelings, but a recent study found that cats do actually pay attention to their owners, distinguishing them from all other people.

The study, which will be published in the July issue of Animal Cognition, is one of the few to examine the cat/human social dynamic from the feline's perspective. Cats may not do what we tell them to, but they usually adore their human caretakers.

Co-author Atsuko Saito of The University of Tokyo explained to Discovery News that dogs have evolved, and are bred, "to follow their owner's orders, but cats have not been. So sometimes cats appear aloof, but they have special relationships with their owners."

"Previous studies suggest that cats have evolved to behave like kittens (around their owners), and humans treat cats similar to the way that they treat babies," co-author Kazutaka Shinozuka of the University of South Florida College of Medicine added. "To form such baby-parent like relationships, recognition of owners might be important for cats."

Their study, mostly conducted in the homes of cats so as not to unduly upset or worry the felines, determined just that.

The researchers played recordings of strangers, as well as of the cats' owners, to the felines. The cats could not see the speakers.
Read More...
USA

Full remote control of ALL modern U.S. market cars PROVEN

Jim Stone
The Rebel
Wed, 26 Jun 2013 12:47 UTC
Image
Hastings' 2013 Mercedes could have instead been hijacked via remote control, run to full throttle with all driver input disabled, and rammed into a tree.
A team of hackers from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Washington conducted a study which has proven that all cars equipped with antilock brakes sold in the U.S. can be hacked via remote control and have their brakes entirely disabled with the car in motion, throttle revved, and remain fully operational with the key removed and the car in park with all driver input entirely ignored.

Though I myself think Hastings was murdered beforehand, parked and burned because the initial fire pictures showed a car with no front impact damage and a blown up rear end, only to be interspersed with scenes of extreme automotive carnage later, I am going to introduce here an entirely new possibility that could have happened. That Hastings' 2013 Mercedes could have instead been hijacked via remote control, run to full throttle with all driver input disabled, and rammed into a tree.

Many people know about GM's Onstar which maintains an always on cellular internet connection to the heart of the engine control system and has been that way since the 90's. But few people know about the Federal mandate, which in 2005 forced manufacturers to include a similar always on internet connection via the cell network in EVERY car sold in America, Onstar or not. And this team of hackers has proven that a remote connection can indeed allow commandeering of these cars (in their case they used a remote controlled laptop plugged into the OBD port rather than the cell connection) that could be used to turn the car into a murder weapon.
Read More...
Camcorder

Robot bird flies like a real one and could soon be conducting video surveillance for the army

David Mccormack
The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 21 Jun 2013 06:53 UTC
The 'Robo Raven' is a lightweight advanced robot that can fly like a bird

It has been developed by searchers at the University of Maryland and received funding from the U.S. Army

Has the potential to be used as a drone for reconnaissance and surveillance

Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a breakthrough in engineering technology that allows a robot to successfully achieve the complex aerobatic maneuvers of a bird.

The artificial bird is destined to have a military or surveillance purpose, the UMD Robotics Center, which sits within the University of Maryland, has received funding from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

The robot bird has the potential to become a more advanced type of drone, it includes a tiny video camera and could be used for reconnaissance and surveillance.

Image
The robot bird includes a tiny video camera and could be used for reconnaissance and surveillance by the army
'Robo Raven' is much quieter than the helicopter or propeller, so it could get much closer to an adversary without revealing its presence.

It is made out of carbon fiber, 3D-printed lightweight thermal-resistant plastic, Mylar foil and foam and weighs less than a can of soda.

The bird uses one motor to flap both wings together in simple motions.

Robot birds have been a labor of love for University of Maryland Professor S. K. Gupta for nearly a decade.


Along with fellow mechanical engineering professor Hugh Bruck and their graduate students, Gupta first successfully demonstrated a flapping-wing bird in 2007.

By 2010, the design had evolved through four successive models to the latest, which carries a tiny video camera.

'Nobody has flown anything with independent wing control,' before, Gupta told The Baltimore Sun.

It can also be launched from a ground robot that ARL researchers have created called the Lynchbot, which can fly in winds up to 10 mph.

From a distance, the 'Robo Raven' looks like a bird and it has even fooled a hawk, which has attacked the robot in mid-flight on more than one occasion.

Image
The 'Robo Raven' looks like a bird and has even fooled a hawk, which has attacked the robot in mid-flight on more than one occasion
Read More...
Fish

Parallel universe of life exists deep beneath the ocean floor off the Pacific Northwest coast

Brandon Keim
Wired.com
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 03:14 UTC
Image
© Spencer et al./ScienceA sample of oceanic crust basalt (left) and a microscopic cross-section (right) denoting changes of concentration in sulfur, an element used by microbes there.
Deep beneath the ocean floor off the Pacific Northwest coast, scientists have described the existence of a potentially vast realm of life, one almost completely disconnected from the world above.

Persisting in microscopic cracks in the basalt rocks of Earth's oceanic crust is a complex microbial ecosystem fueled entirely by chemical reactions with rocks and seawater, rather than sunlight or the organic byproducts of light-harvesting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Such modes of life, technically known as chemosynthetic, are not unprecedented, having also been found deep in mine shafts and around seafloor hydrothermal vents. Never before, though, have they been found on so vast a scale. In pure geographical area, these oceanic crust systems may contain the largest ecosystem on Earth.

"We know that Earth's oceanic crust accounts for 60 percent of Earth's surface, and on average is four miles thick," said geomicrobiologist Mark Lever of Denmark's Aarhuis University, part of a research team that describes the new systems March 14 in Science.

If what the researchers found resembles what's found elsewhere below Earth's oceans, continued Lever, "the largest ecosystem on Earth, by volume, is supported by chemosynthesis."
Read More...
Fireball

Wishful thinking: Russian scientist wants 'Satan' missile shield to shoot down meteorites in wake of Urals strike

Kerry Mcdermott
The Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:23 UTC
Claims Soviet-era missiles could destroy meteorites hurtling towards earth

A meteor burst over Russia's Ural Mountains earlier this year

Sonic boom left 1,200 injured and thousands of buildings damaged

Researcher claims missile could destroy similar rock before it hit earth

It sounds like a plot lifted from a sci-fi disaster movie.

A Russian scientist has said a Soviet-era ballistic missile system dubbed 'Satan' should be put back into use defending the earth from asteroids.

Senior rocket researcher Sabit Saitgarayev - who spoke out after a meteor burst over Russia's Ural Mountains earlier this year damaging thousands of buildings - said the old 1960s missiles were ideally suited to destroying any potential threats streaking towards the planet from space.

Image
Back in use? The scientist suggested the old Soviet-era SS9 ICBM missiles should be put back to work protecting the earth from meteorites
Mr Saitgarayev, from the State Rocket Design Center, highlighted the havoc caused when the meteor burst over the Urals on February 15, leaving around 1,200 people injured.

It created a sonic boom that shattered windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the city of Chelyabinsk.

Image
Threat: The researcher said the missiles - named Satan by NATO - were well suited to 'fighting suddenly discovered small [space] objects'
Read More...
Nebula

Bacteria sent into space behave in mysterious ways

Ruth Dasso Marlaire
Physorg
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 08:44 UTC
Image
© NASASamples of bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa were cultured for three days in space, and formed a column-and-canopy structure not previously observed on Earth.
Colonies of bacteria grown aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis behaved in ways never before observed on Earth, according to a new NASA-funded study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. Recent findings provide important evidence of spaceflight's effect on the behavior of bacterial communities, and represent a key step toward understanding and mitigating the risk these bacteria may pose to astronauts during long-term space missions.

The research team, led by Rensselaer faculty member Cynthia Collins, sent the experiment into orbit aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis missions STS-132 on May 16, 2010 and STS-135 on July 8, 2011. Samples of the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa were cultured for three days in artificial urine. The space-grown communities of bacteria, called biofilms, formed a "column-and-canopy" structure not previously observed on Earth. Additionally, biofilms grown during spaceflight had a greater number of live cells, more biomass, and were thicker than control biofilms grown under normal gravity conditions.

Biofilms are complex, three-dimensional microbial communities commonly found in nature. Most biofilms, including those found in the human body, are harmless. Some biofilms, however, have shown to be associated with disease.
Read More...
Fireball 2

Ten thousandth near-earth object unearthed in space

DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Lab
Mon, 24 Jun 2013 22:46 UTC
Asteroid 2013 MZ5
© PS-1/UHAsteroid 2013 MZ5 as seen by the University of Hawaii's PanSTARR-1 telescope. In this gif, the asteroid moves relative to a fixed background of stars. Asteroid 2013 MZ5 is in the right of the first image, towards the top, moving diagonally left/down.
Larger Animated Version
More than 10,000 asteroids and comets that can pass near Earth have now been discovered. The 10,000th near-Earth object, asteroid 2013 MZ5, was first detected on the night of June 18, 2013, by the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope, located on the 10,000-foot (convert) summit of the Haleakala crater on Maui. Managed by the University of Hawaii, the PanSTARRS survey receives NASA funding.

Ninety-eight percent of all near-Earth objects discovered were first detected by NASA-supported surveys.

"Finding 10,000 near-Earth objects is a significant milestone," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington.

"But there are at least 10 times that many more to be found before we can be assured we will have found any and all that could impact and do significant harm to the citizens of Earth." During Johnson's decade-long tenure, 76 percent of the NEO discoveries have been made.

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that can approach the Earth's orbital distance to within about 28 million miles (45 million kilometers). They range in size from as small as a few feet to as large as 25 miles (41 kilometers) for the largest near-Earth asteroid, 1036 Ganymed.

Asteroid 2013 MZ5 is approximately 1,000 feet (300 meters) across. Its orbit is well understood and will not approach close enough to Earth to be considered potentially hazardous.
Read More...
Boat

Snail genes reveal human migration to Ireland

Melissa Hogenboom
bbc.co.uk
Thu, 20 Jun 2013 14:59 UTC
Image
A common garden snail gives insight into human migration to Ireland
A genetic similarity between snail fossils found in Ireland and the Eastern Pyrenees suggests humans migrated from southern Europe to Ireland 8,000 years ago.

The slimy creatures in Ireland today are almost identical to snails in Southern France and Northern Spain.

Whether an accidental visitor on a ship or brought along as a snack, the boat they were carried on did not appear to stop in Britain.

The findings are published in PLOS One.

As Britain emerged from the end of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, sea levels rose and landslides are thought to have triggered a great tsunami. Britain was transformed into an island, separated from mainland Europe and Ireland.

Land-dwelling animals were therefore no longer able to migrate from Europe over the seas without a little help.

It has long perplexed scientists that Ireland has plants and animals that are genetically different, and in some cases are even unique, to ones found in Britain.

Now scientists have found that a common garden snail, Cepaea nemoralis, is almost genetically identical to one found in the Eastern Pyrenees, but seems to have missed Britain on its journey over.
Read More...
Better Earth

Ice Ages start and end so suddenly, "it's like a button was pressed," say scientists

Annalee Newitz
io9.com
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:20 UTC
Image
Dutch researchers drilling into the glaciers of Greenland have discovered that climate change occurs more rapidly than previously believed - indeed, the most recent ice age ended abruptly in just one year.

The NordGrip drilling project in Greenland has extracted ice cores from the ancient ice sheets there which reveal that the world's most recent ice age ended precisely 11,711 years ago. An ice core is a long cylinder drilled out of the ice, made up of layers of snow and ice that have fallen in the region for millennia. By examining the amount of snowfall buried in those layers, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen have determined the exact year the ice age halted and gave way to our current climate.

Comment: In fact, it can happen in a matter of months:

Last Ice Age took just SIX months to arrive

Read More...