Science & TechnologyS


Igloo

Boffins: Arctic cooled to pre-industrial levels from 1950-1990

Late 20th century saw polar chill as CO2 rose

New research by German and Russian scientists indicates that summer temperatures in the Arctic actually fell for much of the later 20th century, plunging to the levels seen at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

The new results are said by their authors to indicate that solar activity exerted a powerful influence over Arctic climate until the 1990s, an assertion which will cause some irritation among academics who contend that atmospheric carbon is the main factor in climate change.

The latest analysis was done using the rings of Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) from the Khibiny Mountains on the Kola Peninsula, situated between the Arctic Circle and the port of Murmansk. The tree rings were probed by specialist ring boffins at Institut für Botanik at the Universität Hohenheim in Stuttgart, cooperating with colleagues in Russia and at the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ).

Sun

Department Of Outlandish Ideas: Build Solar Roadways

solarroad
© TechCrunch
If you want to change the world, you have to think big. Say what you want about the feasibility of Scott Brusaw's idea to replace asphalt roads with miles of solar ribbons that cars and trucks can drive on, it is a very ambitious idea. Brusaw is the co-founder and CEO of Solar Roadways, a bootstrapped startup in Idaho. He is an engineer, and is building prototypes of solar panels that could be used as roads.

Brusaw wants to create solar panels strong enough to support the weight of cars and trucks driving at 80 miles per hour. There is so much road surface in America, that the collected energy could replace other forms of fossil fuel energy, even with really inefficient solar panels. Even better, since roads go to each home and business, the roads themselves would not only collect the energy, but distribute it. The energy wouldn't power cars themselves, except maybe electric vehicles juicing up at roadside charging stations. LEDs could be built into the roadways and used as signs. The concept is explained in the video below, which is part of a larger film project called YERT (Your Environmental Roadtrip).

Info

Hot Times Ahead?

Image
© Space ribbon data from IBEX
The Sun and the rest of the solar system are heading toward a cloud of interstellar matter that has a mind-boggling temperature of 1 million degrees Kelvin; the encounter may take place some 100 years from now, but this does not mean that life on Earth will be destroyed, according to scientists from the Polish Academy of Sciences' Space Research Center in Warsaw.

The scientists published their theory in a peer-reviewed scientific journal entitled Astrophysical Journal Letters. Some experts say the theory may help explain the nature of the so-called Space Ribbon, a ring-shaped formation that cuts across the sky and was discovered by the American Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) probe last year.

The probe has provided data pointing to the existence of a baffling formation in the sky, a gigantic strip shaped like an open ring, experts say. The United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) called the Space Ribbon one of the most important discoveries in space research in 2009. While all previous hypotheses involved phenomena on the boundaries of our solar system, the latest hypothesis provides a different explanation, says the Space Research Center's Prof. Stanisław Grzędzielski.

Info

With a Glimmer of a Chance, Stardust Is Identified

Three specks of matter captured by the NASA spacecraft Stardust may be stardust that has just entered our solar system.

Stardust_1
© JPL/NASASPECKS - As a spacecraft completed its ride through the solar system, it swung past Earth and detached a capsule, above, containing the collected particles.
"They have all the hallmarks of interstellar dust," said Andrew Westphal of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Westphal reported the first speck in March, and he described the second and third on Friday at a meeting of the Meteoritical Society in Manhattan. Each speck is about one-25,000th of an inch across.

The third is particularly intriguing. It is rich in carbon, raising the possibility that it is full of the molecules that could serve as the building blocks for life.

The Stardust's primary mission was to bring back bits of a comet that it passed in 2004, but scientists also hoped that it would also trap some interstellar particles within a wispy concoction known as aerogel that served as a cosmic dust collector.

Sun

Solar cycle may drive Venice's floods

Image
© Jodi Cobb/NGS/GettySpots on the sun? You're risking a wet one
If you want to see Venice while keeping your feet dry, don't go when the sun has lots of spots. Peaks in solar activity cause the city to flood more often, apparently by changing the paths of storms over Europe.

Several times a year, but most commonly between October and December, Venice is hit by an exceptional tide called the acqua alta. David Barriopedro at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and colleagues were intrigued by studies showing the tides followed an 11-year cycle, just like the sun, showing peaks when the sunspots were most abundant. They looked at hourly observations of sea level between 1948 and 2008, which confirmed that the number of extreme tides followed peaks in the solar cycle (Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, DOI: link).

Records of air pressure over Europe over the same period revealed "acqua alta years" saw a lot of low-pressure systems over the north Adriatic Sea, while in quiet years these systems were further south.

Sun

Nasa says large CME on Sun headed for Earth: Expected Arrival August 3rd

Image
On Sunday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a complex magnetic eruption on the sun. The NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) also spotted a large coronal mass ejection (CME) The eruption happened around (3:50 am EST), the SDO detected a C3 class solar flare originating from a group of sunspots (called sunspot 1092). The flare itself was not that large, but the filament located about 70,000 miles away erupted at the same time.

A filament is a large, bright feature extending outward from the Sun's surface, often in a loop shape. Filament is anchored to the Sun's surface in the photosphere, and extends outward into the Sun's corona. It is a long magnetic structure rising above the surface of the sun, filled with cool plasma. The flare and filament erupted at the same time, this suggests they are connected by long-range magnetic field lines. Some believe the flare may have accelerated the eruption of the filament. Eventually, a giant magnetic bubble of plasma broke and blasted out into space.

Sun

Complex Eruption on the Sun Sends Coronal Mass Ejection toward Earth

This morning around 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was sunspot 1092. At about the same time, an enormous magnetic filament stretching across the sun's northern hemisphere erupted. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action:
Image
© SOHO

The timing of these events suggest they are connected, and a review of SDO movies strengthens that conclusion. Despite the ~400,000 km distance between them, the sunspot and filament seem to erupt together; they are probably connected by long-range magnetic fields. In this movie (171 Å), a shadowy shock wave (a "solar tsunami") can be seen emerging from the flare site and rippling across the northern hemisphere into the filament's eruption zone. That may have helped propel the filament into space.

In short, we have just witnessed a complex global eruption involving almost the entire Earth-facing side of the sun.

Info

Check Out the First Step to a Star Trek-Style Universal Translator

Translator
© io9Star Trek translator.
War-zones such as Afghanistan never have enough interpreters, often forcing soldiers to rely on nonverbal communication that's easily misunderstood. Three new devices solve that by automatically translating one language to another - and you can see it in action!

The National Institute of Standards and Technology have been testing translation devices for the last four years. Three systems created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have made the leap from relatively clunky microphones and laptops to something that can work on a regular smart phone, giving the translation devices unprecedented portability. The overall DARPA project, dubbed TRANSTAC, aims to reduce the reliance on human translators, who are often in short supply and aren't always trustworthy.

Info

Mitochondria DNA in Different Parts of Our Body Vary

Mitochondria are tiny capsule-shaped structures that produce energy for the cell. Each cell has dozens to hundreds of mitochondria, and each mitochondrion contains several copies of circular strands of DNA. This DNA is distinct from the main genome in the cell's nucleus, which is inherited from both the mother and father. Mitochondria, in contrast, are passed directly from a mother's egg cell to her offspring. Until recently, most scientists believed that nearly all of a person's cells contain identical copies of mtDNA inherited from the mother. A new approach for analyzing DNA shows that each person's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is surprisingly variable in different body tissues. The finding may eventually prove useful for spotting and monitoring cancer, as it leads to telltale mtDNA variations that can be detected in the bloodstream.

A research team led by Drs. Nickolas Papadopoulos and Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University used new, highly sensitive DNA sequencing technologies to take a closer look at mtDNA variability in different tissues within several individuals. The research was supported by NIH's National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The researchers described a series of mtDNA analyses, including a detailed evaluation of 10 different tissues taken from a single person. Although most analyzed mtDNA was identical, the researchers detected at least 1 variant form of mtDNA in each tissue, and 4 tissues harbored at least 4 variants. The proportion of variant mtDNA in tissues differed widely. In some cases, certain tissues - like kidney and liver - shared a variant that wasn't found in other tissues.The technique can detect relatively rare single-letter variants in stretches of DNA - even those found in as few as 1 in 10,000 mitochondrial genomes.

Info

Orion Nebula Gives Clues To Origin Of Life On Earth

Orion Nebula
© Space DailyWhat is intriguing is that amino acids in several meteorites show enantiomeric excesses of the same handedness as that seen in biological amino acids. Therefore, the process that produced the handedness of amino acids in the meteorites may provide clues to how homochirality developed in life forms on Earth. The larger question becomes how enantiomeric excesses can be produced and under what conditions.
How did life on Earth begin? One hypothesis is that terrestrial life began when organics were delivered from outer space during the early, heavy bombardment phase of Earth's development. We know that several meteorites (e.g., Murchison) have amino acids with properties similar to those seen in biological amino acids, the building blocks of life.

An international team of astronomers led by Fukue and Tamura of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan conducted research on the properties of light in a massive star-forming region (BN/KL nebula) of the Orion Nebula and have investigated a process that may have played a role in the development of life on Earth.

The origin of what is technically called "biomolecular homochirality" is a longstanding mystery and an important one to solve, since it characterizes most life forms on Earth.