Science & TechnologyS


Bell

Wind farms produced 'practically no electricity' during Britain's cold snap

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© Alwyn Curry
The cold weather has been accompanied by high pressure and a lack of wind, which meant that only 0.2pc of a possible 5pc of the UK's energy was generated by wind turbines over the last few days.

Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG), gave warning that this could turn into a crisis when the UK is reliant on 6,400 turbines accounting for a quarter of all UK electricity demand over the next 10 years.

He said the shortfall in power generated by wind during cold snaps seriously undermined the Government's pledge on Friday to build nine major new wind "super farms" by 2020.

"If we had this 30 gigawatts of wind power, it wouldn't have contributed anything of any significance this winter," he said. "The current cold snap is a warning that our power generation and gas supplies are under strain and it is getting worse."

Binoculars

Google Earth helps find El Dorado

Since the time of the conquistadors, the legend of an ancient, lost civilisation deep in the Amazon forest has beguiled hundreds of explorers and led many to their deaths. Some called their dream El Dorado. Others, most notably Colonel Percy Fawcett, the gloriously moustached British explorer (and real-life model for Indiana Jones) named it the City of Z. But no one has ever returned from the Amazon with conclusive proof that such a place existed.

Three scientists have now come close to doing just that. The journal Antiquity has published a report showing more than 200 massive earthworks in the upper Amazon basin near Brazil's border with Bolivia. From the sky it looks as if a series of geometric figures has been carved into the earth, but the archeologists and historians who published the report believe these shapes are the remains of roads, bridges, moats, avenues and squares that formed the basis for a sophisticated civilisation spanning 155 miles, which could have supported a population of 60,000. The remains date from AD200 to 1283.
El Dorado
© Times of LondonGeometric shapes dug into the earth were first noticed by a Finnish archeologist flying over the Amazon. The shapes are made up of a series of trenches topped by banks and connected by a network of straight roads. The geometric shapes are thought to be the remains of roads, bridges. moats and squares: the basis for a civilisation spanning 155 miles.

Rocket

NASA to Check for Unlikely Winter Survival of Mars Lander

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© NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is visible within this enhanced-color image of the Phoenix landing site taken on Jan. 6, 2010 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Pasadena, Calif. -- Beginning Jan. 18, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter will listen for possible, though improbable, radio transmissions from the Phoenix Mars Lander, which completed five months of studying an arctic Martian site in November 2008.

The solar-powered lander operated two months longer than its three-month prime mission during summer on northern Mars before the seasonal ebb of sunshine ended its work. Since then, Phoenix's landing site has gone through autumn, winter and part of spring. The lander's hardware was not designed to survive the temperature extremes and ice-coating load of an arctic Martian winter.

Info

Seahenge set to be complete for the first time in 10 years

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© UnknownArchaeologists uncovering Seahenge at Holme Next The Sea.
An iconic ancient monument uncovered by the tides on a Norfolk beach will soon be complete for the first time in a decade.

Scientists have been studying and preserving the Seahenge timber circle since it was excavated at Holme, near Hunstanton, in early 1999.

There were protests after archaeologists decided to remove the upturned oak stump and ring of 55 posts from the sands.

But the 4000-year-old structure shed new light on how our ancestors lived, showing Bronze Age society was more advanced than had previously been believed.

Magnify

On a mission to crack the Norse code

The wind whipped the waves of Scapa Flow into streamers of white froth, and the swell built to a stomach-churning height.

An announcement came over the Tannoy - our ferry would just make it in to Stromness, but its return journey to Scrabster would be cancelled. The other passengers took in this information without a murmur. Orcadians know that they are cut off, that they live in a world apart.

The gusts blowing in off the bay gathered momentum, and the roar of the waves against the shore was lost in the hum of the engines. Across the water the oil terminal on the isle of Flotta sparkled in halogen blasts of orange and yellow light.

Info

Carnegie Mellon's Philip LeDuc discovers new protein function

Pittsburgh - Carnegie Mellon University's Philip R. LeDuc and his collaborators in Massachusetts and Taiwan have discovered a new function of a protein that could ultimately unlock the mystery of how these workhorses of the body play a central role in the mechanics of biological processes in people.

"What we have done is find a new function of a protein that helps control cell behavior from a mechanics perspective," said LeDuc, an associate professor of mechanical engineering with courtesy appointments in the Biomedical Engineering, Biological Sciences and Computational Biology departments.

Meteor

Curious Flyby: 2010 AL30: An Asteroid or Man Made Object?

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© Ernesto Guido & Giovanni Sostero2010 AL30 as imaged remotely from Australia on Jan. 11, 2010
On Wednesday (Jan. 13), an object called 2010 AL30 will fly by Earth at a distance of 130,000 km (80,000 miles). That's only one-third of the way from here to the moon.

Astronomers will be able to observe it shining with a brightness of a 14th magnitude star as it dashes through the constellations of Orion, Taurus, and Pisces (further details about the orbit of 2010 AL30 can be found on NASA's Solar System Dynamics website).

This small object is cataloged as a 10 meter-wide asteroid and there's no chance it will impact Earth, but it does provide astronomers with an interesting opportunity.

What makes this near-Earth object (NEO) special is that it has an orbital period of almost exactly one year. This fact has led some scientists to speculate that 2010 AL30 could be a man made object and not an asteroid. After all, there's a lot of space junk up there, there's every possibility that it could be a spent rocket booster or some other spacecraft artifact.

But it could just be coincidence that the NEO has the same orbital period as Earth and that it's just another asteroid.

Info

Finding 'Beautiful' Symmetry Near Absolute Zero

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© John StembridgeA two-dimensional representation of E8 symmetry, the type of symmetry exhibited by particles in the study.
There's beauty in the world of condensed matter physics, if you know where to look.

Physicist Alan Tennant found it in the transitions between quantum states of cobalt ions cooled to temperatures near absolute zero and then subjected to high magnetic fields.

Huh?

Star

Mystery Of The Dimming Star Coming To An End?

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© NASA/JPL-CaltechAn artist's conception of Epsilon Aurigae and its dusty companion.
Epsilon Aurigae is one of the few stars that you can see with your own eyes, even in the washed out, big-city sky. It's big and very bright - except when it isn't. Sometimes, it's just not there.

Epsilon Aurigae is what's known as an eclipsing star. Every 27 years or so, it dims dramatically. In fact, you would have a hard time finding Epsilon Aurigae right now, because the star began dimming last August - and it won't be fully visible again for more than a year. That's one of the longest eclipses known to man.

Astronomers have been puzzling over these drawn-out eclipses ever since they were first recorded early in the 19th century. Now, using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, they've come up with a model that sheds new light on this 200-year-old mystery.

Frog

A Deadly Scorpion Provides a Safe Pesticide

scorpion
TAU researcher uses scorpion venom to develop a safe and ecologically sound pest control method.

Scorpions deliver a powerful, paralyzing venom - a complex cocktail of poisonous peptides - that immobilize animal prey on the spot. Some of the toxins in this cocktail damage only insects, which is why a Tel Aviv University researcher is harnessing them to create a safe and ecologically sound pesticide.

Prof. Michael Gurevitz of Tel Aviv University's Department of Plant Sciences has isolated the genetic sequences for important neurotoxins in the scorpion venom. He's also developed methods to produce and manipulate toxins to restrict their toxicity in certain insects or mammals.