Science & TechnologyS


Bulb

New research finds solar panels could produce energy at night

David Nield
Science Alert
Tue, 04 Feb 2020 17:05 UTC
solar power
© Jose Camilo Lopez Perez/Getty Images
As beneficial as current solar panel technology has been in our quest to switch to renewable energy, such panels can't generate electricity at night. Now, new research suggests it could be possible to design panels that can operate around the clock.

Under optimum conditions, at night these specially designed photovoltaic cells could generate a quarter of the energy they produce during the day, according to the new study.

To achieve this, we'd need to incorporate thermoradiative cells - devices that generate energy thanks to radiative cooling, where infrared or heat radiation leaves the cell and produces a small amount of energy in the process.
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Butterfly

How a poisonous plant became breakfast, lunch and dinner for monarchs

Tim Vernimmen
Knowable Magazine
Wed, 02 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC
Monarch caterpillar
For most animals, the milkweed plant is far from appetizing: It contains nasty toxins called cardenolides that can make the creatures vomit and, should they ingest enough, cause their hearts to beat out of control.

Yet some insects appear entirely unfazed by the powerful poison. The monarch butterfly's colorful caterpillars, for example, devour milkweed with gusto — in fact, it is the only thing they ever eat. They can tolerate this food source because of a peculiarity in a crucial protein in their bodies, a sodium pump, that the cardenolide toxins usually interfere with.

All animals have this pump. It's essential for physiological recovery after heart muscle cells contract or nerve cells fire — events that are triggered when sodium floods into the cells, causing an electrical discharge. After the firing and contracting is done, the cells must clean up, and so they turn on their sodium pumps and expel the sodium. This restores the electrical balance and resets the cell to its usual state, ready again for action.

Cardenolides are noxious because they bind to key parts of these pumps and prevent them from doing their job. This makes animal hearts beat stronger and stronger, often ending in cardiac arrest.

But since animals are under constant competition for food sources, the ability to eat plants that are toxic to others offers a fantastic opportunity, and many insects have evolved ways to do so.
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Comet 2

NASA detects 5 airburst-causing asteroids approaching Earth

Inigo Monzon
International Business Times
Mon, 03 Feb 2020 01:10 UTC
Over 17,000 near-Earth asteroids
© NASAOver 17,000 near-Earth asteroids remain undetected in our solar neighborhood. Pictured; an artistic illustration of an asteroid flying by Earth.

NASA is currently monitoring a total of five asteroids that are expected to approach Earth tomorrow. Based on the data collected by NASA on the asteroids, the approaching space rocks could cause powerful mid-air explosions if they hit the planet.

The first asteroid that will approach Earth tomorrow is known as 2020 CO. According to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), this asteroid is moving towards Earth at a speed of 39,000 miles per hour. It has an estimated diameter of 125 feet.

2020 CO will fly past Earth on Feb. 4 at 1:05 p.m. EST. During this time, the asteroid will be 0.02933 astronomical units or 2.7 million miles from Earth.

The next asteroid that will visit Earth's neighborhood is called 2020 CN. According to CNEOS, this asteroid is about 66 feet wide and is flying across space at a speed of 33,000 miles per hour. This asteroid will approach Earth on Feb. 4 at 2:02 p.m. EST from a distance of 0.01231 astronomical units or roughly 1.1 million miles away.

Trailing behind 2020 CN is an asteroid known as 2020 CR. According to CNEOS, this asteroid is traveling at an average velocity of about 50,000 miles per hour. It has an estimated diameter of 69 feet. This asteroid is expected to fly past Earth on Feb. 4 at 5:51 p.m. EST from a distance of 0.00663 astronomical units or about 616,000 miles away.

Comment: The Watchers website reports that a newly-discovered asteroid designated 2020 CW flew past Earth at a very close distance of 0.04 LD / 0.00011 AU (16 455 km / 10 225 mi) at 12:50 UTC on February 1, 2020.

This is well within the orbit of our geostationary satellites ~ 35 800 km (22 300 miles). The object tied with 2017 GM for the 8th closest asteroid flyby on record, according to CNEOS database.

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Magnify

US Army funds 'fully automated microaggression detector' to 'catch implicit bias' in the workplace

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
microaggression detector
The US Army Research Laboratory gave a $1,500,000 three-year grant to two associate professors to develop what's being called a "fully automated luxury microaggression detector" Alexa-like device to "catch implicit bias" in workplaces across America.


Comment: This ideologically-motivated bit of technology research is wrong on so many levels that its not even funny, but we have to start somewhere: Damore Lawsuit Exposes Extremist Ideology And Social Intolerance at Google

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Radar

China's drone army fighting coronavirus: Farm, police and personal drones repurposed to spray disinfectant over villages and cities hit by coronavirus

Raven Saunt
Daily Mail
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 17:28 UTC
china drone disinfecting spray
Individual drones can be used to disinfect area of 16,000 square metres in a single morning which make it a much faster method of delivering public hygiene than traditional means either on foot or by lorry.
An army of drones has been deployed in China to spray disinfectant over villages and cities that have been hit by coronavirus.

It is thought that the airborne devices are currently being used in the coastal provinces of Jilin, Shandong and Zhejiang.

Footage has captured the drones hovering several metres above the ground as disinfectant liquid is sprayed from the underside of each machine.

Comment: See also:

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Microscope 1

Texas university researchers engineer bacteria to protect bees from pests and pathogens


UT News
Thu, 30 Jan 2020 18:50 UTC
varro mite bee colony collapse
© Alex Wild/University of Texas at AustinA Varroa mite, a common pest that can weaken bees and make them more susceptible to pathogens, feeds on a honey bee.
Scientists from The University of Texas at Austin report in the journal Science that they have developed a new strategy to protect honey bees from a deadly trend known as colony collapse: genetically engineered strains of bacteria.

An increasing number of honey bee colonies in the U.S. have seen the dwindling of their adult bees. According to a national survey, beekeepers lost nearly 40% of their honey bee colonies last winter, the highest rate reported since the survey began 13 years ago.

The engineered bacteria live in the guts of honey bees and act as biological factories, pumping out medicines protecting the bees against two major causes of colony collapse: Varroa mites and deformed wing virus. The researchers believe their method could one day scale up for agricultural use because the engineered bacteria are easy to grow, inoculating the bees is straightforward and the engineered bacteria are unlikely to spread beyond bees.

Comment: While this may be a promising avenue in addressing colony collapse disorder (and all of the assumptions about the specificity of the bacteria the team has developed hold true), there are many other factors that should be looked at, such as loss of natural habitat, stress from commercial pollination operations, and most recently, the implications of 5G technology on the orienting capacity of bees.

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Cassiopaea

Space super-storms occur every 25 years, new research shows

University of Warwick
Phys.org
Wed, 29 Jan 2020 12:00 UTC
stratosphere
© CC0 Public Domain
A 'great' space weather super-storm large enough to cause significant disruption to our electronic and networked systems occurred on average once in every 25 years, according to a new joint study by the University of Warwick and the British Antarctic Survey.

By analysing magnetic field records at opposite ends of the Earth (UK and Australia), scientists have been able to detect super-storms going back over the last 150 years.

This result was made possible by a new way of analysing historical data, pioneered by the University of Warwick, from the last 14 solar cycles, way before the space age began in 1957, instead of the last five solar cycles currently used.

The analysis shows that 'severe' magnetic storms occurred in 42 out of the last 150 years, and 'great' super-storms occurred in 6 years out of 150. Typically, a storm may only last a few days but can be hugely disruptive to modern technology. Super-storms can cause power blackouts, take out satellites, disrupt aviation and cause temporary loss of GPS signals and radio communications.

Comment: As Earth's geomagnetic field wanes in tandem with what has been called a 'grand' solar minimum, the impact these super storms can have could become amplified many times over - our planet is already witnessing the probable effects caused by our weakening magnetic field: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Question

Researchers in ocean food chain study puzzled by what devoured alligator corpse 1.5 miles beneath the sea

Chiara Fiorillo
The Mirror
Sat, 01 Feb 2020 16:59 UTC
mystery predator ocean alligator
© Lumcon via Pen NewsAll that was left after one of the three alligators was snatched whole
A mystery predator devoured an alligator corpse after researchers left it underwater for an ocean study.

Scientists had lowered the three dead reptiles at a depth of one and a half miles in the Gulf of Mexico to understand how carbon-hungry creatures of the deep would react.

Despite one alligator and its harness having a combined weight of 38.9kg (85.8lbs), a mystery predator managed to pull it 30ft through the sand, drag marks suggested. The rope was bitten completely through, allowing the predator to carry away its meal.
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Brain

Glutamate in the brain has unexpected qualities, researchers show with new analysis method


Science Daily
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 07:51 UTC
Glutamate analysis
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology and Gothenburg University in Sweden have achieved something long thought almost impossible -- counting the molecules of the neurotransmitter glutamate released when a signal is transferred between two brain cells. With a new analysis method, they showed that the brain regulates its signals using glutamate in more ways than previously realised.

The ability to measure the activity and quantity of glutamate in brain cells has been long sought-after among researchers. Glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. Despite its abundance, and its influence on many important functions, we know a lot less about it than other neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, because so far glutamate has been difficult to measure quickly enough.

The new findings around glutamate are therefore very significant and could help improve our understanding of the pathologies underlying neurological and psychiatric diseases and conditions. The relationship between glutamate and these disorders, as well as our memory, our appetite and more, are just some of the questions which the researchers' newly discovered technology could help answer.

"When we started, everybody said 'this will never work'. But we didn't give in. Now we have a beautiful example of how multi-disciplinary basic science can yield major breakthroughs, and deliver real benefit," says Ann-Sofie Cans, Associate Professor in Chemistry at Chalmers and leader of the research group.
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Galaxy

Astronomers spot two-star system spinning so fast it's bending space & time


RT
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 17:10 UTC
Astronomers spot two-star system spinning so fast it’s bending space & time
© Mark Myers, OzGrav ARC Centre of Excellence/Swinburne University of Technology
Astrophysicists spend their time working on some truly mind-bending stuff but after two decades of observations, scientists have witnessed a pair of stars spinning so fast they literally bend both space and time.

The team has been tracking the orbit of the extraordinary binary star for about 20 years, using the CSIRO Parkes Observatory's 64-metre radio telescope.

The researchers, from the ARC Centre of Excellence of Gravitational Wave Discovery, caught the spinning celestial bodies "frame-dragging" or, in other words, twisting both space and time with their immense gravity.

The research, published Friday in the journal Science, is yet more evidence for Einstein's theory of general relativity.

The binary star is made up of two stars. One is a white dwarf, a star whose nuclear fuel has run out, which is roughly the size of the Earth but has 300,000 times its density. The other is a neutron star which is somehow about 100 billion times the density of the Earth while only measuring approximately 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) in diameter.

All that matter is compressed into a star system with the catchy name "PSR J1141-6545."


Comment: See also:

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