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Like a modern Henri Becquerel, Washington State University doctoral student Marianne Tarun's discovery came quite by accident. Her simple lab error has uncovered a new way to boost electrical conductivity of a crystal by 40,000 percent, simply by exposing it to light.
Tarun had accidentally left a sample of strontium titanate out on a counter before testing the crystal's conductivity and discovering the phenomenon. Her team suspects that photons knock loose electrons which boost the material's conductivity. Her follow up tests confirmed the effect and found that as little as 10 minutes of light exposure could propagate the effect for days on end.
Reports of naked-eye sightings of Comet ISON are coming in from around the world. Experienced observers put the comet's magnitude at +5.5 on Nov. 16th. This means it is now fully 10 times brighter than it was only three days ago before the outburst. To the naked eye, ISON appears as a faint smudge of pale green light low in the pre-dawn sky. The view through a telescope is more dramatic. The comet's tail has become a riotous crowd of gaseous streamers stretching more than 3.5 degrees across the sky. Amateur astronomer Waldemar Skorupa sends this picture from Kahler Asten, Germany:
The tail is so long, he couldn't fit the whole thing in the field of view. How long is it? Comet ISON's tail extends more than 8 million kilometers behind the comet's nucleus. For comparison, that's 21 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
© Waldemar Skorupa
- Comet ISON will skirt 150 times closer than us to the sun on November 28
- It will either light up in magnificent spectacle... or blast to smithereens
- Comet has already become visible without a telescope for the first time
- Some scientists have even claimed it could shine brighter than the moon
Comet ISON will pass exceptionally close to the sun in just under a fortnight, creating a spellbinding cosmic spectacle as ice in its body vapourises and forms a distinct bright tail.
At least, it will if the heat does not blast the comet to smithereens - which scientists warn is not out of the question.
Cosmic show: Comet ISON, which is heading to within 600,000 miles of our sun on November 28
© Backyard BrainsCritics say that the 'electronic backpack' is inhumane
The Backyard Brains company says that the device is intended to get children to be interested in neuroscience.
A spokeswoman told the BBC that the device - being formally launched on Saturday - was not a gimmick.
But critics say that the company's stance is "disingenuous".
On November 18, 2013, Comet Encke will pass within 0.025 AU of Mercury, followed a day later by Comet ISON at 0.24 AU (1 AU is the distance between the sun and Earth, 150 million km).
NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, now orbiting Mercury, will turn away from the sun's innermost planet for a time and toward the passing comets. Astronomer Ron Vervack at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and a member of the science team for MESSENGER, called it:
NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, now orbiting Mercury, will turn away from the sun's innermost planet for a time and toward the passing comets. Astronomer Ron Vervack at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and a member of the science team for MESSENGER, called it:
... a unique coincidence and a golden opportunity to study two comets passing close to the sun.
Cbet nr. 3713, issued on 2013, November 15, announces the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object (discovery magnitude ~19.4) by Michel Ory on CCD images obtained with a 0.5-m f/3 reflector at the Oukaimeden Observatory, Marrakech. The object has been found to show cometary appearance by CCD astrometrists elsewhere. The new comet has been designated C/2013 V5 (OUKAIMEDEN).
We performed follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp. Stacking of 58 unfiltered exposures, 30-sec each, obtained remotely from MPC code Q62 (iTelescope, Siding Spring) on 2013, November 12.6 through a 0.43-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD, shows that this object is a comet: diffuse coma about 10" in diameter elongated toward PA 300.
Below our confirmation image. Click here for a bigger version.
M.P.E.C. 2013-V95 assigns the following parabolic orbital elements to comet C/2013 V5: T 2014 Sept. 27.93; e= 1.0; Peri. = 314.39; q = 0.62; Incl.= 154.92
We performed follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp. Stacking of 58 unfiltered exposures, 30-sec each, obtained remotely from MPC code Q62 (iTelescope, Siding Spring) on 2013, November 12.6 through a 0.43-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD, shows that this object is a comet: diffuse coma about 10" in diameter elongated toward PA 300.
Below our confirmation image. Click here for a bigger version.
© Remanzacco Observatory
Wolves likely were domesticated by European hunter-gatherers more than 18,000 years ago and gradually evolved into dogs that became household pets, UCLA life scientists report.
"We found that instead of recent wolves being closest to domestic dogs, ancient European wolves were directly related to them," said Robert Wayne, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in UCLA's College of Letters and Science and senior author of the research. "This brings the genetic record into agreement with the archaeological record. Europe is where the oldest dogs are found."
The UCLA researchers' genetic analysis is published Nov. 15 in the journal Science and featured on the journal's cover.
In related research last May, Wayne and his colleagues reported at the Biology of Genomes meeting in New York the results of their comparison of the complete nuclear genomes of three recent wolf breeds (from the Middle East, East Asia and Europe), two ancient dog breeds and the boxer dog breed.
"We analyzed those six genomes with cutting-edge approaches and found that none of those wolf populations seemed to be closest to domestic dogs," Wayne said. "We thought one of them would be, because they represent wolves from the three possible centers of dog domestication, but none was. All the wolves formed their own group, and all the dogs formed another group."
© Del BastonAncient dog fossil A fossil of a dog that lived approximately 8,500 years ago, from the Koster archaeological site in Illinois
The UCLA researchers' genetic analysis is published Nov. 15 in the journal Science and featured on the journal's cover.
In related research last May, Wayne and his colleagues reported at the Biology of Genomes meeting in New York the results of their comparison of the complete nuclear genomes of three recent wolf breeds (from the Middle East, East Asia and Europe), two ancient dog breeds and the boxer dog breed.
"We analyzed those six genomes with cutting-edge approaches and found that none of those wolf populations seemed to be closest to domestic dogs," Wayne said. "We thought one of them would be, because they represent wolves from the three possible centers of dog domestication, but none was. All the wolves formed their own group, and all the dogs formed another group."
© Thinkstock
A new model being presented at the 66th Annual Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting in Pittsburgh next week provides a possible explanation for why the turbulent red vortex has lasted so long.
"Based on current theories, the Great Red Spot should have disappeared after several decades. Instead, it has been there for hundreds of years," said study researcher Pedram Hassanzadeh, who is a post-doctoral planetary scientist at Harvard University.
There are many forces working against the Red Spot that the study team had to consider. Turbulence in and around the Red Spot can draw energy out of its winds. Two strong jet streams that pass the spot in opposite directions can reduce its rotational momentum. The vortex also loses energy by radiating heat.
One fluid dynamics theory says that a large vortex can survive for an extended period of time if it absorbs smaller, nearby vortices.
© argus/Shutterstock
The next Cuban missile crisis could be resolved through the power of music rather than an armed standoff between nuclear powers, military officials and researchers speculate.
It is believed that sound waves can "jump the air gap" -- or hack a machine that is not on a network -- to paralyze a ship's control systems. Instead of using a blockade or firing Tomahawk missiles to prevent Russia from delivering weapons to Cuba, the United States could use malicious tones.
"This is where you talk about fleets coming to a stop. Our ships are floating SCADA systems," retired Capt. Mark Hagerott, deputy director of cybersecurity for the U.S. Naval Academy, said at a summit in Washington organized by Government Executive Media Group.
He was referring to supervisory control and data acquisition systems that control industrial operations. "That would disrupt the world balance of power if you could begin to jump the air gap," Hagerott said.
It's conceivable sound waves can be transformed into malicious electrical signals. An air disruption causes the diaphragm of a speaker to create an electrical signal made up of ones and zeros. Targeted ones and zeros can override a computer-driven ship.
The world's oceans 100 million to 145 million years ago were more than twice as salty as they are today, U.S. scientists studying ancient sediments say. Sediments retrieved from a crater formed when a 2-mile-wide asteroid or comet struck off the Atlantic coast of North America 35 million years ago containing remnants of Early Cretaceous North Atlantic seawater allowed them to make a direct estimate of the water's age and salinity, the researchers reported in the journal Nature.
"Previous evidence for temperature and salinity levels of geologic-era oceans around the globe have been estimated indirectly from various types of evidence in deep sediment cores," said Ward Sanford, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist and lead author of the study. "In contrast, our study identifies ancient seawater that remains in place in its geologic setting, enabling us to provide a direct estimate of its age and salinity."
"Previous evidence for temperature and salinity levels of geologic-era oceans around the globe have been estimated indirectly from various types of evidence in deep sediment cores," said Ward Sanford, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist and lead author of the study. "In contrast, our study identifies ancient seawater that remains in place in its geologic setting, enabling us to provide a direct estimate of its age and salinity."
Comment: "Fresh veins of ice"? Where do they get such tortured explanations from?!
Oh yes, we forgot, NASA still thinks comets are giant 'dirty snowballs'!