Science & TechnologyS


Mars

Scientists find evidence of ancient Martian lake


Raw Story
Sun, 20 Jan 2013 09:47 UTC
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© AFP Photo
A US spacecraft orbiting Mars has provided evidence of an ancient crater lake fed by groundwater, adding further support to theories that the Red Planet may once have hosted life, NASA said Sunday.

Spectrometer data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows traces of carbonate and clay minerals usually formed in the presence of water at the bottom of the 1.4-mile (2.2-kilometer) deep McLaughlin Crater.

"These new observations suggest the formation of the carbonates and clay in a groundwater-fed lake within the closed basin of the crater," NASA said of the findings, which were published in the online edition of Nature Geoscience.

"Some researchers propose the crater interior catching the water," the space agency said, adding that "the underground zone contributing the water could have been wet environments and potential habitats."
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Coffee

Coffee growers in Central America threatened by fungus outbreak


The Extinction Protocol
Mon, 21 Jan 2013 07:45 UTC
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Entire families depend on work from the coffee-growing industry in Central America, which employs more than 1.5 million people to produce one of the world's most renowned Arabica beans. But in September, two months before the annual harvest, the fungus known as roya began to spread due to a lack of preventive measures and the effects of climate change, including high temperatures and drought, according to experts, government officials and industry sources. "The situation is very serious," Jose Buitrago, president of Nicaragua's Coffee Exporters Association, told AFP. "It will get worse if measures are not taken." The fungus, hemileia vastatrix, discolors and dries up coffee leaves, an effect that also gives roya the name of "leaf rust."

The parasite has latched on to 35 percent of the 958,000 hectares of sown crops, which will mean a loss of two million coffee bean bags of 46 kilograms (100 pounds) each, industry officials told AFP. This would represent a loss of $300 million at the current price of $150 per bag, the sources said. Central American nations exported 17.5 million bags of coffee during the 2011-2012 cycle, bringing $3.6 billion to the region, and growers had hoped to do even better this season.
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Info

'Quadruple helix' DNA seen in human cells

Jonathan Amos
BBC News
Sun, 20 Jan 2013 01:59 UTC
Quad DNA
© J-P.Rodriguez/G.BiffiA representation of the four-stranded structure (L) with fluorescent markers revealing its presence inside cells (R).
Cambridge University scientists say they have seen four-stranded DNA at work in human cells for the first time.

The famous "molecule of life", which carries our genetic code, is more familiar to us as a double helix.

But researchers tell the journal Nature Chemistry that the "quadruple helix" is also present in our cells, and in ways that might possibly relate to cancer.

They suggest that control of the structures could provide novel ways to fight the disease.

"The existence of these structures may be loaded when the cell has a certain genotype or a certain dysfunctional state," said Prof Shankar Balasubramanian from Cambridge's department of chemistry.

"We need to prove that; but if that is the case, targeting them with synthetic molecules could be an interesting way of selectively targeting those cells that have this dysfunction," he told BBC News.
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Info

Gamma-ray burst 'hit Earth in 8th Century'

Rebecca Morelle
BBC News
Mon, 21 Jan 2013 01:21 UTC
Stars Merger
© NASA/D.BerryGamma-ray bursts can occur when two neutron stars merge.
A gamma ray burst, the most powerful explosion known in the Universe, may have hit the Earth in the 8th Century.

In 2012 researchers found evidence that our planet had been struck by a blast of radiation during the Middle Ages, but there was debate over what kind of cosmic event could have caused this.

Now a study suggests it was the result of two black holes or neutron stars merging in our galaxy.

This collision would have hurled out vast amounts of energy.

The research is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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Comet 2

Too little too late? Asteroid-deflection concepts still very much in the research phase


MSNBC
Sun, 20 Jan 2013 06:46 UTC
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© ESAAn artist's concept for the Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission led by the European Space Agency to intentionally strike an asteroid and test deflection capabilities that could protect Earth.
European space officials have their own plan, but they're asking for input from others

European space officials are seeking ideas to help develop a mission to knock an asteroid off its course, in case one day humans must pull off such a stunt to save Earth from a catastrophic space-rock collision.

The idea behind the joint U.S.-European mission, dubbed AIDA (for Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment), is to send two small spacecraft to intercept a binary asteroid Didymos, which is projected to travel past Earth in 2022. This space rock system is actually a pair of asteroids, one smaller, one larger, that orbit each other as they zoom around the sun.

One 600-pound (300-kg) spacecraft, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) craft developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, would smash into the smaller of the two asteroids. The impact would knock the 500-foot- (150-meter-) wide space rock off its regular orbit.

Meanwhile, the European Space Agency's Asteroid Impact Monitor (AIM) craft would survey the collision. The crash would take place about at 6.5 million miles (10.5 million kilometers), meaning scientists on the ground would also be able to measure the deflection using telescopes.
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Bizarro Earth

Proof of ancient subduction discovered in volcanic rocks


Red Orbit
Sat, 19 Jan 2013 20:48 UTC
Researchers for the first time have discovered evidence supporting the theory that the processes that act as catalysts for volcanic activity today are similar to those that occurred nearly four billion years ago. Writing in the journal Geology, Frances Jenner of the Carnegie Institution for Science and colleagues report that 3.8 billion-year-old volcanic rocks recovered from an island in southwestern Greenland support previous geochemical studies that have suggested that subduction-style tectonic activity had been occurring as early as the Eoarchean era.
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© NASA Visible EarthImage of southwest Greenland by Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
Those studies had used "similarities between modern subduction zone magmas and those erupted about 3.8 billion years ago," to argue that subduction-related tectonics had been occurring early on in our planet's history, the Institution said in a statement Friday.

Previously, scientists had been unable to "locate any suites of volcanic rocks with compositions comparable to modern mid-ocean ridge or oceanic island magmas that were older than 3 billion years and were also free from contamination by continental crust," they added. However, rocks discovered by Jenner's team are the "missing piece of the puzzle" because they are comparable to modern-day samples obtained from oceanic islands.
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Question

Wanted: Surrogate for Neanderthal Baby

Susan Young
MIT Technological Review
Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:11 UTC
GenomeWeb caught what must be an interesting Q&A with George Church in Germany's Spiegel Online (I can't personally attest to the original story as it is behind a paywall). The Harvard Medical School geneticist is quoted as saying that eventually, an "adventurous female human" will be needed to be the surrogate mother for the first Neanderthal baby in some 30,000 years.

This isn't the first time Church has talked publically about cloning a Neanderthal, or at least a near-Neanderthal. In 2009, when the Neanderthal genome was first reported, the New York Times described a scenario in which a current day human genome could be tweaked into the "Neanderthal equivalent" with tools of molecular biology. Eventually, this could lead to a Neanderthal-like embryo in need of a surrogate mother.

While the idea of reviving Neanderthals may sound farfetched, take for example the work of biologists to clone endangered or extinct non-human animals (see "Stem-Cell Engineering Offers a Lifeline to Endangered Species"). In 2009, the extinct bucardo, a subspecies Spanish ibex, was cloned from a frozen skin sample. The newborn died immediately due to respiratory failure, but its birth suggests that resurrecting extinct species may be possible.
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Windsock

Belgium to build 'battery island' to store wind farm energy


RT.com
Sat, 19 Jan 2013 17:33 UTC
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© Reuters / Bob Strong
Belgium plans to build a horseshoe-shaped artificial island off its North Sea coast to store energy generated by its wind farms. The project will also double as attraction for sea birds (and possibly flocks of tourists).

The ambitious undertaking was unveiled this week by Belgian North Sea Minister Johan Vande Lanotte, as he reported on the implementation of marine special planning.

The island is planned to be built over the course of five years about three to four kilometers off the coast near the village of Wenduine in the province of West Flanders. It will be about three kilometers in diameter, and will have a giant water reservoir occupying most of its territory.

Energy will be stored by pumping seawater inside the reservoir. It is then recovered when needed by guiding the water back into the sea through a hydropower plant at the heel of the 'horseshoe.'

Storing excess energy is a common problem for electric grid management. Consumption of electricity varies greatly between daytime and nighttime, so balancing the load often requires generating and storing extra energy overnight and releasing those reserves during peak hours. This is a particular issue for many forms of green energy; for example, the output of a wind farm depends on whether there is enough wind to spin its turbines.
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No Entry

Fish invasion: Monster catfish taking over German rivers


Spiegel
Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:28 UTC
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© Peter Merkel
The enormous wels catfish is rapidly expanding in German waters. The fish can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh over 300 pounds, making recreational fishermen excited about the prospects of catching one. While biologists aren't yet calling the fish pests, they are puzzled by the boom.

It was 3 o'clock in the morning when the wels catfish bit. Peter Neumann fought with the beast for a full hour before he finally released the hook from the enormous mouth and threw the fish back into the Rhine river. "What would you do with such a huge animal?" asks Neumann, an expert on the wels catfish, a large species found across Europe. They don't taste particularly good, and they generally have very little usable meat. But catching the fish as a sport is becoming more and more popular. Many anglers are discovering the opportunity to snag some of the impressive specimen right in their own backyard.

This opportunity is greater than ever before. The population of wels catfish, also known as sheatfish, is rapidly expanding in Germany. The fish can grow up to be three meters (10 feet) long, weigh up to 150 kilograms (330 pounds) and live as long as 80 years. Fishermen say the Wels population has been increasing at a swift pace, and researchers are puzzled by the sudden boom.
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Health

Animapocalypse continues in Peru - dolphins, fish, pelicans found dead


Hispanically Speaking News
Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:00 UTC
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It would seem the animapocalypse in Peru has continued into 2013.

Throughout January various animals have been washing up along the shores of Peru's northern coast.

According to the Sea Institute of Peru 12 dolphins, 35 sea lions, and 13 pelicans have been found dead along the shores of San Jose, Lambayeque.

It appears that many of the dolphins found had died several weeks prior to their discovery, but the government says it have confirmed all the animals died from natural causes.
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