Science & TechnologyS


Better Earth

Seawater chemistry varies throughout ocean, overturning 130 year old theory

Harrison Tasoff
Phys.org
Fri, 04 Sep 2020 20:45 UTC
oceani
© Morgan RavenThe research team lowers a particle collection device into waters off the coast of Manzanillo, Mexico.

Seawater composition in the open ocean is well-studied, yet this research finds larger variability than expected, which questions many other results based on the assumption of constant seawater composition.

There's more to seawater than salt. Ocean chemistry is a complex mixture of particles, ions and nutrients. And for over a century, scientists believed that certain ion ratios held relatively constant over space and time.

But now, following a decade of research, a multinational study has refuted this assumption. Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez, professor and vice chair of UC Santa Barbara's Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, and her colleagues discovered that the seawater ratios of three key elements vary across the ocean, which means scientists will have to re-examine many of their hypotheses and models. The results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Comment: See also:

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Galaxy

6 months in space increased dexterity but impaired vision, study on 8 Russian cosmonauts shows

Aria Bendix
Business Insider
Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:22 UTC
astronaut
© Sergei Ilnitsky/AFP/Getty ImagesUS astronaut Jack Fischer smiles as a NASA medical staff member wipes his face shortly after he landed back on Earth in a Russian Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan, September 3, 2017.
Imagine you could throw the perfect bullseye, but you'd have to wear glasses to do it. That's a trade-off some space travelers may unwittingly make when they venture off the planet.

A study published Friday examined the brains of eight male Russian cosmonauts roughly seven months after they returned from lengthy missions to the International Space Station. The researchers discovered minor changes in the cosmonauts' brains that suggested the men were more dexterous but had slightly weaker vision.

"They actually acquired some kind of new motor skill, like riding a bike," Steven Jillings, the study's lead author, told Business Insider.
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Info

Scientists designing experiments to use plants to reveal the location of dead bodies


Cosmos Magazine
Sat, 05 Sep 2020 18:58 UTC
Forest
© Cosmos Magazine
This is still quite a way from reality, but the whole idea is too intriguing to ignore.

A collaborative team of forensic botanists, anthropologists and soil scientists in the US is designing its first set of plant-cadaver experiments to see whether it's feasible for the former to help find the latter.

Search teams looking for human remains, whether on foot or from the air, are often hampered by forest cover. The picture would change, however, in they could use changes in the plants' chemistry as signals of nearby human remains.

The impact of human decomposition on plants has not yet been thoroughly explored but, in a paper in the journal Trends in Plant Science, researchers from the University of Tennessee have set out the steps needed to make body recovery using vegetation a reality.

The research will take place at the university's Anthropology Research Facility, where scientists examine the process of human body decay under different conditions.
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Snowflake Cold

Math of the penguins

Susan D'Agostino
Quanta Magazine
Mon, 17 Aug 2020 00:00 UTC
Emperor Penguins
© Fred Olivier/Nature Picture Library/Science Photo LibraryEmperor penguins huddle together for warmth with mathematical rigor.
Animals have evolved to protect against the cold in myriad ways. Whales insulate with blubber. Bison congregate near geothermal springs. Black bears shelter in caves. And emperor penguins, facing Antarctica's subzero temperatures and gale-force winds, huddle.

"A penguin huddle looks like organized chaos," said François Blanchette, a mathematician at the University of California, Merced. "Every penguin acts individually, but the end result is an equitable heat distribution for the whole community."

It turns out that penguins execute their huddles with a high degree of mathematical efficiency, as Blanchette and his team discovered. More recently, Daniel Zitterbart, a physicist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, helped develop and install high-resolution cameras to observe undisturbed huddling behavior. Zitterbart's team recently discovered which conditions cause penguins to huddle, and they are investigating the possibility that the penguins' mathematical behavior may reveal secrets about colony health over time.
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Seismograph

Interaction of deep underground forces help explain quakes on San Andreas Fault


PhysOrg
Fri, 04 Sep 2020 16:53 UTC
San Andreas Fault
A portion of California's San Andreas Fault
Rock-melting forces occurring much deeper in the Earth than previously understood appear to drive tremors along a notorious segment of California's San Andreas Fault, according to new USC research that helps explain how quakes happen.

The study from the emergent field of earthquake physics looks at temblor mechanics from the bottom up, rather than from the top down, with a focus on underground rocks, friction and fluids. On the segment of the San Andreas Fault near Parkfield, Calif., underground excitations — beyond the depths where quakes are typically monitored — lead to instability that ruptures in a quake.

"Most of California seismicity originates from the first 10 miles of the crust, but some tremors on the San Andreas Fault take place much deeper," said Sylvain Barbot, assistant professor of Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "Why and how this happens is largely unknown. We show that a deep section of the San Andreas Fault breaks frequently and melts the host rocks, generating these anomalous seismic waves."The newly published study appears in Science Advances. Barbot, the corresponding author, collaborated with Lifeng Wang of the China Earthquake Administration in China.
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Moon

The moon is rusting and scientists are trying to figure out why


NASA
Wed, 02 Sep 2020 12:00 UTC
moon
© NASAThis image of the moon is from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun.

This image of the moon is from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth.

Small amounts of water and hydroxyl (blue) were detected on the surface of the moon at various locations. This image illustrates their distribution at high latitudes toward the poles.

Blue shows the signature of water and hydroxyl molecules as seen by a highly diagnostic absorption of infrared light with a wavelength of three micrometers. Green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the sun with a wavelength of 2.4 micrometers, and red shows an iron-bearing mineral called pyroxene, detected by absorption of 2.0-micrometer infrared light.
Mars has long been known for its rust. Iron on its surface, combined with water and oxygen from the ancient past, give the Red Planet its hue. But scientists were recently surprised to find evidence that our airless Moon has rust on it as well.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Interview with Ken Pedersen: Quarks, DNA, Consciousness - It's All Information, Always Has Been

Harrison Koehli and Elan Martin
Sott.net
Thu, 03 Sep 2020 00:00 UTC
ken pedersen
Evolution vs. intelligent design; scientism vs. science; the accidental-universe worldview vs. the information-system worldview - these are the battle lines for what is perhaps one the most essential scientific/religious and philosophical debates in the world today. Are we the product of a series of accidental mutations, built on top of accidental chemistry, accidental particle physics, and accidental quantum theory? Or were we - and the cosmos - designed? In his book Modern Science Proves Intelligent Design: The Information System Worldview, author and electrical engineer Ken Pedersen asks this question and uses his extensive knowledge of multi-layered information processing systems to provide the answer.

Subatomic particles, biological cells, and whole planetary and cosmic environments could only have been the product of incredibly complex design, all built on the mysteriously non-physical bases of energy and information. Armed with his background in mathematics, and contemporary research about DNA (among other things), Pedersen gives us to understand why the Neo-Darwinists are no longer able to credibly argue their position. At a time when the world is bereft of meaning, when the nihilistic, materialist, relativist and atheist worldview is plaguing the hearts, minds and souls of people everywhere - the profound implications for how we view life, the universe, and ourselves may be revitalized with a true understanding of what science is actually telling us.


Running Time: 01:19:16

Download: MP3 — 72.6 MB

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Microscope 1

Amoebas able to solve mini version of Britain's Royal Hedge Maze

Theresa Machemer
Smithsonian Magazine
Tue, 01 Sep 2020 16:12 UTC
amoeba maze intelligence
© Luke Tweedy, Michele Zagnoni, Cancer Research UK. Science 2020A miniature version of the Hampton Court hedge maze is one of the most complicated mazes the amoebas solved.
The study demonstrates how cells navigate the human body to provide immunity or carry messages

The United Kingdom's oldest surviving hedge maze, the Hampton Court maze, was planted for William III near the end of the 17th century. While other hedge labyrinths were designed with a single winding path, allowing courtiers to comfortably stroll to the center, the Hampton Court maze presents a puzzle. Garden-goers can take wrong turns and hit dead ends, and it takes an average of 30 to 45 minutes for visitors to find the right path.

Amoebas took closer to two hours to find their way through a miniature version of the maze, Brandon Specktor reports for Live Science. In a paper published last week in the journal Science, researchers used the hedge maze as one obstacle course for the study of amoebas' navigational tactics. It was one of the most complicated mazes they pitted the single-celled microbes up against.
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Snowflake Cold

NOAA confirms a 'full-blown' Grand Solar Minimum

Cap Allon
Electroverse
Wed, 02 Sep 2020 16:40 UTC
NOAA sunspot data

Their press releases surely won't admit it, but NOAA's PREDICTED SUNSPOT NUMBER AND RADIO FLUX data appears to show a 'full-blown' Grand Solar Minimum running from the late-2020s to at least the 2040s.

NOAA (who's solar forecasts generally come out higher than NASA's) say it won't be until mid-2025 before we see the peak of the next Solar Cycle (25), with the maximum topping out at 114.6 sunspots:

NOAA solar cycle 25
NOAA predicts Solar Cycle 25 will max out at 114.6 sunspots in July, 2025 (note this is far higher than NASA’s official prediction of around 30 to 40 sunspots).

Comment: Other scientific papers from last month relating to Grand Solar Minimum include: See also:

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Info

New electronic skin can react to pain like human skin


EurekAlert
Tue, 01 Sep 2020 18:47 UTC
Artificial SKin
© Ella Maru StudioA concept image of electronic skin that can sense touch, pain, and heat.
Researchers have developed electronic artificial skin that reacts to pain just like real skin, opening the way to better prosthetics, smarter robotics and non-invasive alternatives to skin grafts.

The prototype device developed by a team at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, can electronically replicate the way human skin senses pain.

The device mimics the body's near-instant feedback response and can react to painful sensations with the same lighting speed that nerve signals travel to the brain.

Lead researcher Professor Madhu Bhaskaran said the pain-sensing prototype was a significant advance towards next-generation biomedical technologies and intelligent robotics.

"Skin is our body's largest sensory organ, with complex features designed to send rapid-fire warning signals when anything hurts," Bhaskaran said.

"We're sensing things all the time through the skin but our pain response only kicks in at a certain point, like when we touch something too hot or too sharp.

"No electronic technologies have been able to realistically mimic that very human feeling of pain - until now.

"Our artificial skin reacts instantly when pressure, heat or cold reach a painful threshold.

"It's a critical step forward in the future development of the sophisticated feedback systems that we need to deliver truly smart prosthetics and intelligent robotics."
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