Science & TechnologyS


Cassiopaea

Physics shows that imperfections make perfect systems

Northwestern University
Phys.org
Tue, 21 Jan 2020 12:08 UTC
fireflies
© Toan PhanResearch shows why fireflies blink in unison even though each individual insect is different.
Northwestern University researchers have added a new dimension to the importance of diversity.

For the first time, physicists have experimentally demonstrated that certain systems with interacting entities can synchronize only if the entities within the system are different from one another.

This finding offers a new twist to the previous understanding of how collective behavior found in nature — such as fireflies flashing in unison or pacemaker cells working together to generate a heartbeat — can arise even when the individual insects or cells are different.

Northwestern's Adilson Motter, who led the research, explained that identical entities naturally behave identically — until they start interacting.

Comment: See also: Scientists discover exotic new patterns of synchronization

Read More...
Meteor

Incoming! NASA warns of TWO huge cosmic flybys in a single day following a busy period of NEO approaches to earth


RT
Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:01 UTC
Asteroid
© urikyo33 from Pixabay
The new year brings with it new asteroid threats, with NASA warning of two close cosmic flybys in a single day following a busy festive period of Near Earth Object (NEO) approaches to our planet.

The first NEO to buzz the Earth today is identified as 2020 AQ1 - and was only first spotted on January 11. Happily, the 755ft-diameter space rock screamed safely by us at roughly 2:54am EST, passing a mere 0.026 AU from Earth - 2.5 million miles from the planet's core - at a speed of 61,500 miles per hour.

The asteroid will head out into the Milky Way, but it is expected to make another loop around and come back this way on August 23, 2104. Were an object of that size and velocity to hit the Earth, it could level an entire city in seconds.

Comment: Astrophysicist and astronomer Dr Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy captured an image of an inbound asteroid on January 17th as it was approximately 1.9 million miles (3.1 million km) from earth. The space rock was tracked by NASA and features on the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Risk List, but was only discovered a few days before its close Earth approach by the Catalina Sky Survey. It's one of a whopping 88 new NEOs which have been spotted so far this year.
asteroid 2020 AN3
See also:

Read More...
Microscope 1

Can Nature create new genes from scratch?


Evolution News
Mon, 20 Jan 2020 22:06 UTC
atlantic cod fish
© Hans-Petter Fjeld [CC BY-SAGadus morhua, aka an Atlantic cod
Evolutionary theory must account for millions of new, functional genes by chance. Here are some ideas proposed recently for overcoming the huge probability barrier.

In a news feature in Nature, Adam Levy writes about "How evolution builds genes from scratch." Already he is personifying evolution as a builder. Alarms should go off, but he continues. "Scientists long assumed that new genes appear when evolution tinkers with old ones." Is he prepping his readers for a falsification of the Tinkering hypothesis? His next sentence tantalizes, "It turns out that natural selection is much more creative." So now, evolution (and its effective synonym, natural selection) is a creative builder. This demands careful investigation.

Comment:

Read More...
Moon

New facility to produce oxygen from Moon dust at unprecedented scale

Michelle Star
Science Alert
Mon, 20 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
moonshoe print
© NASAShoe print on the Moon
Although the Moon has no atmosphere, it has loads of oxygen, all mixed up with the dust on the lunar surface in the form of oxides.

Last year, scientists published a paper on how to extract it from a Moon dust (regolith) simulant; now, the first prototype oxygen plant is going to be attempting that extraction on a larger scale.

If it works, it could provide humans with important resources that will aid future Moon missions, and maybe even enable long-term Moon bases and colonies.

Chemist Beth Lomax from the University of Glasgow in Scotland:
"Having our own facility allows us to focus on oxygen production, measuring it with a mass spectrometer as it is extracted from the regolith simulant, Being able to acquire oxygen from resources found on the Moon would obviously be hugely useful for future lunar settlers, both for breathing and in the local production of rocket fuel."
Moonbase
© P. Carril/ESAMoon Base Illustration
Read More...
Airplane

Gremlin: Pentagon contractor shows off maiden flight of a new 'swarm' drone


RT
Sun, 19 Jan 2020 17:01 UTC
X-61A UAV
© YouTube/Dynetics IncDynetics X-61A UAV
Swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles overwhelming enemies' defenses with sheer numbers might soon be part of the US combat strategy. Footage of the first flight of one such drone has just been showcased by a Pentagon contractor.

A video published on YouTube by an applied science and IT company, Dynetics, shows a drone, which looks roughly like a large air-to-surface missile, being drop-launched from under the wing of a US transport Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft.

The drone designated X-61A then releases small wings and ignites its rocket engine, setting off for an autonomous flight. Media reports suggested that the UAV stayed in air for an hour and a half while the video shows it performing some simple maneuvers during its first test flight, which took place in November 2019.


Comment: See also: Perdix Swarm Demonstration:
In one of the most significant tests of autonomous systems under development by the Department of Defense, the Strategic Capabilities Office, partnering with Naval Air Systems Command, successfully demonstrated one of the world's largest micro-drone swarms at China Lake, California. The test, conducted Oct. 26, 2016 consisted of 103 Perdix drones launched from three F/A-18 Super Hornets. The micro-drones demonstrated advanced swarm behaviors such as collective decision-making, adaptive formation flying, and self-healing. -US Navy



Read More...
Info

Ingest and forget type medical devices coming soon

Nick Carne
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 20 Jan 2020 19:19 UTC
Human Intestinal Tract
© SEBASTIAN KAULITZKI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, VIA GETTY IMAGESSome things don’t break down when left to their own devices.
Medical devices can be inserted into the human gastrointestinal tract to treat, diagnose or monitor a range of disorders.

The problem is you usually have to get them out again, which involves endoscopic surgery.

US engineers may have a neat alternative, however.

A team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology says it has come up with a way to make devices break down inside the body when exposed to light from an ingestible LED - and has tested it successfully in pigs.

The secret, they report in a paper in the journal Science Advances, is a light-sensitive hydrogel developed in their labs. It includes a chemical bond that is broken when exposed to a wavelength of light between 405 and 365 nanometres (blue to ultraviolet).

In recent years, MIT researchers have developed a number of ingestible devices, while also trialling different ways to control their breakdown, including methods based on changes in pH or temperature, or exposure to certain chemicals.
Read More...
Microscope 2

UK research team first ever to video a chemical bond breaking and forming

Layal Liverpool
New Scientist
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 22:12 UTC
rusted chain broken link
© Toshiyuki Shirai/EyeEm/Getty Images
Chemical bonding is one of chemistry's most fundamental concepts

A chemical bond between two metal atoms has been filmed breaking and forming for the first time - something scientists say they only dreamed of seeing. Watching this happen in real time "was absolutely unbelievable", says Andrei Khlobystov at the University of Nottingham, UK, who led the team that recorded it.

"We were very excited," says Khlobystov. "We knew exactly what was happening because we recognised this as a chemical process straight away, but it was a surprise because we simply did not expect we would see it at this level of detail," he says.

Khlobystov and his team used a powerful microscope to fire a beam of electrons at a molecule composed of two atoms of the transition metal rhenium. The electron beam collided with the rhenium molecule, providing the energy for the bond between the atoms to break, while also allowing the electrons to be detected on the other side of the molecule to create an image.
Read More...
Fish

Cuttlefish wearing 3D glasses prove they utilize depth perception just like us

Michael Le Page
New Scientist
Sun, 19 Jan 2020 21:58 UTC
cuttlefish 3d glasses depth perception
© R. FeordA cuttlefish wearing 3D glasses
Cuttlefish wearing 3D glasses strike accurately at a virtual shrimp moving on a screen. The finding shows that cuttlefish estimate distances by comparing images from each eye, just like we do.

This might seem obvious at first. But, unlike us, cuttlefish lack forward-facing eyes whose fields of vision mostly overlap. Instead, they have outward-facing eyes that give them 360-degree vision, with just 8 degrees of overlap between the eyes.

They can move each eye independently, increasing the overlap to 70 degrees when looking at something in front of them. However, it takes a lot of neural processing power to compare the images from two eyes even when the eyes move together like ours, says Trevor Wardill at the University of Minnesota. It should be even harder when the eyes move separately.
Read More...
Fireball 5

Meteorite impact, not volcanoes led to dino extinction says study

Jim Shelton
Yale University
Thu, 16 Jan 2020 21:22 UTC
Impact Event
© Stock Adobe
Volcanic activity did not play a direct role in the mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs, according to an international, Yale-led team of researchers. It was all about the asteroid.

In a break from a number of other recent studies, Yale assistant professor of geology & geophysics Pincelli Hull and her colleagues argue in a new research paper in Science that environmental impacts from massive volcanic eruptions in India in the region known as the Deccan Traps happened well before the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago and therefore did not contribute to the mass extinction.

Most scientists acknowledge that the mass extinction event, also known as K-Pg, occurred after an asteroid slammed into Earth. Some researchers also have focused on the role of volcanoes in K-Pg due to indications that volcanic activity happened around the same time.

"Volcanoes can drive mass extinctions because they release lots of gases, like SO2 and CO2, that can alter the climate and acidify the world," said Hull, lead author of the new study. "But recent work has focused on the timing of lava eruption rather than gas release."
Read More...
Blue Planet

Forgotten trove of fossil feathers belonged to tiny polar dinosaurs

Rachel Fritts
Ars Technica
Wed, 15 Jan 2020 14:36 UTC
feather fossils
One of the spectacular feather fossils that has been sitting in a museum's sample collection for decades.
Researchers have described ten fossil feathers from the polar regions of the former continent Gondwana for the first time. The collection, documented in a recent paper in Gondwana Research, contains a highly diverse array of feathers collected from the 118 million-year-old Koonwarra Fossil Bed in Victoria, Australia.

The paper describes what is potentially the earliest evidence of a flight feather, and the first-ever non-avian dinosaur feathers found within the Antarctic Circle. It also documents dark coloration and insulating branching structures on some of the feathers, providing valuable insight into how polar dinosaurs might have stayed warm during long, dark winters.

The fossils were initially discovered in the 1960s, but most of the technologies and knowledge used to understand the feathers described in this study didn't yet exist at that point. Since then, they were tucked away in a drawer in the Melbourne Museum for decades, until lead author Martin Kundrát happened across an old paper in 2012 that described one of the feathers.

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

Read More...