Science & TechnologyS


Butterfly

Bird embryos communicate with each other from inside unhatched eggs

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Mon, 22 Jul 2019 12:00 UTC
eggs
© (Duarte Frade/iNaturalist, CC-BY)Yellow-legged gull eggs.
Unhatched bird embryos can not only hear the warning calls of adult birds - they can communicate that information to their unhatched brothers and sisters sharing the same nest, remaining safely tucked away in their shells until it is safe to hatch.

It is a finding that reveals how birds can adapt to their environment even before birth, since, unlike placental mammals, their physiology can no longer be influenced by changes in their mother's body after the egg is laid.

In particular, a team of researchers exposed unhatched yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) eggs to cues that indicated high predation risk. Not only did the unhatched embryos communicate these cues to unexposed nestmates, they emerged from their eggs exhibiting much more cautious behaviour than the control group.

Comment: Isn't the intelligence of nature amazing? Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Fireball 2

Glass 'pearls' point to meteorite strike near Florida 2 million years ago

George Dvorsky
Gizmodo
Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:20 UTC
clam glass
© Mike Meyer/Meteoritics and Planetary ScienceA pair of microtektites found inside ancient clam shells.
Since their discovery 13 years ago, scientists have puzzled over the origin of tiny glass beads found inside ancient clam shells. New evidence suggests they're microtektites — a byproduct of meteorite impacts — marking the first time these celestial remnants have been found hiding in old clam shells.

Ancient clam shells uncovered at a Sarasota County quarry in Florida are the unexpected repositories of microtektites, according to new research published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science. The research is still incomplete, but the discovery points to a previously unknown meteorite strike (or strikes) off the coast of Florida some 2 million to 3 million years ago.

"This is the first report of microtektites in Florida and one of only a few findings of space debris found in the state," Mike Meyer, lead author of the new study and a researcher at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, told Gizmodo. "These spheres may also help us date the shell beds they were found in as we don't have a precise age for them."

Comment: Spherules have also been found at many other sites providing evidence that impact events have occurred much more recently than that noted above:

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Telescope

Astronomers have found a rare kilometer-wide asteroid with the shortest year known

Michelle Lou
CNN
Wed, 10 Jul 2019 17:08 UTC
The orbit of asteroid 2019 LF6
The orbit of asteroid 2019 LF6 (white) falls entirely within the orbit of Earth (blue).
A massive asteroid has eluded astronomers because of its unusual orbit -- until now.

Astronomers have spotted 2019 LF6, which is about a kilometer wide and boasts the shortest "year" of any known asteroid, circling the sun about every 151 days, according to the California Institute of Technology.

This rare rocky body is one of only 20 known Atira asteroids, those whose orbits fall entirely within that of the Earth.

"You don't find kilometer-size asteroids very often these days," said Quanzhi Ye, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech who discovered 2019 LF6 via the Zwicky Transient Facility, a camera at the school's Palomar Observatory that scans the sky for objects. "Thirty years ago, people started organizing methodical asteroid searches, finding larger objects first, but now that most of them have been found, the bigger ones are rare birds."

It's difficult to spot the asteroids because astronomers only have about 20 to 30 minutes before or after sunset to find them, Ye said.

"LF6 is very unusual both in orbit and in size -- its unique orbit explains why such a large asteroid eluded several decades of careful searches," Ye said.
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Toys

Stuff no one asked for: P&G launching 'smart diapers' with help from Google

Barrett J. Brunsman
Cincinnati Business Courier
Fri, 19 Jul 2019 13:50 UTC
lumi smart diapers
© Courtesy of P&GThe Lumi by Pampers monitoring system, which P&G claims is the world’s first all-in-one connected care system, will be available for purchase this fall.
Procter & Gamble Co. worked with a subsidiary of Google to develop a baby monitoring system that alerts parents via a smartphone app if a Pampers diaper needs changing.

The app also will enable parents to keep an eye on a baby via a Logitech video camera installed in a nursery, according to the Cincinnati-based maker of consumer goods (NYSE: PG).

The high-definition, wide-angle monitor includes night vision and two-way audio. It also tracks room temperature and humidity.

Comment: From Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:

It's unsurprising that a company like Google, very well-versed in spying on people for the purpose of hoovering up personal data, would help with the development of every helicopter parent's dream product - an efficient way of knowing your infant's every last act down to it's simple bodily functions. Apparently, despite millennia of child rearing, humans have been missing out on vital information about their infants that only digital diapers can provide. It's the product you didn't know you desperately needed!

See also:

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Galaxy

Ring-like formations discovered around lakes on Titan

Evan Gough
Universe Today
Fri, 19 Jul 2019 12:00 UTC
titan lakes
Some lakes on Titan have ring-like shapes around them, and scientists are trying to find out how they formed. Understanding how they formed may tell us something about how the entire region they're in, including the lakes, formed. The ring-shaped features are found around pools and lakes at Titan's polar regions.

Thanks to the Cassini spacecraft, which spent 13 years studying Saturn and its moons, we know that the frigid moon Titan is an intriguing place. Cassini showed us that Titan has about 650 lakes and seas in its polar regions. We also know that about 300 of them have liquid ethane and methane in them, though they're not all full.

The bulk of the smaller lakes on Titan have sharp edges and flat floors. They can reach depths of 600 meters and they have narrow outer rims about 1 km wide.

Comment: See also:

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Cell Phone

A newly discovered neural pathway processes acute light to affect sleep

Northwestern University
Science Daily
Fri, 19 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Phone at night
© notallowedto.com
Different pathways process long-term circadian rhythms and short-term exposure to light

While this acute burst of light does make it more difficult to fall back to sleep, a new Northwestern University study reports that it won't interfere with the body's overall circadian rhythms.

For the first time, researchers directly tested how short pulses of light are processed by the brain to affect sleep. They discovered that separate areas of the brain are responsible for short pulses versus long-term exposure to light. This finding challenges the widely accepted, long-held belief that all light information is relayed through the brain's suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which synchronizes the body's sleep/wake cycles.

"Prior to the widespread use of electricity, our exposure to light and darkness occurred in a very predictable pattern," said Northwestern's Tiffany Schmidt, who led the study. "But light has become very cheap. We all have smartphones, and their screens are very bright. We're all getting exposed to light at the wrong times of day. It's becoming more important to understand how these different types of light information are relayed to the brain."
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Sun

Could Giant Solar Farms make fuel and help solve climate change? Not likely!

Jordan Davidson
Waking Times
Fri, 19 Jul 2019 15:51 UTC
Giant Solar Panels
Millions of solar panels clustered together to form an island could convert carbon dioxide in seawater into methanol, which can fuel airplanes and trucks, according to new research from Norway and Switzerland and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, PNAS, as NBC News reported. The floating islands could drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels.

The paper argues that the technology exists to build the floating methanol islands on a large scale in areas of the ocean free from large waves and extreme weather. Areas of the ocean off the coasts of South America, North Australia, the Arabian Gulf and Southeast Asia are particularly suitable for mooring these islands.

Comment: Here-in lies part of the rub when it comes to initiatives to combat climate change - you can't control it. When looking at the work of astrophysicist Valentina Zharkova, she shows a direct correlation between activity on the surface of the sun and temperature on Earth. According to her research, we are heading into a Grand Solar Minimum where the Sun will go dormant. This is going to effect the entire solar system, and more than man-made CO2 emissions, needs to be taken into account when devising plans to deal with and adapt to upcoming changes on the planet.

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Broom

Elon Musk claims brain microchip has allowed monkey to "control a computer"

Isobel Asher Hamilton
Business Insider
Wed, 17 Jul 2019 09:34 UTC
Neuralink
© Neuralink/YouTubeThe Neuralink chip sits behind the ear, while electrodes are threaded into the brain.
Elon Musk took his colleagues by surprise with an unplanned announcement at a presentation by his secretive neurotechnology company, Neuralink, on Tuesday.

Musk cofounded Neuralink in 2016. Its goal is to create a chip that could enable a "brain-computer interface." And according to Musk, the company has already had some success — with monkeys.

During the 90-minute event, Musk and various senior staffers at Neuralink presented the company's ambition to design a chip capable of being implanted in the human brain that could receive and transmit signals to the organ.

The near-term goal would be to treat various serious brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, although ultimately Musk's ambition is to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence."

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: Extreme Biohacking, Transhumanism and the Singularity

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Cloud Lightning

Space-station cameras reveal how thunderstorms trigger gamma-ray bursts

Alexandra Witze
Nature
Wed, 17 Jul 2019 12:00 UTC
thunderstorm
© NASA/JSCLightning flashes over Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in this photo taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
A cluster of cameras peering down at Earth from the International Space Station has spotted hundreds of gamma-ray flashes going off in the hearts of thunderstorms over the past year. By comparing those enigmatic flashes with lightning rippling through the same storms, space physicists have begun to unravel the decades-old mystery of what causes the high-energy bursts.

The researchers have found that the bursts, known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs), form when powerful electric fields course through the atmosphere, just before a lightning bolt travels along the same path. The charged electrical particles interact with the atmosphere to produce a super-fast flickering of gamma rays, which cannot be seen by the naked eye but are visible to the specialized cameras looking down from the space station.

Comment: See also:

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Microscope 2

Plant viruses may be essential for maintaining biodiversity and helping plants adapt to their environment

Arvind Varsani
Arizona State University
Wed, 17 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Viruses
Mysteries abound in the viral world. Scientists still aren't quite sure where they came from. The illustration describes three leading theories.
The community of viruses is staggeringly vast. Occupying every conceivable biological niche, from searing undersea vents to frigid tundra, these enigmatic invaders, hovering between inert matter and life, circumnavigate the globe in the hundreds of trillions. They are the most abundant life forms on earth.

Viruses are justly feared as ingenious pathogens, causing diseases in everything they invade, including virtually all bacteria, fungi, plants and animals. Recent advances in the field of virology, however, suggest that viruses play a more significant and complex role than previously appreciated, and may be essential to the functioning of diverse ecosystems.

We now know that humans contain roughly 100,000 pieces of viral DNA elements, which make up around 8 percent of our genome. Speculation on the role of these ancient viral fragments ranges from protection against disease to increasing the risk of cancer or other serious illnesses, though researchers acknowledge they have barely scratched the surface of this enigma

A new review article appearing in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology highlights the evolution and ecology of plant viruses. Arvind Varsani, a researcher at ASU's Biodesign Institute joins an international team to explore many details of viral dynamics. They describe the subtle interplay between three components of the viral infection process, the virus itself, the plant cell hosts infected by the virus and the vectors that act as go-betweens — an intricate system evolving over some 450 million years. All three elements are embedded within wider relations of the surrounding ecosystem.

Recent studies in the field of virology have shown that viruses are sometimes beneficial to the organisms they infect. "Prior to this people have always seen viruses as disease-causing entities," Varsani says. "This breaks all the dogmas of how we study viruses. We have a section where we review mutualism and symbiosis and also how some of the symbiotic relationships are being uncoupled."

Comment: See also:

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