Science & TechnologyS


Airplane

Russia developing super-heavy ground-effect civilian transport


RT
Sun, 29 Jan 2017 13:11 UTC
Russia super-heavy ground-effect civilian transport
© tsagi.ru
A civilian transport vehicle capable of hauling up to 500 tons of cargo across oceans is in the early stages of development in Russia. The vehicle would fly just meters over the surface to utilize so-called ground effect for better fuel efficiency.

A ground-effect vehicle is a combination of a maritime vessel and an aircraft. It can only travel over a more or less smooth surface like the ground, water, or ice, flying several meters above it to produce more lift force and less drag than any fixed-wing aircraft generates close to the ground. This makes it more fuel efficient and allows it to make longer journeys.

The Soviet military had several heavy GEVs built in the 1970s and 1980s, including the famous, but now-retired, Lun - a 243-ton anti-ship missile carrier. While the Navy was more interested in the ability of such vehicles to avoid radar detection, as well as their high speed, a leading Russian aviation research institution believes it can build a GEV capable of competing with freighter vessels and transport planes for a niche market.
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Igloo

Snowball Earth - Entire Earth covered by ice?


Post Independent
Sun, 29 Jan 2017 05:00 UTC
IceAge
© NeethisImagine the earth enveloped in ice, as it was during Snowball Earth times.
Imagine the entire Earth covered in ice. It's not that far-fetched. It actually happened - and more than once.

Was it because Anna got mad at Elsa? No - but the real reason is even cooler. Scientists figured it out only after a rather provocative hypothesis tied a bunch of bizarre evidence together.

The first clues were discovered on some desolate Atlantic islands. There geologists found layers of rock formed by glaciers, but sandwiched between tropical rocks. How had this happened? Did the islands tectonically drift from the tropics to the poles and then back?

Nope. Microscopic magnetic particles in the rocks showed that when they were originally deposited, the rocks were located near the equator. This could only mean one thing - that the tropics had once been covered by ice.

No problem, you say? There are glaciers atop plenty of equatorial mountains, like the ones that feed the Nile or that dot Ecuadorian rainforests. Maybe such high-elevation glaciers could explain the equatorial ice evidence geologists were finding.

Except that the tropical strata below and above the glacial rocks weren't deposited at high elevation. Rather they were deposited in warm water, near tidal flats and ocean beaches.

It gets even crazier. In other reaches of the globe, scientists scratched their heads about similarly bipolar deposits - in Australia, Africa, Asia and our own Rocky Mountains. Much like paleontologists figured out that dinosaurs all disappeared at the same time, it took a long time for geologists to figure out that all these glacial-tropical rocks were about the same age.

Meaning: Maybe the entire planet, even delightful places like Ecuador, had once been covered by vast sheets of ice. A Snowball Earth.
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Igloo

Ice age cycles linked to orbital periods and sea ice

Anthony Watts
Watts up with That
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 19:31 UTC
Ice Ages
© Jung-Eun Lee/Brown UniversityThe Southern Hemisphere has a higher capacity to grow sea ice than the Northern Hemisphere, where continents block growth. New research shows that the expansion of Southern Hemisphere sea ice during certain periods in Earth’s orbital cycles can control the pace of the planet’s ice ages.
Providence, R.I. — Earth is currently in what climatologists call an interglacial period, a warm pulse between long, cold ice ages when glaciers dominate our planet's higher latitudes. For the past million years, these glacial-interglacial cycles have repeated roughly on a 100,000-year cycle. Now a team of Brown University researchers has a new explanation for that timing and why the cycle was different before a million years ago.

Using a set of computer simulations, the researchers show that two periodic variations in Earth's orbit combine on a 100,000-year cycle to cause an expansion of sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere. Compared to open ocean waters, that ice reflects more of the sun's rays back into space, substantially reducing the amount of solar energy the planet absorbs. As a result, global temperature cools.

"The 100,000-year pace of glacial-interglacial periods has been difficult to explain," said Jung-Eun Lee, an assistant professor in Brown's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Studies and the study's lead author. "What we were able to show is the importance of sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere along with orbital forcings in setting the pace for the glacial-interglacial cycle."

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
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Fish

Knight in slimy armor? US Navy scientists excited over new biomaterial artificially re-created from hagfish secretion


RT
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 22:52 UTC
Scientist and engineers
© Ron Newsome / www.navy.milNaval Surface Warfare Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) scientist and engineers (L-R) Dr Josh Kogot, Dr Michelle Kincer and Dr Ryan Kincer demonstrate the lab-created hagfish slim.
Could a substance derived from bottom-feeding prehistoric fish revolutionize battleship armor? US Navy scientists are betting on yes, pointing to the artificially re-created hagfish slime as the next frontier in maritime protection.

Working at the US Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, Florida, biochemist Dr. Josh Kogot and materials engineer Dr. Ryan Kincer have developed a synthetic biomaterial by recreating the slime of the Pacific hagfish (Eptatretus stoutii) in a lab.
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Brain

Researchers propose 'brain-sticky' trait of LSD may be key to treating depression, schizophrenia


RT
Sat, 28 Jan 2017 15:24 UTC
scientist brain
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Researchers investigating the way LSD interacts with our brains say they have unraveled the secret of its persistence. This may enable scientists to treat a variety of psychiatric disorders using smaller doses of regular drugs with a far longer effect.

The mystery of how the effects of LSD can last so long, even though the drug itself is no longer present in a person's bloodstream, appears to have been solved, according to a new study conducted by a joint team of researchers from The University of North Carolina, Stanford University and the University of California.

Using a process known as crystallography, the researchers were able to examine exactly how LSD molecules interact with the serotonin receptors in our brain. According to the data, LSD actually embeds far deeper than previously thought thanks to its molecular structure which becomes wedged in the receptors and cannot break free.

On top of this, the brain receptors themselves engulf the LSD molecules with a layer of protein. This is why the molecules disappear from human bloodstreams so quickly and yet continue to have hallucinogenic effects for hours afterward.
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Microscope 2

New gene-delivery method restores partial hearing, balance in deaf mice


Harvard Medical School
Thu, 26 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
hair cells inner ear
© Harvard Medical SchoolScientists have developed a new way to deliver genes into the hair cells of the inner ear in mice.
Using a novel form of gene therapy, scientists from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital have managed to restore partial hearing and balance in mice born with a genetic condition that affects both.

The new model overcomes a long-standing barrier to accessing hair cells, the delicate sensors in the inner ear that capture sound and head movement and convert them to neural signals for hearing and balance. These cells have been notoriously difficult to treat with previous gene-delivery techniques.

The team's findings, published in the February issue of Molecular Therapy, show that the treatment leads to notable gains in hearing and allows mice that would normally be completely deaf to hear the equivalent of a loud conversation. The approach also improved the animals' sense of balance.
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Mars

Mars 'Curiosity' encounters potential new meteorite

Bob King
Universe Today
Mon, 16 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
Curiosity meteorite 1
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSThis peculiar rock, photographed on Jan. 12 (Sol 1577) by NASA’s Curiosity rover, appears to be a metal meteorite. When confirmed, this would be the rover’s third meteorite find on the Red Planet. Click for the high resolution original.
Rolling up the slopes of Mt. Sharp recently, NASA's Curiosity rover appears to have stumbled across yet another meteorite, its third since touching down nearly four and a half years ago. While not yet confirmed, the turkey-shaped object has a gray, metallic luster and a lightly-dimpled texture that hints of regmaglypts. Regmaglypts, indentations that resemble thumbprints in Play-Doh, are commonly seen in meteorites and caused by softer materials stripped from the rock's surface during the brief but intense heat and pressure of its plunge through the atmosphere.
2 Mars curiosity meteorite
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSCloseup showing laser zap pits.
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Jet2

Russia presents new MiG-35 fighter jet designed to potentially use laser guns


RT
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 21:49 UTC
Russian MiG-35 fighter jet
© Sergey Mamontov / Sputnik
Russia has launched flight tests of its latest lightweight fighter, MiG-35. The military aircraft, which has been constructed to be potentially equipped with laser weapons, will in the near future replace previous generation jets in the Russian Air Force.

The new fighter jet by the Mikoyan Aircraft Corporation (MiG) can fly at speeds of over 2,700 km/h (1,700 mph) and reach heights of up to 17,500 meters (57,400 feet). Its strike radius is 1,000 km (620 miles), while it can be in action twice as long as previous generation fighters, as there is an option to replace the second pilot's seat with an extra fuel tank.

"The 3,500 kilometers [2,175 miles] that MiG-35 is able to fly suits us very well," Russian Air Force Commander Viktor Bondarev has said.
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Microscope 1

How tiny microbes are revolutionizing big agriculture

Mathew Wallenstein
The Conversation
Wed, 25 Jan 2017 00:55 UTC
microbes soil
Walk into your typical U.S. or U.K. grocery store and feast your eyes on an amazing bounty of fresh and processed foods. In most industrialized countries, it's hard to imagine that food production is one of the greatest challenges we will face in the coming decades.

By the year 2050, the human population is projected to grow from 7.5 billion to nearly 10 billion. To feed them, we will need to almost double food production within just three decades, all in the face of increasing drought, herbicide and pesticide resistance, and in a world where the best cropland is already being farmed.
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Play

Study finds dogs are happiest listening to reggae and soft rock


Study Finds
Thu, 26 Jan 2017 16:02 UTC
reggae dog
If a chewing treat or rubber toy isn't getting the job done when it comes to exciting your pooch, turning on the radio just might do the trick. Just be careful as to which station you put on, as a new study finds dogs can be particular when it comes to the type of music they prefer.

Researchers out of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, along with folks at the Scottish SPCA, found that reggae and soft rock topped the canine charts, though certain dogs do seem to have various tastes.

"We were keen to explore the effect playing different genres of music had, and it was clear that the physiological and behavioural changes observed were maintained during the trial when the dogs were exposed to a variety of music," said PhD student Amy Bowman.

The musical experimentation took place at the SPCA in Dumbarton, Scotland, where researchers studied how dogs there responded to different styles of music.

"Overall, the response to different genres was mixed highlighting the possibility that like humans, our canine friends have their own individual music preferences," said Professor Neil Evans. "That being said, reggae music and soft rock showed the highest positive changes in behaviour."

Back in 2015, the Scottish SPCA also released a study showing classical music had a calming effect on dogs. Researchers at Colorado State University reached the same conclusion in a 2012 study. That study also found heavy metal boosted anxiety and unrest in dogs.
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