Science & Technology

Chelyabinsk to Cuba: The Meteor Connection

Astronomia.udea.edu
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 15:46 UTC

On February 1, 2019 a bright meteor crossed the sky over Cuba just in the middle of the day. The phenomenon, that was followed by a "smoke trail" (a characteristic cloud left by the burn in the atmosphere of a meteoroid) and a sonic boom, was witnessed by thousands of locals and tourists in the region of Pinar del Rio (western side of the island).

Almost at the same time of the impact, a cruise ship was leaving the Havana harbor and on board, Rachel Cook, an American tourist and blogger, was making a timelapse of the undocking process. Without knowing, she was recording one of the few videos known to date of the falling meteor. Meanwhile, 400 km away, in Ft. Myers beach, Florida, a web cam of the EarthCam network was filming the midday activities in the beach. Luckily, the camera was aimed at the right direction to record the meteor from afar.

Just a couple of minutes after the event, social networks, especially Instagram and twitter, received a flood of tens of videos and pictures, taken from the island, most of them showing the smoke trail left by the meteor (see the image below). One of those videos was particularly interesting. It was recorded in one of the main streets of the city of Pinar del Rio, and showed tens of people in the street contemplating with awe the remnant cloud (see the video in this link). Although the video does not show the meteor, it was full of details about the place and time when it was recorded.

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Moscow cops may get AR-googles with automatic facial recognition

RT
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 17:31 UTC

The Moscow police may get a tool similar to what their Chinese counterparts have tested - augmented reality goggles that help officers identify people by matching them against a central database.

A wearable device with facial recognition allows an officer to identify suspects on the wanted list by comparing people they interact with against a list of fugitives. If there is a match, the glasses will simply mark the person he should check for ID. Chinese police patrolling the Zhengzhou East high-speed rail station in the Henan province got their gadgets last year for a pilot project. It's not yet clear if or when the law enforcement in Moscow will get their version, but work on the technology is underway, the mayor's office confirmed to the RBC news website.

According to the report, the Russian capital considers expanding on its cooperation with a firm called Ntechlab, the developer of the FindFace facial recognition technology. Their algorithm is already analyzing footage from some 1,500 CCTV cameras installed in Moscow. Most famously their facial recognition system was used during the FIFA World Cup to boost security and helped initiate over 100 arrests - although about half of those detained were football fans banned from events over records of hooliganism.

Scientists: Chimp sign language & human communication follow the same rules

New Scientist
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:28 UTC

Gestures used by chimpanzees to communicate with each other follow some of the same rules intrinsic to human language, according to a study of wild chimps living in Uganda.

Raphaela Heesen, at the University of Roehampton in the UK, and colleagues analysed video recordings of more than 2000 uses of 58 different types of "play" gestures used by chimps living in the Budongo Forest.

They found that more frequently used gestures were shorter in duration, and that longer signing sequences were made up of shorter, syllable-like gestures. These two patterns are known to apply to all human languages.

Pied Piper device that lures tumors out of the brain hailed as a 'game changing' breakthrough

RT
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:28 UTC

The Tumor Monorail, a device which tricks aggressive brain tumors into leaving the brain into an external container, making them far easier to treat and kill, has been described as a "breakthrough device" by the FDA.

The monorail, affectionately dubbed the 'Pied Piper,' mimics the brain's white matter to attract cancerous tumors and stop them from spreading deeper into the brain, greatly reducing their lethality in the process. More specifically, the device contains physical structures and pathways similar to those in the brain along which cancer tumors are prone to traveling.

"The tumor monorail device is a true game-changer in how we think about treating brain tumors," said Barun Brahma, a neurosurgeon at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, who has been a member of the research team since its inception. "This device affords clinicians the ability to surgically treat these [inoperable] tumors with a minimal approach."

New live-imaging technique reveals cellular repair mechanism for plugging leaky biological barrier

PhysOrg
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 23:40 UTC

Suppose you live in a brick house and notice cracks in the mortar that let in cold air, rain and insect pests. You might call a brick mason to repair those leaks and to restore the barrier that keeps the great outdoors from getting inside.

In much the same way, sheets of cells in our bodies called epithelial tissues coat our organs, creating wall-like barriers that protect us from bacteria, viruses and other disease-causing invaders. And when potentially harmful gaps between these cells emerge, a molecular switch gets flipped to call the repair crew and fix the leaks.

Using a novel live-imaging technique they developed, University of Michigan researchers have achieved the first direct detection of short-lived leaks in epithelial tissues as they occur. Their new microscopy barrier assay also allowed them to discover that the repair mechanism involves local activation of a protein called Rho.

New study demonstrates controllable electron flow in quantum wires

Catherine Zandonella
Discovery Princeton
Wed, 06 Feb 2019 19:06 UTC

controllable electron flow quantum wires

© Ali Yazdani research group at Princeton University
Scanning tunneling microscope image showing a boundary between regions with different electron orbit orientations.

Researchers have demonstrated a new way of making controllable "quantum wires" in the presence of a magnetic field, according to a new study published online today in the journal Nature.

The researchers detected channels of conducting electrons that form between two quantum states on the surface of a bismuth crystal subjected to a high magnetic field. These two states consist of electrons moving in elliptical orbits with different orientations.

To the team's surprise, they found that the current flow in these channels can be turned on and off, making these channels a new type of controllable quantum wire.

rDNA's role in aging discovered

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 18:51 UTC

Boston, MA - A newly discovered ribosomal DNA (rDNA) clock can be used to accurately determine an individual's chronological and biological age, according to research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The ribosomal clock is a novel biomarker of aging based on the rDNA, a segment of the genome that has previously been mechanistically linked to aging. The ribosomal clock has potentially wide applications, including measuring how exposures to certain pollutants or dietary interventions accelerate or slow aging in a diversity of species, including mice and humans.

"We have hopes that the ribosomal clock will provide new insights into the impact of the environment and personal choices on long-term health," said senior author Bernardo Lemos, associate professor of environmental epigenetics. "Determining biological age is a central step to understanding fundamental aspects of aging as well as developing tools to inform personal and public health choices."

The study was published online in Genome Research on February 14, 2019.

Aging is exhibited by organisms as diverse as yeast, worms, flies, mice, and humans. Age is also the major risk factor for a plethora of diseases, including neurological diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. There are two types of age: chronological age, or the number of years a person or animal has lived, and biological age, which accounts for various lifestyle factors that can shorten or extend lifespan, including diet, exercise, and environmental exposures. Overall, biological age has been shown to be a better predictor of all-cause mortality and disease onset than chronological age.

Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro comes out in support of intelligent design

David Klinghoffer
Evolution News
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 18:52 UTC

Ben Shapiro

A pat on the head from the scientific majority is something many laymen seem to crave. To otherwise independent-minded adults, materialism offers a source of attraction that keeps them from being willing to exercise their usual skepticism. This may have something to do with the social opprobrium that comes with being associated, per the dominant media myth, with downscale "creationists."

So I have great admiration for thinkers like Ben Shapiro, radio host and podcaster, who dare to break with the expected views that go along with being publicly acknowledged as whip-smart. The Ben Shapiro Show is impressive. The other day, February 11, he discussed and recommended Stephen Meyer's book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, a "great book." Here is a clip:

Shapiro accepts the idea of evolution, but he also appreciates that intelligent design is ultimately a way of understanding evolution, the mechanism that drives it. "People mix up creationism and intelligent design," he notes. Yes, they do. Signature in the Cell, he says, is a "deeply scientifically knowledgeable book, basically asking some serious questions about why it is that DNA seems to have been designed. There are a bunch of puzzles that people like Richard Dawkins really have not provided sufficient answers to."

Black leopard photographed in Africa for the first time in 100 years

Jason G. Goldman
National Geographic
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 18:06 UTC

© WILL BURRARD-LUCAS, CAMTRAPTIONS
An ultra-rare black leopard walks through Laikipia Wilderness Camp in central Kenya in 2018

They say that black cats bring bad luck, but when Nick Pilfold heard about one lurking around central Kenya, he knew he was onto something special.

The Kenya-based biologist and his team deployed a set of camera traps throughout the bushlands of Loisaba Conservancy in early 2018. It wasn't long before he got what he was looking for: undeniable proof of a super-rare melanistic leopard.

The juvenile female was spotted traveling with a larger, normally colored leopard, presumed to be her mother. (See our exclusive picture of a rare black wildcat seen in Africa.)

The opposite of albinism, melanism is the result of a gene that causes a surplus of pigment in the skin or hair of an animal so that it appears black. Melanistic leopards have been reported in and around Kenya for decades, but scientific confirmation of their existence remains quite rare.

Earth's magnetic shield booms like a drum when hit by impulses

Phys.org
Tue, 12 Feb 2019 16:48 UTC

plasma jet impact generating standing waves at magnetopause

© E. Masongsong/UCLA, M. Archer/QMUL, H. Hietala/UTU
Artist rendition of a plasma jet impact (yellow) generating standing waves at the magnetopause boundary (blue) and in the magnetosphere (green). The outer group of four THEMIS probes witnessed the flapping of the magnetopause over each satellite in succession, confirming the expected behaviour/frequency of the theorised magnetopause eigenmode wave.

The Earth's magnetic shield booms like a drum when it is hit by strong impulses, according to new research from Queen Mary University of London.

As an impulse strikes the outer boundary of the shield, known as the magnetopause, ripples travel along its surface which then get reflected back when they approach the magnetic poles.

The interference of the original and reflected waves leads to a standing wave pattern, in which specific points appear to be standing still while others vibrate back and forth. A drum resonates like this when struck in exactly the same way.

This study, published in Nature Communications, describes the first time this effect has been observed after it was theoretically proposed 45 years ago.

Movements of the magnetopause are important in controlling the flow of energy within our space environment with wide-ranging effects on space weather, which is how phenomena from space can potentially damage technology like power grids, GPS and even passenger airlines.

The discovery that the boundary moves in this way sheds light on potential global consequences that previously had not been considered.

Dr. Martin Archer, space physicist at Queen Mary University of London, and lead author of the paper, said: "There had been speculation that these drum-like vibrations might not occur at all, given the lack of evidence over the 45 years since they were proposed. Another possibility was that they are just very hard to definitively detect.

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Science & Technology

Chelyabinsk to Cuba: The Meteor Connection

Moscow cops may get AR-googles with automatic facial recognition

Scientists: Chimp sign language & human communication follow the same rules

Pied Piper device that lures tumors out of the brain hailed as a 'game changing' breakthrough

New live-imaging technique reveals cellular repair mechanism for plugging leaky biological barrier

New study demonstrates controllable electron flow in quantum wires

rDNA's role in aging discovered

Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro comes out in support of intelligent design

Black leopard photographed in Africa for the first time in 100 years

Earth's magnetic shield booms like a drum when hit by impulses

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