Science & TechnologyS


Magic Wand

Methane found to fuel rare glass sponge reefs

Reef-building glass sponges were once thought to have been extinct for 100 million years. But a new live cluster of the organisms has been discovered off the west coast of the US - only the second known to exist.

©University of Victoria
Glass sponges are up to 50 centimetres high, and can build reefs up to 450 cm tall.

Furthermore, unlike the other known glass sponge reefs in Canada, the US reefs appear to be fuelled by methane.

Bulb

Cluster Reveals How The Sun Shakes Magnetic Field Of Earth

Space is a hostile region for both astronauts and satellites. One constituent of this hazardous environment around the Earth are very energetic electrons, which are able to perturb or permanently damage satellites. Ultra Low Frequency (ULF) waves, which travel along the Earth's magnetic field lines, are a prime candidate for generating these killer electrons, but the source of these waves remains unclear.

A recent study reveals how a rare conjunction of ground based instrumentation and a dozen satellites at a range of altitudes provide a means to trace the energy source of these waves from the solar wind into the Earth's magnetosphere down to the ground. Part of this satellite constellation, the four spacecraft of the ESA Cluster mission, was located at the border of the magnetosphere and played a major role in discriminating between the various theoretical ULF wave generation scenarios.

Star

Exploring The Comets Of Sol

Since 1986, four different comets -- Halley, Borrelly, Wild 2 and Tempel 1 -- have been examined in impressive detail by a wide variety of American, European and Russian spacecraft, including one that has actually returned a small dust sample to Earth and another that crashed a large piggyback spacecraft into a comet's nucleus to try and reveal some of its subsurface structure. And in 2014, the still more ambitious European "Rosetta" mission will rendezvous with the nucleus of a fifth comet (Churyumov-Gerasimenko), examine it from just 25 kilometers away (or less) for over a year and a half, and even drop a small survivable lander onto the nucleus' surface.

All this attention is entirely justified, given the fact that comets are the only preserved pieces of the "planetesimals" that were made by accretion out of the initial dust, ices and gas of the primordial pre-Solar System nebula itself, and which in turn merged together to form the planets.

Magic Wand

Killer Electrons In Space Are Now Less Mysterious

A rare, timely conjunction of ground-based instrumentation and a dozen satellites has helped scientists better understand how electrons in space can turn into 'killers'. ESA's Cluster constellation has contributed crucially to the finding. 'Killer' electrons are highly energetic, negatively charged particles found in near-Earth space. They can critically, and even permanently, damage satellites in orbit, including telecommunication satellites, and pose a hazard to astronauts.

Several theories have been formulated in the past to explain the origin of killer electrons, and many uncoordinated observations have already been performed. Recently, scientists got a boost in their understanding of this hazardous phenomenon. This was possible thanks to a unique set of data, collected simultaneously, by a global armada of ground and space observatories during the recovery phase of a large geomagnetic storm.

Laptop

Surprise: U.S. Electronic Voting Systems Fail Security Tests!

Electronic voting systems are yet an other tool being used by pathocrats to implement total control over everyone and everything. If you needed any more proof then here it is.


Telescope

The night watchman

Most nights, as the southern hemisphere sleeps, Rob McNaught is awake and on guard. He's part of an international team of astronomers scanning the skies for Near Earth Objects (NEOs), such as asteroids and comets, that could pose a threat to our planet. Scientists believe that large objects colliding with the Earth in the past may have had cataclysmic effects, wreaking destruction at the point of impact, altering global climate patterns and causing mass extinctions. Working with colleagues at the University of Arizona, McNaught has discovered or co-discovered more than 30 comets and thousands of asteroids from his base at Siding Spring in outback New South Wales. So far none of the NEOs appear to be an immediate threat. But very rarely, one of these space travellers does pass close to our planet with spectacular results.

©Rob McNaught
The peacock-like tail of the comet became clearly visible once it entered darker skies.
This shot was captured by Rob McNaught on
25 January at Siding Spring.

Comment: For more information, read the SOTT focus article: Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction! to understand what is really coming our way. Preparations could be underway to prepare for the future, yet, the Pathocrats ruling the planet continue to funnel resources into widespread genocide. Rest assured that their own contingency plans are in place, however.


Magnify

'Bizarre' new bacterium ID'd at Yellowstone

The wonderland of Yellowstone National Park has yielded a new marvel - an unusual bacterium that converts light to energy.

The discovery was made in a hot spring at the park where colorful mats of microbes drift in the warmth.

"This thing was just bizarre," David M. Ward, a professor of microbial studies at Montana State University, said of the bacterium.

Star

Flashback Heart and Soul are located in Cassiopeia

Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula, officially dubbed IC 1805 and visible above on the right, has a shape reminiscent of a classical heart symbol.

Attention

Cheap microphones listen for landmines

Landmines lurking in former combat zones could be uncovered just by listening for them.

A major obstacle to clearing mines in poorer countries is the cost. In one method, mine clearers beam a low-frequency sound wave into the ground - which gently vibrates any buried mines - along with a radar beam. When the radar beam bounces off any vibrating mines it is reflected back at a different frequency. The problem is that radar sensors cost hundreds of dollars.

Video

Retina Minibrain: The Movies in Our Eyes

The retina processes information much more than anyone has ever imagined, sending a dozen different movies to the brain

Comment: Take care of your own eyes, don't play videogames.

Frank Werblin site can be found here.
Research Interests

At early stages of visual processing the world is divided into neurons that signal increases, and others that signal decreases in contrast at each point in visual space. Subsequent to that division in activity, these two signal paths begin to interact, and they inhibit each other at every single stage of visual processing from retina to visual cortex. This fascinating "crossover inhibition" takes many forms....feedback, feed forward, feed across. It also serves many important signal processing functions including common mode rejection, non-linearity correction, drift compensation, and noise reduction. Our lab is studying the neural circuitry that mediates this crossover interaction in an attempt to learn the secrets embodied in this treasure trove of highly sophisticated biological technology.