Science & Technology

Monster Sunspot Fires Off Powerful Solar Flares

Tariq Malik
Space.com
Fri, 11 May 2012 08:44 UTC

A huge sunspot that dwarfs the Earth is unleashing a series of powerful solar flares as it moves across the surface of the sun, NASA scientists say.

The sunspot AR 1476 was detected by space telescopes on May 5. The huge sunspot is 60,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) across, so large that when it was first seen in views from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, mission scientists dubbed it a "monster sunspot."

Earlier this week, space weather scientists predicted the sunspot would erupt with powerful solar flares, and those predictions have since come true. So far, the sunspot has fired off several flares, including a strong solar storm early Thursday (May 10).

"Solar activity has been at high levels for the past 24 hours with multiple M-class solar flares observed," stated an update Thursday from the Space Weather Prediction Center, a joint service of NOAA and the National Weather Service. Sunspot region AR 1476 was responsible for nearly all of the sun's storm activity, center officials said.

Being Born in Winter Can Mess With Your Head

Charles Choi
LiveScience
Fri, 11 May 2012 09:41 UTC

© Denis Yarkovoy | Shutterstock
A new large study finds a statistically significant peak of schizophrenia in individuals born in January.

The season in which a baby is born apparently influences the risk of developing mental disorders later in life, suggests a large new study.

The season of birth may affect everything from eyesight and eating habits to birth defects and personality later in life. Past research has also hinted the season one is born in might affect mental health, with scientists suggesting a number of reasons for this apparent effect.

"For example, maternal infections - a mother may be more likely to have the flu over the winter. Does this increase risk?" said researcher Sreeram Ramagopalan, an epidemiologist at Queen Mary University of London. "Or diet. Depending on the season, certain foods - fruits, vegetables - are more or less available, and this may impact on the developing baby."

"Or another key candidate is vitamin D, which is related to sunshine exposure," Ramagopalan added. "During the winter, with a lack of sunshine, mums tend to be very deficient in vitamin D."

However, this effect appears very small, and since past studies only looked at several thousand people at a time, there was a chance the link between birth month and later mental health might only be a statistical illusion. Also, prior research often pooled data from different nations, complicating analysis, since population trends can vary substantially between countries.

New Twist on Ancient Math Problem Could Improve Medicine, Microelectronics

Katherine McAlpine
University of Michigan
Thu, 10 May 2012 22:29 UTC

© University of Michigan
A hidden facet of a math problem that goes back to Sanskrit scrolls has just been exposed by nanotechnology researchers, who say we've been missing a version of the famous "packing problem,” which seeks the best way to cover the inside of an object with a particular shape.

Ann Arbor, Michigan - A hidden facet of a math problem that goes back to Sanskrit scrolls has just been exposed by nanotechnology researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Connecticut.

It turns out we've been missing a version of the famous "packing problem," and its new guise could have implications for cancer treatment, secure wireless networks, microelectronics and demolitions, the researchers say.

Called the "filling problem," it seeks the best way to cover the inside of an object with a particular shape, such as filling a triangle with discs of varying sizes. Unlike the traditional packing problem, the discs can overlap. It also differs from the "covering problem" because the discs can't extend beyond the triangle's boundaries.

"Besides introducing the problem, we also provided a solution in two dimensions," said Sharon Glotzer, U-M professor of chemical engineering.

That solution makes it immediately applicable to treating tumors using fewer shots with radiation beams or speeding up the manufacturing of silicon chips for microprocessors.

The key to solutions in any dimension is to find a shape's "skeleton," said Carolyn Phillips, a postdoctoral fellow at Argonne National Laboratory who recently completed her Ph.D. in Glotzer's group and solved the problem as part of her dissertation.

"Every shape you want to fill has a backbone that goes through the center of the shape, like a spine," she said.

For a pentagon, the skeleton looks like a stick-drawing of a starfish. The discs that fill the pentagon best will always have their centers on one of those lines.

Surprise! IBEX Finds No Bow 'Shock' Outside our Solar System

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
Thu, 10 May 2012 21:54 UTC

© Southwest Research Institute
New data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) shows that the heliosphere moves through space too slowly to form a bow shock.

For years, scientists have thought a bow "shock" formed ahead of our solar system's heliosphere as it moved through interstellar space - similar to the sonic boom made by a jet breaking the sound barrier. But new data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) shows that our system and its heliosphere move through space too slowly to form a bow shock, and therefore does not exist. Instead there is a more gentle 'wave.'

"While bow shocks certainly exist ahead of many other stars, we're finding that our Sun's interaction doesn't reach the critical threshold to form a shock," said Dr. David McComas, principal investigator of the IBEX mission, "so a wave is a more accurate depiction of what's happening ahead of our heliosphere - much like the wave made by the bow of a boat as it glides through the water."

From IBEX data, McComas and his team were able to make refinements in relative speed of our system, as well as finding more information about the local interstellar magnetic field strength. IBEX data have shown that the heliosphere actually moves through the local interstellar cloud at about 52,000 miles per hour, roughly 7,000 miles per hour slower than previously thought. That is slow enough to create more of a bow "wave" than a shock.

Dopamine Neurons Found to Regulate Acquisition and Forgetting of Memories

Science Daily
Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00 UTC

While we often think of memory as a way of preserving the essential idea of who we are, little thought is given to the importance of forgetting to our wellbeing, whether what we forget belongs in the "horrible memories department" or just reflects the minutia of day-to-day living.

Despite the fact that forgetting is normal, exactly how we forget -- the molecular, cellular, and brain circuit mechanisms underlying the process -- is poorly understood.

Now, in a study that appears in the May 10, 2012 issue of the journal Neuron, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have pinpointed a mechanism that is essential for forming memories in the first place and, as it turns out, is equally essential for eliminating them after memories have formed.

"This study focuses on the molecular biology of active forgetting," said Ron Davis, chair of the Scripps Research Department of Neuroscience who led the project. "Until now, the basic thought has been that forgetting is mostly a passive process. Our findings make clear that forgetting is an active process that is probably regulated."

Emotion Can Shut Down High-Level Mental Processes Without Our Knowledge

Medical News Today
Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00 UTC

Psychologists at Bangor University believe that they have glimpsed for the first time, a process that takes place deep within our unconscious brain, where primal reactions interact with higher mental processes. Writing in the Journal of Neuroscience (May 9, 2012 - 32(19):6485 - 6489 - 6485), they identify a reaction to negative language inputs which shuts down unconscious processing.

For the last quarter of a century, psychologists have been aware of, and fascinated by the fact that our brain can process high-level information such as meaning outside consciousness. What the psychologists at Bangor University have discovered is the reverse- that our brain can unconsciously 'decide' to withhold information by preventing access to certain forms of knowledge.

Alien Super-Earth Light Detected by NASA Telescope

Tariq Malik
Space.com
Wed, 09 May 2012 17:37 UTC

© NASA/JPL-Caltech
This artist's concept shows the super-Earth planet 55 Cancri e. It's a toasty world 41 light-years from Earth that rushes around its star every 18 hours.

Light from an alien "super-Earth" twice the size of our own Earth has been detected by a NASA space telescope for the first time in what astronomers are calling a historic achievement.

NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope spotted light from the alien planet 55 Cancri e, which orbits a star 41 light-years from Earth. A year on the extrasolar planet lasts just 18 hours.

The planet 55 Cancri e was first discovered in 2004 and is not a habitable world. Instead, it is known as a super-Earth because of its size: The world is about twice the width of Earth and has about eight times the mass of Earth.

First Images of Comet 67P Close to its Aphelion

Nick Howes, Giovanni Sostero, Alison Tripp and Ernesto Guido
Remanzacco Observatory
Thu, 10 May 2012 16:18 UTC

It's not often that amateurs can provide an important support to professional astronomers involved in an international space mission. At a recent comet conference for the forthcoming Rosetta mission, which will orbit comet 67P/Churyumov - Gerasimenko in 2014, and place a lander on the surface, Faulkes Telescope Pro-Am Programme Manager Nick Howes had put forward a detailed plan for long term observations of the comet 67P, using the twin Faulkes 2m telescopes based in Hawaii and Siding Spring. The proposal challenge was picked up by Faulkes Telescope user Richard Miles, who managed to image the comet on April 19th using Faulkes South (E10 mpc code), and by our Team using Faulkes North (F65 mpc code).

Stacking of 18 R-filtered exposures, 120-sec each, obtained remotely, from the Haleakala-Faulkes Telescope North on 2012, Apr.25.5, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD, under good seeing conditions, shows that comet 67P has a stellar appearance, with R magnitude about 22 (limiting magnitude in our field of R about 22.5). At the moment of our image the comet was at roughly 5.683 AU from the Sun.

Our image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at the aphelion;

The music of the (hemi)spheres sheds new light on schizophrenia

Elsevier
Wed, 09 May 2012 07:48 UTC

In 1619, the pioneering astronomer Johannes Kepler published Harmonices Mundi in which he analyzed data on the movement of planets and asserted that the laws of nature governing the movements of planets show features of harmonic relationships in music. In so doing, Kepler provided important support for the, then controversial, model of the universe proposed by Copernicus.

In the latest issue of Biological Psychiatry, researchers at the University of California in San Diego suggest that careful analyses of the electrical signals of brain activity, measured using electroencephalography (EEG), may reveal important harmonic relationships in the electrical activity of brain circuits.

The underlying premise is a simple one - that brain function is expressed by circuits that fire, and therefore generate oscillating EEG signals, at different frequencies.

Certain Infections Linked to Cancers

Tiffany Kaiser
DailyTech
Thu, 10 May 2012 11:04 UTC

The four infections, including human papillomavirus, Helicobacter pylori and hepatitis B and C, are responsible for about 1.9 million cases of gut, cervical and liver cancers

It has been discovered that four specific infections can be largely responsible for one in six cancers around the globe.

Dr. Catherine de Martel and Dr. Martyn Plummer, both from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France, have found that four infections can be tied to certain cancers in men and women.

The four infections, including human papillomavirus (HPV), Helicobacter pylori and hepatitis B and C, are responsible for about 1.9 million cases of gut, cervical and liver cancers.

According to the study, the relationship between these infections and cancers are three times more likely in the developing world like east Asia (22.9 percent) versus the developed world like the United Kingdom (7.4 percent).

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Jibrish

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Ruth

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Science & Technology

Monster Sunspot Fires Off Powerful Solar Flares

Being Born in Winter Can Mess With Your Head

New Twist on Ancient Math Problem Could Improve Medicine, Microelectronics

Surprise! IBEX Finds No Bow 'Shock' Outside our Solar System

Dopamine Neurons Found to Regulate Acquisition and Forgetting of Memories

Emotion Can Shut Down High-Level Mental Processes Without Our Knowledge

Alien Super-Earth Light Detected by NASA Telescope

First Images of Comet 67P Close to its Aphelion

The music of the (hemi)spheres sheds new light on schizophrenia

Certain Infections Linked to Cancers

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