Old Fridges, Cars Slow Ozone Hole Recovery

The Antarctic ozone hole will probably take longer to heal than was previously thought. At the current rate of recovery, the hole won't fix itself until around 2065, some 15 years later than the generally accepted estimate. In the 1987 Montreal Protocol, many nations agreed to phase out the use of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, that eat away at the protective ozone layer when released into the atmosphere. But the amount of CFCs that linger on in old refrigerators, fire extinguishers, air-conditioning systems and other equipment was greatly underestimated. National Geographic News

'Borneo beast' seen in the underbrush

Patience pays off for the researchers who may have spotted a new carnivore in the jungles of Borneo. nature.com/news

Dog Decoded

Researchers published the full genetic code of a 12-year-old boxer named Tasha. But she is not just another addition to the list of animals with completely sequenced genomes. Domestic dogs have a unique genetic background, thanks to humans. Humans have created more than 400 dog breeds, each with its own traits, and its own genetic code. So it should be a lot easier to pin down the genetic roots of traits in dogs than in people, whose characteristics and genetic groupings are much less clear cut. nature.com/news

Leap second to be added to 2005

News@Nature.com reports that, "Officials have announced that an extra second will be added to 2005, to accommodate a slowing down of the Earth's rotation. The announcement is by no means unprecedented. We have been adding leap seconds to years since the 1970s, but, owing to unpredictable quirks in our planet's rotation, we haven't needed one since 1998. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service in Paris will sneak the extra time in on 31 December 2005, making the countdown to the new year one second longer than some might expect." The extra second was needed as a result of the large earthquake that caused the tsunami in Indonesia. The quake forced a dense mass of the earth's crust downward. Like a spinning figure skater that brings her arms in, the earth began to spin faster as the mass shifted shortening our day by 3 millions of a second.

Space probe slams into comet

Running as planned, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft released a 360-kilogram (816-pound) impactor probe on July 4th that collided with the comet Tempel 1. The super-fast probe generated an immense flash of light. Meanwhile, on the Deep Impact mothership, camera's fixed on the collision captured images in the light of the collision. Deep Impact scientists theorize the 820-pound impactor was turned to vapor deep below the comet's surface when the two collided at 1:52 am July 4, at a speed of about 10 kilometers per second (6.3 miles per second or 23,000 miles per hour).

The goal of the Deep Impact mission was to provide an in-depth picture of the composition of a comet. Because the materials found on comets have changed very little since the formation of our solar system, mission scientists hope the project will answer basic questions about how the solar system formed.

Does vitamin C stop colds?

The answer is kinda, but not so much. Consuming 200 mg of vitamin C per day (the recommended daily allowance is between 60 and 90 mg), was found to reduce the duration of a cold by only 8% in adults. The vitamin did not reduce the likelihood of getting a cold, except in soldiers, marathon runners, and others under extreme external stress. Given that the average adults only gets one cold per year, it doesn't make sense to swallow 200 mg per day of vitamin C. Humans are unlike most animals in that they can not make their own vitamin C.

Better luck next time for solar sail

The unmanned solar sail spacecraft Cosmos 1is most likely lost. The spacecraft was launched from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea on June 21. Once deployed by a rocket, this spacesraft was to be the first to use its eight-panel solar sail to catch the gentle push of the steady flow of particles from the sun (the solar wind) to propel it through space at high speeds. The project was organized by The Planetary Society, an independent and privatley-funded space research organization. It is still uncertain whether the spacecraft is adrift in an unknown orbit or has crashed to earth.

Scientists fear Martian microbes

NASA scientists are quite worried about the possibility that the Martian atmosphere or soil might contain living microorganisms. President Bush's plan to send humans to Mars could be delayed as a result. If living microbes from Mars were carried back to earth from the Mars mission, they could quickly wipe us out if they are harmful to humans. The likelihood that Mars has micrbes is low, and that the likelihood that they're harmful is even lower. The chances are slim, but the risks are high, and that's why NASA wants to send a robot to Mars that can return atmosphere and soil samples to earth. NASA also requests a highly secure biological facility to store the Mars samples. All this could delay the manned Mars mission by 10 to 15 years. Link.

Rocky planet found

"This is by far the most Earth-like planet ever found," said Dr. Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Marcy used one of the giant 10-meter diameter Keck telescopes in Hawaiii to discover a small extra-solar planet. (An extra-solar planet is a planet located beyond our solar system.) This new planet is about 7 times the mass of earth; even so, it's the smallest planet extra-solar planet we've found. It's probably made of rock, and this makes it different than any other extra-solar planet. All of the other 150-or-so extra-solar planets that have been identified are large spheres of gas, like our neighbor Jupiter. "This is a really cool result,"says Dr. David Spergel, a Princeton University scientist who is building a planet hunting satellite for NASA.

Flying cell phones interfere with radio telescopes

FCC and FAA regulators have been considering re-allowing cell phone use on commercial airline flights. During the 9-11 terroist attacks, passengers with cellphones were able to communicate to the ground, and in light of this, cellphones on planes become an important safety tool. But there's a problem. Cellphones that broadcast at high altitutes interfere with sensitive radio telescopes on the ground. These telescopes are used to search for extra-terrestrial life and perform other research. This problem, caused by too much technology, can be solved by more technology. The strength of the broadcast signal of a cellphone is controlled automatically based on the location of the nearest cell tower. A device can be installed on commercial planes that can fool a cellphone to trim down its signal as if there is a nearby tower, keeping signals from bugging the radio telescopes. Link.

The planetology of Star Wars

I know, I know... it's only a movie. But there's a lot of good science to discuss when an expert on planets speaks with a National Geographic reporter about the planets located in a galaxy far, far away. Link.

Mars rover on the move again

The Mars rover Opportunity was cuising the Martian landscape at almost 200 m per day, until it got stuck in loose sand on April 25. Since then it's been creeping backwards at about 2 meters per day, its wheels at least half buried in loose sand. I was reported today that the Opportunity has freed itself. The next plan is to analyze the sand it was trapped in. Link.

Embattled ozone layer hangs in there

The ozone layer over the Antarctic is usually the focus of environmental concern; it generally gets more damage than the Arctic ozone layer. But this winter, the ozone loss over the Arctic was at near-record levels. Fortunately, stratospheric winds transported ozone-rich air from earth's middle latitudes into the Arctic, replacing most of the lost ozone. As a result, only a small rise in ultraviolet radiation was observed at ground level. Link.

South Korea Cloning

"I never destroy any life during my process," said South Korean laboratory director Dr. Woo Suk Hwang, as he looks at a black-and-white screen. Magnified 250 times, the screen shows him the probe he uses to to inject the DNA of a skin cell into a human egg. Dr. Hwang recently reported that he had created new colonies of stem cells that matched the DNA of their donors. This is a major step towards growing replacement tissues to possibly treat spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes, and immune deficiencies.
By generally accepted definitions, Dr. Hwang is cloning. Many say Dr. Hwang is tampering with human life. But this is not the opinion of British, Japanese, Swedish, and Spanish researchers have all come to Seoul to see Dr. Hwang's work. American research institutions that are seeking collaborations with Dr. Hwang include Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Link.

Brian Greene: This he believes

Brian Greene, U Columbia Physicist and author of The Elegant Universe, said the following on a National Public Radio feature on 5-30-05. Quote:

I believe we owe our young an education that captures the exhilarating drama of science.
I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence. I believe that through its rational evaluation of truth and indifference to personal belief, science transcends religious and political divisions and so does bind us into a greater, more resilient whole.
I believe that the wonder of discovery can lift the spirit like Brahms' Third Symphony.
I believe that the breathtaking ideas of science can nourish not only the mind but also the soul. Link.

Curiosity shoplifted

With shifts in federal scientific funding from open-ended research to technology development, one Washington Post columnist writes that we are in danger of losing our sense of curiosity. Are we too focused on short-term progress and profits? Are we no longer interested in exploring for the sake of exploring? Link.

Invasive species

According to May’s issue of Discover, the species invasion has already begun: dandelions, purple loosestrife, Cuban tree frogs, etc. The success of an invading species depends on its ability to find and exploit a niche in a new ecosystem. When an alien species enters a new ecosystem, it can cause a stir by eating native species, spreading disease, competing better against local decease, or changing the environment in such a way that favors itself. But, most invasive species just take their place quietly. Purple loosestrife, for example, is taking over wetlands and backyards in the northeast. Although local ecologists are sounding the alarm, a zoological study concluded that there is little or no evidence that its invasion has any serious ecological consequences. We traditionally see invasive species as deceases that ruin natural ecosystems. But invasion biologists don’t see it that way. Invasions don’t cause ecosystems to collapse; in fact, invasive species can make an ecosystem healthier by increasing the local biodiversity. Although a new species may not be as useful or attractive to humans, the new, more competitive species will make the ecosystem stronger. (You might not be able to read the story without a password.) Link.

US Senate supports the stem cell bill

The human embryonic stem cell research bill has a lot of support in the US Senate, despite its opposition by President Bush. Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican and chief sponsor of a bill, said Wednesday that he had enough votes in the Senate to override a presidential veto of the measure. The measure approves the use of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and goes against the President's 2001 executive order that banned funding of the controversial research. Link.

What is human embryonic stem-cell research? Stem cells are the first few cells that form after a fertilized egg divides. They are medically the most useful cells because as they grow and subdivide, they can turn into any type of cells, such as spinal cord cells or heart muscle cells. So, any kind of damaged human tissue can be replaced by tissue regenerated from stem cells, giving hope to the many who suffer from spinal cord injury, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or many other conditions. Link.

Why is embryonic human stem-cell research so controversial? The controversy comes into play when scientists make a new cell line. When a new human stem cell line is made, a human egg is fertilized in order to generate the stem cells. The moral issue is whether or not harvesting stem cells from the fertilized human egg is morally the same as taking a life, because under the right conditions, the fertilized egg could grow into a whole human being. The President's supports federal funding of human embryonic stem-cell research only if no new stem cell lines are made. But here's the problem: in-vitro fertilization, a common procedure for couples with problems conceiving a child, produces thousands of unused fertilized eggs every year. The bill currently in Congress doesn't suggest that we should fertilize human eggs just to do medical research on them, it supports funding for research done on the embryos discarded from in-vitro fertilization.

How long could you survive in the vacuum of space?

As the school year comes to an end for seniors, I traditionally show the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the film, astronaut Dave Bowman finds himself stuck in a small space pod, locked out of the main spacecraft, without the helmet to his spacesuit. Forced to enter through the emergency air lock, Dave is briefly subjected to the vacuum of space. Is it possible for him to survive? The answer, according to science fiction writer Geoffrey Landis, is YES. Landis, who referenced several sources, explains that a human can remain mentally conscious in the vacuum of space for about 10 seconds, and survive that environment for about 90 seconds. As soon as the astronaut hits the vacuum, air will be knocked out of the lungs through the nose and mouth. Space is a very cold and very hot place; without an atmosphere to even things out, the difference between sunlight and shade is 400 degrees F. The mouth and tongue may freeze, it will only take a short time for skin not exposed to the sun to get lightly frostbitten, and skin exposed to the sun will be badly sunburned. But that's about the worst of it inside of 90 seconds of exposure. Unless the astronaut tries to hold their breath...this will cause the lungs to rupture. So, as a safety tip, if you’re going for a space walk without a helmet, keep your mouth open. Eventually, like deep-sea divers coming up to the surface too quickly, gas bubbles will form in the astronaut's blood and soft tissues -- a condition called "the bends". Hypothermia, or a harmful drop in core body temperature, will set in, but is not a short-term concern. Link.

Turn that moon dust into oxygen and win

Moon dust engineers are in high demand these days. NASA has a quarter of a million dollar prize up for grabs for the first team to make oxygen from moon dust. The machine must meet NASA's weight and power limits, and must be able to extract at least five kilograms of oxygen from a sample of volcanic ash in eight hours. Volcanic ash is very similar to moon dust, and obviously a lot easier to get one's hands on. For the machine to work, it will need to release oxygen atoms from the silica and other minerals that form the majority of volcanic and lunar rock. One way to separate oxygen from the rock is to use an electric current to separate negatively charged oxygen from the positive ions to which it is bound. Link.

Moon dust in your hair

NASA is funding a four-year study at the Colorado School of Mines on extra-terrestrial dust control. The surface of the moon is covered with a fine, talcum-like powder, the kind of stuff that kicks up really easily. Since the gravity on the moon is only one-sixth of Earth, humans and machines that disturb the moon ground will make lots and lots of dust. Stuck to spacesuits and boots, the dust is easily tracked into a lunar lander, where it gets quite annoying, gumming up equipment and covering instrument displays. The particles of moon dust can be harmful to lungs if inhaled over a long period of time. This is a major concern for long-term moon expeditions of the future. The dust problem will also be a major concern for astronauts sent to Mars, perhaps much worse. Mars dust contains the highly reactive compound iron-oxide, which, in essence, burns skin and can severly irritate lung tissue. The dust will be driven by the harsh wind storms that occur on Mars' surface. Link.

South Korea takes the lead in stem cells

Last year, a team of scientist from South Korea made the first stem-cell line from cloned human cells. A stem-cell line is a source of cells from a donor that scientists can go back to indefinitely to gather stem cells for study. Recently, the South Korean scienctists have taken the work a big step further by making stem-cell lines from several patients with different diseases, such as autism, diabetes and Parkinson’s. By studying these lines, they may be able to watch how diseases unfold, and develop cures. The cell lines will be used to test new drugs, without risks to human or animal subjects. Despite what you may have heard, science is a long way away from being able to grow complete replacements for deceased organs.

To make a cell line, scientists take a sample of skin cells from a donor. They then suck out the nucleus of each skin cell, and implant it in a human egg whose own nucleus has been removed. The eggs grow into a round structure of cells, a structure that forms early in human development. Scientists remove the stem cells from this structure and transfer them to a place where they can grow until researchers are ready to experiment on them.

Meanwhile, back in the US, stem cell research is being slowed by bioethical controversy and a presidental ban on government funding for stemcell research. “There is a good chance that the US will be left behind as the situation on stem cell research there becomes more fragmented and incoherent,” says UK scientist Stephen Minger, of King’s College London. Link.

Antarctica ice on the move

Nature.com reported on April 21 that 87 percent of 244 Antarctic glaciers have been retreating in the past 40 years. The likely cause is that the Antarctic Ocean temperature has risen 2 degrees C in the last 50 years. Link. A May 19 Nature.com article reported that scientists have also observed that the overall thickness of the ice layer in East Antarctica is increasing. They explain that the warmer oceans evaporate more moisture into the Antarctic air, which results in greater snowfall on the continent. The thickening of the ice layer has previously been predicted by global warming models. In time, the rate of glacier retreat will make up for the increase in Antarctic snow fall, and sea levels will slowly rise. Link.

NASA plans to fix the Hubble, but postpones other stuff

NASA is proceeding with plans to send a shuttle mission to repair and upgrade the ailing Hubble Telescope, reversing their previous decision to simply let the telescope die. The bad news is that funding the Hubble mission would mean the indefinite postponement of two future missions to search for extrasolar planets - the Space Interferometry Mission, which had been scheduled for 2011, and the Terrestrial Planet Finder, which was set to launch in 2014. It is also possible that the next rover mission to Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory, will be pushed back to from 2009 to 2011. Link.

New species of rodent a tasty treat

“It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables,” says conservation biologist Robert Timmins, “And I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before.” The rock rat, as it's called, is a completely new species of rodent. The creature looks like a cross between a large dark rat and a squirrel, but is actually more closely related to guinea pigs and chinchillas. People in the Khammouan region of Laos prepare it by roasting it on a skewer. Link.

Let's send a rover to Venus

Could we have as much success landing a rover to explore Venus as we did with our other closest neighbor, Mars? Venus is a much tougher environment than Mars, but NASA still has an interest in exploring there. The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus is about 90 times greater than Earth's. A Venicean day lasts 117 Earth days, daytime temperatures reach 450 degrees C, and the dense atmosphere is acidic. A ground-traveling Venus rover will have to be extremely acid-proof, heat-proof, leak-proof, and pretty dumb, because at such high temperatures, it is not currently possible to operate electronics on a ground-based Venus rover. Because of this, NASA is designing an aircraft to orbit Venus and hold the rover's electronics to process data and communication. The orbiting aircraft would take advantage of the dense atmosphere, using wings and a propeller. The orbiter would float up in the cooler altitudes and collect the intense solar energy, which should keep it powered indefinitely. Link.

One of Saturn's moons is not like the others

Astronomers have confirmed what they have suspected about Saturn's moon Phoebe: the potato-like moon didn't come from Saturn. They new that the direction and tilt of Phoebe's orbit is different from the other moons of Saturn, and data from the Cassini-Huygens probe show more differences. For instance, Pheobe has much less ice and much more rock than the other moons. It is most likely that Pheobe came to Saturn from the Kuiper belt, a ring od icy rocks past Neptune. Cassini data also show that some of the minerals and organic molecules on Phoebe's surface are typical of objects in the Kuiper belt. Link.

New Breast Cancer Treatment on Horizon

Most women are protected from breast cancer by their BRCA genes. But some women have inherited mutations in BRCA genes, giving them about an eighty per cent risk of developing breast cancer. The key to stopping cells with mutated BRCA is a protein called PARP.

Healthy human cells replicate (reproduce); their DNA divides and copies itself. If DNA is damaged before replication, it is usually repaired by PARP. If a cell can't repair it's DNA with PARP, it uses a backup system called combination to fix the damage so it can continue to replicate.

Cells with mutated BRCA genes don't have the backup system of recombination; rely completely on PARP to fix DNA damage. The new treatment uses a chemical that knocks out PARP, making all cells rely on recombination. The breast cancer tumour, that forms from the cells with mutated BRCA cannot perform recombination and is therefore unable to replicate and create new cells. The tumour is then unable to grow and eventually dies.
The other cells in the body are likely to be unaffected by the treatment. Link.

Auroras

From the Sun comes an extremely thin electrified gas, known as the solar wind; it blows constantly out from the Sun at 250 miles per second. The Earth's magnetic field provides a shield against the solar wind. Shaped by the solar wind, the magnetic field becomes stretched and pushed into a teardrop-shaped bubble we call the magnetosphere. Some electrically-charged particles from the solar wind penetrate the magnetosphere, collide with the Earth's upper atmosphere, and emit colorful light which we observe as an aurora. The aurora form near-circular bands around both the northern pole (the aurora borealis) and southern pole (the aurora australis).

Recently, researchers were surprised to find that the two aurora are not mirror images of each other, as was once thought. This appears to be caused by fluctations in the tilt of the Earth's magnetic field, and conditions in the solar wind. Link.

It depends what you mean by "planet."

In a previous post, I mentioned that astronomers had used an innovative method to, for the first time, observe light from an extra-solar planet. (An extra solar planet is a planet that orbits a star other than our own sun.) This planet orbits the star GQ Lup. There's no question that the object was observed, but there now seems to be a question of whether it's a planet or just a dim star. Why do we think it's a planet? It's 20 times further from it's GQ Lup than Jupiter is from the our sun. It has a mass of 2 or 3 Jupiters, and anything less massive than 13 Jupiters is small enough to be a planet. But here's the problem: the "planet" is bright; GQ Lup is only 156 times brighter than it. And, it's hot; the "planet" is estimated to be 3,000 degrees F. So for now, astronomers are using the term "companion", rather than "planet". Last year, when Sedna was found orbiting our sun out past Pluto, it sparked a debate as to whether Sedna or Pluto were real planets. The whole problem comes back to the basic question that has yet to be answered: what is a planet? Link.

Ability to determine mass sinks to a new low

What mass can the world’s smallest scale detect? A zeptogram, which is one gram times 10 to-the-negative-21st power, or about the mass of one protein molecule. How is this done? A small blade is vibrated in a magnetic field. When the particle to be weighed are placed on the blade, the frequency of the vibration changes, and the mass of the particle is related to the frequency. Link.

First soft dinosaur tissue recovered

The 70-million-year-old T. rex thighbone that was unearthed in Montana was too far from a road and too big for the helicopter to lift. So, the team of paleontologists cut it in half. And, to their surprise, inside the bone was soft tissue: blood vessels and cells preserved in deep layers of bone. Because soft tissue decays quickly, samples of dinosaur soft tissue have never before been recovered. “This is something I never dreamed I’d see”, says paleontologist Mary Scheitzer. The soft tissue sample will make it possible to more closely compare dinosaurs to modern living things. If fragments of DNA are found, they will reveal a lot of new genetic information. Link.

Star no longer steals planet's light

Astronomers have identified more than 130 planets beyond our solar system. But until recently, they have never actually seen one of these planets. This because, like Earth, extra-solar planets orbit a star, and the light from the star completely outshines the dim light reflected off a planet. So until recently, the only way to confirm that a planet orbits a distant star is by observing the affects of the planet’s gravity on the star. Light from the planet was recently detected by an innovative method. Light energy signals are gathered from the star when the planet is behind the star. When these signals are subtracted from the light energy signals that are gathered when the planet comes back out from behind the star, what remains is the pure reflected light from the planet. Link.

Nano-this, nano-that

An article from News@nature.com explains how single-celled bacteria are used to assemble parts of nano-machines, the super-miniature silicon chips that process information. The bacteria act as a sort of glue that binds nano-parts together. The bacteria are guided into place by small electric currents. The outer surfaces of the bacteria naturally contain proteins that stick to certain molecules. When nano-parts tagged with these molecules are placed in a fluid and washed over the area, the tagged parts stick to the right nano-spot. Link.

Science shows that the rich got richer

Economists will join physicists to discuss these issues next week in Kolkata, India, at the first ever conference on the "econophysics" of wealth distribution. Physicists are using new models based on simple physical laws to understand the distribution of wealth. Among these physicists is Victor Yakovenko of the University of Maryland, who analysed income data from the US Internal Revenue Service from 1983 to 2001. Data clearly show that the difference between rich and poor has greatly and quickly widened. In 1979, the richest 1% of Americans earned an average of 33.1 times as much as the poorest 20% of Americans. In 2000, the richest earned an average of 88.5 times as the poorest. Link.

Environmental news isn't all bad

The US Environmental Protection Agency's new Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) will require that coal-burning power plants in 28 US states reduce their emissions of smog and soot. Because CAIR regulates the flow of air pollution between states, the rules affects 28 eastern and central states, but does not apply to larger western states like California, where pollution between states is not a critical issue. The goal of CAIR is to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide by 73% and nitrogen oxides by 61% by the year 2015. Atmospheric sulfur dioxide is a major cause of acid rain, and nitrogen oxides creates smog. By reducing rates of lung-related illnesses, the cuts are predicted to prevent 17,000 premature deaths and 700,000 lung-related illnesses every year.

Airline Air and Germs

In March 2003, when one passenger with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) infected 22 fellow passengers on a 3-hour flight from Hong Kong to Beijing. Some infected passengers were seated seven rows away. But, researchers at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston say not to worry. They conclude that on-board ventilation systems generally do a good job protecting airline passengers against infection. These ventilation systems completely replace cabin air about every three minutes. When working right, these systems clear 63% of airborne germs with each cycle. The ventilation systems in the airport terminals aren't as good as the ones on the planes, so in reality, your more likely to catch something while you're still on the ground. To reduce the risk of catching an infection on an airplane, health officials advise that you wash your hands frequently, and turn on the blowers above your seat. Link.

The Biggest Stars

How big can a star get? According to newly-published research from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the most massive a star can get is between 120 and 150 times the mass of our sun. The new findings really narrow the possiblities, because previously astronomers thought that stars could be anywhere from 10 to 1000 the sun's mass, while some astronomers have argued that there is no mass limit at all. "This will heat up the debate. It is a clear indication that there is an upper limit," says Pavel Kroupa at the University of Bonn, Germany. Knowing the upper limit of a stars mass will help astronomers make better predictions of the masses of other galaxies, and further our understanding of how stars are formed. Link.

Moonquakes

On earth, the shaking of the ground from an earthquke is measured by an instrument called a seismometer. Four seismometers were left on the moon after the Apollo missions in the '70s, and they radioed back through 1977. Today they help bolster the theory that the earth and the moon did not form at he same time.

When the data was first recorded, there wasn't a computer fast enough to analyze it. Researchers spread the data in long, squiggly pages and analyzed it by eye, looking for evidence of moonquakes. Recently, the data was analyzed by modern computers. Here's a summary of what they found.

There are frequent moonquakes. Certain interior parts of the moon brake repeatedly, and the rate of moonquakes suggested that they are caused by the pull of tidal forces between the moon and the earth. Almost all of the deep moonquakes originate on the side that faces earth. The moon's crust is 25 percent thinner than earlier believed.

The moon's interior has a considerably different chemical make-up than the Earth's upper mantle. This supports the idea that the moon and the earth did not form at the same time, because if that had been the case, the two bodies would be expected to have similar. Link.

Black holes bend light in strange ways

Ever notice that when you put an oar in the water, it looks like it's bent upward? Or, when you look at someone standing up to their knees in water, they look short? The physics principle behind this is refraction: light "bends", or changes direction, when it passes a boundary between two different media, like water and air. When light is bent, it it creates the illusion that an object is out of place.

Albert Einstein was first to realize that light can also be bent around stars; the intense gravity of a star can refract light. If light from a distant source passes a star, the path of the light bends, causing observers on earth to get the wrong idea about where the light came from.

Black holes have intense gravity, in fact the strongest we know of, and scientists recently determined that black holes can bend light in directions that don't jive with our understanding of normal refraction. This adds another item to the list of baffling black hole phenomenon. Link.

Puzzling Sedna

Last February, astronomers first discovered Sedna, an object a bit small than our moon, orbiting way out towards the edge of our solar system. Sedna just doesn't fit with any other object in our solar system. It's a bit too small to be called a planet, but if we don't call it a planet, we could not call Pluto a planet by the same measure. Yet, Sedna is too large and too round to be an astroid. The tilt and shape of Sedna's orbit is unlike any of the nine traditional planets, and Sedna's origin is still totally unknown. It may have formed with Earth and the traditional planets, or it may have formed somewhere else before it was captured by our sun's gravity. An article in The Washington Post explains the many mysteries of Sedna, discussing lots of good astronomy along the way. Link.

The Death Star will soon be fully operational

The Cassini Spacecraft captured this image of Saturn's moon Mimas. Mimas' huge, 138-km-wide crater makes the small moon look like the Death Star from the Star Wars films. (Mike B explains that the Death Star did not actually appear in The Empire Strikes Back, as previously reported.) Link.

Is the global climate getting warmer? Will the warming affect us? Did we cause this?

This article on global climate change is well balanced, providing facts on both sides of the issue. But, in the end, the logical conclusion is: it's going to get warmer. Link.

Star on route to exit the Milk Way

Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA have identified a star that is blazing across our galaxy at 700 km/s, a pace that will allow it to escape our galaxy.

It is believed that the star was previously a binary star, spinning with a partner star and orbiting our Milky Way galaxy. The star likely got too close to the black hole at the center of the galaxy and got swung around the center. This sling-shot effect gave the star a tremendous amount of speed, hurling the star out of its orbit and across the galaxy at a speed that is twice the necessary escape speed, the speed at which an object can break free of the galaxtic gravity. The star will travel to the edge of the galaxy, and moving to fast for gravity to stop it, it will enter intergalactic space towards, well... who knows. This is not the first time that this kind of rouge star has been observed. Link.

Meet the Vatican Astronomer

The March issue of Astronomy magazine features an interview with Father George Coyne, Jesuit priest and the Vatican's chief astronomer. Francis Reddy put some tough questions to Coyne about the perceived conflicts between religion and science.

On how his spirituality is connected to his science, Coyne says, "In a sense, they are two compartments in my life. I try to do publishable research in international journals, but then, I'm a religious priest. There is some crossover in my personal life. Knowing more about the universe, and believing that God created the universe, nourished my knowledge of the spiritual background. I believe God is creator, and I've never come to that belief through any rational process. It's not irrational -- I don't think it contradicts reason -- but it transcends reason."

Astronomy's Reddy asks Coyne, "Are you saying there are essentially no conflicts between theology and science? Could there ever be? Is there a discovery that would somehow introduce one?"

"I can't imagine a conflict between the two.", Coyne begins. "That's more a faith-based statement, but I believe God created the universe. I can't imagine that God would create a universe in which there would be some contradiction. Ignorance breeds temporary conflicts, there's no doubt about that, but that's ignorance. I would think, undoubtedly, the very distant supernova measurements that have indicated an accelerating universe is the most challenging discovery in the past couple of years."

The interview in Astronomy magazine is not available on line, but I did find a story on Coyne that ran in The Detroit News May of 2002. Link.

Who was Ernst Mayr?

Biologist Ernst Mayr died last week at the age of 100. Mayr's work was key in developing the theory of evolution. He improved upon the theory of Evolution, placing a key piece in Darwin's evolution puzzle. Darwin's famous book "Origin of Species" did not include a clear definition of the term "species". Mayr clarified the definition, explaining that a species is a group of organisms, capable of breeding among themselves, but unable to breed with others. New species can develop when an existing species splits up into two groups, and the two groups get isolated from each other, usually by geography. In time, the members of the groups will physically change to the point where they are too different to breed with members of the other group. When this happens, the groups are considered two different species. This idea is now widely accepted, and is known to biologists as allopatric speciation. Mayr is also credited as being one of the key biologists who first established the relationship between evolution with genetics. Link.

Maybe it's time to move on from the Hubble

NASA is not likely to get the $1 billion it needs to put togther a service mission for Hubble Telescope, our only space telescope. Maybe letting the Hubble Telescope die of natural causes isn't so bad after all. The project is could end up costing $2 billion. Do we want to spend that kind of money if it means less funding for other NASA programs? Do we want a risky Space Shuttle flight? I didn't realize until recently that even without he repair, the Hubble is still expected to continue to work fine for as much as another 10 years, maybe more. Meanwhile, NASA's got a fleet of new and better telescopes planned. Link.

Wicked cool science

#1 The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, is a naturally-occurring colorful display in the sky. In the upper atmosphere, a layer of charged particles discharged by the Sun are attached to the Earth's north and south magnetic poles. When the particles collide with molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the air, they make the sky glow with bright colors. Using an enormous 960-kilowatt radio transmitter, researchers at the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) facility near Gakona, Alaska created shiny "speckles" of light in the Aurora Borealis. "It's cool that they created a visible effect just using radio waves," says Pat Newell, who studies the aurorae at Johns Hopkins University. Link.

#2 According to Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, gravity bends space and time. Picture the Earth resting at the bottom of a shallow cone, created by gravity, with moon rolling around the rim: this is similar to the way Einstein described gravity. In theory, As objects move throught he universe, they send out ripples of gravity, in other words, gravity waves.

Researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) hope to enlist up to a million personal computers, linked through the web, in their search for sources of the waves, which have long been predicted by Einstein but never directly observed. A system of lasers and mirrors collects data on gravitational disturbences. (Using computers all over the web to accomplish a single large task is also being done for climate change modeling. See previous post.) The computers will attempt to match the signals to waves of different frequencies. The database is so large that it will take a million active users to make a dent. The project, known as Einstein@home, will use the computer's idle time to search particular frequencies for a 'ringing' gravity wave source. While it's at work, the program also displays a screensaver charting the location of the search in the night sky. "It's really a cool kind of project," says Bruce Allen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Link.

Climate change? Atmospheric scientists have no doubts about it

Earlier this week, the 200 top climate scientists, along with a few economists and politicians, assembled at Britain's Met Office, one of the world's leading providers of environmental and weather-related services. Their message: it's time for the politicians to take steps to lower emisions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. According to Stanford University's Michael Mastrandrea, "We don't really need more detail now. We already have enough information to make an educated guess on how we need to reduce emissions."

In the last 10 years, researcher have made many predictions about the effects of climate change. Larry Hughes, an environmental researcher from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada says that researchers agree that many of these predictions have come true, such as thermal expansion of the oceans, acidification of water, increased air temperatures, and more storm activity. "And it is apparent that things aren't getting better," says Robert Socolow, co-director of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University in New Jersey. "What we can tell politicians is that the list of worries is going to grow." Link.

Despite our efforts, what comes up must come down

With current technology, our ability to travel into space is trapped in a catch-22: to get more things into a spacecraft means adding more fuel, which adds more weight, which means adding more fuel. We could break the cycle if we could shield the thing that holds us down: gravity. Just think-- if you could place a box under your feet that could shield gravity, you could pretty much go anywhere you want with little effort. A gravity shield would not only revolutionive space travel, but transportation in general.

But so far, no one's been able to shield or control gravity in any way. Studies commissioned by the European Space Agency (ESA) to evaluate schemes for gravity control have concluded that, even if such control were possible, the benefits for lifting spacecraft out of the Earth's gravitational field would probably not be worth the effort. Link. In 1996, NASA began research program on "speculative propulsion methods", called Breakthrough Propulsion Physics. The program was all about finding breakthroughs in space transportation, such as rocket fuel systems that don't add mass to the spacecraft and propulsion systems that achieve incredibly high speeds. The program yielded no results, and its funding was cut in 2003. Link.

Before we can shield gravity, we need to rewrite some laws of physics. First we would have to do away with the law of conservation of energy, which says that you can create energy without using energy. For example, say you had a gravity shield, and you placed it underneath one-half of a wheel. Whay would happen? The shielded part of the wheel would rise, causing the wheel to rotate forever without a power source. The law of conservation of energy says no-can-do. The second problem is with Einstein's general theory of relativity. Used by Einstein explain gravity, the theory says that gravity results from the fact that massive objects actually bend the fabric of space itself, and you just can't undo that so easily.

The Web's prediction: warmer days ahead

More than 90,000 people worldwide have participated in a project operated by Climateprediction.net. Participants downloaded software that uses the spare capacity of their computers to model the future of the globe’s climate. The model breaks down the Earth’s surface into1,000+ zones, and predicts climate based on factors including cloud coverage, the rate of heat movement and rainfall rates. A total of 2,017 simulations were run, and all of them predicted temperature rises, most temperature rises were about 3.4 ºC, some results were much higher. Further, the computer the models predict that midway through this century, atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels will be double what they were before the industrial age. Results were published in the journal Nature. Link. According to the some scientists, climate change is not our fault and is not something we can predict or fix. This opinion is popular with the Coal Association of Canada, among others. Link.

Hubble left hanging

The 14-year-old Hubble Space Telescope has been orbiting the Earth and capturing historic images, aiding us in the understanding of our universe, and allowing us to boldly see where no one has seen before. Link. It’s our only space telescope… the only telescope that has the advantage of having a view of the universe that isn’t affected by the Earth’s atmosphere. But now, the old space telescope needs a billion-dollar tune up. NASA scientists and others like them have been debating whether it's better to send astronauts or a robot to do the Hubble repairs, but it looks like they might as well save their breath. The latest word is that the Bush administration plans to cut the funds for a Hubble repair and scrap plans for a repair mission. Plans to bring the telescope back to Earth unharmed aren’t looking good either. The soon-to-be retired instrument could end up in pieces on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, instead of displayed in a museum in one piece. There is hope that the White House is just bluffing; they do this to NASA routinely as a bargaining game. In 2011, NASA plans to send up the new Webb Telescope, more than twice as large as the Hubble. Although more powerful, the Webb isn’t exactly the same as the Hubble, it detects different wavelengths of light. Link.

Methane rain

One week after landing, Huygens now sits idle on Titan’s frigid –170C surface, and it’s last hours it gave scientists enough data to analyze for years to come. When it landed, it warmed the landing site a little and kicked up methane gas, suggesting that the ground contains a lot of liquid methane (liquid natural gas) that has recently fallen from Titan’s cloudy skies. The terrain on Titan’s surface is a lot like Earth’s: shaped by the precipitation and erosion of rain. Except on Titan, the rain is liquid methane. Methane rain, flowing into methane channels, into methane rivers, into lakebeds dotted with islands. The dry soil appears to be loose and sandy, made from water ice that is blackened by the organic molecules called hydrocarbons that fall out of the mist. This black soil is washed down from the higher elevations and fills the rivers and lakes. There is also evidence that Titan has cold volcanoes that generate frozen water ice and ammonia. Link.

Postcards from Titan

Huygens has safely landed on Titan, and it appears to have hit solid ground. The fully functional probe was busy collecting data for more than four hours, living longer than expected. Cassini relayed the first images of Titan's surface. I'm telling you, it's like a whole 'nother world over there.
One image was captured during the probe's decent, at an altitude of 16.2 km (10 miles) above the surface. The image shows land with liquid streams leading to a coastline. The image's resolution is 40 m per pixel. When I enlarged the image and examined the pixels, it seemed to me that the streams are 50 - 150 m wide. We don't know what's in them, but it surely isn't water, because the temperature is a frosty -180 degrees C. This image shows the flat and lumpy landing site. More details and images are available from the European Space Agency. Link.

Oneway ticket to Titan

Tomorrow, a space mission that began 7 years ago will reach a critical landmark. Launched from the Cassini spacecraft on Christmas, the Huygens probe will finally complete it's voyage through the foggy nitrogen- and methane-rich atmosphere of Titan, and land on Titan's mysterious surface. Titan is Saturn's largest moon, somewhat less than half the size of Earth, or about the size of Mercury. It is the only moon in our solar system with an atmosphere. Because the atmosphere is cloudy with methane and larger organic compounds, scientists have very little knowledge of Titan's surface.
David Grinspoon, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO, puts it this way, "[Titan] is unlike any place we've ever explored... this could be one of the most revelatory moments in nearly five decades of planetary exploration." Link.

Brain drain

Ever hear that humans only use 10 percent of their brains? Sure, we've all heard that somewhere. But, is it true? What would it be like if you switched off 90 percent of your brain function? Do you still think you could beat your little brother at chess? I doubt that you could beat a couch at Trivial Pursuit. In a 2004 Scientific American feature, one brain behavior scientist spells out a convincing "no" to 10 percent brain use. Link.

Nudity linked to hearing loss?

My students are curious about the world, and I'm asked many intriguing science questions. One of them recently was, "Is it true that you loose 68 percent of your hearing while naked?" After a bit of searching, the only document in support of this unlikely hypothesis is ad from the United Health Foundation. Link (pdf).

While we're talking about myths, I might as well try to clear up the "Southern Hemisphere Toilet Flush Direction" question. Here it is: There is an effect, the Coriolis effect, that causes the Earth's atmosphere and oceans to turn a certain direction. But, the effect on the water in your toilet is to small to matter. A full explanation has been published in Scientific American magazine, and many, many other sources. Link.

Sixth Sense

Is it true that animals were not harmed by the tsunami in the Indian ocean? Do animals have a "sixth sense" to warn them of the coming danger? An article from Reuters has been popping up all over the web; the article presents these questions but makes no claims. Sure, a few recovery workers claim that they have not seen any dead animal bodies, but no one said they actually saw animals running for cover just before the disaster hit. I'm still dubious of the animal sixth sense thing. Link.

Earth Rocked

By now you've heard that a devastating earthquake and tsunami has killed more than 150,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and other nations on the coast of the Indian Ocean. The word "tsunami" is Japanese for "wicked big harbor wave". Link. The earthquake that caused the Indian Ocean tsunami literally rocked the planet, changing the tilt of the Earth by 2.5 cm (about an inch). The resulting shift in the Earth's layers actually increased the spin rate of the Earth by 3 millions of a second. In other words, the length of a day has been shortened very slightly, according to the journal Nature. Link