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