By DailyGalaxy.com
“Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature.”
~ Leonidas Moustakas, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull's-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away, the inner ring and outer ring are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a distance of 6 and approximately 11 billion light-years.
The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers led by Raphael Gavazzi and Tommaso Treu of the University of Californi, Santa Barbara. Treu says the odds of seeing such a special alignment are so small that they “hit the jackpot” with this discovery. “When I first saw it I said ‘wow, this is insane!’ I could not believe it!”
But this sight is more than just an incredible novelty. It’s also a very rare phenomenon that can offer insights into dark matter, dark energy, the nature of distant galaxies, and the curvature of the Universe itself. The discovery is part of the ongoing Sloan Lens Advanced Camera for Surveys (SLACS) program.
The phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, occurs when a massive galaxy in the foreground bends the light rays from a distant galaxy behind it, in much the same way as a magnifying glass would. When both galaxies are perfectly lined up, the light forms a circle, called an “Einstein ring”, around the foreground galaxy. If another more distant galaxy lies precisely on the same sightline, a second, larger ring will appear.
“Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature. Dark matter is not hidden to lensing,” added Leonidas Moustakas of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasaden, California, USA. “The elegance of this lens is trumped only by the secrets of nature that it reveals.”
The dark matter distribution in the foreground galaxies that is warping space to create the Einstein's telescope, the gravitational lens, can be accurately mapped. In addition, the geometry of the two Einstein rings allowed the team to measure the mass of the middle galaxy precisely to be a value of 1 billion solar masses. The team reports that this is the first measurement of the mass of a dwarf galaxy at cosmological distance.
A sample of several dozen double rings such as this one would offer a purely independent measure of the curvature of space by gravity. This would help in determining what the majority of the Universe is made of, and the properties of dark energy.
Original observations made in 1970 revealed that gravitational motions of gas clouds in the Andromeda galaxy were occurring at speeds far greater than the entire observed mass of that galaxy could account for. Similar problems detected in the 1930's involving motions of entire galaxies had long been disregarded. Later observations confirmed that so-called "ordinary matter" is insufficient to account for observed gravitational effects in the cosmos. Thus the universe must contain huge amounts of "dark matter," that we cannot observe and the composition of which we do not know.
In 1998 reports of observations of distant supernovae revealed that the expansion of the universe was not slowing, as would be expected from long-term effects of gravity, but was instead accelerating. Something was overcoming the gravitational power of all of the matter in the universe. The acceleration, moreover, has not been present from the Big Bang on. For billions of years the speed of expansion slowed. Then, about 5 billion years ago, acceleration began. Obviously energy--a lot of it--- was required to explain these phenomena. This is "dark energy." We cannot detect it and currently know almost nothing about it.
Today scientists believe that 5% of the universe consists of "ordinary" [observable] matter, 23% of "dark" matter and 72% of "dark energy."
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Scientists discover massive ring around Saturn
From CNN.com
Scientists at NASA have discovered a nearly invisible ring around Saturn -- one so large that it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it.
Scientists at NASA have discovered a nearly invisible ring around Saturn -- one so large that it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it.
The ring's orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planet's main ring plane. The bulk of it starts about 3.7 million miles (6 million km) away from the planet and extends outward another 7.4 million miles (12 million km).
Its diameter is equivalent to 300 Saturns lined up side to side. And its entire volume can hold one billion Earths, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said late Tuesday.
"This is one supersized ring," said Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Verbiscer and two others are authors of a paper about the discovery published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The obvious question: Why did it take scientists so long to discover something so massive?
The ring is made up of ice and dust particles that are so far apart that "if you were to stand in the ring, you wouldn't even know it," Verbiscer said in a statement.
Also, Saturn doesn't receive a lot of sunlight, and the rings don't reflect much visible light.
But the cool dust -- about 80 Kelvin (minus 316 degrees Fahrenheit) -- glows with thermal radiation. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, used to spot the ring, picked up on the heat.
One of Saturn's moons, Phoebe, orbits within the ring. As Phoebe collides with comets, it kicks up planetary dust. Scientists believe the ice and dust particles that make up the ring stems from those collisions.
The ring may also help explain an age-old mystery surrounding another of Saturn's moons: Iapetus.
Astronomer Giovanni Cassini, who first spotted Iapetus in 1671, deduced the moon has a white and dark side -- akin to a yin-yang symbol. But scientists did not know why.
The new ring orbits in the opposite direction to Iapetus. And, say researchers, it's possible that the moon's dark coloring is a result of the ring's dust particles splattering against Iapetus like bugs on a windshield.
"Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturn's outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus," said Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland in College Park -- one of the three authors reporting on the findings in the journal Nature.
"This new ring provided convincing evidence of that relationship."Monday, September 28, 2009
The dark secrets of the trillion-dollar oil trade
From The Independent.com
With a combined capacity for 313,000 tonnes of oil, the Delta Ios and the NS Burgas supertankers were launched two months ago to criss-cross the globe in search of trade. Instead, the vast vessels were to be found yesterday lying idle off the coast of Singapore after their owners were paid by two of the world's richest and most secretive oil companies to turn them into floating petrochemical warehouses.
At first glance, the decision by Trafigura Group and Vitol Holding BV to charter the newly built ships at an estimated cost of £47,000 a day to do nothing for up to four months in South-east Asia while laden with cargos of diesel worth at least £77m per vessel makes little economic sense.
When this is combined with the fact that the Delta Ios and the NS Burgas are just two ships in an enormous fleet of tankers which are currently being paid about £80m a month by independent oil traders like Trafigura and Vitol, as well as giants such as Shell, to stay anchored around the globe with anything between 50 and 150 million barrels of redundant crude on board, it seem that the ruthless barons of black gold must be losing money as fast as they can make it.
Far from it. The phenomenon of "floating storage", which has been brought about by a huge over-supply of global tanker capacity and unusual market conditions, is just one example of the multitude of ways in which a small group of private, mostly Swiss-based companies have become adept at turning vast profits from the closed and often murky world of independent oil trading. A glut of oil caused by the recession means that crude available for immediate purchase is currently cheaper than that bought on longer-term or "future" contracts – a practice known as "contango". The result is that independent traders have been rushing to buy the cheaper "spot" oil and storing it wherever they can – namely in under-employed tanker fleets – in anticipation of a sharp rise in price as the global economy begins to recover. The resulting profit can be anything between 15 and 20 per cent – tens of millions of dollars – even after the cost of hiring a tanker is deducted.
It is a situation which prompted one senior oil company executive to declare that the spring and summer of 2009 represented "blessed times for trading". Another oil trader told The Independent: "Contango has been a real boon. The independents have become very adept at buying up tanker capacity as cheaply as possible, sitting on the stock and selling it on via arbitrage. They've been as slick as you like."
The deals are part of a world in which discretion and an ability to keep out of the public eye have long been treasured. While the oil majors such as ExxonMobil, Shell and BP operate as global corporations, the independents or "jobbers" have thrived in the grey zone of fast trading-room deals and personal contacts that allow access to lucrative oil reserves.
But increasingly the activities of the "big four" independent traders – Trafigura, Vitol, Gunvor (which has consistently denied reports that it is linked to the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin) and the hugely successful Glencore – are coming under scrutiny. Questions are being asked about their role in uniting the oil wealth of some of the world's more unsavoury regimes with the open market.
Trafigura, which until August 2006 was barely known outside the oil trade – despite growing to become one of the world's biggest companies with a turnover of $73bn (£46bn) since it was founded 16 years ago – last week found itself making headlines around the world when it agreed to pay about £30m to thousands of residents of the Ivory Coast port of Abidjan who fell ill after toxic oil waste from a ship chartered by the company was dumped by a sub-contractor near the west African city.
The settlement of the claim brought on behalf of 31,000 Ivorians at the High Court in London after tonnes of foul-smelling sludge were fly-tipped in August 2006 was said by Trafigura to vindicate its position that there was no link between the waste and people who died or suffered serious illnesses.
But the Abidjan pollution disaster shone a light into the nature of the way these multibillion-pound "jobbers" of the oil trade make their money. In the case of Trafigura, the events of August 2006 were just part of a deal conducted across three continents in which a cheap, low-quality form of oil known as coker gasoline bought from a Mexican refinery was further refined in Europe, and the subsequent fuel was sold at a profit of about $7m per cargo.
Oil industry insiders have told The Independent that coker gasoline is just one of a myriad of methods used by independent traders to turn a profit, ranging from "paper" deals struck in the City of London's trading floors, to floating storage, to what is known as "physical trading" – transporting hundreds of consignments of different grades of oil on chartered tankers looking for the best price from dozens of offices across the globe. Executives, who are frequently equity partners in the companies, speak of constant shuttling around the world to close deals and negotiate prices.
By any standards, it is a huge and profitable industry. From a situation 20 years ago where the "majors" dominated the international trade, independents now account for about 15 per cent of world's $2 trillion oil industry.
Glencore, founded in 1974 by the controversial trader Marc Rich – who was indicted for tax evasion and later pardoned by President Bill Clinton – is estimated to supply 3 per cent of the world's daily oil consumption. The company is no longer involved with Mr Rich.
Between them, the "big four" had turnovers last year of about $415bn – equivalent to the GDP of Austria. Because the companies are privately owned, comprehensive profit figures are hard to come by, but Glencore announced a profit of $4.75bn for 2008. Trafigura made $440m last year.
In an industry which deals with a commodity for which many countries have gone to war, insiders say it is inevitable that traders will find themselves dealing with authoritarian oil-rich regimes and dabbling in controversial schemes. On at least one occasion, three of the big four – Glencore, Trafigura and Vitol – have been found to have crossed the line between incentives and kickbacks through their involvement in the United Nations' oil-for-food scheme to help Saddam Hussein's Iraq buy humanitarian supplies.
In the UN's Volcker report, all three companies were cited for paying surcharges demanded by Saddam's regime to win oil supply contracts. In 2007, Vitol pleaded guilty in America to paying $13m in surcharges, and the Swiss arm of Trafigura forfeited $20m. Both companies insisted that the deals had been handled in good faith via third parties. Glencore, which was cited for paying $6.6m in surcharges, denied any wrongdoing.
Glencore was also named in a 2005 High Court judgment as one of the companies which handled shipments of oil sold by the state-owned oil company of Congo-Brazzaville in central Africa. It was subsequently shown that cash derived from the shipments was used by the son of the country's President to pay credit card bills for shopping sprees in Paris. There was no suggestion that Glencore acted improperly.
All of the "big four" point out that they operate in accordance with international law and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's guidelines on business conduct. But campaigners complain that a lack of transparency in the industry means that proper scrutiny of the oil-rich governments in Africa and the middlemen they deal with is impossible.
Gavin Hayman, director of campaigns for Global Witness, said: "These companies play a major role in selling Africa's oil and their operations are notoriously opaque. It would be legitimate to ask: 'How do they get these contracts, do they sell the oil for its proper price, and do they send the money back to the correct place?'
"This lack of transparency creates a big risk that corrupt officials can siphon off some of the profits and deprive ordinary citizens of their rightful benefit from natural resource wealth."
Monday, September 21, 2009
Paralyzed Rats Walk Again
Yahoonews.com
(HealthDay News) -- A three-pronged approach to treating spinal cord injuries allowed paralyzed rats to walk without receiving signals from the brain, scientists report.
Spinal cord injuries result in paralysis when the nerve fibers that carry information to and from the brain are damaged or severed. Much of the focus of research into spinal cord injuries has been exploring ways of regenerating those nerve fibers and connections, which has so far met with limited success in people.
In the new study, rats were treated with a combination of drugs, electrical stimulation of the spinal cord and locomotor training, a rehabilitation technique. The combined treatment enabled the rats to walk with a near-normal gait on a treadmill, without the muscles receiving signals from the brain.
"The study demonstrates that the lower spinal cord has circuitry that is sufficient to support virtually normal, weight-bearing locomotion," said senior study author V. Reggie Edgerton, a professor of physiological sciences and neurobiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The study appears in the Sept. 20 online edition of Nature Neuroscience.
Previous research has been able to coax a stepping motion using one or two of those techniques, said Susan Howley, executive vice president of research for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which provided some funding for the current research. But this is the first study to achieve actual weight-bearing walking, as opposed to the motions of walking.
"The thing that's very exciting about this is that for the first time they actually showed they can get these rats, with no input from the brain, to step near normally," Howley said. "On the treadmill, they were able to bear weight and step virtually as well as they had been prior to the injury. That's a remarkable achievement."
In the study, researchers put rats whose lower legs were paralyzed in a harness on a slow-moving treadmill and gave them a drug called quipazine, a serotonin agonist that enhances the function of the spinal nerve circuitry. The researchers then used an epidural to apply electrical currents to the dura of the spinal cord, the protective membrane that surrounds it, below the point of injury.
The combination of drugs and electrical stimulation caused the rats to begin walking. Several weeks of daily locomotor training on the treadmill enabled near-normal weight-bearing walking -- including backward, sideways and running.
Because the brain was still unable to direct the walking, the rats could only walk when hooked up to electrical stimulation on the treadmill.
Previous studies have shown that the nerve circuitry of the spinal cord is able to generate rhythmic activity that can direct leg muscles to step, the researchers said. With the right input, the nerves can learn to interpret sensory information from the stepping motion even without help from the brain.
"Previous research has shown the spinal cord can learn whatever task it's being trained to do," Edgerton said. "The spinal cord can interpret the sensory information associated with the stepping, respond to that sensory information and sustain the stepping based on the sensory information."
Locomotive training is a rehabilitation technique that uses that concept to retrain the spinal cord circuitry after injury. Widely used in some European countries, locomotor training involves placing people with spinal cord injuries in harnesses while physical therapists move their legs in a walking motion.
People who undergo locomotor training often see improvements in respiration, bladder function, blood sugar levels and circulation below the level of the lesion, which can help prevent the skin breakdown that can occur as a result of paralysis, Howley said. Others even recover trunk stability, which can enable them to move from a bed to a wheelchair, or a wheelchair to a car, without assistance.
Though a treatment using the three-pronged approach is at least several years away, the study suggests the potential of using neuroprosthetic devices to activate spinal cord rhythmic circuitry, said study author Gregoire Courtine, a professor in the department of neurology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. His team is currently developing a device that they hope to begin testing in small clinical trials in three to four years.
About 5.6 million Americans, or one in 50, has some level of paralysis, according to a survey released in April of 33,000 U.S. households by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. About one-quarter of the nearly 2 percent of the U.S. population living with paralysis is due to a spinal cord injury.
(HealthDay News) -- A three-pronged approach to treating spinal cord injuries allowed paralyzed rats to walk without receiving signals from the brain, scientists report.
Spinal cord injuries result in paralysis when the nerve fibers that carry information to and from the brain are damaged or severed. Much of the focus of research into spinal cord injuries has been exploring ways of regenerating those nerve fibers and connections, which has so far met with limited success in people.
In the new study, rats were treated with a combination of drugs, electrical stimulation of the spinal cord and locomotor training, a rehabilitation technique. The combined treatment enabled the rats to walk with a near-normal gait on a treadmill, without the muscles receiving signals from the brain.
"The study demonstrates that the lower spinal cord has circuitry that is sufficient to support virtually normal, weight-bearing locomotion," said senior study author V. Reggie Edgerton, a professor of physiological sciences and neurobiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The study appears in the Sept. 20 online edition of Nature Neuroscience.
Previous research has been able to coax a stepping motion using one or two of those techniques, said Susan Howley, executive vice president of research for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which provided some funding for the current research. But this is the first study to achieve actual weight-bearing walking, as opposed to the motions of walking.
"The thing that's very exciting about this is that for the first time they actually showed they can get these rats, with no input from the brain, to step near normally," Howley said. "On the treadmill, they were able to bear weight and step virtually as well as they had been prior to the injury. That's a remarkable achievement."
In the study, researchers put rats whose lower legs were paralyzed in a harness on a slow-moving treadmill and gave them a drug called quipazine, a serotonin agonist that enhances the function of the spinal nerve circuitry. The researchers then used an epidural to apply electrical currents to the dura of the spinal cord, the protective membrane that surrounds it, below the point of injury.
The combination of drugs and electrical stimulation caused the rats to begin walking. Several weeks of daily locomotor training on the treadmill enabled near-normal weight-bearing walking -- including backward, sideways and running.
Because the brain was still unable to direct the walking, the rats could only walk when hooked up to electrical stimulation on the treadmill.
Previous studies have shown that the nerve circuitry of the spinal cord is able to generate rhythmic activity that can direct leg muscles to step, the researchers said. With the right input, the nerves can learn to interpret sensory information from the stepping motion even without help from the brain.
"Previous research has shown the spinal cord can learn whatever task it's being trained to do," Edgerton said. "The spinal cord can interpret the sensory information associated with the stepping, respond to that sensory information and sustain the stepping based on the sensory information."
Locomotive training is a rehabilitation technique that uses that concept to retrain the spinal cord circuitry after injury. Widely used in some European countries, locomotor training involves placing people with spinal cord injuries in harnesses while physical therapists move their legs in a walking motion.
People who undergo locomotor training often see improvements in respiration, bladder function, blood sugar levels and circulation below the level of the lesion, which can help prevent the skin breakdown that can occur as a result of paralysis, Howley said. Others even recover trunk stability, which can enable them to move from a bed to a wheelchair, or a wheelchair to a car, without assistance.
Though a treatment using the three-pronged approach is at least several years away, the study suggests the potential of using neuroprosthetic devices to activate spinal cord rhythmic circuitry, said study author Gregoire Courtine, a professor in the department of neurology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. His team is currently developing a device that they hope to begin testing in small clinical trials in three to four years.
About 5.6 million Americans, or one in 50, has some level of paralysis, according to a survey released in April of 33,000 U.S. households by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. About one-quarter of the nearly 2 percent of the U.S. population living with paralysis is due to a spinal cord injury.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
'Big Wave' Theory Offers Alternative to Dark Energy By Clara Moskowitz
By Clara Moskowitz at Space.com
Mathematicians have proposed an alternative explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe that does not rely on the mystifying idea of dark energy.
According to the new proposition, the universe is not accelerating, as observations suggest. Instead, an expanding wave flowing through space-time has caused distant galaxies to appear to be accelerating away from us. This big wave, initiated after the Big Bang that is thought to have sparked the universe, could explain why objects today appear to be farther away from us than they should be according to the Standard Model of cosmology.
"We're saying that maybe the resulting expanding wave is actually causing the anomalous acceleration," said Blake Temple of the University of California, Davis. "We're saying that dark energy may not really be the correct explanation."
The researchers derived a set of equations describing expanding waves that fit Einstein's theory of general relativity, and which could also account for the apparent acceleration. Temple outlines the new idea with Joel Smoller of the University of Michigan in the Aug. 17 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While more research will be needed to see if the idea holds up, "the research could change the way astronomers view the composition of our universe," according to a summary from the journal.
To convince other cosmologists, the new model will have to pass muster with further inquiry.
"There are many observational tests of the standard cosmological model that the proposed model must pass, aside from the late phase of accelerated expansion," said Avi Loeb, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "These include big bang nucleosynthesis, the quantitative details of the microwave background anisotropies, the Lyman-alpha forest, and galaxy surveys. The authors do not discuss how their model compares to these tests, and whether the number of free parameters they require in order to fit these observational constraints is smaller than in the standard model. Until they do so, it is not clear why this alternative model should be regarded as advantageous."
Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Mario Livio agreed that to be seriously considered, the model must be able to predict properties of the universe that astronomers can measure.
He said the real test "is in whether they are able to reproduce all the observed cosmological parameters (as determined, e.g. by a combination of the Hubble Constant and the parameters determined by the CMB observations). To only produce an apparent acceleration is in itself interesting, but not particularly meaningful."
Inconvenient truths
Dark energy is itself a hasty fix to an inconvenient truth discovered by astronomers in the late 1990s: that the universe is expanding, and the rate of this expansion seems to be constantly picking up speed.
To explain this startling finding, cosmologists invoked dark energy, a hypothetical form of energy that is pulling the universe apart in all directions (note that dark energy is wholly separate from the equally mysterious concept of dark matter - a hypothetical form of matter that populates the universe, interacting gravitationally with normal matter, but which cannot be seen with light). In this interpretation, the whole universe is blowing up like a balloon, and from any given point within it, all distant objects appear to be speeding away from you.
But not everyone is happy with the dark energy explanation.
"It just seems like an unnatural correction to the equations - it's like a fudge factor," Temple told SPACE.com. "The equations don't make quite as much physical sense when you put it in. You just put it in to fit the data."
Temple and Smoller think the idea of an expanding wave makes more sense.
"At this stage we think this a very plausible theory," Temple said. "We're saying there isn't any acceleration. The galaxies are displaced from where they're supposed to be because we're in the aftermath of a wave that put those galaxies in a slightly different position."
Ripples in a pond
Temple compared the wave to what happens when you throw a rock into a pond. In this case, the rock would be the Big Bang, and the concentric ripples that result are like a series of waves throughout the universe. Later on, when the first galaxies start to form, they are forming inside space-time that has already been displaced from where it would have been without the wave. So when we observe these galaxies with telescopes, they don't appear to be where we would expect if there had never been a big wave.
One potential issue with this idea is that it might require a big coincidence.
For the universe to appear to be accelerating at the same rate in all directions, we in the Milky Way would have to be near a local center, at the spot where an expansion wave was initiated early in the Big Bang when the universe was filled with radiation.
Temple concedes that this is a coincidence, but said it's possible that we are merely in the center of a smaller wave that affects the galaxies we can see from our vantage point - we need not be in the center of the entire universe for the idea to work.
Mathematicians have proposed an alternative explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe that does not rely on the mystifying idea of dark energy.
According to the new proposition, the universe is not accelerating, as observations suggest. Instead, an expanding wave flowing through space-time has caused distant galaxies to appear to be accelerating away from us. This big wave, initiated after the Big Bang that is thought to have sparked the universe, could explain why objects today appear to be farther away from us than they should be according to the Standard Model of cosmology.
"We're saying that maybe the resulting expanding wave is actually causing the anomalous acceleration," said Blake Temple of the University of California, Davis. "We're saying that dark energy may not really be the correct explanation."
The researchers derived a set of equations describing expanding waves that fit Einstein's theory of general relativity, and which could also account for the apparent acceleration. Temple outlines the new idea with Joel Smoller of the University of Michigan in the Aug. 17 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While more research will be needed to see if the idea holds up, "the research could change the way astronomers view the composition of our universe," according to a summary from the journal.
To convince other cosmologists, the new model will have to pass muster with further inquiry.
"There are many observational tests of the standard cosmological model that the proposed model must pass, aside from the late phase of accelerated expansion," said Avi Loeb, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "These include big bang nucleosynthesis, the quantitative details of the microwave background anisotropies, the Lyman-alpha forest, and galaxy surveys. The authors do not discuss how their model compares to these tests, and whether the number of free parameters they require in order to fit these observational constraints is smaller than in the standard model. Until they do so, it is not clear why this alternative model should be regarded as advantageous."
Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Mario Livio agreed that to be seriously considered, the model must be able to predict properties of the universe that astronomers can measure.
He said the real test "is in whether they are able to reproduce all the observed cosmological parameters (as determined, e.g. by a combination of the Hubble Constant and the parameters determined by the CMB observations). To only produce an apparent acceleration is in itself interesting, but not particularly meaningful."
Inconvenient truths
Dark energy is itself a hasty fix to an inconvenient truth discovered by astronomers in the late 1990s: that the universe is expanding, and the rate of this expansion seems to be constantly picking up speed.
To explain this startling finding, cosmologists invoked dark energy, a hypothetical form of energy that is pulling the universe apart in all directions (note that dark energy is wholly separate from the equally mysterious concept of dark matter - a hypothetical form of matter that populates the universe, interacting gravitationally with normal matter, but which cannot be seen with light). In this interpretation, the whole universe is blowing up like a balloon, and from any given point within it, all distant objects appear to be speeding away from you.
But not everyone is happy with the dark energy explanation.
"It just seems like an unnatural correction to the equations - it's like a fudge factor," Temple told SPACE.com. "The equations don't make quite as much physical sense when you put it in. You just put it in to fit the data."
Temple and Smoller think the idea of an expanding wave makes more sense.
"At this stage we think this a very plausible theory," Temple said. "We're saying there isn't any acceleration. The galaxies are displaced from where they're supposed to be because we're in the aftermath of a wave that put those galaxies in a slightly different position."
Ripples in a pond
Temple compared the wave to what happens when you throw a rock into a pond. In this case, the rock would be the Big Bang, and the concentric ripples that result are like a series of waves throughout the universe. Later on, when the first galaxies start to form, they are forming inside space-time that has already been displaced from where it would have been without the wave. So when we observe these galaxies with telescopes, they don't appear to be where we would expect if there had never been a big wave.
One potential issue with this idea is that it might require a big coincidence.
For the universe to appear to be accelerating at the same rate in all directions, we in the Milky Way would have to be near a local center, at the spot where an expansion wave was initiated early in the Big Bang when the universe was filled with radiation.
Temple concedes that this is a coincidence, but said it's possible that we are merely in the center of a smaller wave that affects the galaxies we can see from our vantage point - we need not be in the center of the entire universe for the idea to work.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Molecules Wrestle for Supremacy in Creation of Superstructures
From the University of Liverpool
Research at the University of Liverpool has found how mirror-image molecules gain control over each other and dictate the physical state of superstructures.
The research team studied ‘chiral’ or ‘different-handed’ molecules which are distinguishable by their inability to be superimposed onto their mirror image. Such molecules are common – proteins use just one mirror form of amino acids and DNA, one form of sugars. Chirality leads to profound differences in the way a molecule functions – for example, drugs such as thalidomide can have positive effects on a patient but can prove harmful in their mirror image form.
Molecules can also assemble in large numbers and form ‘superstructures’ such as snowflakes which are created from large numbers of water molecules. When chiral molecules assemble they can create ‘handed’ superstructures; for example left-handed molecules can assemble together to make a left-handed superstructure. The Liverpool team studied this process in detail by assembling molecules at flat surfaces and using imaging techniques to map the formation of superstructures at nanoscale level.
Before now, scientists have not known whether, in systems containing both left-handed and right-handed molecules, one mirror-form of a molecule could take supremacy over its opposite number in the creation of superstructures, dictating their physical state and chemical and biological properties.
The research found that when equal numbers of mirror-molecules are present at the surface, they organise into separate left and right-handed superstructures, each with distinctly different properties. Crucially, a small imbalance in the population leads to a dramatic difference and only the molecules in the majority assemble into its superstructure, while the minority is left disordered at the surface and unable to create advanced molecular matter.
Professor Rasmita Raval from the University’s Surface Science Research Centre said: “We were surprised at these results. All perceived wisdom was that the left and right-handed molecules would simply create their respective superstructures in quantities that reflected the molecular ratio – that is, we would observe proportional representation. Instead, what we obtained was a kind of ‘molecular democracy’ that worked on a ‘first-past-the-post’ system where the majority population wrested chiral control of the superstructures and the minority was left disorganised.”
Theoretical modelling carried out by the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands found that this behaviour arises from the effects of entropy, or disorder, which leads the chiral molecules in the majority to preferentially organise into their superstructure.
The work has important implications in the pharmaceuticals industry and could lead to the development of surface processes to enable separation of drugs and products that are currently difficult to purify. The research also introduces the possibility that assembly processes at surfaces may naturally have led to the evolution of proteins and DNA – the molecules of life – containing just one mirror form of amino acids and sugars.
The research, in collaboration with the University of Eindhoven, is published in Nature Chemistry.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Bright Spot on Venus Stumps Scientists
By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer @ liveScience.com
A sudden bright spot that appeared in the clouds of Venus just days after a comet left a bruise on Jupiter has scientists stumped as to its cause.
Venus' bright spot, first noticed by amateur astronomer Frank Melillo of Holtsville, NY on July 19, is not the first such brightening noticed on our cloudy neighbor, said planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"We have seen such events before," he told SPACE.com.
This time is a little different though because the brightening is confined to a smaller region, Limaye said. It also came in the wake of Jupiter's own new (dark) spot, believed to be the result of a comet impact — Limaye attributes the fortunate confluence of the two events for the attention Venus is now getting in the astronomical community.
After Melillo reported the spot, other amateur astronomers and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Venus Express spacecraft confirmed the presence of the blemish.
The new Venus Express images show that the bright spot actually appeared in the planet's southern hemisphere four days before Melillo saw it and that it has since begun to spread out, becoming stretched by the wind's in Venus' thick atmosphere.
But just what caused the brightening is still a mystery. Theories have abounded, from a volcanic eruption to solar particles interacting with the planet's atmosphere.
Limaye says the volcano explanation is unlikely, for several reasons: Volcanoes on Venus seem to be less likely to blow their tops in Mount St. Helens-type fashion, instead behaving more like the oozing lava factories of Hawaii, so their eruptions wouldn't likely produce huge clouds of ash and steam. Also, it is unlikely that the explosions would have the power to push through to the other layers of Venus' extremely dense atmosphere.
Limaye doesn't completely rule out the possibility, however. "It's possible, we just don't know," he said.
Another explanation is that a coronal mass ejection (an energetic plume of plasma from the sun's corona) or the solar wind could have interacted with the clouds of Venus.
These "could cause something, we don't know what," Limaye said.
Yet another possibility is some internal change in Venus' atmosphere that could alter cloud particles and make them more reflective (and therefore brighter as viewed from space).
"Clearly something in the cloud properties changed," Limaye said.
Even though these events have been seen previously, most notably in Jan. 2007, our limited knowledge about the workings of Venus' atmosphere and lack of enough spacecraft to comprehensively study the planet hasn't narrowed down the list of possible causes, Limaye said.
"Right now, I think it's anybody's guess," he said.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Scientists Claim New State of Matter Created
By LiveScience Staff
Scientists claim to have created a form of aluminum that's nearly transparent to extreme ultraviolet radiation and which is a new state of matter.
It's an idea straight out of science fiction, featured in the movie "Star Trek IV."
The work is detailed in the journal Nature Physics.
The normal states of matter are solid, liquid and gas, and a fourth state, called plasma, is a superheated gas considered more exotic. Other experiments have created strange states of matter for brief periods. This one, too, existed only briefly.
To create the new, even more exotic stuff, a short pulse from a laser "knocked out" a core electron from every aluminum atom in a sample without disrupting the metal’s crystalline structure, the researchers explain.
''What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before," said professor Justin Wark of Oxford University’s Department of Physics.
"Transparent aluminum is just the start," Wark said. "The physical properties of the matter we are creating are relevant to the conditions inside large planets, and we also hope that by studying it we can gain a greater understanding of what is going on during the creation of 'miniature stars' created by high-power laser implosions, which may one day allow the power of nuclear fusion to be harnessed here on Earth."
Fusion is a dream of scientists who would create cheap and plentiful power by fusing atoms together, as opposed to nuclear fission that generates electricity today.
The discovery was made possible with a high-powered synchrotron radiation generator called the FLASH laser, based in Hamburg, Germany. It produces extremely brief pulses of soft X-ray light, each of which is more powerful than the output of a power plant that provides electricity to a whole city.
The Oxford team, along with their international colleagues, focused all this power down into a spot with a diameter less than a twentieth of the width of a human hair. At such high intensities the aluminum turned transparent.
While the invisible effect lasted for only an extremely brief period – an estimated 40 femtoseconds – it demonstrates that such an exotic state of matter can be created using very high power X-ray sources.
"What is particularly remarkable about our experiment is that we have turned ordinary aluminum into this exotic new material in a single step by using this very powerful laser," Wark said. "For a brief period the sample looks and behaves in every way like a new form of matter. In certain respects, the way it reacts is as though we had changed every aluminum atom into silicon: it’s almost as surprising as finding that you can turn lead into gold with light."
Scientists claim to have created a form of aluminum that's nearly transparent to extreme ultraviolet radiation and which is a new state of matter.
It's an idea straight out of science fiction, featured in the movie "Star Trek IV."
The work is detailed in the journal Nature Physics.
The normal states of matter are solid, liquid and gas, and a fourth state, called plasma, is a superheated gas considered more exotic. Other experiments have created strange states of matter for brief periods. This one, too, existed only briefly.
To create the new, even more exotic stuff, a short pulse from a laser "knocked out" a core electron from every aluminum atom in a sample without disrupting the metal’s crystalline structure, the researchers explain.
''What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before," said professor Justin Wark of Oxford University’s Department of Physics.
"Transparent aluminum is just the start," Wark said. "The physical properties of the matter we are creating are relevant to the conditions inside large planets, and we also hope that by studying it we can gain a greater understanding of what is going on during the creation of 'miniature stars' created by high-power laser implosions, which may one day allow the power of nuclear fusion to be harnessed here on Earth."
Fusion is a dream of scientists who would create cheap and plentiful power by fusing atoms together, as opposed to nuclear fission that generates electricity today.
The discovery was made possible with a high-powered synchrotron radiation generator called the FLASH laser, based in Hamburg, Germany. It produces extremely brief pulses of soft X-ray light, each of which is more powerful than the output of a power plant that provides electricity to a whole city.
The Oxford team, along with their international colleagues, focused all this power down into a spot with a diameter less than a twentieth of the width of a human hair. At such high intensities the aluminum turned transparent.
While the invisible effect lasted for only an extremely brief period – an estimated 40 femtoseconds – it demonstrates that such an exotic state of matter can be created using very high power X-ray sources.
"What is particularly remarkable about our experiment is that we have turned ordinary aluminum into this exotic new material in a single step by using this very powerful laser," Wark said. "For a brief period the sample looks and behaves in every way like a new form of matter. In certain respects, the way it reacts is as though we had changed every aluminum atom into silicon: it’s almost as surprising as finding that you can turn lead into gold with light."
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Dark Matter Helped Early Galaxies Survive "Massacre"
By Ker Than
for National Geographic News
The "ignition" of the first stars half a billion years after the big bang led to a cosmic massacre that spared just one out of every thousand galaxies. Survival depended on having large clouds of the mysterious substance known as dark matter, a new supercomputer model suggests.
for National Geographic News
The "ignition" of the first stars half a billion years after the big bang led to a cosmic massacre that spared just one out of every thousand galaxies. Survival depended on having large clouds of the mysterious substance known as dark matter, a new supercomputer model suggests.
Within dark matter clouds, normal matter was in the process of coalescing into young stars.
These stars, however, would have been sending out damaging radiation.
Larger dark matter clouds would have attracted more normal, or visible, matter, which means that larger galaxies would have had enough material to survive even after being blasted by radiation from their neighbors.
Smaller galaxies, meanwhile, would have had all their stars and star-forming material vaporized, leaving behind barren dark matter clumps.
"This is a case where the bullies really win out," said study team member Carlos Frenk, an astrophysicist at Durham University in the U.K.
"The galaxies that managed to make the stars that fried the early universe were the ones that managed to accumulate dark matter the fastest."
"Missing" Satellites
For a long time after the galactic massacre, no new galaxies were able to form, according to the new simulations by Frenk and Takashi Okamoto of the University of Tsukuba in Japan.
Dark matter, meanwhile, continued to merge and grow into ever larger structures.
Then, around 10 to 12 billion years ago, some of the dark matter clumps grew massive enough to counteract the radiation from the survivor galaxies.
At this point the dark matter could once again "protect" normal matter, and larger galaxies were finally able to take shape.
This model, recently presented at the Royal Society 2009 Summer Science Exhibition in London, could explain the Milky Way's "missing satellite" problem, said astrophysicist Andrew Benson of the California Institute of Technology.
So far, astronomers know of only about 20 satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, but according to a key theory of galaxy formation, there should be thousands.
That's because big galaxies like the Milky Way are thought to have formed through the violent mergers of many smaller galaxies.
Any discarded remnants that didn't make it into the larger structure would have become satellite galaxies.
But if the new model is correct, then the Milky Way's "missing" satellite galaxies never formed in the first place, said Benson, who was not involved in the new study.
"Professor Frenk has shown that if you can prevent the formation of galaxies very early in the universe, you can reduce the number of galaxies that you would expect to see around the Milky Way down to a level that is more compatible with what we actually observe."
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Cosmic Ray Moon Shadow Could Reveal Dark Matter
by technologyreview.com
If a strange excess of positrons hitting Earth are created by dark matter, then the way the Moon blocks these impacts could help confirm the idea
If a strange excess of positrons hitting Earth are created by dark matter, then the way the Moon blocks these impacts could help confirm the idea
The Earth is constantly bombarded by high energy positrons and electrons. These bombardments generate showers of secondary particles that light up our skies at night, if you have the right equipment to see 'em: so-called Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. The ratio of electrons to positrons is predicted fairly precisely by our models of the way cosmic rays interact with objects in the Milky Way.
But here's a conundrum. Various space-based experiments such as PAMELA have recently found an excess of positrons out there, particularly at energies above 10 GeV. That's totally unexpected and difficult to square with the conventional model.
The PAMELA measurement generated excitement because the dark matter brigade pounced on the result as evidence that dark matter particles must annihilating each other, producing the excess positrons in the centre of our galaxy. These guys were forced to put the champagne back on ice when other astrophysicists pointed out that the positrons could equally be created by particle cascades in the magnetospheres of nearby pulsars.
What's needed, of course, is more measurements of positron/electron ratios, particularly at energies up to a few TeV that cannot yet be made by space-based experiments.
Can the growing number of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes help? On the face of it, that looks unlikely because there is no way to tell apart the showers created by positrons and electrons when they hit the atmosphere. At least, until now.
Today, Pierre Colin and pals at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Physik in Munich have come up with an ingenious idea that should be able to tell them apart. Most of the electrons and positrons come from the galactic centre. Colin and co point out that that when the Moon comes between us and the electron/positron source, it creates a shadow that is already used to calibrate Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes.
But here's the interesting idea: Colin and co say the shadow of charged particles should be deflected by the Earth's magnetic field. The electron shadow should be shifted eastward and the positron shadow westward. These Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes should therefore be able to spot the separate shadows, allowing the measurement of positron/electron ratios at energies up to several TeV, well beyond what space-based experiments can achieve.
What's more, Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes ought to be able to spot these shadows now as long as they can make measurements in the glare of the Moon. One such instrument called MAGIC, built by the Max-Planck-Institut fur Physik at Roque de los Muchachos in the Canary islands, exactly fits the bill.
The measurements will still be tricky however, particularly of the positron shadow which may well be superimposed on the shadow created by positively charged atoms in the cosmic ray spectrum. However, Colin and co think they ought to be able to pick out the electron shadow with just 50 hours of observing (although that may take several years given that the shadows occur only at certan times of the year).
That's an ingenious idea that may well give astronomers a way of determining what role dark matter plays, if any, in the creation of these excess positrons.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0907.1026: Observation of Shadowing of the Cosmic Electrons and Positrons by the Moon with IACT
Monday, July 6, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Are Planets "Living Super-Organisms"?
by Casey Kazan
Japan's Maruyama Shigenori, one of the world's leading geophysicists, is working on a global formula for a new field of study that would include dozens of disciplines collaborating to produce an overall picture of the Earth. As he connects the links from astronomy to life sciences, an outline emerges of an all-encompassing image of entire planets which appear as living super-organisms.
Japan's Maruyama Shigenori, one of the world's leading geophysicists, is working on a global formula for a new field of study that would include dozens of disciplines collaborating to produce an overall picture of the Earth. As he connects the links from astronomy to life sciences, an outline emerges of an all-encompassing image of entire planets which appear as living super-organisms.
Shigenori believes that expanding the study of life sciences to the core of our world and the depths of outer space will help us find distant relatives of our own Earth -- planets that could also sustain life.
Maruyama is creating a new institute called the Center for Bio-Earth Planetology will be launched in 2009 and fully dedicated to creating a new conception of life in space.He wants to find out if the continents will merge again in 250 million years to form a single super-continent; how meteorites change the chemical composition of the Earth; and what the connection is between the temperature of a planet and its magnetic field, which protects plants and animals from being bombarded with cosmic radiation, which in turn influences the rate of mutations and thus the development of new forms of life.
Maruyama is also provoking controversy in the with his new theory on the lifecycle of the Earth's crust.
To explain why contintental plates drift on the surface of the Earth's molten mantle, Maruyama argues that continents actually have life cycles. Old, cold plates on continental fringes sink to “plate graveyards” deep in the Earth’s mantle, and then rise again, creating volcanoes fueled by three-dimensional convection movements deep below the surface.
Maruyama is taking the ideas of continental-drift pioneer Alfred Wegener to a new level. Wegener was a German explorer and meteorologist who believed back in 1912 that the continents roamed about on the surface of the Earth -- an idea that was ridiculed by even his most supportive research colleagues as a "delirious vision" and "the wonderful dream of a great poet." It wasn't until the 1960s that studies of the ocean floor finally provided irrefutable proof that Wegener had been right after all.
Today, we all know that the continents are enormous plates that drift on the Earth's red-hot mantle like icebergs on the ocean. Yet to this day, the hypothesis still lacks a logical and convincing foundation. Nobody has been able to explain the actual mechanics behind the motor that drives the drifting and breaking-up of the continental plates.
The inner reaches of the Earth remain shrouded in mystery. Even the surface of has been explored more extensively. Because deep drilling comes to a halt after a maximum of 12 kilometers, the remaining 6,300 kilometers to the center of the Earth remain inaccessible.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Maruyama gave the answer: "The continental drift that we observe on the surface of the Earth has its counterpart in the Earth's mantle. Old, cold plates are pushed down into the Earth's mantle on the continental edges," he explains. "At this point they collect large amounts of iron. You can imagine it as something similar to water condensation."
Weighted down by the iron, the plates sink farther and farther into the hot, molten rock until they reach the inner sanctum of the Earth's mantle. There, at a depth of 2,900 kilometers, they finally halt their decent and settle into "plate graveyards." This is presumably the outer edge of the earth's heavy core, where the temperature is 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,200 degrees Fahrenheit).
Maruyama continues: "But the capsized continents don't simply rest in their plate graveyards forever." Rather, they are about to experience a sudden resurrection. Heat and pressure in the depths trigger chemical processes, causing the plates to deposit their load of heavy elements. Once liberated of this burden, they become lighter than their surroundings, causing them to rise like corks in water. The result: Above the old plate graves, on the floor of the Earth's molten mantle, a mushroom-shaped upwelling of abnormally hot magma called a mantle plume makes its way toward the surface.
Eventually, the rising flow of molten rock reaches the crystallized crust and cuts through it like a welding torch. Volcanoes form, such as those on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Maruyama says the red hot lava that erupts on the volcanic island comes directly from an old plate cemetery 2,900 kilometers below the surface, where the remains of an ancient continent that broke up some 750 million years ago simmer to the surface. Maruyama's theory postulates the amazing comeback story of this ancient rock from the deep.
The key ingredient for the chemistry of the Earth's interior is the same one that determines the weather on the surface: water. The sunken ocean plates have old seawater locked in their mineral structure -- only a few parts per thousand, but enough to drastically change the characteristics of the rock.
Even minute quantities of water in the ex-floor of the ocean can significantly lower its melting point -- and this speeds up its eventual return to the surface. The water helps the rock to lose its load of heavy iron, thereby increasing the buoyancy of this old plate material.
The geophysicist thus paints a three-dimensional picture of the planet Earth where, in addition to the continents drifting on the surface, there is room for "anti-plate tectonics" at the base of the Earth's mantle. An "anti-crust" deep below reflects to a certain degree events on the surface, with "lakes" and "mountains" and "rivers" of viscous molten rock.
Earthquakes and computing power are the main requirements for researchers looking to piece together an x-ray-like image of the Earth's interior. The principle is simple enough: When an earthquake strikes, the seismic waves race clear across the Earth's mantle. It takes a full quarter of an hour for the shockwave to travel from Indonesia to Germany. The duration of this journey reveals a great deal to researchers. The waves are slowed down by viscous and hot regions, like mantle plumes, and accelerated by solid or cold objects.
Earthquakes similar to the one that hit Kobe in 1995 and killed nearly 5,100 Japanese -- are Maruyama's main source of data. The island nation lies directly on the West Pacific crossroads of three huge plates that ram into each other like cars in a highway pile-up: the Pacific, Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Scientists Make Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light
From Current.com
Scientist John Singleton insists that Albert Einstein wouldn't be mad at him, even though at first blush Singleton appears to have twisted the famous physicist's theories about light into a pretzel.
Most people think Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but that's not really the case, Singleton said.
Einstein predicted that particles and information can't travel faster than the speed of light — but phenomenon like radio waves? That's a different story, said Singleton, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow.
Singleton has created a gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light.
The polarization synchrotron combines the waves with a rapidly spinning magnetic field, and the result could explain why pulsars — which are super-dense spinning stars that are a subclass of neutron stars — emit such powerful signals, a phenomenon that has baffled many scientists, Singleton said.
"Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit radio waves in pulses, but what we don't know is why these pulses are so bright or why they travel such long distances," Singleton said. "What we think is these are transmitting the same way our machine does."
And beyond explaining what has been a bit of a mystery to the astronomical community, Singleton's discovery could have wide-ranging technological impacts in areas such as medicine and communications, he said.
"Because nobody's really thought about things that travel faster than light before, this is a wide-open technological field," Singleton said.
One possible use for the resulting speedy radio waves — which are packed into a very powerful wave the size of a pencil point — could be the creation of a new generation of cell phones that communicate directly to satellites, rather than transmitting through relay towers as they now do.
Those phones would have more reliable service and would also be more difficult for hackers to intercept, Singleton said.
Another application could be in very targeted chemotherapy, where a patient takes the drugs, and the radio waves are used to activate them very specifically in the area around a tumor, he said.
If Einstein were still alive, he probably wouldn't be all that surprised by the discovery, Perez said, even if it does seem on the surface to conflict with some of his theories.
"He might have thought, 'why did this take so long,' " Perez said.
Scientist John Singleton insists that Albert Einstein wouldn't be mad at him, even though at first blush Singleton appears to have twisted the famous physicist's theories about light into a pretzel.
Most people think Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but that's not really the case, Singleton said.
Einstein predicted that particles and information can't travel faster than the speed of light — but phenomenon like radio waves? That's a different story, said Singleton, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow.
Singleton has created a gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light.
The polarization synchrotron combines the waves with a rapidly spinning magnetic field, and the result could explain why pulsars — which are super-dense spinning stars that are a subclass of neutron stars — emit such powerful signals, a phenomenon that has baffled many scientists, Singleton said.
"Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit radio waves in pulses, but what we don't know is why these pulses are so bright or why they travel such long distances," Singleton said. "What we think is these are transmitting the same way our machine does."
And beyond explaining what has been a bit of a mystery to the astronomical community, Singleton's discovery could have wide-ranging technological impacts in areas such as medicine and communications, he said.
"Because nobody's really thought about things that travel faster than light before, this is a wide-open technological field," Singleton said.
One possible use for the resulting speedy radio waves — which are packed into a very powerful wave the size of a pencil point — could be the creation of a new generation of cell phones that communicate directly to satellites, rather than transmitting through relay towers as they now do.
Those phones would have more reliable service and would also be more difficult for hackers to intercept, Singleton said.
Another application could be in very targeted chemotherapy, where a patient takes the drugs, and the radio waves are used to activate them very specifically in the area around a tumor, he said.
If Einstein were still alive, he probably wouldn't be all that surprised by the discovery, Perez said, even if it does seem on the surface to conflict with some of his theories.
"He might have thought, 'why did this take so long,' " Perez said.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Scientists come a step closer towards building quantum computer
From: littleabout.com
A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.
They also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time.
Our processor can perform only a few very simple quantum tasks, which have been demonstrated before with single nuclei, atoms and photons, said Robert Schoelkopf, the William A. Norton Professor of Applied Physics and Physics at Yale.
But this is the first time theyve been possible in an all-electronic device that looks and feels much more like a regular microprocessor, he added.
Working with a group of theoretical physicists led by Steven Girvin, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, the team manufactured two artificial atoms, or qubits (quantum bits).
While each qubit is actually made up of a billion aluminum atoms, it acts like a single atom that can occupy two different energy states.
These states are akin to the 1 and 0 or on and off states of regular bits employed by conventional computers.
Because of the counterintuitive laws of quantum mechanics, however, scientists can effectively place qubits in a superposition of multiple states at the same time, allowing for greater information storage and processing power.
These sorts of computations, though simple, have not been possible using solid-state qubits until now in part because scientists could not get the qubits to last long enough.
While the first qubits of a decade ago were able to maintain specific quantum states for about a nanosecond, Schoelkopf and his team are now able to maintain theirs for a microseconda thousand times longer, which is enough to run the simple algorithms.
To perform their operations, the qubits communicate with one another using a quantum busphotons that transmit information through wires connecting the qubitspreviously developed by the Yale group.
The key that made the two-qubit processor possible was getting the qubits to switch on and off abruptly, so that they exchanged information quickly and only when the researchers wanted them to, said Leonardo DiCarlo, a postdoctoral associate in applied physics at Yales School of Engineering and Applied Science and lead author of the research paper.
Next, the team will work to connect more qubits to the quantum bus.
The processing power increases exponentially with each qubit added, so the potential for more advanced quantum computing is enormous, Schoelkopf said.
A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.
They also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time.
Our processor can perform only a few very simple quantum tasks, which have been demonstrated before with single nuclei, atoms and photons, said Robert Schoelkopf, the William A. Norton Professor of Applied Physics and Physics at Yale.
But this is the first time theyve been possible in an all-electronic device that looks and feels much more like a regular microprocessor, he added.
Working with a group of theoretical physicists led by Steven Girvin, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, the team manufactured two artificial atoms, or qubits (quantum bits).
While each qubit is actually made up of a billion aluminum atoms, it acts like a single atom that can occupy two different energy states.
These states are akin to the 1 and 0 or on and off states of regular bits employed by conventional computers.
Because of the counterintuitive laws of quantum mechanics, however, scientists can effectively place qubits in a superposition of multiple states at the same time, allowing for greater information storage and processing power.
These sorts of computations, though simple, have not been possible using solid-state qubits until now in part because scientists could not get the qubits to last long enough.
While the first qubits of a decade ago were able to maintain specific quantum states for about a nanosecond, Schoelkopf and his team are now able to maintain theirs for a microseconda thousand times longer, which is enough to run the simple algorithms.
To perform their operations, the qubits communicate with one another using a quantum busphotons that transmit information through wires connecting the qubitspreviously developed by the Yale group.
The key that made the two-qubit processor possible was getting the qubits to switch on and off abruptly, so that they exchanged information quickly and only when the researchers wanted them to, said Leonardo DiCarlo, a postdoctoral associate in applied physics at Yales School of Engineering and Applied Science and lead author of the research paper.
Next, the team will work to connect more qubits to the quantum bus.
The processing power increases exponentially with each qubit added, so the potential for more advanced quantum computing is enormous, Schoelkopf said.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Woman illegally downloads 24 songs, fined to tune of $1.9 million
By Elianne Friend
CNN
A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said.
Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents.
She plans to appeal, he said.
Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the RIIA was "pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable."
"We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this as seriously as we do," she said.
Thomas-Rasset downloaded work by artists such as No Doubt, Linkin Park, Gloria Estefan and
This was the second trial for Thomas-Rasset. The judge ordered a retrial in 2007 after there was an error in the wording of jury instructions.
The fines jumped considerably from the first trial, which granted just $220,000 to the recording companies.
Thomas-Rasset is married with four children and works for an Indian tribe in Minnesota.
CNN
A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset's case was the first such copyright infringement case to go to trial in the United States, her attorney said.
Attorney Joe Sibley said that his client was shocked at fine, noting that the price tag on the songs she downloaded was 99 cents.
She plans to appeal, he said.
Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said the RIIA was "pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable."
"We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this as seriously as we do," she said.
Thomas-Rasset downloaded work by artists such as No Doubt, Linkin Park, Gloria Estefan and
This was the second trial for Thomas-Rasset. The judge ordered a retrial in 2007 after there was an error in the wording of jury instructions.
The fines jumped considerably from the first trial, which granted just $220,000 to the recording companies.
Thomas-Rasset is married with four children and works for an Indian tribe in Minnesota.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Love
What is love? Scientists have delved deep into this mystery of life. They have found that the melding two chemicals, Oxytocin and Vasopressin, within the brain have been linked to long term bonding. They also say that Serotonin plays a major role and that one in love resembles that of a person with an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Scientists are definitely not romantics. But even in the scientific community love remains a mystery, one rooted deep in our culture far beyond our written history.
So what is love? A mother holding her newborn for the first time. A father, still in his work clothes, playing catch with his son. That fluttering in your chest as you close your eyes for your first kiss. Two grandparents holding hands as they stroll down the street. Love comes in all forms, sexes, and states. It first strikes as a sickness. Lightheaded, butterflies begin their flapping within your gut, there is nothing like a newborn love. Scientists have found the protein NGF, Nerve Growth Hormone, to be at it’s highest levels when couples first fall in love. They have also found that this protein has also been associated with Alzheimer. Never invite a scientist to give a speech at your wedding. As the love ages, and the protein levels out, love changes and resembles more of a comforter. That warm blanket you know will be there when you come in from the blustering wind.
Love can also be elusive. We search our entire life for love or that which we were taught what love is supposed to be. But love comes to those that love. Like a piggy bank, the more you put into it the more you will get out. Love is also the sun that makes our souls grow. Without love, our branches droop, our being wilts, and we become dead inside. While love warms our soul, we need to toil the land, or relationships, in which it’s roots grow. One can’t just accept love and expect a garden to grow. We must get down, muddy our knees, and not be afraid to get dirt under our fingernails.
For love to last in this garden, one must use some important tools. One is sacrifice. We must be prepared to pull up the weeds that make the “I” for fertile soil that makes the “Us”. Now there is no way to pull out every single weed in this enormous garden and a healthy sense of the individual is a necessity in every relationship, but if the garden gets too overgrown with these weeds, the fruit will never be seen to have a chance to be plucked.
The rays of love is not enough to keep our garden alive. It is our job to keep the garden vibrant with the water of communication, trust, and compassion. Communication will clean the words left unsaid and the superfluous disagreements that linger far too long, Trust will the strengthen the roots even when you are apart, and Compassion will help you feel the weight of your words and the impact they create before the stems snap and break.
Make no mistake creating and maintaining this garden isn’t easy and the work will last your entire life. But with the right tools, the sustenance within will be all that you will need, want, and crave. So work hard, nurture your garden, and most importantly enjoy the fruits of your labor.
So what is love? A mother holding her newborn for the first time. A father, still in his work clothes, playing catch with his son. That fluttering in your chest as you close your eyes for your first kiss. Two grandparents holding hands as they stroll down the street. Love comes in all forms, sexes, and states. It first strikes as a sickness. Lightheaded, butterflies begin their flapping within your gut, there is nothing like a newborn love. Scientists have found the protein NGF, Nerve Growth Hormone, to be at it’s highest levels when couples first fall in love. They have also found that this protein has also been associated with Alzheimer. Never invite a scientist to give a speech at your wedding. As the love ages, and the protein levels out, love changes and resembles more of a comforter. That warm blanket you know will be there when you come in from the blustering wind.
Love can also be elusive. We search our entire life for love or that which we were taught what love is supposed to be. But love comes to those that love. Like a piggy bank, the more you put into it the more you will get out. Love is also the sun that makes our souls grow. Without love, our branches droop, our being wilts, and we become dead inside. While love warms our soul, we need to toil the land, or relationships, in which it’s roots grow. One can’t just accept love and expect a garden to grow. We must get down, muddy our knees, and not be afraid to get dirt under our fingernails.
For love to last in this garden, one must use some important tools. One is sacrifice. We must be prepared to pull up the weeds that make the “I” for fertile soil that makes the “Us”. Now there is no way to pull out every single weed in this enormous garden and a healthy sense of the individual is a necessity in every relationship, but if the garden gets too overgrown with these weeds, the fruit will never be seen to have a chance to be plucked.
The rays of love is not enough to keep our garden alive. It is our job to keep the garden vibrant with the water of communication, trust, and compassion. Communication will clean the words left unsaid and the superfluous disagreements that linger far too long, Trust will the strengthen the roots even when you are apart, and Compassion will help you feel the weight of your words and the impact they create before the stems snap and break.
Make no mistake creating and maintaining this garden isn’t easy and the work will last your entire life. But with the right tools, the sustenance within will be all that you will need, want, and crave. So work hard, nurture your garden, and most importantly enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Sky 'rains tadpoles' over Japan
By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
From The Telegraph
Residents, officials and scientists have been baffled by the apparent downpour of tadpoles in central Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture.
Clouds of dead tadpoles appear to have fallen from the sky in a series of episodes in a number of cities in the region since the start of the month.
In one incident, a 55-year-old man who was caught in a tadpole downpour described hearing a strange sound in the parking lot of a civic centre in the city of Nanao.
Upon further exploration, he found more than 100 dead tadpoles covering the windshields of cars in an area measuring 10 square metres.
Dead tadpole downpours were also reported by local officials 48 hours later in the city of Hakusan in the same prefecture.
The raining down of small creatures such as frogs and fish is a rare meteorological phenomenon that is reported from time to time across the world.
Scientists have widely attributed the surreal raining of animals to strong winds, storms and water sprouts sucking up creatures before depositing them further inland.
However, this explanation has not satisfied meteorologists in the Ishikawa region.
Officials at Kanazawa Local Meteorological Observatory told local media that they were unsure how the tadpoles had arrived as there had been no reports of strong winds at the time.
Another scientific explanation for raining animals relates to birds carrying the small creatures before dropping them as they fly overland.
However, dismissing this theory, a researcher at the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology in Abiko told Kyodo news: "Crows eat tadpoles but if these were spat out (by the birds), a wider area should have been covered."
From The Telegraph
Residents, officials and scientists have been baffled by the apparent downpour of tadpoles in central Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture.
Clouds of dead tadpoles appear to have fallen from the sky in a series of episodes in a number of cities in the region since the start of the month.
In one incident, a 55-year-old man who was caught in a tadpole downpour described hearing a strange sound in the parking lot of a civic centre in the city of Nanao.
Upon further exploration, he found more than 100 dead tadpoles covering the windshields of cars in an area measuring 10 square metres.
Dead tadpole downpours were also reported by local officials 48 hours later in the city of Hakusan in the same prefecture.
The raining down of small creatures such as frogs and fish is a rare meteorological phenomenon that is reported from time to time across the world.
Scientists have widely attributed the surreal raining of animals to strong winds, storms and water sprouts sucking up creatures before depositing them further inland.
However, this explanation has not satisfied meteorologists in the Ishikawa region.
Officials at Kanazawa Local Meteorological Observatory told local media that they were unsure how the tadpoles had arrived as there had been no reports of strong winds at the time.
Another scientific explanation for raining animals relates to birds carrying the small creatures before dropping them as they fly overland.
However, dismissing this theory, a researcher at the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology in Abiko told Kyodo news: "Crows eat tadpoles but if these were spat out (by the birds), a wider area should have been covered."
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
One-fifth of us have lost sight of Milky Way
by Heather Catchpole
SYDNEY: Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population – mostly in mainland Europe, Britain and the U.S. – to lose their ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky.
"The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage," said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
Yet "more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the U.S. population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way."
Star-free night
The phenomenon, caused by the reflection of manmade light by the Earth's atmosphere, impacts astronomical research and can even affect human health, warned Walker, who will present her research on Wednesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California.
The effects of light pollution on human health can be as mild as the disruption of the circadian rhythm leading to problems sleeping, but it can also be serious, she said.
One study of 147 Israeli communities, published in 2008 in the journal Chronobiology International, found some evidence for an increased risk of breast cancer for women living in areas with the most light pollution. This is thought to be due to unnatural light at night affecting levels of hormones such as melatonin and estrogen.
Light pollution comes in a variety of forms such as 'over illumination', 'light trespass' and 'sky glow' – the orange glow that hangs over cities and is produced by upwards directed light.
Walker's research has found that cities using light fixtures that direct just 3% of their light upwards can almost double the sky glow experienced by astronomical observatories 100 km away. "Allowing 10% direct uplight increases this figure to 570%," said Walker, who is chair of the U.S. Dark Skies Working Group, part of the Dark Skies Awareness program, a global citizen science effort to raise awareness of light pollution.
GLOBE at night
"The point of raising awareness of light pollution is that it touches many areas of people's lives, from simply not being able to see the natural heritage of a starry night sky to affecting... the habits of animals, energy consumption, economic resources, and astronomical research," she said.
One project called GLOBE at Night, teaches members of the public "to record the brightness of the night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with star maps of progressively fainter stars," said Walker.
These measurements are then submitted online and are used to create global maps of levels of light pollution. Over the last four years, the annual, two-week long GLOBE at Night events have resulted in 35,000 measurements contributed from over 100 countries.
Data from this project and others allowed Walker to estimate how much of the world's population is still able to see the Milky Way on a clear night.
John Norris, an astronomer from the Australian National University's (ANU) Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories said light pollution was less of an issue in Australia, where cities are widely distributed.
But he said emission lines from the mercury and sodium in fluorescent or sodium streetlights can still create background light interference for astronomers observing at optical wavelengths.
"To get the same quality of data [as from a non light-affected area] I would have to observe longer to be able to subtract the background light pollution from the light of the star," said Norris, who added that astronomers "jealously seek to guard the darkness" of observatories.
"At the Anglo-Australian Observatory and ANU we seek to have agreements with government and local councils. If people want to build something that is going to produce light pollution they have to [first] seek approval and meet certain requirements," he said. "It's a win/win situation because it is more energy efficient to have a downwards-facing lamp rather than lighting up the sky."
SYDNEY: Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population – mostly in mainland Europe, Britain and the U.S. – to lose their ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky.
"The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage," said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
Yet "more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the U.S. population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way."
Star-free night
The phenomenon, caused by the reflection of manmade light by the Earth's atmosphere, impacts astronomical research and can even affect human health, warned Walker, who will present her research on Wednesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California.
The effects of light pollution on human health can be as mild as the disruption of the circadian rhythm leading to problems sleeping, but it can also be serious, she said.
One study of 147 Israeli communities, published in 2008 in the journal Chronobiology International, found some evidence for an increased risk of breast cancer for women living in areas with the most light pollution. This is thought to be due to unnatural light at night affecting levels of hormones such as melatonin and estrogen.
Light pollution comes in a variety of forms such as 'over illumination', 'light trespass' and 'sky glow' – the orange glow that hangs over cities and is produced by upwards directed light.
Walker's research has found that cities using light fixtures that direct just 3% of their light upwards can almost double the sky glow experienced by astronomical observatories 100 km away. "Allowing 10% direct uplight increases this figure to 570%," said Walker, who is chair of the U.S. Dark Skies Working Group, part of the Dark Skies Awareness program, a global citizen science effort to raise awareness of light pollution.
GLOBE at night
"The point of raising awareness of light pollution is that it touches many areas of people's lives, from simply not being able to see the natural heritage of a starry night sky to affecting... the habits of animals, energy consumption, economic resources, and astronomical research," she said.
One project called GLOBE at Night, teaches members of the public "to record the brightness of the night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with star maps of progressively fainter stars," said Walker.
These measurements are then submitted online and are used to create global maps of levels of light pollution. Over the last four years, the annual, two-week long GLOBE at Night events have resulted in 35,000 measurements contributed from over 100 countries.
Data from this project and others allowed Walker to estimate how much of the world's population is still able to see the Milky Way on a clear night.
John Norris, an astronomer from the Australian National University's (ANU) Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories said light pollution was less of an issue in Australia, where cities are widely distributed.
But he said emission lines from the mercury and sodium in fluorescent or sodium streetlights can still create background light interference for astronomers observing at optical wavelengths.
"To get the same quality of data [as from a non light-affected area] I would have to observe longer to be able to subtract the background light pollution from the light of the star," said Norris, who added that astronomers "jealously seek to guard the darkness" of observatories.
"At the Anglo-Australian Observatory and ANU we seek to have agreements with government and local councils. If people want to build something that is going to produce light pollution they have to [first] seek approval and meet certain requirements," he said. "It's a win/win situation because it is more energy efficient to have a downwards-facing lamp rather than lighting up the sky."
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
New Hampshire Lake linked to ALS
By KRISTEN SENZ
Sunday News Correspondent
ENFIELD – The risk of developing a fatal neurodegenerative disease is 25 times higher than the norm for people who live around Mascoma Lake, according to researchers studying the possibility of a link between lake bacteria and neurological illness.
Over a recent six-month period, three people residing on the north shore of Mascoma Lake were diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. So far, nine cases of the disease have been confirmed near the lake.
Doctors and scientists at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon say there is strong evidence that suggests cyanobacteria, single-celled organisms that form on lakes and ponds and release harmful toxins, are an environmental trigger for the development of ALS in people who are genetically predisposed to the illness.
"Statistically, if you live near some lakes, there appears to be a higher risk of ALS," said Dartmouth-Hitchcock neurologist Dr. Elijah Stommel.
The national incidence rate of ALS, a disease that attacks the nerve cells that control voluntary movement, is two people per 100,000. Around lakes and ponds with cyanobacteria blooms in New England, that rate increases to 4.5 people per 100,000. At Mascoma Lake, the rate is 50 people per 100,000.
Researchers in New Hampshire have yet to find the specific neurotoxin, known as BMAA (beta Methylamino L-alanine), that is believed to trigger ALS, but it has been found in water bodies with cyanobacteria blooms elsewhere in the world.
"We think we will be able to find the toxin," said Stommel, who is working with other doctors and researchers to collect water and fish samples, and to gather hair and brain tissue from people who have been diagnosed with ALS in Enfield.
People living around other lakes, including Winnisquam Lake in Belknap County and Willand Pond in Somersworth, also recently have been diagnosed with ALS, but the highest concentration of cases in the state has been found at Mascoma Lake.
Cyanobacteria, often referred to as blue-green algae, have survived on Earth for more than 200 million years and contain chlorophyll, which enables photosynthesis. The biological purpose for cyanobacteria blooms and the toxins they release remains unknown, said Dr. Tracie Caller, a resident at Dartmouth-Hitchcock who works with Stommel in studying the potential link to ALS.
"These are the oldest organisms on Earth," Caller said. "They actually are partly responsible for creating our atmosphere."
Dumping of sewage and other pollutants, including yard waste such as grass clippings, is believed to trigger cyanobacteria blooms. Nitrogen and phosphorous, which come from runoff created by development, also are recognized as contributors.
Pollution in Mascoma Lake was at its peak in the 1970s, prior to the passage of the federal Clean Water Act, Caller said, and exposure from that era may be responsible for the recent spike in ALS cases.
"The cases we're seeing now, we think might be related to what was going on 10, 20 or 30 years ago," she said.
Researchers first began studying unexpected pockets of ALS after a high concentration of cases was found in Guam among people who ate a certain type of bat. The bats fed on nuts that contained BMAA, which was found to have caused the disease. Other populations at higher risk for ALS include Italian soccer players and veterans of the first Iraq war, Caller said, but no one knows why.
Cyanobacteria blooms appear as a blue-green or pea-green scum on the surface of lakes, ponds and rivers. They release a variety of harmful toxins, including microcystine, which causes liver cancer and liver failure in humans and animals. Jody Connor, a limnologist with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, said the toxin has caused acute liver failure in dogs and has been responsible for some pet deaths.
"Oftentimes, pets die and nobody knows why, and a lot of times, vets don't know that pets that drink water with cyanobacteria are likely going to get sick," Connor said.
New Hampshire was one of the first states to develop a standard for cyanobacteria testing, as well as a procedure for related beach closures and lake advisories. And the limnology center, which Connor leads, is working to educate lake associations and the public.
Connor said it's important for people to heed the state's warnings, recognize what the blooms look like and know what to do if they see them. If you see scum on a lake's surface, even if it's only in one area, avoid swimming and keep pets out of the water. Take a picture of the bloom or collect a water sample, and call the state's cyanobacteria hotline at 419-9229.
"I carry the phone with me all the time, and I try to answer it seven days a week," he said.
If and when researchers find the tiny BMAA molecule in Mascoma Lake or elsewhere in the state, "I think it would really help us in preventing disease and/or maybe even finding a cure" for ALS, Caller said.
A definitive link could also have a dramatic impact on lakefront property values in New Hampshire.
Stommel and Caller are awaiting lab-test results from water and fish samples collected from Mascoma Lake, Winnisquam Lake, Willand Pond and Webster Lake in Franklin.
"We're hoping to sample as many lakes with blooms as we can get to this summer," Caller said.
Sunday News Correspondent
ENFIELD – The risk of developing a fatal neurodegenerative disease is 25 times higher than the norm for people who live around Mascoma Lake, according to researchers studying the possibility of a link between lake bacteria and neurological illness.
Over a recent six-month period, three people residing on the north shore of Mascoma Lake were diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. So far, nine cases of the disease have been confirmed near the lake.
Doctors and scientists at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon say there is strong evidence that suggests cyanobacteria, single-celled organisms that form on lakes and ponds and release harmful toxins, are an environmental trigger for the development of ALS in people who are genetically predisposed to the illness.
"Statistically, if you live near some lakes, there appears to be a higher risk of ALS," said Dartmouth-Hitchcock neurologist Dr. Elijah Stommel.
The national incidence rate of ALS, a disease that attacks the nerve cells that control voluntary movement, is two people per 100,000. Around lakes and ponds with cyanobacteria blooms in New England, that rate increases to 4.5 people per 100,000. At Mascoma Lake, the rate is 50 people per 100,000.
Researchers in New Hampshire have yet to find the specific neurotoxin, known as BMAA (beta Methylamino L-alanine), that is believed to trigger ALS, but it has been found in water bodies with cyanobacteria blooms elsewhere in the world.
"We think we will be able to find the toxin," said Stommel, who is working with other doctors and researchers to collect water and fish samples, and to gather hair and brain tissue from people who have been diagnosed with ALS in Enfield.
People living around other lakes, including Winnisquam Lake in Belknap County and Willand Pond in Somersworth, also recently have been diagnosed with ALS, but the highest concentration of cases in the state has been found at Mascoma Lake.
Cyanobacteria, often referred to as blue-green algae, have survived on Earth for more than 200 million years and contain chlorophyll, which enables photosynthesis. The biological purpose for cyanobacteria blooms and the toxins they release remains unknown, said Dr. Tracie Caller, a resident at Dartmouth-Hitchcock who works with Stommel in studying the potential link to ALS.
"These are the oldest organisms on Earth," Caller said. "They actually are partly responsible for creating our atmosphere."
Dumping of sewage and other pollutants, including yard waste such as grass clippings, is believed to trigger cyanobacteria blooms. Nitrogen and phosphorous, which come from runoff created by development, also are recognized as contributors.
Pollution in Mascoma Lake was at its peak in the 1970s, prior to the passage of the federal Clean Water Act, Caller said, and exposure from that era may be responsible for the recent spike in ALS cases.
"The cases we're seeing now, we think might be related to what was going on 10, 20 or 30 years ago," she said.
Researchers first began studying unexpected pockets of ALS after a high concentration of cases was found in Guam among people who ate a certain type of bat. The bats fed on nuts that contained BMAA, which was found to have caused the disease. Other populations at higher risk for ALS include Italian soccer players and veterans of the first Iraq war, Caller said, but no one knows why.
Cyanobacteria blooms appear as a blue-green or pea-green scum on the surface of lakes, ponds and rivers. They release a variety of harmful toxins, including microcystine, which causes liver cancer and liver failure in humans and animals. Jody Connor, a limnologist with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, said the toxin has caused acute liver failure in dogs and has been responsible for some pet deaths.
"Oftentimes, pets die and nobody knows why, and a lot of times, vets don't know that pets that drink water with cyanobacteria are likely going to get sick," Connor said.
New Hampshire was one of the first states to develop a standard for cyanobacteria testing, as well as a procedure for related beach closures and lake advisories. And the limnology center, which Connor leads, is working to educate lake associations and the public.
Connor said it's important for people to heed the state's warnings, recognize what the blooms look like and know what to do if they see them. If you see scum on a lake's surface, even if it's only in one area, avoid swimming and keep pets out of the water. Take a picture of the bloom or collect a water sample, and call the state's cyanobacteria hotline at 419-9229.
"I carry the phone with me all the time, and I try to answer it seven days a week," he said.
If and when researchers find the tiny BMAA molecule in Mascoma Lake or elsewhere in the state, "I think it would really help us in preventing disease and/or maybe even finding a cure" for ALS, Caller said.
A definitive link could also have a dramatic impact on lakefront property values in New Hampshire.
Stommel and Caller are awaiting lab-test results from water and fish samples collected from Mascoma Lake, Winnisquam Lake, Willand Pond and Webster Lake in Franklin.
"We're hoping to sample as many lakes with blooms as we can get to this summer," Caller said.
Monday, June 8, 2009
First supernovae blew early galaxies apart
by Heather Catchpole
Cosmos Online
SYDNEY: The universe's first stars blew small galaxies apart when they exploded, effectively quashing all nearby star formation, say Japanese astrophysicists.
The theory, based on analytical calculations of the energy and disruptive effects of early supernovae, adds another piece to the puzzle of what the first stars were like and how they influenced galaxy formation.
The first stars formed around 200 million years after the Big Bang in clumps of dark matter called dark matter haloes – the basic building blocks of galaxies.
Running out of gas
These stars were massive, probably 10 to 100 times bigger than the Sun. Like most massive stars, they would have burnt through their fuel within a few tens of millions of years and then exploded as either a type II supernova or a pair instability supernova.
The study, published in the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal, looks at what happened to the dark haloes near these massive explosions. Previously, experts were divided as to whether the first supernovae kick started star formation in the haloes or suppressed it.
Astrophysicists Masaru Sakuma from the University of Tsukuba, in Tsukuba, and Hajime Susa from Konan University in Kobe, Japan, say their model shows the shockwave from these supernovae would have expanded the gas shell within the stars' own galaxies, creating a gaseous 'wind' that stripped the gas out of nearby dark haloes.
First clues
This 'wind' would have swept the gas from dark haloes within a radius of up to 5,000 light-years around the supernova, depending on the force of the initial explosion and the mass of the dark haloes, the researchers say.
"[If] a neighbouring halo is located very close to the centre of the supernova explosion, the gas in the halo would be evacuated by the shock momentum... supernova feedback has basically negative effects on the star formation in surrounding halos," the researchers write.
Commenting on the research, Australian theoretical astrophysicist Stuart Wyithe, from the University of Melbourne, said the research answered a "little bit" of the big question of how the death of the first stars affected the early universe.
"Early galaxies are analogous to buckets of gas, with the gas confined by gravity rather than by walls. The supernova explosion blows the gas out of the first bucket. This moving gas then acts like a wind which in turn blows the gas out of small nearby galaxies," Wyithe said.
"[The research] doesn't address other issues about how much gas there is in the first place and what happens when there are many haloes [surrounding the supernovae]," he said. But added that the study is "solid piece of work."
"Analytic calculations like these can sometimes give quite good information, and I think in this case it does," said Wyithe. "It's not understood fully what role the first stars played in the reionisation of the early universe. This is a first step on the way to understanding that."
Cosmos Online
SYDNEY: The universe's first stars blew small galaxies apart when they exploded, effectively quashing all nearby star formation, say Japanese astrophysicists.
The theory, based on analytical calculations of the energy and disruptive effects of early supernovae, adds another piece to the puzzle of what the first stars were like and how they influenced galaxy formation.
The first stars formed around 200 million years after the Big Bang in clumps of dark matter called dark matter haloes – the basic building blocks of galaxies.
Running out of gas
These stars were massive, probably 10 to 100 times bigger than the Sun. Like most massive stars, they would have burnt through their fuel within a few tens of millions of years and then exploded as either a type II supernova or a pair instability supernova.
The study, published in the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal, looks at what happened to the dark haloes near these massive explosions. Previously, experts were divided as to whether the first supernovae kick started star formation in the haloes or suppressed it.
Astrophysicists Masaru Sakuma from the University of Tsukuba, in Tsukuba, and Hajime Susa from Konan University in Kobe, Japan, say their model shows the shockwave from these supernovae would have expanded the gas shell within the stars' own galaxies, creating a gaseous 'wind' that stripped the gas out of nearby dark haloes.
First clues
This 'wind' would have swept the gas from dark haloes within a radius of up to 5,000 light-years around the supernova, depending on the force of the initial explosion and the mass of the dark haloes, the researchers say.
"[If] a neighbouring halo is located very close to the centre of the supernova explosion, the gas in the halo would be evacuated by the shock momentum... supernova feedback has basically negative effects on the star formation in surrounding halos," the researchers write.
Commenting on the research, Australian theoretical astrophysicist Stuart Wyithe, from the University of Melbourne, said the research answered a "little bit" of the big question of how the death of the first stars affected the early universe.
"Early galaxies are analogous to buckets of gas, with the gas confined by gravity rather than by walls. The supernova explosion blows the gas out of the first bucket. This moving gas then acts like a wind which in turn blows the gas out of small nearby galaxies," Wyithe said.
"[The research] doesn't address other issues about how much gas there is in the first place and what happens when there are many haloes [surrounding the supernovae]," he said. But added that the study is "solid piece of work."
"Analytic calculations like these can sometimes give quite good information, and I think in this case it does," said Wyithe. "It's not understood fully what role the first stars played in the reionisation of the early universe. This is a first step on the way to understanding that."
Thursday, June 4, 2009
US in nuclear disclosure blunder
From the BBC.com
A document providing confidential details of US civilian nuclear sites was accidentally posted on the internet, the government has admitted.
The 266-page document included the precise location of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons, the Obama administration said.
The Government Printing Office website took down the posting on Tuesday after experts expressed concern.
US officials insisted the information detailed was not a security threat.
The document, which lists itself as "sensitive but unclassified", contains maps and information on hundreds of US civilian nuclear sites.
No military installations are included but the document does cover the nuclear weapons laboratories at Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia.
Enriched uranium
An internet site of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington had highlighted the document's existence on Sunday, saying it was "a one-stop shop for information on US nuclear programs".
A spokesman for the printing office told the New York Times the document had been gathered "under normal operating procedures" and was removed on Tuesday pending a review.
US analysts said although much of the information was already available to the public, the disclosure, particularly of the location of the fuel stockpiles, was embarrassing for the government.
The Times said the document was collated as part of a US drive to make its civilian nuclear programme more transparent in the hope that other nations, particularly Iran, would follow suit.
It said the most serious disclosure was on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, known as the Fort Knox of highly enriched uranium, the leading fuel for nuclear weapons.
Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, confirmed the material should not have been released.
But he said: "The departments of energy, defence and commerce and the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] all thoroughly reviewed it to ensure that no information of direct national security significance would be compromised."
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Mystery of Giant Ice Circles Resolved
Jeremy Hsu
Staff Writer
livescience.com
Strange circles have once again appeared in the frozen surface of Lake Baikal in Siberia, as spotted by astronauts aboard the International Space Station this April. News reports described the ice rings as a puzzling phenomenon.
But experts say they can explain the mystery, and it's not aliens - methane gas rising from the lake floor represents the likely culprit.
Methane emissions can create a rising mass of warm water that begins swirling in a circular pattern because of the Coriolis force, or the phenomenon caused by the Earth's rotation that also helps create cyclones.
"Once the water mass reaches the underside of the ice on the surface of the lake, the warm water melts the ice in a ring shape," said Marianne Moore, a marine ecologist at Wellesley College in Massachusetts who has spent much time studying Lake Baikal with Russian researchers. The lake is the largest (by volume) and deepest fresh water lake on Earth.
The latest ring patterns included a circle of thin ice with a diameter of 2.7 miles (4.4 km), although the circular patch was becoming a hole of open water. Astronauts spotted similar ice circles in both 1985 and 1994, and satellites have also made sightings over the past years.
This phenomenon is nothing new to the Russian government, which has documented circle sightings on an official Ministry of Natural Resources Web site.
"Interestingly, the government is also warning people that abnormally high emissions of methane may occur in these areas in the summer and fall, posing risks for ships," Moore told LiveScience.
The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources points out that random emissions of natural gas have probably always occurred in Lake Baikal. And such emissions would have created ice rings every few years.
"But, because of the huge size, it is practically impossible to see a ring standing on the ice or even from a mountain," the Ministry Web site notes. The Russian government has ordered daily space monitoring of the Lake Baikal area in recent years, which prompted many of the satellite sightings.
Tectonic activity deep in the Earth may be the trigger for such methane gas release, according to the Russian government.
That could have major consequences for Lake Baikal's rich array of plants and animals, Moore cautioned - especially in combination with a warming climate. Both could lead to spring ice disappearing more rapidly from Lake Baikal, which can typically hold onto an ice cover through June.
"Unlike other lakes in the world, spring ice is essential for the reproduction of the lake's top predator (the Baikal seal) and the dominant plants (under-ice phytoplankton) at the bottom of the food web," Moore said. "Without spring ice, the food web of this lake will be disrupted substantially."
Monday, June 1, 2009
DARK ENERGY - The Chameleon Particle
By TPMCafe.com
Is the 'Chameleon Particle' dark energy...? Bonus news at the bottom.
There is a theory about dark energy that is gaining some traction. Its called the Chameleon Particle theory and it states that maybe dark energy is actually a particle that is hard to find because of its strange properties. When it combines with a photon (light) the combined particle changes its mass depending on its surroundings and makes it hard to find. Hence the monicker.
This is how wiki describes it:
The "chameleon" is a postulated scalar particle with a non-linear self-interaction which gives the particle an effective mass that depends on its environment: the presence of other fields. It would have a small mass in much of intergalactic space, but a large mass in terrestrial experiments, making it difficult to detect. The chameleon is a possible candidate for dark energy and dark matter, and may contribute to cosmic inflation.
Now the theory has some promise:
By comparing light emitted across a range of frequencies from the luminous centres of 77 active galaxies, Douglas Shaw at Queen Mary University of London and his colleagues have found what they call "good evidence" that some photons have gone missing in transit.
If the light is missing, they theorize, then maybe it changed into something else.
By itself, the findings dont show more than an unanswered question but if the theory is true the particle should be detectable. Because they would be able to change their mass, they should get heavier as they try to pass through a special chamber and thus get trapped. Then we could finally "see" them.
Chameleons can be confined in hollow containers because their mass increases rapidly as they penetrate the container wall, causing them to reflect. One strategy to search experimentally for chameleons is to direct photons into a cavity, confining the chameleons produced, and then to switch off the light source. Chameleons would be indicated by the presence of an afterglow as they decay back into photons
So now the first round of lab results are in. How'd it go? Not so good.
While they didn't find a signal in this round of work, the results did put constraints on some of the properties of the evasive particle, including its mass and its coupling to photons.
But the latest observations are reviving hope
...the group's analysis appears to get a boost from an independent study into an unusually high flux of high-energy photons spotted by the MAGIC telescope on La Palma and the VERITAS telescope in Arizona. The results have perplexed astronomers because very high-energy photons should be kept from reaching Earth by interactions with the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Now, they want to run the tests again in light of the latest observations.
The GammeV group is now preparing to test for chameleons in that "interesting range", says Weltman.
Can anybody spare a dime?
Stay Tuned...Thursday, May 28, 2009
Glowing Monkeys Make More Glowing Monkeys the Old-Fashioned Way
By Alexis Madrigal
The first genetically modified primates that can pass their modifications to their offpsring have been created by Japanese scientists.
The marmosets, pictured above, express a green fluorescent protein in their skin. The gene for producing the glow was delivered to the first marmoset embryos via a modified virus. But now that modification method could become unnecessary. One male marmoset, number 666, fathered a child (pictured at right) that also contained the transgenes.
“The birth of this transgenic marmoset baby is undoubtedly a milestone,” developmental biologists Gerald Schatten and Shoukhrat Mitalipov at the Pittsburgh Development Center and Oregon Stem Cell Center, respectively wrote in a commentary accompanying the study Thursday in Nature. “The cumbersome and often frustrating process of making a transgenic animal from scratch need now only occur with founder animals.”
Transgenic animals are a key tool in the biomedical researchers’ toolbox. They allow scientists to model the function of genes and the efficacy of treatments. Many transgenic mice lines exist, but often the small rodents are too different from humans to effectively extrapolate their responses to human beings. Primates, on the other hand, are far closer biologically to humans, but before the new technique, creating primate models had proven difficult and expensive.
Now, biologists may be able to produce whole groups of marmosets that mimic humans with genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis.
“Subsequent generations can be produced by natural propagation, with the eventual establishment of transgene-specific monkey colonies — a potentially invaluable resource for studying incurable human disorders, and one that may also contribute to preserving endangered primate species,” Schatten and Shoukhrat continued.
Instead of using bonobos or chimps, the research team led by Erika Sasaki at the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Japan picked the common marmoset because its “size, availability, and unique biological characteristics” make it a potentially useful animal, particularly in tough fields like neuroscience and stem cell research.
The first genetically modified primates that can pass their modifications to their offpsring have been created by Japanese scientists.
The marmosets, pictured above, express a green fluorescent protein in their skin. The gene for producing the glow was delivered to the first marmoset embryos via a modified virus. But now that modification method could become unnecessary. One male marmoset, number 666, fathered a child (pictured at right) that also contained the transgenes.
“The birth of this transgenic marmoset baby is undoubtedly a milestone,” developmental biologists Gerald Schatten and Shoukhrat Mitalipov at the Pittsburgh Development Center and Oregon Stem Cell Center, respectively wrote in a commentary accompanying the study Thursday in Nature. “The cumbersome and often frustrating process of making a transgenic animal from scratch need now only occur with founder animals.”
Transgenic animals are a key tool in the biomedical researchers’ toolbox. They allow scientists to model the function of genes and the efficacy of treatments. Many transgenic mice lines exist, but often the small rodents are too different from humans to effectively extrapolate their responses to human beings. Primates, on the other hand, are far closer biologically to humans, but before the new technique, creating primate models had proven difficult and expensive.
Now, biologists may be able to produce whole groups of marmosets that mimic humans with genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis.
“Subsequent generations can be produced by natural propagation, with the eventual establishment of transgene-specific monkey colonies — a potentially invaluable resource for studying incurable human disorders, and one that may also contribute to preserving endangered primate species,” Schatten and Shoukhrat continued.
Instead of using bonobos or chimps, the research team led by Erika Sasaki at the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Japan picked the common marmoset because its “size, availability, and unique biological characteristics” make it a potentially useful animal, particularly in tough fields like neuroscience and stem cell research.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Federal Reserve Cannot Account for $9 Trillion
By: Julie Crawshaw
The Federal Reserve apparently can't account for $9 trillion in off-balance sheet transactions.
When Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) asked Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman of the Federal Reserve some very basic questions about where the trillions of dollars that have come from the Fed's expanded balance sheet, the IG didn't know.
Worse, nobody at the Fed seems to have any idea what the losses on its $2 trillion portfolio really are.
"I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve is keeping track of anything," Grayson says.
Grayson asked Coleman if her agency had done any research into the decision not to save Lehman Brothers, which “sent shockwaves through the entire financial system,” Coleman said it had not.
“What about the $1 trillion plus expansion of the Federal reserve’s balance sheet since last September?” Grayson asked.
“We have different connotations,” Coleman replied. “We’re actually conducting a fairly high-level review of the various lending facilities collectively.”
Translation: Nobody at the Fed knows where the money went.
Do you know what who got the $1 trillion or more in the Fed's expansion of its balance, Grayson pressed.
"I do not know. We have not looked at this specific area at the particular point on that specific review," Coleman answer.
What about the trillions of off-balance transactions since last September, Grayson asked.
Coleman demurred again, saying the IG does not have jurisdiction to audit the Federal Reserve.
Grayson pointed out that it was the inspector general's job to audit such spending and asked again if the office had done any investigation at all.
Coleman's answer: Not enough yet to even respond. "We are in not a position to say if there losses."
Grayson concluded, "I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve, including the inspector general, is keeping track of this."
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the bank is working on ways to rein in the massive balance sheet commitments.
"A majority of the members who made these projections just recently took 2 percent as being an appropriate number" for inflation, Bernanke said Monday.
"Somewhere between 1-1/2 to 2 percent is basically the number that our committee has individually stated is the appropriate medium-term inflation rate.
"To achieve that we need to demonstrate that we will be able to exit from the balance sheet position that we currently have, and have been working on this intensively," Bernanke said in response to questions after a speech to a conference organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, reported by Reuters.
The Federal Reserve apparently can't account for $9 trillion in off-balance sheet transactions.
When Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) asked Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman of the Federal Reserve some very basic questions about where the trillions of dollars that have come from the Fed's expanded balance sheet, the IG didn't know.
Worse, nobody at the Fed seems to have any idea what the losses on its $2 trillion portfolio really are.
"I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve is keeping track of anything," Grayson says.
Grayson asked Coleman if her agency had done any research into the decision not to save Lehman Brothers, which “sent shockwaves through the entire financial system,” Coleman said it had not.
“What about the $1 trillion plus expansion of the Federal reserve’s balance sheet since last September?” Grayson asked.
“We have different connotations,” Coleman replied. “We’re actually conducting a fairly high-level review of the various lending facilities collectively.”
Translation: Nobody at the Fed knows where the money went.
Do you know what who got the $1 trillion or more in the Fed's expansion of its balance, Grayson pressed.
"I do not know. We have not looked at this specific area at the particular point on that specific review," Coleman answer.
What about the trillions of off-balance transactions since last September, Grayson asked.
Coleman demurred again, saying the IG does not have jurisdiction to audit the Federal Reserve.
Grayson pointed out that it was the inspector general's job to audit such spending and asked again if the office had done any investigation at all.
Coleman's answer: Not enough yet to even respond. "We are in not a position to say if there losses."
Grayson concluded, "I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve, including the inspector general, is keeping track of this."
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the bank is working on ways to rein in the massive balance sheet commitments.
"A majority of the members who made these projections just recently took 2 percent as being an appropriate number" for inflation, Bernanke said Monday.
"Somewhere between 1-1/2 to 2 percent is basically the number that our committee has individually stated is the appropriate medium-term inflation rate.
"To achieve that we need to demonstrate that we will be able to exit from the balance sheet position that we currently have, and have been working on this intensively," Bernanke said in response to questions after a speech to a conference organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, reported by Reuters.
Friday, May 22, 2009
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