Monday, December 15, 2008

Cosmic Conundrum Hits Close to Home


By the time cosmic rays hit Earth, they have journeyed through so many magnetic fields and other perturbations that they arrive nearly uniformly from all directions.
So when a detector in New Mexico began registering streams of charged particles coming from the general direction of the Orion nebula and about 500 light-years from Earth -- a neighbor by astronomical measures -- scientists took note.
"I can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you what it isn't," said University of Maryland physicist Jordan Goodman, "It isn't a statistical fluctuation in our data. It's not an error."
Scientists aren't sure what causes cosmic rays, which are charged particles, namely protons and electrons, moving at high speeds due to unknown events. The list of candidates includes supernova explosions and quasars.A local source of cosmic rays is one explanation for the finding made by Goodman and his colleagues, though what that could be is pure conjecture.
Another theory is that the rays originate from afar, but are being funneled toward Earth due to a magnetic field from an object such as Geminga, a relatively young pulsating star that is surrounded by clouds of molecular gas. Geminga radiates brilliantly in high-energy gamma rays.
"If Geminga is the source, it isn't clear that we would see it," Goodman said. "The magnetic fields would have to be aligned in some way" relative to Earth.
The finding was the second in less than a month that uncovered unusual evidence of cosmic rays.
Scientists using a detector on a balloon-borne experiment above Antarctica found more cosmic ray electrons than expected and suggested dark matter may be responsible, since the energy signals match what physicists believe would result when dark matter is annihilated."It is certainly possible that known astrophysical objects, such as nearby supernova remnants, spinning pulsars or, possibly, microquasars are responsible," said Yousaf Butt, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Goodman and his colleagues made their discovery with the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory, which is located in a covered pond, about the size of a football field, in the Jemez Mountains near Los Alamos, N.M.
The observatory detects highly energized particles striking the atmosphere by measuring the cascading effects on secondary particles that make it to the planet's surface.
Since the study began more than seven years ago, Milagro -- Spanish for "miracle" -- has detected more than 300 billion hits. Goodman's work was published last month in Physical Review Letters.

Shark "Virgin Birth" Confirmed


A female blacktip shark in Virginia fertilized her own egg without mating with a male shark, new DNA evidence shows.

This is the second time scientists have used DNA testing to verify shark parthenogenesis—the process that allows females of some species to produce offspring without sperm.
The female shark, dubbed Tidbit, died during a routine physical exam before the pregnancy was identified.

A necropsy—an animal autopsy—after her death revealed she was carrying a near-term pup fetus that was about 12 inches (30 centimeters) in length.

Tidbit was caught in the wild when she was very young and reached sexual maturity in a tank at the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach, where she lived for eight years.

"The interesting thing about that was there were no male blacktip sharks in the tank for the entire time of her captivity," said Demian Chapman, a researcher with the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University in New York.

"So the question is, where does this baby come from?" he asked.

Chapman is the lead author of a study on the female blacktip in the latest issue of the Journal of Fish Biology.

DNA fingerprinting

Chapman and his colleagues generated a DNA fingerprint for the mother shark and her pup fetus with a procedure identical to a human paternity test.

Ordinarily, a shark's DNA contains some genetic material from its mother and some from its father. Tidbit's pup, however, was not ordinary.

"Every part of the fingerprint of the embryo comes from the mother," Chapman said. "In other words, there is no genetic material from a father."
"Virgin Births"

All non-mammal vertebrate species are theoretically capable of parthenogenesis, scientists say. Examples have been documented in komodo dragons (read story), pythons, rattlesnakes, chickens, and turkeys.
Parthenogenesis is not possible in humans because if all the genetic material comes from the mother, certain genes will be switched off, and the embryo won't develop.

"For sharks in captivity, [parthenogenesis] has probably occurred more times than has been documented," says Robert Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.

The question then becomes, is parthenogenesis a type of developmental anomaly or a response to the female shark not having a mate in captivity?

"The fact that only one shark embryo was formed may suggest that this is more a case of an egg developmental aberration rather than a physiological response to the lack of a mate," said Hueter, who was not involved with the study.

No Variation

Normally, an embryo is formed when an egg containing half its chromosomes is fertilized by a sperm containing the other half.

When an egg cell is formed, a plant or female animal also produces three other cells called polar bodies. In the type of parthenogenesis observed in sharks, one of those cells behaves like a sperm and fertilizes the egg.

"But that cell is genetically identical to the egg," Chapman said. "So that's where you lose a lot of genetic variation."

Offspring produced by parthenogenesis are not exact clones of their mothers, however, because the genetic material is mixed differently.

Still, researchers believe the risk of congenital defects increases in animals whose DNA lack genetic variation.

"There's an increased risk of having a weakened immune system and there's a risk of reproductive abnormalities," Chapman said. "But in some cases, they'll be able to survive."

The scientists have not ruled out the possibility that increased stress from the abnormal pregnancy contributed to Tidbit's death.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Space Wakeup Songs


Space shuttle crews in orbit probably don't need a prod from Mission Control to get going in the morning, but the wake-up song has become a NASA tradition.
Astronauts' families and friends often make suggestions for tunes and occasionally provide the music. Sometimes the wake-up song is very personal, such as the serenade of teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan by her singer-songwriter son Adam. Often, it's the mission itself that provides the inspiration.
Here's a look at Discovery Space's favorites:
10. Mission: Impossible
Not taking any chances, Mission Control waited until the Hubble Space Telescope servicing crew of 2002 had completed most of its work before piping in the "Mission: Impossible" theme song to get things moving on flight day eight.
Recording: WAV - Net Show - RealAudio
9. Rocky
It was a moment of triumph when Kathryn Sullivan floated outside the airlock of space shuttle Challenger in October 1984 to become the first American woman to walk in space. Her crewmates included Sally Ride, NASA's first female astronaut. NASA marked the mission by playing the theme song from "Rocky."
8. Free Bird
Two Russians joined the crew of space shuttle Atlantis in September 2000 to get the newborn International Space Station ready for its first long-duration residents. After 10 days at the outpost, the astronauts were ready to come home. Wakeup music the day they departed -- Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird."
Recording: WAV - Net Show - RealAudio
7. Godzilla Vs. Space Godzilla
NASA wasn't anticipating any trouble when it woke the crew of shuttle Endeavour with the battle scene song from the movie "Godzilla Vs. Space Godzilla," then followed up with few bars of Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla." Astronaut Al Drew wrapped up by wishing Japanese astronaut Takao Doi good morning -- in Japanese.
Recording: MP3 - WAV
6. Pigs in Space
Joe Engle and Richard Truly had to end the second mission of the space shuttle program three days early when a generator failed. But the men worked through the night to complete a series of tests on the shuttle's new robot arm. They enjoyed a bit of comic relief with skits from The Muppets' "Pigs in Space."5. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
NASA's Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) was supposed to spend a year in orbit for tests of how various materials weathered the harsh space environment. But because of the Challenger accident, five years passed before LDEF came back to Earth. NASA didn't know what to expect from the experiments, which included 12.5 million tomato seeds. With tongue in check, Mission Control roused the LDEF retrieval crew with "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."
4. Do You Want to Know a Secret?
After shuttle Atlantis lifted off in December 1988, NASA imposed a news blackout to keep details of its Department of Defense mission classified. Word leaked out about a special wake-up recording produced by a Houston radio station. With background music from the "Star Wars" theme song, the voice of Darth Vader greeted the crew. Satirical lyrics from The Beatles' "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" followed. Pentagon officials were not amused.
3. Monster Mash
Flight controllers opted for a bit of Halloween humor when it woke the crew of STS-58 with "Monster Mash," by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. Instead of goblins and bats, the shuttle had rats -- 48 of them (all caged, of course) -- for a series of life science experiments.
2. Woody Woodpecker
NASA delayed launching the STS-70 mission after discovering woodpeckers had drilled holes in insulation covering the space shuttle's fuel tank. During repairs, Woody Woodpecker was added to the crew patch as an ex-officio member of the crew. The first wakeup song of the mission was a homage to Woody, of course: the theme from Woody Woodpecker TV show.
1. We've Only Just Begun
The Apollo 17 astronauts left the moon in 1972 not knowing if or when people would be back. Among their wake-up tunes: The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun."

16 Days in Space and ??? To Get Home


Ten days after a detoured landing in California, the space shuttle Endeavour has begun a cross-country piggyback ride on top of a modified jumbo jet enroute to Florida.It’s not an easy journey. The 100-ton spaceship makes for one burly passenger, vulnerable to high winds, rain and other rather typical atmospheric phenomena, particularly during winter. It took two days just for the weather to be good enough to begin the journey.

The shuttle and its entourage made it as far as Fort Worth, Texas, last night. NASA says the chance the ferry flight would arrive at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida today are pretty slim, given an advancing cold front.

NASA is not as eager to talk about why the shuttle landed in California in the first place. Typically, flight directors will keep the orbiter in space an extra day if conditions in Florida preclude a touchdown on the scheduled landing day. Florida weather is notoriously fickle, sometimes difficult to predict an hour in advance, let alone a day.

So NASA’s call to divert Endeavour to California raised a few eyebrows, at least in Florida. It’s not really the money, though the $1.8 million it costs for the relocation would cover more than a few scholarships and salaries. It’s more about the time it takes to make the flight and the risks to the ship during the journey.

“It kind of struck us as a little unusual,” said George Diller, whose days as a NASA public affairs officer date back longer than my 21 years as a reporter covering the program. “Usually they wait at least one day before they make a call to come down there.”

“They” is the good folks at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, who runs the show from the time the shuttle clears the top of the launch tower to wheels stop on the runway.

I got curious about how the weather actually turned out on Dec. 1, the day the shuttle likely would have landed if a 24-hour delay had been ordered.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one, because Bill Johnson, the news chief at KSC, had the report on the ready: North to northwest winds up to 10 knots. Visibility: Unlimited. In other words, a good day for landing.

The response from JSC was not so warm. “Wow, you’re the weather forecaster now,” sneered one public affairs officer whom I’ll not name on the condition that he promise to refrain from using sarcasm in the future when responding to uncomfortable questions like, “Why didn’t NASA wait a day to see if the weather in Florida got better?”

He also told me predictions from the Spaceflight Meteorology Group were that crosswinds at the Florida runway were “on the edge” (the limit is 15 knots.)

KSC folks weren’t buying that. “All you had to do was watch any local TV station and they were all predicting it was going to be a nice day,” said another press officer whom I’ll not name because I like him and I don’t want him to get in trouble for speaking his mind to a reporter.

Bottom line appears to be that NASA could have landed in Florida on Dec. 1. Now, that’s not to say that there wasn’t some OTHER more compelling reason to bring Endeavour back to Earth on the first best opportunity, such as maybe those fine folks flying in space were ready to get home.

That’s OK by me and I’ll happily fork over my share of the $1.8 million ferry flight tab. Heck, this is the agency that sent astronauts to the moon, for god’s sake. Surely, they know best about when -- and how best -- to bring our spacebirds home. I’m just one of those people who like to know what I’m paying for.

Number of Eggs in a Nest Depends on Climate


Some birds lay one egg while others lay up to 50 or more, and now researchers have figured out why, to the point where they can accurately predict egg counts for virtually all bird species.
Their forecasting might seem like an egg conjuring trick, but the secret comes down to predictors, such as the type of nest the bird builds and how close each avian species is to the poles.
Tropical birds, as it turns out, have a more laid-back approach, with generally fewer eggs within each clutch.
"You'd think it would be just the opposite, as the hypothesis for years was that the large amount of resources in the tropics would lead to more egg laying productivity, but we determined that wasn't the case," lead author Walter Jetz told Discovery News.
"Seasonality is far more important than the absolute amount of resources," added Jetz, an associate professor of biology at the University of California at San Diego.He explained that the closer birds are to the poles, the more extreme seasons they experience. Species in these locations often have higher mortality rates. It's therefore to their advantage to lay more eggs when they can, before it's too late.
Defined seasons also lead to peak periods of food and habitat availability, such as during spring. Suddenly birds find themselves with "huge amounts of resources, so they capitalize on them much more than at the tropics, where no such peaks exist," Jetz said.
For the study, he and his colleagues compiled information on clutch size, avian body mass, migratory behavior, nest type, bird diet, latitude, temperature and more. The scientists observed patterns in the numbers of eggs birds laid, allowing them to create a model that predicts variations in clutch sizes both on global and more localized levels.
The findings are published in the latest PLoS Biology.
In addition to seasonality, whether or not a bird lays its eggs in a protective cavity or just out in the open helps to predict its number of eggs.
"The hypothesis is that cavities are better protected, so woodpeckers, chickadees and other cavity nesters are less likely to be raided, so they tend to invest more in egg laying," Jetz said.

"Ground nesters, on the other hand, shouldn't put all of their eggs in one basket," he added, since predators are then more likely to find themselves with a free and easy egg dinner.

It would seem logical that all birds would hide their eggs in protective cavities, but he explained that, "not all the world is covered with trees." Birds in the desert, for example, often have no choice but to lay their eggs more in the open. Cavity nesting also is an ability that only a select group of birds evolved.

The scientists additionally determined that migrating birds tend to lay more eggs. Birds within certain families also tend to share similar clutch sizes. Big, flightless birds, for example, may often have large clutches containing anywhere from 10 to 74 eggs.

Robert Ricklefs, a professor of biology at University of Missouri at St. Louis, told Discovery News that, "Dr. Jetz's study is notable for its comprehensiveness and the excellent analytical applications."
Ricklefs added that he was "especially gratified to see that seasonality of temperature, migration, and nest type play the dominant roles, as these factors have been particularly prominent in the literature."
Given the importance of climate to birds, the global egg count, and consequently avian populations worldwide, may be in jeopardy due to climate change.
It has the potential of not only harming a "bird's way of life, but also its where of life," Jetz said, referring to how many species may be forced to shift their geographical ranges.
In the future, the new clutch size prediction model could help conservationists and other avian experts to better understand bird egg laying patterns in what Jetz and his colleagues call "a world of change."

Fifth of World's Corals Dead


Almost a fifth of the planet's coral reefs have died and carbon emissions are largely to blame, according to an NGO study released Wednesday.
The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, warned that on current trends, growing levels of greenhouse gases will destroy many of the remaining reefs over the next 20 to 40 years.
"If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson, the organization's coordinator.
The paper was issued on the sidelines of the December negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change, taking place under the U.N. flag.Half a billion people around the world depend on coral reefs for food and tourism, according to a common estimate.
Experts say the coral die-off has several causes, including local pollution, overfishing and invasive species.
But, they say, rising ocean temperatures caused by the greenhouse effect, and acidification, caused by the ocean's absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, are probably the biggest triggers.
"If nothing changes, we are looking at a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide in less than 50 years," said Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the the global marine program at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, an umbrella network for more than a 1,000 NGOs and government groups.
"As this carbon is absorbed, the oceans will become more acidic, which is seriously damaging a wide range of marine life from corals to plankton communities and from lobsters to seagrasses."
Nearly half of global coral reefs are still healthy, but the overall downward trend shows no sign of stopping, the study found. It added, though, that the damage could be braked by strong conservation measures, such as properly policed marine parks.

Commentary: "Hell on Earth" in Zimbabwe

Author Alexandra Fuller grew up in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia, where her family still lives. She now resides in Wyoming with her husband and three children. Fuller is the author of three works of non-fiction, including the memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood. On the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Declaration of Universal Human Rights, she reflects on the disease devastating her former home of Zimbabwe.

If it was President Robert Mugabe's intention to organize hell on Earth, he has succeeded. It's December in Zimbabwe, and that means the rains are frequent and the sun is at its hottest. The harvest—predicted to be ridiculously inadequate—is half a year away. Electricity is sporadic. No garbage has been collected for months. There has been no running water in many cities for days. Zimbabwe is a steam-bath of infection. Cholera, that most medieval of diseases, and the ultimate indication of a state that has failed her people, is rampant. Violence spills over. I follow every new development because those are my people, in that hell.Zimbabweans are not strangers to violence and terror. We once fought a bloody civil war to decide who would control the land. Brother turned on brother. We all lost someone in those years, and many of us learned to live with death; it was the background noise to our lives. Villages were razed to the ground. Yes, there were atrocities.

It was war, but it wasn't hell.

People risked death, endured heartbreak, rather than turn their backs on the country. Always, there was an understanding that the land was worth the fight. And in the end, when peace came, Mugabe himself put it best: "To us the time has come for those who fought each other as enemies to accept the reality of a new situation by accepting each other as allies."

Most Zimbabweans settled down and did just that, brought together by a common loyalty to the earth beneath their feet. But in the last few years, with Mugabe and his crazed henchmen in control of a diabolically orchestrated free-fall, an estimated four million people have fled their country. Above all, Zimbabweans are lovers of their land. No, that does not go far enough—they are their land. For many Zimbabweans the blur between soul and land begins in this way: They are born, and then the umbilical cord is taken straight from the mother and planted in the earth, so that it can take root and grow.

Pulling away from that ground causes some kind of death, a suffocation of exile. Deprive Zimbabweans of their land, and you deprive them of air, water, food.

And now that land has become a madman's torture chamber.

What makes this horror something we will all have to live with one day is that we can hear the cries from Zimbabwe, and from her borders, and yet we do nothing. News reports and desperate letters from inside the country have been circulating around the Internet for months. In tone and in content they sound eerily similar to the letters and warnings we have heard from other hells on Earth: Darfur; Bosnia; Cambodia; Nazi Germany; Rwanda—before that awful April in 1994.

In October, Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the European Parliament, issued this unequivocal warning: "If we do not act, we will have the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people on our conscience. Did we not commit that Rwanda/Burundi must never happen again? However, this is exactly the situation the average Zimbabwean is experiencing right now."

There will be an end to the crisis in Zimbabwe one day. Then we will count that country's disappeared, her diseased, her displaced, her dead. We will ask, "How did this happen?"

But we already know how it happened. It happened because we stood by.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Re-engineering Venice


The beautiful piazzas and famous canals of Venice are in trouble — they’ve got more water than they know what to do with. The thousand-year-old city is sinking into its famous lagoon, a few inches at a time. The water level is nine inches higher than it was a hundred years ago, 40 inches higher than 250 years ago.

The high water damages brick walls never intended to be in the water. There’s a lot of salt from the Adriatic Sea, too. Between the water and the salt, a lot of the city’s beautiful historic buildings are rotting.

A team of Italian engineers is working on a gigantic government-funded construction project they say will save Venice from the rising water. At its heart is a high-tech system of 300-ton concrete barriers that will be raised and lowered to protect the city from damaging tidal surges. Plus thousands of steel poles and other barriers on the floor of the lagoon to slow down the water.

They also plan to re-establish vanished wetlands and reinforce damaged foundations in the city itself. Altogether, the project will cost more than $4 billion and take seven years to complete.

Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea — or that it will help. But the engineers think it will. And it’s better than letting the city sink, they say.

The Coldest Thing You've Ever Seen


Where is the coldest place in the universe? Siberia? Deep space? Not even close. In vacuum chambers around the world, atomic physicists use clever arrangements of magnetic fields and laser beams to trap dilute clouds of atoms and cool them to ridiculously cold temperatures only a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero. To give you an idea how cold this is, consider that deep space is a balmy 2.7 Kelvin or -454.8 degrees Farenheit.One of the interesting properties of these gases is that you can see them with the naked eye. The inset picture shows a glass vacuum chamber with an ultra-cold blob of rubidium atoms in its center. The laser beams used to confine and cool the gas interact strongly with the hotter atoms while ignoring the colder ones to produce what is aptly named optical molasses. The lasers used in this process lie in the red part of the spectrum, so the atom cloud naturally appears reddish in color.

The rubidium cloud pictured has a temperature around ten millionths of a degree above absolute zero and is almost certainly the coldest thing you have ever seen. It seems kind of strange that something this cold would not instantly solidify, but the density is so low that this is not possible. The rubidium cloud contains about a billion atoms whereas the same volume of air would contain about a billion times more atoms and a normal solid a million times more atoms still.

You get the idea--the gas is crazy cold and there are not many atoms. So, what are they good for? These ultra cold gases were originally created to study a novel form of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate in which all of the atoms are so cold that they move in lockstep with each other. It was an incredible feat when this new state of matter was first created in 1995, but now these gases are used mainly as tools to study a number of phenomena.The group I work for takes these condensates and loads them into an optical lattice, this is just an array of interfering laser beams used to create a periodic array of little wells in the gas. When these wells are prepared properly, just a few of the atoms will sit in each well, and the system as a whole will behave like a normal crystal. This opens an incredible number of possibilities for understanding materials. In traditional material science, powerful microscopes are used to look at a surface of atoms, but as the saying goes, that is just scratching the surface. Our crystal of ultra cold gases are much more dilute than normal materials, and we can actually look inside them to study materials in the bulk.

It turns out that the crystals made with an optical lattice are actually more perfect than those that exist in nature. You would think this would be great, but everything in the real world has imperfections and a lot of interesting phenomena arise from have these imperfections. The novel thing my lab does is introduce a small level of disorder into the optical lattice to simulate the disorder in traditional systems. With this you can emulate a number of interesting material properties such as superfluidity and high-temperature superconductivity and learn how disorder affects these systems.

Nanotech Risks Need More Study, Group Says


The government needs a more comprehensive plan for studying the risks of nanotechnology, the National Research Council said Wednesday.
While the committee that prepared the report did not evaluate the safety of nanomaterials, it was critical of current research efforts into the health and environmental safety of the technology.
Nanomaterials are made of extremely tiny particles -- some thousands of times finer than a human hair -- which have come increasingly into use in recent years, often in products such as skin care and cosmetics.
Consumer advocates and others have raised questions about potential risks from these materials and the National Nanotechnology Initiative was set up to coordinate safety research.But the research council report said the NNI plan fails to provide a clear picture of the current understanding of these risks or where it should be in 10 years.
In addition, the NNI plan does not include research goals to help ensure that nanotechnologies are developed and used as safely as possible. And though the research needs listed in the plan are valuable, they are incomplete, the report said.
It called for a new plan going beyond federal research to include research from universities, industry, consumer and environmental groups and others."The current plan catalogs nano-risk research across several federal agencies, but it does not present an overarching research strategy needed to gain public acceptance and realize the promise of nanotechnology," David Eaton, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington and chairman of the committee that prepared the report, said in a statement.
David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, welcomed the report.
"It is disappointing that the Bush administration did not listen to PEN experts" and others calling for an improved research plan, he said. "But I am encouraged that the NRC assessment will provide a roadmap for the next administration to make up for this lost time. It's time to get the job done and to get it done right," Rejeski said in a statement.
The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies is an initiative of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The National Research Council is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent agency chartered by Congress to advise the government on science and technology.

North America Warming Unevenly


Climate change caused by greenhouse gases is warming the United States, though unevenly, government researchers said Thursday.
"The continent as a whole is warming, mostly as a result of the energy sources we are using," William J. Brennan, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, asaid at a briefing on the nation's climate since 1951.
But there is a "warming hole" where no change occurred in the center of the country, roughly between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, added Martin Hoerling of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory.
Last year the International Panel on Climate Change, studying the planet as a whole, concluded that global warming is "unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity."Thursday's report localized the analysis, concluding that average surface temperatures over the United States have increased 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1951, nearly all in the last 30 years.
Weather observations are the Rosetta stone, Hoerling said, "We see a cause-effect relationship in data."
He said that human-induced warming is the overall driving factor and also is the major cause of changes in sea-surface temperature.
Sea temperatures, in turn, result in the uneven changes over land by affecting wind and storm movement. Climate experts have learned a lot about this effect in recent years by studying the periodic El Nino and La Nina patterns of unusual warming or cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean and how those changes alter weather.
Currently the Pacific is in a neutral condition between the two extremes, and in a separate report Thursday NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said neutral conditions are likely to continue through early next year.
And in yet a third report released Thursday, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center reported that November's average temperature for the contiguous United States was 44.5 degrees, 2.0 degrees warmer than average. It was the warmest November on record for the Western states.
For the January-November period, the average temperature of 54.9 degrees F was 0.3 degree above the 20th century average.
The nation's January-November temperature has increased at a rate of 0.12 degrees per decade since 1895, and at a faster rate of 0.41 degrees each decade during the last 50 years.
NCDC said precipitation across the contiguous United States in November averaged 1.93 inches, which is 0.20 inch below the 1901-2000 average.Meanwhile, in Poznan, Poland, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday warned the world against backsliding in the fight against climate change as it battles financial crisis. He called for a renewed sense of urgency in facing "the defining challenge of our era."
Ban spoke as some 145 environment ministers and other top officials gathered to help push efforts to secure agreement next year on a new worldwide treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which would take effect in 2013.
In addition to the 1.6 degree warming since 1951, key findings of the North America climate change report included:
Six of the 10 warmest summers in the continental United States since 1951 occurred between 1997 and 2006.
The largest yearly average regional temperature increases have occurred over Northern and Western North America, with up to 3.6 degrees warming in 56 years over Alaska, the Yukon Territories, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.
No significant yearly average temperature changes have occurred in the Southern United States and Eastern Canada.
More than half of the warming averaged over all of North America is probably the result of human activity.
Regional temperature trends are likely to have been influenced by regional variations in sea surface temperature.
There has not been a significant trend, either up or down, in North American precipitation since 1951, although there have been substantial changes from year to year and even decade to decade.
It is unlikely that a fundamental change has occurred in either how often or where severe droughts have occurred over the continental United States during the past half-century.
However, overall drought impacts over North America have become more severe in recent decades.
It is likely that warming resulting from human activity has increased drought impacts over North America in recent decades through increased water stresses associated with warming land surface temperatures.

ASTRONOMERS ZERO IN ON MILKY WAY'S BLACK HOLE


Canada — German astronomers monitoring the motions of 28 stars at the center of the Milky Way galaxy have reported a new, more precise value for the mass of the supermassive black hole believed to lurk there.

The black hole weighs the equivalent of 4.31 million suns, with an uncertainty of plus or minus 0.36 million, Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, reported in Vancouver December 10 at the Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics. The observations also pinpoint the distance from the Earth to the galaxy’s center at 27,000 light-years.

The findings will appear in an upcoming Astrophysical Journal and currently appear online at http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.4674.

During his talk, Genzel proclaimed that the new mass and its precision are evidence for the supermassive black hole’s existence, evidence that extends “beyond any reasonable doubt.”

But Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles, who leads a rival team studying the galaxy’s center, notes that for years both groups have reported precise enough numbers to offer compelling evidence that the galaxy's center is a black hole.

The orbits of stars whipping about the core indicate such a mass, and also suggest that this immense concentration of matter must fit into such a small volume that it would quickly crunch down into a black hole.

Now, says Ghez, sharper optics and more observations present both teams with new obstacles in making more precise measurements. Ironically, with the current estimates for the mass of the central black hole, “we have more maturity in our answer, but less certainty.” Before, she says, “we were acting like teenagers, being very emphatic with very little information.”

Ghez and her colleagues describe some of the new challenges in the December 20 Astrophysical Journal.

Among the issues, she says, are concerns about distinguishing radiation emitted by stars from light emitted by matter falling onto the putative black hole. Confusing the two radiation sources could throw off calculations of a star’s orbit, which would make the calculated mass of a black hole more uncertain.

Another problem, cited by both Ghez and Genzel, is the lack of a good reference frame at the galaxy’s center. From year to year, as the researchers more carefully track the orbits of stars at the core, it’s unclear how to gauge stellar motion when all the stars in the image are moving and there’s no fixed frame of reference. “It’s like taking images while on a merry-go-round,” says Ghez. Such details didn’t matter as much when observations were not as sharp, she adds.

Found: 2,000-Year-Old Brain, Preserved


British archaeologists have unearthed an ancient skull carrying a startling surprise -- an unusually well-preserved brain.
Scientists said Friday that the mass of gray matter was more than 2,000 years old -- the oldest ever discovered in Britain. One expert unconnected with the find called it "a real freak of preservation."
The skull was severed from its owner sometime before the Roman invasion of Britain and found in a muddy pit during a dig at the University of York in northern England this fall, according to Richard Hall, a director of York Archaeological Trust.
Finds officer Rachel Cubbitt realized the skull might contain a brain when she felt something move inside the cranium as she was cleaning it, Hall said. She looked through the skull's base and spotted an unusual yellow substance inside. Scans at York Hospital confirmed the presence of brain tissue.Hall said it was unclear just how much of the brain had survived, saying the tissue had apparently contracted over the years. Parts of the brain have been tentatively identified, but more research was needed, he said.
He said it was a mystery why the skull was buried separately from its body, suggesting human sacrifice and ritual burial as possible explanations.
The existence of a brain where no other soft tissues have survived is extremely rare, according to Sonia O'Connor, an archaeological researcher at the University of Bradford in northern England who helped authenticate the discovery.
"This brain is particularly exciting because it is very well preserved, even though it is the oldest recorded find of this type in the U.K., and one of the earliest worldwide," she said.
The old brain is unlikely to yield new neurological insights because human brains aren't thought to have changed much over the past 2,000 years, according to Chris Gosden, a professor of archaeology at Oxford University unconnected with the find.
He confirmed it was the oldest brain found in Britain. He noted that far older preserved brains, thought to be approximately 8,000 years old, were found in 1986 when dozens of intact human skulls were uncovered buried in a peat bog in Windover Farms in Florida.
"It's a real freak of preservation to have a brain and nothing else," Gosden said. "The fact that there's any brain there at all is quite amazing."
Hall said the brain found at York University was being kept in its skull in an environmentally controlled storage facility for further study.

Poaching May Erase Elephants From Chad Wildlife Park


The elephant population in one of central Africa's remaining wildlife strongholds may vanish within the next two to three years if poaching continues at recent levels, according to conservationists who recently surveyed the park.

Researchers conducted two sample surveys this year of African elephant populations in Chad's Zakouma National Park. Both counts indicate that there may be just a thousand members of the species left in this 1,200-square-mile (3,100-square-kilometer) refuge.
That represents a significant decrease from 2005, when the population was estimated at 3,885. In 2006 conservationists counted 3,020 elephants.

After the 2006 census, nearly 120 elephant carcasses leftover from ivory poaching were discovered in herds in and around park.
Because some elephants leave Zakouma during their winter migration, the 2008 numbers—from both the Chadian government, in conjunction with the European Union, and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)—are rough estimates. WCS will conduct a full census next spring, when elephants have migrated back to the park and its replenished water sources.

But the organization's director for Africa programs, James Deutsch, said he expects the worst.

"A thousand is our best educated guess," Deutsch said. "It would be pretty surprising if the number was above 1,500."

Increased Poaching

WCS biologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence J. Michael Fay points the finger at poaching, which he says has intensified in and around Zakouma since 2005 due, in part, to the increased acceptability of and access to the global ivory trade.

The 2008 population estimates are based, in part, on reports of poaching and the discovery of at least 300 elephant carcasses.

"What we do know [now], is that we have an enormous poaching problem that didn't exist two years ago," Fay said.
Fay helped conduct the 2006 census with partial funding from the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council.

"Even if you are looking at the most optimistic estimates [closer to 2,000 left], that means your elephants will last three years [if poaching continues at current rates], which is catastrophic," Fay added.
"There is a massacre going on, unless something drastic happens."

To the chagrin of many conservationists, the first officially sanctioned ivory trade in a decade happened in October. The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) allowed Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe to sell 108 tons of government ivory stock to Chinese and Japanese buyers.
"Just in the past two years, the world thinks it is okay to buy ivory again," Fay said. "Anyone who thinks you can control ivory on the market is dreaming."

CITES officials argue that there is no proven connection between controlled sales and increased poaching.

"In fact, levels of illegal ivory trade decreased in the two years following the first one-off sale [in 1999]," CITES spokesperson Juan-Carlos Vasquez said in an email.

"Poaching levels appear to be more closely related to governance problems and political instability in certain regions of the continent … ."

Protective Measures

After the 2006 survey and graphic images of the slaughtered elephants captured global attention, Chad's president burned ivory stocks and donated armed trucks to the park for poaching patrols.

But political turmoil last year and a change in park management complicated the situation, making it more difficult to monitor wildlife, Fay said.

2007 was the worst year on record for poaching, according to WCS pilot Darren Potgieter, who conducts aerial anti-poaching patrols and censuses.

"It was all-out war," he said. "We lost five guards and one army lieutenant, compared with six guards and two regular employees in the preceding 16 years, and hundreds of elephants."

The good news, according to Fay and Potgieter, is that since May 2008, WCS and the Chadian government have been able to make daily flyovers of the park with a newly designated anti-poaching patrol plane. Guard forces are also increasing, with help from the Chadian Army.

The poaching situation has improved this year, according to conservationists. "Already … this aircraft has helped the park guard force to locate poached elephants and poachers," Fay said. "We are optimistic that with increased armed protection we can keep a lid on the poaching this year."

Friday, December 12, 2008

Jupiter Moon Has Violent, Hidden Oceans, Study Suggests


Locked under ice, the hidden oceans of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, may be tumultuous rather than placid, a new study says.

Such oceanic unrest translates into a higher potential for life.
Robert Tyler, an oceanographer from the University of Washington, has used computer simulations to show that Jupiter's effects on its moon Europa may work differently than scientists once thought.

Rather than just stressing the moon's solid parts—squeezing its rocks and flexing a global shell of ice—Jupiter's relentless tugging may also generate huge planetary waves in Europa's submerged ocean.

These waves could be the primary vehicles for distributing energy, as heat, across Europa. The new theory counters a widely held impression that Europa's ocean is calm.

"Suddenly, now our whole conception has to be one of very energetic oceans sloshing around under this ice," Tyler said.

"I consider the specific case of Europa, but the general results apply equally to other moons with suspected oceans," he wrote in his paper, which appears in the journal Nature this week. Those moons include Jupiter's Callisto and Ganymede, along with Saturn's Enceladus and Titan.

Heat seekers

Europa travels a slightly oblong orbit around Jupiter. When it reaches the sharper curves at either end, the moon wobbles to release pent-up energy, which translates into tides.
Tyler is the first to suggest that Europa, like Earth, may dissipate most of its tidal stresses in oceanic waves.

David Stevenson, a planetary geologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, called the new theory "an interesting possibility" in an email.

"But at the end of it all, what I see here is a possibility that could well be (and most likely is) less important than the conventional story," he wrote.

"It would of course be more exciting and relevant if we were at a loss to understand how dissipation takes place at all. But that's not the situation."

Stuff of Life

NASA's Galileo spacecraft investigated Jupiter and its moons between 1989 and 2003, and sent data indicating that Europa's ocean could be salt water.

"That doesn't necessarily mean sodium chloride [salt]," Tyler said. "It could be magnesium sulfate, basically an Epsom bath."

Jeff Kargel, a geologist affiliated with the University of Arizona in Tucson, suggested in the late 1990s that Europa's salts may help it host life.

Kargel pointed out that many unknowns remain with respect to the composition and thickness of the liquid on Europa and its overlying ice.

"The big thing is to have liquid water—and to the extent that this new paper adds an energy source—all the better for life's prospects."

Pacific World War II Wrecks Pose Risk of Toxic Leaks


In the Pacific Ocean, amid a chain of tiny islands that make up the Federated States of Micronesia, more than 50 World War II shipwrecks lie below the placid surface of the 40-mile-wide Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon.

Encased in coral, host to abundant sea life, and a popular destination for scuba-loving tourists, these tankers, destroyers, and other vessels also contain noxious cargo: thousands of barrels of oil and other fuels, and sometimes chemicals and unexploded ordnance.
Chuuk's so-called Ghost Fleet includes dozens of Japanese ships, many of which were destroyed during a three-day attack by Allied forces in February 1944.

For decades, scientists and governments have said it was best to leave these shipwrecks alone.

Cleanup is laborious, expensive, and can cause its own problems if handled incorrectly, releasing oil or other pollutants into ocean waters.

Most of the ships also double as underwater military graves, sacred sites that no one wants to violate.

But concern about corrosion—which occurs faster in warm water—is prompting increased investigation of Chuuk's aging Ghost Fleet and roughly 3,700 other World War II ships from at least four different countries languishing throughout the Pacific.

A number of these sunken wrecks lie in the waters around Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Palau, a Micronesian archipelago to the west of Chuuk.

And so many Allied and Japanese ships sank in a strait near the Solomon Islands during the 1942-1943 Battle of Guadalcanal that it became known as Iron Bottom Sound.

Some environmentalists worry that these wrecks—which are also vulnerable to improper anchoring, dynamite fishing, and storms—pose potential hazards to marine life, beaches, mangroves that protect coastlines, and local economies.

Researchers say that the ships, constructed of iron and steel and already submerged for 60-plus years, may be reaching a tipping point and all of them could break down—and leak—at around the same time.
Chuuk Pollution Traced to Sunken Tanker

When U.S. conservationist Michael Barrett began examining this issue in 2003, no one had ever mapped the wrecks precisely or done a comprehensive survey of their fuel holdings or the ecosystems they might threaten.
With funding from the National Geographic Society's Conservation Trust, Barrett was able to fill in some gaps, gathering data on 31 of Chuuk's 50-plus shipwrecks.
Surveying the area by boat and from a small plane during a two-month period in 2006, Barrett often found a thin film of fuel on the lagoon's surface.

He traced one source of the pollution to a large Japanese tanker, the Hoyo Maru, which was sunk by an American bomb during the 1944 attack and now rests upside down on the sea floor.

This summer, researchers from the international environmental group Earthwatch confirmed that the same tanker, built to hold two million gallons of fuel, is still leaking oil into this ecologically rich lagoon, home to turtles, more than 200 species of fish, and at least one rare coral.

"The bubbles [of oil] come from an area the size of a dinner plate," says Australian maritime archaeologist Bill Jeffery, who led the Earthwatch team.

Earthwatch also identified a smaller oil slick coming from a nearby Japanese submarine tender, the Rio de Janeiro Maru.

Risks Vary

The risk posed by a wreck depends on where the vessel sits, the types and amount of fuel on board, and the local environment, says Douglas Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration, which evaluates and responds to many ocean hazards.

A wreck in a sensitive lagoon, for example, may pose a greater potential hazard than one that's sunk 5,000 feet underwater.

Most World War II wrecks "pose little or no threat to the environment," Lt. (j.g.) Thomas Buck, a U.S. Navy spokesperson, says via email.

"Many of the sunken WWII vessels did not, at the time of their sinking, contain large quantities of oil (i.e., the vast majority were not oil tankers); and of those that did, many no longer do, owing to the severe combat damage they sustained."

But conservationists emphasize that tankers like the Hoyo Maru deserve close watch because of their massive fuel capacity.

Most were built to hold millions of gallons of oil. And while the exact number of sunken fuel tankers is unknown, an Australian maritime consulting firm, SEA Australia, has counted 332 among the 3,700 Pacific wrecks from that era, including three in Chuuk Lagoon.

An Expensive and Complicated Problem

So what can be done about leaks from Pacific wrecks?

In the case of the Hoyo Maru, the Japanese government, which still has rights over the tanker, acknowledges local concerns and requested a Chuuk-based Japanese diver to look at the oil leaking from the tanker, "but none could be seen on the day of the inspection," Earthwatch's Jeffery says via email. "This is not unusual as it is known the tanker can exhibit leaking one day and not the next."

Overall, the small island nations of the South Pacific lack the funds and technological expertise to perform large-scale cleanups.

Even if they didn't, Japan, like the United States, and the United Kingdom, has repeatedly asserted control over the remains of its own World War II ships. All three countries say their wrecks are maritime graves and cannot be salvaged by anyone else without permission.

At the same time, they generally don't act unless they receive a specific request for help from nations affected by the wrecks.

In the U.S., where various government agencies share different kinds of authority over issues involving American shipwrecks, "Sunken wrecks are an expensive problem that many agencies feel ill-equipped and underfunded to address," NOAA's Helton wrote in a 2003 report.

While NOAA has an interest in the effects of American military shipwrecks, responsibility rests with the Navy for wrecks outside U.S. waters.

"The Navy has developed a structured case-by-case approach for dealing with situations where U.S. navy wrecks are suspected of posing undue environmental risks," says Buck.

The Case of the Mississinewa

One leaking Navy wreck that did pose risks was the U.S.S. Mississinewa, a tanker sunk in 1944 by a Japanese suicide submarine near the Micronesian island of Yap.

In 2001, the Mississinewa was jostled by a typhoon and began releasing more than 300 gallons of fuel a day on and off for a year-and-a-half.

Micronesia declared a state of emergency and temporarily banned fishing, which island residents depend on for income and subsistence.

Following a couple of patchups, the Navy organized a comprehensive cleanup in 2003 that required nine Navy commands (units), at least two barges, and approximately 15 divers who underwent at least 10 days of training beforehand.

The divers used an advanced technique called hot tapping—in which submersible hoses are attached to oil or fuel tanks and the liquid is pumped to a barge on the water's surface—to offload most of the ship's remaining oil.

Nearly two million gallons were recovered and some was re-refined and sold, recouping a portion of the $5.5 million clean-up cost.

Prevention and Assessment

Some conservationists believe assessing wrecks is the best way to avert problems.

"Prevention is always better than cure," Australian environmental scientist Trevor Gilbert says via email.

Assessing the likelihood of a spill for the highest-risk wrecks may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that's certainly cheaper than the millions required to offload oil from leaking vessels like the Mississinewa, notes Gilbert, a marine pollution expert who researched the World War II wrecks for Pacific island governments and has worked extensively with SEA Australia.

Marine biologist Sylvia Earle, who spotted at least one oil leak when she first dove Chuuk in 1975 for a National Geographic magazine story, agrees it's important to assess the wrecks for environmental risk.

For each, she says, "We need to know how much oil, the depth, what the complications [of cleanup] might be. An intelligent evaluation would be mandatory."

Earle, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, suggests starting with the Hoyo Maru: "If it's a tanker," she says, "that's a priority."

But overall Earle advocates a cautious approach. "By and large these attempts to go in and solve problems cause more problems," she says.

Still, conservationists like Barrett believe that using cutting-edge draining techniques like hot tapping on wrecks that pose the greatest risk is safer than waiting.

He hopes the data he's collected over the years will help pinpoint which wrecks are most likely to cause environmental damage—and spur cleanup efforts. In the meantime, he continues to worry about the effects of the Hoyo Maru and other World War II wrecks: "The longer these ships are down there corroding or getting battered by waves," he says, "the higher the risk of a spill."

Sky Show Friday: Biggest, Brightest Full Moon of 2008


Don't expect to spot an Apollo lunar lander. But Friday night, weather permitting, sky-watchers around the world will see the biggest and brightest full moon of 2008.

Although a full moon happens every month, the one that rises tomorrow will appear about 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than the other full moons seen so far this year.
That's because our cosmic neighbor will be much closer than usual. The moon will be at its closest perigee—the nearest it gets to Earth during its egg-shaped orbit around our planet.

At its farthest from Earth, the moon is said to be at apogee.
Perigee and apogee each happen generally once a month, but the moon's wobbly orbit means that its exact distance at each of those events varies over the year.

The moon's phase can also be different during each apogee and perigee.

"Typically we don't have the full moon phase and perigee coinciding at the same time, so that makes this event particularly special," said Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California.

What's more, tomorrow's event will be the closest lunar perigee since 1993, at 221,560 miles (356,566 kilometers) from Earth.

The moon's farthest apogee for the year will occur a couple weeks later on December 26, when the natural satellite will be 252,650 miles (406,601 kilometers) from Earth.

Highest Tide

Because this unusually close perigee is happening during a full moon, it is expected to have an effect on Earth's tides.
"While high tides happen each month when the sun, Earth, and the moon are aligned, there is going to be an enhanced effect, with the moon being the closest it's been in more than a decade," said Ben Burress, staff astronomer at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, California
"This would result in extra-large tides in regions that are susceptible to them, like Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy."
Features in the Bay of Fundy create a sloshing wave action that, in the bay's funneled and tapered basin, give rise to vast tidal ranges.
But even in such places, the effects of perigee are often modest, in most cases measurable in inches. But perigee tides can be higher if there happens to be a storm surge at the same time.

Observing the effects of perigee on the moon itself can be a bit trickier. Most casual observers may only notice a difference in the moon's brightness, Burress said.

The moon's apparent larger size might be most noticeable as it rises above the horizon at sunset.

That's when an optical illusion usually comes into play that makes the full moon seem larger—set against familiar Earthly objects—than when it's higher in the empty sky.

"This combination of the moon illusion and close perigee gives sky-watchers a chance to see the biggest and fullest moonrise possible," Burress said.

What makes this event particularly nice, the Griffith Observatory's Krupp added, is that everyone around the world can witness it without the need for special equipment, just clear skies.

"If you are charmed by the idea of seeing the biggest and brightest full moon visible in 15 years, be ready to go outside at sunset and watch for the rising moon in the east," he said.

"Or stay up all night and watch as the moon rides through the overhead skies—either way it will be a beautiful sight."

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Sun's Cycles Can Forecast Floods, Drought?


The sun's fluctuations can help predict extreme climatic events on Earth decades ahead of time, new research suggests.

Solar cycles are 11-year phases during which the sun's activity ebbs and flows, accompanied by an increase in sunspots on the sun's surface.
The cycles, which are driven by the sun's magnetic turbulence, may influence weather systems on Earth, particularly the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a periodic climatic system associated with floods and droughts mostly in the Southern Hemisphere.

"The sun is the engine of our climate," said lead study author Robert Baker, of the University of New England in Australia.

"It's like a vibrating string—its past vibrations can be used to predict future vibrations."

Those vibrations are the cyclical "twisting and untwisting" of magnetic fields that cause the sun's poles to flip at the start of each new cycle.
Climate and Sun Similarities

Longer magnetic cycles of about 90 years and 400 years are also found in astronomy records.

The Southern Oscillation Index, which measures the El Niño-Southern Oscillation system, seems to correspond with a 90-year sun cycle, Baker found.

For instance, the current index reading closely follows a trend observed in the 1920s.

Periods of greater solar disturbances are associated with rainy periods, whereas a calmer sun dovetailed with times of drought in Australia, Baker said.
The research appears in a recent edition of the journal Geographical Research.

Floods of the Future?
Data from the 1940s, coupled with astrophysicists' calculations of future solar cycles, could predict droughts and floods as far off as 2030, Baker said.

"We can look into the future based on the past to make predictions 10 to 20 years ahead."

El Niño and La Niña, which creates opposite climatic effects from El Niño, also affect North America.

That means long-range forecasting is possible for water availability in Mexico and the western United States, where droughts are often severe, Baker said.

How solar cycles may influence Earth's weather systems is not well understood, but Baker speculated that cosmic radiation is a factor.

For instance, Baker's research shows that periods of high cosmic radiation coincide with particularly long La Niñas, Baker said.

"This [area of research] is something that warrants further investigation," he said.

If the current index continues to mimic the 1920s cycle, then 2009 is set to be another cool year relative to the 1990s.

However, the next few years may be a little harder to predict, he added.

That's because the sun has already defied its typical 11-year cycle: The new round was supposed to begin in 2007, but only recently got underway.
Longer-term trends may also be influencing the timing of the new cycle, Baker said. The larger 400-year magnetic cycle, for instance, is expected to end in 2020.

Doubtful

However, other scientists have misgivings about the strength of the research and its value in predicting climate events.

Stuart Larsen, a climate ecologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, believes that solar cycles may "play a role in driving climatic variation."

But he's doubtful of Baker's work, calling it "statistically flawed."

"No causal link between El Niño events and solar variability has been demonstrated, and I think it is very unlikely that any direct link exists," said Larsen, who was not involved in the research.

Julie Arblaster is a climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne.

"While there may be some influence of the solar and magnetic cycles on the [Southern Oscillation Index] and Australian rainfall," Arblaster said, "the magnitude of the signal is quite small."

Organic Planet



There is a planet only 63 light-years away where I’d say devils fear to tread, much less any starship crew.

The planet in question is so close to its star it completes an orbit in just over two days. Peeking through the cloud tops, the reddish star would be an overwhelming large ball of flames 40 times the angular diameter of the full moon. Temperatures at the perpetually noon meridian would be a seething 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
The gas giant planet whirls around the obscure red dwarf star HD 189733, tucked away in the obscure southern constellation Vulpecula. The planet is simply called HD 189733 b, though you think by now it would deserve something more imaginative like Abydos, Bedrosia, Mongo, or Zetar.

So why are two of our most powerful space telescopes - Hubble and Spitzer - trained on this foreboding world? Well it has become, in amazingly short order, sort of an interplanetary drugstore to go sniffing around for chemicals relate to life, as we know it. Nothing imaginable lives on this planet, but the atmosphere is laced with the fundamental chemistry used by carbon-based life. So, maybe it should be called Organia.

Astronomers are cutting their teeth on practicing how to isolate and measure the chemical fingerprints in a planet’s atmosphere in preparation for the day organic compounds and other chemistry considered biotracers, can be seen on earthlike exoplanets. Some astronomers thought that such an observational feat was 50 years away, but it’s happening now.

Just yesterday a team of astronomers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported finding carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of HD 189733 b. Seemingly inhospitable worlds like Mars and Venus have predominantly carbon dioxide atmospheres too. But on Earth, plants use carbon dioxide during photosynthesis to make sugars. So carbon dioxide’s presence, in balance with other biotracers, could be telltale evidence for life on another planet.

Earlier this year Hubble astronomers announced finding methane on HD 189733 b. When in the right mix with other biochemistry, this could someday reveal planets with creatures resembling flatulent cows. Add to that mix water vapor, which was found on the planet last year by the Spitzer Space Telescope, and later confirmed by Hubble.
So why is HD 189733 b such a special target? Its orbit is tilted edge-on to Earth so the planet can routinely be seen passing in front of its star (transiting) and passing behind the star (in eclipse). This endless game of peek-a-boo allows for unique experiments with modest-sized telescopes, which are not now possible for non-transiting exoplanets.

When HD 189733 b passes in front of its star, Hubble can measure how light passing through the thin sliver of atmosphere on the plant’s limb is filtered by molecules in the atmosphere. Hubble can do this to exquisite precision because it is located in space.

When the planet passes behind its star both Hubble and Spitzer can make infrared measurements. Observations made just before eclipse contain the infrared glow of the planet and star. When the planet ducks behind the star only the infrared glow of the star remains. Subtract the star’s signature are you are left with information about the IR light coming from the planet.

These observations are a dress rehearsal for the day, perhaps not too far in the future, when we find an earthlike planet and want to look for telltale byproducts of life manifest in atmospheric compositon. In all likelihood the first such candidate will be orbiting a red dwarf star, and the planet itself with be a super-Earth, several items the mass of Earth. If we really get lucky the planet will lie in the star’s habitable zone where moderate temperatures allow for a liquid water ocean to exist.

It’s unlikely that the very first super-Earth will be a biochemical clone of our planet. But if the atmosphere has unusual chemical abundances there will be a spirited debate if these are the byproduct of living organisms.

I've gotten some e-mails critical of calling HD 189733 b incapable of life. I almost always use the qualifier "life as we know it" or perhaps better yet, "life as we could recognize it." It's fair to say that life is a condition of the universe. It is the favored form of self expression of matter, and therefore probably manifests itself in ways we can barely imagine. So in looking for extraterrestrial life, we have to begin with what we know.

1/5 of Coral Reefs Lost Due to Acid-Filled Oceans


The world has lost nearly one-fifth of its coral reefs, and much of the rest could be destroyed by increasingly acidic seas if climate change continues unchecked, a conservation group warned Wednesday.

Rising temperatures from greenhouses gases are the latest and most serious threats to coral, which are already being damaged by destructive fishing methods and pollution, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
About 19 percent of coral reefs have disappeared during the last 20 years, said IUCN's director general, Julia Marton-Lefèvre.

"If current trends in carbon dioxide emission continue, many of the remaining reefs will be lost in the next 20 to 40 years," Marton-Lefèvre said at Wednesday's U.N. talks, which are focused on creating a new climate change treaty.

"Climate change must be limited to the absolute minimum if we want to save coral reefs. We need to move forward and substantially cut emissions," she said.
Devastating Loss

Increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, which fuels global warming, is raising ocean levels and temperatures, said Olof Linden of the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden.

When oceans absorb carbon dioxide from air, the gas reacts with water to produce carbonic acid.

That makes the water more acidic, dissolving the calcium shells of reef-building coral and other creatures that rely on the mineral.
A report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, of which IUCN is a member, also said all the world's coral reefs could be considered threatened if current forecasts from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and coral reef experts are heeded.

Because such reefs are home to more than a quarter of all marine species, their loss could be devastating for biodiversity in the world's oceans, experts say.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Hubble Spots CO2 on Extrasolar Planet


Add carbon dioxide to the atmospheric brew enveloping a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a star about 65 light-years from Earth.
The finding, made by astronomers using an infrared sensor on the Hubble Space Telescope, doesn't do anything to improve the odds of finding life on HD 189733, which also contains methane, carbon monoxide and water in its atmosphere.
The planet orbits too close to its mother star to have temperatures that would be conducive for life as we know it. But scientists are hailing the discovery as further proof that Earth-orbiting spacecraft can pry out secrets of planets beyond our solar system.
"It's a one-part-in-a-thousand kind of measurement," Carl Grillmair, associate research scientist at California Institute of Technology's Spitzer Science Center, told Discovery News.
"HD 189733 is an interesting, exotic test bed for what we want to do with habitable planets down the road," he added. "If you did this same kind of experiment looking at Earth from 65 light-years, it would be 25,000 times dimmer, so it's a much, much harder problem."
Mark Swain, a researcher with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and colleagues hadn't been looking for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of HD 189733, a planet fortuitously aligned, relative to Earth, so that it passes both in front of and behind the parent star. They were seeking additional measurements of the previously discovered methane.
The planet's eclipses -- it passes behind its sun once every 2.2 days -- provide scientists an opportunity to make the subtle distinction of which light is coming from the planet in the face of the overwhelming brightness of the star. Within the beams are features, similar to fingerprints, of what molecules the light has encountered.
"By using the primary and the secondary eclipse, we're actually localizing knowledge about the atmosphere over specific parts of the planet," Swain told Discovery News.
Some molecules, like carbon dioxide and methane, show up in infrared light. Others, such as oxygen, would leave their footprints in visible or ultraviolet wavelengths.
"The science of exoplanets is driven by what we can do, not what we want to do," Grillmair said. "There's not a lot of data and an abundance of possibilities and ideas, but that shouldn't stop us from pursuing observations with what we have."
"Maybe next week somebody will come up with some molecule that really shouldn't be there. That gives us a hold on the piece of the physics that we didn't have before," he added. "It's always nice to find the unexpected because sometimes it can involve really interesting paradigm shifts."
Swain's research will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Grillmair and colleagues are publishing additional findings of water in HD 189733's atmosphere in this week's Nature.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

10 Cities With Widespread Wireless Internet


When asked about their picks for the ten cities in the world with free wireless, attendees at the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks in D.C. chuckled. It's not that simple, they responded. Cafes and office buildings might have free wireless, but they're not necessarily part of larger efforts. And, especially in the U.S., municipal wireless has clashed with profit-minded service providers, causing scrapped plans. One workaround: inexpensive mesh networks like FON, Boingo, and Whisher that allow participants to create hotspots wherever they are. So, while you're searching for a signal, broadband wireless activist Glenn Strachan suggests looking to these cities for widespread affordable access:
1. Tallinn
Estonia seems like an odd place to start, but the wireless coverage here is impressive. Credit goes to Veljo Haamer, the founder of WiFi.ee, for jump-starting the effort. Haamer preached wireless evangelism that registered with tech-savvy government officials, spurred customer demand, and resulted in fruitful competition to provide service. Now young entrepreneurs can easily start wireless Internet companies with inexpensive 5-GHz transmitters attached to cell towers.
2. Seoul
This Korean city of 10 million has one of the most seamless wireless networks in the world. Koreans use WiMax, a much faster network with a larger reach than Wi-Fi. Telecommunications company KT's WiBro works throughout the subway system and even on the Seoul-Busan expressway. Subscriptions costs between $11 and $43 a month and more than 400,000 people are expected to subscribe by the end of 2008.
3. Taipei
Taiwan's largest city boasts one of the largest Wi-Fi networks in the world, called WiFly. The network is operated by the company Q-Ware through a public-private partnership. The initiative had some trouble drawing subscribers for between $4.50 and $12 a month, but coupling Internet phone service, access to online multiplayer games, and an increasing number of enabled devices have made it more tempting.
4. Singapore City
The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore started its wireless initiative, called Wireless@SG, to encourage information technology in the country. The network excludes residences that already have broadband and is free until 2009. Then the wireless operators who manage the network will assess what residents and visitors want and how much they'd be willing to pay.
5. Paris
Back in 2003, two tech firms launched a free "weefee" trial, setting up antennas around Metro stops throughout the city. These days, mesh wireless networks from The Cloud and FON cover large swaths of the city. Strachan says he can walk around Paris with his laptop open and always find access points.
6. London
Last year a partnership between the City of London Corporation and wireless aggregator The Cloud resulted in a dense, widespread Wi-Fi network in one of the city's districts. More than 350,000 people in the area were given free access at launch. Around the same time, Free-Hotspot.com and infrastructure firm Meshhopper launched a network along the Thames with subscriptions for $20 monthly or for free with ads.
7. Stockholm
While other cities were still ho-humming over networks, the Swedish capital was laying the groundwork for a public-owned Internet utility managed by Stockholm Cable (Stokab). These days the city is what NewsWireless editor Guy Kewney calls "the biggest WiMax showcase you will find." For about $30 a month, residents get an insane amount of bandwidth.
8. Hong Kong
It shouldn't be surprising to find Hong Kong on this list considering how well-equipped the city is with inexpensive broadband access. Internet service provider Hong Kong Broadband Network invested millions last year to develop more than 1,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the city for the public. Currently plans are in the works to extend the GovWiFi program to hundreds more locations by 2009.
9. San Francisco
After a municipal wireless plan backed by Earthlink and Google failed, the Google-funded startup Meraki handed out wireless repeaters and began offering free Wi-Fi in San Francisco. However, Strachan adds an asterisk: Meraki introduced a closed architecture instead of an open-source one, reaping techie ire. And, while access is free now, the proprietary setup means that users could be charged in the future.
10. Sao Paulo
Since 2002, the state where this Brazilian city is located has invested billions of dollars in expanding Internet access. The effort has clearly paid off: Wi-Fi finder JiWire.com shows low-cost hotspots throughout the area. When computer security analysts from Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab visited the city this spring, they found at least one available Wi-Fi network on every corner.

10 Trickiest Spy Gadgets Ever


"The world of espionage is not divorced from the rest of the world," says Thomas Boghardt, the International Spy Museum's historian says. That became even more clear last week when the CIA released World War II era personnel files, including one for chef Julia Child, who did admin work for the intelligence service back when she was Julia McWilliams.
Microdots and transmitters hidden in shoe heels might seem quaint now, but in the previous century they were invaluable to the agencies that employed them. The International Spy Museum is only one of a few spy museums in the world and it boasts a broad collection. The Central Intelligence Agency actually has a museum in Langley, but that trove is closed to the public and can only be seen with an invitation. There is, however, a virtual tour. So, while you wait on that special invitation, Boghardt shines a light on 10 famous -- and infamous -- spy gadgets housed at the International Spy Museum, which is open to the public:
10. Lipstick Pistol
"It's a classic," Boghardt says of this 4.5 millimeter single-shot weapon, presumably taken from a KGB agent in the mid-1960s. While it's unclear whether this dangerous "kiss of death" was ever used, a cyanide pistol was used for assassination in that era. These covert weapons are surviving examples of the "active measures" that were taken in this time period, unlike many of their intended targets.
9. Buttonhole Camera
This little camera, Model F-21 issued by the KGB around 1970, was concealed in a buttonhole and has a release that the wearer presses from a pocket. Just squeeze the shutter cable and the fake button opens to capture an image. Hidden, portable cameras could be used at public events such as political rallies without detection. Boghardt notes that the Spy Museum's director Peter Earnest, who worked for many years in the CIA on intelligence, has used one of these cameras.
8. Microdot Camera
In the 1960s, the East German foreign intelligence service HVA issued this tiny camera, which takes photos of documents and uses a chemical process to shrink the text down so that a block of text appears no bigger than a period. This way agents could hide secret messages in plain sight. Boghardt points to an infamous incident involving microdots: Dusko Popov, a double agent during World War II, gave microdots to the FBI that mentioned German interest in Pearl Harbor. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover didn't trust Popov, however, so he never passed the information to president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
7. Shoe with Heel Transmitter
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Western diplomats in Eastern Europe avoided buying suits there, preferring to mail order clothing and shoes from the West. In Romania, the secret service used this to their advantage, working with the postal service to install a transmitter in shoe heels. Boghardt says that the recording device was discovered during a routine room sweep that revealed a signal, but the signal disappeared when all the diplomats left the room.
6. Enigma Cipher Machine
Messages sent over the wireless in the World War II era could be intercepted so the Germans used a cryptographic device. On the surface, the Enigma cipher machine looked like a regular typewriter, but it wasn't. A keyboard was linked to rotors, powered by an electric current, which transposed every keystroke several times. Corresponding messages went out in Morse code and required keys, which changed daily, to decipher -- get it? "De-cipher. " Which is exactly what the Allies did, cracking a code the Germans thought was unbreakable.5. Cipher Disk
It's tempting to think that spy gadgets aren't all that old, but even Caesar encoded messages using cryptography. This disk dates back to the Civil War, when it was used by the Confederate side — CSA stands for Confederate States of America. It's pretty obvious how the device works: rotate the inner wheel to displace the letters. M = G, P = J, etc. Simple to crack, right? Not if the message is written in a language you don't know. Spies were tricky like that.
4. Bulgarian Umbrella
A Bulgarian secret agent used an umbrella just like this one on a London street to kill Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978. A standard umbrella was modified internally to inject poison into its target with the press of the trigger. In Markov's case, the umbrella contained a ricin pellet, which is next to impossible to trace. The museum displays a replica, made specially in Moscow for the collection. Boghardt says that in 1991, a room full of similar deadly umbrellas was uncovered in Bulgaria.
3. Pigeon Camera
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a spy satellite! Before the dawn of aerial photography, pigeons did the job. Flying over enemy territory with a camera on autoshoot, pigeons could provide crucial information without getting lost along the way. Beyond photography, the birds also carried messages at times when radio communication was spotty or down. Pigeons sent through enemy fire up until the 1950s had a 95 percent success rate and were duly decorated with medals of honor for their service.
2. Tree Stump Bug
This tree stump bug used solar power to function continuously in a wooded area near Moscow during the early 1970s. The bug intercepted communications signals coming from a Soviet air base in the area and them beamed them to a satellite, which then sent the signals to a site in the United States. Solar power meant that no risky battery changes were needed. Nevertheless, the KGB discovered this green bug so the museum's copy is a replica.
1. Dog Doo Transmitter
Dog doo? Really? Boghardt says this, er, doohickey has a hollowed-out space inside, ideal for holding a message so that case officers and sources could communicate without raising suspicion. Doo tends to be left alone, which is why beacons disguised as tiger excrement were used to mark targets in Vietnam, Boghardt says. One of the risks is obviously that such a device would be thrown away or discovered by someone accidentally. "Accidents happened all the time," the historian says. "That's one of the challenges of being a spy or case officer."

Dogs Can Feel Envy, Study Suggests


The first scientific study to find envy in non-primates affirms what many already know: dogs can get jealous.

"Everybody who has a dog at home probably [suspects] that dogs can be very jealous of other dogs and also of people," said lead author Friederike Range of the University of Vienna, Austria
In experiments with 43 dogs, Range's team showed that the canines reacted to inequity.

The team had one dog watch another dog receive a reward for doing a trick. When the watching dog performed the same trick and was not rewarded, that dog refused to do the trick again, Range said.

The experiments were modeled after recent studies that observed resentment in capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees when the animals weren't compensated equally after performing the same tasks as a partner.

Dogs are not as sensitive to inequality as the primates, Range and her team found. The canines participating in the study didn't seem to mind if a nearby dog got a better reward or didn't work as hard for the reward—but the primates did.

The study was published online today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Equal Rights

Range and her team tested the dogs in the presence of partner dogs they were already acquainted with—a playmate, or a pet from the same household.

The dogs were asked to place their paws in the experimenter's hand. The animals were rewarded—or not—with dark bread and sausage.

"If both of them didn't get a reward, they continued working more or less," Range said. "But if one of them didn't get food, the one that didn't get food just said, No."
The indignant dogs' refusal to participate further was accompanied by scratching, yawning, mouth licking, and avoiding the gaze of the partner dog as well as the experimenter.

The dogs didn't seem to worry if their partner got sausage—a premium treat—and they only got bread, or if the other dog didn't perform the trick but was rewarded anyway.
"It gets more complicated if it's about both effort and the reward, and maybe dogs can't do that yet," Range suggested.

Dogs' more basic form of envy—and the insistence on some degree of equality—is probably critical to survival in cooperative activities. Wolves and wild dogs are known to hunt and raise their pups in groups, where individuals who don't insist on compensation would likely be taken advantage of.
Double or Nothing

Primatologist Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, said he would expect this kind of envy—really an aversion to unequal reward—in all animals that regularly cooperate.

"The dogs showed a stronger reaction when they received nothing for the task in the presence of a rewarded companion than with no companion at all," he noted.

"They were OK with no reward if no one else got one, which shows that it is a social reaction."

Scott Creel, a behavior ecologist at Montana State University, said the research suggests many social species may have mental processes scientists once believed were unique to humans, or at least primates.

"It seems logical that many of the same selection pressures that have shaped our cognition and emotions also operate in other social species," said Creel, who has studied the behavior of African wild dogs but was not involved in this study.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Power On the Tides


Walk along the beach and watch the ocean. There’s a lot of power out there. Just ask the people whose beachfront houses get washed away in big storms. Engineers are investigating ways to harness that power and generate electricity.

It’s not a new idea. Prototypes of wave-power generators have been around for 100 years. But people have only started to get serious about it since the reality of global warming started to sink in.

The idea is simple. Anything that moves can power a generator. Water in the ocean moves, all the time. It’s easy to predict how that water will move, next week or next year. We can predict how tides will move in bays and rivers – several years ahead. And satellite images can tell us several days ahead of time how high the waves will be.

Engineers are already testing wave and tide-powered turbines. A turbine on the bottom of New York City’s East River already provides enough electricity to run a nearby grocery store and parking garage. A generator buoy bouncing in the waves off the Oregon coast is being tested, too. Engineers estimate that eventually, 300 buoys could provide power for almost 40,000 homes. Turbines in the Gulf Stream could provide electricity for more than 100,000 homes.

Venter Lab Makes Progress on Artificial Life


Scientists have discovered a more efficient way of building a synthetic genome that could one day enable them to create artificial life, according to a study.
The method is already being used to help develop next-generation biofuels and biochemicals in the labs of controversial celebrity scientist Craig Venter.
Venter has hailed artificial life forms as a potential remedy to illness and global warming, but the prospect is highly controversial and arouses heated debate over its potential ramifications and the ethics of engineering artificial life.
Artificially engineered life is one of the Holy Grails of science, but also stirs deep fears as foreseen in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel "Brave New World" in which natural human reproduction is eschewed in favor of babies grown in laboratories.
The J. Craig Venter Institute succeeded in synthetically reproducing the DNA of a simple bacteria last year.
The researchers had initially used the bacteria E. coli to build the genome, but found it was a tedious, multi-stage process and that E. coli had difficulty reproducing large DNA segments.
They eventually tried using a type of yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This enabled them to finish creating the synthetic genome using a method called homologous recombination, a process that cells naturally use to repair damage to their chromosomes.
They then began to explore the capacity for DNA assembly in yeast, which turned out to be a "genetic factory," the Institute said in a statement Wednesday.
The researchers inserted relatively short segments of DNA fragments into yeast cells through homologous recombination method.
They found they were able to build the entire genome in one step, according to the study set to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We continue to be amazed by the capacity of yeast to simultaneously take up so many DNA pieces and assemble them into genome-size molecules," said lead author Daniel Gibson.
"This capacity begs to be further explored and extended and will help accelerate progress in applications of synthetic genomics."
Senior author Clyde Hutchison added, "I am astounded by our team's progress in assembling large DNA molecules. It remains to be seen how far we can push this yeast assembly platform but the team is hard at work exploring these methods as we work to boot up the synthetic chromosome."
Venter and his team continue to work towards creating a living bacterial cell using the synthetic genome sequence of the Mycoplasma genitalium bacteria.
The bacteria, which causes certain sexually transmitted diseases, has one of the least complex DNA structures of any life form, composed of just 580 genes.
In contrast, the human genome has some 30,000.
Using the genetic sequence of this bacteria, the Maryland-based team has created a chromosome known as Mycoplasma laboratorium.
They are working on developing a way to transplant this chromosome into a living cell and stimulate it to take control and effectively become a new life form.