The time is here once again. Time to gather around and take a well deserved hiatus from all the politics of the day. Science talk is here. New discoveries, new takes on old knowledge, and other bits of news are all available for the perusing in today's information world. Over the fold are selections from the past week from a few of the many excellent science news sites around the world. Today's tidbits include an ancient galaxy is still producing stars, a bug with bifocals, a 200-fold boost in fuel cell efficiency, "spintronics" offers possible next generation computers, biosynthetic corneas, and the North American continent is a layer cake. Pull up that beach chair and relax. There is plenty of room for everyone. Settle in for one more session of Dr. Possum's science education and entertainment.
Featured Stories
The birth of stars is a process being unraveled bit by bit in the world of astronomy these days.
The group’s discovery holds potentially compelling implications that could ultimately reveal more about how such massive galaxies form. Observations of nearby galaxy clusters confirm that they are made of stars that are at least 8 to 10 billion years old, which means that CLG J02182-05102 is nearing the end of its hyperactive star-building period.
Now that they have pinpointed the epoch when galaxy clusters are making the last of their stars, astronomers can focus on understanding why massive assemblies of galaxies transition from very active to passive. Identifying how long it takes for galaxies in clusters to build up their stellar mass as well as the time at which they stop provides strong constraints for how these massive galaxies form.
Scientists are shaking their collective heads in wonder at the discovery of a bug with bifocal lenses.
The sunburst diving beetle larvae that was studied typically live in creeks and streams around Arizona and the western United States. It’s classified as a holometabolous insect – the group of insects that morph into something completely different from how they originated – like the caterpillar/moth or the maggot/fly. The larvae of these beetles have the bifocal lens. They lose these intricate lenses when they become a beetle.
Personalized energy systems are a step closer with the report of a 200-fold increase in fuel cell efficiency.
Such a system would consist of rooftop solar energy panels to produce electricity for heating, cooking, lighting, and to charge the batteries on the homeowners’ electric cars. Surplus electricity would go to an "electrolyzer,"
a device that breaks down ordinary water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen. Both would be stored in tanks. In the dark of night, when the solar panels cease production, the system would shift gears, feeding the stored hydrogen and oxygen into a fuel cell that produces electricity (and clean drinking water as a byproduct). Such a system would produce clean electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week — even when the sun isn’t shining.
Observing electron spin in matter offers the chance of a whole new generation of computers based on that spin ("spintronics").
nstead of using the presence or absence of electronic charges, spintronics relies on the direction of an electron’s rotation to convey data.
...shining a laser beam on a piece of semiconductor generates different color lights if the spinning electrons are flowing, and the brightness of the new light is related to the strength of the spin current.
The optical effect, known as "second-harmonic generation," can monitor spin-current in real time without altering the current itself.
The new technique is still in the research phase. Much remains to be learned before any commercial applications become available.
The human eye is a fragile structure covered by a transparent membrane, the cornea, which sometimes is damaged and needs replacement. A new biosynthetic cornea may offer some patients an alternative to human donor tissue.
Each patient underwent surgery on one eye to remove damaged corneal tissue and replace it with the biosynthetic cornea, made from synthetically cross-linked recombinant human collagen. Over two years of follow-up, the researchers observed that cells and nerves from the patients’ own corneas had grown into the implant, resulting in a "regenerated" cornea that resembled normal, healthy tissue. Patients did not experience any rejection reaction or require long-term immune suppression, which are serious side effects associated with the use of human donor tissue. The biosynthetic corneas also became sensitive to touch and began producing normal tears to keep the eye oxygenated. Vision improved in six of the ten patients, and after contact lens fitting, vision was comparable to conventional corneal transplantation with human donor tissue.
Rather than being one giant slab of rock as one might suppose, the North American continent is a layer cake of various ages.
The history of the Earth's oldest continental plates is vague because details of their interiors are hidden from geologists. The top 40 km of the lithosphere is crust that is chemically distinct from the mantle below, and while activities such as mountain building can dredge up deeper material, mountain building is rare in the planet's stable cratons. The deep interior of the North American craton is known only from so-called xenoliths – rock inclusions in igneous rock – or xenocrysts such as diamonds that have been delivered to the surface from deep below by volcanoes.
Seismologists, however, have the ability to probe the Earth's interior thanks to seismic waves from earthquakes around the globe, which can be used much like sound waves are used to probe the interior of the human body. Such seismic tomography has established that the bottom of the North American craton is about 250 km deep at its thickest, thinning out toward the margins where new chunks have been added to the continental lithosphere. Below the rigid lithosphere is the softer asthenosphere, on which the continental and oceanic plates ride.
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Scientists develop a better way to grow stem cells
Carnivore species shrank during global warming event
Causes of extinction of the cave bear
New atom-scale products on the horizon
Americans using less energy, more renewables
Astronomers discover many planet system
How giant tortoises and alligators thrived in high Arctic some 50 million years ago
Sea level to rise even with aggressive geo-engineering and greenhouse control, study finds
400-year-old document shows how Peruvian natives used numbers
Snow crabs found clustered around methane vents at bottom of Sea of Japan
Micro frog discovered inside Bornean pitcher plants
Coral off Peurto Rico's coast "ideal case study" for Gulf oil spill effects
Bird-friendly glass looks like spider web to birds
Why fish don't freeze in the Arctic Ocean
How mankind remade nature
El ninos growing stronger
Ants use multiple antibiotics as weed killers
Scientists discover the secret to Christmas Island's red crab migration
Octopus mimics flatfish and flaunts it
For even more science news:
General Science Collectors:
Alpha-Galileo
BBC News Science and Environment
Eureka Science News
LiveScience
New Scientist
PhysOrg.com
SciDev.net
Science/AAAS
Science Alert
Science Centric
Science Daily
Scientific American
Space Daily
Blogs:
A Few Things Ill Considered Techie and Science News
Cantauri Dreams space exploration
Coctail Party Physics Physics with a twist.
Deep Sea News marine biology
Laelaps more vertebrate paleontology
List of Geoscience Blogs
ScienceBlogs
Space Review
Techonology Review
Tetrapod Zoologyvertebrate paleontology
Science Insider
Scientific Blogging.
Wired News
Science RSS Feed: Medworm
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe--a combination of hard science and debunking crap
Daily Kos regular series:
Daily Kos University, a regular series by plf515
This Week in Science by DarkSyde
This Week in Space by nellaselim
Overnight News Digest:Science Saturday by Neon Vincent. OND tech Thursday by rfall.
Weekend Science by AKMask
All diaries with the DK GreenRoots Tag.
All diaries with the eKos Tag
NASA picture of the day. For more see the NASA image gallery or the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive.
Ring Galaxy, Hoag's Object, NASA, Public Domain