Once again the time is here 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 new coating developed to fight MRSA (methicillin resistant stap aureus) infection, many Americans are still clueless on how to save energy, new satellite data reveals true decline of world's mangrove forests, large masses of plastic found floating in the ocean, drought drives decade long decline in plant growth, and ancient 'terror bird' used powerful beak to jab like a boxer. 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
Hospital infections by MRSA are an increasing issue which a new coating material may help to fight in the future.
The new coating marries carbon nanotubes with lysostaphin, a naturally occurring enzyme used by non-pathogenic strains of Staph bacteria to defend against Staphylococcus aureus, including MRSA. The resulting nanotube-enzyme "conjugate" can be mixed with any number of surface finishes — in tests, it was mixed with ordinary latex house paint.
Unlike other antimicrobial coatings, it is toxic only to MRSA, does not rely on antibiotics, and does not leach chemicals into the environment or become clogged over time. It can be washed repeatedly without losing effectiveness and has a dry storage shelf life of up to six months.
Energy saving is and has been the subject of much news and discussion in our nation for several years yet many remain clueless about individual efforts.
The largest group, nearly 20 percent, cited turning off lights as the best approach—an action that affects energy budgets relatively little. Very few cited buying decisions that experts say would cut U.S. energy consumption dramatically, such as more efficient cars (cited by only 2.8 percent), more efficient appliances (cited by 3.2 percent) or weatherizing homes (cited by 2.1 percent). Previous researchers have concluded that households could reduce energy consumption some 30 percent by making such choices—all without waiting for new technologies, making big economic sacrifices or losing their sense of well-being.
Mangrove forests include trees, palms, and shrubs which grow in a wide belt around the equator and are one of the planet's most productive and important ecosystems.
Mangrove forests have adapted to the most severe environmental conditions thriving in regions of high salinity, scorching temperatures and extreme tides across the equator. However, increasingly human activity and frequent severe storms have taken their toll, resulting in a loss rate for mangrove forests higher than the loss of inland tropical forests and coral reefs.
It is believed that 35% of mangrove forests were lost from 1980 to 2000 which has had an impact on the coastal communities that use mangrove forests as a protective barrier from natural disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis.
An area of the western North Atlantic was found to contain large floating masses of plastic.
More than 64,000 individual plastic pieces were collected at 6100 locations that were sampled yearly over the course of the study. A surface plankton net was used to collect plastic debris as well as biological organisms at each station. The highest concentrations of plastic were observed in a region centered at 32°N (roughly the latitude of Atlanta, GA) and extending from 22-38°N latitude. Numerical model simulations by Nikolai Maximenko (UH) explain why surface currents cause the plastic to accumulate in this region.
Under warming temperatures global plant productivity was booming but now is declining under the pressures of drought.
The discovery comes from an analysis of plant productivity data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite, combined with growing season climate variables including temperature, solar radiation and water. The plant and climate data are factored into an algorithm that describes constraints on plant growth at different geographical locations.
For example, growth is generally limited in high latitudes by temperature and in deserts by water. But regional limitations can very in their degree of impact on growth throughout the growing season.
Zhao and Running's analysis showed that since 2000, high-latitude northern hemisphere ecosystems have continued to benefit from warmer temperatures and a longer growing season. But that effect was offset by warming-associated drought that limited growth in the southern hemisphere, resulting in a net global loss of land productivity.
An ancient bird, Andalgalornis, was unable to fly but it was able to use its rigid skull and hawk-like hooked beak to jab like a professional boxer.
Like all terror birds, its skull was relatively enormous (14.5 inches or 37 centimeters) with a deep narrow bill armed with a powerful, hawk-like hook. (snip) The evolution of this large and rigid bony weapon was presumably linked to the loss of flight in terror birds, as well as to their sometimes gigantic sizes.
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Sundews just want to be loved
South Korea archeologists uncover 7,000-year-old oar
Discovery of possible earliest animal life pushes back fossil record
Human-electric hybrid car expected next year
Massive coral mortality following bleaching in Indonesia
Resolving the paradox of Antarctic sea ice
Measuring salt shine to improve climate understanding
Dwindling green pastures, not hunting, may have killed off the mammoth
Fossil reveals 48-million-year history of zombie ants
Nano tea bag for water purification
How much mass makes a black hole?
Paving slabs that clean the air
Android phones can substitute for supercomputer
Solar powered toothbrush needs no toothpaste
Paper wasps punish peers for misrepresenting their might
Astronomers take a new step toward solving the mystery of dark matter
Creation of the first frozen repository for Hawaiian coral
Presence of large hydrocarbon plume in Gulf confirmed by scientists
Big quakes more frequent than thought on San Andreas fault
Bar-tailed godwit (a bird) sets the record for long distance flight
Marine algae blooms seen from space Photo gallery
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.
Seedmagazine.com
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.
Star forming cloud, NASA, Public Domain