Come one, come all to the science gathering 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 preserving 4 percent of the ocean could protect most marine mammal species, a cheap and portable microscope, researchers build a tougher and lighter wind turbine blade, the star that should not exist, manipulating plants' circadian clock may make all season crops possible, woolly rhino fossil discovery in Tibet provides important clues to evolution of Ice Age giants, and tree-killing pathogen traced to California. Pull up that comfy chair and bask in the sunshine. There is plenty of room for everyone. Get ready for another session of Dr. Possum's science education and entertainment.
Featured Stories
At the rate of current change nearly a quarter of marine mammal species are headed for extinction.
The researchers identified the 20 conservation sites based on three main criteria: how many species were present, how severe the risk of extinction was for each species and whether any of the species were unique to the area. The scientists also considered habitats of special importance to marine mammals, such as breeding grounds and migration routes.
It turned out that preserving just nine of the 20 conservation sites would protect habitat for 84 percent of all marine mammal species on Earth, the scientists found. That's because those nine locations have very high species richness, providing habitat for 108 marine mammal species in all.
These nine sites, which make up only 4 percent of the world's ocean, are located off the coasts of Baja California in Mexico, eastern Canada, Peru, Argentina, northwestern Africa, South Africa, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, the study reported.
A dual mode microscope uses holograms in place of lens.
An inexpensive light source is divided into two beams —one that interacts with microscopic cells or particles in the sample, and the other that does not. The beams then pass to an adjacent sensor chip, where their interference pattern is recorded.
Software then analyzes that pattern and recreates the path taken by the light that passed through or bounced off of the objects being imaged.
Each component of the device is fairly inexpensive, Ozcan says. The laser light could come from a $5 laser pointer. The sensor chip that collects that light is the same as the ones in the backs of iPhones and Blackberrys and costs less than $15 per chip. And the whole image-collecting system runs on two AA batteries.
Where the researchers have reduced weight and expense in doing away with lenses, they have added the power of the cloud. The microscope captures raw data; but a computer is required to reconstruct the images. Workers in the field could use their laptops to process the information or send it over the Internet or mobile phone networks to a remote server. Mobile phones could also have sufficient processing power to do the analysis on the spot.
The possibilities for global healthcare are immense as this project continues.
In an effort to obtain more energy from the air hitting wind turbine blades researchers have built a lighter and stronger blade from polyurethane blade reinforced with carbon nanotubes.
In a comparison of reinforcing materials, the researchers found carbon nanotubes are lighter per unit of volume than carbon fiber and aluminum and had more than 5 times the tensile strength of carbon fiber and more than 60 times that of aluminum.
Fatigue testing showed the reinforced polyurethane composite lasts about eight times longer than epoxy reinforced with fiberglass. The new material was also about eight times tougher in delamination fracture tests.
The performance in each test was even better when compared to vinyl ester reinforced with fiberglass, another material used to make blades.
The new composite also has shown fracture growth rates at a fraction of the rates found for traditional epoxy and vinyl ester composites.
Under conventional theories of star formation a large mass of materials is necessary for a star formation by coalescence.
A team of European astronomers has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to track down a star in the Milky Way that many thought was impossible. They discovered that this star is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, with only remarkably small amounts of other chemical elements in it. This intriguing composition places it in the “forbidden zone” of a widely accepted theory of star formation, meaning that it should never have come into existence in the first place.
Scientists hope that by manipulating the circadian clock of plants there may be a time in the future when crops grow in places and seasons where it is not possible today.
The circadian clock is the internal timekeeper found in almost all organisms that helps synchronize biological processes with day and night. In plants, this clock is crucial for adjusting growth to both time and day and to the seasons.
The clock operates through the cooperative relationship between "morning" genes and "evening" genes. Proteins encoded by the morning genes suppress evening genes at daybreak, but by nightfall levels of these proteins drop and evening genes are activated. Intriguingly, these evening genes are necessary to turn on morning genes completing the 24-hour cycle.
The Yale research solved one of the last remaining mysteries in this process when they identified the gene DET1 as crucial in helping to suppress expression of the evening genes in the circadian cycle.
The discovery of a primitive woolly rhino fossil in Tibet offers clues to the origins of giant mammals left extinct by the Ice Age.
The new rhino is 3.6 million years old (middle Pliocene), much older and more primitive than its Ice Age (Pleistocene) descendants in the mammoth steppes across much of Europe and Asia. The extinct animal had developed special adaptations for sweeping snow using its flattened horn to reveal vegetation, a useful behavior for survival in the harsh Tibetan climate. These rhinos lived at a time when global climate was much warmer and the northern continents were free of the massive ice sheets seen in the Ice Age later.
The rhino accustomed itself to cold conditions in high elevations and became pre-adapted for the future Ice Age climate. When the Ice Age eventually arrived around 2.6 million years ago, the new paper posits, the cold-loving rhinos simply descended from the high mountains and began to expand throughout northern Asia and Europe.
The origin of a fungus that has killed Cypress trees on six continents has been traced back to California.
Using genetic detective work, the UC Berkeley and Italian National Research Council experts showed that the pathogen, Seiridium cardinale, that is responsible for cypress canker disease, has lived and thrived in California for a long time. It attacks trees in the cypress family by entering through cracks in their bark and producing toxins that wreak havoc with the flow of sap, choking off the supply of water and nutrients.
(snip)
The fungus kills a tree by entering through cracks in its bark, producing toxins that wreak havoc with its flow of sap and choke off its supply of water and nutrients. The disease has left an indelible mark throughout Southern Europe.
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Dolphins, aliens and the search for intelligent life
Black Death bacterium identified
Mysteries of ozone depletion continue 25 years after discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole
Researchers identify insect resistance to Bt pesticide
GMO corn falls prey to bugs it was supposed to thwart
Oldest advanced tools found in Kenya
Researchers detail how a distant black hole devoured a star
Cutting soot emissions a fast and economical way to slow global warming?
Panda feces may hold a treasure trove of microbes for making biofuels
Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells
New 'demon' bat species found in Vietnam
Rare Martian lake delta spotted my Mars express
First stem cells from endangered species
Possible new treatment for baldness
Biological 'computer' destroys cancer cells
Climate in the past million years determined greatly by dust in the Southern ocean
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.
Space.com
Wired News
Science RSS Feed: Medworm
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe--a combination of hard science and debunking crap
At Daily Kos:
This Week in Science by DarkSyde
Overnight News Digest:Science Saturday by Neon Vincent. OND tech Thursday by rfall.
Pique the Geek by Translator Sunday evenings about 9 Eastern time
All diaries with the DK GreenRoots Tag.
All diaries with the eKos Tag
A More Ancient World by matching mole
Astro Kos
SciTech at Dkos.
Sunday Science Videos by palantir
NASA picture of the day. For more see the NASA image gallery or the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive
Cats Paw Nebula, NASA, Public Domain