Welcome to the Saturday Science Edition of Overnight News Digest
Overnight News Digest is a regular daily feature which provides noteworthy news items and commentary from around the world. The editorial staff includes side pocket, maggiejean, wader, Doctor RJ, rfall, and JML9999.
Neon Vincent is our editor-in-chief.
Special thanks go to Magnifico for starting this venerable series.
Astronomy
M87 Has Swallowed An Entire Galaxy In The Last Billion Years
New observations with the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that the giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) has swallowed an entire medium-sized galaxy over the last billion years. For the first time, a team of astronomers has been able to track the motions of 300 glowing planetary nebulae to find clear evidence of this event and also evidence of excess light coming from the remains of the totally disrupted victim. Astronomers expect that galaxies grow by swallowing smaller galaxies. But the evidence is usually not easy to see — just as the remains of the water thrown from a glass into a pond will quickly merge with the pond water, the stars in the infalling galaxy merge in with the similar stars of the bigger galaxy leaving no trace. But now a team of astronomers led by Alessia Longobardi at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, has applied a clever observational trick to clearly show that the nearby giant elliptical galaxy M87 merged with a smaller spiral galaxy in the last billion years.
"This result shows directly that large, luminous structures in the universe are still growing in a substantial way — galaxies are not finished yet!" said Alessia Longobardi. "A large sector of Messier 87's outer halo now appears twice as bright as it would if the collision had not taken place."
astronomy.com
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Volcanoes On Venus: Active Or Not?
Although Earth and Venus were born similarly, with comparable sizes and atmospheres, they eventually bloomed into the two very different worlds we see today. For example, Venus’s atmosphere is remarkably thick and made almost entirely of carbon dioxide, whereas ours is much thinner and contains a more balanced mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. Another difference lies in the planets’ crusts. Earth’s is divided into sections — called plates — and has parts that are very old and others that are new (due to recycling by plate tectonics). Venus has a single, relatively young crustal plate that covers its entire surface. A young age suggests that something must have destroyed the old exterior and created a new crust. Researchers are rather confident that this event was a massive volcanic eruption (or eruptions) about 600 million years ago, and the question that remains now is whether the volcanoes are still active today. [...] As noted in last year’s S&T report, the spacecraft’s Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC), which takes pictures in the infrared that can monitor temperature changes at the surface, captured images of areas whose thermal brightness fluctuated (they became hotter and then cooler). These hotspots were located in the Ganiki Chasma, a group of young rift zones — narrow, deep fissures caused by deep-seated volcanic convection. Earth exhibits similar relationships between hotspot activity and rift zone locations — even the dimensions of Venus’s hotspots match those on Earth. From these observations, the researchers conclude that these brightness spikes were likely caused by active volcanoes; when they erupted, they spewed out hot matter, and the VMC caught their infrared footprints on camera. skyandtelescope
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'Floating Cloud' Could Replace Mirrors On Future Space Telescopes
Using clouds of glitter to reflect light could be a way of reducing the weight of future space telescopes, scientists say. The technology, called Orbiting Rainbows, would cause particles to behave like a floating mirror, which would be much less heavy than the solid mirror typically placed in a telescope. Since the "mirror" would weigh less, it would require less fuel to send telescopes that are equipped with the technology into orbit, thus reducing the cost.
"It's a floating cloud that acts as a mirror," said principal investigator Marco Quadrelli, who is with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "There is no backing structure, no steel around it, no hinges; just a cloud." [...]
The system, which is still under development at JPL, would move and trap a cloud of millions of "glitterlike grains" with several laser beams. The photons of light in the laser beam would push at the cloud from different directions, aiming to align the grains in the same direction. With this system, it's possible that the Orbiting Rainbows system could have a larger aperture — the spot where light passes through — than conventional telescopes. The trade-off is image distortion, because mirrors are more finely honed to reflect light than a cloud of glitter would be. To get around this, researchers are working on computer algorithms that would examine several images and remove the "speckle effect" the glitter creates. space.com
Biology
Tracking The Viral Parasites Cruising Our Waterways
Humans aren't the only ones who like to cruise along the waterways, so do viruses. For the first time, a map of fecal viruses traveling our global waterways has been created using modeling methods to aid in assessing water quality worldwide.
"Many countries are at risk of serious public health hazards due to lack of basic sanitation," said Joan Rose, Homer Nowlin Chair in water research at Michigan State University. "With this map, however, we can assess where viruses are being discharged from untreated sewage and address how disease is being spread. With that, we can design a treatment and vaccination program that can help prevent sewage-associated diseases."
The study, conducted by Rose and an international team of researchers, focused on rotavirus, a pathogen found in human sewage, which is suspected of causing more than 450,000 deaths globally each year. Rotavirus severity rates are highest among young children under two. Because the disease spreads quickly - and via water - a deeper understanding of the transmission of rotavirus is key to combatting it. The modeling approach used in the study was designed to better understand the global distribution of potential viruses in water sources. The model provided a grid that helped pinpoint "hotspots" where emission sources were greatest. According to Rose, those areas can now be selected for monitoring and control programs. biologynews.net
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Darwinian Fisheries: Shrinking Fish Sizes In Exploited Stocks
In her groundbreaking experiment published in Evolutionary Applications, Postdoctoral Researcher Silva Uusi-Heikkilä from the University of Turku mimicked the size-selectivity typical to many fisheries by systematically removing large fish from the experimental fish populations. After just five generations of harvesting, adult body size shrunk by 7%, which also affected the egg production of the surviving fish. The now-smaller individuals produced fewer and smaller eggs and offspring compared to the large fish that were harvested using a mortality schedule mimicking a maximum-length, rather than a minimum-length, limit regulation. In most fisheries, minimum-length limits are the standard tool, but these standard tools appear to be the most damaging from a Darwinian perspective. Most significantly, intensive size-selective harvesting also induced genetic changes in the experimentally exploited fish populations. •This fisheries-induced evolution in functional loci will not be easily reversible and can thus be harmful for commercial and recreational fisheries, says Uusi-Heikkilä. •Our study shows that fishing creates a legacy ranging from genes to population productivity, but from the fish's perspective human-induced evolution is not necessarily negative, as it can help the population cope with high fishing mortality, notes project leader Prof. Dr. Robert Arlinghaus from the Humboldt University of Berlin. sciencedaily.com
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How Lovebirds Maneuver Rapidly Using Super-Fast Head Saccades And Image Feature Stabilization
Abstract Diurnal flying animals such as birds depend primarily on vision to coordinate their flight path during goal-directed flight tasks. To extract the spatial structure of the surrounding environment, birds are thought to use retinal image motion (optical flow) that is primarily induced by motion of their head. It is unclear what gaze behaviors birds perform to support visuomotor control during rapid maneuvering flight in which they continuously switch between flight modes. To analyze this, we measured the gaze behavior of rapidly turning lovebirds in a goal-directed task: take-off and fly away from a perch, turn on a dime, and fly back and land on the same perch. High-speed flight recordings revealed that rapidly turning lovebirds perform a remarkable stereotypical gaze behavior with peak saccadic head turns up to 2700 degrees per second, as fast as insects, enabled by fast neck muscles. In between saccades, gaze orientation is held constant. By comparing saccade and wingbeat phase, we find that these super-fast saccades are coordinated with the downstroke when the lateral visual field is occluded by the wings. Lovebirds thus maximize visual perception by overlying behaviors that impair vision, which helps coordinate maneuvers. Before the turn, lovebirds keep a high contrast edge in their visual midline. Similarly, before landing, the lovebirds stabilize the center of the perch in their visual midline. The perch on which the birds land swings, like a branch in the wind, and we find that retinal size of the perch is the most parsimonious visual cue to initiate landing. Our observations show that rapidly maneuvering birds use precisely timed stereotypic gaze behaviors consisting of rapid head turns and frontal feature stabilization, which facilitates optical flow based flight control. Similar gaze behaviors have been reported for visually navigating humans. This finding can inspire more effective vision-based autopilots for drones. plos.org
Chemistry
Chemical Reform Bill Advances In US Congress
The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan bill to revamp the nearly 40-year-old law that governs America’s chemicals policy, known as the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), on 23 June. Although TSCA reform has been a divisive and controversial topic in Congress, the legislation overwhelmingly passed with a vote of 398 to 1 with chemical industry groups applauding the development. The American Chemistry Council's president and chief executive, Cal Dooley, said the legislation will ‘build confidence’ in the US chemical regulatory system, protect human health and the environment, and address the commercial and competitive needs of industry. The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates and the National Association of Chemical Distributors issued similar messages. The bill would provide the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with more authority to take regulatory action on chemicals by removing the current requirement that the agency choose the ‘least burdensome’ path after determining that a chemical poses an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. The legislation would also require that the EPA initiate 10 or more chemical risk evaluations each fiscal year. A Senate version of the bill is expected to be voted on in July. rsc.org
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International Agency Deems 2,4-D A Possible Human Carcinogen
The widely used herbicide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) is “possibly carcinogenic to humans,” concludes the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). IARC released its determination this week, based on “strong evidence that 2,4-D induces oxidative stress,” a condition that can lead to chronic inflammation and ultimately cancer. IARC says there is “inadequate evidence” to fully deem 2,4-D a human carcinogen and “limited evidence” of carcinogenicity in laboratory animals. Chemical manufacturers are strongly disputing the “possibly” classification, saying it is inconsistent with government findings in nearly 100 countries, including the U.S.
“No herbicide has been more thoroughly studied and no national regulatory body in the world considers 2,4-D a carcinogen,” says John Cuffe, global regulatory sciences and regulatory affairs leader at Dow AgroSciences.
The company won approval late last year to market its Enlist Duo herbicide—a mixture of 2,4-D and glyphosate—in the U.S. Many environmental groups are concerned this will cause use of 2,4-D to skyrocket. asc.org
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Fruity Alternative To Toxic Insect Repellents
A compound found in fruit could be the safe insect repellent of the future, according to a group of scientists from the University of California, Riverside in the US. Insects annually destroy huge amounts of agricultural produce. Finding safe and effective repellents is, therefore, a top priority for agrichemical producers. In recent years interest has grown in examining plants’ defences against pests, with one group, for instance, recently investigating how a plant’s chemical distress signal can be converted into a weapon to combat insects. To find alternatives to existing insecticides, the California team investigated a series of DEET substitutes that are already approved as food additives. DEET is a widely used insect repellent but has been the subject of some safety concerns and is only meant to be applied to skin and clothing. One DEET substitute, butyl anthranilate, is found in fruit and is often used in flavours and fragrances thanks to its pleasant scent. The team found that spraying blueberries with a 10% solution of butyl anthranilate provided nearly total protection for blueberry samples from the spotted wing Drosophila. This fruit fly is a major pest and causes hundreds of millions of dollars of agricultural damage worldwide each year, meaning new ways to fight the flies are urgently needed. scientificamerican.com
Earth Science
Beware the Giant Toxic Algae Bloom
Humans and animals on the west coast should take care when near the water. One of the largest algae blooms of all time is producing dangerous toxins which now stretch from California to Alaska. The neurotoxin being released by the bloom is called domoic acid, and it can cause a series of problems for any mammal that comes into contact with it. Here is how it spreads: algae from the bloom finds a home in shellfish and smaller fish such as anchovies and sardines. Those creatures can then transfer the toxin to sea lions, birds, dolphins and various other creatures. In California, the toxin is being held responsible for large number of sea lion deaths, strandings and malnourished cubs. Shellfish harvests, crabbing and fisheries have nearly ground to a halt as oceanographers seek to understand how this bloom became so enormous. NOAA Oceanographer Vera Trainer called the levels “scary” and told reporters in Seattle that, “We’re seeing effects on marine ecosystem we haven’t seen before.” She went on to say that unlike normal algae blooms, this one is not dissipating, but rather sticking around near the shore. Some scientists have speculated that an unseasonably warm spring is to blame for the algae bloom. Others think that ‘The Blob,’ a section of the North Pacific that is about two degrees warmer than the surrounding water, could be responsible for the size of the bloom. enn.com
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Electric Light Means Later Bedtimes
It's easy to assume people will sleep more if they don’t have access to electric light. But since nearly everyone in today’s world has power, that’s been hard to test. Until now. New research of powered and unpowered groups in rural Argentina indicates that, yes, people with access to electricity sleep less than people without it. Researchers found two groups of Toba/Qom hunter-gatherers indigenous to the Chaco region of northeastern Argentina. One group split off from the other in the early 1990s, moving 50 km away to the outskirts of a town with electricity. Apart from their access to power, the groups remain very similar. They all live off the land and government support because there are few jobs in the region. They still attend joint family parties. And they eat similar diets. During four weeks in 2012 and 2013, sleep researcher Horacio de la Iglesia, and his colleagues from Harvard and Yale gave Toba/Qom watch-like devices that monitored their activities and ambient light levels. Researchers also brought food and chatted with the locals. The results, published in the Journal of Biological Rhythms, show that those with power slept an hour less on average than those without. Both groups woke up at about the same time (without alarm clocks), but individuals with electricity had bedtimes that were later and more variable. nationalgeographic.com
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Forget April Showers: This May Was The Wettest Month In U.S. Records
Last month was the wettest on record for the contiguous United States, according to federal meteorologists. On average 4.36 inches of rain and snow — mostly rain — fell over the Lower 48 in May, sloshing past October 2009, which had been the wettest month in U.S. records with 4.29 inches. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records go back to 1895. NOAA climate scientist Jake Crouch calculated that comes to more than 200 trillion gallons of water in May. Crouch said the record was triggered by a stalled pattern of storms that dumped massive amounts of rain in the central U.S., especially in Texas and Oklahoma, which had their rainiest months. Oklahoma and Texas had been in a five-year drought, and it was washed away in just one month, Crouch said: "It's like one disaster ending a catastrophe." Colorado had its rainiest May on record. At the same time, parts of the Northeast were unusually dry. Crouch said the El Nino weather pattern, which starts with warming in the central Pacific, is usually associated with heavy rainfall — but it's too early to say if the current El Nino triggered the record moisture. More frequent downpours also are expected as the world warms, but Crouch said there's no way to connect climate change to a single soggy month. nbcnews.com
Physics
Engineers Break Power And Distance Barriers For Fiber Optic Communication
Electrical engineers have broken key barriers that limit the distance information can travel in fiber optic cables and still be accurately deciphered by a receiver. Photonics researchers at the University of California, San Diego have increased the maximum power—and therefore distance—at which optical signals can be sent through optical fibers. This advance has the potential to increase the data transmission rates for the fiber optic cables that serve as the backbone of the internet, cable, wireless and landline networks. The research is published in the June 26 issue of the journal Science. The new study presents a solution to a long-standing roadblock to increasing data transmission rates in optical fiber: beyond a threshold power level, additional power increases irreparably distort the information travelling in the fiber optic cable. "Today's fiber optic systems are a little like quicksand. With quicksand, the more you struggle, the faster you sink. With fiber optics, after a certain point, the more power you add to the signal, the more distortion you get, in effect preventing a longer reach. Our approach removes this power limit, which in turn extends how far signals can travel in optical fiber without needing a repeater," said Nikola Alic, a research scientist from the Qualcomm Institute, the corresponding author on the Science paper and a principal of the experimental effort. In lab experiments, the researchers at UC San Diego successfully deciphered information after it travelled a record-breaking 12,000 kilometers through fiber optic cables with standard amplifiers and no repeaters, which are electronic regenerators. The new findings effectively eliminate the need for electronic regenerators placed periodically along the fiber link. These regenerators are effectively supercomputers and must be applied to each channel in the transmission. The electronic regeneration in modern lightwave transmission that carries between 80 to 200 channels also dictates the cost and, more importantly, prevents the construction of a transparent optical network. As a result, eliminating periodic electronic regeneration will drastically change the economy of the network infrastructure, ultimately leading to cheaper and more efficient transmission of information. phys.org
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This Stretchy Cloth Could Become Underwear that Monitors Your Heart Rate
Here’s new tech that’ll make wearables as non-invasive as a Band-Aid. Japanese researchers have created a printable conducive ink on cloth, which means your boxer briefs or sports bra could one day track your heart rate (among other things). In an effort to make electronic wearables more, well, wearable, a team at the University of Tokyo developed the ink and announced it yesterday. In a single-step process, electrodes and wires can be printed on both surfaces of the textile using the wonder ink. This new super cloth is also way softer and stretchier than today’s harder, more rigid wearables and printed electronics.Even when stretched to three times its length, the ink remained highly conducive. This new material is somewhat similar to the conducive yarn teased at Google I/O this year, which Levi’s is reportedly using to make your jeans a giant touchpad. The goal there is to swipe, pinch, tap, and drag your fingers across these smart threads to answer calls or turn off lights, just like you would on a mousepad or smartphone. (Read about our hands-on with this magic fabric here.) The Tokyo researchers’ ink, though, seems a lot stretchier and allows manufacturers to make wearables that’ll be as skintight as fake tattoos. Yep, that’s right. Tech tattoos. gizmodo.com
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Could Lasers Guide And Control The Path Of Lightning?
Electrical discharges could be controlled and guided along complex paths and even around obstacles, by using a variety of lasers, according to the latest work done by an international team of researchers. Forks of lightning, and on a much smaller scale, the tiny arcs of electricity used in everything from lighting to combustion engines, all follow highly unpredictable paths. The novel method has shown that lasers cannot only be used to guide discharges along straight lines, but also arcs and s-shapes. Greater control over discharge paths could open up a variety of potential applications, including in industrial-machining devices and lightning-protection systems. While one might be more familiar with lightning, electrical discharges are used in many different technologies, in everything from gas-discharge lamps, arc welders, in spark machining and even to ignite fuel in combustion engines. Despite these many uses, however, our ability to control the exact path these currents take is limited – between the fixed points of the two electrodes the arcs are unpredictable, affected by various factors from air temperature to the presence of pre-ionized matter. [...] Past research, however, has demonstrated one method of controlling the discharges through the use of laser beams. These can ionize a channel through the air, locally lowering the gas density through heating and thereby creating a guide for the discharge along which there is reduced breakdown voltage. physicsworld.com