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
New Image Of Pluto: "Houston, We Have Geology"
It began as a point of light. Then, it evolved into a fuzzy orb. Now — in its latest portrait from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft — Pluto is being revealed as an intriguing new world with distinct surface features, including an immense dark band known as the “whale.” As the newest black and white image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) appeared on the morning of July 10, members of the science team reacted with joy and delight, seeing Pluto as never before. There will no doubt be many similar moments to come. New images and data are being gathered each day as New Horizons speeds closer to a July 14 flyby of Pluto, following a journey of 3 billion miles (5 billion kilometers).
“We’re close enough now that we’re just starting to see Pluto’s geology,” said New Horizons program scientist Curt Niebur, NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., who’s keenly interested in the gray area just above the whale’s “tail” feature. “It’s a unique transition region with a lot of dynamic processes interacting, which makes it of particular scientific interest.”
[...]
“Among the structures tentatively identified in this new image are what appear to be polygonal features; a complex band of terrain stretching east-northeast across the planet, approximately 1,000 miles long; and a complex region where bright terrains meet the dark terrains of the whale,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern. “After nine and a half years in flight, Pluto is well worth the wait.”
astronomy.com
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Erupting Every Year And On The Brink Of Catastrophe: The ‘Best Candidate’ Supernova
Using the robotic Liverpool Telescope, an international team of scientists has found what looks like the best pre-explosion candidate yet for a ‘type 1a’ supernova, where a massive and extremely dense star in the Andromeda Galaxy is dragging material away from its companion. This star is set to be completely destroyed in the (astronomical) near future in a catastrophic explosion. Matt Darnley of Liverpool John Moores University presented their results today (9 July) at the National Astronomy Meeting at Venue Cymru, in Llandudno, Wales. [...] In 2008 scientists spotted the eruption of a star, later confirmed to be a nova, in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the nearest large galaxy to our own some 2.5 million light years away. Remarkably the same star, catalogued as M31N 2008-12a, erupted again in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Darnley and his team initiated a follow up programme in 2013 and 2014, using the Liverpool Telescope and X-ray observations from the orbiting Swift observatory. Their work shows that in astronomical terms, M31N 2008-12a is on the brink of catastrophe. With explosions in rapid succession, the white dwarf must be just a fraction under the critical mass and could be torn to pieces in a supernova anytime in the next few hundred thousand years.
Darnley commented: “We’ve never seen anything like this before. Here is a pair of stars that release vast amounts of energy almost every year. The system is right on the cusp of total destruction, so we are getting a first look at how it is changing right before it erupts as a supernova. And that could happen tomorrow, or hundreds of thousands of years in the future – it’s very much a star system to watch.”
ras.org.uk
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Beam Me Up, Scotty: Technobabble's Role In The Arts (Op-Ed)
I'm not sure, but I think it was watching "The Amazing Colossal Man" on Creature Double Feature as a kid that gave me my first, foul-tasting dose of technobabble. The doctors were trying to tell Glenn Manning's wife why his uncontrolled growth was causing him so much pain. You see, they explained, the cells in Glenn's body were multiplying at an extreme rate, causing him to get larger. But the human heart is made of only a single cell, so it wasn't growing at the same rate and was under enormous strain. Even in sixth grade, I saw the holes in this. If you've somehow dodged the term until now, technobabble is when the writer fills up some space with, well, stuff. Usually some half-understood scientific term or fact or maybe just total gibberish that sounds neat and fill s a plot hole or two. It's kind of a bluff — I'm betting the reader (or audience member) won't know if this is true or even plausible, and the pseudo-explanation will carry them right over that questionable spot and back into the story. It's easy to spot technobabble in older books or movies. The one-celled heart I was just talking about. The "Creature from the Black Lagoon" as a missing link between man and sea life. Even Isaac Asimov's famed positronic brain, named after a recently discovered sub-atomic particle, seems more like fantasy today than science. Granted, technobabble tries to keep up as audiences become better educated and more knowledgeable. "Doctor Who" saved the day all through the '60s and '70s by "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow" (an amazing process that solved pretty much any problem). "WarGames" used real computer terms to show how easy it was to hack into NORAD (and play games). "Star Trek" started using antimatter injectors and containment fields in starship warp cores. One of my favorite bits of technobabble is the device that sidesteps any scientific implausibility. The uncertainty principle makes transporters impossible? Well, that's why we have Heisenberg compensators. How do we push a DeLorean into the fourth dimension? With the flux capacitor — it's what makes time travel possible. space.com
Biology
Age-Related Cognitive Decline Tied To Immune-System Molecule
A blood-borne molecule that increases in abundance as we age blocks regeneration of brain cells and promotes cognitive decline, suggests a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco and Stanford School of Medicine. The molecule in question, known as beta-2 microglobulin, or B2M, is a component of a larger molecule called MHC I (major histocompatibility complex class I), which plays a major role in the adaptive immune system. A growing body of research indicates that the B2M-MHC I complex, which is present in all cells in the body except red blood cells and plasma cells, can act in the brain in ways not obviously related to immunity—guiding brain development, shaping nerve cell communication, and even affecting behavior.
“We are in the process of elucidating the exact mechanism by which B2M works,” said Saul A. Villeda, PhD, a UCSF Faculty Fellow and co-senior author of the new study. “Since B2M increases with age, both in the blood and in the brain, we want to know what is the ‘traditional’ immune contribution to effects on cognition, and what is the non-traditional neural contribution.”
[...] When B2M was administered to young mice, either via the circulatory system or directly into the brain, the mice performed poorly on tests of learning and memory compared to untreated mice, and neurogenesis was also suppressed in these mice. ucsf.edu
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Using A Novel Absolute Ontogenetic Age Determination Technique To Calculate The Timing Of Tooth Eruption In The Saber-Toothed Cat, Smilodon fatalis
Abstract Despite the superb fossil record of the saber-toothed cat, Smilodon fatalis, ontogenetic age determination for this and other ancient species remains a challenge. The present study utilizes a new technique, a combination of data from stable oxygen isotope analyses and micro-computed tomography, to establish the eruption rate for the permanent upper canines in Smilodon fatalis. The results imply an eruption rate of 6.0 millimeters per month, which is similar to a previously published average enamel growth rate of the S. fatalis upper canines (5.8 millimeters per month). Utilizing the upper canine growth rate, the upper canine eruption rate, and a previously published tooth replacement sequence, this study calculates absolute ontogenetic age ranges of tooth development and eruption in S. fatalis. The timing of tooth eruption is compared between S. fatalis and several extant conical-toothed felids, such as the African lion (Panthera leo). Results suggest that the permanent dentition of S. fatalis, except for the upper canines, was fully erupted by 14 to 22 months, and that the upper canines finished erupting at about 34 to 41 months. Based on these developmental age calculations, S. fatalis individuals less than 4 to 7 months of age were not typically preserved at Rancho La Brea. On the whole, S. fatalis appears to have had delayed dental development compared to dental development in similar-sized extant felids. This technique for absolute ontogenetic age determination can be replicated in other ancient species, including non-saber-toothed taxa, as long as the timing of growth initiation and growth rate can be determined for a specific feature, such as a tooth, and that growth period overlaps with the development of the other features under investigation. plos.org
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How The Mammoth Got Its Wool: Genetic Changes Are Identified
Evolutionary change in a gene resurrected in the lab from the extinct woolly mammoth altered the gene's temperature sensitivity and likely was part of a suite of adaptations that allowed the mammoth to survive in harsh arctic environments, according to new research. In a study published in Cell Reports on July 2, 2015, researchers determined the whole-genome sequence of two woolly mammoths and three modern Asian elephants, predicted the function of genetic changes found only in the mammoths, and then experimentally validated the function of a woolly mammoth gene reconstructed in the lab. The research team includes scientists from Penn State University, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and the University of Chicago.
"This project represents a departure from previous efforts to study ancient genomes," said Webb Miller, project co-leader and professor of biology and of computer science and engineering at Penn State. "We've sequenced and analyzed a number of genomes, including several from extinct species, but before this project, we limited ourselves to purely computational analyses. However, our dissatisfaction with those types of studies increased over time as we observed a wide disparity in published predictions. We therefore refined our strategy for the current project by focusing on computational predictions that can be experimentally validated."
Project co-leader Stephan Schuster, formerly of Penn State and now at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said, "I've been trying for a long time to show that ancient genomes can be sequenced as accurately as extant genomes, and the woolly mammoth seemed like an ideal species for demonstrating this capability. The Asian elephant genomes were needed for comparison in the subsequent analyses."
The two woolly mammoths sequenced by the team died about 20,000 and 60,000 years ago, respectively. To weed out errors that could result from the sequencing process or the age of the genetic material recovered from the mammoths, and to ensure the quality of the genetic data, the researchers read each letter in the mammoth's genomic alphabet an average of twenty times. They then compared the genomic sequence of the mammoths to the newly-sequenced genomes of the three Asian elephants and to the genome of the more-distantly related African elephant. biologynews.net
Chemistry
Recycling Rare Earths From E-Waste More Sustainably
The lanthanides, also known as rare-earth elements, are used to make magnets found in computers, cell phones, and many other gadgets. Until recently, China was the main producer of these raw materials, giving that country an advantage in setting market prices. Seeking cheaper sources, the U.S. Department of Energy developed an initiative to recover lanthanides from electronic waste. Now, researchers working as part of the DOE’s Critical Materials Institute have recovered rare earths from scrap magnet waste using a technique called membrane solvent extraction, which requires much less energy and generates less chemical waste than previous recovery techniques [...]. Finding a cost-effective, environmentally sustainable way to isolate rare-earth elements such as neodymium from electronic waste isn’t easy. Pyrometallurgical methods heat the e-waste to high temperatures to separate out the elements, but the large energy requirement can be expensive. In another process, recyclers dissolve the waste in strong acid and then extract the rare-earth elements with a series of solvents, generating large amounts of hazardous chemical waste. Moreover, this method can’t always isolate lanthanides from other common elements in the e-waste, such as iron. Ramesh Bhave of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and his colleagues decided to apply a method—codeveloped by Bhave and Kamalesh K. Sirkar in the 1980s to remove organic molecules from aqueous solutions—that combines traditional solvent extraction with membrane separation techniques to recover these elements. In just one step, the researchers can isolate rare earths from a feed solution made from acid-digested scrap magnets that contains the lanthanides neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium, as well as iron and boron impurities. The prototype device is an array of eight strawlike membranes made from hollow fiber polypropylene with microscopic pores. A pump pushes a pressurized feed solution through the straws. On the outer surface of the straws, researchers introduce an organic solvent containing an extractant that selects for lanthanides. The extractant solution is immiscible with the feed solution, and the higher pressure inside the straw prevents it from flowing through the pores. However, because the extractant contacts the feed solution at the pore sites, it draws the lanthanides out of the feed solution and through the pores. Meanwhile, an acidic stripping solution that moves through the space surrounding the straws captures these lanthanides and recovers them. The new method could generate 20 to 30% less chemical waste than traditional extraction techniques do, Bhave says. acs.org
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Is Your Child Coloring With Asbestos?
Some children’s crayons—marketed with colorful characters such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers and Mickey Mouse—and play crime lab kits contain cancer-causing, lung damaging asbestos fibers, according to a report released today. The report, commissioned by the environmental nonprofit Environmental Working Group Action Fund, found that four brands of children’s crayons out of 28 boxes tested and two of 21 children fingerprint kits contained asbestos. All of the products that tested positive for asbestos were made in China and imported to the United States. [...] Experts say there is no “safe” level of asbestos exposure. Even short exposures—just a few days—can cause serious lung problems, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. [...]
“Some may say they're [children] not at risk of a very high of exposure, but children are much more reactive to toxic materials and we’re dealing with a carcinogen,” said Richard Lemen, retired U.S. assistant surgeon general who specialized in occupational health. “We haven’t identified a concentration or exposure below which we are at not risk.”
scientificamerican.com
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Killer Sea Snail A Target For New Drugs
University of Queensland pain treatment researchers have discovered thousands of new peptide toxins hidden deep within the venom of just one type of Queensland cone snail. Researchers hope the new molecules will be promising leads for new drugs to treat pain and cancer. Professor Paul Alewood, from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, said the team used biochemical and bioinformatics tools to develop a new method to analyse the structure of the venom toxins, allowing them to delve deeper than ever before.
"Cone snail venom is known to contain toxins proven to be valuable drug leads," [Alewood] said. "This study gives the first-ever snapshot of the toxins that exist in the venom of a single cone snail. Cone snail venoms are a complex cocktail of many chemicals and most of these toxins have been overlooked in the past."
Using their new method that involved accurately measuring and analysing the structure, activity and composition of the diverse range of proteins within venom, researchers discovered the highest number of peptides (mini-proteins) produced in a single cone snail. phys.org
Earth Science
So What Exactly Is In The Air That We Breathe?
We can’t see them, but the air that we breathe contains a wealth of biological particles which could damage our health. Scientists at the University of Essex have embarked on a three-year project to find new ways of analysing air samples more quickly and accurately than ever before. The methods developed from the research will offer guidance for addressing public health or major infection outbreaks. From viruses and pollen to bacteria and fungal spores – these bio-aerosols are all around us and come from a range of sources. Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the £700,000 project will involve the Essex team and colleagues at Cranfield University measuring and analysing emissions from a range of locations including urban, agricultural, industrial and bio-waste management sites. Led by air pollution expert Professor Ian Colbeck, from the School of Biological Sciences. the researchers will be looking at finding modern techniques to robustly analyse air samples in a far quicker and more efficient way than relying on current slower, conventional methods which involve growing cultures in the laboratory. [...]
Explaining the project, Professor Colbeck said: “Bio-aerosols comprise a small fraction of all particles in the air but their impact can be crucial; a single viable pathogen could spread infection. Current monitoring methods are slow, expensive and often there is insufficient biomaterial captured for bio-aerosol identification and classification. “The aim of this project is to develop a 'bio-toolkit' for high-confidence, wide-area bio-detection and monitoring of bio-aerosols from a number of environments. The project will use a combination of next generation sequencing technologies and chemical marker analysis to characterise the biological component of the air. This will provide a robust, cost-effective, sensitive approach to identify, quantify and monitor key pathogens in bio-aerosols.”
essex.ac.uk
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Ocean Acidification: The Evil Twin Of Climate Warming
The oceans are the blue lungs of our planet. Every year they absorb more than 25 per cent of the carbon dioxide we release into the air. Since the start of the industrial revolution, the oceans have absorbed around one half of this greenhouse gas which we humans have blown into the atmosphere through exhaust pipes and chimney stacks. Without this natural store, the carbon dioxide concentration in the air would today be far higher and it would be a great deal warmer on the Earth. But even the expansive oceans cannot absorb unlimited quantities of carbon without this having consequences. In the same way as all gases, carbon dioxide dissolves in water and unlike most gases it also reacts with it to produce carbonic acid. The more carbon dioxide penetrates into the oceans, the more carbonic acid is created. This process impacts the chemistry of the seawater and reduces its pH value. [...] Ocean acidification is therefore the evil twin of climate warming in view of its far reaching impacts. In actual fact, both processes are attributable to the same problem: the destruction of the natural carbon cycle. This describes the constant exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, plants on land and the oceans. It is with this cycle that nature creates a balance between air, land and water. This carbon balance has now been disrupted by man burning fossil raw materials such as oil and coal and clearing forests and continuing to do so on a grand scale to this very day. awi.de
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Slight Global Warming Causes Six Meter Sea Level Rise
A new review analyzing three decades of research on the historic effects of melting polar ice sheets found that global sea levels have risen at least six meters, or about 20 feet, above present levels on multiple occasions over the past three million years. What is most concerning, scientists say, is that amount of melting was caused by an increase of only 1-2 degrees (Celsius) in global mean temperatures. [...]
“Studies have shown that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributed significantly to this sea level rise above modern levels,” said Anders Carlson, an Oregon State University glacial geologist and paleoclimatologist, and co-author on the study. “Modern atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are today equivalent to those about three million years ago, when sea level was at least six meters higher because the ice sheets were greatly reduced. “It takes time for the warming to whittle down the ice sheets,” added Carlson, who is in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, “but it doesn’t take forever. There is evidence that we are likely seeing that transformation begin to take place now.”
enn.com
Physics
Reptile Skin Inspires Super-Slippery Steel Surfaces
The skins of two slithery reptiles – the ball python and a type of lizard known as the sandfish skink – have inspired researchers to create a new kind of super-slippery biomimetic material. By etching patterns similar to those found on these creatures into the surface of steel, Christian Greiner and Michael Schäfer of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology were able to cut friction by as much as 40%. The researchers say that the work could help to minimize friction in tiny mechanical devices where lubricants cannot be used. The skin of some snakes and lizards is unusual in that it is slippery when the creature moves forward but resistant to movement in the opposite direction. Apart from allowing the creatures to propel themselves forward, this low friction associated with forward motion combined with the skin's high resistance to wear has made it an attractive model for researchers seeking to develop new materials. In 2012, for example, scientists were inspired by the skin of the sandfish to create a material that is highly resistant to wear by sand and other particles. Overlapping scales Greiner and Schäfer created their reptile-inspired patterns on flat steel surfaces 7.5 mm in diameter using a technique called laser surface texturing. The two patterns they studied were inspired by the overlapping scales found on the python and sandfish, with each scale being oval shaped and about 50 μm long. The scales protrude about 5 μm from the surface and overlap each other to form columns. In one pattern the columns are isolated from each other, whereas in the other pattern the columns overlap each other (see figure above). The patterned surfaces were then slid across a smooth, dry sapphire surface at a constant speed of 0.1 m/s and downward force of 2 N. When compared with a smooth steel surface, the isolated columns had 40% lower friction, whereas the overlapping columns had a 22% reduction. The researchers had expected friction to be lower because the species they mimicked live in dry environments and do not secrete oils or other liquids onto their skin. However, they were amazed by the size of the reduction. physicsworld.com
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Black Phosphorus: Alternative To Silicon For Future Electronics
In 2004, researchers at the University of Manchester, UK, isolated and explored the remarkable properties of graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of carbon. Since then scientists have rushed to investigate a range of other 2D materials. One of those is black phosphorus, a form of phosphorus that is similar to graphite and can be separated easily into single atomic layers, known as phosphorene. Black phosphorus is the second known elemental allotrope with a layered crystal structure that can be mechanically exfoliated to atomic layer thickness. Unlike graphite and graphene, black phosphorus is a semiconductor in both bulk and few-layer form. “To lower the operating voltage of transistors, and thereby reduce the heat they generate, we have to get closer and closer to designing the transistor at the atomic level. The toolbox of the future for transistor designers will require a variety of atomic-layered materials: an ideal semiconductor, an ideal metal, and an ideal dielectric. All three components must be optimized for a well-designed transistor. Black phosphorus fills the semiconducting-material role,” said Dr Szkopek, who is the senior author of the paper published in the journal Nature Communications. sci-news.com
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Why Do Puddles Stop Spreading?
When you spill a bit of water onto a tabletop, the puddle spreads — and then stops, leaving a well-defined area of water with a sharp boundary. There’s just one problem: The formulas scientists use to describe such a fluid flow say that the water should just keep spreading endlessly. Everyone knows that’s not the case — but why? This mystery has now been solved by researchers at MIT — and while this phenomenon might seem trivial, the finding’s ramifications could be significant: Understanding such flowing fluids is essential for processes from the lubrication of gears and machinery to the potential sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions in porous underground formations. [...]
“The classic thin-film model describes the spreading of a liquid film, but it doesn’t predict it stopping,” [graduate student Amir] Pahlavan says. It turns out that the problem is one of scale, he says: It’s only at the molecular level that the forces responsible for stopping the flow begin to show up. And even though these forces are minuscule, their effect changes how the liquid behaves in a way that is obvious at a much larger scale. “Within a macroscopic view of this problem, there’s nothing that stops the puddle from spreading. There’s something missing here,” Pahlavan says. Classical descriptions of spreading have a number of inconsistencies: For example, they require an infinite force to get a puddle to start spreading. But close to a puddle’s edge, “the liquid-solid and liquid-air interfaces start feeling each other,” “These are the missing intermolecular forces in the macroscopic description.” Properly accounting for these forces resolves the previous paradoxes, he says.
mit.edu