Welcome, welcome. Monday is here once again right on schedule. The time has come 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 analysis explains bulge on farside of the moon, the dynamics of cat lapping, extreme global warming in the ancient past, an invading weed threatens devastation to western range lands, drinking water contamination may be a risk of underground CO2 storage, and toxic algae found in open ocean water for the first time. Pull up that comfy chair and sit by the fire. There is plenty of room for everyone. Get ready for one more session of Dr. Possum's science education and entertainment.
Featured Stories
A bulge on the far side of the moon known as the lunar farside highlands may be the result of tidal forces early in moon's history.
The paper describes a process for formation of the lunar highlands that involves tidal heating of the moon's crust about 4.4 billion years ago. At that time, not long after the moon's formation, the crust was decoupled from the mantle below it by an intervening ocean of magma. As a result, the gravitational pull of the Earth caused tidal flexing and heating of the crust. At the polar regions, where the flexing and heating was greatest, the crust became thinner, while the thickest crust would have formed in the regions in line with the Earth.
This process still does not explain why the bulge is now found only on the farside of the moon. "You would expect to see a bulge on both sides, because tides have a symmetrical effect," Garrick-Bethell said. "It may be that volcanic activity or other geological processes over the past 4.4 billion years have changed the expression of the bulge on the nearside."
As both a veterinarian and a cat owner the explanation of cat lapping was a real marvel in my world.
But recent high-speed videos made by this (research) team clearly reveal that the top of the cat’s tongue is the only surface to touch the liquid. Cats, unlike dogs, aren’t dipping their tongues into the liquid like ladles after all. Instead, the cat’s lapping mechanism is far more subtle and elegant. The smooth tip of the tongue barely touches the surface of the liquid before the cat rapidly draws its tongue back up. As it does so, a column of milk forms between the moving tongue and the liquid’s surface. The cat then closes its mouth, pinching off the top of the column for a nice drink, while keeping its chin dry.
This unusual lapping mechanism begins when the cat’s tongue touches the liquid surface and some water sticks to it through liquid adhesion, much as water adheres to a human palm when it touches the surface of a pool. But in this case, the cat draws its tongue back up so rapidly, that for a fraction of a second, inertia — the tendency of the moving liquid to continue following the tongue — overcomes gravity, which is pulling the liquid back down toward the bowl. The cat instinctively knows just when this delicate balance of power will change, and it closes its mouth in the instant before gravity overtakes inertia. If the cat waited, the column would break, the liquid would fall back into the bowl, and the tongue would come up empty.
Global warming is not only a current issue but was a problem around 40 million years ago.
Their (researhers from the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES) based at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton) analyses indicate that MECO carbon dioxide levels must have at least doubled over a period of around 400,000 years. In conjunction with these findings, analyses using two independent molecular proxies for sea surface temperature show that the climate warmed by between 4 and 6 degrees Celsius over the same period.
"We found a close correspondence between carbon dioxide levels and sea surface temperature over the whole period, suggesting that increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere played a major role in global warming during the MECO," said (researcher) Bohaty.
The researchers consider it likely that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the MECO resulted in increased global temperatures, rather than vice versa, arguing that the increase in carbon dioxide played the lead role.
An invasive weed, medusahead, is spreading across western range lands.
The sharp and twisting points on the tips of medusahead injure the eyes and mouths of animals, and give the plant its name - based on the female monster in Greek mythology that had hair composed of writhing snakes. The plant takes up other soil resources and its deep root system soaks up limited moisture. It creates fuel for wildfires, has a high silicon content that wears away the teeth of animals, is virtually inedible, and it prevents many other plants from germinating.
A new threat to drinking water may be on the horizon as underground storage of CO2 is considered.
Storing carbon dioxide deep below Earth’s surface, a process known as geosequestration, is part of a suite of new carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies being developed by governments and industries worldwide to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions entering Earth’s atmosphere. The still-evolving technologies are designed to capture and compress CO2, emissions at their source – typically power plants and other industrial facilities – and transport the CO2 to locations where it can be injected far below the Earth’s surface for long-term storage. (snip) After a year’s exposure to the CO2, analysis of the samples showed that "there are a number of potential sites where CO2 leaks drive contaminants up tenfold or more, in some cases to levels above the maximum contaminant loads set by the EPA for potable water," Jackson explains. Three key factors – solid-phase metal mobility, carbonate buffering capacity and redox state in the overlying freshwater aquifer – were found to influence the risk of drinking water contamination from underground carbon leaks.
Harmful algae blooms are reported to be increasing in frequency in coastal water.
(Researcher) Bargu’s research shows that the ubiquitous diatom Pseudo-nitzschia – an alga that produces the neurotoxin, domoic acid, or DA, in coastal regions – actually also produces DA at many locations in the open Pacific. The presence of these potent toxins in deep water environments is worrisome, given that in coastal waters, where the phenomenon has been studied, DA can enter the food chain, forcing the closure of some fisheries and poisoning marine mammals and birds that feed on the contaminated fish. The main concern, though, is that the adding of iron to ocean waters – one of the most commonly proposed strategies to reduce global warming – appears now to likely result in promoting toxic blooms in the ocean.
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Hubble helps build most detailed dark matter map yet
Republicans could scale back US science budgets
'Naked scanners' at US airports may be dangerous
Learning to read is good for the brain
Sleep makes your memories stronger
Catastrophic drought is on the horizon for capitol city of Bolivia
Tropical diversity increased during ancient global warming event
New explanation for the origin of high species divesity in the Amazon
For even more science news:
General Science Collectors:
Alpha-Galileo
BBC News Science and Environment
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LiveScience
New Scientist
PhysOrg.com
SciDev.net
Science/AAAS
Science Alert
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Scientific American
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Blogs:
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Cantauri Dreams space exploration
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Laelaps more vertebrate paleontology
List of Geoscience Blogs
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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.
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.
Carina Nebula, NASA, Public Domain