Science talk is here one more time. Gather around and take a well deserved hiatus from all the politics of the day. 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 tiny satellites for big science, sophisticated fibers that interact with their environment, Gulf spill altering food web, nature's insect repellents, and global warming slowing coral growth in the Red Sea. Pull up a chair. There is plenty of room for everyone. Get comfy and settle in for one more session of Dr. Possum's science education and entertainment.
Featured Stories
Miniaturization comes to space along with consumer electronics as tiny satellites begin development.
Conventional satellites used for communications, navigation or research can be as large as a school bus and weigh between 100 and 500 kilograms. Universities, companies and NASA are now building small satellites that weigh less than one kilogram (picosatellites) or up to 10 kilograms (nanosatellites).
These small satellites can be considered miniature versions of full-size counterparts. They contain the same components-battery, orbital control and positioning systems, radio communication systems, and analytical instruments-except everything is smaller, less expensive and sometimes less complicated.
If researchers have their way the very clothes we wear may detect and produce sound as a result of acoustic fibers within the weave.
Ordinary optical fibers are made from a "preform," a large cylinder of a single material that is heated up, drawn out, and then cooled. The fibers developed in Fink's lab, by contrast, derive their functionality from the elaborate geometrical arrangement of several different materials, which must survive the heating and drawing process intact.
The heart of the new acoustic fibers is a plastic commonly used in microphones. By playing with the plastic's fluorine content, the researchers were able to ensure that its molecules remain lopsided — with fluorine atoms lined up on one side and hydrogen atoms on the other — even during heating and drawing. The asymmetry of the molecules is what makes the plastic "piezoelectric," meaning that it changes shape when an electric field is applied to it.
In end effect the clothes become a pizoelectric microphone of sorts.
Scientists say the Gulf spill is altering the food web
killing or tainting some creatures and spurring the growth of others more suited to a fouled environment.
The BP spill also is altering the food web by providing vast food for bacteria that consume oil and gas, allowing them to flourish.
At the same time, the surface slick is blocking sunlight needed to sustain plant-like phytoplankton, which under normal circumstances would be at the base of the food web.
Phytoplankton are food for small bait fish such as menhaden, and a decline in those fish could reduce tuna, red snapper and other populations important to the Gulf's fishing industries.
By the use of CT-scanning researchers discovered the damage being done by global warming on a species of coral in the Red Sea.
In a pioneering use of computed tomography (CT) scans, scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have discovered that carbon dioxide (CO2)-induced global warming is in the process of killing off a major coral species in the Red Sea. As summer sea surface temperatures have remained about 1.5 degrees Celsius above ambient over the last 10 years, growth of the coral, Diploastrea heliopora, has declined by 30% and "could cease growing altogether by 2070" or sooner.
The corals are building skeleton, or calcifying, at a progressively slower rate because they are losing symbiotic algae that live in the coral tissue. By performing photosynthesis, the algae provide the fuel for the corals to make new skeleton.
Even insects use repellents in an effort to discourage predators.
In the battle between insect predators and their prey, chemical signals called kairomones serve as an early-warning system. Pervasively emitted by the predators, the compounds are detected by their prey, and can even trigger adaptations, such a change in body size or armor, that help protect the prey. But as widespread as kairomones are in the insect world, their chemical identity has remained largely unknown. New research by Rockefeller University’s Joel E. Cohen and colleagues at the University of Haifa in Israel has identified two compounds emitted by mosquito predators that make the mosquitoes less inclined to lay eggs in pools of water.
The Indian Ocean holds about 20 percent of the water on Earth's surface.
Newly detected rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean, including the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, appear to be at least partly a result of human-induced increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases...
The study, which combined sea surface measurements going back to the 1960s and satellite observations, indicates anthropogenic climate warming likely is amplifying regional sea rise changes in parts of the Indian Ocean, threatening inhabitants of some coastal areas and islands ... The sea level rise -- which may aggravate monsoon flooding in Bangladesh and India -- could have far-reaching impacts on both future regional and global climate.
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Human evolution recapped in kids' brain growth
Tetrahertz detectors may "see" a mile a way
Microsoft and NASA bring Mars down to Earth through the worldwide telescope
Plant "breathing" mechanism discovered
New virus killing farmed salmon may also pose a threat to wild species
The brain of the fly--a high speed computer
Ancient birds from North America colonized the south
New research on rapidly disappearing ancient plant offers hope for species recovery
Gorillas play tag like humans
Sea level rise will be worse for some, we just don't know who
Mud-loving, iron-lunged, jelly-eating ecosystem savior
US Senate votes to extend space shuttle program
Why tectonic plates move the way they do
Human sperm gene is 600 million years old
Tiny marine microbes exert an influence on the global climate
Mayan king's tomb discovered in Guatamala
Scientists discover the first known instance of a distant galaxy being magnified by a quasar acting as a gravitational lens
What happens when glaciers float on the ocean surface
Global trends in green energy 2009: UNEP report
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.
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. This week OND by palantir.
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.
Southern Pinwheel M83, NASA, Public Domain