Welcome to Science Saturday, where the Overnight News Digest crew informs and entertains you with this week's news about science, space, and the environment.
This week's featured articles come from Discovery News on YouTube, Our Amazing Planet via MSNBC, and th L.A. Times.
First, the weird news.
A hurricane, an earthquake -- it's been a wild week here on the East Coast. And it's happened twice before in history -- but never before in the same place.
Now, the good news.
Why Hurricane Irene not worst-case for NYC
By Brett Israel
OurAmazingPlanet
updated 8/27/2011 3:12:26 PM ET
Irene is predicted to be the latest in 2011's string of billion-dollar weather disasters. But for New York City, Irene is not shaping up to be the worst-case scenario it could be.
Forecasts show Irene hitting central Long Island, N.Y., sometime Sunday (Aug. 28), leaving New York City with the "clean side" of the hurricane and without the major storm surge. The city will mostly see "blustery rains and strong winds," said Eugene McCaul, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has forecast around 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain for New York City from Irene.
Interactive infographic showing location and windspeed of Irene at the link.
Finally, the bad news.
Hurricane Irene churns its way north; 8 dead
August 27, 2011
Hurricane Irene, a ferocious and slow-moving storm, smashed into North Carolina on Saturday morning, then slowly swirled its way up the Eastern Seaboard, flooding low-lying areas, knocking out power to as many as 1 million customers and forcing the densely populated regions of Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City to take unprecedented steps as they braced for impact.
At least eight people are known to have died as a result of the storm in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida.
Irene is expected to continue its northward path through New England before weakening early Sunday morning. The youngest victim, an 11-year-old boy, was killed when a tree crashed through his apartment building in Newport News, Va.
More on these and other science, space, and environment stories after the jump.
Recent Science Diaries and Stories
Hunting and Fishing for Science
by Gary Hurd
Not all Republicans are Stupid but If You're Stupid, You're Probably a Republican
by joelgp
Hurricane Irene Makes Landfall -- Hurricane Force Winds Spreading Across E. NC
by weatherdude
Lake Huron Salmon Population Crashes, Department of Natural Resources in Retreat
by Muskegon Critic
Look out for Hurricane: "Can't-Afford-it"
by jamess
This week in science
by DarkSyde
Books about hurricanes
by annetteboardman
11PM Hurricane Irene Video
by weatherdude
There are also non-science diaries on Hurricane Irene
Slideshows/Videos
Space.com: Satellite Photo Shows Hurricane Irene Battering US East Coast
by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor
Date: 27 August 2011 Time: 04:13 PM ET
A new view of Hurricane Irene from a satellite orbiting Earth shows the powerful storm just after it made landfall on the U.S. East Coast today (Aug. 27).
The new hurricane photo, taken by NOAA's GOES 13 weather satellite 22,300 miles (nearly 36,000 km) above Earth, shows Irene as it appeared at 10:10 a.m. EDT (1410 GMT).
"At that time Irene's outer bands had already extended into New England," Rob Gutro of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., wrote in a hurricane update.
MSNBC: Irene as seen from space
MSNBC: Possible meteorite shoots over Peru
MSNBC: Astronomers see black hole devour star
Via MSNBC, Space.com has the story: Black hole caught in act of swallowing a star
A scientific first, it sheds light on bursts of matter that shoot out at nearly speed of light
Space.com: US Military Video Shows Hypersonic Aircraft Test Flight
SPACE.com Staff
Date: 25 August 2011 Time: 05:13 PM ET
The U.S. military released new details today (Aug. 25) about the recent test flight of a super-fast prototype aircraft, along with a video showing the vehicle streaking through the sky at more than 20 times the speed of sound.
The shaky, minute-long video was taken with a handheld camera aboard a tracking vessel in the Pacific Ocean. It shows the unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), billed as the fastest aircraft ever built, blazing bright in the sky on its way to an ocean splashdown.
The HTV-2 suffered an anomaly shortly after its Aug. 11 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, guiding itself into the Pacific sooner than military officials had hoped.
Space.com via MSNBC: Striking photo looks into 'Eyes' of cosmic Virgin
Observatory in Chile takes photo of Virgo — 50 million light-years away
updated 8/25/2011 1:10:23 PM ET
This striking image, taken with ESO's Very Large Telescope, shows a beautiful yet peculiar pair of galaxies, NGC 4438 (top) and NGC 4435, nicknamed The Eyes. The two galaxies belong to the Virgo Cluster and are about 50 million light-years away.
MSNBC: Small quake has big reach
By John Roach
A magnitude-5.8 earthquake in Virginia Tuesday afternoon was felt across the U.S. East Coast, shaking offices and nerves from Washington D.C. to New York City and as far south as Chapel Hill, North Carolina. There are even reports of shaking as far west as Columbus, Ohio, and out on Martha's Vineyard.
That's a whole lot of shaking for what amounts to a medium-sized quake. The reason for its reach, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, is geology of the East Coast.
"The reason an earthquake in the high 5s is felt so far away is that it occurred in an area … where the bedrock is solid, it's not really fractured or broken up by faults the way it would be, say, in California," Peter Powers, a geophysicist with the survey, told me today.
There are three videos embedded in the article.
Space.com: Extraterrestrial Hurricanes: Other Planets Have Huge Storms, Too
by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
Date: 26 August 2011 Time: 03:37 PM ET
By Earth standards, Hurricane Irene is a monster storm. But it's just a baby compared to the massive cyclones of Jupiter and Saturn.
Our planet is not the only one in the solar system that boasts huge, hurricane-like storms. The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, for example, churn out spinning squalls that can be bigger than the entire Earth. While these storms aren't fed by warm ocean water the way terrestrial hurricanes are, they're similar in a lot of ways, scientists say.
"There certainly are storms that have thunder and lightning and rain that are bigger than terrestrial hurricanes," said atmospheric scientist Andrew Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology, a researcher with NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn. "And more violent — the winds on those planets are stronger, too."
Astronomy/Space
Space.com via MSNBC: Hurricane Irene puts NASA space centers on alert
As storm approaches, the space administration battens down the hatches
By Tariq Malik
updated 8/26/2011
NASA, like much of the U.S. East Coast, is battening down the hatches against the arrival of Hurricane Irene. NASA centers and facilities from New York City to Florida took measures to prepare for the storm's onslaught this weekend.
Hurricane Irene is a Category 2 storm currently, and it's expected to batter the East Coast with rain and a storm surge that could cause flooding in many low-lying areas. NASA has several potentially vulnerable space centers in the region, and employees at each of them are making their own preparations to weather Irene.
"There are contingencies for these types of things," NASA spokesperson Doc Mirelson told SPACE.com from the space agency's headquarters in Washington today (Aug. 26), where employees were leaving early and taking tools to allow off-site work if required. "With our 10 field centers [across the country], we have the ability to shift operations around as needed."
Space.com via MSNBC: Closest supernova in 25 years a 'cosmic classic'
Astronomers expect 'wild ride' as the drama unfolds — and you can see it, too
August 26, 2011
Astronomers have spotted the closest supernova in a generation — and in a week or so, stargazers with a good pair of binoculars might be able to see it, too.
The supernova, or exploded star, flared up Tuesday night in the Pinwheel Galaxy, just 21 million light-years from Earth. It's the closest star explosion of its type observed since 1986, and astronomers around the world are already scrambling to train their instruments on it.
Researchers said they think they caught the supernova, named PTF 11kly, within hours of its explosion.
Space.com via MSNBC: Y dwarf star? Because they're cool, that's Y!
Even humans are warmer than brown dwarfs found by WISE space telescope
By Charles Q. Choi
updated 8/26/2011 1:23:02 PM ET
Scientists have discovered the coldest type of star-like bodies known, which at times can be cooler than the human body.
Astronomers had unsuccessfully pursued these dark entities, called Y dwarfs, ever since their existence was theorized more than a decade ago. They are nearly impossible to see relying on visible light, but with the infrared vision of NASA's WISE space telescope, researchers finally detected the faint glow of six Y dwarfs relatively close to our sun, within a distance of about 40 light-years.
Y dwarfs are the coldest members of star-like bodies known as brown dwarfs, which are odd objects sometimes known as failed stars.
...
So far, WISE has helped find 100 new brown dwarfs.
Space.com via MSNBC: Saturn has rings — this planet has diamonds
Parent of newly spotted body is a special kind of flashing star, a millisecond pulsar
By Nola Taylor Redd
updated 8/25/2011 4:23:45 PM ET
A newly discovered alien planet that formed from a dead star is a real diamond in the rough.
The super-high pressure of the planet, which orbits a rapidly pulsing neutron star, has likely caused the carbon within it to crystallize into an actual diamond, a new study suggests.
The composition of the planet, which is about five times the size of Earth, is not its only outstanding feature.
The planet's parent star is a special kind of flashing star known as a millisecond pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star formed from a supernova. The entire system, which is only the second of its kind ever discovered, is located about 4,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Serpens (The Snake).
Space.com via MSNBC: Turns out, our meteorites came from asteroids
Japanese mission's collection of space rock samples solves mystery of origin
By Charles Q. Choi
updated 8/25/2011 5:52:31 PM ET
The longstanding mystery of where most meteorites striking our planet come from has now been solved by the first asteroid samples that a spacecraft has ever returned to Earth.
This discovery is just one of many unearthed with the aid of the Japanese asteroid probe Hayabusa. Another is that asteroids may be shrinking away to nothing, researchers said.
Hayabusa faced many perils on its seven-year mission, including fuel leaks, engine trouble and the loss of the lander intended to gather space rock samples. Nevertheless, the unmanned mission succeeded when a capsule containing more than 1,500 grains of asteroid dust parachuted into the Australian outback in June 2010.
Reuters via MSNBC: Russian crash clouds space station operations
Moscow remains silent, but others want to ground spaceships until answers found
By Alissa de Carbonnel
updated 8/25/2011 2:04:18 PM ET
MOSCOW — Uncertainty clouded International Space Station operations on Thursday after an unmanned Russian supply mission for six astronauts in orbit crashed, unnerving NASA and others who rely entirely on Moscow to ferry crews.
Russia's space agency has kept quiet on its plans and set up a commission to study the crash. But astronauts, experts and foreign space officials said missions should be grounded for the near future until a thorough investigation can help calm fears.
Coming on the heels of a series of costly botched launches, Wednesday's loss of the unpiloted craft, which caught fire in the sky before plummeting to Siberia, was a major embarrassment for Russia's industry and sparked a flurry of criticism at home.
Evolution/Paleontology
University of Alberta (Canada) via physorg.com: Giving fossils a new look
By Ryan Heise
August 25, 2011
You wouldn’t expect studying fossils to be a part of engineering research, but a team in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is applying computer engineering ingenuity to find a new method for digitizing, studying and sharing microfossil samples.
Professor Dileepan Joseph, PhD candidate Adam Harrison, and master’s of science student Cindy Wong have developed a new way to digitally capture and display microfossils and other specimens, called Virtual Reflected-Light Microscopy.
The process is achieved by capturing a series of digital images of a microfossil through a microscope. Each image is taken with a light source shifted at different points around the sample, which creates different shadows on its surface. This allows the team to extract a three-dimensional map of the sample, which computer software can further interpret. The result is imagery that is on par with viewing a real microfossil sample. Users can control the angle, intensity, and type of light hitting the sample, and can even view it in 3-D using 3-D glasses.
University of Michigan via physorg.com: Ancient whale skulls and directional hearing: A twisted tale
August 22, 2011
Skewed skulls may have helped early whales discriminate the direction of sounds in water and are not solely, as previously thought, a later adaptation related to echolocation. University of Michigan researchers report the finding in a paper to be published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of Aug. 22.
Asymmetric skulls are a well-known characteristic of the modern whale group known as odontocetes (toothed whales). These whales also have highly modified nasal structures with which they produce high-frequency sounds for echolocation---a sort of biological sonar used to navigate and find food. The other modern whale group, mysticetes (baleen whales), has symmetrical skulls and does not echolocate.
These observations led scientists to believe that archaeocetes---the extinct, ancient whales that gave rise to all modern whales---had symmetrical skulls, and that asymmetry later developed in toothed whales in concert with echolocation. But a new analysis of archaeocete skulls by U-M postdoctoral fellow Julia Fahlke and coauthors shows that asymmetry evolved much earlier, as part of a suite of traits linked to directional hearing in water
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
LiveScience via MSNBC: Fossil shows daddy longlegs remain unchanged
Scientists amazed 3-D images show harvestmen nearly still same after 300 million years
By Jennifer Welsh
updated 8/23/2011 5:00:11 PM ET
Daddy longlegs have been skittering around the Earth for more than 300 million years, as confirmed by the discovery and imaging of two species that lived in the forests of what is now France before the time of the dinosaurs.
Detailed 3-D reconstructions of the two species reveal that they look surprisingly similar to modern daddy longlegs, which are also known as harvestmen and commonly mistaken for spiders. Each had eight long legs and a flat, circular body, spanning about 0.4 inches in length.
"It is absolutely remarkable how little (that) harvestmen have changed in appearance since before the dinosaurs," study researcher Russell Garwood, of Imperial College London, said in a statement. "If you went out into the garden and found one of these creatures today, it would be like holding a little bit of prehistory in your hands."
Biodiversity
LiveScience via MSNBC: Newly discovered warrior wasp has giant jaws
2.5-inch long insect is dubbed the 'Komodo dragon' of wasps
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
updated 8/25/2011 8:38:53 PM ET
A giant male wasp with jaws that, when open, are longer than its front legs was discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, researchers announced last week.
Researchers called the shiny black wasp, which is about 2.5 inches long, the "Komodo dragon" of the wasp family.
"Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male's front legs," said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohard Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis. "I don't know how it can walk."
LiveScience via MSNBC: Here's a monkey you've never seen before ...
Expedition in Amazon discovers possible new species in mid-western Brazil
By Wynne Parry
updated 8/26/2011 6:17:05 PM ET
A possible new species of monkey has been discovered during an expedition in an unexplored part of the Amazon in mid-western Brazil.
A specimen, which scientists know is a type of Callicebus, or titi, monkey has been turned over to experts at the Emílio Goeldi Museum in the Brazilian state of Para, where it will be studied and formally described.
"This primate has features on its head and tail that have never been observed before in other titi monkey species found in the same area," said Julio Dalpone, the biologist who discovered the monkey during the World Wide Fund for Nature-backed expedition.
Biotechnology/Health
The Guardian (UK): Black Death study lets rats off the hook
Plague of 1348-49 spread so fast in London the carriers had to be humans not black rats, says archaeologist
Maev Kennedy
Rats weren’t the carriers of the plague after all. A study by an archaeologist looking at the ravages of the Black Death in London, in late 1348 and 1349, has exonerated the most famous animal villains in history.
“The evidence just isn’t there to support it,” said Barney Sloane, author of The Black Death in London. “We ought to be finding great heaps of dead rats in all the waterfront sites but they just aren’t there. And all the evidence I’ve looked at suggests the plague spread too fast for the traditional explanation of transmission by rats and fleas. It has to be person to person – there just isn’t time for the rats to be spreading it.”
He added: “It was certainly the Black Death but it is by no means certain what that disease was, whether in fact it was bubonic plague.”
International Business Times via BBC: Scientists Solve Lager Beer Mystery, Crack Yeast's DNA Code
By IB Times Staff Reporter
August 23, 2011 6:05 AM EDT
Scientists have cracked the mystery behind lager beer after years of research, and found the yeast's genomic foundation, paving the way for new types of designer beers.
The parent yeast of lager is believed to have journeyed from Patagonia to Bavaria, in what is now Germany, giving birth to the most popular alcoholic beverage of today.
Scientists are still unable to find out how yeast traveled from South America to the caves and monasteries of Bavaria where lager beer was born. But lager beer brewing began in the 16th century, about the same time as the rise of trans-Atlantic trade, so the yeast, a microscopic stowaway destined for great things, may have hitched a ride on a sailing ship, perhaps on a piece of wood or in the stomach of a fruit fly.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Climate/Environment
LiveScience via MSNBC: El Nino a factor in some country conflicts, study finds
'It is really the poorest countries that respond ... with violence,' co-author says
By Wynne Parry LiveScience Senior Writer
updated 8/24/2011 8:19:23 PM ET
Global climate fluctuations bear some responsibility in violent conflicts, according to a new study that has linked the hot, drier weather brought by the El Niño climate pattern with civic conflicts within the affected countries.
Using data from 1950 to 2004, the researchers concluded that the likelihood of new conflicts arising in affected countries, mostly located in the tropics, doubles during El Niño years as compared with wetter, cooler years. The weather El Niño brings had a hand in roughly one out of five conflicts during this period, they calculate.
"We believe this finding represents the first major evidence that global climate is a major factor in organized violence around the world," said Solomon Hsiang, the lead author of the study who conducted the research while at Columbia University...
This conclusion — that fluctuations in climate can contribute to violence in modern societies — is a controversial proposal. In this case, the researchers admit they have yet to untangle the mechanisms that link a change in sea surface temperature with, for example, a guerilla war.
LiveScience via MSNBC: On the trail of a mysterious cloud ingredient
We don't know much about those puff balls, but researchers are gaining ground
By Stephanie Pappas
updated 8/24/2011 2:25:14 PM ET
The bad news about clouds: We know even less about them than we thought we did.
The good news: We might be on our way to figuring them out.
A new cloud chamber that contains man-made air and uses a particle beam to mimic cosmic rays has revealed that cloud formation in the lower atmosphere involves at least one ingredient as yet unknown to science. However, the experiment also has uncovered some chemical fingerprints that may help researchers track down the mystery vapor.
Geology
LiveScience via MSNBC: How barrier islands survive fury of hurricanes
They have a way of changing and rebuilding — if humans stay out of picture
By Stephanie Pappas
updated 8/26/2011 12:14:19 PM ET
The incoming fury of Hurricane Irene has prompted mandatory evacuations along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. These narrow strips of sand are barrier islands, shaped by thousands of years of waves and tides. Low-lying barrier islands are particularly vulnerable to pounding by storms. Left to their own devices, however, these sandy outposts are surprisingly resilient, geologists say.
"They have ways of protecting themselves," said George Voulgaris, a professor of marine and geological sciences at the University of South Carolina. "Yes, a hurricane will make lots of changes, but the barrier island will recover over time."
Humans can disrupt this process by building on barrier islands, disrupting the natural movement of sand, Voulgaris told LiveScience.
Psychology/Behavior
Discovery News: Daily Commutes Tougher on Women
Analysis by Marianne English
Fri Aug 26, 2011 10:10 AM ET
Many psychologists study how a person's job affects his or her well-being, but little research has looked at the mental impact of another regular activity: commuting to and from work.
One recent analysis seems to suggest that women are more negatively affected by commuting than men.
Archeology/Anthropology
Past Horizons: Domestication of horses may stretch back 9000 years
August 25, 2011
Al-Magar site is located in an area situated between Tathleeth and Wadi Al Dawasir. In March, 2010, the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities began site survey and exploration after the site was reported by a local.
The 9000 year old culture is named al-Maqar after the site’s location in a region previously unexplored by archaeologists.
However, the discovery of remarkable artefacts and horse bones “will challenge the theory that the domestication of horses [and other animals] took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia”, said Ali al-Ghabban, Vice-President of Antiquities and Museums at the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities.
Past Horizons: New gene study shows origins of European men
August 26, 2011
Genetic evidence reveals that most British men are not descended from immigrant farmers contrary to previous research.
Instead, scientists from the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh say that most European men can trace their lineage to people – most likely hunter-gatherers – who had settled in Europe long before that time.
The latest study, based on the most common genetic lineage in European males, aims to correct an analysis of genetic data, published last year.
It had reported that most British men came from people who migrated west around 5,000-10,000 years ago with the spread of agriculture, from the Near East.
The Guardian (UK): Archaeologists discover Roman port in Wales
Second known port of Roman Britain unearthed during archaeological dig near fortress of Caerleon
Mark Brown
August 23, 2011
Archaeologists have discovered only the second known port of Roman Britain, where soldiers would have arrived in numbers from the Mediterranean to aid in the fight against some of the most stubborn and hostile of all the tribes they had to face.
Over the last year, archaeologists have been digging near the Roman fortress of Caerleon, just north of Newport, south Wales, and have made some remarkable discoveries. On Tuesday, the site was declared the only known Roman British port outside London.
"It is extremely exciting," Peter Guest, leading the excavation team from Cardiff University, said. "What we have found exceeds all expectations. It now seems clear that we're looking at a new addition to our knowledge of Roman Britain."
Irish Examiner: Church roof over 500 years old, study reveals
By Conor Kane
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A SCIENTIFIC study has confirmed a "truly spectacular find" that proves oak timbers from a church in a heritage town are over 500 years old.
The timbers from the roof of the Holy Trinity Church of Ireland in Fethard, Co Tipperary, were sampled in June and examined at Queen’s University in Belfast.
It is now the only medieval roof in Ireland to be accurately dated.
David Brown, of the university’s school of geography, archaeology and palaeoecology, said analysis of the tree rings from the roof revealed a felling date of 1489, plus or minus nine years.
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (France) via physorg.com: Scanners reveal a wreck on the bottom of Lake Geneva
August 24, 2011
The Russian submersibles involved in EPFL’s elemo project have discovered a new wreck on the bottom of the lake. Underwater archaeology is benefiting from scanners developed for scientific research.
“It’s always a memorable moment when you find an unknown shipwreck. It’s not on the maps, and after having gone around it, I didn’t see any inscription on its hull,” explains Evgeny Chernyaev, who was piloting the submersible. Diving off the shores of la Tour-de-Peilz, he was taking sediment samples. The sonar indicated a large object off to one side. It was a sunken boat. The team was lucky; the portholes provide only a very limited range of vision and the sonar only sweeps 200m in front of the submersible, with an arc of 90°. The wreck is most likely an old barge used for hauling stone or gravel.
“The boat, about 30 meters long, could date from the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century. It must have sunk while navigating, because the anchor and other components were still on board, whereas boats that were sunk deliberately would have been stripped of all useful equipment,” explains Carinne Bertola, from the Musée du Léman in Nyon. Bertola, a specialist in shipwrecks, thinks that it was an old barge that transported materials extracted from quarries in the St. Gingolph area. The pilot confirms this: “The state of the wreck leads me to think that it dates to the same time as that of the Rhône, which is not far away.”
Agence France Presse via physorg.com: Norway wants explorer ship back 80 years after sinking
by Michel Viatteau and Michel Comte
August 22, 2011
Eighty years after it sank in the Canadian Arctic, explorer Roald Amundsen's three-mast ship Maud may once again sail across the Atlantic to become the centerpiece of a new museum in Norway.
Canada, however, must still agree to the repatriation plan hatched by Norwegian investors, amid strong opposition from locals in the Canadian territory of Nunavut who want the ship to stay for tourists to admire from shore.
The wreck now sits at the bottom of Cambridge Bay in Nunavut, but its hulk is partly visible above the frigid waters that preserved it for decades.
"The incredibly strong-built oak ship has been helped by the Arctic cold and clean water to be kept in a reasonably good shape," said Jan Wanggaard, a Norwegian who recently visited the wreck to sort out technical problems with raising the ship as well as to survey the views from locals and officials.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman, who sent in the above articles.
Physics
Science News: Solar cells could get quantum boost
Atoms' fuzzy energy levels could be exploited to enhance photovoltaics and semiconductor lasers, study suggests
By Devin Powell
Web edition : Friday, August 26th, 2011
Adding a bit of quantum fuzz could provide a free power boost to lasers and solar panels. Blurry atoms that can exist in two states at once should help such devices more efficiently harness energy from light, a new analysis suggests.
“The key is … we can now do things in quantum optics that we didn’t think we could do 20 years ago,” says Marlan Scully of Texas A&M University in College Station and Princeton University, who led the new analysis that will appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In a semiconductor laser, electrons jump to a higher energy level when struck by light and emit laser light by falling back to a lower energy level. Some of the energy absorbed by the particle inevitably winds up as waste heat.
Chemistry
Discovery News: Graphene and Buckyballs Might Be Lurking in Space
Analysis by Jennifer Ouellette
Wed Aug 24, 2011 06:16 PM ET
With the help of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, a team of astronomers affiliated with the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) in Tucson, Arizona, think they might have spotted the first examples of extragalactic carbon-based molecules in space: fullerenes and graphene.
And they also think they have an explanation for why those molecules are there: shocks from collisions between bits of carbon blown about by the strong stellar winds found in planetary nebulae. Their conclusions appeared in a recent paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Energy
MSNBC: Bug turns newspaper into fuel
By John Roach, contributing writer at msnbc.com.
The Internet is delivering a slow death to newspapers, but many of us still have piles of the stuff around the house that a microbe called TU-103 will convert to butanol, a biofuel that is nearly as energy dense as unleaded gasoline.
"This is a bacterium that we isolated straight out of nature," David Mullin, a cell and molecular biologist at Tulane University in New Orleans, told me today.
In fact, it was isolated from a truckload of feces he and colleagues collected from grass-eating animals at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, figuring their intestinal tracts likely harbored a naturally occurring microbe that had the qualities they sought.
They were looking for a microbe that produces butanol from cellulose — a woody, fibrous material in plants — rather than more expensive sugars and starches, as well as one that does this in the presence of oxygen.
Science, Space, Environment, and Energy Policy
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: King Arthur loses Stonehenge legal battle
Updated August 24, 2011 10:42:18
A British druid named King Arthur has failed in his legal bid to have ancient human remains returned to a burial site at the historic English monument of Stonehenge.
The self-styled druid, who appeared in white robes as he represented himself at the High Court in London, wanted judges to review a government decision to allow experts to keep the remains for testing.
The remains of more than 40 bodies, thought to be at least 5,000 years old, were removed in 2008 from a burial site at Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument in south-west England famed for its semi-circle of large standing stones.
Whidbey News Times: Most Oak Harbor officials knew about archaeological site before project started
By JUSTIN BURNETT
Whidbey News Times Staff reporter
Aug 27 2011
Everybody knew.
Or at least very few Oak Harbor decision-makers can legitimately claim they had no prior knowledge of a known archaeological site near SE Pioneer Way, according to city documents obtained through a Whidbey News-Times public records request.
If they didn’t work on the project directly, they were provided with documents that revealed both the site’s existence and the warnings of state regulators to take the appropriate steps before construction began. Those who received the information include every single member of the city council.
The records reveal that some city officials, primarily project leaders, have known about the site for years, as far back as 2007, and that they received repeated warnings from the city’s own hired consulting firm to follow the state’s recommendations regarding the handling of Native American remains.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for these stories.
Space.com: NASA: James Webb Space Telescope to Now Cost $8.7 Billion
Dan Leone, Space News Staff Writer
Date: 27 August 2011 Time: 12:48 AM ET
WASHINGTON — NASA has confirmed a new cost estimate for its James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that a key congressional appropriator and critic cited in July in proposing to terminate the flagship-class astronomy mission.
"NASA has completed a JWST replan that assumes a revised life-cycle-cost of about $8.7 billion and a launch readiness date of October 2018," agency spokesman Trent Perrotto said in an Aug. 26 email to Space News. "The $8.7 billion life-cycle-cost includes development, launch, and five years of operations and science costs."
That figure is $2.2 billion higher than the already budget-busting lifecycle cost estimate provided by an independent review panel last year. At that time, NASA’s official cost estimate for the James Webb Space Telescope, the designated successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, was about $5 billion.
Science Education
Bowling Green Daily News: Looking for puzzle pieces
KSP enlist help of WKU anthropology students in search for human bones
By DEBORAH HIGHLAND, The Daily News, dhighland@bgdailynews.com
Friday, August 26, 2011 9:43 PM CDT
GLASGOW — Renee Pinkston sifted through soil and weeds Friday hunting for human bones down a steep embankment just off the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway near Beaver Creek.
Under the scorching sun, she found part of a human sternum and a phalange bone. They were two more pieces of a human puzzle that Kentucky State Police are trying to put together to determine the identity of the woman whose skeletal remains were discovered Aug. 15, when state contract workers spraying for weeds found a skull that had been pierced by a bullet.
Pinkston, a recent Western Kentucky University anthropology graduate from Leitchfield, was part of a team of seven current and former anthropology students, two professors and three state police troopers digging into the soil near the eastbound stretch of road, west of Glasgow near mile marker 8.
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science Writing and Reporting
PCWorld: Can You Do Real Work With the 30-Year-Old IBM 5150?
Our intrepid reporter spends a week trying to write, browse the Web, edit photos, and even (shudder) tweet on IBM's first PC.
By Benj Edwards, PCWorld
Aug 11, 2011 8:00 pm
When IBM released its first personal computer, the 5150, 30 years ago, it was deliberately drab--black, gray, and low-key. That’s because IBM intended the 5150 to be a serious machine for people doing serious work.
So how better to celebrate this important anniversary than by using the 5150 for what it was meant to do? Working on a 5150 seems to be a tall task in today's vastly accelerated computing world, however. Could a PC that’s as old as I am manage to email, surf the Web, produce documents, edit photos, and even tweet?
I sequestered myself for four days amid boxes of 5.25-inch floppy drives and serial cables to find out. The answer to my question turned out to be both yes and no--but more interesting was all the retro-computing magic I had to perform. In the end, my experiment proved two things:
- People now use the PC for many things that weren't even conceived of in 1981, and the 5150, unsurprisingly, is woefully underpowered for those advanced tasks. But when you use it for the core computing tasks the 5150 was designed for, IBM's first PC has still got game.
- Early floppy discs were just too darned small!
Hat/Tip to annetteboardman for this story.
Science is Cool
LiveScience via MSNBC: Doodling may draw students into science
Research shows that illustrating concepts develops creative reasoning skills
By Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience Contributor
updated 8/25/2011 3:39:41 PM ET
Science teachers may want to add doodling to their lesson plans, say researchers who found the freehand drawing may help students learn science.
Scientists often rely on visual aids, using drawings, photos, diagrams, videos, graphs and other images not only to explain findings but also to help make discoveries. For instance, ancient Greek mathematicians did not write equations, but rather used diagrams to help arrive at their points.
Emerging research is now hinting that drawing can help students learn and perform science lessons, with a group of scientists, writing in tomorrow's (Aug. 26) issue of the journal Science, suggesting that drawing should be recognized alongside writing, reading and talking as a key element in science education.
