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202 These creases formed from wrinkling caused when Mercury cooled and shrank.
203 The Surface of Mercury Very similar to Earth’s moon: Heavily battered with craters, including some large basins.Largest basin: Caloris BasinTerrain on the opposite side jumbled by seismic waves from the impact.
204 Curved cliffs, probably formed when Mercury shrank while cooling down Lobate ScarpsCurved cliffs, probably formed when Mercury shrank while cooling down
205 The Plains of Mercury No large maria, but intercrater plains: Marked by smaller craters (< 15 km) and secondary impactsSmooth plains:Even younger than intercrater plains
225 Mercury’s temperature range is the greatest of any planet.
226 Its daytime temperature can reach 700o Fahrenheit.
227 And its nighttime temperature can reach -100o Fahrenheit.
228 All planets without atmospheres get very cold at night. 700o F-100o FAll planets without atmospheres get very cold at night.
229 But because Mercury is so close to the Sun… 700o F-100o FBut because Mercury is so close to the Sun…
230 …its daytime temperatures exceed those of all other planets.
231 So Mercury ranges nearly 800o F between daytime and nighttime. +700o F – (-100o) = 800o F700o F-100o FSo Mercury ranges nearly 800o F between daytime and nighttime.
232 Mercury Mercury Statistics Mass (kg) 3.303e+23 Mass (Earth = 1) e-02Equatorial radius (km) 2,439.7Equatorial radius (Earth = 1) e-01Mean density (gm/cm^3) 5.42Mean distance from the Sun (km) 57,910,000Mean distance from the Sun (Earth = 1)Rotational period (days)Orbital period (days)Mean orbital velocity (km/sec) 47.88Orbital eccentricityTilt of axis (degrees) 0.00Orbital inclination (degrees) 7.004Equatorial surface gravity (m/sec^2) 2.78Equatorial escape velocity (km/sec) 4.25Visual geometric albedo 0.10Magnitude (Vo) -1.9Mean surface temperature 179°CMaximum surface temperature 427°CMinimum surface temperature -173°CAtmospheric compositionHelium 42%Sodium 42%Oxygen 15%Other 1%The southwest quadrant of Mercury is seen in this image taken March 29, 1974, by the Mariner 10 spacecraft. The picture was taken four hours before the time of closest approach when Mariner was 198,000 km (122,760 mi) from the planet. The largest craters seen in this picture are about 100 km (62 mi) in diameter.Mercury has been visited by only one spacecraft, Mariner 10. It flew by three times in 1974 and Only 45% of the surface was mapped (and, unfortunately, it is too close to the Sun to be safely imaged by HST). A new discovery-class mission to Mercury, MESSENGER was launched by NASA in 2004 and will orbit Mercury starting in 2011 after several flybys. | <urn:uuid:e25a108b-6584-4f86-9afe-4ccb6b7b998e> | 3.890625 | 673 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 55.353712 | 95,591,710 |
Internet Search Results
Ratios and Proportions - Similar figures - In Depth
If two objects have the same shape, they are called "similar." When two figures are similar, the ratios of the lengths of their corresponding sides are equal.
IXL - Identify similar figures (Geometry practice)
Improve your math knowledge with free questions in "Identify similar figures" and thousands of other math skills.
IXL - Areas of similar figures (Geometry practice)
Improve your math knowledge with free questions in "Areas of similar figures" and thousands of other math skills.
malaphor - Wiktionary
Examples "Too many chefs in too many pies" (from "too many chefs spoil the broth" and "one finger in too many pies"); "it's like stabbing a hole in the dark" (from "a stab in the dark" and "hole in the dark");
Similar - Maths Resources
Resizing. If one shape can become another using Resizing (also called dilation, contraction, compression, enlargement or even expansion), then the shapes are Similar:
Similarity (geometry) - Wikipedia
The ratio between the areas of similar figures is equal to the square of the ratio of corresponding lengths of those figures (for example, when the side of a square or the radius of a circle is multiplied by three, its area is multiplied by nine — i.e. by three squared).
Ratio and proportion. Similar triangles. Topics in ...
Similar figures. Trigonometry depends on the meaning of similar figures.. Similar figures are equiangular, and the sides that make the equal angles are proportional.. To say then that figures A B C D E, P Q R S T are similar, is to say that the angle at A is equal to the angle at P, the angle at B is equal to the angle at Q, etc.; and ...
Determine similar triangles: AA (practice) | Khan Academy
Given two triangles with some of their angle measures, determine whether the triangles are similar or not.
Solving Proportions: Similar Figures | Purplemath
Worked examples show how proportions can be used to solve exercises involving "similar" geometric figures.
Free Pre-Algebra Worksheets - Kuta Software LLC
Free Pre-Algebra worksheets created with Infinite Pre-Algebra. Printable in convenient PDF format. | <urn:uuid:a4dcaee1-31e2-44a0-a729-ec5b0719310f> | 3.3125 | 494 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 43.308681 | 95,591,719 |
Washington: What connects Earth's largest, hottest desert to its largest tropical rainforest? The answer is 22,000 tonnes of dust per year.
For the first time, a NASA satellite has quantified in three dimensions how much dust makes the trans-Atlantic journey from Sahara desert to the Amazon rainforest.
The Sahara desert is a near-uninterrupted brown band of sand and scrub across the northern third of Africa.
The Amazon rainforest is a dense green mass of humid jungle that covers northeast South America.
Scientists have not only measured the volume of dust, they also calculated how much phosphorus - remnant in Saharan sands from part of the desert's past as a lake bed - gets carried across the ocean from one of the planet's most desolate places to one of its most fertile.
"This trans-continental journey of dust is important because of what is in the dust," said lead author Hongbin Yu, atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Nutrients - the same ones found in commercial fertilisers - are in short supply in Amazonian soils.
Instead, they are locked up in the plants themselves.
Fallen, decomposing leaves and organic matter provide the majority of nutrients which are rapidly absorbed by plants and trees after entering the soil.
But some nutrients, including phosphorus, are washed away by rainfall into streams and rivers, draining from the Amazon basin like a slowly leaking bathtub.
"The phosphorus that reaches Amazon soils from Saharan dust, an estimated 22,000 tonnes per year, is about the same amount as that lost from rain and flooding," Yu noted.
Dust is very important in many ways. It is an essential component of the Earth system.
"Dust will affect climate and, at the same time, climate change will affect dust," Yu pointed out.
The new dust transport estimates were derived from data collected by a lidar instrument on NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation, or CALIPSO, a satellite from 2007 though 2013, the US space agency said in a statement. | <urn:uuid:ef468e4b-8672-42e9-8257-b5018c98349b> | 3.921875 | 436 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 43.372103 | 95,591,721 |
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered surprising new clues about a hefty, rapidly aging star whose behavior has never been seen before in our Milky Way galaxy. In fact, the star is so weird that astronomers have nicknamed it "Nasty 1," a play on its catalog name of NaSt1. The star may represent a brief transitory stage in the evolution of extremely massive stars.
But Nasty 1 doesn't look like a typical Wolf-Rayet star. The astronomers using Hubble had expected to see twin lobes of gas flowing from opposite sides of the star, perhaps similar to those emanating from the massive star Eta Carinae, which is a Wolf-Rayet candidate. Instead, Hubble revealed a pancake-shaped disk of gas encircling the star. The vast disk is nearly 2 trillion miles wide, and may have formed from an unseen companion star that snacked on the outer envelope of the newly formed Wolf-Rayet. Based on current estimates, the nebula surrounding the stars is just a few thousand years old, and as close as 3,000 light-years from Earth.
"We were excited to see this disk-like structure because it may be evidence for a Wolf-Rayet star forming from a binary interaction," said study leader Jon Mauerhan of the University of California, Berkeley. "There are very few examples in the galaxy of this process in action because this phase is short-lived, perhaps lasting only a hundred thousand years, while the timescale over which a resulting disk is visible could be only ten thousand years or less."
In the team's proposed scenario, a massive star evolves very quickly, and as it begins to run out of hydrogen, it swells up. Its outer hydrogen envelope becomes more loosely bound and vulnerable to gravitational stripping, or a type of stellar cannibalism, by a nearby companion star. In that process, the more compact companion star winds up gaining mass, and the original massive star loses its hydrogen envelope, exposing its helium core to become a Wolf-Rayet star.
Another way Wolf-Rayet stars are said to form is when a massive star ejects its own hydrogen envelope in a strong stellar wind streaming with charged particles. The binary interaction model where a companion star is present is gaining traction because astronomers realize that at least 70 percent of massive stars are members of double-star systems. Direct mass loss alone also cannot account for the number of Wolf-Rayet stars relative to other less-evolved massive stars in the galaxy.
"We're finding that it is hard to form all the Wolf-Rayet stars we observe by the traditional wind mechanism, because mass loss isn't as strong as we used to think," said Nathan Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who is a co-author on the new NaSt1 paper. "Mass exchange in binary systems seems to be vital to account for Wolf-Rayet stars and the supernovae they make, and catching binary stars in this short-lived phase will help us understand this process."
But the mass transfer process in mammoth binary systems isn't always efficient. Some of the stripped matter can spill out during the gravitational tussle between the stars, creating a disk around the binary.
"That's what we think is happening in Nasty 1," Mauerhan said. "We think there is a Wolf-Rayet star buried inside the nebula, and we think the nebula is being created by this mass-transfer process. So this type of sloppy stellar cannibalism actually makes Nasty 1 a rather fitting nickname."
The star's catalogue name, NaSt1, is derived from the first two letters of each of the two astronomers who discovered it in 1963, Jason Nassau and Charles Stephenson.
Viewing the Nasty 1 system hasn't been easy. The system is so heavily cloaked in gas and dust, it blocks even Hubble's view of the stars. Mauerhan's team cannot measure the mass of each star, the distance between them, or the amount of material spilling onto the companion star.
Previous observations of Nasty 1 have provided some information on the gas in the disk. The material, for example, is travelling about 22,000 miles per hour in the outer nebula, slower than similar stars. The comparatively slow speed indicates that the star expelled its material through a less violent event than Eta Carinae's explosive outbursts, where the gas is travelling hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.
Nasty 1 may also be shedding the material sporadically. Past studies in infrared light have shown evidence for a compact pocket of hot dust very close to the central stars. Recent observations by Mauerhan and colleagues at the University of Arizona, using the Magellan telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, have resolved a larger pocket of cooler dust that may be indirectly scattering the light from the central stars. The presence of warm dust implies that it formed very recently, perhaps in spurts, as chemically enriched material from the two stellar winds collides at different points, mixes, flows away, and cools. Sporadic changes in the wind strength or the rate the companion star strips the main star's hydrogen envelope might also explain the clumpy structure and gaps seen farther out in the disk.
To measure the hypersonic winds from each star, the astronomers turned to NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The observations revealed scorching hot plasma, indicating that the winds from both stars are indeed colliding, creating high-energy shocks that glow in X-rays. These results are consistent with what astronomers have observed from other Wolf-Rayet systems.
The chaotic mass-transfer activity will end when the Wolf-Rayet star runs out of material. Eventually, the gas in the disk will dissipate, providing a clear view of the binary system.
"What evolutionary path the star will take is uncertain, but it will definitely not be boring," said Mauerhan. "Nasty 1 could evolve into another Eta Carinae-type system. To make that transformation, the mass-gaining companion star could experience a giant eruption because of some instability related to the acquiring of matter from the newly formed Wolf-Rayet. Or, the Wolf-Rayet could explode as a supernova. A stellar merger is another potential outcome, depending on the orbital evolution of the system. The future could be full of all kinds of exotic possibilities depending on whether it blows up or how long the mass transfer occurs, and how long it lives after the mass transfer ceases."
The team's results will appear May 21 in the online edition of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The Daily Galaxy via NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center | <urn:uuid:98f17ba1-0975-4e36-8898-c5c280a693a5> | 3.546875 | 1,371 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 42.747647 | 95,591,731 |
Why this package ?
Gryd package provides efficient great circle computation and projection library.
They are two related iterative methods used in geodesy to calculate the distance between two points on the surface of a spheroid.
All epsg dataset linked to these projections are available through python API using epsg id or name. Available projections are Mercator, Transverse Mercator and Lambert Conformal Conic.
The four main grids are available : Universal Transverse Mercator, Military Grid Reference System, British National Grid and Irish National Grid.
Gryd.Crs class also provides functions for map coordinates
interpolation using calibration points. Two points minimum are
Bug report & feedback
Use project issues.
Add / modify / fix code
- open a issue to propose your contribution
- once issue is granted
- fork this repository
- edit your contribution
- start a pull request
- implement oblique mercator
- implement epsg database maintainer | <urn:uuid:c0165eec-ec27-48e1-99eb-b6c08e151614> | 2.59375 | 205 | Product Page | Software Dev. | 16.009262 | 95,591,735 |
The research, led by assistant zoology professor Alexander Shingleton, is detailed in the recent issue of the Proceedings of the Library of Science Genetics.
In particular, Shingleton is studying the genetics of fruit flies and zeroing in on why some of the insects’ body parts will grow to full size even when suffering from malnutrition, while others will not. He uses fruit flies because they use the same genes to control this process as humans.
“The developmental mechanisms by which these changes in body proportion are regulated are really unknown,” Shingleton said.
Shingleton said that in humans, a person’s brain will grow to near full size despite malnutrition or other environmental, or nongenetic, problems.
If scientists can figure out why some organs or body parts are either overly sensitive or insensitive to environmental factors, then it’s possible that therapies could be developed to deal with any number of maladies.
“If we know how we can control sensitivity to environmental issues such as malnutrition, we can, in principle, manipulate genes that are regulating that sensitivity,” Shingleton said. “Genes can be activated so they can actually restore sensitivity.”
Type-2 diabetes is a good example of the body’s insensitivity to nongenetic issues. The most common form of diabetes, Type-2, occurs when the body becomes insensitive to insulin, which is released in response to blood sugar levels. The body needs insulin to be able to use glucose for energy.
“In diabetes, that response is suppressed,” Shingleton said. “We get desensitization. We know people become insulin resistant, but we’re not quite sure why.”
What Shingleton and colleagues discovered is that even when malnourished, the genitals of a male fruit fly continue to grow to normal size.
“The same developmental mechanism that a fly uses to make its genitals insensitive to changes in nutrition may be the same that we as humans use to modulate the responsiveness of individual body parts to changes in nutrition,” he said. “Our job is to try to understand why some body parts are responsive to changes in nutrition and others aren’t.”
Using the fruit fly for this type of research “gives us enormous information about how we as humans work and how we respond to our environment,” Shingleton said. “This provides information on biomedical issues that arise from things like malnutrition or insulin resistance.”
Shingleton’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation and MSU’s Bio/computational and Evolution in Action Consortium, or BEACON.
Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good in uncommon ways for more than 150 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU focuses its vast resources on creating solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges, while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.
Tom Oswald | EurekAlert!
Scientists uncover the role of a protein in production & survival of myelin-forming cells
19.07.2018 | Advanced Science Research Center, GC/CUNY
NYSCF researchers develop novel bioengineering technique for personalized bone grafts
18.07.2018 | New York Stem Cell Foundation
A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.
The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses...
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
13.07.2018 | Event News
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Ash Analysis Helps Understand Volcano Eruptions
News Jun 27, 2018 | Original Press Release from Tokyo Institute of Technology
Volcanic ash under the microscope comprises thousands of tiny particles with complex shapes Credit: Tokyo Institute of Technology
Volcanic eruptions come in many different forms, from the explosive eruptions of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull in 2010, which disrupted European air travel for a week, to the Hawaiian Islands' relatively tranquil May 2018 lava flows. Likewise, these eruptions have different associated threats, from ash clouds to lava. Sometimes the eruption mechanism (e.g., water and magma interaction) is not obvious, and needs to be carefully evaluated by volcanologists to determine future threats and responses. Volcanologists look closely at the ash produced by eruptions (e.g., Fig. 1), as different eruptions produce ash particles of varying shapes. But how does one look at thousands of tiny samples objectively to produce a cohesive picture of the eruption? Classification by eye is the usual method, but it is slow, subjective, and limited by the availability of experienced volcanologists. Conventional computer programs are quick to classify particles by objective parameters, like circularity, but the selection of parameters remains the task because simple shape categorized by one parameter is rarely found in nature.
Enter the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), an artificial intelligence designed to analyze imagery. Unlike other computer programs, CNN is not limited to simple parameters like circularity, and learns organically like a human, but thousands of times faster. The program can also be shared, removing the need for dozens of trained geologists in the field. For this experiment, the program was fed images of hundreds of particles with one of four basal shapes, which are created by different eruption mechanisms (examples are shown in Fig. 2). Ash particles that are blocky when rocks are fragmented by eruptions, vesicular when lava is bubbly, elongated when particles are molten and squished, and rounded from the surface tension of fluids, like droplets of water. The experiment successfully taught the program to classify the basal shapes with a success rate of 92%, and assign probability ratios to each particle even for the uncertain shape (Fig. 3). This may allow for an additional layer of complexity to the data in the future, providing scientists better tools to determine eruption type such as whether an eruption was phreatomagmatic (like second phase of Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010) or magmatic (like flank eruptions of Mt. Etna).
Dr. Shoji's study has shown that CNN's can be trained to find useful, complex information about tiny particles with vast geological value. To increase the range of the CNN, more advanced magnification techniques, such as an Electron Microscopy, can add color and texture to the results. From collaboration with biologists, computer scientists, and geologists, the research team hopes to use the CNN in new ways. The microcosmic world has always been a myriad of questions, but thanks to a few scientists studying volcanoes, answers may no longer be so hard to find.
This article has been republished from materials provided by Tokyo Institute of Technology. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.
Reference: Shoji, D., Noguchi, R., Otsuki, S., & Hino, H. (2018). Classification of volcanic ash particles using a convolutional neural network and probability. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 8111. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-26200-2
NIH Clinical Center Releases Data Trove of 32,000 CT ImagesNews
The National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center has made a large-scale dataset of CT images publicly available to help the scientific community improve detection accuracy of lesions. While most publicly available medical image datasets have less than a thousand lesions, this dataset, named DeepLesion, has over 32,000.
Analytical Tool Predicts Disease-Causing GenesNews
Predicting genes that can cause disease due to the production of truncated or altered proteins that take on a new or different function, rather than those that lose their function, is now possible thanks to an international team of researchers that has developed a new analytical tool to effectively and efficiently predict such candidate genes.
Researchers Move Closer to Completely Optical Artificial Neural NetworkNews
Researchers have shown that it is possible to train artificial neural networks directly on an optical chip. The significant breakthrough demonstrates that an optical circuit can perform a critical function of an electronics-based artificial neural network and could lead to less expensive, faster and more energy efficient ways to perform complex tasks such as speech or image recognition. | <urn:uuid:ea25f559-9a55-4434-8cc3-0f0badb1140c> | 3.71875 | 981 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 29.400227 | 95,591,741 |
Their study, published this month in of the Journal of Comparative Physiology B, shows that crest size may be a physical indicator of a male crested auklet’s quality as a mate.
Scientists have long noted that female auklets prefer males with larger crests. But until recently, they did not know why. Low levels of stress hormones in males with larger crests indicate that they cope better with the stresses of reproduction, such as finding food, competing with thousands of other birds for mates and nest sites, and helping rear chicks.
“Females will divorce shorter-crested mates for the opportunity to mate with longer-crested males. Our study suggests that longer-crested males could contribute more to reproductive success because they have greater capacity to meet the social and physiological costs,” said Hector Douglas, assistant professor of biology at the Kuskokwim Campus in Bethel.
Douglas and collaborator Alexander Kitaysky, an associate professor at the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology, say their results fit into a larger theory about animal societies.
“There appears to be a social hierarchy at the colony which is correlated with the size of the male ornament and this, in turn, is related to the levels of stress hormones,” Douglas said. “The cost of attaining and maintaining dominant status is reflected in the animals’ physiology and this has a distinct pattern in the society.”
Douglas and his field team studied the small, sooty-gray seabirds during fieldwork on Big Koniuji in the Shumagin Islands in the Aleutian Chain during June and July of 2002. They captured and measured the auklets at a mountainside colony and collected blood samples. Kitaysky’s lab analyzed the blood samples for the stress hormone corticosterone. They found that larger crests correlated with lower levels of corticosterone in the males’ bloodstream.
“Theoretically males that have a lower level of baseline stress hormone have a greater capacity to respond to additional stress,” Douglas said. “The males with the larger crests had markedly lower levels of corticosterone and therefore they should be better mates. We suspect that crest size is an outward indicator of intrinsic quality, and the data on hormones appears to confirm this.”
The project was funded by the Eppley Foundation for Research Inc. and the Angus Gavin Memorial Bird Research Fund, through the University of Alaska Foundation. The Alaska Sea Grant College Program and the Center for Global Change and Arctic System Research provided additional logistical support.
CONTACT: Hector Douglas, assistant professor of biology, at 907-543-4589 or via e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.org. Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at 907-474-7902 or via e-mail at email@example.com.
Marmian Grimes | EurekAlert!
Innovative genetic tests for children with developmental disorders and epilepsy
11.07.2018 | Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Oxygen loss in the coastal Baltic Sea is “unprecedentedly severe”
05.07.2018 | European Geosciences Union
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
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Galaxy believed to be devoid of dark matter could FINALLY prove the mysterious material does not exist, controversial research claims
- Researchers in March claimed the galaxy NGC1052-DF2 had no dark matter
- But a new paper suggests the galaxy is in fact full of the mysterious material
- The discovery challenges what is known about galaxy formation and the cosmos
A galaxy believed to be devoid of dark matter could finally prove the mysterious material does not exist, a controversial new study claims.
Researchers in March claimed the galaxy NGC1052-DF2 was the first ever found to have no dark matter - but a new paper argues the original researchers were wrong.
Based on what they say are older readings of the celestial object, the latest paper suggests the galaxy is full of dark matter, much like any other galaxy.
Paradoxically, researchers say this finding could prove the material does not exist since it revives a leading alternative theory of the universe which claims dark matter is a nonentity.
Scientists behind the original March study have hit back at the new findings, arguing that the authors of the new paper took inaccurate readings.
Scroll down for video
A galaxy believed to be devoid of dark matter could finally prove the mysterious material does not exist. Researchers in March claimed the galaxy NGC1052-DF2 (pictured) was the first ever found to have no dark matter - but a new paper argues they were wrong
Dark matter is so-called because it cannot be seen.
It is the mysterious and invisible skeleton of the universe that scientists speculate makes up about 27 per cent of the mass of the cosmos.
Astronomers use the substance to explain why there appears to be more mass in the universe than Einstein's theory of relativity had predicted.
Dark matter is supposed to be everywhere, so when researchers found a galaxy seemingly devoid of the substance in March, they were baffled.
Scientists studying NGC1052-DF2, 'DF2' for short, found almost all of its mass could be accounted for by visible stars, gas and dust - the expected 'invisible' mass consisting of dark matter was not there.
The finding promised to change our understanding of how galaxies form and quashed a leading alternative theory to dark matter.
Researchers in March identified 10 globular clusters, each containing a compact group of stars that orbit the galactic core (left). A closer look at one of these bright clusters is shown on right. A new paper claims the Yale team made inaccurate measurements
Now, a second paper published in the pre-print journal arXiv claims this galaxy acts as if it contains dark matter after all.
The March study made its finding by studying the movement of star clusters through DF2 - a thin, diffuse galaxy about 65 million light years from Earth.
Readings from the Dragonfly Telephoto Array telescope in New Mexico, which were published in Nature, appeared to show that the stars moved slower than physicists would predict had the galaxy contained dark matter.
But the new study, from researchers at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in Tenerife, claims these readings were inaccurate.
WHAT IS NGC 1015-DF2 AND DOES IT CONTAIN DARK MATTER?
NGC1052-DF2, or 'DF2' for short, is 65 million light years away and one of a newly recognised family of 'ultra-diffuse' galaxies.
They are thought of as 'ghostly' because they contain so few stars, making them very faint despite their large size.
DF2 is about the same size as the Milky Way but contains 200 times fewer stars, as well as almost no dark matter.
The weird object was first spotted by astronomers using the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, a special 48-lens telescope in New Mexico, US, designed to find ultra-diffuse galaxies.
Follow-up observations revealed a number of unusual characteristics. Unlike typical spiral galaxies, DF2 had no dense central region, and lacked spiral arms or a disc. And unlike elliptical galaxies it had no central black hole.
But the oddest thing about DF2 was revealed when astronomers estimated the galaxy's mass by measuring the speed at which clusters of stars were orbiting its centre. Slower velocity equated to greater mass.
They found that almost all of DF2's mass could be accounted for by visible stars, gas and dust. The expected 'invisible' mass consisting of dark matter was not there.
'If there is any dark matter at all, it's very little,' said Prof van Dokkum. 'The stars in the galaxy can account for all of the mass, and there doesn't seem to be any room for dark matter.'
Describing DF2 as 'astonishing', he said the galaxy was so sparse it was possible to see right through it.
They suggest the galaxy was first discovered in 1976 and had previously been referred to by three names: KKSG04, PGC3097693 and [KKS2000]04.
Researchers used the Dragonfly Telephoto Array telescope (pictured) in New Mexico to take readings of NGC1052-DF2
Using decades-worth of readings of these objects, the new paper says the Nature team measured DF2 to be much further away from Earth than is true.
The mass of galaxies is calculated by the objects' brightness and distance, and as a result of the Nature team's mismeasurement, DF2 is much less massive than thought.
This means the speed its star clusters were travelling were quite normal for the lightweight galaxy, researchers said, meaning DF2 does have dark matter.
However, Yale astrophysicist Professor Pieter van Dokkum, lead author of the March Nature paper, said the new arXiv analysis is mistaken.
'The key distance measurement comes from the Hubble Space Telescope data, and it looks like they misinterpreted it,' he told Live Science.
'The argument is a bit technical, but essentially, they mistook pixel variations for individual stars.
'If NGC1052-DF2 were as close as they claim, then the galaxy would be resolved into a sea of individual stars,' but it's not, he added.
WHAT IS DARK MATTER?
Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 27 per cent of the universe.
The enigmatic material is invisible because it does not reflect light, and has never been directly observed by scientists.
Astronomers know it to be out there because of its gravitational effects on known matter.
The European Space Agency says: 'Shine a torch in a completely dark room, and you will see only what the torch illuminates.
Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 27 per cent of the universe. It is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together (artist's impression)
'That does not mean that the room around you does not exist.
'Similarly we know dark matter exists but have never observed it directly.'
The material is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together.
Just five per cent the observable universe consists of known matter such as atoms and subatomic particles.
Dr Ignacio Trujillo, lead author of the controversial new arXiv paper, said he and his colleagues stand by their estimates.
'Our paper not only uses a criteria for estimating the distance to the galaxy, but up to five different (and completely independent) methods, and all of them converge to the same number,' he said.
If Dr Trujillo and his team are correct, the new study could prove once and for all that dark matter does not exist.
A preeminent alternative theory to dark matter suggests that the universe's 'extra' mass is caused by gravity behaving slightly differently to Einstein's predictions.
There are many mysteries swirling about the nature of dark matter – but, one thing that remains widely accepted is that it is a fundamental component of galaxies - including the Milky Way (file photo) - making up far more of their substance than normal matter
Called 'Modified Newtonian Dynamics', the theory puts forward a number of tweaks to the fundamental laws of physics that eliminate the need for dark matter.
For these new rules to be real, they would have to be consistent throughout the universe, meaning DF2's strange star cluster dynamics outlined in March all-but spelled an end for the theory.
The Arxiv paper, which is yet to undergo peer review, bizarrely revives the theory by 'proving' DF2 features dark matter.
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Inventors: Branger C
, Brisset H
, Udomsap D
Imprinted polymer and method for preparing the same
Publication date: 2015
An imprinted polymer that is not electrically conductive is obtained by polymerization of at least one monomer with at least one crosslinking agent in the presence of a target. The polymer has in its structure at least one cavity having the shape of a target and at least one redox probe assuming either a polymerizable form or a non-polymerizable form. Methods are for preparing an imprinted polymer, for detecting a target implementing such a polymer. The polymer is used as a sensor, and more particularly an imprinted sensor, an active interface to manufacture electrochemical (bio)sensors, or to manufacture solid-phase extraction substrates.
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Other products you may like: | <urn:uuid:9cbea6d5-c96f-4989-9906-9f0d5502bd02> | 2.5625 | 246 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 21.60514 | 95,591,775 |
Here, the concentration of TNT was detected by using evanescent absorption method, U-shaped plastic optical fiber was used as sensor head and light transmit element. A high brightness blue light-emitting diode with spectrum centered at 470 nm was used as excitation source. The relationship between the transmitted light power of U-shaped sensor head and TNT concentration was linearly and the linear coefficient was 0.944. The system showed excellent reversibility when the sensor tested by alternately cycling between 0 and 25 mg/100 ml TNT solution in five cycles. The stability of the sensor head in 25 mg/100 ml TNT solution was also tested within two hours. The proposed sensor is a cost-effective alternative to traditional TNT sensors and provides a platform for other optically based sensors.
"Experimental study of plastic optical fiber TNT sensor based on evanescence absorption," Optical Engineering 51(5), 054403 (17 May 2012). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.51.5.054403 | <urn:uuid:06cab0d9-03d1-48ae-a68e-65196d22bb72> | 2.734375 | 212 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 60.356667 | 95,591,780 |
Scientists have found how our planet looked to the origin of life
Bright pink pigments, whose age is believed to be about 1.1 billion years, was extracted from rocks deep beneath the Sahara desert in Africa.
Reported by the Daily Mail.
According to them, it is the oldest pigment ever existed on Earth.
“Bright pink pigment is a molecular fossil of chlorophyll that have been received by ancient photosynthetic organisms that live in the ocean. These microorganisms have long since disappeared from the face of the Earth,” said study leader Dr. Goneli, from the Australian Research centre of Earth Sciences.
According to her, this is the oldest color ever found in the geological record, it is more than half a billion years older than previously discovered pigments.
She also stated that the tiny cyanobacteria, rich in chlorophyll, dominated in the oceans billions of years ago. Therefore, when viewed from space, our planet might seem not as blue as it is now, and bright pink.
As previously reported by the portal “Znayu” NASA has made a disappointing forecast for America and humanity in General. So experts warn that even an object the size of 40-60 m, which fell to the Ground, will cause large-scale destruction and death.
The experts made a map of the fall of meteorites, which showed what would happen if an asteroid hit new York. According to experts, the explosion is able to bulldoze a neighborhood of Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, NY Rochdale, Jersey.
In danger would have been, and Staten island, Paterson, Newark, and white plains. The victims of the asteroids will be millions of people.
According to NASA 300 thousand objects larger than 40 m constitute a danger to the planet. Asteroids more than 140 meters can cause serious damage not only regional, but also the whole continents.
Such space objects strike the Earth with the energy of more than 60 megatons. You can imagine what that means, if no nuclear device in the world has such power.
Experts claim that these asteroids are not so much and they are easy to detect. More dangerous are objects the size of one kilometer or more, which can lead to a global catastrophe. | <urn:uuid:4c53d81e-35bd-4def-8571-e5e07266564d> | 3.5 | 466 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 52.611709 | 95,591,791 |
The emission of singly ionized carbon is used to identify two galaxies with redshifts of nearly 7—corresponding to the Universe's first billion years—and with velocity structures suggestive of rotation.
The earliest galaxies are thought to have emerged during the first billion years of cosmic history, initiating the ionization of the neutral hydrogen that pervaded the Universe at this time. Studying this ‘epoch of reionization' involves looking for the spectral signatures of ancient galaxies that are, owing to the expansion of the Universe, now very distant from Earth and therefore exhibit large redshifts. However, finding these spectral fingerprints is challenging. One spectral characteristic of ancient and distant galaxies is strong hydrogen-emission lines (known as Lyman-α lines), but the neutral intergalactic medium that was present early in the epoch of reionization scatters such Lyman-α photons. Another potential spectral identifier is the line at wavelength 157.4 micrometres of the singly ionized state of carbon (the [C II] λ = 157.74 μm line), which signifies cooling gas and is expected to have been bright in the early Universe. However, so far Lyman-α-emitting galaxies from the epoch of reionization have demonstrated much fainter [C II] luminosities than would be expected from local scaling relations1,2,3,4,5, and searches for the [C II] line in sources without Lyman-α emission but with photometric redshifts greater than 6 (corresponding to the first billion years of the Universe) have been unsuccessful. Here we identify [C II] λ = 157.74 μm emission from two sources that we selected as high-redshift candidates on the basis of near-infrared photometry; we confirm that these sources are two galaxies at redshifts of z = 6.8540 ± 0.0003 and z = 6.8076 ± 0.0002. Notably, the luminosity of the [C II] line from these galaxies is higher than that found previously in star-forming galaxies with redshifts greater than 6.5. The luminous and extended [C II] lines reveal clear velocity gradients that, if interpreted as rotation, would indicate that these galaxies have similar dynamic properties to the turbulent yet rotation-dominated disks that have been observed in Hα-emitting galaxies two billion years later, at ‘cosmic noon'. | <urn:uuid:5e045c53-7aae-4ac4-abdc-4dc11e16cb8b> | 2.609375 | 505 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 42.066708 | 95,591,820 |
It is shown that entrainment leads to the generation of turbulence kinetic energy in a stratocumulus layer when the virtual temperature jump at the cloud top is weaker than a critical value. The critical value increases as the relative humidity of the air above cloud top decreases. This result is interpreted as a criterion for the instability of the layer cloud to penetrative downdrafts. The role of the instability in determining the subtropical and tropical distributions of boundary-layer cloudiness is assessed.
Mendeley saves you time finding and organizing research
Choose a citation style from the tabs below | <urn:uuid:cd27f84e-2111-43cb-83d6-0757fe053354> | 2.75 | 119 | Academic Writing | Science & Tech. | 18.810357 | 95,591,824 |
Language English Tropical Rainforest Photo: Biodôme Photo: Biodôme Photo: Biodôme Photo: Biodôme de Montréal (Claude Lafond) Photo: Biodôme OngletsDescriptionDistinguishing features The golden lion tamarin has long, golden fur, and an erectile mane; its long, slender fingers end in claws. Reproduction The female bears a litter of one or two young once a year. Diet This omnivorous monkey feeds on fruit, insects and small vertebrates. It helps to distribute the seeds of the fruit it eats. Predators Its enemies are raptors such as the harpy eagle, felines including ocelots and margays, as well as large snakes. Habitat The territory of golden lion tamarins has been greatly reduced by the destruction of the primary forest on the Atlantic coast of Brazil. A number of populations are living in isolated remnants of the primary forest. They prefer swampy forests where the forest canopy is dense. Ecology, behaviour The golden lion tamarin is an endangered species. The destruction of its habitat by humans has reduced its total population to dangerous levels. Only a few hundred individuals are still living in the wild. Thanks to an international conservation program, in which the Biodôme is participating, efforts to increase their numbers have been successful. But the work must continue, for the long-term survival of the species depends on the current population being increased by 70%. French nameTamarin-lion doré Scientific nameLeontopithecus rosaliaPhylumChordataClassMammaliaOrderPrimatesFamilyCallithricidaeSizeLength: 60 to 70 cmWeight630 to 800 gLife spanIn captivity: 15 yearsStatusThreatened species, CITES, Appendix I. | <urn:uuid:ede3b8b9-6bf3-416f-92ee-8e8e80747f90> | 3.40625 | 367 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 24.984215 | 95,591,828 |
3.2 Charge in a uniform magnetic field
The action of a magnetic field on a charged particle is given
by the force law:
This force manifest very peculiar characteristics due
to two reasons:
The basic effect upon a charged particle is due to the component
of the velocity normal to the magnetic field, which generates a circular
motion in the plane perpendicular to B, without changing the component
of the velocity along B.
It depends on the velocity of the particle
It makes no work upon the particle, as F.v=0.
As a consequence, the kinetic energy of the particle remains constant | <urn:uuid:ca9d1e85-a771-424d-a3ef-471cabd77555> | 3.984375 | 126 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 38.089231 | 95,591,840 |
For humans, vision is one of the major senses for interacting with our environment. Lenses in our eyes focus light onto the retina. This image is transmitted as an electrical signal to the brain, which performs many types of processing. Simple processing can trigger reflexes that help us to avoid immediate dangers. More complex processing, performed in the visual cortex and other areas of the brain, enable us to more fully interact with our environment.
McGovern Institute investigator Michale Fee has been selected to receive a 2018 McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award for his research on "new technologies for imaging and analyzing neural state-space trajectories in freely-behaving small animals." "I am delighted to get support from the McKnight Foundation," says Fee, who is also the Glen V. and Phyllis F. Dorflinger Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Neurosciences at MIT. "We're very excited about this project which aims to develop technology that will be a great help to the broader neuroscience community." Fee studies the neural mechanisms by which the brain, specifically that of juvenile songbirds, learns complex sequential behaviors. The way that songbirds learn a song through trial and error is analogous to humans learning complex behaviors, such as riding a bicycle. While it would be insightful to link such learning to neural activity, current methods for monitoring neurons can only monitor a limited field of neurons, a big issue since such learning and behavior involve complex interactions between larger circuits.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is evolving at light-speed. Artificial systems are capable of outperforming human experts on many levels: crunching data, analysing legal documents, solving Rubix cubes, and winning games both ancient and modern. They can produce writing indistinguishable from their human counterparts, conduct research, pen pop songs, translate between multiple languages and even create and critique art. And AI-driven tasks like object detection, speech recognition and machine translation are becoming more sophisticated every day. These advances can be credited to many developments, from improved statistical approaches to increased computer processing powers.
Recently we've seen camera developments from both China and MIT that help us see and take photos around corners, but now you don't need exotic infra red, radar or wifi to spot people through walls, apparently all you need are some easily detectable wireless signals and a dash of AI. Following on from another piece of research that let MIT researchers read peoples emotions using just the WiFi signals from their home routers, another team of researchers at MIT have developed a system, called RF-Pose, where RF stands for Radio Frequency, that uses a neural network to teach RF equipped devices to sense people's movement and postures behind obstacles, and it could be used to help people keep track of elderly relatives in their homes, help gamers turn the house into a giant battleground, and help rescuers rescue people. The team trained their AI to recognise human motion in RF by showing it examples of both on camera movement and signals reflected from people's bodies, helping it understand how the reflections correlate to a given posture. From there the AI could use wireless alone to estimate someone's movements and represent them using stick figures. The scientists mainly see their invention as useful for health care, for the moment anyway, where it could be used to track the development of diseases like Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's disease.
The heyday of World of Warcraft saw online players interacting together and forming guilds. Today, artificial intelligence is sophisticated enough that computers are beginning to fill that role instead. Kumi Taguchi sits down with experts at the cutting-edge of AI, gaming and the religious experience. In this episode: Artificial intelligence is a rapidly advancing field. Robots can now cook, teach children and help care for patients with dementia, making them more and more human-like.
Uta Frith doesn't want to meet Donald Trump. "There would be no point in my saying anything to him," she says. "Mostly, when scientists give advice to politicians, politicians listen only to the things they want to hear." Frith, a developmental psychologist who works at University College London, should know. Not only has she been a pioneer in the study of dyslexia and autism -- in the 1960s, she was one of the first researchers in the UK to study Asperger's Syndrome -- but she has also been working to advance the interests of women in science for decades.
The study, led by researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, undermines the classic belief that separate cortical regions play distinct roles. Instead, as animals in the lab refined what they saw down to a specific understanding relevant to behavior, brain cells in each of six cortical regions operated along a continuum between sensory processing and categorization. To be sure, general patterns were evident for each region, but activity associated with categorization was shared surprisingly widely, say the authors of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. "The cortex is not modular," says Earl Miller, Picower Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. "Different parts of the cortex emphasize different things and do different types of processing, but it is more of a matter of emphasis. This extends up to higher cognition."
Think back to your earliest memory. What age were you in it? In a recent survey, 40 percent of people say they remember events earlier than age two. But here's the problem: Most memory researchers argue that its essentially impossible to remember anything before those terrible twos. Understanding how and why our brains form memories in the first place might convince you that if you're in that 40 percent, perhaps your memory is a fictional one after all.
One day in the spring of 2017, at the department of clinical psychology at Babes-Bolyai University, Romania, a robot stood on a table facing a child. The robot was a half-metre tall humanoid in brightly coloured plastic, like a toy. Its round eyes lit up as it spoke, its voice childlike. Across the table sat a young boy in a Pokémon T-shirt, playing a game where he had to figure out which object the lit-up eyes are looking at. Over the table-top between the pair was a horizontal display, showing two digital items, a flower and a tree. | <urn:uuid:6b9e7ef4-8e9f-4ca2-9cd5-8c2ba6e75b93> | 3.1875 | 1,274 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 35.709453 | 95,591,845 |
Two days ago I mentioned here a Gizmodo article concerning a NASA press conference scheduled for later this afternoon. At the time, the educated guess was that arsenic had been discovered on one of Saturn's moons, Titan. Further speculation generated the possibility that there may have also been evidence found of an arsenic-based bacterium living on Titan.
Well, looks like everyone was WRONG! The announcement, in fact, was about an experiment conducted on bacteria dredged up from a a poisonous, arsenic-filled lake in California, which had the phosphorous element of its DNA removed and replaced with arsenic. Bacteria have been known to process arsenic before, but never to actually be made from it. The fact that this bacteria was able to propagate after the replacement has broad implications for the possibility of life existing on other planets where Earth conditions are not the norm.
So, sorry. No alien life forms discovered. But, for biologists, this is actually a very cool moment. It was previously thought unlikely that anything could live based on arsenic. Now we know better, and thus we learn that life doesn't have to be unique to Earth.
That's pretty awesome in my book!
For more info, check out this article in today's Popular Science update.
In late May, 2017 I embarked on a trip of a lifetime. A trip to Panama's steamy tropical province, Bocas del Toro. Now, before 2017 ...
Kids are aware of a great many things going on around them than most adults realize. Especially the unpleasant things. I'm often amaze...
As many of you already know, I'm a HUGE fan of Highlander. The first movie is in my top 10 of favorite all-time flicks, but the tv sh... | <urn:uuid:980fd789-11a2-4082-afe9-e925a3a5b180> | 2.65625 | 357 | Personal Blog | Science & Tech. | 53.450969 | 95,591,853 |
When Hydrogen Peroxide is broken down there are two products, Oxygen and water. However, the breakdown of Hydrogen Peroxide requires the enzyme catalase which catalyses the reaction. Catalase is found in microbodies and in this experiment the source of catalase is yeast. The formula for the decomposition of Hydrogen peroxide is: (Catalase) H2O –> H2O + O2 The reaction is an anaerobic one, meaning it happens in the absence of oxygen. To measure the rate of the enzyme reaction I will collect the oxygen produced in the reaction over a two-minute period. Also, I will vary the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide each time.
So my experiment will look at how the concentration of H2O2 affects the speed of an enzyme controlled reaction. Enzymes, such as catalase, are used to speed up a specific reaction. Each enzyme has an active site in which the break down of the substrate occurs. However, each enzyme’s active site is shaped to fit one type of substrate and is said to be specific to the substrate. The specificity of an enzyme to its substrate is known as the ‘Lock and Key’ theory. Enzymes are globular proteins made up of amino acids and s in any globular protein; there are four types of bonding that give the protein its three-dimensional structure.
The four types of bond are disulphide bond, hydrogen bond, ionic bond and hydrophobic interactions. When it has been shaped the amino acids that make up the enzyme’s active site and called catalytic amino acids. The aim of this investigation is to find out how substrate concentration will affect the initial rate of reaction. Substrate concentration is an independent variable while the rate of reaction is a dependent variable. An independent variable is a variable that the values have already been chosen for, while the dependent variable is the result or measurement taken that would relies upon the value of the independent variable.
“For a given amount of enzyme, the rate of an enzyme-controlled reaction increases with increasing substrate concentration” (Glenn and Susan Toole, 1999). If there is a low substrate concentration then there is not enough substrate to bind with the enzyme. “However, if the substrate concentration continues to increase, with a constant enzyme concentration, there comes a point where every enzyme’s active site is forming enzyme-substrate complexes at its maximum rate.
If more substrate is added, the enzyme simply cannot bind with the substrate any faster; substrate molecules are effectively queuing up for an active site” (Indge, Rowland, Baker, 2000). “Each type of enzyme will usually act on one type of substrate molecule. This is because the shape of the active site will only allow one shape of molecule to fit. This enzyme is said to be specific to this substrate” (Jones, Fosbery, Taylor 2000). The idea that a substrate fits into the active site of an enzyme is called the ‘lock and key’ theory.
As there is no inhibitor present I can presume that there will be nothing to obstruct the enzymes active site, as inhibitors, whether permanent or temporary, can slow a reaction down by binding to an enzymes active site and blocking the substrate. For my results I would expect to see the initial rate of reaction increasing as the substrate concentration increases. At some stage on the graphs of my results the best-fit line will become constant, as this is the time where all of the active sites are working at their maximum, known as Vmax and therefore the reaction is going as quickly as it can.
Key Variable Type of Variable If control variable, how will it be controlled? Effect of variable on investigation. Substrate Concentration Control I will make solutions of 5 different concentrations using water to dilute the H202. – Temperature Independent – The higher the temperature is the faster the enzyme and substrate move. This means that there will be more collisions, meaning the reaction will happen quicker as the chances of the active site and the substrate colliding is increased. At lower temperatures the collisions are fewer, so the reaction is slower. | <urn:uuid:816897e6-ca05-468c-a93e-7775a2ba0189> | 3.4375 | 854 | Academic Writing | Science & Tech. | 33.1002 | 95,591,880 |
Ozone molecules in the stratosphere absorb much of the harmful radiation from the sun. the temp. and the pressure of ozone in the stratosphere are 250 K and 1.0*10^-3 atm. How many ozone molecules are present in 1.0 L of air under these conditions?© BrainMass Inc. brainmass.com July 18, 2018, 10:54 am ad1c9bdddf
The ideal gas law is,
PV = n RT
where R = 0.0821 L atm/mol K and n is the number
The solution gives all necessary steps required to understand solving similar problems. | <urn:uuid:74ac1899-11c5-414c-be4e-0f49c42c107e> | 3.125 | 132 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 85.310043 | 95,591,883 |
Which design principles unify the diversity of life on earth? To understand how biological designs emerged by natural selection, biomechanics studies organisms by applying engineering science and mechanics. Biomechanics studies life from molecules to ecosystems. Questions range ‘how do cells form tissue’, over ‘what shapes a muscle’ to ‘how do animals fly’ and ‘which mechanical constraints govern body shape and -dynamics when animals increase in size’. Biomechanics is applied not only to extant but also fossil organisms to reconstruct the way of life of extinct plants and animals.
Most biomechanists aim to unravel the building principles of nature by reverse engineering. But they also work in the opposite direction from biomechanical solutions to engineering designs. This field is known as biomimetics, and several examples are discussed in this issue. One famous example is George de Mestral’s invention of Velcro that was inspired by the cockleburs ingenious attachment mechanism. We are only beginning to exploit the rich source of stunning designs found in nature.
How to perform measurements in a hovering animal’s wake: Physical modelling of the vortex wake of the hawkmoth, Manduca sexta” (Tytell, E.D., and Ellington, C.P.)
How difficult is it to estimate forces on the wings of a flying insect or bird by measuring the airflow in its wake? Difficult, but not impossible, according to our study modelling the wake of a flying hawkmoth, and maybe easier on smaller animals. One of the major difficulties in studying animal flight has been that the wings often move too fast to make any useful measurements of the air flow around them. This is a sizeable problem, because insects and some small birds take advantage of a wide array of ‘high lift’ mechanisms that may be useful for future generations of flying machines. Rather than trying to make the difficult measurements around actual moving wings, most researchers have tried to deduce the forces on the wings from the airflow in the wake. While theoretically possible, this type of measurement had a setback in the ‘80s, when two studies on birds measured too little force to keep the animals aloft. Our study examines the feasibility of these measurements by studying the flow behind a highly simplified physical model of a hawkmoth. The trouble, it turns out, is turbulence. Large animals, including all but the smallest birds, produce wakes with substantial turbulence that causes the wake to loose strength rapidly, making it very difficult to back-calculate the forces around the wings. This back-calculation is not impossible, just difficult; but it is probably not feasible in a real experimental setup. Most insects, though, are small enough that their wakes are laminar, with smooth and even flow, which makes the wake strength stay constant for a long time. Our study shows that it is feasible to examine insects’ high lift mechanisms by observing the airflow in the wake behind them because of their laminar wakes.
Cyberkelp: An integrative approach to the modeling of flexible organisms (M. Denny and B. Hale)
Biomechanical models come in a variety of forms: conceptual models, physical models, and mathematical models (both of the sort written down on paper and the sort carried out on computers). There are model structures (such as the muscles that power insect flight muscle the tendons of rats’ tails), model organisms (such as the moth, Manduca sexta), even model systems of organisms (such as the communities that live on wave-swept rocky shores). These different types of models are typically employed separately, but their value often can be enhanced if their insights are combined. In this brief report we explore a particular example of such integration among models, as applied to a flexible marine alga, the giant bull kelp Nereocystis leutkeana. Because of these seaweeds’ large size and wave-swept habitat, it is difficult to make measurements on them directly. But because of their economic and ecological importance, it would be advantageous to understand how they work. A conceptual model (a submerged buoyant ball tethered to the seafloor by a rubbery string) serves as a template for the construction of a mathematical model of this model species of kelp. The validity of this numerical model is then tested in the laboratory using small physical models. The validated mathematical model is then used in conjunction with a computer-controlled testing apparatus to simulate the forces that would be placed on a real, full-size kelp in the ocean. This combination of models (what we call “cyberkelp”) allows us to experiment with a species that would otherwise be beyond our abilities.
Tim Watson | alfa
NYSCF researchers develop novel bioengineering technique for personalized bone grafts
18.07.2018 | New York Stem Cell Foundation
Pollen taxi for bacteria
18.07.2018 | Technische Universität München
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
18.07.2018 | Life Sciences
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18.07.2018 | Health and Medicine | <urn:uuid:4315cff3-e767-4280-a196-9cd787fa22c1> | 3.984375 | 1,609 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 38.512558 | 95,591,890 |
posted by Anonymous
Find three examples of the Fibonacci sequence in nature. Write a paragraph for each example. For each example, address the following questions:
How does the example relate to the Fibonacci sequence?
What portions of each item or situation display the Fibonacci sequence?
How could the Fibonacci sequence help you solve a problem involving the item or situation?
I was thinking about writing about a pine cone, a a seed head on a sunflower or something similar, and the petals on a flower that has three, five, etc petals. I fell that when I am addressing the first question, I would be answering as well because in the first question I would mention the amount of petals or something and then in the second question I would say that the petals display the Fibonacci Sequence. That makes sense, right? What I'm not sure about is the last question. How would I answer it?
you are on track. The last question: could you predict the next numbers observed?
I think I might use a nautilus shell.The growth of the shell is concurrent with the Fibonacci Sequence.
If I used two rabbits mating I could use the Fibonacci Sequence because they would have 1,1,2,3,5... Then for the third question, I could say that it would help me determine how many rabbits there are, right? | <urn:uuid:536a932f-9c97-48fd-9bd4-40f33a3279a1> | 3.609375 | 290 | Comment Section | Science & Tech. | 61.81599 | 95,591,940 |
Status: Not Listed
Approximately 20 species of armadillo exist, but the nine-banded is the only one found in the United States. The term “armadillo” means “little armored one” in Spanish, and refers to the presence of bony, armor-like plates covering their body. Despite their name, nine-banded armadillos can have 7 to 11 bands on their armor. A common misconception is that nine-banded armadillos can roll up into spherical balls. In reality, only two species of armadillo (both three-banded) are able to roll up completely. Nine-banded armadillos are about 2.5 feet (0.7 meters) long from the nose to the tip of the tail and weigh an average of 12 pounds (5 kilograms).
Nine-banded armadillos are found in the southeastern United States, but their range has been expanding continually northward for more than a hundred years. A few have even been spotted as far north as Illinois and Nebraska. Armadillos have not yet reached the full extent of their possible range, which one study has predicted may reach as far north as Massachusetts. Climate change caused by increasing carbon in the atmosphere will further expand their potential range.
They prefer warm, wet climates and live in forested or grassland habitats. Small streams are no obstacle for these amazing animals. The nine-banded armadillo can hold its breath for up to six minutes and can swim or “walk” along the bottom of rivers. Their abandoned burrows are utilized by other animals, such as pine snakes, rabbits, opossums, mink, cotton rats, striped skunks, burrowing owls, and eastern indigo snakes.
These armadillos are generalist feeders and use their sense of smell to track down almost 500 different foods, most of which are invertebrates such as beetles, cockroaches, wasps, yellow jackets, fire ants, scorpions, spiders, snails, and white grubs. A lesser part of the diet is comprised of small reptiles and amphibians as well as eggs of mammals, reptiles, and birds. Less than 10 percent of the diet is from fruit, seeds, fungi, and other plant matter.
Nine-banded armadillos almost always give birth to four identical quadruplets. At birth, the carapace of the offspring has not yet hardened and the unprotected young are extremely vulnerable to predation. Armor helps to protect armadillos from predators such as mountain lions, black bears, and alligators. Nine-banded armadillos are nocturnal and spend their waking time burrowing or feeding. They often have a bad reputation because they are the only animal other than humans that can contract leprosy, but cases of humans getting leprosy by handling armadillos are extremely rare. Nine-banded armadillos typically live from 7 to 20 years in the wild. One captive armadillo lived 23 years.
Populations of nine-banded armadillos are increasing. Humans have killed off most of their natural predators, and roadways have offered them easier means of travel to new habitats. Nine-banded armadillos have a tendency to jump straight up into the air when they are startled, which often leads to their demise on highways. They are small enough that cars can pass right over them, but they leap up and hit the undercarriage of vehicles. They are also poisoned, shot, or captured by people that consider them lawn and agricultural pests. Some are eaten or used for the curio trade.
Armadillos have long been a source of food for humans. The nine-banded was nicknamed “poor man’s pork” and “Hoover hog” by people who blamed President Hoover for the Great Depression.
Place your order today for the themed box that delivers everything you need to create family memories while discovering nature and wildlife.Read More
Find out what it means to source wood sustainably, and see how your favorite furniture brands rank based on their wood sourcing policies, goals, and practices.Read More
Climate change is allowing ticks to survive in greater numbers and expand their range—influencing the survival of their hosts and the bacteria that cause the diseases they carry.Read More
Tell your members of Congress to save America's vulnerable wildlife by supporting the Recovering America's Wildlife Act.Read More
You don't have to travel far to join us for an event. Attend an upcoming event with one of our regional centers or affiliates. | <urn:uuid:800db9cb-23cb-4871-8935-8533bd2c6a9f> | 3.765625 | 959 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 43.986015 | 95,591,951 |
A View from Brittany Sauser
Twin Spacecraft to Map the Moon's Gravity
The new NASA probes are set to launch and will create the most advanced lunar gravity map.
NASA is ready to launch a pair of twin spacecraft on a mission to map the moon’s gravity in greater detail than ever. Such insight will allow scientists to deduce the moon’s interior structure, composition, and its history. The $496 million Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission is scheduled to launch September 8; its launch window extends through October 19.
The GRAIL spacecrafts, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, will reach their destined orbit, a short 55 kilometers above the lunar surface, by January 2012. They will chase each other around the moon measuring the distance to each other with great precision. The distance will range between 121 to 262 kilometers depending on the moon’s gravitational field. The technique–twin spacecraft flying in formation–utilizes radio links between the two spacecraft as well as radio links to a station back on Earth.
“What we’re trying to measure is the width of less than a human hair,” said John Henk, Grail program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, according to Space.com. Measuring these precise distance changes allows researchers to map the lunar gravity field more accurately, 100 to 1,000 times better than previously possible, according to GRAIL scientists.
While scientists expect that the mission will improve their knowledge of the moon, they believe it should also provide information on the formation and evolution of other bodies in the inner solar system, such as Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
Couldn't make it to EmTech Next to meet experts in AI, Robotics and the Economy?Go behind the scenes and check out our video | <urn:uuid:445c12a3-af7c-4eab-93c4-87d659a06327> | 3.5 | 379 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 48.051923 | 95,591,974 |
Sandy may further intensify into a hurricane and watches and warnings have been posted in the Caribbean Sea. On Oct. 23, a Hurricane Watch and Tropical Storm Warning were in effect for Jamaica, and a tropical storm watch was in effect for Haiti.
NASA's TRMM satellite flew over the developing tropical depression 18 on Oct. 21 at 8:40 p.m. EDT. This 3-D perspective showed powerful storms near the center were reaching altitudes of over 14 km (~8.7 miles). Red areas indicate heavy rainfall of 50 mm/2 inches per hour.
Credit: NASA/SSAI, Hal Pierce
A low pressure center in the southwestern Caribbean sea was upgraded to Tropical Depression 18 by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) yesterday, Oct. 22 at 1500 UTC (11:00 a.m. EDT). The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, otherwise known as TRMM passed directly above the newly formed tropical depression on October 22, 2012 at 1533 UTC (October 21, 2012 at 11:33 p.m. EDT). TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) data were used to determine the rainfall rates occurring within the depression and the newly formed tropical depression was already showing good organization. Some intense convective storms near the center of circulation dropping rain at a rate of about 50 mm (~2 inches) per hour.
NASA's 3-D Look at Tropical Storm Sandy
A 3-D perspective was made at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. using data from TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) from the orbit. Powerful storms called "hot towers" located near the center of TD18's circulation were reaching altitudes of over 14 km (~8.7 miles). Towering thunderstorms like these at the center of tropical cyclones are often a sign of intensification.
A "hot tower" is a rain cloud that reaches at least to the top of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere. The troposphere peaks around nine miles (14.5 km) high in the tropics. The towering clouds are called "hot" because they rise to such altitude due to the large amount of latent heat. Water vapor releases this latent heat as it condenses into liquid. NASA scientists Owen Kelley and John Stout of George Mason University and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., found that a tropical cyclone with a hot tower around its center of circulation was twice as likely to intensify within the next six hours, than a cyclone that lacked a tower. That's exactly what happened on Oct. 22, when TRMM spotted hot towers in Tropical Depression 18. It became Tropical Storm Sandy just six hours later.
Sandy's Stats on Oct. 23
On Oct. 23 at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC), Tropical Storm Sandy's maximum sustained winds were near 45 mph (75 kph) and the National Hurricane Center expects the storm to strengthen over the next two days. The center of Tropical Storm Sandy was located near latitude 13.4 north and longitude 77.9 west, about 325 miles (525 km) south-southwest of Kingston, Jamaica. Sandy was moving to the north-northeast near 3 mph (6 kph) and is expected to continue in that direction for the next two days taking the center of the tropical storm near or over Jamaica on Wed. Oct. 24. Sandy's estimated minimum central pressure is 997 millibars.
NASA Infrared Data on Sandy
Infrared satellite imagery captured on Oct. 23 at 0617 UTC (2:17 a.m. EDT) from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite showed that there are bands of strong thunderstorms east of Sandy's center of circulation . Those bands of thunderstorms are reaching high into the troposphere where cloud top temperatures are as cold as -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius).
Sandy's Wind, Rain, Storm Surge
Tropical storm winds are expected to reach Jamaica during the night-time hours of Oct. 23 or early morning hours on Wed. Oct. 24. The National Hurricane Center noted that "hurricane conditions expected on Wed. Hurricane conditions are also possible in eastern Cuba by Wed. night. Tropical storm conditions are possible in Haiti on Oct. 24, and in central and southeastern Bahamas on Thurs. Oct. 24.
Sandy is expected to be a big rainmaker, generating between six and 12 inches across Jamaica, Haiti , the Domenican Republic and eastern Cuba. Isolated rainfall totals could reach 20 inches. In addition, storm surges are expect to raise water levels between one and three feet above normal tide levels.
The National Hurricane Center expects Sandy to strengthen into a hurricane over the next couple of days.Text credit: Rob Gutro
Rob Gutro | EurekAlert!
Further reports about: > 3-D image > Aqua satellite > Goddard Space Flight Center > Greenbelt > Hot microbes > Hurricane > Hurricane Center > NASA > National Hurricane Center > Precipitation Radar > Space > TRMM satellite > Tropical Depression > infrared light > precipitation > tropical Caribbean > tropical cyclone > tropical diseases > tropical storm
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For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
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Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
19.07.2018 | Materials Sciences
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19.07.2018 | Life Sciences | <urn:uuid:0873229d-c5c9-42ed-8dff-509e0cee48dd> | 3.125 | 1,691 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 52.320269 | 95,592,005 |
A bright green fireball blazed across the Midwest skies last Sunday, June 8. The cosmic event was visible from nine states, lighting up the evening in spectacular fashion.
Fragmented habitat and the fear of humans are the threats against the Massasauga rattlesnake, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently proposed as a Threatened Species under the Endangered Species Act.
In the shallow seas around a place now known for its world-famous creative-writing program at the University of Iowa, an aggressive "sea scorpion," shunted through waves. More on it and its strange Paleozoic Era fellows, here.
Researchers recently discovered an ancient sea predator in a fossil-rich site in Iowa. They named the new species after a Greek warship.
So let's talk about toxins... and fish. They normally don't go together. In fact, most living things would prefer to avoid living near toxins. However, at times they can be very helpful, as shown in a recent strategy to help protect the beautiful rainbow trout against Coldwater Disease. | <urn:uuid:7ae05c89-bfd9-452d-9bff-ea952942d93c> | 2.84375 | 218 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 54.267936 | 95,592,007 |
Nevertheless it generates 0.1 watts/tonne as decay heat and this is enough to warm the Earth's core. The nucleus of the U-235 atom comprises 92 protons and 143 neutrons (92 143 = 235).When the nucleus of a U-235 atom captures a moving neutron it splits in two (fissions) and releases some energy in the form of heat, also two or three additional neutrons are thrown off.The following data was collected from a compilation of data from the CRC Handbook and other references.If any errors or corrections are notes please advise us and we will make the corrections.
For example, uranium 235 is the isotope of uranium that has 235 protons and neutrons in its nucleus rather than the more commonly occurring 238. noun A nearly identical person; near double: Like his isotope Paglia, Rush Limbaugh can be counted on to bury the occasional nugget of truth beneath his avalanche of infuriating extrapolation and phony statistics/It actually IS you. Bromine (Br), at atomic number 35, has a greater variety of isotopes. There are two main isotopes at 79 and 81, which average out to the 79.90amu value. While it won't change the average atomic mass, scientists have made bromine isotopes with masses from 68 to 97. As you move to higher atomic numbers in the periodic table, you will probably find even more isotopes for each element.If we look at the C-14 atom one more time, we find that C-14 does not last forever.It is therefore said to be 'fissile' and we use the expression 'nuclear fission'.Meanwhile, like all radioactive isotopes, they decay. | <urn:uuid:94bf3399-feca-4414-a101-b5d2163abe46> | 3.5 | 348 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 53.963896 | 95,592,012 |
A new study at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston helps explain why practice makes perfect. Baylor researchers found that neurons in the visual cortex, the part of the brain responsible for vision, were more active when study monkeys anticipated the occurrence of predictable events. The results of the study were published in the Oct. 10 issue of Nature. "We really dont have a great understanding of what changes in the brain when we practice things," said Dr. Geoffrey M. Ghose, first author of the paper and an assistant professor of neuroscience at Baylor. "These results show that as we practice and anticipate which events are going to happen, the brain is also preparing itself."
Dr. John H. R. Maunsell, a professor of neuroscience at Baylor and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, is the studys lead author.
Researchers at Baylor trained two macaque monkeys to pay attention to changes at a specific location of a display screen. They were rewarded with juice if they pulled a lever when the change occurred. The activity of neurons in the visual cortex was measured during the experiment.
Anissa Anderson Orr | EurekAlert!
Innovative genetic tests for children with developmental disorders and epilepsy
11.07.2018 | Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Oxygen loss in the coastal Baltic Sea is “unprecedentedly severe”
05.07.2018 | European Geosciences Union
A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.
The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses...
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
20.07.2018 | Power and Electrical Engineering
20.07.2018 | Information Technology
20.07.2018 | Materials Sciences | <urn:uuid:e4def781-7379-4560-9107-bb32b03966d9> | 3.484375 | 814 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 38.992384 | 95,592,016 |
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the resurrected Tropical Storm Gabrielle on Sept. 10 at 0559 UTC/1:59 a.m. EDT and detected cloud-top temperatures of powerful thunderstorms (purple) that were colder than -63F/-52C.
Credit: NASA JPL/Ed Olsen
Another satellite was used to provide a look at the redevelopment of Gabrielle. NASA's GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created a 27 second video animation of imagery from NOAA's GOES-East satellite from Sept. 8 to 10 that shows Tropical Storm Gabrielle's resurrection. In the GOES satellite imagery, most of the clouds and showers are northeast of the center of circulation.
At 11 a.m. EDT/1500 UTC Gabrielle had maximum sustained winds are near 40 mph/65 kph and some strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours, according to the National Hurricane Center. Gabrielle was located near latitude 30.6 north and longitude 65.0 west, about 120 miles/190 km south of Bermuda. Gabrielle is moving toward the north near 12 mph/19 kph and is expected to continue in that direction through tonight before turning northwest and slowing down. The National Hurricane Center noted that Gabrielle is expected to pass over or near Bermuda tonight and early Wednesday, Sept. 11.
At 11 a.m. EDT, sustained winds in Bermuda were from the southwest at 13 mph and are expected to pick up as Gabrielle comes closer. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Bermuda. According to the NHC, Gabrielle is expected to produce rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches over Bermuda with isolated maximum totals of 7 inches possible. Bermuda can expect storm surge of 2 to 3 feet above normal tide levels, and tropical-storm-force winds are expected to begin there tonight.
For more information about NASA's HS3 Hurricane Mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/HS3
Rob Gutro | EurekAlert!
Global study of world's beaches shows threat to protected areas
19.07.2018 | NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
NSF-supported researchers to present new results on hurricanes and other extreme events
19.07.2018 | National Science Foundation
A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.
The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses...
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
20.07.2018 | Power and Electrical Engineering
20.07.2018 | Information Technology
20.07.2018 | Materials Sciences | <urn:uuid:c344103c-c665-4546-8c71-a1c9e2be51a9> | 3.25 | 982 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 48.875647 | 95,592,017 |
Environmental Management in Developing Countries
Environmental management is a relatively new and sophisticated term to describe a very old concept, i.e., an organized way to solve problems relating to the natural environment. There are about as many concepts of environmental management as there are advisors, consultants and other so-called experts in the environmental field. The success of environmental management programs in protecting environmental quality varies considerably, however. A commonly used form of ‘management’, and a very poor concept because it is not really management, is simply response to environmental problems and crises as they arise. Even countries like the USA, with seemingly comprehensive and sophisticated environmental programs, began with the ‘response to crisis’ approach in the 1940’s, 1950’s and early 1960’s, i.e., during its period of rapid industrial development.
KeywordsHost Country Pollution Abatement Brain Drain Abatement Technology Environmental Management Program
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
- Schaumburg, F.D., July, 1975, Nature — an important factor in management of the total environment, Progress in Water Technology. (Also reprinted in the Japanese water pollution control journal, Mizu, May, 1975).Google Scholar
- Schaumburg, F.D., and Antonucci, D., Nov. 1975, Environmental effects of advanced wastewater treatment at South Lake Tahoe, California, Journal Water Pollution Control Federation.Google Scholar
- Schaumburg, F.D., 1979, Critical path for environmental management in developing countries of Latin America, Journal of Environmental Systems, 9.Google Scholar | <urn:uuid:8b14fb23-c23d-4ecd-b72a-cdf17bb4baaf> | 2.984375 | 327 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 22.608478 | 95,592,026 |
A cell, whose spatial extent is small compared with a surrounding flow, can develop inside a vortex. Such cells, often referred to as vortex breakdown bubbles, provide stable and clean flame in combustion chambers; they also reduce the lift force of delta wings. This book analyzes cells in slow and fast, one- and two-fluid flows and describes the mechanisms of cell generation: (a) minimal energy dissipation, (b) competing forces, (c) jet entrainment, and (d) swirl decay. The book explains the vortex breakdown appearance, discusses its features, and indicates means of its control. Written in acceptable, non-math-heavy format, it stands to be a useful learning tool for engineers working with combustion chambers, chemical and biological reactors, and delta-wing designs. | <urn:uuid:c03cc99e-7513-42de-87f0-692d71c327c8> | 3.421875 | 161 | Product Page | Science & Tech. | 36.446049 | 95,592,032 |
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|July 23, 2018|
UC San Diego to build huge ocean simulator on campus
UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography plans to build a huge flume that will have an unmatched ability to simulate the interaction of the ocean’s surface and the atmosphere.
The $4 million machine will replace a decades-old flume that helped Scripps to greatly expand scientist’s understanding of climate and weather.
The new 100-foot long flume “will take a piece of the ocean and simulate it, from polar conditions to tropical conditions,” said Grant Deane, the Scripps researcher who is leading the project.
“It will simulate the biology, the chemistry, the waves, the wind — the whole top of the ocean. It is vitally important for climate and weather.”
The flume, which will enter service in 2021, will be able to produce 31 mph winds and control the temperature of the air and water. The machine also will be to generate phytoplankton blooms, and better enable scientists to study how air pollution and greenhouse gases affect Earth’s climate.
“One of the great discoveries that we’ve had in the last 15 years is that all these things are connected — the biology drives the chemistry, the chemistry drives the connection between the ocean and the atmosphere,” Deane said.
“If you don’t simulate all of it you’re missing some critical piece. We designed a machine that would have all of that.”
The National Science Foundation is providing $2.8 million to help develop the Scripps Ocean Atmosphere Research Simulator (SOARS) The institute will provide an additional $1.2 million. (Source: The San Diego Union Tribune)
Story Date: November 12, 2017 | <urn:uuid:4557fe0c-a95e-4095-8ef7-04159443693a> | 3 | 388 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 45.617308 | 95,592,050 |
Authors: Y. Lin, X. Cui, J. Wang, C.H. Yen and C.M. Wai
Affilation: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, United States
Pages: 524 - 527
Keywords: carbon nanotubes, fuel cell, supercritical fluid
In recent years, the use of supercritical fluids (SCFs) for the synthesis and processing of nanomaterials has proven to be a rapid, direct, and clean approach to develop nanomaterials and nanocomposites. The application of supercritical fluid technology can result in products (and processes) that are cleaner, less expensive, and of higher quality than those that are produced using conventional technologies and solvents. In this work, carbon nanotube (CNT)-supported Pt and Pt-Ru nanoparticles catalysts have been synthesized in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2). The experimental results demonstrate that Pt, Pt-Ru/CNT nanocomposites synthesized in supercritical carbon dioxide are effective electrocatalysts for low-temperature fuel cells.
Nanotech Conference Proceedings are now published in the TechConnect Briefs | <urn:uuid:54dfa7e9-d7ef-4fcf-bc08-1d09fd3ea53f> | 2.625 | 239 | Academic Writing | Science & Tech. | 25.221929 | 95,592,115 |
By Innovate Pasadena Staff — December 17, 2013
Until now, the age of interplanetary rocks could only be determined in sophisticated labs on earth. Thanks to a novel idea from Caltech geochemist Ken Farley, the Curiosity rover was able to date Martian rocks on-site. Farley was among 29 scientists who, in 2011, NASA invited to design (relatively) last-minute experiments that the rover could conduct once it arrived on the red planet. The journal Science Express recently published the historic results of Farley’s experiments--all based on data collected and analyzed right on Mars.Read the full story here. | <urn:uuid:a7291339-cc57-4205-b033-c209bb627c5c> | 3.53125 | 129 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 36.793 | 95,592,133 |
LLVM compiler infrastructure
LLVM is a compiler infrastructure designed for compile-time, link-time, runtime, and idle-time optimization of programs from arbitrary programming languages. The compiler infrastructure includes mirror sets of programming tools as well as libraries with equivalent functionality.
Source Files (show merged sources derived from linked package)
|README.packaging||00000076037.42 KB||1475872341almost 2 years ago|
|_link||0000000128128 Bytes||15214634764 months ago|
|baselibs.conf||000000005959 Bytes||1473443314almost 2 years ago|
|llvm.changes||000004550244.4 KB||15214631584 months ago|
|llvm.spec||00000092699.05 KB||15214631594 months ago| | <urn:uuid:4e7444fd-34fb-4565-923e-72083f6c54c9> | 2.59375 | 179 | Content Listing | Software Dev. | 57.065194 | 95,592,153 |
Context High-resolution animal movement data are becoming increasingly available, yet having a multitude of empirical trajectories alone does not allow us to easily predict animal movement. To answer ecological and evolutionary questions at a population level, quantitative estimates of a species’ potential to link patches or populations are of importance.
Objectives We introduce an approach that combines movement-informed simulated trajectories with an environment-informed estimate of the trajectories’ plausibility to derive connectivity. Using the example of bar-headed geese we estimated migratory connectivity at a landscape level throughout the annual cycle in their native range.
Methods We used tracking data of bar-headed geese to develop a multi-state movement model and to estimate temporally explicit habitat suitability within the species’ range. We simulated migratory movements between range fragments, and calculated a measure we called route viability. The results are compared to expectations derived from published literature.
Results Simulated migrations matched empirical trajectories in key characteristics such as stopover duration. The viability of the simulated trajectories was similar to that of the empirical trajectories. We found that, overall, the migratory connectivity was higher within the breeding than in wintering areas, corroborating previous findings for this species.
Conclusions We show how empirical tracking data and environmental information can be fused for meaningful predictions of animal movements throughout the year and even outside the spatial range of the available data. Beyond predicting migratory connectivity, our framework will prove useful for modelling ecological processes facilitated by animal movement, such as seed dispersal or disease ecology.
Additional publication details
Integrating animal movement with habitat suitability for estimating dynamic landscape connectivity | <urn:uuid:0da15ae2-8814-41ae-9a7b-7efd4f722acd> | 2.71875 | 331 | Academic Writing | Science & Tech. | -14.706468 | 95,592,168 |
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Telecommunication act as a tool for sustainable development of the environment. The conduct of communication on various platforms such as visual or electronic form acts as alternatives to physical transport. Transport in the modern days has resulted to challenges of urban congestion and traffic, in both developing and developed countries. Telecommunication enables the sustainable reduction in unnecessary transports through telecommuting and on-line trading (Sioshansi, 2011, p. 14). Development of the telecommunication infrastructure has enabled the reduction of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. This action has reduced the atmospheric pollution that supplements the reduction of respiratory problems among people, as well as the protection of the ozone layer.
Telecommunications has impacted positively the environmental field by enabling successive implementation of environmental programs. Improved access to information about agriculture has enabled the sustainable production of agricultural products. Improving telecommunication systems in the rural areas discourage people from migrating to congested towns. Through retaining workforce in the rural areas, the development of the rural economy is accelerated thereby improving living standards of the rural people. An integrated rural development enables development of infrastructure and other public services and foreign investment (Sioshansi, 2011, p. 21). Satellite images have also enabled the uncovering of digital terrain models used to evaluate catchment areas that are possible sites for putting up retention
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Innovation in Mobile Telecommunications Industry: Smartphones – The IPhone Experience. There are distinctly identified industries that exhibit revolutionary changes at unprecedented pace. One of these is the mobile telecommunications industry. Due to the fast changes brought upon by technological advancement and innovation, products and services offered by companies within the mobile telecommunications sector invariably adapt and adjust, according to external macro-environmental factors.
There is no doubt that skill development can make one feel better, not only physically but in other aspects as well. There were studies that indicate that exercise and physical activities tend to assist in creating a better self-image to individuals who regularly indulge in them, than those who do not.
One of the primary concerns represents whether the nature of social networking is simply a phenomenon or is an aspect of culture that has long term potential. This essay considers the nature of this question in relation to a variety of elements within contemporary culture.
Several models have been used for environmental analysis relating to an organization. In SWOT analysis, an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, opportunities and Threats are related to external environment. This paper seeks to analyze Sainsbury’s external environment with regard to human resources and practices.
In addition, there is the stunning revelation that according to 42% of the population, internet is the most essential thing when the other options available are television, radio, and newspaper (Sachoff, 2010). Admittedly, everyone with an interest in society tends to think as to what is so interesting in social networking that attracts all these people.
Much of the information relates to that of Gladwell and Jean Twenge. The study further denotes the environmental theory of human behavior by Gladwell in relation to individuals having a better understanding of their real selves and environmental triggers.
The academic groundwork to study on the role of telecommunications in growth generally is that information is vital to the social and economic activities that consist of the development process. Information is clearly integral to education, however as well to health services, where providers need guidance and advice on analysis and cure of cases beyond their point of proficiency or the capability of local services.
The success of the AIDS education and prevention programs in reducing high-risk activities, and so HIV transmission, is evidenced not only in the fact that in San Francisco, seroconversion (those who were HIV antibody negative becoming antibody positive) dropped from 18.4 percent in 2002 to 4.2 percent in 2003.
Digital transmission systems make use of signal regeneration as opposed to the signal amplification of analog transmission systems. This makes digital signals more resistant to additive noise. Additive noise is the noise produced by electronic circuits. It is named so because this type of noise accumulates with the addition of electronic components.
The transformation of the human resources management (HRM) is a result of a wide range of complex challenges faced by today’s modern business. Hence the renovation of human resources today is a result of brisk changes in the businesses due to globalisation. Due to
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Science helps explain deadly storm season
First it was Harvey. Then Irma. Now Jose lurks.
The hurricane season has arrived with a deadly vengeance, and science can explain a few reasons why.
“Every year around this time, even in quiet years, we get some active systems,” AccuWeather meteorologist Evan Duffey said. “Hurricane season has a pretty defined peak of late September and early October. That’s just the way it is.”
These storms arrived a bit early, Duffey said. He also provided some ideas to help explain this particularly mean season. Two storms alone have killed dozens of Americans and caused more than $250 billion in damage.
Duffey said a drought in northwest Africa in recent years probably played a role in the relatively quiet seasons of the recent past. This year the drought was significantly reduced in Morocco and elsewhere, he said.
Another factor was the lack of El Nino. That phenomenon enhances vertical wind shear, which can suppress hurricane activity.
“Last year we had a pretty strong El Nino, which almost always puts a pretty significant amount of shear over the (Atlantic) basin,” Duffey said. “This year was pretty neutral.”
With no dust from Africa to dry the storms and no winds from El Nino to chop them down, nature and some bad luck did the rest. | <urn:uuid:314c280a-3f2a-49cb-89f4-fdc174dc20de> | 2.9375 | 310 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 51.505429 | 95,592,195 |
+44 1803 865913
Edited By: Alasdair McIntyre
361 pages, Col figs, tabs
Comprising the synthesis and analysis of the results of the Census of Marine Life, this most important book brings together the work of around 2000 scientists from 80 nations around the globe. The book is broadly divided into four sections, covering oceans past, oceans present, oceans future and a final section covering the utilisation of the data which has been gathered, and the coordination and communication of the results. This is a book which should find a place on the shelves of all marine scientists, ecologists, conservation biologists, oceanographers, fisheries scientists and environmental biologists.
This comprehensive book is aimed at marine scientists, ecologists, conservation biologists, oceanographers, fisheries scientists and environmental biologists. (In Practice, 1 December 2010) "The ambitious project involved thousands of scientists and led to the discovery of novel creatures such as the hairy yeti crab. The volume addresses the biodiversity of oceans past, present and future, including microorganisms and zooplankton." (Nature, September 2010)
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At the end of the article, you will able to write Noble Gas Notation and Noble Gas Electron Configuration. We also recommend reading this Inert Gas link. Let’s start discussing one by one.
The noble gas (group 18- also called Inert gas Group) elements have the Outermost configuration of Inert Gas is ns2, np6. Therefore, they have a little or no tendency to react with other elements to form compounds.
While writing the notation make sure that you have written with the nearest inert gas element.
Noble Gas Electron Configuration
|Atomic Number||Element||Electronic Configuration|
|10||Neon||[He] 2s2 2p6|
From the above table it is obvious that all of them, except helium, have the highly stable s2p6 (octet) configuration in the outer (valence) shell. Helium has the stable s2 (duplet) configuration. Because of this configuration, they are chemically unreactive and possess zero valencies.
Heaviest Noble Gas
Randon is one of the heaviest among noble (Inert) gases. Its atomic number is 86. The total 86 electrons complete the outermost octet so as to achieve the maximum stability.
Lightest Noble Gas
Helium is the lightest among Inert gases. Most helium was formed during the Big Bang. It is the second lightest element in the periodic table. Its configuration is 1s2
Radioactive Noble Gas
Radon is a chemical radioactive element with symbol Rn. It is a radioactive, colorless, odorless, tasteless gas. It is obtained when radium disintegrate.
Noble Gas Colors
|Helium||Pale yellow to orange|
|Argon||Purple to pale lavender blue|
Is Helium a Noble Gas?
Helium is the first element in the gas group. Its boiling point is the lowest among all the elements. Its outermost shell is complete. So, It achieved having oxidation number zero.
Is Hydrogen a Noble Gas?
The answer is No. Its position is still not fixed in a periodic table. It is not an inert gas because its outermost shell is not fully filled (1s1).
Is Argon a Noble Gas?
Yes, it is an Inert gas. Due to its inert property, it is used in electric bulbs so that to escape the reaction inside it.
Is Neon a Noble Gas?
Yes, it’s an inert gas.it is placed in group number 18 below helium. it’s used in lighting the colorful hoarding boards.
Is Oxygen an Inert Gas?
No, It belongs to group 17 (halogen group).
Is Nitrogen an Inert Gas?
Nitrogen is not an inert gas. The electronic configuration is [He] 2s2 2p3. Third group: group VA called Nitrogen group.
Is Chlorine an Inert Gas?
Fifth group: group VIIA called Halogens. Chlorine is not an Inert gas.
Is Krypton an Inert Gas?
Krypton used with other rare gases in fluorescent lamps. Yes, it is an inert gas element.
This is all about the basics of – Noble Gas Notation and Noble Gas Electron Configuration | <urn:uuid:bde194a6-3866-43ed-9b37-9b6d0f923cff> | 3.796875 | 692 | Tutorial | Science & Tech. | 56.424348 | 95,592,202 |
The Cassini-Huygens space probe is arguably one of the most important missions NASA ever sent out into the solar system, in terms of return benefits and information accuracy. The craft has thus far managed to discover new moons around Saturn, and to offer invaluable scientific data on interesting natural satellites such as Enceladus and Titan. Now, the spacecraft leads the way in the search for possible life on the planet, with its investigations on the mysterious gas and ice plumes that Enceladus is spewing into its atmosphere from its poles.
According to readings taken by Cassini, it may be that an entire Saturnine ring is made of salts emitted by the small moon. Enceladus is located at the very core of the planet's E Ring, in an area where the dust or ice density is the largest.Huge geysers on Enceladus may be fed by a saly sea below its surface. It has found a potentially life sustaining mix of organic chemicals in Enceladus plumes, ejected from a quartet of 120 km long fractures- known as tigerstripes aligned on the moon's south pole.
Carbon-fiber BMW might be a thing of the past
3 hours ago | <urn:uuid:6cde38e6-5b51-4121-85d0-93789900c93e> | 3.4375 | 252 | Personal Blog | Science & Tech. | 37.263417 | 95,592,222 |
Radiocarbon Dating in Archeology. Keywords: radio carbon dating,. "How Carbon-14 Dating Works." 03 October 2000. HowStuffWorks.com.
TechStuff - PodcastsDo you know how to know if a snake is venomous? Find out how to know if a snake is venomous in this article from HowStuffWorks. X. Stuff Shows & Podcasts.HowStuffWorks. Auto. Auto Parts & Systems. Brakes. Brake Types. By keeping the wheels from skidding while you slow down, anti-lock brakes benefit you in two ways.Why do the two flat prongs on the plugs for electrical appliances have holes in them? NEXT PAGE. Get the best of HowStuffWorks by email. Keep up to date on.
-Student's Name- Evolution VS. Creationism 16JUN2013 EvolGeologists study the processes and substances that form Earth. Most of those processes happen over millions of years, but this quiz only takes a few minutes! Find out.Carbon-dating an orange C8 - posted in Cats & Casses: Came across a local listing for a vintage-looking fork-mounted C8 being sold as part of an estate sale (read.
How Stuff Works: Carbon-14 Dating. Introductory tutorial. Informath. Dating related papers and articles by Douglas J. Keenan.Explainer: what is radiocarbon dating and how does it work? November 27, 2012 10. Radiocarbon dating works by comparing the three different isotopes of carbon.Is Carbon Dating on the way out? by How Stuff Works Tech. How old is that artifact in the window? by How Stuff Works. 7y ago #howstuffworks. 7y ago #carbon.
Carbon Dating and the Bible | Let's Reason Together
Carbon-14, questions on how it is created Aug 13, 2003 #1. radagast. This didn't work in 'How stuff works' so I'll try it here. that would make carbon dating.Carbon-14 dating is something that you hear about in the news all the time. Find out how carbon-14 dating works and why carbon-14 dating is so accurate! 2019 How.- Carbon Dating This is from a great site called How Stuff Works (if you use Discovery Streaming, most of their stuff is actually free on this site).Table of contents for. Geochronometry 4.1 Growth of radiogenic daughters 4.2 Assumptions for dating Closed system Decay constants. Carbon 27.1 Biosphere.
Why is carbon dating limit only. The Howstuffworks.com article. is a very nice way of showing why people say that carbon dating stops working after a few.Radiometric dating is used to estimate the age of rocks and other objects based on the fixed decay. also known as carbon-14 dating or simply carbon dating,.Scrolls from the Dead Sea Introduction. Home. as well as carbon-14 dating,. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/intr.html#objdsmap.
HowStuffWorks. Health. Human Body. Body Systems. Dating back to about 500 b.c., it was the most popular mnemonic system until about the mid-1600s,.Radiometric dating works by determining the ratio of the number of isotopes of an element and the number of isotopes the element it turns into over time. Since the rate at which certain elements.How potassium-argon dating works Photo Wikipedia by Tas Walker. One of the most widely used dating methods is the potassium-argon method, which has been applied to.
Radiometric Dating: Methods, Uses & the Significance of
If you've ever been in love, you've probably at least considered classifying the feeling as an addiction. Get the low-down on love.Dreadlocks in History. dating back to sometime between A.D. 200 and A.D. 800,. Get the best of HowStuffWorks by email. Keep up to date on.Scientists can determine the age of very old organic artifacts using the clever process known as carbon dating. How Carbon-14 Dating Works at HowStuffWorks.com.
Everyday Science: Diamond Quiz | HowStuffWorks
Carbon-14, questions on how it is created | Physics ForumsIs Carbon Dating on the way out? August 10th, 2015. How does radiocarbon dating work? And why might it be less reliable in the future? Learn about carbon-14 and how.
HowStuffWorks digs into this iconic,. Why Is the Movie 'Wonder Woman' So Important?. Online Dating Is Increasing Interracial Marriage.Carbon-14 dating has been used successfully on the Dead Sea. Carbon dating cannot be used on most fossils,. Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works:. | <urn:uuid:845e5e8b-32be-4374-8124-9985541ec6e0> | 3.375 | 999 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 69.794027 | 95,592,234 |
Bonding is the process of forming chemical bonds due to the attractive interactions of different atoms. This attraction may be seen as the result of different properties and behaviors of the outermost electrons of individual atoms, or valence electrons. The bond itself is caused by the electrostatic attraction between opposite charges; and the formation of the different types of bonds depends mainly on the strength of this attractive force.
The basics of bonding involve the electrostatic force of attraction between a negative charge (or partial negative charge) to a positive charge (or partial positive charge). Such bonds, can either be covalent or ionic, and these attractive interactions help these atoms form molecules, and larger structures such as compounds. Double and triple covalent bonds can also be formed, depending on the number of electrons being shared between the two bonding atoms.
The three-dimensional bonds in these larger structures, can be represented by a “-“ in a molecular formula. For example, for ethanol with chemical formula C2H5OH, bonds between the core functional groups can be depicted as CH3-CH2-OH. Furthermore, if a double bond is present, meaning two electrons are being shared, such as in ethene with chemical formula, C2H4, the double bond can be represented as H2C=CH2.
In addition, weaker bonds exist between molecules, and these are known as intermolecular bonds. These arise due to weaker electrostatic forces, usually caused by a minor difference in electronegativity. An example of this type of bond is the hydrogen bond which arises due to a difference in electronegativity between hydrogen and elements such as fluorine, nitrogen, and oxygen. These hydrogen bonds are highly prevalent in compounds such as water, with a chemical formula of H2O.
Thus, understanding the concept of chemical bonding, in terms of why atoms bond, how they bond and the three-dimensional structures which result, is integral for every branch of chemistry.© BrainMass Inc. brainmass.com July 18, 2018, 6:31 pm ad1c9bdddf | <urn:uuid:58b590ae-9b29-4cb4-9895-5f947167288b> | 4.34375 | 430 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 32.486806 | 95,592,236 |
Running from August 30 to September 1 Electric Fields
is set to expand its entertainment offering with comedy, cabaret and electronic music on the bill for 2018.
Prior to this low electric field
and magnetic field invention, the best infrared sauna heaters either had low electric fields
or low magnetic fields, but never both.
Scientists at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine's Institute for Regenerative Cures have been studying how electric fields
can guide wound healing.
monocytogenes have an enhanced sensitivity to alternative processes, such as high-pressure processing and pulsed electric fields
, compared to wild strains of the bacteria.
In thunderstorms, colliding ice particles in the clouds produce an electric field
when positive and negative charges are separated.
The high-voltage power cables under the effect of electric field
aging of polyethylene is determined primarily by the presence of irregularities arising in the process of production of cables, as well as during operation.
Microbial and enzymatic changes in fruit juice induced by high-intensity pulsed electric fields
Now a new study has shown that the bees' hairs move rapidly in response to electric fields
, sending messages to the nervous system.
What makes Electric Fields
special in a crowded market?
In this letter, the maximum breakdown voltage of 14 kV is measured ( drain leakage current of order of 10-8 A) at room temperature which corresponds to electric field
By knocking out some genes in Dictyostelium, they previously identified some of the genes and proteins that allow the amoeba to move in a certain direction when exposed to an electric field
Astronomers have determined the strength of electric fields
in thunderclouds by detecting the radio wave signature of cosmic ray particles striking the atmosphere.
At higher electric fields
, the germination was decreased sharply.
The final two chapters address electric fields
associated with electromagnetic waves, and measurement techniques including incoherent scatter radar (ISR), in situ techniques, and barium ion cloud measurements.
The therapy addresses the unique characteristics of cancer cells such as their shape and rate of division by applying alternating electric fields
to change the cells' polarity," said Wendy J. | <urn:uuid:65a518a2-fa8e-4999-952f-3734089c9431> | 2.515625 | 455 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 17.363486 | 95,592,240 |
[This article is for Windows 8.x and Windows Phone 8.x developers writing Windows Runtime apps. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation]
Modifies XAML compilation behavior, such that fields for named object references are defined with public access rather than the private default behavior.
XAML attribute usage
x:Name attribute must also be provided on the same element.
The value for the x:FieldModifier attribute will vary by programming language. The string to use will depend on how each language implements its CodeDomProvider and the type converters it returns to define the meanings for TypeAttributes.Public and TypeAttributes.NotPublic. For C#, Microsoft Visual Basic or Visual C++ component extensions (C++/CX), you can give the string value "public" or "Public"; the parser doesn't enforce case on this attribute value.
You can also specify NonPublic (internal in C# or C++/CX, Friend in Visual Basic) but this is uncommon. Internal access doesn't have any application to the Windows Runtime XAML code generation model. Private access is the default.
x:FieldModifier is only relevant for elements with an x:Name attribute, because that name is used to reference the field once it is public.
Note Windows Runtime XAML doesn't support x:ClassModifier or x:Subclass. | <urn:uuid:fbb60d68-c34a-480c-ac76-5325249a39b6> | 2.5625 | 289 | Documentation | Software Dev. | 43.641553 | 95,592,257 |
Australia may be one of the few countries where scientific reports about great white sharks can regularly trigger fierce political debates. The country’s fatality rate from unprovoked shark attacks is among the world’s highest. Over the last 10 years, Australia has averaged 2.1 deaths annually. That’s a very low risk, but still a concern for water-loving Australians who primarily live near the coasts—and that concern has traditionally been addressed with a suite of what many critics have called overly aggressive solutions like shark nets or baited drum lines that have one summary purpose: killing sharks.
That has some officials and conservation advocates embracing newer shark-surveillance systems that promise to use artificial-intelligence techniques to automatically identify sharks in the water. The technology is in its early days, and many hurdles remain. But supporters of AI-assisted shark surveillance hope such systems might offer a middle ground for Australian political factions that frequently fight over lethal versus nonlethal approaches to dealing with shark attacks. And as technology start-ups look to peddle their innovations to hot spots for human-shark encounters not just in Australia, but from California to Cape Town, conservationists are hopeful that they might one day encourage a more peaceful coexistence between sharks and humans in general.
“It is quite obvious that beachgoers and beach recreation will become safer with the shark-mitigation technologies, but it is also important for us not to disturb the marine life in general,” says Nabin Sharma, a lecturer at the University of Technology at Sydney. “This is a win-win situation for both sharks and humans.”
One example of Australia’s heightened shark surveillance involves drones that conduct hourly patrols over 40 beaches in New South Wales and eight beaches in Queensland on the country’s east coast. The devices have a maximum flight time of 28 minutes and spend the rest of each hour on standby. In addition to identifying swimming hazards like rip currents, a dozen of these drones carry an AI algorithm called Shark Spotter, which can tell the difference between objects such as swimmers, surfers, boats, rays, dolphins, and sharks.
Developed by the start-up The Ripper Group and underwritten by Australia’s Westpac Bank, the drone’s algorithm was trained to recognize different objects based on examples culled from drone camera footage taken over Australia beaches. “It is not expected that an AI system will work straight away after deployment, as there are many unknown scenarios,” says Sharma, who works with Michael Blumenstein and other AI researchers at the University of Technology at Sydney. “It will become better and more accurate based on further fine-tuning.”
Another shark-surveillance system, called Clever Buoy and developed by the Perth-based Smart Marine Systems (SMS), relies upon underwater sonar arrays to send out acoustic pulses and return an echo of nearby objects. The active sonar can track any sizable marine animal within a certain radius, unlike the passive acoustic systems that many shark researchers use to track specific sharks tagged with transmitters. “What we’re developing is a pattern-recognition algorithm for the ocean,” says Craig Anderson, the cofounder and executive director of SMS. Each animal in the ocean, down to the subspecies level, Anderson says, “has its own unique fingerprint, and that fingerprint is the way it swims.”
If the system’s pattern-recognition software identifies the object’s unique swimming motion as belonging to a large shark—as opposed to a dolphin or stingray—the Clever Buoy texts an alert to lifeguards. The text prompts them to open a mobile app that reveals more information about the shark’s size and allows them to track the shark’s location with updated GPS coordinates.
In 2015, Australia’s New South Wales government announced a five-year commitment to install Clever Buoy at beaches on the east coast. The system has been deployed at Bondi Beach, one of Australia’s most iconic beaches near Sydney, along with City Beach, the main beach for the city of Perth on the west coast. The system has also provided temporary protection during World Surf League championship rounds held in Australia and South Africa.
Of course, there are limitations to these approaches. Neither Shark Spotter nor Clever Buoy can yet tell the difference between specific shark species—a factor that can make a huge difference in terms of the potential threat to humans. “The next part of our journey of learning is distinguishing species of shark,” Anderson said. “We don’t want to be closing beaches and pulling people out of the water if it’s a nice, friendly, gummy shark.”
Those distinctions matter. Of more than 400 known shark species, only 30 or so have been positively flagged in unprovoked attacks on humans. But Australia has 22 of those species and most of the shark species implicated in fatal, unprovoked attacks. Australian waters also have the three shark species that account for the majority of fatal shark attacks: tiger sharks, bull sharks, and great white sharks.
Yet the frenzied political and media responses to shark attacks can seem disproportionate to the low odds of ending up a shark-attack victim. In 2017, unprovoked shark attacks amounted to just 88 confirmed cases worldwide, including five fatal incidents, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. By comparison, about 3,500 Americans die from accidental drowning every year. At the same time, humans kill about 100 million sharks each year. Even the great white shark, made infamous by Hollywood films such as Jaws, has gone from being a top predator of the ocean to a vulnerable target of trophy-seeking fishing boats.
Too many unknowns exist about shark behavior and population to explain why the overall number of shark attacks has crept upward in recent years. For example, there is no evidence to suggest that the possible recovery of certain legally protected shark populations is linked to a greater risk of shark attacks. Instead, shark experts say that a bigger factor comes from more swimmers and surfers entering the water.
“In California, there is evidence of a substantial degree in bite-on-humans largely due to the massive increase in water users over the last 20 to 25 years,” says Christopher Lowe, a marine biologist and the director of the Shark Lab at California State University at Long Beach. “Per capita bites have actually gone down, even with potential rise in shark populations.”
But the impact of shark attacks is not limited to the rare tragedy of limb or life lost. Even lone shark attacks can scare away beachgoers and hurt businesses dependent on crowds of locals and tourists. A cluster of shark attacks within a short time span can damage a community’s sense of security as entire families may witness attacks taking place just offshore.
“If you speak to anyone in shark-bite areas in the world, they will say that when one or two shark bites happen, it’s incredibly sad and tragic,” says Sarah Waries, a project leader for the Shark Spotters program in Cape Town, South Africa. “But you don’t get the incredibly visceral emotional reaction you have when a spate of shark bites tips a community over [the] edge to the point where people don’t feel safe anymore.”
Cape Town took action after suffering a spate of shark attacks in 2004. The local business and surfer community began informally organizing lifeguards and car guards to help keep watch with binoculars from a mountain overlooking the beaches near False Bay. If a spotter sees a shark approaching the beach, the mountain spotter radios a beach spotter who manually activates a simple warning system consisting of different-colored flags and a siren that alerts people to leave the water.
Funding from the City of Cape Town and the Save Our Seas Foundation helped the effort evolve into the formal Shark Spotters program (no relation to the Australian drone initiative). For 14 years, the program has shown how a low-tech community approach can help reduce the risk of shark attacks.
Like Australia, South Africa’s Shark Spotters program has experimented with using drones. But the drones’ limited battery life of 15 to 20 minutes, along with high wind conditions in the area, made them fairly ineffective in providing constant shark surveillance, Waries explains. They proved more useful in confirming the identity of specific shark species after human spotters made the initial discovery.
A more promising effort could complement human spotters with automatic shark spotting based on fixed cameras installed high up on poles or towers. Shark Spotters has teamed up with PatternLab, a company based in Lausanne, Switzerland, to develop the necessary pattern-recognition software. But the South African programs generally make do with more limited resources in comparison with Australia.
For their part, U.S. shark researchers seem to take a more cautionary view of the latest “smart” shark-surveillance technologies—particularly given their inability to distinguish between different shark species. “A [great] white shark is a very different organism than a blacktip we see in Volusia County,” says Gavin Naylor, the director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “They’re as different as a human is from a dog.”
Environments also play a factor in a technology’s effectiveness, says Gregory Skomal, a marine biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. He cites the cost and lack of funding for testing such equipment in local waters. “All these technologies will depend heavily on the area you’re trying to deploy them,” Skomal says. “Something developed for clear water in Australia may not work well in the turbid waters of Cape Cod.”
Still, if such technologies can help Australia strike a better balance between protecting humans and protecting threatened marine species, it could mean a lot less blood in the water—and increased buy-in for such innovations elsewhere. As it stands, the high price tags have not dampened the enthusiasm of Australian start-ups for market expansion. The Ripper Group has been talking with seven different international organizations about expanding its drone surveillance worldwide, says the company’s chief operations officer, Ben Trollope.
Craig Anderson and Smart Marine Systems have also launched a $25,000 crowdfunding campaign aimed at deploying Clever Buoy at Corona Del Mar in Newport Beach, California, the site of a nonfatal 2016 shark attack on a triathlete.
“I think we’ll very quickly follow through with Florida and Massachusetts,” Anderson says. “This is just the start of what we see as a significant rollout.”
This post appears courtesy of Undark Magazine.
We want to hear what you think. Submit a letter to the editor or write to email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:7dff4a54-9208-4d13-8fc5-1d05fe206e38> | 3.0625 | 2,264 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 38.285274 | 95,592,282 |
Actin is a globular protein found in all eukaryotic cells where it may be present at concentrations of over 100 μM. It is also one of the most highly-conserved proteins.
Actin is the monomeric subunit of microfilaments, one of the three major components of the cytoskeleton, and of thin filaments, which are part of the contractile apparatus in muscle cells. Thus, actin participates in many important cellular functions, including muscle contraction, cell motility, cell division and cytokinesis, vesicle and organelle movement, cell signaling, and the establishment and maintenance of cell junctions and cell shape.
Actin has four main functions in cells : 1)to form the most dynamic one of the three subclasses of the cytoskeleton, which gives mechanical support to cells, and hardwires the cytoplasm with the surroundings to support signal transduction. 2) to allow cell motility. 3) in muscle cells to be the scaffold on which myosin proteins generate force to support muscle contraction. 4) in non-muscle cells it functions as a track for cargo transport myosins, non-conventional myosins, such as myosin V and VI. Non-conventional myosins transport cargo, such as vesicles and organelles, in a directed fashion, using ATP hydrolysis, at a rate much faster than diffusion. | <urn:uuid:4ec0878d-cabe-4a61-bd0f-67054e4847b1> | 3.734375 | 297 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 34.328303 | 95,592,313 |
MOSAiC will contribute to a quantum leap in our
understanding of the coupled Arctic climate system and its
representation in global climate models. The focus of
MOSAiC lies on direct in-situ observations of the climate
processes that couple the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice,
bio-geochemistry and ecosystem.
The results of MOSAiC will contribute to enhance understanding of the regional and global consequences of Arctic climate change and sea-ice loss and improve weather and climate predictions. As such it will support safer maritime and offshore operations, contribute to an improved scientific basis for future fishery and traffic along northern sea routes, increase coastal-community resilience, and support science-informed decision-making and policy development. Improved understanding of the impact of Arctic climate change on conditions world-wide will provide stakeholders and decision-makers with improved knowledge for adapting to climate change and develop target oriented mitigation strategies.
- The Arctic is a key area of global climate change, with warming rates exceeding twice the global average (Figure 1).
- The observed rate of climate change in the Arctic is not well reproduced in climate models .
- Many processes in the Arctic climate system are poorly represented in climate models because they are not sufficiently understood.
- Understanding of Arctic climate processes is limited by a lack of year round observations in the central Arctic.
The dramatic changes in the Arctic climate system and the fast retreat of Arctic sea ice strongly affects global climate. The inability of modern climate models to reproduce Arctic climate change is one of the most pressing problems in understanding and predicting global climate change. As a result, the urgency of year round observations of key climate processes in the central Arctic has been highlighted by all major research initiatives including the IPCC.
Innovative experimental design of the MOSAiC expedition
Scanned from Nansen, Fridtjof: Farthest North, Constable, London, 1897
The heritage for MOSAiC is Fridtjof Nansen's famous Fram expedition during 1893-1896, which demonstrated the
feasibility of letting a research vessel drift across the polar cap, driven by the natural drift of the sea ice. While Nansen has
demonstrated the basic concept of such an expedition, the scientific measurements at that time were extremely limited.
The backbone of
MOSAiC will be the year round operation of RV Polarstern, drifting with the sea ice across the central Arctic during the years 2019 to
During the set-up phase RV Polarstern will enter the Siberian sector of the Arctic in thin sea ice conditions in late summer.
A distributed regional network of observational sites will be set up on the sea ice in an area of up to ~50km distance from RV
Polarstern. The ship and the surrounding network will drift with the natural ice drift across the polar cap towards the Atlantic,
while the sea ice thickens during winter (red dotted line in Figure 3).
Large scale research facilities addressing key aspects of the coupled Arctic climate system will be set up on board of
and on the sea ice next to it.
The distributed regional network further around the central observatory will be comprised of autonomous and remotely-operated sensors,
characterizing the heterogeneity of key processes in an area representing a typical grid box of modern climate models and providing
invaluable data for the development of parametrizations for sub-grid-scale processes in climate models. The German
research aircrafts Polar 5 and Polar 6,
as well as the HALO research aircraft, will be operated to complement
the measurements at the central MOSAiC site. Research and supply cruises by icebreakers from MOSAiC partners
will further extend the geographical coverage of the observations and will link the measurements to the larger scales of the
Arctic climate system and explore global feedbacks.
Access to the central MOSAiC site, for exchanging scientific staff and for emergency operations, will be guaranteed by
operations of long-distance helicopters via a fuel depot on Bolshevik Island. | <urn:uuid:ee23adfa-ed9d-4cca-84db-8974485f0fed> | 3.515625 | 838 | About (Org.) | Science & Tech. | 17.866587 | 95,592,322 |
The next table lists those objects recently discovered that are in need of a confirming night of observation. For details and instructions, read our conditions for collaboration.
In this table, each object is listed with its discovery date. This is the only time the objects were observed. From this, you can tell something about how long its been since they were seen and thus how difficult it may be to find again. There are currently 1 objects that are in need of recovery that are not yet lost. Objects are considered lost if they have not been seen in 6 months, or if their solar elongation is smaller than 60 degrees, or if their ephemeris uncertainty is 10000 arcsec or worse.
|Lowell ID||Discovered||a||e||i||Hv||r||d||R||Sel||pErr||Assigned followup|
Table generated Tue Jul 17 12:52:43 2018 UTCMarc W. Buie, Southwest Research Institute | <urn:uuid:e9f13f5a-76f7-4964-bb40-28e2ab82ffb9> | 2.75 | 195 | Structured Data | Science & Tech. | 59.21175 | 95,592,340 |
Given the equation of a parabola
We let (h,0) be the location of the vertex, and (h+p,0)be the location of the focus where h will be any number along the x-axis and p is the distance of the focus added to the vertex’s distance h. This is to represent the distance traveled by the focus from the point of origin.
The curves are then sideways parabolas with equation
Now we need to find a differential equation that does not depend on arbitrary constants h and p. Since there are two arbitrary constants to deal with, we need to find its second differentiation. In other words, the highest order derivative that should appear in the differential equation is y”, i.e. the second derivative of y with respect to x.
Now let us differentiate the equation using implicit differentiation.
which still depends on the constant p.
Since there is still an arbitrary constant which is p , we need to get its second derivative using implicit differentiation for the second time
This last equation does not depend on the constants h and p.
The desired differential equation is
We live in the age of astonishing advancement. Engineers can create robots, physicist can describe the motion of waves, pendulums or chaotic systems, while we communicate wirelessly in a vast world wide network. But underline this modern wonders, are deep and mysteriously powerful, they are called Differential Equations. But what are differential equations, where does differential equations come from and why does they work so well in a wide variety of discipline such as biology, physics, chemistry, economics and even in engineering. Why are they not generally observed and used in our day to day life.
Differential equations are equations that contains one or more terms involving derivatives of one variable (dependent variable) with respect to another variable (independent variable) or we can say that these are equations involving derivatives of a function or functions. They have a remarkable ability to predict the world around us. They are used to describe exponential growth and decay, population growth of species or the change in investment return over time, bank interest, even in solving radioactive decay problems, continuous compound interest problems, flow problems, cooling and heating problems, orthogonal trajectories, and also in investigating problems involving fluid mechanics, circuit design, heat transfer, population or conservation biology, seismic waves. They are used in specific field such as, in the field of medicine, where differential equations are used for modelling cancer growth or the spread of disease. In chemistry, they are used for modelling chemical reactions and to computer radioactive half-life. In economics, they are used to find optimum investments strategies. In physics, they are used to describe the motion of waves, pendulums or chaotic systems. They are also used in physics with Newton’s Second Law of Motion and the Law of Cooling that pertains to the temperature of objects and its surroundings. In engineering, they are used for describing the movements of electricity. Differential equations are also used in creating software to understand computer hardware belongs to applied physics or electrical engineering. They are also used in game features to model velocity of a character in games. They are essential tools for describing the nature of the physical universe and naturally also an essential part of models for computer graphics and vision. Differential equations are also used as aspect of algorithm on machine learning which includes computer vision. Also involves solving for optimal certain conditions or iterating towards a solution with techniques like gradient descent or expectation maximization. In Mother Nature, differential equations are essential tool for describing the nature of the physical universe. Even in networking, they are used to understand an outcome of an edge creation model like preferential attachment which says the nodes with probability proportional to their existing degrees. And also used in theories and explanations like using a determinants to estimate the area of the Bermuda triangle. Even in Bots (short for robots), partial and ordinary differential equations helps to provide shapes and interior and exterior designs of machine.
With their broad and advance uses, no wonder why some people found it difficult. However, with their remarkable ability, people spend their time analyzing and describing their behaviors. That’s why everyone of us should appreciate them. | <urn:uuid:d10e99c3-6994-4a04-928b-a4fa9a67d117> | 3.40625 | 852 | Personal Blog | Science & Tech. | 27.632464 | 95,592,353 |
On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 5:06 AM, Pedro Ferreira
> Dear Jim,
> Thanks for your answer.
>> The OS' file-system cache acts as a storage server cache. The storage
>> server does (essentially) no processing to data read from disk, so an
>> application-level cache would add nothing over the disk cache provided by
>> the storage server.
> I see, then I guess it would be good to have at least the same amount of RAM
> as the total size of the DB, no? From what I see in our server, the linux
> buffer cache takes around 13GB of the 16G available, while the rest is
> mostly taken by the ZEO process (1.7G). The database is 17GB on disk.
Having enough ram to hold your entire database may not be practical.
Ideally, you want enough to hold the working set. For many applications,
most of the database reads are from the later part of the file. The working
set is often much smaller than the whole file.
>> Also note that, for better or worse, FileStorage uses an in-memory index
>> of current record positions, so no disk access is needed to find current
> Yes, but pickles still have to be retrieved, right?
Yes, but this is better than having to do disk accesses to get the meta
data needed to find the records.
> I guess this would mean
> random access (for a database like ours, in which we have many small
> objects), which doesn't favor cache performance.
I don't see how this follows.
>> In general, I'd say no. It can depend on lots of details, including:
>> - database size
>> - active set size
>> - network speed
>> - memory and disk speeds on clients and servers
>> - ...
> In any case, from what I see, these client caches cannot be shared between
> processes, which doesn't make them very useful , in which we have many
> parallel processes asking for the same objects over and over again.
The caches are still probably providing benefit, depending on how large they
are. If you haven't, you should probably try using the ZEO cache-analysis
scripts to get a better handle on how effective our cache is and whether it
should be larger.
It's true that storing the same data in many caches is inefficient.
I imagine that someone will eventually figure out how to use
memcached to implement a shared ZEO cache, as has been done
At PyCon, I'll be presenting work I've been doing on a load
balancer that seeks to avoid sharing the same data in multiple
caches by assigning different kinds of work to different workers.
For more information about ZODB, see http://zodb.org/
ZODB-Dev mailing list - ZODB-Dev@zope.org | <urn:uuid:37584b02-66db-404f-8fa4-18d3c897bec7> | 2.53125 | 626 | Comment Section | Software Dev. | 61.223425 | 95,592,368 |
Have you ever taken a peek at your family tree? If you trace back along those branches, you might discover some long ago celebrities, kings, and philosophers among your ancestors. But what does it even mean to be “related” to an ancient queen when it’s hard to know what’s lurking inside our own DNA? It turns out even one generation back, the question of who we are gets made complicated. “We’re primed to think of our genomes as some kind of magical book. We just understand so little about genetics. Period.” says Carl Zimmer, author of the new book She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity. Zimmer joins Ira to discuss Mendel’s Law, the history of eugenics, the power of CRISPR and the boundaries of what we understand of human heredity today.Bread is a staple food today. You can find dozens of varieties at the supermarket—tortillas and pita, naan and focaccia, rye bread and wonder bread and baguettes too. Bread is so ubiquitous that it’s hard to imagine it was once a rare commodity, a labor-intensive specialty that could be made only by husking the seeds of wild grasses, hand-pounding and grinding them, then mixing the resulting flour with water and scorching on a hearth. Archaeologists working at a 14,000-year-old site in Jordan have now found evidence of an early bakery in the form of burned crumbs, similar to the ones at the bottom of your toaster. After analyzing the crumbs’ structure with a scanning electron microscope, the researchers were able to characterize the crumbs as the charred remains of a flatbread, similar to pita, baked with ingredients like wild einkorn wheat, barley, oats, and the roots of an aquatic plant similar to papyrus. They also determined that the crumbs predate the dawn of agriculture.When Galileo first saw Jupiter through a telescope, he also discovered “stars” that would orbit around the planet in the night sky. While Galileo named them the Medicean stars—after his future patron Cosimo II de’ Medici—we know them today as Jupiter’s moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Since Galileo’s initial discovery, astronomers have found dozens more moons around Jupiter, and this week, researchers announced an additional 12 moons, bringing the total number up to a whopping 79.
En podcast från Science Friday and WNYC Studios Till avsnittet | <urn:uuid:520f7d1a-d103-4bf1-9f13-7167f899a936> | 3.09375 | 545 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 46.474186 | 95,592,381 |
Outline Title: Global Warming Introduction/Thesis: Global warming also known as the greenhouse effect is a matter that has received much responsiveness in recent years; however our climate change is not a new problem. It has been changing over many years. What is growing is the rate of change; it is accelerating due to the development of the human population. The growth of our population has enlarged our use of land, fuel, and manufacturing. All of these are growing releases into our atmosphere that increases global warming
I. Global warming has been evolving throughout history since early 1928. 1. There has been a change in greenhouse effect that affects temperature over the past decades. 2. The change in whether over the last few years is a result of more storms from the global warming effect. 3. Global warming is expected to increase/decrease temperatures throughout the seasons. II. A developing body of evidence signposts that humans now have a substantial impact on climate. 1.
Fuel in fossil fuels, natural gas, Coil, and oil contribute energy to nearly every human endeavor in industrialized nations. 2. Land from seasonal crops to forest’s or from urban to natural environments, the regional temperature system is changed. 3. Small elements in the air (aerosols) might have cooling or warming effects, subject on their characteristics. III. Global Warming effect is being seen throughout the world. 1. The ice is melting from the Glacier Mountains. 2. Sea levels are on the rise. 3. Heat destroying crops, less land to be farmed.
IV. Ways we can slow down Global Warming. 1. Recycle products that can be reused, save on chemicals used to produce goods. 2. Find alternative forms of energy. 3. Plant more trees Conclusion: The population of humans are increasing ever day. We need to find ways to conserve the plant we have. At this current time there is no single resolution that can eliminate future warming. Nevertheless, the sum of a variety of diverse actions taken by individuals and nations could largely reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. | <urn:uuid:65afe14a-fd11-4888-bc28-39d06cae3ec0> | 3.53125 | 421 | Academic Writing | Science & Tech. | 53.177893 | 95,592,393 |
posted by Kate
A girl is pulling a sled up a hill with a force of 5N. The wind is blowing at her back (uphill) with a force of 15N. The force of gravitity is 20N and friction between her boots and the snow is 5N. What is the net force, including direction, of this situation? | <urn:uuid:9e92ad0f-fba8-4b94-9b25-c9951855aa84> | 3.078125 | 72 | Q&A Forum | Science & Tech. | 83.853571 | 95,592,399 |
Merv Fingas has 40 years of experience in oil and chemical spillresearch. He has authored over 850 technical publications andpapers including books, manuals and over 500 peer-reviewed papers.He has won over 20 awards for research and papers from the UnitedStates Government, Canadian Government and internationalconferences. Dr. Fingas has also collaborated on studies withover 25 organizations around the world, coordinated studies forover 30 years through 6 internationally-attended committees anddeveloped co-operative projects with many international groups.
If chaos theory transformed our view of the universe, biomimicry is transforming our life on Earth. Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature – taking advantage of evolution’s 3.8 billion years of R&D since the first bacteria. Biomimics study nature’s best ideas: photosynthesis, brain power, and shells – and adapt them for human use. They are revolutionising how we invent, compute, heal ourselves, harness energy, repair the environment, and feed the world.
Science writer and lecturer Janine Benyus names and explains this phenomenon. She takes us into the lab and out in the field with cutting-edge researchers as they stir vats of proteins to unleash their computing power; analyse how electrons zipping around a leaf cell convert sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second; discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they’re sick; study the hardy prairie as a model for low-maintenance agriculture; and more. | <urn:uuid:e35aa0f7-5a0a-4e25-9c0f-9d4ed4baf01b> | 2.515625 | 310 | Product Page | Science & Tech. | 31.790399 | 95,592,410 |
As far as implications of the team's work, an enhanced understanding of the behavior of bubbles is very important for the field of engineering because it may enable the design of more efficient power stations or propellers."
Tokyo, Dec 19 - Using Japan's most powerful computer, researchers have explored how the physics of champagne bubbles may help address the world's future energy needs.
The team was able to simulate bubble nucleation process from the molecular level by harnessing the K computer at RIKEN - the most powerful system in Japan.
In the bubble nucleation process, bubbles immediately form and then rapidly begin the process of coarsening in which larger bubbles grow at the expense of smaller ones.
This fundamental phenomenon is known as Ostwald ripening and is familiar for its role in bubbly beverages. It is also seen in a wide range of scientific systems including spin systems, foams and metallic alloys.
On a much larger scale, Ostwald ripening can be observed in a power-generating turbine. Most power stations rely on boilers to convert water into steam but the phase transition involved is highly complex.
During the phase transition, no one is exactly sure what is occurring inside the boiler - especially how bubbles form. So a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo, Kyusyu University and RIKEN in Japan set out to find an answer.
At the heart of their work were molecular dynamics simulations.
A huge number of molecules, however, are necessary to simulate bubbles - on the order of 10,000 are required to express a bubble, said Hiroshi Watanabe, research associate at University of Tokyo's institute for solid state physics.
So the team needed at least this many to investigate hundreds of millions of molecules - a feat not possible on a single computer.
The team, in fact, wound up simulating a whopping 700 million particles, following their collective motions through a million time steps - a feat they accomplished by performing massively parallel simulations using 4,000 processors on the K computer.
This was, to the best of their knowledge, the first simulation to investigate multi-bubble nuclei without relying on any artificial conditions.
As far as implications of the team's work, an enhanced understanding of the behavior of bubbles is very important for the field of engineering because it may enable the design of more efficient power stations or propellers.
The research appeared in the Journal of Chemical Physics. | <urn:uuid:396c72e5-db78-413d-a4e9-c8918253c3f7> | 3.703125 | 493 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 31.106234 | 95,592,413 |
Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera) is a non-native annual plant that was introduced into parts of Europe during the mid-nineteenth century as an ornamental plant for parks and gardens.
This plant species was first recognised as an invasive species and a threat to ecological stability in the 1930’s. However, since then the problem has escalated and is now of international concern, due to its negative impact on ecosystem biodiversity. This is primarily due to its ability to out-compete and overcrowd native vegetation. Himalayan balsam has now naturalised in many countries, resulting in a shift in management strategies from attempting to remove the invasive plant, to limiting its territory and further spread.
The poisonous Parthenium hysterophorus plant is one of the world’s most destructive invasive plant species, threatening biodiversity, food security and human health across numerous countries. The herb is native to Central and South America but has spread to over 40 countries over recent decades including Australia, India, Ethiopia, Swaziland and South Africa. | <urn:uuid:ed48040b-00ea-4188-bea4-2763e934fb9f> | 3.703125 | 216 | Personal Blog | Science & Tech. | 17.979281 | 95,592,415 |
Plants all over the world are more sensitive to drought than many experts realized, according to a new study by scientists at UCLA and China's Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden.
The research will improve predictions of which plant species will survive the increasingly intense droughts associated with global climate change.
Researchers measured leaves' drought tolerance at the "turgor loss point" -- the level of dehydration that causes them to wilt.
Credit: Lawren Sack
The research is reported online by Ecology Letters, the most prestigious journal in the field of ecology, and will be published in an upcoming print edition.
Predicting how plants will respond to climate change is crucial for their conservation. But good predictions require an understanding of plants' ability to acclimate to environmental changes, or their "plasticity." All organisms show some degree of plasticity, but because they're stationary, plants are especially dependent on this ability.
"Plants are masters of plasticity, changing their size, branching patterns, leaf colors and even their internal biochemistry to adjust to changes in climate," said Lawren Sack, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the UCLA College and the study's senior author.
Little has been known about the degree to which plastic changes might allow plants to endure worsening droughts.
"Plants have evolved this amazing ability to sync with their environment, but they are facing their limits," said Megan Bartlett, a UCLA doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology and the study's lead author.
Compiling and analyzing data for numerous species from various ecosystems around the world, Bartlett found that most species accumulate salts in their cell sap to fine-tune their tolerance to seasonal changes in rainfall. But that adjustment only provides a relatively narrow degree of additional drought tolerance.
Saltier cell sap gives plants the ability to continue to grow as soil dries during drought. Unlike animal cells, plant cells are enclosed by cell walls. To hold up the cell walls, plants depend on "turgor pressure" -- the pressure produced by internal water pushing against the inside of the cell wall. As the cells dehydrate, the turgor pressure declines until the cell walls collapse, and the leaf becomes limp and wilted.
The team of biologists collected data on the "turgor loss point" -- the level of dehydration that causes leaves to wilt. Plants that have a lower turgor loss point can lose more water before wilting, and can keep open their pores, or stomata, to take up carbon dioxide for photosynthesis in drier soils.
"During a drought, plants have to choose between closing their stomata and risking starvation, and continuing to photosynthesize and risking cell damage from wilting," Sack said.
Previous research by the UCLA team revealed the key mechanism plants use to adjust their turgor loss point during drought. Plants load their cells with salts, which attract water molecules and limit turgor loss. In wet conditions, plants invest fewer resources in producing and accumulating these solutes and reduce the saltiness of their cell sap.
Drawing on both new data they produced and previously reported data for hundreds of species, the scientists determined the overall picture of how much plant species adjust their cell sap saltiness to maintain turgor and continue to grow during drought.
"For most plants, these adjustments were small," Sack said. "This means they have only limited wiggle room as droughts become more serious. On the plus side, this discovery means we can estimate species' drought tolerance relatively simply. We can make a reasonable drought tolerance measurement for most species regardless of time of year or whether we are sampling during wet or dry conditions."
Bartlett said the finding is good news for plant biologists. "It means that predicting how a species will respond to climate change from one season of drought tolerance measurements is a reasonable place to start," she said. "Our predictions will be more accurate when we take plasticity into account, but sampling in one season is a reasonable simplification for really diverse ecosystems, like tropical rainforests."
All ecosystems potentially vulnerable
The researchers expected plants' plasticity to be very different based on whether they live in deserts, which may get less than an inch of rainfall per year, or rainforests, which may receive more than 10 feet. Instead, they found relatively small differences across ecosystems, meaning that plants are potentially vulnerable no matter where they live, the scientists said.
The researchers also compared plasticity for crops. They found a strikingly contrasting result: Whereas differences in plasticity among wild species were relatively small and unimportant, among the varieties of certain crop species -- such as coffee and corn -- greater plasticity resulted in improved drought tolerance.
"It's been suspected for a long time that plasticity in cell saltiness might improve crop drought tolerance, so it makes sense that we found impressive differences among crop cultivars and that these differences translate into drought tolerance," Bartlett said. "Our study points to plasticity in turgor loss point as an especially important focus for breeding and selecting drought tolerant cultivars."
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program and East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute, the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Tropical Forest Science - Forest Global Earth Observatory, the Vavra Research Fellowship and UCLA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology.
Stuart Wolpert | EurekAlert!
Upcycling of PET Bottles: New Ideas for Resource Cycles in Germany
25.06.2018 | Fraunhofer-Institut für Betriebsfestigkeit und Systemzuverlässigkeit LBF
Dry landscapes can increase disease transmission
20.06.2018 | Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
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13.07.2018 | Materials Sciences
13.07.2018 | Life Sciences | <urn:uuid:5f40e127-3916-49cf-a1b5-98c0c4adf73e> | 3.84375 | 1,765 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 35.72961 | 95,592,421 |
For the past few weeks, the western Pacific Ocean has been quiet in terms of storm activity and the number of typhoons forming has significantly reduced in number.
However, a typhoon has recently developed over open ocean although models do not anticipate landfall occurring with the storm expecting to spend its entire life over open ocean. Despite being mid to late November with the Earth’s southern hemisphere more exposed to the sun, it is still clear that typhoons can form across the north west Pacific Ocean.
Typhoon In Fa has formed but it formed during Wednesday at only 5.8 degrees north of the equator and 155.8 degrees east. Its transition to a typhoon was unusually close to the equator. Such storms cannot form any closer because the Coriolis effect is too weak to influence their movement.
Typhoon In Fa is not a threat to any major population centre with its movement being north west. It is well supported by warm waters of 29C to 30C.
Typhoon In Fa according to the CIMSS model is set to become a powerful typhoon being a Category 4 storm in coming hours with peak winds in excess of 125 knots (231 km/h) making this storm quite significant for this time of the year. It is expected to curve move north west in coming days then northwards then weaken as it encounters cooler waters.
Strong convection is visible as well as a small eye and separate thunderstorms are visible to the north and north east of the main core. The storms are passing over Guam but the main core of the storm is passing to the south.
The plots showing the storm acquired from CIMSS 21/11/2015 are provided below.
A Worldview image of the storm from NASA (19/11/2015) shows the typhoon near the Federated States of Micronesia but north east of the islands. The image at the time shows the storm with a small compact core surrounded by clusters of thunderstorms. | <urn:uuid:6bc3e078-e392-4831-a046-640332625624> | 2.921875 | 402 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 59.993235 | 95,592,446 |
Bacteria Use Ranking Strategy to Fight Off Viruses
News Sep 21, 2016
Like humans, bacteria come under attack from viruses and rely on an immune system to defend them. A bacterial immune system known as CRISPR helps microbes “remember” the viruses they encounter and more easily defend against them in the future. Since researchers first discovered CRISPR in the mid-2000s, they have noticed something peculiar: It records confrontations with viruses sequentially, placing the most recent attack first in a series of genetically encoded memories.
Now, two researchers at The Rockefeller University have explained why microbes store their immunological memories in this particular way. Their results were described September 8 in Molecular Cell.
“Until now, no one knew if this organizational feature serves a purpose, let alone what that might be,” says senior author Luciano Marraffini, an associate professor and head of the Laboratory of Bacteriology. “We found an answer: It allows the microbe to mount the strongest immune response against its most recent threat, which is likely to be the most potent one around.”
Microbial CRISPR systems remember viruses by capturing genetic snippets from them and storing them like beads on a string. (CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.) Should the cell meet a particular virus again, CRISPR-associated (Cas) enzymes use these snippets, known as spacers, to recognize and cut the virus. Thanks to this precision, one such system, CRISPR-Cas9, has become a powerful tool for editing genomes.
Researchers have wondered for some time why CRISPR systems create a chronological record of encounters with bacteria-attacking viruses known as phage.
Marraffini and first author Jon McGinn, a graduate student in the lab, determined that a small piece of the bacterial genome, which they called the leader anchoring sequence, is responsible for directing the most recent viral snippet to the first position within CRISPR. When this sequence was altered, CRISPR stopped adding new spacers to the front and began inserting them further downstream.
They found the bacteria with the misplaced spacers could still defend themselves against a low concentration of phage, but that the bugs were much more vulnerable at a high level of phage.
“An individual bacterium acquires a new spacer right when other infected cells in its surroundings are dying and releasing astronomical levels of new viral particles,” McGinn says. “We think this system ensures the cell can protect itself when the colony it lives in is inundated by phage.”
While this study helps scientists understand how CRISPR systems function within their native bacteria, it may also have implications for a new type of CRISPR-based biotechnology, one that is so far still the stuff of science fiction.
“Synthetic biologists have ambitions of creating biological recording devices that could store information using living cells. Technology like this could, for example, record a cell’s exposure to environmental stimuli or even the activity of brain cells” Marraffini says. “By acquiring sequential genetic memories of viral attacks, CRISPR already accomplishes a version of this, and our work helps to explain how this potential template works.”
Hay Fever Risk Genes Overlap with Autoimmune DiseaseNews
In a large international study involving almost 900,000 participants, researchers from the University of Copenhagen and COPSAC have found new risk genes for hay fever. It is the largest genetic study so far on this type of allergy, which affects millions of people around the world.READ MORE
Hidden Signals in RNAs Regulate Protein SynthesisNews
Scientists have long known that RNA encodes instructions to make proteins. In a new study published in Nature, scientists describe how the protein-making machinery identifies alternative initiation sites from which to start protein synthesis.READ MORE
Allergic Responses May Protect Against Skin CancerNews
The components of the immune system that trigger allergic reactions may also help protect the skin against cancer, suggest new findings.READ MORE | <urn:uuid:d84e50f5-c679-4355-8630-d661d4ee2d54> | 3.421875 | 843 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 26.073437 | 95,592,457 |
A natural hazard is a naturally occurring threat or event that will have a negative effect on people or on the environment. Many naturally hazardous events are interconnected. For example, drought can lead to famine or population displacement. There are many different types of natural hazards as well. These can include avalanches, earthquakes, sinkholes, volcanic eruptions, blizzards, droughts, hailstorms, tornados, and diseases. These events can cause large numbers of deaths, as well as property damage.
To help deal with natural hazards, the United Nations launched the International Early Warning Program in January of 2005. This program was designed to create a global warming system which can help build community resilience in the event of a natural hazard. Disaster risk reduction is critical to the sustainable development of communities. Natural disasters can cause millions of dollars in property damage and this is a major financial burden for communities.
Different regions of the Earth are more susceptible than others to particular types of hazardous events. Regions that lie on a fault line are more likely to experience an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. This happens by the convergence and divergence of tectonic plates. Furthermore, a northern region by the mountains is more susceptible to avalanches. This occurs due to the buildup of snow on unsteady surfaces.
Title Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons© BrainMass Inc. brainmass.com July 21, 2018, 12:06 am ad1c9bdddf | <urn:uuid:64db92b9-3652-420b-a794-9cd312429f9b> | 4.03125 | 291 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 31.259169 | 95,592,502 |
A page from the California Drought Visualization showing that most water utilities did not achieve the same conservation levels in 2016 after the mandatory water use restrictions enacted in 2015 were lifted. WATER IN THE WEST
After the wettest winter on record in 122 years, California’s waterways and reservoirs are finally replenishing to reverse the previous years of drought. But as the memory of the driest four-year period in the state’s history fades, Stanford researchers warn not to relax water conservation practices.
Video: By visualizing data from water utilities during California’s drought, researchers hope to increase motivation for continued water conservation. Newsha Ajami, Director of Urban Water Policy, Patricia Gonzales, PhD student, and Kim Quesnel, PhD student, discuss and present the visualization.
A new web portal puts four years of California drought data into an interactive format, showing where regions met or missed water conservation goals. The idea is to motivate awareness and conservation.
“Out of the past 50 years, more than half have been dry years in California. So at a certain point, we’re going to have to accept that extremes are actually the norm and learn to adapt to our new climate reality,” said Newsha Ajami, Director of Urban Water Policy at Stanford’s Water in the West program. “The fear is that even though we just went through the worst drought in history, people are already losing momentum in conserving water and being prepared for the next dry period.”
In order to motivate continued action on water conservation and drought preparedness, Ajami and her team developed a new interactive web portal using data from almost 400 utilities from across the state that visualizes how they performed between 2014 and 2017.
“Wielding acronyms in conversation makes it easy to speak quickly,” says Maggie Wood, an intern at the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), but it’s “nearly impossible for outsiders to enter the conversation.” Fortunately, she got up to speed ASAP.
Summer is almost always a time of transition at Stanford. With commencement behind us, we’d like to take stock of some significant comings and goings in the Bill Lane Center for the American West community. | <urn:uuid:c85b83f0-8095-459a-86cb-6b3ff1d8524d> | 3.25 | 468 | News (Org.) | Science & Tech. | 34.028721 | 95,592,516 |
So with all this carbon constantly being depleted from the atmosphere, we really need to keep carbon output up to a certain point.
So why all the bad press for burning carbon?
Well, turns out it's the source of the carbon being burned that's the key.
It's in fact the burning of what we call "fossil carbon" that creates the imbalance.
Fossil fuels, coal, oil, natural gas, these substances are all mined, we have to dig them up or drill a well to release them.
-And this is carbon that was in the atmosphere millions of years ago.
So what happens is: when we burn this carbon, OK, it doesn't really release a whole lot compared to the amount that's already there in the atmosphere, but it adds to the pool.
-And over years it accumulates, think of the atmosphere as a big bathtub.
It's basically already filled to the brim with carbon, when we start adding fossil carbon into the mix, it starts to spill over.
That being said, there's actually a category that's in-between: what we call biomass fuels, probably the most common one is wood.
Another example, um, on the North Ameri | <urn:uuid:6a6e9621-754f-46aa-b160-d2e4072ebfea> | 3.28125 | 255 | Audio Transcript | Science & Tech. | 65.449588 | 95,592,525 |
Commercial and bureaucratic hindrances collided with an uncontrollable reality: the faith of many players.
It happened for the third time in 40 years. The image has been captured by the European Space Agency Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) regularly takes images of planet Earth, but this one is special.
In the image has been posted on the agency’s website, snow can be seen in the Northwestern region of Algeria, on the edge of the Sahara desert. This is one of the hottest places on Earth.
The image was taken five days earlier, on January 7.
“Most of the snow had melted by the end of the next day, but luckily the Sentinel-2A satellite happened to be in the right place at the right time to record this rare event from space”, the ESA reported.
The town of El Baydah can be seen in the image (bottom left). “The snow was reported to be up to 40 cm thick in some places. Although temperatures plummet during the night, snowfall is very unusual in the Sahara because the air is so dry”.
It is only “the third time in nearly 40 years that this part of the desert has seen snow”.
The Copernicus mission is largely used to track changes in Earth’s land and vegetation. | <urn:uuid:7a109e80-faeb-4a96-8c1e-02b99900e75c> | 2.640625 | 290 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 56.300235 | 95,592,527 |
Snowflake Networks Make for the Best Tech
Researchers are taking inspiration from nature to design the most efficient and repairable power and information networks, where essential redundancy patterns resemble the complex and beautiful branching of snowflakes.
Redundancy is used in networks for the sake of being able to repair on the fly. traditionally, if a power grid is damaged, it will entirely shut down, or will at least have to be shut down in order to be repaired. The same goes for information pathways, where everything could stop if a sole path is interrupted.
However, if there are multiple and redundant pathways, damage may not necessarily interrupt the whole system, allowing for repair even as the network still functions.
This concept can be seen in roads, today. Even if an accident or natural disaster cuts off one road, there are usually a number of detours a traveler can take to still get where they need to go. Redundancy eliminates the danger of choke points.
However, in that same breath, engineers and manufactures can argue that redundancy can be costly and inefficient.
That's why Robert Farr of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences recently investigated which network structures were most efficient in maintaining benefits of redundancy while simultaneously preserving as much resource efficiency as possible. He quickly found that nature, as should be expected, is still the best engineer. (Scroll to read on...)
According to a study recently published in the Physical Review Letters of the American Physical Society (APS), the best networks are made from partial loops around the units of a grid, with exactly one side of each loop missing. All of these partial loops link together, back to a central source, making the whole system exceptionally resistant to multiple breaks. Amazingly, if you tried to plot these kind of networks out, they look remarkably like snowflakes - which naturally branch in symmetrical and highly efficient ice crystals.
Farr and his colleagues are now looking into how these 'snowflake' network designs can be implemented to boost the efficiency of real-world power grids and information pathways. | <urn:uuid:3585d523-e0a8-4686-a115-842161fea4e0> | 2.875 | 415 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 33.671514 | 95,592,538 |
Io Moth (Automeris io)
Detailing the physical features, habits, territorial reach and other identifying qualities of the Io Moth.
Updated: 6/20/2018; Authored By Staff Writer; Content ©www.InsectIdentification.org
The large and conspicuous Io Moth comes in two shades, one for each gender, and has a visually striking caterpillar that can leave a painful impression.
Male Io Moths are yellow and females are more brown. Both have eyespots and are nocturnal. During the day, they lay still, camouflaged by their surroundings. If startled, they tuck their heads down and expose their eyespots. This defensive maneuver can scare away birds or perhaps confuse spiders that may otherwise attack the moth. Adults do not eat, which enables them to focus on reproducing. Females release pheromones that attract males. Lifespans are short once females lay their eggs. Eggs are yellow and white. A fertilized egg develops a black spot and becomes more orange/brown as it matures.
Young caterpillars are a reddish orange and covered in spikes. The mature caterpillar is bright green and covered with tufts of green spines like those seen on a prickly pear cactus. These are stinging spines that inject small amounts of venom, which causes skin irritation and pain. A red and white stripe run along the bottom of the caterpillar's body. It may form its cocoon under a wrapped leaf or near leaf litter at near a tree when it is ready to pupate. They feed on elm, maple, aspen, alder, hickory and willow trees as well as others.
The name "Io" comes from Greek mythology. Io was one of Zeus' mortal lovers and was his wife's priestess. Zeus turned her into a cow to hide her from his wife. | <urn:uuid:77b502ff-3557-4e2e-a1b3-1d21d74a5b29> | 2.8125 | 389 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 54.741691 | 95,592,586 |
The relation of seismic data to stratigraphy can be understood conceptually starting from a rather naive point of view. Taking a single seismic trace, we may assume that each reflection event consists of a simple symmetric wavelet and denotes a change in lithology corresponding to a change in acoustic impedance. The polarity and size of the reflection events allows the development of an underlying reflectivity series and acoustic impedance log. These types of seismic derived Information when interpreted from trace-to-trace and in light of geological principles and available subsurface Information permit accurate correlation of seismic data with the known subsurface Information where these coincide and extrapolations elsewhere.
A variety of difficulties were cited which represented departures of real seismic data from the ideal data of the naive approach. Seismic events which did not correspond to lithology were considered such as multiples and diffractions. The interpretational complexities introduced by geometric effects were illustrated, and actual propagating waveforms which differed significantly from the ideal symmetric waveforms were shown. For each such problem some technique of seismic data processing was offered as a mechanism by which the real data could be transformed or improved to have characteristics approaching the ideal.
Most of the processing procedures for such goals and other techniques in general used to acquire and process good quality seismic data are well known and so were not discussed. The technology and methods of wavelet transformation were of more recent development however, and an exposition in some depth was provided. Many illustrations | <urn:uuid:16bc82b7-dfd2-415a-a6d2-7851fb0fc522> | 2.921875 | 294 | Academic Writing | Science & Tech. | 7.692714 | 95,592,600 |
GlobalWarming is becoming a huge problemfor society due toGreenHouse Gas emission in the wake of modernization and urbanization. The process bywhich carbon sinks remove carbon dioxide (CO2) fromthe atmosphere is known as carbon sequestration. With the help of remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) biomass and corresponding carbon sequestration potential of the forest of Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary is estimated in this study. At a large scale, forests offer better carbon sequestration than any other terrestrial landuse. Satellite data can be used to estimate ground biomass, seasonal productivity and carbon sequestration. This study provides a methodology to assess the biomass and carbon sequestration potential with quick turnaround time. In this study with the acquired information about the presence of different types of forests and their corresponding capacity to store carbon in the Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary have been classified. Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary, forming the catchments of the Neyyar reservoir it is of 30 Kms east of Trivandram, the capital of Kerala. Classified image andNDVI imaged of the study area are used to find out the biomass for various vegetation classes. As a result it is found that carbon sequestration capacity of evergreen forests is most followed by semi-evergreen and deciduous forests. | <urn:uuid:2049cc8e-d76d-40e1-b9e3-3ad62af44071> | 3.09375 | 258 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 19.337978 | 95,592,613 |
Fueled by oxygen, naturally occurring bacteria can slowly destroy blobs and slicks of crude oil without the use of additional chemicals. Faculty researchers at Virginia Tech’s Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (http://www.cee.vt.edu/) (CEE) hope to determine if the shape of crude oil remnant – be it a flat syrupy sheet or a tar ball – can affect deterioration rates.
The researchers also will study how a lack of oxygen can hinder microbe growth, and how carbon leaching from dissipating oil can further fuel these oil-eating microbes, a two-step process known as mass transfer and biodegradation. Remaining toxic chemicals left behind by the spill also will be studied at Virginia Tech labs in Blacksburg.
“This research has the potential for improving our understanding of the long-term persistence of chemicals in the environment. In terms of clean up, there are many problems left to solve regarding the most toxic and recalcitrant pollutants that dissolve out of liquid sources, not just associated with oil spills, but at industrial sites, etc.,” says Mark Widdowson, professor and assistant department head of CEE. He is spearheading the research with Amy Pruden-Bagchi, associate professor of CEE.
Widdowson and Pruden-Bagchi stipulate that oil remnants that have the geometric shape of flat surfaces will dissipate slower compared to tar balls that can be “surrounded” by microorganisms. “Each has a unique geometry where the rate of dissolution is controlled by exposed surface area,” Widdowson and Pruden-Bagchi wrote in their grant proposal. “For oil layers, aerobic biodegradation on the underside of the deposit will be severely limited by oxygen availability.”
More than 200 million gallons of oil is estimated to have spilled into the Gulf after the April 20 blowout at BP’s Deepwater Horizon, an incident which also killed 11 people. More than 500 miles of shoreline is affected along the Gulf Coast, which “underscores the urgent need for research that will lead to accurate predictions of the long-term persistence of the crude oil in coastal environments,” the researchers wrote in their proposal. Unknown is how the various chemicals used to more quickly disperse massive bodies of crude oil will affect future oxygen levels. If oxygen levels remain low in high-chemical-use areas, microbes likely will not grow fast.
Remaining crude oil buried by sand, debris or grasses can remain for years. “There are some reports in Alaska, where you can dig a few inches in the ground and find oil left over from the Exxon Valdez spill,” said Pruden-Bagchi of the 1989 incident that spilled anywhere from 11 million to 32 million gallons – numbers vary by source -- of crude oil in the Prince William Sound. “Limited oxygen is a big part of the problem.”
Before the grant was officially awarded, Widdowson and Pruden-Bagchi led a student team to the lower coast of Alabama to collect samples in late July. Additional funding for this trip and the study came from two Virginia Tech research programs, the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS) and the Institute for Society Culture and the Environment (ISCE).
In Alabama, along oxygen-rich beaches, they found no large oil slicks or massive tar balls, but smaller, raison-shaped chunks of oil with the texture of soft licorice. In oxygen-poor wetland areas, thick, sludgy raisin-shaped balls of oil are still being reported. The researchers already have received assistance from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency in surveying and sampling the crude oil.
“Most of the remaining oil will end up in the marshes and on the sea floor, and may not be obvious as it is on the beaches,” said Pruden-Bagchi. Future trips to the Gulf coast are planned.
Widdowson and Pruden-Bagchi are focused on sharing the information with those handling the Gulf Coast disaster and future oil spills, but also plan to submit their findings for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Pruden-Bagchi also conducted an oil spill clean-up activity for regional middle school students through Virginia Tech’s Imagination summer camp, held in July.
Both lead researchers are familiar with the Gulf Coast. Pruden-Bagchi’s spouse has relatives conducting research at Mobile’s University of South Alabama, while Widdowson has lived in Alabama. “My wife and I both attended Auburn University and occasionally managed to slip away to the Gulf beaches, including Gulf Shores. We were attracted by the beauty of the white sand and crystal clear ocean.”
The College of Engineering (http://www.eng.vt.edu/) at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college’s 6,000 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a “hands-on, minds-on” approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 2,000 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology. Virginia Tech, the most comprehensive university in Virginia, is dedicated to quality, innovation, and results to the commonwealth, the nation, and the world.
Steven Mackay | Newswise Science News
Upcycling of PET Bottles: New Ideas for Resource Cycles in Germany
25.06.2018 | Fraunhofer-Institut für Betriebsfestigkeit und Systemzuverlässigkeit LBF
Dry landscapes can increase disease transmission
20.06.2018 | Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
19.07.2018 | Earth Sciences
19.07.2018 | Power and Electrical Engineering
19.07.2018 | Materials Sciences | <urn:uuid:63bf64cb-3336-4e12-9a35-afab54e47188> | 3.65625 | 1,835 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 40.601452 | 95,592,619 |
Bryan Murray, a PhD candidate at Michigan Tech, and two faculty members, Professor Christopher Webster and Assistant Professor Joseph Bump, studied the effects on soil of the nitrogen-rich waste that white-tailed deer leave among stands of eastern hemlock, which are among their favorite wintering grounds in the harsh, snowy climate of northern Michigan. Webster and Bump are on the faculty of Michigan Tech’s School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science.
They compared eastern hemlock stands where deer congregated to stands where deer were fenced out and found a strong relationship between the amount of soil nitrogen from the deer’s waste products and the kinds of plants that flourished there. Their research results were reported online in the journal Ecology, published by the Ecological Society of America.
“Altering the nitrogen availability in a hemlock stand may affect its ability to continue functioning as a deeryard by changing the types of plants that grow there,” said Murray, first author on the journal article titled “Broadening the ecological context of ungulate-ecosystem interactions: the importance of space, seasonality, and nitrogen.” For example, he said, “high inputs of nitrogen may hasten the transition of hemlock stands to hardwood species that provide scant winter cover.”
During cold northern winters, deer seek out stands of evergreens with dense crowns, such as eastern hemlock, northern white cedar and balsam fir. Such stands of trees are known as “deeryards.” They are thought to provide refuge from deep snow and blustery winds and to help deer hide from predators, Murray explained.
Deer instinctively seek deeryards, but their choice of location is knowledge passed from mother to fawn. Thus deeryards that are traditional favorites can harbor 100 deer or more per square mile, creating hotspots of high-nitrogen-content waste.
Long ago, before logging enabled the white-tailed deer to move further and further north and before the deer population explosion more recently experienced, the ecosystem stayed balanced because there were plenty of deeryards and fewer deer. Now more deer are crowding into less winter cover, shifting the dynamic balance of nature.
The Michigan Tech research demonstrates that the relationship of deer to their habitat is more complex than just the plants they eat, Webster said. “Our hope is that by better understanding the links between habitat use and spatial patterning of resources and plants in survivng hemlock stands we can identify sustainable management strategies for this critical resource.”
“It was fascinating to discover such complex interactions, which have implications for sustainable management, in a seemingly simple ecosystem,” Murray added.
Michigan Technological University (www.mtu.edu) is a leading public research university developing new technologies and preparing students to create the future for a prosperous and sustainable world. Michigan Tech offers more than 130 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in engineering; forest resources; computing; technology; business; economics; natural, physical and environmental sciences; arts; humanities; and social sciences.Bryan Murray
Bryan Murray | Newswise
Upcycling of PET Bottles: New Ideas for Resource Cycles in Germany
25.06.2018 | Fraunhofer-Institut für Betriebsfestigkeit und Systemzuverlässigkeit LBF
Dry landscapes can increase disease transmission
20.06.2018 | Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
19.07.2018 | Earth Sciences
19.07.2018 | Power and Electrical Engineering
19.07.2018 | Materials Sciences | <urn:uuid:7a10cd43-ed6f-4975-95d8-57256cee2ee7> | 3.421875 | 1,305 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 35.090582 | 95,592,620 |
Some species of Rickettsia are known to cause harmful diseases in humans, such as epidemic typhus (R. prowazekii) and Rocky Mountain spotted fever (R. rickettsii), while others have been identified as emerging pathogens and organisms that might possibly be used for the development of biological weapons. The new data, which are publicly available via the PATRIC project web site (patric.vbi.vt.edu), open up exciting new possibilities for future research.
Dr. Joseph Gillespie, a bioinformatician at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute and leader of the study, remarked: “Over the past ten years, an average of one genome per year has been sequenced for the Rickettsia, which represents a considerable genomic treasure trove for evolutionary studies. We have systematically probed the genomic data available for Rickettsia to reveal how rickettsial genomes have given rise to the great diversity of organisms that we know today. This approach sheds light on the evolutionary intricacies of Rickettsia and suggests how some members of the group have developed into potent pathogens responsible for significant diseases in humans.”
In the study, the researchers defined a core Rickettsia genome by looking at a large number of genes that could potentially encode for proteins in the ten genomes under investigation. This information was used to generate over 700 groups of orthologous proteins that theoretically could have originated from a common ancestor. A similar exercise yielded over 1,300 orthologous groups of proteins that define the accessory genome. Digging further into the accessory genome yielded signature proteins that define the four major rickettsial groups, as well as species infecting common arthropod hosts and species harboring plasmids. Surprisingly, and contrary to previous dogma regarding rickettsial genome evolution, the accessory genome contained many likely elements of the bacterial mobile gene pool.
VBI Director and PATRIC Principal Investigator Bruno Sobral remarked: “Virulent species of Rickettsia are of great interest both as emerging agents of infectious disease and potential bioterror agents. We believe the current work provides a robust evolutionary framework that allows for the interpretation of the genomic characteristics of the four main lineages of Rickettsia. As such it provides an ideal resource for research directed at developing vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics for the diverse group of pathogens that constitute the Rickettsia.”
Dr. Gillespie concluded: “The results obtained in this study are consistent with the recent explosion in the number of identified plasmids in Rickettsia. By making these data available we hope to enable future research into these intriguing organisms.”
Barry Whyte | EurekAlert!
Scientists uncover the role of a protein in production & survival of myelin-forming cells
19.07.2018 | Advanced Science Research Center, GC/CUNY
NYSCF researchers develop novel bioengineering technique for personalized bone grafts
18.07.2018 | New York Stem Cell Foundation
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
19.07.2018 | Earth Sciences
19.07.2018 | Power and Electrical Engineering
19.07.2018 | Materials Sciences | <urn:uuid:81d814f3-da29-406d-8626-898fe7266f35> | 3.53125 | 1,189 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 30.04968 | 95,592,621 |
SpVoice Speak method (SAPI 5.4)
Microsoft Speech API 5.4
The Speak method initiates the speaking of a text string, a text file, an XML file, or a wave file by the voice.
The Speak method can be called synchronously or asynchronously. When called synchronously, the method does not return until the text has been spoken; when called asynchronously, it returns immediately, and the voice speaks as a background process.
When synchronous speech is used in an application, the application's execution is blocked while the voice speaks, and the user is effectively locked out. This may be acceptable for simple applications, or those with no graphical user interface (GUI), but when sophisticated user interaction is intended, asynchronous speaking will generally be more appropriate.
SpVoice.Speak( Text As String, [Flags As SpeechVoiceSpeakFlags = SVSFDefault] ) As Long
The text to be spoken, or if the SVSFIsFilename flag is included in the Flags parameter, the path of the file to be spoken.
[Optional] Flags. Default value is SVSFDefault.
A Long variable containing the stream number. When a voice enqueues more than one stream by speaking asynchronously, the stream number is necessary to associate events with the appropriate stream.
The Speak method inserts a stream into the text-to-speech (TTS) engine's queue, and returns a stream number, assigned by the engine. This distinguishes the stream from other streams in the queue. This number is a temporary identifier which functions like an index into the TTS queue. The first stream spoken into an empty queue will always have a stream number of 1.
A voice object can enqueue numerous streams, and each of these streams can generate events. SpVoice events always return the stream number as a parameter. If an application saves the stream numbers of the streams it enqueues, events can be associated with the proper stream.
The following code snippet demonstrates the Speak method with several commonly used flag settings.
Const cstrTextName = "c:\Speech Voice Speak.txt" Dim V As SpeechLib.SpVoice Set V = New SpVoice 'Build a simple text file for demonstration purposes Open cstrTextName For Output As #1 Print #1, "The name of this file is " & cstrTextName Close #1 'Speak literal text V.Speak "This is some text", SVSFDefault 'Speak the text of the test file V.Speak cstrTextName, SVSFIsFilename + SVSFlagsAsync 'Speak with/without punctuation V.Speak "one, two, three!", SVSFlagsAsync V.Speak "one, two, three!", SVSFNLPSpeakPunc + SVSFlagsAsync 'Speak text with/without XML tags V.Speak "text with XML", SVSFIsXML + SVSFlagsAsync V.Speak "text with XML", SVSFIsNotXML + SVSFlagsAsync V.WaitUntilDone 10000 | <urn:uuid:b81cc973-3184-4944-9124-172c94b5a037> | 2.796875 | 642 | Documentation | Software Dev. | 58.417969 | 95,592,634 |
Of the estimated 7,000 tigers left in the world, scientists know the least about the roughly 2,000 thought to remain in Southeast Asia.
Unstable or repressive political conditions in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Malaysia have long impeded Western biologists trying to study tigers there. Much of the big cats habitat, meanwhile, consists of remote, extremely wild rain forest that offers near-perfect cover to the shy and elusive predators.
So tiger experts are hailing a new study of the tiger population in Malaysia as something of a landmark in research and conservation of the animals. The study, by recent University of Florida graduate Kae Kawanishi, provides the first scientifically rigorous estimate of a tiger population in Malaysia and one of the first such studies in the entire region. Such studies are important because they will aid conservation efforts in an area facing huge population and development pressures, experts say.
Kae Kawanishi | EurekAlert!
Upcycling of PET Bottles: New Ideas for Resource Cycles in Germany
25.06.2018 | Fraunhofer-Institut für Betriebsfestigkeit und Systemzuverlässigkeit LBF
Dry landscapes can increase disease transmission
20.06.2018 | Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.
A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.
The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses...
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
20.07.2018 | Power and Electrical Engineering
20.07.2018 | Information Technology
20.07.2018 | Materials Sciences | <urn:uuid:8f771ee1-4027-4f89-9733-b1717a49d73c> | 3.421875 | 789 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 35.887846 | 95,592,649 |
In what parts of the world and to what degree have groundwater reservoirs been depleted over the past 50 years?
The Frankfurt hydrologist Prof. Petra Döll has been researching this using the global water model WaterGAP. Her conclusion: The rate at which groundwater reservoirs are being depleted is increasing, but that the rate is not as high as previously estimated.
In what parts of the world and to what degree have groundwater reservoirs been depleted over the past 50 years? The Frankfurt hydrologist Prof. Petra Döll has been researching this using the global water model WaterGAP. She has arrived at the most reliable estimate to date by taking into consideration processes which are important in dry regions of the world.
The values calculated were compared with monitoring data from many different wells and data from the GRACE satellites. These satellites measure changes in the Earth's gravity field. Döll has come to the conclusion that the rate at which groundwater reservoirs are being depleted is increasing, but that the rate is not as high as previously estimated.
90 percent of water consumption is due to irrigation for farming purposes. Only the comparatively small remainder is used for potable water and industrial production. As an example, 40 percent of the cereals produced around the world is irrigated. However, in many cases this results in increased scarcity of water resources and puts a burden on ecosystems. In dry regions, the amount taken from groundwater reservoirs can easily exceed the amount being replenished, so that the groundwater reservoir is overused and depleted.
"By comparing the modelled and measured values of groundwater depletion, we were able for the first time to show on a global scale that farmers irrigate more sparingly in regions where groundwater reservoirs are being depleted. They only use about 70 percent of the optimal irrigation amounts", explains Petra Döll from the Institute of Physical Geography at the Goethe University.
The rate at which the Earth's groundwater reservoirs are being depleted is constantly increasing. Annual groundwater depletion during the first decade of this century was twice as high as it was between 1960 and 2000. India, the USA, Iran, Saudi Arabia and China are the countries with the highest rates of groundwater depletion.
About 15 percent of global groundwater consumption is not sustainable, meaning that it comes from non-renewable groundwater resources. On the Arabian Peninsula, in Libya, Egypt, Mali, Mozambique and Mongolia, over 30 percent of groundwater consumption is from non-renewable groundwater.
The new estimate of global groundwater depletion is 113,000 million cubic meters per year for the period from 2000 to 2009, which is lower than previous, widely varying estimates. This can be considered to be the most reliable value to date, since it is based on improved groundwater consumption data which takes the likely deficit irrigation into account, and since the model results correlate well with independent comparative data.
The increased use of groundwater for irrigation also results in a rise in sea levels: According to Döll's calculations, sea level rise due to groundwater depletion was 0.31 millimetres per year during the period from 2000 to 2009. This corresponds to roughly one tenth of the total sea level rise.
The work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the priority program "Mass transport and Mass distribution in the System Earth".
Publication Döll, P., Müller Schmied, H., Schuh, C., Portmann, F.T., Eicker, A., (2014): Global-scale assessment of groundwater depletion and related groundwater abstractions: Combining hydrological modelling with information from well observations and GRACE satellites. Water Resour. Res. 50, doi: 10.1002/2014WR015595.
Online publication: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2014WR015595
Information Prof. Petra Döll, Institute of Physical Geography, Riedberg Campus, Phone: (069)798-40219: firstname.lastname@example.org.
The Goethe University is an institution with particularly strong research capabilities based in the European financial metropolis of Frankfurt. It celebrates its 100th year of existence in 2014. The university was founded in 1914 through private means from liberally-orientated citizens of Frankfurt and has devoted itself to fulfilling its motto "Science for the Society" in its research and teaching activity right up to the present day. Many of the founding donors were of Jewish origin. During the last 100 years, the pioneering services offered by the Goethe University have impacted the fields of social, societal and economic sciences, chemistry, quantum physics, neurological research and labour law. On January 1st, 2008, it achieved an exceptional degree of independence as it returned to its historical roots as a privately funded university. Today it is one of the ten universities that are most successful in obtaining external research funding and one of the three largest universities in Germany with centres of excellence in medicine, life sciences and humanities.
Publisher: The president of the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Editorial department: Dr. Anne Hardy, Public Relations Officer for Scientific Communication. Abteilung Marketing und Kommunikation, Grüneburgplatz 1, 60629 Frankfurt am Main, Phone: (069) 798-12498.
Dr. Anke Sauter | idw - Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Global study of world's beaches shows threat to protected areas
19.07.2018 | NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
NSF-supported researchers to present new results on hurricanes and other extreme events
19.07.2018 | National Science Foundation
A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.
The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses...
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
20.07.2018 | Power and Electrical Engineering
20.07.2018 | Information Technology
20.07.2018 | Materials Sciences | <urn:uuid:d9717fbe-744c-4861-b6a4-5b06abf37e8d> | 3.421875 | 1,676 | Knowledge Article | Science & Tech. | 39.843998 | 95,592,664 |
A team of stellar astronomers is engaged in an interstellar CSI (crime scene investigation). They have two suspects, traces of assault and battery, but no corpse.
This image of the planetary nebula SuWt 2 reveals a bright ring-like structure encircling a bright central star. The central star is actually a close binary system where two stars completely circle each other every five days. The interaction of these stars and the more massive star that sheds material to create the nebula formed the ring structure. The burned-out core of the massive companion has yet to be found inside the nebula. The nebula is located 6,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Centaurus. This color image was taken on Jan. 31, 1995 with the National Science Foundation's 1.5-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. CTIO is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which has its headquarters in Tucson, Ariz.
The southern planetary nebula SuWt 2 is the scene of the crime, some 6,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Centaurus.
SuWt 2 consists of a bright, nearly edge-on glowing ring of gas. Faint lobes extend perpendicularly to the ring, giving the faintest parts of the nebula an hourglass shape.
These glowing ejecta are suspected to have been energized by a star that has now burned out and collapsed to a white dwarf. But the white dwarf is nowhere to be found.
The mystery deepened when researchers obtained ultraviolet observations in the early 1990's with NASA's International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite, expecting to see signs of a faint but very hot star. But no ultraviolet radiation was detected.
Instead, at the center of the nebular ring are two suspicious characters: a pair of tightly bound stars that whirl around each other every five days, neither one of which is a white dwarf. These stars are hotter than our Sun (their spectral class is A), but they are still not hot enough to make the nebula glow. Only a flood of ultraviolet radiation, such as that from the missing white dwarf, could do that.
The study is being conducted by Katrina Exter and Howard Bond of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., and a team of British and American colleagues. Their extensive photometry and spectroscopy of the binary show that both stars are larger than main-sequence stars of their masses. This may imply that they have started to evolve toward becoming red giants. Both stars also appear to be rotating more slowly than expected; they would be expected to always be facing the same sides toward each other, but they do not.
The astronomers suggest a simple explanation for the facts at the scene: the stars at the center of SuWt 2 were born as a family of three, with the A stars circling each other tightly and a more massive star orbiting further out. This allowed room for the massive star to evolve to become a red giant, which only then engulfed the pair of A stars. Trapped inside the red giant in what astronomers call a "common envelope," the pair spiraled down toward the core, causing the envelope to spin faster. Eventually, the outer layers of the red giant were ejected in the plane of the orbit, producing the ring-shaped nebula seen today.
The unusually slow spins of the two A stars may have been another consequence of their victimization by their massive sibling.
The ground-based observations were obtained with telescopes at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile; the New Technology Telescope at the European Southern Observatory, Chile; the Anglo-Australian Telescope, Australia; and the South African Astronomical Observatory.
Ultraviolet radiation from the exposed hot core of the red giant would have caused the nebula to glow. If the giant's core were of high enough mass, it would then shrink and cool off rapidly to a faint white dwarf, which might explain its current invisibility.
Their results are being presented today at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Mo. Other members of the team are Keivan Stassun (Vanderbilt University, Tenn.), Pierre Maxted and Barry Smalley (Keele University, UK), and Don Pollacco (Queen's University, UK).
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) and is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Md. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. The institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington, DC.
Nano-kirigami: 'Paper-cut' provides model for 3D intelligent nanofabrication
16.07.2018 | Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Theorists publish highest-precision prediction of muon magnetic anomaly
16.07.2018 | DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
16.07.2018 | Physics and Astronomy
16.07.2018 | Transportation and Logistics
16.07.2018 | Agricultural and Forestry Science | <urn:uuid:67b6c8fb-b554-475e-af84-e0c281a93cb6> | 3.40625 | 1,617 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 42.024859 | 95,592,684 |
Seismology in the City
Seismology in the City Temporary seismometer array in New York City to record ambient noise. Introduction We usually think of noise as a bad thing. Noise during the quiet part of an orchestra performance is annoying and ruins the music. Static on the telephone (a type of noise) makes it difficult to hear what your friend is saying. And when you...
Twenty years have elasped since the first issue of Earthquakes & Volcanoes. Apart from the remarkable increases in the number of scientists actively enagaged in earth sciences, what are the outstanding achievements during the past 20 years in the field of engineering seismology, which is my own speciality?
Seismology in Chile
The Department of Geology and Geophysics, which is under the faculties of Mathematics and Physical Sciences of the University of Chile, is the organization that is responsible for the Seismological Service of Chile and for installing,operating, and maintaining the seismological stations as well as all the strong-motion stations in Chile.
A fundamental goal of volcano seismology is to understand active magmatic systems, to characterize the configuration of such systems, and to determine the extent and evolution of source regions of magmatic energy. Such understanding is critical to our assessment of eruptive behavior and its hazardous impacts. With the emergence of portable...
Rotational seismology is an emerging study of all aspects of rotational motions induced by earthquakes, explosions, and ambient vibrations. It is of interest to several disciplines, including seismology, earthquake engineering, geodesy, and earth-based detection of Einstein’s gravitation waves.Rotational effects of seismic waves, together with...
Twenty years ago, politicians, concerned a the slow progress of negotiations to stop nuclear weapons testing, described the state of seismology as being in the equivalent of the Stone Age. this assessment spurred the beginning of research and development at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment near the village of Aldermaston, England. the...
Volcano seismology, hazards assessment
[No abstract available]
Seismology in Mexico
Mexico is situated at the intersection of four major crustal Plates: the Americas Plate, the Pacific Plate, the Caribbean Plate, and the Cocos Plate. The interaction of these four plates is very complex. The pattern of earthquake risk is, therefore, among the most complicated in the world. The average release of seismic energy each is 55x1021 ergs...
Jesuits in seismology
Jesuits have been involved with scientific endeavors since the 16th century, although their association with seismology is more recent. What impelled Jesuit priests to also become seismologists is am matter of conjecture. Certainly the migration of missionaries to various parts of the world must have resulted in queries to their fellow Jesuits in...
Deep-crustal seismology of continental margins
[No abstract available] | <urn:uuid:d1010bee-8cff-4e1b-81fe-f18b6ca61d5f> | 2.671875 | 588 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 30.063 | 95,592,686 |
Global warming could be controlled if we all became vegetarians and stopped eating meat. That's the view of British physicist Alan Calverd, who thinks that giving up pork chops, lamb cutlets and chicken burgers would do more for the environment than burning less oil and gas.
Writing in this month's Physics World, Calvert calculates that the animals we eat emit 21% of all the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity. We could therefore slash man-made emissions of carbon dioxide simply by abolishing all livestock.
Moreover, there would be no adverse effects to health and it would be an experiment that we could abandon at any stage. "Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels," he says.
Physics World is the international monthly magazine published by the Institute of Physics.
Source: Institute of Physics
Explore further: James Webb Space Telescope to inspect atmospheres of gas giant exoplanets | <urn:uuid:5e3800fa-1f73-4506-abf5-f3ca1d4f4874> | 3.046875 | 207 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 36.51185 | 95,592,706 |
EWWNP means Exploring Wild and Wonderful Number Patterns Created by Yourself! Investigate what happens if we create number patterns using some simple rules.
If the numbers 5, 7 and 4 go into this function machine, what numbers will come out?
Bernard Bagnall recommends some primary school problems which use numbers from the environment around us, from clocks to house numbers.
Look on the back of any modern book and you will find an ISBN code. Take this code and calculate this sum in the way shown. Can you see what the answers always have in common?
Find the next number in this pattern: 3, 7, 19, 55 ...
Find another number that is one short of a square number and when you double it and add 1, the result is also a square number.
In this investigation, you are challenged to make mobile phone numbers which are easy to remember. What happens if you make a sequence adding 2 each time?
On a calculator, make 15 by using only the 2 key and any of the four operations keys. How many ways can you find to do it?
On the planet Vuv there are two sorts of creatures. The Zios have 3 legs and the Zepts have 7 legs. The great planetary explorer Nico counted 52 legs. How many Zios and how many Zepts were there?
There are 4 jugs which hold 9 litres, 7 litres, 4 litres and 2 litres. Find a way to pour 9 litres of drink from one jug to another until you are left with exactly 3 litres in three of the jugs.
Well now, what would happen if we lost all the nines in our number system? Have a go at writing the numbers out in this way and have a look at the multiplications table.
Tell your friends that you have a strange calculator that turns numbers backwards. What secret number do you have to enter to make 141 414 turn around?
Can you score 100 by throwing rings on this board? Is there more than way to do it?
You have 5 darts and your target score is 44. How many different ways could you score 44?
Winifred Wytsh bought a box each of jelly babies, milk jelly bears, yellow jelly bees and jelly belly beans. In how many different ways could she make a jolly jelly feast with 32 legs?
What is happening at each box in these machines?
Using 3 rods of integer lengths, none longer than 10 units and not using any rod more than once, you can measure all the lengths in whole units from 1 to 10 units. How many ways can you do this?
How could you put eight beanbags in the hoops so that there are four in the blue hoop, five in the red and six in the yellow? Can you find all the ways of doing this?
This task, written for the National Young Mathematicians' Award 2016, focuses on 'open squares'. What would the next five open squares look like?
Write the numbers up to 64 in an interesting way so that the shape they make at the end is interesting, different, more exciting ... than just a square.
Arrange three 1s, three 2s and three 3s in this square so that every row, column and diagonal adds to the same total.
48 is called an abundant number because it is less than the sum of its factors (without itself). Can you find some more abundant numbers?
Try adding together the dates of all the days in one week. Now multiply the first date by 7 and add 21. Can you explain what happens?
Rocco ran in a 200 m race for his class. Use the information to find out how many runners there were in the race and what Rocco's finishing position was.
There are three buckets each of which holds a maximum of 5 litres. Use the clues to work out how much liquid there is in each bucket.
Fill in the missing numbers so that adding each pair of corner numbers gives you the number between them (in the box).
There are 44 people coming to a dinner party. There are 15 square tables that seat 4 people. Find a way to seat the 44 people using all 15 tables, with no empty places.
Fill in the numbers to make the sum of each row, column and diagonal equal to 34. For an extra challenge try the huge American Flag magic square.
On the table there is a pile of oranges and lemons that weighs exactly one kilogram. Using the information, can you work out how many lemons there are?
Mr. Sunshine tells the children they will have 2 hours of homework. After several calculations, Harry says he hasn't got time to do this homework. Can you see where his reasoning is wrong?
There were chews for 2p, mini eggs for 3p, Chocko bars for 5p and lollypops for 7p in the sweet shop. What could each of the children buy with their money?
Add the sum of the squares of four numbers between 10 and 20 to the sum of the squares of three numbers less than 6 to make the square of another, larger, number.
Annie cut this numbered cake into 3 pieces with 3 cuts so that the numbers on each piece added to the same total. Where were the cuts and what fraction of the whole cake was each piece?
Find out what a Deca Tree is and then work out how many leaves there will be after the woodcutter has cut off a trunk, a branch, a twig and a leaf.
This magic square has operations written in it, to make it into a maze. Start wherever you like, go through every cell and go out a total of 15!
Can you put plus signs in so this is true? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 = 99 How many ways can you do it?
The clockmaker's wife cut up his birthday cake to look like a clock face. Can you work out who received each piece?
The Scot, John Napier, invented these strips about 400 years ago to help calculate multiplication and division. Can you work out how to use Napier's bones to find the answer to these multiplications?
If the answer's 2010, what could the question be?
How would you count the number of fingers in these pictures?
What do the digits in the number fifteen add up to? How many other numbers have digits with the same total but no zeros?
What do you notice about the date 03.06.09? Or 08.01.09? This challenge invites you to investigate some interesting dates yourself.
Number problems at primary level to work on with others.
Can you design a new shape for the twenty-eight squares and arrange the numbers in a logical way? What patterns do you notice?
Can you find which shapes you need to put into the grid to make the totals at the end of each row and the bottom of each column?
Skippy and Anna are locked in a room in a large castle. The key to that room, and all the other rooms, is a number. The numbers are locked away in a problem. Can you help them to get out?
This task follows on from Build it Up and takes the ideas into three dimensions!
Watch this animation. What do you notice? What happens when you try more or fewer cubes in a bundle?
This dice train has been made using specific rules. How many different trains can you make?
Find the sum and difference between a pair of two-digit numbers. Now find the sum and difference between the sum and difference! What happens? | <urn:uuid:98667484-ae4d-4416-bd71-9eb591c3d316> | 4.15625 | 1,561 | Content Listing | Science & Tech. | 77.130734 | 95,592,734 |
Speed-Reading the Genome
New techniques that can draw DNA through nanopores might lead to faster and cheaper sequencing.
Cheap, fast genome sequencing could some day become a part of routine patient care–but researchers say it will take a novel approach.
Last week, the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, MD, announced more than $12 million in grants for researchers who are developing technologies to slash the costs of mapping a mammalian genome from around $10 million to $1,000. Some scientists believe that new twists on a decade-old idea, called nanopore sequencing, could speed up the sequencing process and provide a more complete map of the genome.
In nanopore sequencing, strands of DNA move through a small hole in a membrane with sensors that read off the base pairs of genetic code one by one. The hole, or nanopore, is about the size of a DNA molecule, or 1 to 2 nanometers in diameter, and the membrane separates positively and negatively charged solutions.
Because DNA has a strong negative charge, when it’s placed on the positive side, its tip finds the hole and gets sucked across the membrane. As the DNA moves through the nanopore, researchers should be able to “identify each base as it goes by” using electrical or optical techniques, says David Deamer, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Deamer and Harvard biology professor Daniel Branton came up with the nanopore sequencing concept in the mid-1990s.
The “membrane” in their setup is a silicon semiconductor. And the probes on the nanopores they’re developing send electrons through each base as it passes through the hole. Branton says they’re effectively designing a new kind of electron tunneling microscope, an instrument that uses a probe to send electrons through a molecule, thereby providing detailed information about its structure. In their DNA microscope, however, the molecule will move past the probe instead of the probe moving past the molecule.
But they still have a long way to go. “We can’t sequence anything yet,” says Branton. He projects that his group will be able to provide a short sequence in about five years.
Amit Meller, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, believes he’s much closer to demonstrating nanopore sequencing, using an entirely different approach. He’s designing a DNA sequencer based on a modified fluorescence microscope and arrays of many nanopores.
First, the DNA is incubated with four different fluorescent labels. The labels make the strand too big to go through the hole, so they have to pop off for the strand to advance. As the DNA moves through the nanopore base by base, the microscope will detect the labels as they pop off. Meller says the sequence data will be processed by a computer as each base is read off.
Meller has not yet demonstrated his sequencing technology, but he says it relies on a combination of proven techniques and, unlike electrical nanopore sequencing techniques, there are no fundamental problems remaining. His group has fabricated 25-nanopore arrays and demonstrated the effectiveness of the fluorescent probes. Now, with a three-year, $2.2-million NIH grant, he believes they’ll be able to put the pieces together.
If this technique works, it could mean DNA sequencing at extremely high throughput. Meller says arrays of 100 by 100 nanopores could sequence an entire human genome in an hour.
Current sequencing techniques rely on many repeated biochemical steps, including replicating the DNA, adding probes, and chopping it into pieces. It takes weeks for computers to process the resulting sequence fragments and piece them back together. Moreover, the computer processing is expensive and cannot piece together long sections of the genome in which the same sequence is repeated. Today’s techniques also cannot be used to find rearrangements–movements of large stretches of DNA from one part of a chromosome to another. Yet rearranged and repeated segments are believed to be important elements of genomics.
“Research is beginning to show that long-range rearrangements have disease effects,” says Jeffery Schloss, director of technology development at the genome institute. Yet current sequencing techniques cannot get at these. “If [nanopore sequencing] works at all, you ought to be able to sequence long stretches” because the DNA is read continuously in real time, he says.
Another exciting possibility, according to Schloss, is using nanopore sequencing to read molecular modifications to DNA that regulate gene expression. Inside cells, for example, genes are sometimes covered in hydrocarbon molecules, called methyl groups, effectively silencing them. (It’s how females operate with two X chromosomes: in each cell, one is covered with methyl groups and inactivated.) While traditional sequencing strips off methyl groups and other modifications, this step may not be necessary using nanopores. “I really like the idea of being able to read the native DNA,” says Schloss.
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The major unknown in the global climate radiation balance calculations is the effect of aerosols. The extinction of aerosols depends upon the wavelength, size, concentration, composition, and to a lesser extent, shape of the aerosols. Thus, methods are needed to determine and model these quantities. The size distribution of larger aerosols can be monitored with multistatic lidar, at least in the spherical approximation. We can use this approximation in humid environments, and for old desert dusts in which the aspect ratio is typically below two. Aerosols that are small compared to the incident wavelength present a Rayleigh-like scattering dependence, and the size cannot be determined using multistatic lidar techniques. We discuss the analysis of true extinction from Raman lidar measurements at several wavelengths for determining the size distribution of aerosols. The Angstrom ratio, which is the natural log of the extinction ratio divided by the natural log of the wavelength ratio, has been used in column-integrated measurements to classify aerosols. Lidar backscatter Angstrom ratio measurements have also been used to classify aerosols as a function of range. However, the use for aerosol size distribution has not been investigated in detail before this work. We find, from Raman lidar measurements, Mie models of extinction and backscatter Angstrom ratios, that small aerosols make a significant contribution to optical scattering, and find that size information can be extracted from the lidar data.
Hans D. Hallen and C. Russell Philbrick, "Lidar detection of small aerosol size distribution," Proc. SPIE 10636, Laser Radar Technology and Applications XXIII, 106360J (Presented at SPIE Defense + Security: April 18, 2018; Published: 10 May 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2304890.
Conference Presentations are recordings of oral presentations given at SPIE conferences and published as part of the conference proceedings. They include the speaker's narration along with a video recording of the presentation slides and animations. Many conference presentations also include full-text papers. Search and browse our growing collection of more than 12,000 conference presentations, including many plenary and keynote presentations. | <urn:uuid:b9516fce-a02b-4f73-95ea-fbb786878743> | 3.5625 | 454 | Academic Writing | Science & Tech. | 28.36301 | 95,592,750 |
By M. Meyyappan
Taking a complete examine this various and dynamic topic, Carbon Nanotubes: technological know-how and functions describes the field's quite a few elements, together with houses, development, and processing thoughts, whereas targeting person significant software components. famous authors who perform the craft of carbon nanotubes each day current an summary on constructions and homes, and speak about modeling and simulation efforts, development by means of arc discharge, laser ablation, and chemical vapor deposition. functions develop into the point of interest in chapters on scanning probe microscopy, carbon nanotube-based diodes and transistors, box emission, and the advance of chemical and actual sensors, biosensors, and composites.
Presenting up to date literature citations that categorical the present kingdom of the technology, this e-book absolutely explores the advance part of carbon nanotube-based purposes. it's a useful source for engineers, scientists, researchers, and execs in a variety of disciplines whose concentration is still at the energy and promise of carbon nanotubes.
Editor Meyya Meyyappan will obtain the Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology from the IEEE Nanotechnology Council on the IEEE Nano convention in Portland, Oregon in August, 2011
Read Online or Download Carbon Nanotubes: Science and Applications PDF
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The combination of top-down lithographic thoughts with man made natural and inorganic applied sciences is a key problem for the improvement of potent nanosca1e units. by way of meeting, nanoparticles offer a very good device for bridging the space among the answer of electron beam lithography (-60 nm) and the molecular point.
The unique function of RP used to be to substantiate the form and think of suggestion layout, yet concepts in RP now permit for the advance of subtle scientific units reminiscent of catheters, stents, drug supply structures, syringes and cardio-vascular units, and extra. RP has moved past scientific units, as surgeons now usually use RP versions to brainstorm recommendations for surgical procedures.
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Additional info for Carbon Nanotubes: Science and Applications
Carbon Nanotubes: Science and Applications by M. Meyyappan | <urn:uuid:c8171646-f121-4320-823b-3d096175fc5f> | 2.515625 | 714 | Product Page | Science & Tech. | 4.09134 | 95,592,753 |
In certain species of diatoms, auxospores are specialised cells that are produced at key stages in their cell cycle or life history. Auxospores typically play a role in growth processes, sexual reproduction or dormancy.
Auxospores are involved in re-establishing the normal size in diatoms because successive mitotic cell divisions leads to a decrease in cell size. This occurs because each daughter cell produced by cell division inherits one of the two valves that make up the frustule (a silica cell wall), and then grows a smaller valve within it. Consequently, each division cycle decreases the average size of diatom cells in a population. When its size becomes too small, a dividing diatom cell produces an auxospore to expand its cell size back to that which is normal for vegetative cells.
Finally, auxospores can be produced by diatoms to act as dormant stages, sometimes referred to as "resting spores." These are used to survive periods of time that are unfavourable to growth, such as winter or while nutrients are depleted.
- Hoek, C. van den, Mann, D. G. and Jahns, H. M. (1995). Algae : An introduction to phycology, Cambridge University Press, UK.
- Assmy, P., Henjes, J., Smetacek, V. and Montresor, M. (2006). Auxospore formation by the silica-sinking, oceanic diatom Fragilariopsis kerguelensis (Bacillariophyceae). J. Phycol. 42, 1002-1006.
- Chepurnov, V.A., Mann, D.G., Sabbe, K. and Vyverman, W. (2004). Experimental studies on sexual reproduction in diatoms. International Review of Cytology 237, 91-154.
|This cell biology article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|
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Humankind is in the midst of a massive drive to harness solar energy to power our homes, gadgets, and industry. Plastic solar cells, based on blends of conducting organic polymers, are of interest for making lightweight and cheap solar cells. The problem with these kinds of solar cells is that their solar power efficiencies are very closely related to the way the different types of materials mix and crystalize in thin films. This means complex and careful processing is usually needed to make efficient polymer solar cells.
Now, researchers at Osaka University, in an international collaboration with Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, have redesigned one of their previously reported polymers to make a new kind of solar cell that needs no extra special treatments. They also managed to keep excellent power conversion efficiency of solar power to electricity, as recently reported in Advanced Energy Materials.
"Conventional organic solar cells have now achieved good efficiencies but the polymer films in these devices typically require special processing to ensure correct crystallization. Instead, we have been focusing on amorphous polymer blends to avoid these issues," lead author Yutaka Ie says.
Organic solar cells work based on light energy exciting electrons in a polymer. The excited electrons can then transfer to a soccer ball-shaped fullerene and move to the positive side of the solar cell. The space left by an electron is known as a hole. It too must move through the polymer to the other side of the device to complete the circuit.
The Osaka researchers knew that one of their polymers could not transport holes so effectively. They redesigned the structure by adding an extra component, which improved its hole conductivity, and in turn enhanced the solar power conversion performance.
Coauthor Yoshio Aso says, "Being able to make these cells without having to pay such close attention to the crystal structure of the polymer films could allow us to mass produce these devices by simple printing methods, which should considerably lower costs of the devices and lead to much wider uptake."
Source and top image: Osaka University
Learn more at the next leading event on the topic: Off Grid Energy Independence Europe 2019 on 10 - 11 Apr 2019 at Estrel Convention Center, Berlin, Germany hosted by IDTechEx. | <urn:uuid:251e6660-5a85-49f5-99f6-77db61a8753e> | 3.6875 | 448 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 26.95885 | 95,592,767 |
Lichen Redefined as a Symbiosis of ThreeAugust 08, 2016 / Written by: Miki Huynh
Basidiomycete yeast was discovered in the cortex of the wolf lichen, as well as among several other species. Image credit: University of Montana
Recent research from the University of Montana has challenged the longstanding textbook definition of lichen.
Before the study was published in Science, lichen was thought to be a symbiosis of a single fungus, usually an ascomycete, and a photosynthesizing bacteria or algae. Lead author Toby Spribille analyzed different species across six continents and discovered the existence of a third essential constituent: basidiomycete yeast. The yeast cells were embedded in the lichen cortex and may provide an explanation for the variety of characteristics seen among the species.
“Basidiomycete yeasts in the cortex of ascomycete macrolichens” has since received wide media coverage, with stories published in Science News, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and more. The research was supported by grants from the University of Montana, the Austrian Science Fund, the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the National Science Foundation, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Council, and Stiftelsen Oscar och Lili Lamms Minne.
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Einstein’s ‘spooky action’ goes massive
The elusive quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement has now been made a reality in massive objects.
Results published in Nature show that two vibrating drumheads, each the width of a human hair, can display the “spooky action at a distance” that famously troubled Einstein.
The discovery was made by an international team of researchers including UNSW Canberra Senior Lecturer Matt Woolley.
“This demonstration is the culmination of several years’ work,” Dr Woolley says.
Such work opens the door to the future demonstration of teleportation between massive objects and the study of the poorly understood interplay between quantum mechanics and gravity.
Entanglement, whereby two distant objects become intertwined in a manner that defies both classical physics and a “common sense” understanding of reality, is perhaps one of the strangest phenomena of quantum theory. In 1935, Einstein expressed his concern over this concept, referring to it as a “spooky action at a distance”.
Nonetheless, entanglement is now considered a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, and is the key resource behind a host of potentially transformative quantum communication and computation technologies. It is, however, extremely fragile, and has previously only been observed with microscopic systems such as light or atoms, and more recently, with electrical circuits.
In 2014, Dr Woolley, in collaboration with Professor Aashish Clerk (now at the University of Chicago), showed theoretically that entanglement of the motion of massive objects could be prepared and detected in a superconducting electrical circuit incorporating two vibrating drumheads as the massive objects.
Dr Woolley then collaborated with Professor Mika Sillanpää and his team at Aalto University in Finland to realise this vision.
The team has prepared and detected quantum entanglement of the motion of massive objects, each with a diameter about the width of a human hair and each composed of trillions of atoms.
The experiment has been realised by precisely fabricating a superconducting electrical circuit, cooling it to about -273°C (just above absolute zero), and then carefully controlling and measuring it using weak microwave fields.
“It is, of course, immensely satisfying to see the vision that you have laid out come to fruition, and exciting to imagine where experiments like this might ultimately lead, and what fundamental insights and technological development they might ultimately yield,” Dr Woolley says.
“The next step is to demonstrate teleportation of the mechanical vibrations. In teleportation, the physical properties of an object can be transmitted using the channel of `spooky action’.”
The measurements demonstrate that control over massive mechanical objects is now at the level where exotic quantum states can be generated and stabilised.
This opens the door to new kinds of quantum sensing, communication and computation technologies, but could also enable studies of fundamental physics, such as the poorly understood interplay of gravity and quantum mechanics.
Media contact: Rachel Packham, UNSW Canberra Media Team, 0423 800 109.
Stabilised entanglement of massive mechanical oscillators
C. F. Ockeloen-Korppi, E. Damskägg, J.-M. Pirkkalainen, M. Asjad, A. A. Clerk, F. Massel, M. J. Woolley, and M. A. Sillanpää
Entangled massive mechanical oscillators
C. F. Ockeloen-Korppi, E. Damskägg, J.-M. Pirkkalainen, A. A. Clerk, F. Massel, M. J. Woolley, and M. A. Sillanpää | <urn:uuid:09c92ced-7ca4-4ce5-b3ce-19619ab31d3c> | 2.875 | 780 | News (Org.) | Science & Tech. | 35.187319 | 95,592,814 |
(Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
Mars has a lot of interesting surface features, and a new study claims to have decent reason to believe that many of the structures which resemble fluvial stream networks on Earth were formed by the same processes on Mars. Namely, it speaks to the existence of a climate and atmosphere which was able to support frequent and heavy rainfall, on a planet that may have been much wetter than even we had thought.
This all goes to show that Mars continues to surprise us, the more we learn about it, and that the vast undertaking of coming to terms with an entirely new celestial body is more meaningful and challenging than we can imagine.
A new study from Boston University’s Center for Space Physics has determined that wind is an effective option for power generation on Mars! This is especially important to combat times of low solar activity such as we are seeing with the current dust storm, and to balance power needs when a piece of equipment may be in a limited sunlight environment for half the year. Additionally, radioisotope power (ie. nuclear) as powers the Curiosity rover would be counter-indicated in a polar region as it would impact any science experiments being conducted.
The original experiments for this paper were conducted in 2010. At the time it was determined that wind was a possible power source given climate conditions on the Red Planet, however there were concerns over the required size of the turbines given the state of technology at the time. Now with 8 more years of materials science and research behind us, the equipment that could be deployed for this purpose has sufficiently improved that it truly can be seen as a viable option. Another great step forward for Mars!
(Figure 1: (left) The wind turbine positioned in the wind tunnel, which is 2m in diameter. (right) Close-up of the wind turbine with the wind tunnel fan visible in the background. Image Credit: Holstein-Rathlou of Boston University )
When the starting whistle of the universe blew, and our solar system began to coalesce, it now turns out that Mars was running laps around the Earth in terms of planet formation. This is important because it means the planet would have had more than a 100-million-year head start over Earth regarding the development of a viable habitat. The report in the June 27th issue of Nature states that only 20 million years after the dust and gas around our sun had started to form the planets, Mars was up and running!
While these discoveries about the early crust formation on Mars may suggest a longer timeframe for possible development of life, it also indicates a relatively thin atmosphere which is a disappointing side note to this work. I suppose none of that will be terribly important once we start terraforming the place, and restoring it to the former glory of a green and blue world!
SpaceX is once again getting ready to resupply the ISS, as part of their ongoing contract with NASA to provide that vital service. The launch is scheduled for 5:41am Eastern on June 29th, from pad SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral. The hardware for this mission will include both a previously flown Falcon booster as well as a previously flown Dragon capsule.
It’s exciting that the development of the Crew Dragon is moving ahead strongly, and every launch of the existing resupply dragon capsule provides more data and more assurance that the systems are up to the challenge of safely launching and returning astronauts. What a relief it will be soon, to have that capacity within our own control after many years of outsourcing.
Mark your calendars for the next Falcon 9 launch, currently on the books for May 31st, 2018. The rocket will blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s pad SLC-40 and will be carrying a communications satellite (SES-12) for European telecom giant SES. Current indications are that this will be an older model Block 4 booster which is not planned to be recovered sadly. Pretty soon they will only have Block 5 hardware available and then we will be in the era of major and continuous reuse.
Get ready for the next Falcon 9 launch, Tuesday 5/22/2018 at 12:47pm PDT (3:47pm EDT) from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vanderberg Air Force Base in California. This mission will loft NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, an extension of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment which was retired in 2017. These precision instruments are intended to track the movement of water on Earth, and are also able to monitor the planet’s gravitational fields. This data will be used to track the planet’s distribution of mass, and to refine models of the ocean and climate.
Also launching tomorrow are Iridium Satellites 51-55, which are part of the ongoing construction of the 75 satellite Iridium NEXT worldwide network. This advanced network is intended to provide L-band data speeds of up to 128 kbit/s to mobile devices, along with improved service to marine terminals and high-speed Ka-band service. The Ka-band allows for higher bandwidth communication and is often part of modern satellite communication protocols.
The booster for this mission is a Falcon 9 Block 4, which is not intended to be recovered. Pretty soon all missions will be flown with the highly reusable block 5 rockets, which will ensure a landing show every time.
The deploy of this varied cargo turns out to be a pretty interesting challenge for tomorrow’s launch, as it must happen at two very different spots along the voyage. The NASA GRACE-FO mission needs to be deployed at 300 miles of elevation, which is intended to take place midway through the 2nd stage burn, so it seems. The burn will pause at the 305 mile mark, the NASA payload will be deployed, then burn will recommence and continue to a 500 mile elevation for the Iridium hardware. This all sounds like yet another amazing plan and raises the bar once again for what can be done with commercial (and low cost!) rocketry. Hopefully the cams will be working and we will all get a heck of a show!
For the short history of mankind in space, there has typically been a prohibition on alcohol consumption once you are up there in orbit. Well, more precisely that rule has been applied to American astronauts – I really can’t say about the Cosmonauts except I hope that someone was having a good time up there! The theory of course being that space is a very dangerous place, and it was very expensive to get you up there. As a result, you have to be on your A-game all of the time, conducting important experiments, taking good care of yourself, and not messing up any of the sensitive equipment. Plus due to the outdated methods and equipment still being used to launch goods, it costs about $10,000 per pound to get materials into space. When SpaceX is able to lower that cost (very soon) then firing your case of booze into the heavens with you becomes a lot more doable.
It is a testament to the normalization of space travel that we can now have the conversation about being able to relax in that environment, instead of being a scientist/test pilot/NASA expert 24×7. Granted astronauts in recent times haven’t been all business to a fault, but have made time to show the public the more fun side of space, in an ongoing effort to keep people interested in our future among the stars. One recalls Chris Hadfield and his frequent guitar videos to show us at least a little fun being had while on assignment.
Well, if you want to kick back with a cold one while you listen to Hadfield’s latest live performance, 4 Pines Brewing Company has just the product for you: they have teamed up with Saber Astronautics to create Vostok – The World’s First Beer for Space! They approached this goal as true pioneers and scientists, considering the changes in human physiology effecting alcohol absorption, the challenge of pouring in zero gravity, and even how strange and uncomfortable a beer-burp is up there. I’m just glad that someone is thinking about these things, and it reminds me of the soon-to-be prophetic words from Elon Musk regarding Mars. In his SXSW Q&A, his reply to how we can all help with the space effort was: they will get us there and provide a stable environment where the flowers can bloom, then the entrepreneurs must step up to provide the business and innovation. Small steps like this beer, while seeming perhaps trivial, are actually laying the vital groundwork, critical in allowing basic humanity to exist off of our original home world.
I like to imagine a time in the not-too-distant future where someone will be enjoying the track ‘Space Beer’ by thrash metal stalwarts and beer heroes Tankard, while on the way to the 4th planet with ‘old home’ receding in the background, enjoying a fine Vostok.
NASA continues to impress, reminding us all that they were in fact the founder of this feast that we are all enjoying so very much. Just a few days ago they announced plans to send a small, autonomous rotorcraft to Mars, as a passenger on the planned Mars 2020 rover mission.
The main purpose of the chopper is to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet. NASA is also wasting no time in positioning it as a ‘first’, meaning the first nation to fly a craft on another world. That’s fair enough – so let’s get the marscopter there, get it aloft, and start streaming back some excellent images!
After yesterday’s scrubbed launch at T-0:58 seconds, SpaceX is scheduled for another launch window at 4:14pm EDT this afternoon 5/11/2018. The scrub of yesterday’s launch took place 2 seconds after internal computers took over the countdown and launch prep, so something that the rocket itself saw made it not want to launch. Perhaps it was just too comfortable on the pad – hopefully they gave it a good talking to last night.
Be sure to tune in to the live stream at 4pm for all of the exciting build up!
Happening this week, from May 8-10 at the George Washington University in DC, is the Humans to Mars event. Heavy with NASA and Boeing speakers, we also see Josh Brost, Senior Director, Government Business Development at SpaceX on the agenda, who participated in a round-table discussion on May 9th. I am continually excited that the conversation about this next bold step for mankind is intensifying, having tipped over what I hope is critical mass to make sure it actually happens – and quickly. I hope many Gazettians are younger and can look forward to a long lifetime of exciting solar system exploration, but your humble author is no spring chicken! We need to make this happen pretty soon! | <urn:uuid:9a684315-589f-4972-bdd6-7c3fdc5235d4> | 3.953125 | 2,267 | Personal Blog | Science & Tech. | 47.026097 | 95,592,820 |
Laser Capture Microdissection
ances in our understanding of disease mechanisms have resulted in the need for single-cell analysis. Analytical technologies have become available to accommodate such interrogations. Typically, molecular diagnostic assays begin with a nucleic acid extraction procedure during which tissue architecture and cellular morphology is lost. Laser capture microdissection (LCM) is a technology that enables scientists to examine the processes of individual cells. Whether one is investigating a cell’s internal messages or its proteins, isolating that particular cell(s) from a mixed cellular environment is the function of LCM (Fig. 1). This chapter briefly describes the LCM technique by reviewing the current instrumentation and answers some of the most frequently asked questions about LCM. There is now a vast literature on LCM, which this chapter will not attempt to review. A well-organized listing of the primary papers as well as contemporary work can be found at the Arcturus website http://www.arctur.com. Conn is editor of perhaps the best compilation to date on LCM (1). There is a new methods book on LCM, edited by Murray and Curran (2). LCM was introduced by the National Institutes of Health investigators Liotta, Bonner, and Emmert-Buck in 1996 (3) and 1997 (4). The first commercial instrument was produced by Arcturus Engineering, Inc. (Mountain View, CA) as a result of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with NIH. To date, there are four companies that produce LCM equipment.
KeywordsMouse Cursor Acid Extraction Procedure Laser Capture Microdissection System Lens Numerical Aperture Laser Capture Microdissection Technique
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- 1.Conn, P. M. (ed.). Laser Capture Microscopy and Microdissection, Methods in Enzymology Vol. 365, Academic, San Diego, CA, 2002.Google Scholar
- 5.Schüze, K. and Lahr, G. Identification of expressed genes by laser-mediated manipulation of single cells. Nat. Biotechnol. 16:737, 1998.Google Scholar
- 6.Frost, A. R., Eltoum, I. E.,and Siegal, G. P. Nucleic acid amplification from individual cells. Curr. Protocols Mol. Biol. 25A.1.1– 25A.1.24, 2001.Google Scholar
- 9.Westphal, G., Burgemeister, R., Friedemann, G., et al. Noncontact laser catapulting: a basic procedure for functional genomics and proteomics, in Laser Capture Microscopy and Microdissection, Methods in Enzymology Vol. 365, Conn, P. M. (ed.), Academic, San Diego, CA, pp. 80–99, 2002.Google Scholar
- 10.Wittliff, J. L. and Erlander, M. G. Laser capture microdissection and its applications in geonomics and proteomics, in Laser Capture Microscopy and Microdissection, Methods in Enzymology Vol. 365, Conn, P. M. (ed.), Academic, San Diego, CA, pp. 12–25, 2002.Google Scholar
- 11.Craven, R. A. and Banks, R. E. Use of laser capture microdissection to selectively obtain distinct populations of cells for proteomic analysis, in Laser Capture Microscopy and Microdissection, Methods in Enzymology Vol. 365, Conn, P. M., ed., Academic, San Diego, CA, pp. 33–49, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar | <urn:uuid:4667034a-2cf4-4fac-9026-8a1eeb045561> | 2.515625 | 767 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 50.81269 | 95,592,823 |
Wildlife Conservation Society, University of Queensland, and others urge more focus on more imminent threats
Scientists studying the potential effects of climate change on the world's animal and plant species are focusing on the wrong factors, according to a new paper by a research team from the Wildlife Conservation Society, University of Queensland, and other organizations. The authors claim that most of the conservation science is missing the point when it comes to climate change.
While the majority of climate change scientists focus on the "direct" threats of changing temperatures and precipitation after 2031, far fewer researchers are studying how short-term human adaptation responses to seasonal changes and extreme weather events may threaten the survival of wildlife and ecosystems much sooner. These indirect effects are far more likely to cause extinctions, especially in the near term.
The review appears online in the international journal Diversity and Distributions.
"A review of the literature exploring the effects of climate change on biodiversity has revealed a gap in what may be the main challenge to the world's fauna and flora," said the senior author Dr. James Watson, Climate Change Program Director and a Principle Research Fellow at the University of Queensland.
The research team conducted a review of all available literature published over the past twelve years on the impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems. In their review, the authors classified studies examining the projected changes in temperature and precipitation as "direct threat" research.
Direct threats also included changes such as coral bleaching, shifting animal and plant life cycles and distributions, and habitat loss from sea level rise. Human responses to climate change—including everything from shifting agriculture patterns, the construction of sea walls to protect cities from sea level rise, changes in human fishing intensity, diversion of water, and other factors—were classified as "indirect threats."
The authors found that the vast majority of studies (approximately 89 percent of the research included in the review) focused exclusively on the direct impacts of climate change. Only 11 percent included both direct and indirect threats, and the authors found no studies focusing only on indirect threats.
"The reactions of human communities to these changes should be treated as a top priority by the research community," said Dr. Watson. "The short-term, indirect threats are not merely 'bumps in the road'—they are serious problems that require a greater analysis of social, economic, and political issues stemming from changes already occurring."
The authors of the essay are: Sarah Chapman of the University of Queensland; Karen Mustin of the University of Queensland; Anna R. Renwick of the University of Queensland; Daniel B. Segan of the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society; David G. Hole of Conservation International and the University of Durham; Richard G. Pearson of University College London; and James E.M. Watson of the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
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A new manufacturing technique uses a process similar to newspaper printing to form smoother and more flexible metals for making ultrafast electronic devices.
The low-cost process, developed by Purdue University researchers, combines tools already used in industry for manufacturing metals on a large scale, but uses...
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The Arithmetic of the Infinite
Two main streams of discovery fueled the seventeenth century mathematical revolution and culminated in the synthesis of a powerful new infinitesimal analysis. One was the rich amalgam of specialized area and tangent methods from which the basic general algorithms of the calculus were distilled by Newton and Leibniz. The other centered on the development and application of infinite series techniques.
KeywordsInfinite Series Arithmetical Progression Geometric Series Binomial Coefficient Infinite Product
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- F. Cajori, Controversies on mathematics between Wallis, Hobbes, and Barrow. Math Teacher 22, 146–151, 1929.Google Scholar | <urn:uuid:a9321122-4826-433a-af2b-1ec0fc0ae7fb> | 3.25 | 147 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 16.4875 | 95,592,884 |
Since the mid-1990s a great debate has raged over whether organic compounds and tiny globules of carbonate minerals imbedded in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001 were processed by living creatures from the Red Planet. The materials have been under intense scrutiny ever since. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues,1 have taken a fresh look at how material associated with carbonate globules was created using sophisticated instrumentation and they compared the results to analogous globules from a volcanic complex on Svalbard, an island north of Norway. It does not appear that living organisms were at work. The research is presented at NASA’s Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) 2006 at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. March 26-30. See http://abscicon2006.arc.nasa.gov/ for details.
To some, the tiny carbonate globules from the meteorite seem to resemble minerals that arise from microbial activity on Earth. The team focused on whether macromolecular carbon (MMC) in and around the globules was processed organically or not--an unresolved issue. The team had a complete depth profile of the meteorite. Lead author Andrew Steele explained, "By using micro-Raman spectroscopy and a scanning electron microscope we could detect both the structure of the minerals and the forms of carbon present. We did a similar analysis on carbonate globules from Earth in terrain analogous to Mars--the Bockjord Volcanic Complex on Svalbard--for comparison."
The researchers found that the macromolecular carbon is always associated with the mineral magnetite. This association is important because magnetite is known to act as a catalyst in the formation of MMC. Macromolecular carbon present within the carbonate globules in ALH84001 may represent the first evidence of non-biological synthesis of organic molecules on Mars.
New research calculates capacity of North American forests to sequester carbon
16.07.2018 | University of California - Santa Cruz
Scientists discover Earth's youngest banded iron formation in western China
12.07.2018 | University of Alberta
For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
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Willebrord Snell was an early seventeenth century Dutch mathematician who is best known for determining that transparent materials have different indices of refraction depending upon their composition. Snell was born to an affluent family in Leiden in 1580, and started studying mathematics as a very young man. His father was a scholar and professor of mathematics at the University of Leiden.
Snell entered the University of Leiden at a relatively young age where he originally studied law. His attention soon turned to mathematics and he was teaching at the university by the time he was 20 years old. After finishing with his degree at the university, he traveled to eastern Europe and visited most of the major astronomers of the day.
In 1613, Snell succeeded his father as professor of mathematics at Leiden and in 1617, he published Eratosthenes Batavus, which explained his methodology for measuring the Earth by triangulation. Snell had difficulty completing his work until the brother barons Sterrenberg took over and finished it with his assistance. This important work wove the foundations of modern geodesy.
Snell also published other works, including his work on comets and in 1624, he published Tiphys Batavus, a work on navigational theories. His work in mathematics allowed him to produce an improved method of calculating approximate values of pi using polygons. This method, using 96-sided polygons, produce a value of pi correct to seven places, a striking improvement to the classical method that yielded only two places.
The laws of refraction of light remain Snell's most important contribution to science, although they were not published until almost 70 years after his death. The Egyptian geographer Ptolemy initiated the study of refraction and described a law to explain the degree of diffraction even though his results did not always agree with his law. Ptolemy was followed by Arab scientist Alhazen, who also studied refraction, but could not predict how far light would bend when entering a medium of greater refractive index.
Snell discovered that a beam of light would bend as it enters a block of glass, and that the angle of bending was dependent upon the incident angle of the light beam. Light traveling in a straight line into the glass will not bend but, at an angle, the light is bent to a degree proportional to the angle of inclination. In 1621, Snell found a characteristic ratio between the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction. Snell's law demonstrates that every substance has a specific bending ratio—the "refractive index. The greater the angle of refraction, the higher the refractive index for a substance.
Snell's Law can be described as follows:
n1 • sin(q1) = n2 • sin(q2)
Where n represents the refractive indices of material 1 and material 2 and q are the angles of light traveling through these materials with respect to the normal. There are several important points that can be drawn from this equation. When n(1) is greater than n(2), the angle of refraction is always smaller than the angle of incidence. Alternatively when n(2) is greater than n(1) the angle of refraction is always greater than the angle of incidence. When the two refractive indices are equal (n(1) = n(2)), then the light is passed through without refraction.
Snell died at the relatively young age of 46 on October 30, 1626 in Leiden. He would never realize how the importance of his discovery of the basic laws of refraction would prominently position his name in textbooks on physics and optics.
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Leaked Climate Report Points to Technology’s Lack of Progress
Five years after the last IPCC report warning about the dangers of climate change, we’re emitting more carbon dioxide than ever.
Greenhouse-gas levels are expected to double from preindustrial levels within the next century, making it difficult to limit the effects of climate change.
Global warming was back in the news this week after a draft of a long-anticipated report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was leaked to the media. Although details from the report may change before the final version is released next month, one thing appears certain. The report will show that greenhouse-gas emissions aren’t going down, in spite of the billions of dollars that have been spent on developing and deploying new energy technologies such as wind and solar power. Indeed, according to the United States Energy Information Administration, global annual carbon dioxide emissions are higher now than they were when the previous version of the report came out in 2007.
“We’re headed rapidly in the wrong direction. Between now and when the last report came out, we’ve done essentially nothing to alter course,” says David Victor, co-director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California at San Diego.
The leaked document is the first part of the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report, which is put together by hundreds of scientists around the world based on accumulated research on climate change. The IPCC’s reports, which are released every five or six years, are often taken as important summaries of the current understanding on climate change. And by most accounts, next month’s review will have plenty of bad news.
“The evidence that humans are causing global warming was already pretty strong,” says Ted Nordhaus, chairman of the Breakthrough Institute, based in Oakland, California. “The much more important story is the evidence that we have no idea how to do anything about it.” He says it’s no longer plausible, “even with radical action,” that carbon dioxide levels will be kept below 450 parts per million, a commonly cited goal for limiting the damaging effects of climate change.
Carbon dioxide concentrations recently reached nearly 400 parts per million, up from 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. Keeping concentrations below 450 will require not just decreasing emission levels but nearly eliminating them, and doing so by roughly midcentury.
The IPCC report will be yet another reminder of just how little has been done to address the problem. Emissions are rising even as solar panels and wind turbines are being installed at a rapid pace and cleaner natural gas is replacing some of the coal used for power in the United States. That’s because coal power is growing quickly worldwide (see “The Enduring Technology of Coal” and “Renewables Can’t Keep Up with the Growth in Coal Use Worldwide”). Also, advances in producing natural gas and oil from unconventional sources are making more of these fossil fuels accessible (see “Natural Gas Changes the Energy Map”).
“You have to replace the entire energy system of the entire world with low-carbon energy,” says Joe Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. In terms of government policy to help make that happen, he says, “we’re not even doing the bare minimum.” Romm says government regulations and subsidies that encourage the adoption of existing technologies are key, noting that as more solar panels have been installed, the costs have come down substantially.
Nordhaus and others emphasize the need for research and development to invent much better technology than we have now. He also says efforts should be focused on technologies that have significantly decreased carbon dioxide emissions in the past, such as nuclear power. The experience of France, which shifted almost completely to nuclear power over the course of three decades, demonstrates the results that are possible.
The U.S. spends about $5 billion per year now on energy R&D, including demonstrations of new technology. Several reports from academics, business groups, and nonprofits recommend increasing that to between $15 and $30 billion. Victor says the “single most important” thing that could be done is to impose a carbon tax to make fossil fuels more expensive.
The delay in reducing emissions is important because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for a long time. “It’s not like you can turn off the emissions and a few years later you’re back to normal,” says Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at MIT. “The decisions that we make in the next decade or so are decisions that will determine the fate of the planet for thousands of years.”
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ACAMC Key Findings
ABRUPT CHANGES IN THE EARTH’S CLIMATE SYSTEM
ABRUPT CHANGE IN ATMOSPHERIC
- The main concerns about abrupt changes in atmospheric methane (CH4) stem from (1) the large quantity of methane believed to be stored as methane hydrate in the sea floor and permafrost soils and (2) climate-driven changes in methane emissions from northern high-latitude and tropical wetlands.
- The size of the methane hydrate reservoir is uncertain, perhaps by up to a factor of 10. Because the size of the reservoir is directly related to the perceived risks, it is difficult to make certain judgement about those risks.
- There are a number of suggestions in the scientific literature about the possibility of catastrophic release of methane to the atmosphere based on both the size of the hydrate reservoir and indirect evidence from paleoclimatological studies. However, modeling and detailed studies of ice cores methane so far do not support catastrophic methane releases to the atmosphere in the last 650,000 years or in the near future. A very large release of methane may have occurred at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (about 55 million years ago), but other explanations for the evidence have been offered.
- The current network of atmospheric methane monitoring sites is sufficient for capturing large-scale changes in emissions, but it is insufficient for attributing changes in emissions to one specific type of source.
- Observations show that there have not yet been significant increases in methane emissions from northern terrestrial high-latitude hydrates and wetlands resulting from increasing Arctic temperatures.
- Catastrophic release of methane to the atmosphere appears very unlikely in the near term ( e.g., this century). However, it is very likely that climate change will accelerate the pace of chronic emissions from both hydrate sources and wetlands. The magnitude of these releases is difficult to estimate with existing data. Methane release from the hydrate reservoir will likely have a significant influence on global warming over the next 1.000 to 100,000 years.
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Researchers at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are investigating which animal species could become the focus of conservation measures as “imposing” flagship species in order to halt the decline of species and habitats in freshwaters. The current study emphasises how legitimate this flagship approach is: 83 per cent of all the world’s threatened freshwater species occur in the same areas as the “imposing” freshwater species examined within the study. However, almost 60 per cent of these potential flagship species are themselves already on the Red List of Threatened Species.
About one third of all animal species around the world are threatened. But even so, it is mainly the imposing, large terrestrial and marine animals such as panda bears, elephants, polar bears and whales that are perceived by the general public as being worthy of protection. And yet the decline in freshwater species is occurring more rapidly than in their popular land-dwelling and ocean-dwelling counterparts.
The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) is one of the 132 imposing freshwater species examined that have the potential to become a flagship species.
Imposing creatures with ambassador potential: hippos, crocodiles, sturgeons et al.
Together with her team of international researchers, IGB researcher Dr. Sonja Jähnig, co-author of the study, selected 132 examples of “imposing” large freshwater species weighing at least 30 kilos in adulthood for their study.
“Hippos, river dolphins, crocodiles, freshwater turtles and large species of fish such as sturgeons and salmon have the potential to raise public, scientific and, above all, political awareness of species loss and the attendant problems in freshwaters,” summarises Sonja Jähnig the study’s perspective.
Mapping flagship species
The researchers have mapped the occurrence of the selected species. The resulting maps show that 83 per cent of all the world’s threatened freshwater species occur in the same areas as the large freshwater species under investigation – all of which are potential ambassadors for their ecosystem. If, then, efficient protective measures for these flagship species can be identified, the habitats of numerous other smaller species could be preserved at the same time.
Protegee devoid of protected areas
Human exploitation poses a serious threat to large freshwater species: 94 per cent of the animal species under investigation suffer from over-exploitation, such as being decimated by hunting and fishing at a faster rate than stocks are able to recover. 65 percent are threatened as a result of interventions in habitats, usually due to the construction of dams, and 54 per cent suffer from pollution caused by agricultural, industrial or domestic wastewater discharges.
However, 84 per cent of the range of distribution of the 132 animal species under investigation is outside protected areas. The fact that many of these large species live in large rivers, lakes and wetlands makes conservation efforts all the more difficult, explains Dr. William Darwall, Head of the IUCN Global Species Programmes’ Freshwater Biodiversity Unit and a member of the team: “These freshwater ecosystems are highly interconnected such that the species within them and the threats to those species may travel long distances often beyond the boundaries of any protected areas.“
In order to protect these animal species – and, at the same time, entire ecosystems – local protection zones, such as for spawning and breeding sites, must be combined with large-scale landscape measures operating at the scale of the river or lake catchment, taking into account the species’ migration routes, for instance. And, above all, the exploitation of these animals and the overuse of their habitats must be curbed.
Savrina F. Carrizo, Sonja C. Jähnig, Vanessa Bremerich, Jörg Freyhof, Ian Harrison, Fengzhi He, Simone D. Langhans, Klement Tockner, Christiane Zarfl, William Darwall (2017) Freshwater Megafauna: Flagships for Freshwater Biodiversity under Threat. BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 10, 1 October 2017, Pages 919–927
Read the Studie Open Access on BioScience > https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix099
Dr. Sonja Jähnig, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Dept. Ecosystem Research, email@example.com, +49 (0) 30 6392 4085
About the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB):
Work at IGB combines basic research with preventive research as a basis for the sustainable management of freshwaters. In the process, IGB explores the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems under near-natural conditions and under the effect of multiple stressors. Its key research activities include the long-term development of lakes, rivers and wetlands under rapidly changing global, regional and local environmental conditions, the development of coupled ecological and socio-economic models, the renaturation of ecosystems, and the biodiversity of aquatic habitats. Work is conducted in close cooperation with universities and research institutions from the Berlin/Brandenburg region as well as worldwide. IGB is a member of the Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V., an association of eight research institutes of natural sciences, life sciences and environmental sciences in Berlin. The institutes are members of the Leibniz Association. http://www.igb-berlin.de/en
https://freshwaterblog.net/2017/10/10/freshwater-megafauna-as-conservation-flags... > Presentation of the study on the Freshwater Blog – the freshwater biodiversity blog
http://www.igb-berlin.de/en/news/seeking-freshwater-pandas > More information about the concept of flagship species
http://www.igb-berlin.de/en/news/endangered-giants-large-freshwater-species-amon... > Background information on the endangerment of large freshwater species
Katharina Bunk | idw - Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
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For the first time ever, scientists have determined the cosmic origin of highest-energy neutrinos. A research group led by IceCube scientist Elisa Resconi, spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center SFB1258 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), provides an important piece of evidence that the particles detected by the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole originate from a galaxy four billion light-years away from Earth.
To rule out other origins with certainty, the team led by neutrino physicist Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich and multi-wavelength...
For the first time a team of researchers have discovered two different phases of magnetic skyrmions in a single material. Physicists of the Technical Universities of Munich and Dresden and the University of Cologne can now better study and understand the properties of these magnetic structures, which are important for both basic research and applications.
Whirlpools are an everyday experience in a bath tub: When the water is drained a circular vortex is formed. Typically, such whirls are rather stable. Similar...
Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical exchange reaction and that the excited molecular group acts only as a spectator in the reaction.
A frequently used reaction in organic chemistry is nucleophilic substitution. It plays, for example, an important role in in the synthesis of new chemical...
Optical spectroscopy allows investigating the energy structure and dynamic properties of complex quantum systems. Researchers from the University of Würzburg present two new approaches of coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy.
"Put an excitation into the system and observe how it evolves." According to physicist Professor Tobias Brixner, this is the credo of optical spectroscopy....
Ultra-short, high-intensity X-ray flashes open the door to the foundations of chemical reactions. Free-electron lasers generate these kinds of pulses, but there is a catch: the pulses vary in duration and energy. An international research team has now presented a solution: Using a ring of 16 detectors and a circularly polarized laser beam, they can determine both factors with attosecond accuracy.
Free-electron lasers (FELs) generate extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. Researchers can use these flashes to resolve structures with diameters on the...
13.07.2018 | Event News
12.07.2018 | Event News
03.07.2018 | Event News
17.07.2018 | Information Technology
17.07.2018 | Materials Sciences
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The following is the first few sections of a chapter from The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development, plus headings for the remaining major sections, to give you an idea about the content of the chapter.
When you work on creating an app for Android, you will do so by working in a “project”. The project is a directory containing your source code and other files, like images and UI definitions. Your IDE or other build tools will take what is in your project and generate an Android app (APK) as output.
The details of how you get started with a project vary based upon what IDE you are using, so this chapter goes through the various possibilities.
With Android Studio, to work on a project, you can either create a new project from scratch, you can copy an existing Android Studio project to a new one, or you can import an existing Android project into Android Studio. The following sections will review the steps needed for each of these.
You can create a project from one of two places:
This brings up the new-project wizard:
Figure 12: Android Studio Create-Project Wizard, First Page
The first page of the wizard is where you can specify:
com.commonsware.empublite). This package name will be used for generating some Java source code, and it also is used as a unique identifier of this app, as was mentioned earlier in this book.
Nothing that you choose here is permanent; you can revise everything later on if needed. The most painful to change is the package name, so ideally you choose a good value up front.
By default, the package name will be made up of two pieces:
If this is not what you want, click the “Edit” button on the far right side of the proposed package name, which will now allow you to edit the package name directly:
Figure 13: Android Studio Create-Project Wizard, First Page, with Editable Package Name
Clicking “Next” will advance you to a wizard page where you indicate what sort of project you are creating, in terms of intended device type (phones/tablets, TVs, etc.) and minimum required SDK level:
Figure 14: Android Studio Create-Project Wizard, Second Page
The “Minimum SDK” refers to how far back in Android’s version history you are willing to support. The lower the value you specify here, the more Android devices can run your app, but the more work you will have to do to test whether your app really does support those devices.
Developers just starting out on Android should only check “Phone and Tablet” as the device type, leaving the other checkboxes unchecked. The default “Minimum SDK” value also usually is a good choice, and it can be changed readily in your project, as we will see later in the book.
Clicking “Next” advances you to the third page of the wizard, where you can choose if Android Studio should create an initial activity for you, and if so, based on what template:
Figure 15: Android Studio Create-Project Wizard, Third Page
None of these templates are especially good, as they add a lot of example material that you will wind up replacing. “Empty Activity” is the best of the available options for first-time Android developers, simply because it adds the least amount of this “cruft”.
If you choose any option other than “Add No Activity”, clicking “Next” will advance you to a page in the wizard where you can provide additional details about the activity to be created:
Figure 16: Android Studio Create-Project Wizard, Fourth Page
What options appear here will vary based upon the template you chose in the previous page. Common options include “Activity Name” (the name of the Java class for your activity) and “Layout Name” (the base name of an XML file that will contain a UI definition of your activity).
The “Backwards Compatibility (AppCompat)” checkbox indicates if you want to use a library known as AppCompat. We will discuss using libraries later in the book, as well as what this “AppCompat” is. Unless you know for certain that you want to use AppCompat — and few of this book’s example apps do — uncheck this checkbox.
Clicking “Finish” will generate your project files.
Android Studio projects are simply directories of files, with no special metadata held elsewhere. Hence, to copy a project, just copy its directory.
You can import a project from one of two places:
Then, choose the directory containing the project to be imported.
What happens now depends upon the nature of the project. If the project was already set up for use with Android Studio, or at least with the Android Gradle Plugin, the Android Studio-specific files will be created (or updated) in the project directory.
However, if the project was not set up for Android Studio (or at least for the Android Gradle Plugin), but does
have Eclipse project files (or at least a
you will be led through an Eclipse import wizard. This will be fairly uncommon
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Grazing Marshes & Salinas
Few, if any, coastal habitats are truly natural, but the two principal habitats in this chapter have a special conservation significance because they have largely been created through human intervention. In nature conservation terms the habitats lie between those which are (or are considered to be) entirely natural and those which are intensively used, with little or no conservation interest. The former include inaccessible sea cliffs and newly formed sand dunes, the latter intensively cultivated grasslands and cereal crops. These ‘secondary’ wildlife habitats (as defined in Chapter 5) are dealt with separately below and their key attributes discussed.
KeywordsDrainage Ditch Salt Production Ebro Delta Conservation Interest Wetland Bird
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By using form in HTML, users are allowed to enter or select different types of information. A form contains form elements checkbox, text field, radio button etc.) through which users can input their data. A form is created using <form> tags. The most common form tag is <input> tag. Input tag contains type attribute which specifies different types of inputs.
<form> <input> <input> </form>
Text fields are used to allow user to input different types of texts,i.e., letters, numbers etc.
Checkboxes are used to allow the user to select one or more options of a limited number of choices.
Radiobutton is used to allow the user to select one option out of a number of choices.
A dropdown box is type of list from where an user can select one option out of many given choices.
A text area is an area where an user can write as many texts as he wishes.
The Action attribute and the Submit button:
The Action attribute of form contains the name of a file where the contents of the form has to be sent when an user clicks on a submit button. | <urn:uuid:0471dcf5-dd62-433c-91e8-b799265b27a1> | 3.90625 | 237 | Documentation | Software Dev. | 60.107919 | 95,593,086 |
For applications where a sensor’s image includes the celestial background, stars and Solar System Bodies compromise the ability of the sensor system to correctly classify a target. Such false targets are particularly significant for the detection of weak target signatures which only have a small relative angular motion. The detection of celestial features is well established in the visible spectral band. However, given the increasing sensitivity and low noise afforded by emergent infrared focal plane array technology together with larger and more efficient optics, the signatures of celestial features can also impact performance at infrared wavelengths. A methodology has been developed which allows the rapid generation of celestial signatures in any required spectral band using star data from star catalogues and other open-source information. Within this paper, the radiometric calculations are presented to determine the irradiance values of stars and planets in any spectral band.
Duncan L. Hickman, Moira I. Smith, Jae-Wan Lim, and Yun-Ho Jeon, "Modelling of celestial backgrounds," Proc. SPIE 10641, Sensors and Systems for Space Applications XI, 1064102 (Presented at SPIE Defense + Security: April 16, 2018; Published: 2 May 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2294018.
Conference Presentations are recordings of oral presentations given at SPIE conferences and published as part of the conference proceedings. They include the speaker's narration along with a video recording of the presentation slides and animations. Many conference presentations also include full-text papers. Search and browse our growing collection of more than 12,000 conference presentations, including many plenary and keynote presentations. | <urn:uuid:cb8513dd-d3a9-473b-ab75-b2a578d3540c> | 2.703125 | 330 | Truncated | Science & Tech. | 27.228331 | 95,593,097 |
However, these types of moths and butterflies - known as Lepidoptera - were long posited to have evolved 50 to 70 million years later, during the Cretaceous period when the first flowering plants emerged as their prime food source.
Scales from the wings of at least seven species of "Lepidoptera" - the group that includes moths and butterflies - were found in a sample of ancient rock in Germany.
The researchers said they learnt something new about the resilience of these insects to changes in the climate, as well as their evolutionary history.
However, researchers have gradually started to piece together evidence that moths and butterflies existed earlier than the Cretaceous period, which began 145 million years ago.
"The findings also suggest that the end-Triassic mass-extinction event 201 million years ago has not affected moths and butterflies, the researchers said".
About 70 wing scales and fragments - some beautifully preserved - were discovered in a drilled core of rocks dating back to the Triassic-Jurassic boundary.
He and his team suspect that the Triassic ancestral moths probably varied in size, similar to today's moths and butterflies.
It makes them 10 million years older than the previous record holder - three wings of a species named Archaeolepis mane that was found in Dorset. Proboscis is a very important organ of moths and butterflies. Many of these plants secreted sweet droplets of pollen that were slurped up by the earliest moths.
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"So, it was an extensive coastal area covered in thick vegetation with many organisms, much like what you would expect from a coastal forest in, for example, the MS delta", van de Schootbrugge said. The proboscis is a famous tool of this insect group, with some like the Morgan's Sphinx moth, or Darwin's moth, using its foot-long tongue to wiggle deep inside orchids.
He said, "This new evidence suggests that perhaps the coiled mouthparts had another role, before flowering plants evolved".
An open-access study, titled "A Triassic-Jurassic window into the evolution of Lepidoptera", appeared online Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
The researchers say that they developed a sucking proboscis to find nutrition by drawing off water drops from the tips of immature gymnosperm seeds.
Until this point, numerous most ancient moths and butterflies found were thought to have had mandibles, which they used to chew, rather than a proboscis, which is the strawlike mouthpiece for sucking up flower nectar that most Lepidoptera now use to feed.
"Because free liquid drinking is an efficient technique to replenish lost moisture and survive desiccation stress, substitution of mandibulate mouthparts by a sucking proboscis could be seen as an adaptation to adequate maintenance of body water balance of small, short-lived moths".
Butterflies are thought to exist alongside flowers, sucking nectar from them as part of a attractive rule of nature. Fossils of the earliest known flowering plants, by contrast, date back to about 130 million years ago. | <urn:uuid:a066e4ae-7ed4-4058-b4ae-060363ee9565> | 4.0625 | 706 | News Article | Science & Tech. | 38.500779 | 95,593,100 |
* Ruby on Rails includes features that help in increasing developer productivity. Some of the main features include the following:
* MVC/AGILE architecture: Ruby on Rails is based on the MVC (Model View Controller) architecture that enables the data to be separated from presentation. It's an agile web development framework.
* Database Access Library: Ruby on Rails includes a database access library - Active Record - that simplifies data handling in databases. Active Record automatically maps tables to classes and rows to objects.
* Libraries for common tasks: Ruby on Rails includes a host of libraries that simplify the coding of common programming tasks such as form validations, sessions management, etc.
* AJAX Library: An extensive library of AJAX functions is provided in the Rails framework. Ruby code can be used to generate AJAX code. The associated java scripting required for AJX gets generated automatically.
* Convention over configuration: Ruby on Rails does not have any XML configuration files. It includes simple programming conventions that can be used to specify the configuration parameters.
* Customized URL: Custom or Search Engine Friendly URLs can be developed using the Ruby on Rails framework.
* Debugging: Detailed error logs are provided, making it easier to debug applications.
* Components: Components can be used to store reusable code. Components can be included to modularize templates.
* DRY: Don't Repeat Yourself. You will get it when you actually write the rails code. | <urn:uuid:88b36de8-2499-49d2-b059-84dfe79a0f67> | 3.171875 | 296 | Listicle | Software Dev. | 24.764164 | 95,593,102 |