Science

‘Britain’s Atlantis’ sank into the sea due to climate change

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Christopher Pilny

Researchers have found proof that Dunwich, England—otherwise known as “Britain’s Atlantis”—sank thanks to a series of storms that came with the advent of the Little Ice Age. (Not to be confused with the newly-discovered Late Antique Little Ice Age that helped bring about the downfall of the eastern Roman Empire.)

According to historical records, the port city of Dunwich—which was the 10th largest town in 11th century England, nearly comparable in size to 14th century London—was pummeled by multiple storms in the 13th and 14th centuries.

“[They were] like the south coast storms of 2013-14, at least once a year for decades,” Professor David Sear, of the University of Southampton, told BBC.

dunwich_map_frontpage

A map of the sunken city. Credit: Dunwich UK

Eventually, these storms ruined Dunwich’s harbor to the point that locals gave up trying to use it—and then swallowed the majority of the town under the sea, leaving it roughly 11 to 33 feet (3 to 10 meters) below the surface. It is now the world’s largest medieval underwater site.

Archaeologists have spent the last three years exploring Dunwich underwater, thanks to a $1.3 million (£900,000) grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and already have made some marvelous discoveries using advanced underwater imaging techniques—including the watery remains of eight churches, what is thought to be a tollhouse, and an encircling defensive earthwork which appears to date back to the Iron Age (roughly between 800 BCE to 100 CE).

Explaining the disappearance

But, despite these discoveries, it was not certain whether historical documents accurately explained why and how the city was lost to the sea—until now.

The documents showed that two storms in particular—one in 1286, the other in 1326—played a major role in the city’s decline and its eventual disappearance into the sea. These two storms were especially damaging to Dunwich’s harbor, silting up Dunwhich River.

Pollen analysis showed that by 1338, “people gave up on Dunwich,” according to Sear.

But now, after gathering sediment from the nearby cliffs, Sear said that they “independently confirmed the sequences of storms recorded in the historical record”—showing that these storms truly turned Dunwich into Atlantis.

“It is a sobering example of the relentless force of nature on our island coastline,” said Sear. “It starkly demonstrates how rapidly the coast can change, even when protected by its inhabitants.

“Global climate change has made coastal erosion a topical issue in the 21st Century, but Dunwich demonstrates that it has happened before. The severe storms of the 13th and 14th Centuries coincided with a period of climate change, turning the warmer medieval climatic optimum into what we call the Little Ice Age.

“Our coastlines have always been changing, and communities have struggled to live with this change. Dunwich reminds us that it is not only the big storms and their frequency – coming one after another, that drives erosion and flooding, but also the social and economic decisions communities make at the coast. In the end, with the harbour silting up, the town partly destroyed, and falling market incomes, many people simply gave up on Dunwich.”

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Image credit: University of Southhampton

Science

Earth became oxygenated earlier than previously thought, study shows

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Brian Galloway

A new analysis of the world’s oldest banded iron formations (BIFs)– marine chemical sediments located in Western Greenland often used as geochemical archives, scientists have discovered that Earth’s atmosphere contained small amounts of oxygen earlier than previously believed.

Determining the point when the planet’s atmosphere became oxygenated is a key component of reconstructing when life originally emerged and began to evolve. Previous research has found that the oxygenation process occurred in two main phases: the first during what is known as the Great Oxidation Event (2.5-2.4 billion years ago), and a second during the Late Neoproterozoic Era (750 to 540 million years ago) that ultimately led to the emergency of animals.

However, in work published in a recent edition of Scientific Reports, Professor Robert Frei of the University of Copenhagen Department of Geoscience and Natural Resource Management and his colleagues conducted a new analysis of BIFs and discovered that Earth’s atmosphere contained a small amount of oxygen 3.8 billion years ago, or at least 700 million years earlier than previously believed.

Findings suggests life may have emerged earlier than previously believed

Picture of Banded Iron Formation

An example of a Banded Iron Formation: Credit of the University of Copenhagen

Banded iron formations (BIFs) are sediment layers originally composed of alternating layers of silica and iron hydroxides, and are able to retain oxygenation and reduction process information in seawater and on the interaction of the planet’s atmosphere and surface, the study authors said in a statement. The Western Greenland BIFs used in this study are the oldest on Earth.

Professor Frei and his colleagues used concentration and isotope compositions, or variations of the same elements with different atomic weights, of the chromium and uranium elements found in the BIFs. These elements were chosen because they weather quickly when exposed to O2 and other types of reactive oxygen species, the researchers explained. Once weathered, they are then transported by river into oceans, where they wind up deposited in chemical sediments.

Since the chromium and uranium elements in the Western Greenland BIF layers show evidence of weathering, it suggests that oxygen was present in the atmosphere earlier than expected, and could indicate that primitive photosynthetic lifeforms may have actually emerged as far back as 3.8 billion years ago.

“It is generally believed that the Early Earth was a completely anoxic,” explained Professor Frei, who was aided on the study by scientists from the US, Canada, Germany and Denmark. “But our study shows that the surface of the Earth was exposed to a low oxygen atmosphere already this time. This has far reaching implications for how we investigate the pace of evolution of life and its biodiversity on our planet.”

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Image credit:Thinkstock

Health

Air pollution can cause you to gain weight, new study finds

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Researchers have long known that air pollution can lead to asthma and other respiratory issues, but a new study suggests clean air might be important for a different and unexpected health related reason.

In research published in the March issue of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), an international team of researchers found that rodents breathing the highly-polluted air of Beijing, China for three to eight weeks began to experience weight gain, cardio-respiratory issues, and metabolic dysfunctions.

As part of the study, senior author Junfeng “Jim” Zhang, a professor of global and environmental health at Duke University, and his colleagues placed pregnant rats and their offspring in two chambers: one which was exposed to the outdoor air in Beijing, and one which contained an air filter that removed the majority of the atmospheric pollution particles.

‘Clear evidence’ that air pollution increases obesity risk

After just 19 days, the lungs and livers of pregnant rats exposed to the polluted air were heavier and showed increases levels of tissue inflammation, the study authors said in a statement. Also, these rats were found to have 50 percent higher LDL levels and 97 percent higher total levels of cholesterol, as well as 46 percent higher triglyceride levels.

Furthermore, the insulin resistance level (which is a precursor of Type 2 diabetes) of the rodents in the polluted air was found to be higher than their healthy-air counterparts, and at the end of the experiment, the first group weighed 10 to 18 percent more than the second, even though both groups had eaten the same diet. The findings seem to suggest that exposure to air pollution may lead to metabolic dysfunction, which itself is known to be a precursor to obesity.

Similar results were also observed in the offspring, which were kept in the same chambers as their mothers. However, Zhang’s team noted that the negative effects were less pronounced at three weeks than they were after eight weeks, which would appear to indicate that longer-term exposure to unclean air is necessary for the negative health effects to completely set in.

“Since chronic inflammation is recognized as a factor contributing to obesity and since metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity are closely related, our findings provide clear evidence that chronic exposure to air pollution increases the risk for developing obesity,” Zhang explained. “If translated and verified in humans, these findings will support the urgent need to reduce air pollution, given the growing burden of obesity in today’s highly polluted world.”

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Image Credit: Thinkstock

Space

Virgin Galactic unveils its new spacecraft, the VSS Unity

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Brian Galloway

Sixteen months after the original SpaceShip Two broke apart during a test flight and crashed, killing one of the two crew members on board, Virgin Galactic unveiled the new version of its space plane during a ceremony at the Mojave Air & Space Port in California on Friday.

The new spacecraft, which was given the name VSS Unity by Professor Stephen Hawking, will replace the VSS Enterprise, which was lost in the same October 2014 crash which resulted in the death of co-pilot Michael Alsbury, according to Engadget and Ars Technica.

While the external appearance of the new SpaceShip Two is virtually identical to its predecessor, The Verge noted that there are several upgrades designed to make it safer. For instance, the VSS Unity will include new fail-safes to prevent the pilot error that contributed to the 2014 crash, and the vehicle will also use a new rubber-like fuel that will be more efficient.

“Together, we can make space accessible in a way that has only been dreamt of before now, and by doing so can bring positive change to life on Earth,” Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson said in a statement, calling the new vehicle a “great testament to what can be achieved when true teamwork, great skill and deep pride are combined with a common purpose.”

Unity has many tests to complete and much to prove, experts say

The new SpaceShipTwo is the first vehicle manufactured by The Spaceship Company, the manufacturing arm of Virgin Galactic, and just the second of its designs to be built. The Verge also noted that the changes to the vehicle have yet to be tested in flight, and that the rubber like fuel that will be used in the Unity has previously caused engine problems.

Before Virgin Galactic’s celebrity clients such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Angelina Jolie, and Justin Bieber will be able to ride on the new SpaceShip Two, the company must prove that the changes they have made will make the space plane safer – something they intend to do through a series of test flights scheduled to begin later on this year. However, some industry experts are skeptical.

“They’ve struggled with the technology,” Charles Miller, president of  the spaceflight consulting company NexGenSpace, told The Verge. “A lot of people have been critical about their technical choices from the beginning,” Miller said, adding that it was important that Branson and his team continue their work. “If they keep going, they’ll eventually overcome these problems. It’s the process of rapidly iterating new engineering, learning, and then doing something different.”

The first step, Engadget explained, will be to conduct full-vehicle electrical tests and to check all of its moving parts. Afterwards, Unity will be mounted to the WhiteKnightTwo transport vehicle and, if it demonstrates that it can remain firmly attached to this “carry” vehicle, it will then move on to glide tests conducted at altitudes of 45,000 feet to test the handling. Only then will the new SpaceShipTwo move onto the rocket-powered testing phase, the website noted.

“I would be very proud to fly on this spaceship,” Hawking said during Friday’s event, adding that he chose the name Unity because “space exploration has already been a great unifier – we seem able to cooperate between nations in space in a way we can only envy on Earth. We are entering a new space age and I hope this will help to create a new unity.”

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Image credit: Virgin Galactic

Space

New Horizons shows Charon ‘Hulked out’ and grew rapidly in its early life

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Brian Galloway

Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, may have once “Hulked out”— where it went through a period of rapid growth, leading to the craggy surface it has today.

As announced by NASA, the New Horizons spacecraft grabbed some interesting snapshots of Charon as it passed by in July of 2015. On the side it could view, the surface was riddled with “pull apart” tectonic faults—which manifested in ridges, scarps, and valleys that occasionally reached more than 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) deep. (For comparison, the Grand Canyon is a little more than a mile or 1.6 kilometers deep.)

Such fault lines indicate that something happened long ago that expanded the surface of the moon from within, creating fractures across the surface—kind of like how, when Bruce Banner erupts into the Hulk, his growing body shreds his clothes.

charon

As to why the surface fractured, scientists have an intriguing idea. The outermost layer of Charon is water ice, but when the moon was young, its internal heat of formation and heat from the decay of radioactive elements could have melted the innermost part of this ice shell—thereby creating an ocean under the moon’s surface.

But, as time progressed, Charon cooled down—causing the ocean to freeze. When water freezes, it expands, occupying most space than the ocean took up, and therefore breaking the surface apart and creating the enormous chasms that can be seen today.

Or, in other words, Charon “Hulked out” and broke apart its surface.

Here’s to hoping it’s not planning to smash something next.

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Image credit: NASA

Space

Will you be able to see the total solar eclipse on March 9?

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

On March 8 (or March 9, depending upon where you live), the moon will pass in front of the sun, causing a total solar eclipse that will last at least a minute in every part of the world over which it will pass, officials from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have revealed.

But will your neck of the woods be one of those lucky enough to witness the event? To help you figure that out, Goddard scientists have released a time-lapse animation depicting each are where the rare solar eclipse will be visible – a nearly 100-mile-wide path that passes over Sumatra, then moves on to Borneo, Sulawesi and several islands located in Southeastern Asia.

The total eclipse will last from between one and a half minutes to a little more than four minutes at each area, and a total of three hours will pass from the time that the event is visible at its most western point to the time it reaches its easternmost point and comes to an ends. In all, the eclipse will be visible along an 8,800 mile long stretch of the planet’s surface.

“You notice something off about the sunlight as you reach totality,” said Sarah Jaeggli, a space scientist at the Goddard facility in Maryland, who has witnesses two solar eclipses in her career. “Your surroundings take on a twilight cast, even though it’s daytime and the sky is still blue.”

Alaska, Hawaii among areas that could see a partial eclipse

A solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, take place only about once per year due to the fact that the sun and moon don’t orbit in the same exact plane. Next month’s event will entirely block the face of the sun, leaving only the faint outline of the solar atmosphere, the sun’s corona, visible to onlookers in the affected locations.

“The moon blocks the light of the sun’s surface very, very precisely. You can see all the way down to the roots of the corona, where the atmosphere meets the sun’s surface,” Jaeggli said. A partial solar eclipse will be visible throughout Asia and the Pacific, as well as in Hawaii, Guam and in some regions of Alaska one-hour before and after the total eclipse, according to NASA.

“Partial solar eclipses are much less dramatic than their total counterparts. Changes in ambient light are generally not noticeable until the sun is more than 95 percent covered by the moon, and even the smallest sliver of visible surface is enough to drown out the corona,” the agency added.

Nonetheless, those planning to view them should take the proper precautions to protect their eyes from harm. As the folks at Astronomy Now explained, a person should never look directly at the sun during an eclipse. Instead, they advise using a solar-filtered telescope, special eclipse glasses or a pinhole projector to catch the show, even if 99 percent of the sun’s surface is obscured.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Five-dimensional black hole could destroy Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

No sooner did Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity receive a big boost courtesy of the discovery of gravitational waves earlier this month than a new study threatens to “break” it entirely through the successful simulation of a ring-shaped black hole.

As reported in a recent edition of the journal Physical Review Letters, researchers from the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London have simulated a black hole shaped like a very thin ring that gives rise to a series of “bulges” connected by strings.

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Those strings become thinner over time, and eventually separate into a series of miniature black holes, similar to how a weak stream of water coming from a faucet will be divided up into many individual droplets, the researchers explained in a statement. While ring-shaped black holes were first theorized in 2002, this is the first time a successful simulation has been created.

In reality, such an object could only exist if the universe contains at least five dimensions, they added. Were such a black hole to form, it would result in the appearance of a “naked singularity” that would cause the equations that serve as the basis of general relativity to fall apart. In short, the foundations of modern physics would essentially crumble to bits.

Why would this be such a big deal?

As the study authors explained, our current understanding of gravity is based on the concept of general relativity, and Einstein’s equations are used in a plethora of scientific calculations, from determining the age of stars to the GPS signals were rely on to reach our destinations.

One part of the theory states that matter warps the spacetime that surrounds it, which causes the force we know as gravity. Over the past century, the theory has withstood numerous tests, but the existence of singularities – regions of gravity that are so intense that space, time, and the laws of physics break down – are one of primary limitations.

General relativity predicts that singularities exist at the center of a black hole, and are surrounded by an “event horizon” where the gravitational pull is inescapably strong, meaning they cannot be viewed from the outside. Provided they remain hidden, there tenets of general relativity are in no danger, but if one were ever visible, it would mean that it existed outside of an event horizon and would represent an object that had collapsed to an infinite density.

Theoretical physicists hypothesize that this kind of phenomenon, known as a naked singularity, could exist in higher dimensions. If they were to exist, “general relativity breaks down,” said co-author Saran Tunyasuvunakool, a PhD student at Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP). “And if general relativity breaks down, it would throw everything upside down, because it would no longer have any predictive power – it could no longer be considered as a standalone theory to explain the universe.”

General relativity will likely hold true in a 4D universe, but…

Typically, we view the universe as a three-dimensional construct, with time serving as a fourth dimension. However, theoretical physicists and scientists working in string theory have proposed that the universe could actually be made up of as many as 11 dimensions of unknown size. Such additional dimensions can only be inferred through high-energy experiments.

Einstein himself did not state how many dimensions exist in the universe in this theory, and for that reason, theoretical physicists have been studying general relativity in higher dimensions to see if singularities do indeed remain hidden behind event horizons (a principle known as cosmic censorship). The discovery of ring-shaped black holes in five dimensions led the researchers to see if such objects would break apart, ultimately resulting in a naked singularity.

The authors of the new study ran a series of simulations using the COSMOS supercomputer and found that if the rings became thin enough, it could result in the formation of naked singularities. In most cases, a black ring collapses back into a sphere, keeping the singularity contained within the event horizon, but an extremely thin black ring becomes unstable enough to eventually break off and form a naked singularity, they discovered.

Most experts believe that the concept of cosmic censorship will hold true in a four-dimensional universe, but should it ever be disproven, scientists would have to come up with a different way to explain the universe. One such possibility, the researchers noted, is quantum gravity, an idea which approximates Einstein’s equations further away from a singularity, while also providing a description of new physics closer to these dense black-hole centers.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

Do these tracks prove sauropods were swimmers?

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

A new analysis of fossil dinosaur tracks from northern China, which appear to have been made by four-legged sauropods yet contain prints from only two of the creatures’ feet, were likely left behind by animals that were walking, not swimming.

Writing in the latest edition of the journal Scientific Reports, experts from the China University of Geosciences in Beijing and the University of Bristol explained that the tracks, which are more than 120 million years old and date back to the Lower Cretaceous period, are roughly circular in shape and possess a clear set of four or five claw marks at the front.

These footprints are perfect matches for the feet of medium-sized sauropods, including massive long-necked herbivores such as the Brontosaurus and the Titanosaurus, the study authors said in a statement. Yet previous studies concluded that these dinosaurs, which were far too big to walk on their hind legs, could have been swimming. The new paper disputes those findings.

“Nobody would say these huge dinosaurs could stagger along on their hind legs alone – they would fall over,” explained lead author Lida Xing. “However, we can prove they were walking because the prints are the same as in more usual tracks consisting of all four feet.”

sauropods

Credit: Lida Xing

A matter of sedimentology, not dinosaur behavior

What is unique about this case, Xing said, is that only the hind feet were preserved. However, because we do not see the hand prints does not mean that they weren’t there. If these sauropods had been swimming, the researchers said, the hind legs would have been hanging free and some of the footprints would appear as “scratch marks, as the foot scrabbled backwards.”

The newly discovered tracks are well preserved, but also appear to indicate that the dinosaur had been travelling on soft sand. Because of their weight, their claws dug deeper into the surface and allowed them to secure a foothold in the sediment. Since the majority of the dinosaurs’ girth was towards the rear of the animals, the hind-feet pressed deeper than the front ones, resulting in only the back legs leaving a lasting impression on the sandy terrain.

However, as co-author Professor Mike Benton from the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences explained, this does not indicate that sauropods were unable to swim. Instead, he said, the evidence suggests that “a closer study of the details of fossil footprints and the sediments can suggest a rather less romantic idea,” and the absence of hand prints was due to “sedimentology, not dinosaur behavior.”

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Feature Image: This is an artist’s impression of sauropod dinosaurs on the Isle of Skye. (Credit: Jon Hoad)

Space

Second binary system confirmed to be a gamma ray source

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Using the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, a Russian astronomer has purportedly discovered new evidence confirming that binary systems that have strong colliding stellar winds, also known as colliding wind binaries (CWBs), are indeed a source of high-energy gamma radiation.

Writing in the latest issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters, Maxim Pshirkov of the Lomonosov Moscow State University Sternberg Astronomical Institute reported that CWBs, binary star systems in which the both members are massive stars that emit powerful, radiatively-driven stellar winds, have long been considered a possible gamma ray source.

However, only one had ever been detected: Eta Carinae, a system located about 8,000 light years from Earth. Since one source was not enough to verify that binary stars emit high-energy gamma radiation, however, scientists have been searching for additional sources – which proved to be no easy feat, Pshirkov said, as recent calculations proved that such stars are “incredibly rare.”

Three years ago, a team of American and Austrian researchers compiled a list of seven different star systems which contained hot and highly luminous Wolf-Rayet stars, making them candidates for areas where radiation could be detected. In his study, Pshirkov analyzed seven years of data from the Fermi telescope and discovered another possible source of gamma radiation.

System’s proximity helped with the discover, astronomer says

The source in question, Gamma Velorum, is a multiple star system located in the constellation Vela that contains stars of 30 and 10 solar masses. It is also the closest and brightest Wolf-Rayet star and one of the most luminous stars in the night sky, and now, thanks to Pshirkov’s research, it has been confirmed as a “source of gamma-radiation at 6.σ. confidence level.”

Gamma Velorum is approximately 200,000 times more luminous than the sun, and it possesses strong stellar winds with an extremely high mass loss rate of one hundred-thousandth and two ten-millionth of the solar mass every year, the Moscow astronomer said in a statement. As the stellar winds in the system collide, they are travelling at speeds of more than 1,000 kilometers per second, which causes particles to become accelerated through unknown means.

It was this acceleration that was detected using the Fermi telescope, and the detection, which has a statistical accuracy of six standard deviations, is said to be “definitely reliable,” the university explained in a statement. Pshirkov credited the fact that the Gamma Velorum system “lies above the plane surface and it is comparatively close to us” as part of the reason for his success.

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Feature Image: This is an artist’s impression of the clash of powerful stellar winds. (Credit: NASA/C. Reed)

Space

Amazing binary star sets new records for solar eclipse length

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

A newly-discovered binary star experiences a near-total solar eclipse that lasts for three and a half years once every 69 years, setting new records for the longest duration for a stellar eclipse and the longest period between eclipses in a binary system, according to a new study.

In the paper, which has been accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, first author and Vanderbilt University doctoral student Joey Rodriguez and his colleagues revealed that the unnamed star resides in a binary system known only by its astronomical catalog number, TYC 2505-672-1, and which is located approximately 10,000 light years away.

“It’s the longest duration stellar eclipse and the longest orbit for an eclipsing binary ever found… by far,” Rodriguez said in a statement. The new star shatters the previous records of 640 to 730 day long eclipses every 27 years, which were held by a giant star called Epsilon Aurigae.

“Epsilon Aurigae is much closer – about 2,200 light years from Earth – and brighter, which has allowed astronomers to study it extensively,” he added. Epsilon Aurigae, a yellow giant star that is orbited by a normal star slighter bigger than the sun, is believed to be enveloped in a thick gas and dust disk that is oriented nearly edge-on when it is viewed from the Earth.

solar eclipse

Illustration of binary star system which produces the longest lasting eclipses known. (Credit: Jeremy Teaford / Vanderbilt University)

Opaque disk of material believed to be responsible

Rodriguez, Vanderbilt physics and astronomy professor Keivan Stassun, their co-authors used observations made by the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) network and the Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard (DASCH) program in discovering the long-lasting eclipse.

It was Sumin Tang from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who first noticed the star’s unusual activity while digitizing plates for the DASCH survey, and Rodriguez learned of it while attending a conference where she presented her findings. Afterwards, he and Tang decided to collaborate to learn more about the star through recently-obtained images.

Eventually, Rodriguez took over when Tang became occupied with other projects, and found that the new binary system is similar to the Epsilon Aurigae one in many ways. However, instead of being a yellow giant and a normal star, it appears to be a pair of red giant stars, one of which has been stripped to its relatively small core and surrounded by a very large disk of debris.

It is this disk of material, the authors explained, that is responsible for the prolonged eclipse. As Rodriguez said, “About the only way to get these really long eclipse times is with an extended disk of opaque material. Nothing else is big enough to block out a star for months at a time.”

In order for the 69 year long eclipses to occur, he and his colleagues calculate that the system’s stars must be about 20 astronomical units (AU) apart, or about the same distance separating the Sun and Uranus. Currently, not even the most powerful of telescopes are able to independently resolve the two objects, they added, but they are hopeful that the instruments will have improved enough by the next eclipse in 2080 to make such observations possible.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

There may be an iron-rich layer of meteorites buried in Antarctica

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Could the secrets of the solar system’s formation be buried beneath the Antarctic ice sheet? A team of researchers from the University of Manchester believe the answer is yes, and that those secrets are contained in a layer of iron-rich meteorites just centimeters from the surface.

More than two-thirds of the meteorites collected by scientists come from Earth’s southernmost landmass, but according to BBC News, precious few of those space rocks are made of iron. In their new study, Dr. Geoff Evatt, Dr. Katherine Joy and their colleagues used a series of models and laboratory experiments to determine if those metallic meteorites might be buried.

As the Manchester researchers explained in a recently-published Nature Communications paper, they believe that the meteorites have been difficult to find because of the way in which the sun’s rays penetrate clear ice in the regions of the ice sheet called Meteorite Stranding Zones or MSZs. This warms the iron-rich meteorites more than the non-metallic space rocks, melting the ice that surrounds these meteorites. As a result, they sink and become permanently trapped.

Dr. Evatt, Dr. Joy and their co-authors used several experiments and mathematical simulations which indicate that ordinary thawing and freezing processes would negate the upward movement of meteorites with high thermal conductivity, such as those containing iron. This results in rocks with lower conductivities (those with low iron content) to emerge from the ice.

Metallic meteorites could shed new light on the early solar system

If their projections are accurate, this means that layers of ice less than 100 centimeters beneath the surface of an MSZ could contain an abundant amount of iron-rich meteorites that have been preserved for several thousands of years. Recovering these space rocks could drastically improve our understanding of the early solar system, from which they likely originated.

“The idea is, they never make it to the surface. They’re forever trapped, 50-100cm or so below the ice,” Dr Joy told BBC News. “When it’s very cold… picking up the sample in a controlled way is difficult enough with things sitting on the surface. To access ones that are subsurface – nobody’s really tried to do that so far.”

“With the strong possibility that a hidden reserve of meteorites lies just below the ice surface of localized areas of Antarctica, finding conclusive evidence of its existence is imperative to our understanding of the Solar System’s formation,” Dr. Evatt added in a statement. “The challenge is now set: to be the first team to locate this reserve of meteorites and retrieve samples from it.”

While it will not be easy to attempt to recover these meteorites from beneath the ice, the study authors are hopeful that radar equipment and metal detectors might help them determine which places will be the best excavation targets. And, as Dr. Joy told the BBC, the potential benefits of such efforts could be tremendous, as “every meteorite we find tells us something new about the Solar System.”

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Feature Image: Meteorite lodged in Antarctic ice. (Credit: The University of Manchester)

Space

Big Bang’s glow leads to discovery of distant black hole jet

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Using some of the oldest light in the history of the universe as a sort of cosmic flashlight, a team of astronomers have discovered a jet being emitted by an extremely distant black hole, indicating that such phenomena were likely more common after the Big Bang than previously believed.

According to NASA, Aurora Simionescu at JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Studies (ISAS) and her colleagues used the Chandra X-ray Observatory to detect light emitted by this jet at a time when the universe was a mere 2.7 billion years old – one-fifth its current age.

During this time, the cosmic microwave background radiation or CMB remaining from the Big Bang was far more intense than it is today, and the length of the jet, which was found in a system called B3 0727+409, indicates that it is at least 300,000 light years long, the agency added.

“Because we’re seeing this jet when the Universe was less than three billion years old, the jet is about 150 times brighter in X-rays than it would be in the nearby Universe,” Simionescu said in a statement. Her team’s findings have been published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Accidental find could shed new light on black hole evolution

While the newfound jet is far from the only one emitted by supermassive black holes that have been found in the nearby universe, little had been known about how these jets emitted X-rays. In the new study, the authors have found that electrons in the jet are apparently being boosted to X-ray wavelengths as they travel through CMB radiation at near light-speed.

As these electrons travel through the radiation, they collide with microwave photons and increase in energy so that they enter the X-ray band and can be detected by Chandra, the researchers said. This suggests that the electrons in the B3 0727+409 jet must continue moving at nearly the speed of light for several hundred-thousand light years.

These electrons typically emit strongly at radio wavelengths, NASA explained, which means that black hole jets are usually found by radio observatories. This particular jet is unusual in that, thus far, almost no radio signal has been detected from it, yet it is easily detected in the X-ray band.

The B3 0727+409 jet, as it turns out, was discovered by good fortune while the team was using the Chandra instruments to observe something else, co-author Lukasz Stawarz from Jagiellonian University in Poland said in a statement. Hardly any jets distant enough to have their X-ray brightness amplified by the CMB have been discovered thus far, he added, but now that they are known to exist, “it means there could be many more of them out there.”

“Supermassive black hole activity, including the launching of jets, may be different in the early Universe than what we see later on,” noted co-author Teddy Cheung from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. “By finding and studying more of these distant jets, we can start to grasp how the properties of supermassive black holes might change over billions of years.”

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Feature Image: Extended X-ray jet associated with quasar B3 0727+409. (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ISAS/A. Simionescu et al, Optical: DSS)
Technology

The future of mobile technology

Written By: Sam Savage
Sam Savage

Smartphone technology has advanced from luxury to the necessary in a number of years. The industry of mobile technology has boomed as a result, and 2016 is expected to see a significant increase in the number of mobile devices sold, according to technology research firm Gartner.

This consistent growth of mobile technology is hardly surprising, considering it has integrated itself as a key part of our daily lives. Not only does smartphone software and features help to improve our fitness, organization and work productivity, but the vast amount of entertainment and sense of connectivity has become invaluable to users.

 

Experts are already predicting further innovation in the market, with radical changes being made to the mobile platform over the next couple of years. One major change that is emerging is wearable devices. Current releases already include display devices, such as Google Glass, and smart watches. The future will see a rise of availability in these sorts of products, with smartphones acting as a hub for this personal network.

These wearable gadgets will work in sync with installed smartphone apps in order to communicate information, such as messages and emails, as well as providing new experiences in tracking everything from sport and fitness to healthcare and fashion.

By 2018, the market sector for wearable technology will be worth an estimated $30 billion. While this is impressive, it remains only a fraction of the $168 billion that was generated by the smartphone market back in 2012. Online traffic for the technology will account for only 0.5% of global smartphone traffic, with many seeing them as a novel addition rather than a replacement for the latest mobile releases.

In addition to this, Nick Jones, VP and analyst for Gartner, is expecting the emergence of high-precision location sensing to emerge over the coming years. As well as assisting in the delivery of relevant information and services dependent on the user’s location, this could have major implications for law enforcement.

As more international markets begin to legalize online gambling, geo-location technology is hugely important in assuring users in prohibited areas do not access certain sites. However, those on the border of states and areas where the activity has been legalized could fall under the radar. This high-precision sensing will therefore not only enable personalized services and information, but could help to ensure that only players in regulated states can access games and join bingo sites and other real-money gaming platforms.

Overall, the application of mobile technology is expected to become more and more sophisticated over the coming years, delivering a more personal user experience. As smartphone usage continues to grow, new standards for Wi-Fi connectivity will be met and more mobile-connected smart objects will become available on the consumer market, including domestic and medical appliances. The mobile market will evolve with our personal and professional needs to further integrate itself as part of our day-to-day lives.

Sci-Fi & Gaming

5 Online Gaming Facts That Will Blow Your Mind

Written By: Sam Savage
Sam Savage

The online gaming has thrived in recent times, establishing itself as one of the most prominent growth sectors in the current, global economy. This growth has become exponential during the last five years, with the emergence of the mobile platform offering additional diversity and flexible gaming for players.

The emergence and sophistication of the remote casino market has been a major driver of this growth, especially as global gaming websites have become increasingly secure and improved the range if interactive games offered to players. Given the rise trusted online casinos during the last decade, it is little wonder that this market segment has enjoyed particularly pronounced growth levels.

Even though it is widely accepted that the online gaming market is a growth industry, however, you may be surprised to know exactly how lucrative this sector in. With this in mind, here are five spectacular online gaming statistics that will blow your mind in 2016: –

  1. The Online Gaming market was worth $41.4 billion at the end of 2015

A little over a decade ago, the global online gaming market was a burgeoning sector with hug growth potential. In 2005 this market was worth an estimated $13.8 billion, and while this figure was always likely to increase few could have anticipated the extent to which it has grown over the course of a decade. In fact, the value of the online gaming market has trebled in the space of 10 years and was worth an incredible $41.4 billion at the end of 2015.

  1. Tablet revenue will continue to grow at faster rate to Smartphones

While smartphones are generally considered to be the main driver of mobile, online gaming, this assertion is being gradually challenged. In fact, tablets are emerging as an increasingly dominant force that accounts for a significant portion of mobile gaming revenue. Interestingly, the level of gaming revenue generated by tablets is set to double between 2014 and 2018, rising from 3.51 billion Euros to an impressive 8.18 billion Euros.

  1. More than 33% of Adult gamers now play Online games with their children at least once a week

While video gaming is still primarily associated with male students and young adults, the online platform is home to a far more diverse playing demographic. Not only is this demographic older and more likely to be widely educated, but it also includes parents who are keen on playing interactive, online games with their children. More than 33% of adults play online games with the children at least once a week, for example, driving a demand for episodic, adventure games and titles that boast family-friendly content.

  1. Nearly 30% of Gamers are now aged 50 and above

On a similar note, it is important to consider the rising influence of older gamers and previously overlooked minority demographics. While mature and senior citizens have never been considered as targets for traditional game developers, for example, they continuing to display almost fanatical habits when playing online. A little under 30% of people online games are now aged 50 or above, with virtual casino titles the most popular among this demographic.

  1. The Online Bingo Audience has grown by 60 times since 2008

Online bingo is one of the most popular iterations of virtual gaming, with as many as two million people spend up to $3 billion a year playing this numbers game. This is incredible when you consider the niche nature of bingo and similar games.

Space

Gases detected in a super-Earth’s atmosphere for the first time

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

For the first time, researchers have successfully detected the presence of gases in the atmosphere of a super-Earth, an exoplanet with a mass higher than that of our homeworld but far less than an ice giant such as Uranus or Neptune, a soon-to-be-published study has revealed.

In the paper, which has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, University College London PhD student Angelos Tsiaras and his colleagues used new processing methods to look at data from the Hubble Space Telescope, and were able to locate the presence of helium and hydrogen in the atmosphere of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e.

Also known as the diamond planet because models based on its mass and radius have led some astronomers to speculate that it has a carbon-rich interior, 55 Cancri e is more than 8.5 times as massive as the Earth and has a diameter about twice that of our planet. One year there lasts just 18 hours, and its surface temperatures are believed to reach nearly 2,000 degrees Celsius.

55 Cancri e is located in a solar system located about 40 light-years from Earth, in the Cancer constellation. The star around which it orbits, 55 Cancri, is so bright that the UCL astronomers were able to use Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument to study the spectra of the star, and use this data to learn more about its super-Earth companion.

Analysis also revealed evidence that 55 Cancri e is carbon-rich

By scanning WFC3 rapidly across the star, the researchers created a number of spectra and then took the data and processed it using special analytic ‘pipeline’ software. By doing so, they could retrieve the spectral fingerprints of 55 Cancri e embedded in the starlight, which enabled them to detect hydrogen and helium (but not water vapor) in its atmosphere.

In a statement, Tsiaras called the discover “very exciting,” adding that this is “the first time that we have been able to find the spectral fingerprints that show the gases present in the atmosphere of a super-Earth.” Their analysis found that 55 Cancri e’s atmosphere “has managed to cling on to a significant amount of hydrogen and helium from the nebula from which it formed.”

“This result gives a first insight into the atmosphere of a super-Earth,” UCL Professor Giovanna Tinetti added. “We now have clues as to what the planet is currently like, how it might have formed and evolved, and this has important implications for 55 Cancri e and other super-Earths.”

Tsiaras and his colleagues also found hints that the atmosphere contained a hydrogen cyanide signature, which could indicate that the atmosphere has a high carbon-to-oxygen ration. If this can be confirmed, it would support the hypothesis that the so-called diamond planet is indeed rich in carbon, but it would also indicate that the atmosphere there is toxic, said UCL Professor Jonathan Tennyson.

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Feature Image: This is an artist’s impression of 55 Cancri e from further away. (Credit: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope)

Health

Study finds a stark difference between organic, non-organic foods

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Christopher Pilny

It’s long been a contentious debate: Is organic food really any better for you than non-organic food? Well, now those who are proponents of organic eating may have some proof—by way of the largest study of its kind to date.

The researchers, led by experts from Newcastle University, reviewed 196 papers on milk and 67 papers on meat and discovered several trends between them—namely, that organic and conventional milk and meat have different fatty acid compositions and essential mineral levels.

In fact, the study, which is published in British Journal of Nutrition, found that organic whole milk and meat had 39 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids, whereas conventional milk averaged 25 milligrams—meaning that organic milk has more than 50% more omega-3 fatty acids than conventional products.

The meat was found to have around 50% more omega-3s as well. Since many Americans and Europeans don’t ingest enough of these essential nutrients on a weekly basis, this means that, according to the study, a switch of conventional milk to organic milk would allow you to consume more of these nutrients without changing your caloric intake—which would have many benefits.

“Omega-3s are linked to reductions in cardiovascular disease, improved neurological development and function, and better immune function,” explained Chris Seal, Professor of Food and Human Nutrition at Newcastle University, in a statement.

“Western European diets are recognised as being too low in these fatty acids and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recommends we should double our intake. But getting enough in our diet is difficult. Our study suggests that switching to organic would go some way towards improving intakes of these important nutrients.”

According to the study, they also discovered that organic milk had significantly higher levels of fat soluble vitamins, like vitamin E and carotenoids—40% more. Organic milk also had a more desirable fat profile, with a better ratio of omega 3s to omega 6s (the best ratio for humans is to ingest 1:1 overall, which most people fail to achieve) and lower amounts of myristic and palmitic acid—fats which are tied to heart disease.

So why are they different?

It appears that the differences between organic and conventional milk and meat stems from a simple source: What the animals themselves ate.

“People choose organic milk and meat for three main reasons: improved animal welfare, the positive impacts of organic farming on the environment, and the perceived health benefits,” said Newcastle University’s Professor Carlo Leifert, who led the studies.

“But much less is known about impacts on nutritional quality, hence the need for this study. Several of these differences stem from organic livestock production and are brought about by differences in production intensity, with outdoor-reared, grass-fed animals producing milk and meat that is consistently higher in desirable fatty acids such as the omega-3s, and lower in fatty acids that can promote heart disease and other chronic diseases.”

Controversy

Upon the release of this study last night, however, dissidents immediately began to let their voices be heard. Andrew Porterfield from the Genetic Literacy Project, who has an MS in biotechnology, pointed out that the Leifert (the study leader) actually owns his own organic farm in Greece—which may be a conscious or unconscious bias on his part.

But perhaps the most compelling argument came by way of Ian Givens, who is a professor of food chain nutrition at the University of Reading.

“Differences in content such as fatty acids or iodine occur primarily because organic animals are fed more of a forage-based diet, such as grass, than their non-organic counterparts,” he told the Telegraph. “You get the same kind of changes in food composition if non-organic animals are fed forage-rich diets too. It’s the choice of feed, not the organic farming method, which makes the difference.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

British cartography agency releases stunning map of Mars’ terrain

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

As the official mapping agency of Great Britain, the Ordnance Survey (OS) is no stranger to creating easy-to-use, geometrically-accurate representations of terrain, but its latest efforts are truly out of this world.

As BBC News and the Daily Mail reported on Monday, OS cartographer Chris Wesson reviewed open data originally published by NASA and used it to create a terrain map of Mars. One copy of the map was printed and given to British scientist Dr. Peter Grindrod as he helps plan the landing of the European ExoMars rover in 2019.

ordnance survey

Credit: Ordnance Survey

In addition, the map of the Red Planet, which covers roughly 10 million square kilometers (3.8 million square miles, or about seven percent of its terrain). It has also been posted on the OS’s official Flickr account for all to see – just in case anyone happens to be planning a road-trip to Mars and want to make sure they can find their way around once they get there.

In all seriousness, Wesson explained to BBC News that he could picture an astronaut one day using either a physical or digital copy of the map while exploring Mars. The OS added that the exercise was an experiment to see if mapping could benefit future missions to other planets.

Features include Schiaperelli crater, Opportunity landing site

Wesson told BBC News that he made the map at Dr. Grindrod’s request, admitting that it was “a little hard at first to actually understand the data itself in terms of things like the elevation and the scale and so on. But actually the physical process was almost identical to what was used to make an Earth map, or any OS map.”

The Daily Mail noted that the map is at a scale of 1:4,000,000, meaning that every centimeter is equal to 2,485 miles (4,000 kilometers). It covers a total area of 2,282 by 1,690 miles (3,672 km by 2,721 km) of the planet’s surface – the region known as the Western Arabia Terra. Among its most prominent features are the Schiaperelli crater (as features in the movie The Martian) and the landing sites of both the Opportunity rover and the Mars Pathfinder missions.

ordnance survey

The planet Mars has become the latest subject in our long line of iconic OS paper maps. The one-off map, created using NASA open data and made to a 1:4,000,000 scale, is made to see if our style of mapping has potential for future Mars missions. (Credit: Ordnance Survey)

“Becoming more familiar with space is something that interests us all,” OS director of products David Henderson told the newspaper, “and the opportunity to apply our innovative cartography and mapping tradecraft to a different planet was something we couldn’t resist.”

“Even though the principles are the same, the design and the aesthetics of an Earth map differ considerably,” added Wesson. “The cartographic style is something that is very different to your typical planetary map and is identifiable as an OS map. The key ingredients to this style are the soft color palette of the base combined with the traditional map features such as contours and grid lines, and the map sheet layout complete with legend.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

Indonesian ‘hobbits’ were not humans, new research finds

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

The unusual species known as the “hobbits” due to their small stature and unusually long and flat feet were not related to modern humans and were actually an entirely different species, according to new research published in the latest edition of the Journal of Human Evolution.

The new analysis, led by Antoine Balzeau of the French Natural History Museum, conducted an analysis of skull bones discovered on the island of Flores in 2003 and determined that the species known as Homo floresiensis could not have been tiny Homo sapiens, as some have suggested.

However, it is unlikely that the new research will put an end to the debate between the two different camps: one arguing that the short, small-brained hobbits originally descended from Homo erectus and had become smaller over time; and another claiming that they were modern humans suffering from some kind of genetic disorder, according to the AFP.

Nonetheless, Balzeau and Philippe Charlier, a palaeopathologist at Paris-Descartes University, used high-tech equipment to closely examine the layers of the Liang Bua 1 (LB1) hobbit skull, the most intact of the nine known Homo floresiensis, the news agency said. The duo’s analysis found “no characteristics” associated with Homo sapiens in the LB1 skull.

Species could still be related to Homo erectus, however

The skeletal remains of the 15,000-year-old hobbits were first discovered 13 years ago on Flores Island, Indonesia, and as the Daily Mail explained, they earned their “hobbit” nicknames because of their resemblance to the creatures featured in JRR Tolkien’s well-known fantasy novels. They stood an average of three feet tall and weighed a mere 55 pounds.

High-resolution scans of the fossil, recently generated in Japan, were used to look at the bone thickness variation in the various layers of the skull, Balzeau told the AFP. He and Charlier did find evidence of some minor genetic disorders, but nothing suggesting that the species suffered from severe conditions such as microcephaly or dwarf cretinism.

Their research was unable to rule out the possibility that the hobbit was a smaller version of Homo erectus, which had arrived on the nearby island of Java several million years ago, nor could they discount the notion that Homo floresiensis was its own unique species. As Balzeau told the AFP, at this point they cannot conclusively say “one way or the other.”

In similar research conducted last November, scientists from Japan, Australia and Indonesia completed the first comprehensive analysis of the teeth of Homo floresiensis, also known as “Flores Man,” and found dental evidence that the creatures are a separate species, and not modern humans suffering from microcephaly or another type of genetic condition.

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Feature Image: A model of a female Homo floresiensis. (Credit: John Gurche, National Museum of Natural History, CC BY-SA)

Science

Long-standing mystery surrounding Easter Island has been solved

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Artifacts unearthed in Rapa Nui, Chile once believed to have been spearheads were more likely used as general purpose tools instead, a new analysis has discovered, indicating that the ancient civilization of Easter Island was not wiped out by warfare as previously believed.

The new study, led by Binghamton University anthropology professor Carl Lipo and published in the latest edition of the journal Antiquity, looked at the thousands of triangle-shaped, obsidian objects known as mata’a found on the surface of the island – long thought to be weapons due to their quantity and the fact that they were made of sharp glass.

easter island

These are images of various mata’a. Credit: Carl Lipo, Binghamton University

Previous research had concluded that, as the Rapa Nui culture began to run out of food and other resources, the people began to turn on one-another and the mata’a were used as their weapons of choice in this conflict. However, Lipo and his colleagues have determined that this is unlikely, as the mata’s shape and characteristics indicate that they would have made poor weapons.

“When you look at the shape of these things, they just don’t look like weapons at all. When you can compare them to European weapons or weapons found anywhere around the world… they’re very systematic in their shape,” the Binghamton professor said in a statement. “They have to do their job really well. Not doing well is risking death.”

But if the mata’a weren’t spearheads, what were they?

Lipo’s team conducted an in-depth analysis of the shape variability of more than 400 mata’a that had been collected from the island, applying a special technique called morphometrics to a series of photographs that allowed them to quantitatively characterize each of the objects’ shapes.

They found a wide variability in the shape of the supposed spearheads, and based on the apparent inappropriateness of these objects as weapons of war, the researchers propose the notion that the Easter Island civilization was wiped out by interpersonal combat is unlikely. Rather, the team believes this notion was the result of a European misinterpretation of recorded events.

“You can always use something as a spear. Anything that you have can be a weapon,” said Lipo. “But under the conditions of warfare, weapons are going to have performance characteristics, and they’re going to be very carefully fashioned for that purpose because it matters… You would cut somebody [with a mata’a], but they certainly wouldn’t be lethal in any way.”

“What people traditionally think about the island is being this island of catastrophe and collapse just isn’t true in a pre-historic sense. Populations were successful and lived sustainably on the island up until European contact,” he continued, adding that he and his colleagues believe that the objects were actually cultivation tools used for ritual tattooing or domestic tasks such as the processing of plants.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

New rice research may usher in next wave of ‘green revolution’

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Christopher Pilny

Rice growers may soon have DNA technology at their fingertips to help them overcome the various issues facing the grains that feed half the world as they arise—but it’s simpler than you might think.

For thousands of years, farmers have been selecting for the traits they want in their crops through simple trial and error, but new gene sequencing technology is looking to facilitate this process greatly. In fact, according to Phys.org, it’s anticipated that this technology with streamline the process so that it takes a quarter of the time it does now; it could reduce the timespan needed to develop new rice varieties in response to environmental changes to less than three years, as compared to 12 without the technology.

The idea is actually fairly simple. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines has a massive bank of rice varieties, which researchers paired sequenced using advanced Chinese technology. Now, more than 3,000 of the world’s most important kinds of rice have their entire genomes sequenced, along what their genes code for.

Which means that, should a farmer be faced with a challenge such as a floods, new pests, or shifting nutritional needs, they can better figure out how to breed new rice varieties from existing ones by selecting for crops with the traits they desire.

“Essentially, you will be able to design what properties you want in rice, in terms of the drought resistance, resistance to diseases, high yields, and others,” said Russian bioanalytics expert and IRRI team member Nickolai Alexandrov.

However, researchers also emphasize that this is not genetic modification (like with GMOs), but rather selective breeding—which they believe will lead to the second “green revolution”. The first one began in the 1960s, with the development of rice and wheat that created higher yields, and is now credited with preventing global food shortages.

But these gains plateaued around 1970, making this innovation a potential game-changer for rice growers.

“This will be a big help to strengthen food security for rice eaters,” said Kenneth McNally, an American biochemist at the IRRI.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Russia reportedly upgrading nuclear missiles to shoot down asteroids

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Moscow scientists are reportedly working to improve the capabilities of existing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) so they can be used to shoot down meteors or asteroids that come too close to the Earth, and they plan to test their effectiveness within the next 20 years.

According to the Daily Mail and Russian news agency TASS, the program would destroy near-Earth objects between 20 and 50 meters in size. The goal is to test the missile’s effectiveness on asteroid 99942 Apophis, which they believe will fly “dangerously close” to Earth during the year 2036 – despite NASA’s assurances that the object poses no threat to the planet.

Initially discovered in 2004, 99942 Apophis is the size of the size of 3.5 football fields. Early calculations predicted that there was a 2.7 percent possibility of the asteroid striking the Earth, the Daily Mail said, but more recent calculations effectively eliminated any chance of such an impact. Nonetheless, Russian scientists hope to be prepared, just in case.

“Most rockets work on boiling fuel,” Sabit Saitgarayev, senior scientist at the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau, told reporters. “Their fueling begins 10 days before the launch and, therefore, they are unfit for destroying meteorites similar to the Chelyabinsk meteorite in diameter, which are detected several hours before coming close to the Earth. For this purpose, intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used, which requires their upgrade.”

ICBMs could provide quick response to near-Earth object threats

However, according to Digital Trends and Popular Mechanics, Saitgarayev’s plans require the permission of authorities and several million dollars, and while work to modify the missiles has already begun, it is currently unclear at this time is the project will ever be completed.

One of the reasons Russian scientists are eager to come up with defense system against asteroids and other space rocks is the Chelyabinsk meteor, which exploded over the Ural Mountain region in 2013, injuring nearly 1,500 people. The 65 foot (20 meter) wide object and meteors of roughly the same size are difficult to detect in advance but still capable of tremendous damage, Popular Mechanics said, meaning that a defensive response would need to be launched quickly.

Unlike conventional rockets, ICBMs were designed to be fired on short notice, and while in the past the goal of firing such missiles was to end lives, Saitgarayev and his colleagues are hopeful that they can now be used to save them. They are currently working on designs for the upgraded rockets, even though the project has yet to be authorized and uncertainly over the availability of funding.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Researchers have discovered how worlds form in two-sun systems

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

By using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, an international team of researchers has managed to see the earliest stages of planetary formation around a binary star and uncovered new insight into how worlds form in such two-sun systems.

Andrea Isella, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University who presented the findings Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC, and his colleagues used the ALMA radio telescopes to take a closer look at HD 142527, a binary star located about 450 light-years from Earth.

This system, which is located in a young star cluster called the Scorpius-Centaurus Association, consists of a main star slightly more than twice as massive as our Sun, and a smaller companion roughly one-third the mass of our Sun. The two stars are separated by about one billion miles, or nearly the same distance separating the Sun and Saturn, the researchers said in a statement.

“This binary system has long been known to harbor a planet-forming corona of dust and gas,” explained Isella. “The new ALMA images reveal previously unseen details about the physical processes that regulate the formation of planets around this and perhaps many other binary systems.”

Frozen gases could help dust grains aggregate more easily

While studying HD 142527, Isella and his fellow astronomers discovered a striking crescent-shaped region of dust that is surprisingly devoid of gas in the outskirts of its protoplanetary disk. These disk typically contain the tiny grains of dust and small pockets of gas which are eventually pulled together by gravity to form increasingly larger agglomerations, and ultimately planets.

The details of this process are not well understood, which is why astronomers have been using ALMA to study a wide variety of protoplanetary disks all across the universe – including the one forming around HD 142527. High-resolution images of this binary system show that is possesses a broad elliptical ring that surrounds both stars.

two-sun systems

A composite image of the HD 142527 binary star system from data captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array shows a distinctive arc of dust (red) and a ring of carbon monoxide (blue and green). The red arc is free of gas, suggesting the carbon monoxide has “frozen out,” forming a layer of frost on the dust grains in that region. Astronomers speculate this frost provides a boost to planet formation. Credit: Andrea Isella/Rice University; B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ)

This disk begins at a considerable distance from the central star – approximately 50 times further away than the Earth is from the Sun, the researchers said. It is comprised primarily of gases such as two forms of carbon monoxide (13CO and C180), but there is a significant lack of these gases in one large dust arc that extends nearly one-third of the way around the system. Isella speculated that this may be the result of gravitational forces that are unique to binary systems.

Furthermore, he and his colleagues believe that this could be the key to planet formation in two-sun systems. The absence of gases may be due to them freezing and forming ice on the grains of dust, which could increase the likelihood that the dust grains stick together and aggregate into a planetesimal, and eventually into a full-grown planet.

“We’ve been studying protoplanetary disks for at least 20 years,” the Rice professor said. “There are between a few hundred and a few thousands we can look at again with ALMA to find new and surprising details. That’s the beauty of ALMA. Every time you get new data, it’s like opening a present. You don’t know what’s inside.”

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Artist impression of the HD 142527 binary star system based on data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The rendition shows a distinctive arc of dust (red) embedded in the protoplanetary disk. The red arc is free of gas, suggesting the carbon monoxide has “frozen out,” forming a layer of frost on the dust grains in that region. Astronomers speculate this frost provides a boost to planet formation. The two dots in the center represent the two stars in the system. Credit: B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Space

We are on the verge of discovering dark matter, scientists say

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Now that astronomers and astrophysicists have confirmed that gravitational waves exist, the race for the next big cosmic breakthrough is on, and based on what researchers said this weekend at a prominent scientific conference, it could well be the discovery of dark matter particles.

Speaking at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington DC on Saturday, Professor Alex Murphy of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy provided an update on the various international collaborations hunting for the material believe to comprise a significant portion of the universe’s mass.

Those researchers are using a combination of astronomy studies to determine the effect of dark matter on galaxies and light in deep space, and experiments underway deep below the surface of the Earth designed to detected it with minimal interference from other types of particles, Murphy explained.

One such experiment, currently underway at an underground facility located in South Dakota, is the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) detector. Recent upgrades at the facility have increased its chances of identifying the sub-atomic particles known as WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. These WIMPs are believed to be the primarily component of dark matter, he noted.

Detection of dark matter particles could come ‘very soon’

The discovery of dark matter would be as significant a development as the recent discovery of gravitational waves and the original detection of the Higgs boson by researchers at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research), cosmologist Carlos Frenk told The Guardian on Sunday, and it would be a key advance in our understanding of the physical universe.

During his presentation, Murphy said that the LUX team had not yet detected WIMPs, but he added that the recent upgrades at the facility enables them to cool a vat filled with xenon to -150 degrees Fahrenheit in the hopes that they would be able to witness that atom collide with a dark matter particle, thus producing a tiny flash.

Thus far, such a collision has yet to happen, Murphy said. However, he called it “good news” in that “more regions have been ruled out,” referring to the various places where he and his fellow researchers have been searching for the elusive particles. “It’s entirely conceivable that we find a signal very, very soon,” he said. “But it’s also conceivable it’s going to take a long time.”

“It’s a bigger quest than just trying to find it,” the Edinburgh researcher said to The Guardian. “Once we see it that’s not the end of the road – it’s the key to unlocking what the deeper theory of physics is, and beyond the shadow of a doubt that’s going to be a long quest.”

The LUX team isn’t the only group currently working towards the detection of dark matter, the British publication pointed out. In Australia, work is underway on a dark matter detector that will be build underneath a gold mine (to limit interference and false-positives), and another detector has been mounted on the International Space Station to find indirect evidence of dark matter.

Results from these and other experiments are expected by early next year.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

Miles of lost ancient Roman roads discovered in the United Kingdom

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Brian Galloway

Having been lost for hundreds of years, miles of ancient Roman roads have recently been uncovered in the United Kingdom— but there’s no word yet on whether or not they all lead to Rome.

And it’s all thanks to the UK Environmental Agency. Since 1998, the agency has been using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging)—which involves using lasers to map the distance between an airplane and the ground to scan the terrain—to help with things such as flood modelling and coastline erosion, collecting terabytes of data over the years. In the summer of 2013, they released this data to the public, which has since used it for everything from building virtual replicas in Minecraft to surveying for ancient historical sites.

Discovering lost roads

And finally, one man hit gold—or rather, stone: After 45 years of searching, David Ratledge discovered 23 miles (17 km) of a lost Roman road between Ribchester and Lancashire in England.

“This has been one of Lancashire’s biggest puzzles for over 150 years,” he wrote online. “These were the county’s most important Roman sites so good communications between them must have been essential.”

In fact, Roman roads were the key to the empire maintaining power and order over the locals. After Rome invaded in 43 CE, much of the north part of the island resisted their control. In 69 CE, the tribe that controlled the large part of the north—the Brigantes—revolted, leading to a bloody war.

The emperor at the time, Vespasian, then sent in a new governor named Quintus Petilius Cerialis to stop the rebellion and conquer the northern part of England. Cerialis went to work quickly re-securing Rome’s power over the region—and building roads throughout the countryside to link forts and settlements to aid in troop and supply movement.

Reclaimed by the weather

Some of these roads are still visible—they are quite wide, up to 20 or so feet (7 meters), but most have disappeared over the centuries, thanks to weathering and locals using road stones for their own building needs.

“The preservation of the remains varies massively,” said Ratledge in a Environmental Agency statement. “Parts of a road could still be half a metre high and easy to spot whilst in other parts it could be so subtle that you’d definitely miss it on the ground.”

There were hints before in the case of Lancashire, but the road had been hidden well over the course of time.

roadsannotated

“Previously in Lancashire we only had aerial photographs from the 1940s and 1960s to go on, but with photographs features only show up after a drought and we don’t get many of those!” said Ratledge. “With LIDAR, once you know what to look for, it’s blindingly obvious – you just know you’ve found a road… It’s been revolutionary.”

Meaning that, thanks to LIDAR, an enormously huge part of the UK’s history has been brought back to the light of day.

“Lancashire has some of the Country’s most spectacular Roman Roads and in tracing them we will travel through some of Lancashire’s finest countryside seeing many stunning views,” wrote Ratledge. “There are very few sites in England where the Roman Road surface has been exposed and put on display. Lancashire has one of them and you can literally walk in the footsteps of the Legions!”

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All images credit of: The UK department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. 

Science

Three T. Rex relatives uncovered in Idaho by Montana State University team

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Brian Galloway

Idaho isn’t known for turning up many dinosaur fossils—which makes the recent discovery of three brand new T. rex cousins uncovered there all the more rare.

The dinos were found by researchers from Montana State University in the Wayan Foundation of Caribou-Targhee National Forest. According to the study, which is published in Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology, the team primarily found at least three new kinds of theropods—carnivorous dinosaurs that ran about on their hind legs and had grasping hands, like Tyrannosaurus rex.

While the family of one of the theropods is as of yet indeterminate, two of these three new dinos date back to around 95 million years ago, and fall into the small- to mid-sized range of their specific family—Tyrannosauroidea. Based on their fragmentary fossil evidence (mostly teeth), they were able to estimate that the larger tyrannosauroid they discovered was the size of a horse, while the smaller was similar in size to a Labrador retriever.

vert

Vertebra samples collected by the team.

Limited evidence means tough work

Of course, such conclusions weren’t the easiest to reach, given the limited evidence.

“The challenge is identifying the animals based on the fragmentary specimens we find,” said MSU doctoral student L.J. Krumenacker, who has been searching Idaho for dinosaur fossils for 10 years, in an MSU statement.

“I put my best effort into it. It’s possible I could discover some identifications are wrong if we find more complete remains later. But I’d be thrilled because then we’d have an even better understanding. I’d really like to find more.”

This Idahoan cache wasn’t just new kinds of tyrannosauroids, though. They also discovered two fossilized eggs belonging to oviraptosaurs (“egg snatchers”)—the first evidence of their ever having lived in the area. Further, these oviraptosaurs are now the largest dinos known to have lived in Idaho.

These four discoveries show that Idaho had a much more diverse presence of dinosaurs than previously known—but there’s more, as these dinos are some of only a few fossils found dating to the middle Cretaceous period.

“We don’t really have many dinosaurs from this time period,” said MSU paleontology professor David J. Varricchio. “This new evidence is really filling in the time, temporal and spatial gap.”

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Pictured is L.J. Krumenacker, a part of the team behind the discovery. Images credit of: Montana State University

Science

Massive ancient Ice Age dam failure impacted local climate, Pacific Ocean

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Brian Galloway

The complete and total failure of an Ice Age dam at a South American lake roughly one-third as big as Wales released fresh water into the Pacific Ocean on several occasions and was significant enough to change the circulation of this portion of the hydrosphere, new research claims.

Published Friday in the journal Nature journal Scientific Reports, the new study explained that the freshwater lake, which previously occupied a basin that now contains Lago General Carrera in Chile and Lago Buenos Aires in Argentina, had been drained multiple times between 13,000 and 8,000 years ago – and that the results were borderline catastrophic.

At its highest point, this lake extended more than 7,400km2 and held more than of 1,500 km3 worth of water, Professor Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University and his colleagues explained. That water was kept in place by a natural dam made from a large ice sheet, but as that ice sheet began to shrink, the lake started to drain rapidly into the nearby oceans.

“This was a massive lake,” Glasser, lead author on the paper, explained in a statement. “When it drained, it released around 1150km3 of fresh water from the melting glaciers into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans – equivalent to around 600 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. This had a considerable impact on the Pacific Ocean circulation and regional climate at the time.”

Effects felt as far east as the Falkland Islands

As the lake drained, a considerable amount of the freshwater it contained drained into the sea near Golfo Peñas, south of the Chilean capital Santiago, the researchers said. That freshwater would have rested on top of the saltwater as it spread out and affected regional ocean currents throughout southern South America.

The draining of the lake had a significant impact on the entire region, they explained. It would have led to decreased rainfall amounts in the winter, as well as cooler air and ocean temperatures around Cape Horn. The effects would have even been felt as far east as the Falkland Islands, the team discovered by analyzing sediment samples and conducting simulations.

Glasser and scientists from Exeter, Stockholm and Reading Universities and the British Antarctic Survey, used a laboratory technique called single-grain optically stimulated luminescence dating to analyze sediments deposited by the former lake to find out when each of the draining events took place, and used Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) to identify the lake shorelines, altitudes and drainage routes, as well as to calculate the volume of water released by each event.

Finally, they used an ocean-atmosphere climate model to determine the impact of dumping this amount of freshwater into the Pacific Ocean – something that Glaser said is important in light of the fact that researchers “are currently concerned about the volumes of fresh water entering the oceans from the melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and this gives us an indication of the likely effects.”

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Image credit: Thinkstock

Science

Iron oxide discovery hints at surprising new source of oxygen in Earth’s lower mantle

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Brian Galloway

The discovery of two new iron oxides in experiments conducted using particle accelerators at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) research center in Germany suggests the presence of a large, previously undiscovered source of oxygen hidden in Earth’s lower mantle.

The experiments, which are detailed in the latest edition of the journal Nature Communications, were conducted using a special high-pressure chamber at DESY’s X-ray light source PETRA III and other facilities, Dr. Elena Bykova of the University of Bayreuth and colleagues from France and the US explained earlier this week in a statement.

iron

A model of Fe5O7. Credit: Elena Bykova, Universität Bayreuth

According to Dr. Bykova, naturally-occurring iron oxides come in a number of forms, with the most common beaing hematite (Fe2O3), the product that remains after several different kinds of geological processes. While hematite is the primary source of iron, scientists have in recent years discovered several other types of iron oxides that form at high pressures and temperatures.

While using a special pressure chamber known as a diamond anvil cell, the research team took a closer look at the behavior of hematite and magnetite (Fe3O4) and found that the decomposition of both iron oxides at pressures above 60  gigapascals and temperatures over 2,000 Kelvin led to the crystallization of unusual Fe5O7 and Fe25O32 phases and the release of oxygen.

A model of Fe25O32. Credit: Elena Bykova, Universität Bayreuth

A model of Fe25O32. Credit: Elena Bykova, Universität Bayreuth

Oxygen source could significantly impact geological processes

Using the diamond anvil cell, “a minute sample can be compressed between two diamonds to several hundred thousand times the atmospheric pressure, while a meticulously aligned laser can also heat the sample… to several thousand degrees Celsius,“ said Dr. Hanns-Peter Liermann, the head of the measuring station at DESY and co-author of the newly published paper.

These pressure and temperature conditions correspond to the environment that exists at depths of at least 1,500 kilometers below the Earth’s surface, the research team said. Fe5O7 resulted when they applied pressure of more than 67 GPa and heated it to temperatures of 2400 degrees Celsius, while Fe25O32 required pressures of more than 70 GPa, they added.

The structural changes to the samples were monitored using the small, extremely bright beam of the PETRA III storage-ring-based X-ray radiation source, the study authors noted. Measurements were also taken at the European Synchrotron Radiation Source (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, and at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.

Based on their observations, when exposed to conditions corresponding to the middle of the Earth’s lower mantle, both hematite and magnetite release oxygen-rich fluids as they decompose, Dr. Bykova said that she and her colleagues “estimate that this source so far provided an amount of oxygen equivalent to eight to ten times the mass of oxygen in the atmosphere.”

She said that it is “not quite clear” what happens to the oxygen there. It could locally oxidize the surrounding materials, or pass either to the transition zone or the upper mantle. Study co-author Dr. Maxim Bykov of the University of Bayreuth said that this “remains to be explored” and that for now, all they can say is that a large source of oxygen in the mantle could “significantly affect geochemical processes by changing oxidation states and mobilizing trace elements.”

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Image credit: Thinkstock

Technology

Algorithm predicts success rate for Batman v. Superman movie, amongst others

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Brian Galloway

Superhero movies have some of the biggest blockbusters released in recent years, with Marvel’s The Avengers raking in $1.5 billion worldwide and Deadpool expected to win the weekend box office – but science is predicting doom and gloom for another superhero flick.

Using a new algorithm to predict the profitability of a motion picture, a team of researchers from the University of Iowa determined that the Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which is set to be released on March 25, has just a 32 percent chance of actually turning a profit.

Part of that is likely due to the fact that, with a budget of $200 million, Batman v. Superman will be one of the most expensive movies ever made. However, algorithm creators Michael Lash and Kang Zhao explain that there are also several other factors to consider, including the director and the stars of the film, its plot and genre, and the time of year in which it is released.

As they explained recently in the journal Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction, Lash and Zhao used a machine-learning, data-based algorithm to analyze various factors related to profitability. They determined the likelihood that different films would be able to make at least $7.3 million above expenses (the amount determined to be a reasonable profit).

Exploring the factors that make a motion picture profitable

Looking only at box-office profitability and not accounting for number of tickets sold or revenue generated from DVDs or other secondary sources, the team ran more than 2,500 movies released from 2000 through 2010 and found that only 36 percent of them had actually made a decent amount of money, and that there was little correlation between box office receipts and profitability.

The researchers found that having a director and cast with a history of making profitable movies, the average gross of a director’s previous movies, a winter release date, and the annual percentage of profit by the film’s genre were all key factors when it determining if a film will make money.

“Movies that sell better at the box office may also need bigger investments and thus do not necessarily provide satisfactory returns for investors,” Lash, a doctoral student at UI, said in a statement. Zhao, a professor in management sciences, added, “It’s easier to predict the box office receipts if you have star power, but that doesn’t help in predicting profitability because the actors charge such a hefty fee upfront that it reduces the profit.”

As an example, the cite the upcoming bank heist comedy Masterminds features a good amount of star power in the form of Zach Galifanakis, Kristen Wiig, and Jim Carrey. While the big names associated with the project will likely drive people to the theater to see the movie, that is offset by the amount of money it took to hire those actors. Thus, the  algorithm concludes that Masterminds has just a 39 percent probability of turning a $7.3 million profit.

Other upcoming films run through the algorithm include Nice Guys, a summer movie featuring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe that has a 39 percent chance of earning a $7.3 million profit; Zootopia, an animated film from the producers of Frozen (55 percent probability); the Melissa McCarthy-Kristen Bell comedy The Boss (25 percent probability) and the movie adaptation of the popular Warcraft computer game (39 percent probability).

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Image credit: Thinkstock

Space

Rosetta’s Philae lander most likely finished, scientists say

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Christopher Pilny

The Philae lander—the brave little toaster that was sent to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko to analyze its conditions and components—may have beamed out its last report, according to a new statement released by the European Space Administration.

Philae landed on the comet more than a year ago, in November of 2014—and somewhat unsuccessfully. Saddled with a faulty thruster and failing to launch its harpoons intended to anchor it to the surface, it actually bounced more than a kilometer (or roughly 2/3 of a mile) from where the scientists planned for it to hunker down. Instead, it plopped in a spot that didn’t have as much sunlight—an enormous problem, as it is solar-powered.

Scientists impressively still managed to complete about 80% of their planned experiments and measurements, including taking images of the comet surface, searching for organic compounds, and detailing the environment of the comet—all of which were revolutionary insights.

Fewer than three days later, the batteries—unable to be charged by the sun—were drained of their power, and Philae fell into hibernation.

Not dead yet

It was strongly doubted whether it would wake up again, but miraculously, it did—in April of 2015, as the comet made its approach to its closest point near the sun (perihelion). Researchers had no idea, however, until June, when it finally was able to make contact. It sent out hundreds of data packets it had in queue, giving scientists data they never believed they would have the chance to pore over.

It was able to make contact several more times, although the signal was incredibly weak. On July 9th, it sent out the last transmission received—and researchers aren’t hopeful for more.

“The chances for Philae to contact our team at our lander control centre are unfortunately getting close to zero,” said Stephan Ulamec, Philae project manager at the German Aerospace Center. “We are not sending commands any more and it would be very surprising if we were to receive a signal again.”

The Rosetta spacecraft, which is set to meet up with Philae on the comet in the upcoming months, will continue to listen for the lander’s signals—although it’s suspected that either Philae’s transmitters and receivers have failed, or dust has coated its solar panels to the point where it can no longer charge.

“We would be very surprised to hear from Philae again after so long, but we will keep Rosetta’s listening channel on until it is no longer possible due to power constraints as we move ever further from the Sun towards the end of the mission,” said Patrick Martin, ESA’s Rosetta mission manager.

Not a letdown

But this doesn’t mean that Philae has been a disappointment. Indeed, the hardiness if the Little Lander That Could speaks to the ability of those who engineered it.

“The fact that the lander had survived the multiple impacts on 12 November and then unfavourable environmental conditions, greatly exceeding the specifications of its various electronic components, was quite remarkable,” wrote the ESA in their statement.

Moreover, Rosetta will continue the work it began on the comet once it lands—and scientists have learned plenty of exciting new things besides.

“Philae has been a tremendous challenge and for the lander teams to have achieved the science results that they have in the unexpected and difficult circumstances is something we can all be proud of,” said Martin.

“The combined achievements of Rosetta and Philae, rendezvousing with and landing on a comet, are historic high points in space exploration.”

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Feature Image: ESA

Science

Cryogenically frozen rabbit brain restored in near perfect condition

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Talk about hare-raising science: a team of researchers led by MIT alumnus Robert McIntyre have managed to cryogenically freeze brain and recover a rabbit’s brain without causing any significant damage to neurons and synapses.

According to the Daily Mail, McIntyre and his colleagues reported that the brain is in “near-perfect” condition, and their research indicates that “long term structural preservation of an intact brain is achievable” and could eventually be performed on a human brain.

brain

Credit: Kenneth Hayworth/The Brain Preservation Foundation

The research team, who published their findings in the journal Cryobiology, used a new technique called aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation (ASC), which uses an organic compound known as glutaraldehyde (typically a sterilizing agent) to stabilize the brain circuitry, then using the vitrification process to preserve tissues by cooling them to extreme temperatures.

By draining the blood from the creature’s head and replacing it with the glutaraldehyde, they were able to hold proteins in place, holding off metabolic decay and preventing the brain from shrinking. When stored at temperatures of -135 degrees Celsius, the brain could theoretically be preserved for hundreds of years, according to Popular Science.

‘Not your father’s cryonics’

For their efforts, McIntyre’s team was named the winner of the Brain Preservation Foundation’s Small Mammal challenge, an initiative that tasked neuroscientists to try and preserve the brain of a mouse or other similar creature without causing significant damage to its biological structure.

In a statement, BPF President Dr. Kenneth Hayworth said, “​Every neuron and synapse looks beautifully preserved across the entire brain. Simply amazing given that I held in my hand this very same brain when it was vitrified glassy solid… This is not your father’s cryonics.” He and his organization awarded McIntyre’s team $26,735 for their accomplishments.

“This is a big deal,” BPF co-founder John Smart told Motherboard. “It’s the first time that we have a procedure that can protect everything neuroscientists think is involved with learning and memory. Given the results… it seems to me that long-term memories are successfully preserved by this technique. This is not yet certain… but seems highly likely from my position.”

The Daily Mail said that the researchers believe the rabbit’s long-term memories could very well be intact, but Smart told Motherboard that they do not know that the ASC technique would be able to preserve the creature’s personality traits or consciousness. The agency now intends to launch a similar challenge to scientists to see if these methods can effectively freeze the brain of a larger animal, such as a pig.

“If these techniques can be validated in large animals, we should be able to make them increasingly available in society,” he explained. “I think the question of preservation will be one of the more valuable social conversations we can have… In short, this is a very exciting time to be alive. If things keep moving, that ‘time to be alive’ part may last a while.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

For the first time ever, researchers have replicated effects of Maxwell’s demon

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

A hypothetical entity first proposed in the mid-1800s that appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics has for the first time been implemented in photonic experiments carried out at Oxford University and published in a recent edition of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Named Maxwell’s demon in honor of James Clerk Maxwell, the mathematician who according to Auburn University first hypothesized its existence in 1867, the being has been at the center of countless theoretical studies over the years, but only a few were able to actually realize it.

Maxwell’s hypothesis assumes you have a box  filled with a gas at some temperature, meaning that molecules will travel at a certain average speed based on how hot or cold the inside of the box is (with some moving faster and others slower). Now suppose that a partition is placed across the middle of the box to separate it into two sides, and that both the left and right halves of the box are filled with gas at the same temperature.

In his hypothesis, Maxwell imagined that the partition contained a tiny trap door controlled by a miniscule demon that was observing individual gas molecules. As they moved closer to the door, the demon quickly opened and shut the entry, allowing faster molecules to enter the other side of the chamber and leaving slower ones behind.

Since faster molecules are hotter, the demon’s behavior would cause one chamber to warm up and the other to cool down, according to Phys.org. This would decrease entropy and effectively violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the process. If the box is warm on one side and cool on the other, it could be used to run a heat engine by using the separation of temperature by allowing heat to flow from the hot half of the container to the cold side.

Findings could ultimately be used to improve cooling systems

While the majority of experiments focusing on Maxwell’s demon have been theoretical, a team of physicists from Oxford University, the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Imperial College London, Roma Tre University and the National University of Singapore have managed to produce what they are calling the first-ever photonic implementation of the demon.

According to Phys.org, lead author Mihai D. Vidrighin and his colleagues demonstrated that measurements made on two beams of light can be used to generate an energy imbalance between the beams, from which they are able to extract work. Furthermore, their findings indicates that the work extracted from the beams can be used to change a battery, thus effectively providing proof of the so-called “demon’s” activity.

Co-author Oscar Dahlsten from Oxford and the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences told the website that the team’s research demonstrates how photonics could be used to probe the link between energy and information. In their version of the Maxwell’s demon experiment, they used the light pulses in place of the gas particles, and used the combination of a photodetector and a feed-forward operation to simulate the activity of the hypothesized demon.

The photodetector measures the number of photons from each pulse, while the feed-forward operation acted like the open door by escorting the brighter, more photon-rich beam one way and the dimmer beam with fewer photons in the opposite direction, Phys.org explained. Each beam ends up falling on a different photodiodes, generating electrical currents that both travel towards a capacitor but do so at different directions.

Since the pulse energies are not equal, they produce a photoelectric charge and provide energy to the capacity rather than simply cancelling each other out. While the authors noted that they did not set out to realize optimal work extraction, they are confident that some version of Maxwell’s demon could eventually be used to reduce the work costs of cooling systems or in other ways.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Astronomers discover a huge, dark secret in galaxy NGC 4889

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

While it may look calm in photographs, researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope to study giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4889 have learned that it is quietly home to what may be the largest supermassive black hole in the universe, or at the very least one of the biggest.

Located approximately 300 million light years away in the Coma Cluster, NGC 4889 contains a black hole that is 21 billion times more massive than the Sun and which has an event horizon that is nearly 130 billion kilometers in diameter, or 15 times bigger than the orbit of Neptune.

That’s considerably larger than the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, the ESA/Hubble Information Center said in a statement. Our galaxy’s black hole has a mass of only four million times the Sun’s and an event horizon one-fifth as large as Mercury’s orbit.

NGC 4889’s black hole is no longer active, the Center noted. It is no longer consuming stars or dust and is currently taking the cosmic equivalent of a post-Thanksgiving nap. Meanwhile, the galaxy’s serene environment has allowed new stars to form from the previously consumed dust and gas. The galaxy’s contents are currently orbiting the black hole undisturbed.

Catching a nap before its next meal arrives

That wasn’t always the case, the researchers explained. When it was active, this supermassive black hole collected material through its gravitational pull in a process known as accretion. Gas, dust and other galactic debris slowing fell inwards to the black hole during this time, and as it accumulated, it formed a spinning disc of matter referred to as an accretion disc.

The accretion disc orbited the black hole and was accelerated by the immense gravitational pull of the tremendous entity, causing to be heated to temperatures of several million degrees. As the material heated, it also began to expel very large and high energetic jets. The galaxy would have been classified as a quasar during this period of activity, the Center said, and the disc around the supermassive black hole would have emitted 1,000 times more energy than the Milky Way.

Once there was no more nearby galactic material for the black hole to gorge itself on, it entered a dormant period while waiting for more matter to consume. In the meantime, astronomers can use it to learn more about how and where quasars originally formed during the early universe.

While the researchers note that it is impossible to directly observe black holes, as light is unable to escape their gravitational pulls, its mass can be determined indirectly by measuring the speed of the stars travelling around the galaxy’s center. Since the velocity of those stars are dependent upon the mass of the object around which they orbit, they could be used to determine the mass of the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4889.

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Feature Image: This image shows the elliptical galaxy NGC 4889 in front of hundreds of background galaxies, and deeply embedded within the Coma galaxy cluster. Well-hidden from human eyes, there is a gigantic supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. (Credit: NASA & ESA)

Health

Obese? Depressed? Addicted to cigarettes? Might want to blame your Neanderthal DNA

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Christopher Pilny

You may blame your mom and dad for certain genes, but a new study out of Vanderbilt University has found that you might need to go back a few thousand years for the real culprits—Neanderthals.

For a long period of time, it was uncertain if Homo sapiens had interbred with Neanderthals at all, but in 2010 it was discovered that people of Eurasian origin inherited 1 to 4 percent of their genes from them.

Even with this knowledge, though, we were not entirely sure how this DNA affects us—but now, first time ever, researchers have directly compared the Neanderthal gene groups (also known as haplotypes) to the DNA and health records adults of European ancestry—28,416 of them, to be precise.

Their results, which were published today in Science, identified 135,000 “high-confidence” genetic variations (known as SNPs, or variations of just one DNA building block somewhere in the genome) that are shared between Neanderthals and modern humans—and these variations indicate that Neanderthal genes have a subtle yet significant effect on the biology of modern humans.

“Our main finding is that Neanderthal DNA does influence clinical traits in modern humans: We discovered associations between Neanderthal DNA and a wide range of traits, including immunological, dermatological, neurological, psychiatric and reproductive diseases,” said John Capra, assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University and senior author of the paper, in a statement.

Detrimental in the West

These variations now seem to be largely detrimental to humans, but it probably wasn’t always this way.

“It is possible that some Neandertal alleles provided a benefit in early AMH [anatomically modern human] populations as they moved out of Africa, but have become detrimental in modern Western environments,” wrote the authors.

neanderthal dna

Credit: Deborah Brewington, Vanderbilt University

Now, though, this shared genetic material has been linked by these researchers to an increased likelihood of health issues such as heart attacks, obesity, hypercoagulation (too much blood clotting), UTI, and callouses in modern humans.

Moreover, they confirmed a previously-held hypothesis that Neanderthal DNA leads to solar keratosis—which consists of skin lesioning caused by exposure to the sun’s UV rays. Apparently, the DNA from Neanderthals affects the cells in the skin that help protect it from various types of damage, including that from the sun—meaning that skin is less protected and thus can be harmed.

More S.A.D. news

The results also showed that Neanderthal DNA affects your chances of having depression—although, depending on the variations you receive, it can make you either more or less likely than the average human to develop the disorder. Mood disorders in general were shown to have an increased likelihood for those with Neanderthal DNA.

Perhaps most surprisingly, though, the Neanderthal DNA has now been tied to a significant risk of developing a nicotine addiction. The variation in question actually affects signaling in the brain associated with a neurotransmitter called GABA—which is linked to an increased smoking risk.

“The brain is incredibly complex,” said Vanderbilt doctoral student and first author Corinne Simonti, “so it’s reasonable to expect that introducing changes from a different evolutionary path might have negative consequences.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

2015 saw a record number of unprovoked shark attacks

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water comes word from the University of Florida researchers behind the International Shark Attack File that a record 98 unprovoked shark attacks took place worldwide last year, with more than half of them occurring in the US.

According to AFP reports, only six of those attacks proved to be fatal, keeping with the average number over the past decade. However, as Shark Attack File director George Burgess noted, the nearly 100 attacks against humans topped the previous record of 88, set back in 2000.

Fifty-nine of the attacks took place in US waters, including 30 in the Florida alone, and the only American fatality took place in Hawaii. Australia was a distant second in shark attack frequency with 18, followed by South Africa with 8, Reunion island with 4 and the Canary and Galapagos islands tied with 2 apiece. No other region had more than one shark attack.

Two of the fatal shark attacks were among the four that took place on the French island, while the remaining three occurred in Australia, Egypt and New Caledonia. Burgess team warned that Reunion was the deadliest place for shark attacks, as seven of the 18 that occurred there during the past five years have resulted in a loss of life.

So what caused such a drastic spike in shark attacks last year?

Burgess told AFP that the increasing number of attacks witnessed in 2015 could be due to rising water temperatures caused by climate change, which has encouraged sharks to journey north and south than ever before – as evidenced by the fact that one attack took place in New York.

In addition, the El Nino water pattern would have warmed the ocean waters, leading more people to head to the beach than normal, and the upward trend of the global population each year would suggest that the frequency of attacks would continue to increase for the foreseeable future.

“Sharks plus humans equals attacks,” Burgess said in a statement. “As our population continues to rapidly grow and shark populations slowly recover, we’re going to see more interactions… We can and should expect the number of attacks to be higher each year. When we visit the sea, we’re on their turf.”

Despite the increase, the researchers noted that more people were killed by spiders, lightning and dogs last year than shark attacks. Still, they advise staying out of the water during dawn, dusk or the nighttime, avoiding areas where people are fishing and not swimming while wearing jewelry. If attacked, they say you should hit the shark in the nose and claw at its eyes and gills in order to break free and frighten it off.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

It’s official: LIGO scientists have detected gravitational waves

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

UPDATE: 10:00 AM CST

In what some are calling the scientific discovery of the decade, scientists from Caltech, MIT and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) announced Thursday morning that they had for the first time observed the warping of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes.

According to BBC News, the landmark discovery of these so-called gravitational waves, first theorized by Einstein a century ago as part of his General Theory of Relativity, comes following decades of searching for the elusive phenomena. It could mark the dawning of a new era in the field of astronomy and shed new light on the Big Bang itself, the website added.

Thursday’s announcement follows nearly a month of speculation that gravitational waves had indeed been detected, and was made official after scientists involved with the LIGO project spent weeks reviewing the data to verify that the signals were accurate, said Gizmodo. The findings are to be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Discovery could radically change the way we view the universe

During the press conference, the LIGO team confirmed that the gravitational waves had been observed at 5:51am Eastern time on September 14th of last year by both of the detectors, which are located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington. The source of the waves was a collision of supermassive black holes that look place more than one billion light years away.

Professor Karsten Danzmann of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany, one of the European heads of the LSC, told BBC News that the detection would go down as one of the most important scientific discoveries since scientists at CERN confirmed the detection of the Higgs boson using the Large Hadron Collider.

“There is a Nobel Prize in it – there is no doubt,” he told the British media outlet. “It is the first ever direct detection of gravitational waves; it’s the first ever direct detection of black holes and it is a confirmation of General Relativity because the property of these black holes agrees exactly with what Einstein predicted almost exactly 100 years ago.”

“Gravitational waves provide a completely new way at looking at the Universe,” added Professor Steven Hawking, one of the planet’s foremost experts on black holes. “The ability to detect them has the potential to revolutionize astronomy. This discovery is the first detection of a black hole binary system and the first observation of black holes merging… We may even see relics of the very early Universe during the Big Bang at some of the most extreme energies possible.”

ORIGINAL: 8AM CST

Scientists from Caltech, MIT and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) have called a press conference for later this morning where they are expected to announce that they have discovered the faint ripples in the fabric of spacetime known as gravitational waves.

In a media advisory sent out earlier this week, the National Science Foundation (NSF) said that it would be issuing “a status report” on research being conducted using the recently upgraded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), a facility dedicated to the search for the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

Assuming that the announcement is indeed confirmation that these spacetime ripples have been discovered, it would come during the 100th anniversary of the inaugural publication of Einstein’s predictions, and experts say that it would mark the dawn of a whole new kind of astronomy.

What are gravitational waves, and how does LIGO look for them?

As mentioned previously, gravitational waves are faint ripples in the very fabric of spacetime that Einstein believed would be produced as a result of his general theory of relativity. Basically, he explained that they would be created if a large mass is moved very suddenly, if two massive objects (black holes, for instance) suddenly collided, or if a supernova exploded.

The more mass an object possessed, the greater its impact on the surrounding spacetime would be, according to Gizmodo. Before LIGO, scientists lacked the ability to directly detect the waves, but the observatory’s multi-kilometer-scale gravitational wave detectors use laser interferometry to measure the ripples by having facilities in Washington and Louisiana work at the same time.

LIGO was designed and build by a team of scientists from Caltech, MIT and collaborators from more than 80 scientific institutions across the country, according to the project’s official website. It was recently upgraded as part of the Advanced LIGO project, which increased the sensitivity and observational range exponentially and increased the number of observable galaxies by 1,000 times – leading to the discovery expected to be announced later on this morning.

So why is the discovery of gravitational waves such a big deal?

According to Scientific American, Caltech theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, a leading expert in the field of general relativity, once said that the detection and analysis of gravitational waves would “create a revolution of our view of the universe comparable to or greater than that which resulted from the discovery of radio waves.”

Finding radio waves ultimately resulted in the discovery of radio galaxies, astrophysical black holes and quasars, the website noted, and finding and studying gravitational waves “could be similarly transformative because it would mark the beginning of an era in which scientists can use gravitational waves just as they use electromagnetic radiation – as a means of observing the cosmos.” So, yeah, it would be kind of a big deal.

The discovery could also drastically improve our ability to study black holes, and according to a Forbes report, the radiation produced as massive particles move through gravitational fields (also known as gravitational radiation) could lead to the discovery of orbital decay around systems that are stronger than our own, including black holes in the process of merging.

If today’s announcement is indeed the discovery of gravitational waves, the website said, it will confirm “that Einstein’s relativity is right, that gravitational radiation is real, and that merging black holes not only produce them, but that these waves can be detected. It’s a whole new type of astronomy – one that doesn’t use telescopes – and a whole new way to view black holes, neutron stars, and other objects that are otherwise mostly invisible.”

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Feature Image: Screenshot from YouTube live press conference/NSF

Science

2,000-year-old remains tell lost story of Imperial Rome’s immigrant class

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Christopher Pilny

When it comes to ancient Rome, most of what we know tends to be concerned with a very select group of people: wealthy, literate freemen. Which means that, for a city that comprised perhaps a million people at its height, we know shockingly little about the lives of the majority of its residents: immigrants and slaves.

Now, though, researchers have used certain kinds of bone analysis to examine human remains from Imperial Rome—and have gained new insights into the lives of thousands of humans ignored by the textual record.

In particular, the researchers, Kristina Killgrove from University of West Florida and Janet Montgomery from Durham University, wanted to hone in on a little-understood, but highly prevalent aspect of daily Roman life: immigration, both by choice and forced. Immigrants comprised a significant portion of the population, as slaves were around 40 percent of the population and free immigrants were perhaps 5 percent—but their stories are by and large untold (unless you consider ancient graffiti).

Yet these people obviously had an enormous effect on Rome, even though we can’t comprehend the full magnitude without better archaeological evidence. Thankfully, there is one way to gather some new knowledge about these people: bioarchaeology. As in, there is evidence locked in the bones of those who lived and died in Imperial Rome—and these researchers finally decided to unlock it.

Getting down to the bone

The team examined 105 skeletons buried in Roman cemeteries that date to the first through third centuries CE. Using the ratios of certain chemical isotopes, like oxygen and strontium, they were able to better understand where people lived before coming to Rome.

When rocks weather, they release strontium, which enters drinking water and is taken up by plants. From there, humans consume these substances and incorporate strontium into their bones. Since rocks aren’t homogenous in their composition across the world, the amount of strontium deposited your bones reflects the geology of your area—and therefore, bone analysis can reveal what region of the world a person comes from.

Oxygen also gets incorporated into the bones from drinking water, though what is reveals is a bit more specific.

“Oxygen isotopes, on the other hand, are related to environmental and meteoric water, and the values change based on factors such as latitude, rainfall, elevation, humidity, temperature, and distance from the coast,” wrote the authors in their paper, which is published today in PLOS ONE.

In short, the ratio of oxygen isotopes in bones shows whether the individual drank local water (in this case Roman) or nonlocal water while their bones were forming.

Using these isotope analyses, the team determined that eight of the 105 skeletons were likely migrants, mostly men and children, possibly from North Africa and the Alps. While it was impossible to tell when exactly they made their journeys, some of the children seem to have arrived between ages four and ten, as their adult teeth (which formed at different ages) reflected differences in isotope levels. It’s not possible at this point to determine their social status, but since they were buried in a necropolis, they were likely poor immigrants, or maybe even slaves*—as the wealthy were normally buried in mausoleums.

(*The fact that they may have come from North Africa has no bearing on their status as free or enslaved. Slaves in Rome were not a particular race and did not come from any specific area; many were simply war booty after Romans conquered a new region.)

Meanwhile, using carbon isotopes, they were also able to examine their diets. Different foods have different kinds and levels of carbon isotopes, which incorporates in the bone as well. After analyzing this, the researchers discovered that coming to Rome seems to have greatly shifted the migrants’ diets—a possible sign of acculturation. Their bones indicated they switched from eating wheat, legumes, meat, and fish to eating millet (and animals fed millet).

Voicing the voiceless

All in all, we are beginning to learn more and more about the lives of the majority of Romans, granting a new voice to those who were previously voiceless.

“Modeling migration to Imperial Rome is necessary for a deeper understanding of demographics, family structure, and gender roles, wrote the authors.

“This study has generated the first concrete data of individuals who were not born at Rome, but much more research is needed into a variety of data sets to fully contextualize questions about mobility in Imperial Rome and to move forward in employing bioarchaeology in Roman migration studies.”

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Feature Image: Skull of skeleton T15, a 35- to 50-year-old male who was buried in a cemetery in the modern neighborhood of Casal Bertone, Rome, Italy. Isotope ratios suggest he may have been born near the Alps. (Credit: Kristina Killgrove)

Technology

Computers can qualify as drivers, US agency tells Google

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

The technology used to power Google’s autonomous vehicles, not the human sitting behind the wheel, could soon be legally designated as the car’s driver, officials at the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told the company in a letter made public this week.

According to BBC News, the legal breakthrough marks a shift in regulator policy, as previously an automobile without a human driver could not be considered road legal, while paving the way for the production of vehicles which do not require steering wheels or pedals.

“If no human occupant of the vehicle can actually drive the vehicle, it is more reasonable to identify the driver as whatever (as opposed to whoever) is doing the driving,” the NHTSA told Google in the newly-released letter. “In this instance, an item of motor vehicle equipment, the Self-Driving System, is actually driving the vehicle.”

The NHTSA’s ruling would allow Google’s autonomous pod to pass the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards test, meaning that the company could mass produce and market it, and that the vehicle would actually be allowed to travel on roads or highways anywhere in the country.

Ruling may make it easier to get self-driving cars on the road

The NHTSA sent the letter in response to a November request by Google in which the company inquired how federal safety regulations such as those about mirrors, seats, and brakes applied to a self-driving vehicle, The Guardian explained. Among the questions Google was seeking to have answered: Did the car have to follow a rule requiring “an occupant seat for the driver”?

After careful consideration, the agency replied that, in the case of autonomous cars, the “driver” would be the system controlling the vehicles movement, and thus no occupant seat was required. They added that the automobiles would “not have a ‘driver’ in the traditional sense that vehicles have had drivers during the last more than one hundred years” and that it was “more reasonable to identify the ‘driver’ as whatever (as opposed to whoever) is doing the driving.”

While Google has tested various versions of its self-driving car in California, Washington and Texas, the latest version of the technology lacks a steering wheel and brake levers, prompting the initial inquiry. However, according to The Guardian, the NHSTA also warned Google that while the software could legally be considered a driver, that it had no way to evaluate whether or not it would be a particularly good one.

The agency also said that the vehicle’s developers would have to find a way around other federal regulations requiring that cars have basic safety features such as brakes. While this could be done by petitioning for those rules to be changed or asking for an exemption, reports indicate that it is unlikely that the letter itself will have any immediate impact on the car’s development.

Karl Brauer, senior analyst for the motor vehicle research group Kelley Blue Book, told Reuters that while legal questions continue to surround self-driving technology, if “NHTSA is prepared to name artificial intelligence as a viable alternative to human-controlled vehicles,” then it may “substantially streamline the process of putting autonomous vehicles on the road.”

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Feature Image: Google

Space

Vela Pulsar’s ‘glitching’ found to affect pulse width

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

The Vela Pulsar, a highly magnetized, spinning, radiation-emitting neutron star that experiences several “micro-glitches” each year, changes its pulse width over time – especially following one of those frequency shifts, researchers from the University of Tasmania have discovered.

According to Phys.org, Ph. D. student Jim Palfreyman and his colleagues collected more than 6,000 hours of single-pulse data from the pulsar using a 26-meter radio telescope at the Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory near Hobart, Australia as part of an 18-month long-term study.

While previous studies had found that the Vela Pulsar speeds up in rotation frequency once every three years or so, the new analysis of approximately 237 million single pulses found that its pulse width changes as well, with “marked” increases following one of its “micro-glitches.”

Also, they found that the abundance of bright pulses changes after some of, but not all of, these events. In addition to helping to explain some of the Vela Pulsar’s unusual behavior, the research could help shed new light on the pulsar emission and glitching process as a whole.

Findings suggest an unusual location for the emissions zone

In a paper now vailable online at arXiv.org and accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal, Palfreyman and his colleagues explained that whatever was affecting the pulse width of the pulsar was affecting its entire pulse shape, causing occasional decreases in pulse width.

For instance, after one micro-glitch, they observed a sudden increase in the frequency of brighter pulses and no change in pulse width. Following a second one, however, the opposite happened: a micro-glitch was followed by a sudden decrease in pulse with and no change in bright pulse rate.

As Phys.org explained, the study authors believe that this unusual phenomenon could indicate that the emission zones of the pulsar could be mathematically chaotic by nature, and point out that the width fluctuations could be due to changes in the width of its emission cone. However, this hypothesis would rely on the emission zone being located in the cone, while most younger pulsars like Vela should give off emissions from its core, the website noted.

Palfreyman’s team has determined that the secular changes occurring in Vela’s pulse width may have one of three different possible cyclical periods which match with the X-ray periodicities of a helical jet and which could be interpreted as free precession. As previous studies have already established, the helical X-ray jet streaming from the pulsar’s rotational axis has definite periods of 122, 73 and 91 days – a finding corroborated by the new data.

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Feature Image: The supernova that formed the Vela pulsar exploded over 10,000 years ago. This optical image from the Anglo-Australian Observatory’s UK Schmidt telescope shows the enormous apparent size of the supernova remnant formed by the explosion. The full size of the remnant is about eight degrees across, or about 16 times the angular size of the moon. The square near the center shows the Chandra image with a larger field-of-view than used for the movie, with the Vela pulsar in the middle. (Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Toronto/M.Durant et al; Optical: DSS/Davide De Martin)

Science

Horses can recognize human emotion, study finds

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

In 2015, scientists discovered that dogs could discriminate between happy and angry facial expressions in humans, and now researchers from the University of Sussex Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group have found that horses can as well.

As lead author Amy Smith and her colleagues reported in the latest edition of Biology Letters, they used photographs of human males and found that domestic horses had a negative response to angry expressions, indicating that the domestication process might have caused the creatures to adapt to and gain the ability to interpret human behavior.

According to BBC News and The Guardian, the researchers created high-quality, large-sized color photographs of a man both smiling and baring his teeth, and frowning and baring his teeth to serve as positive and negative emotions. Volunteers then went to riding stables, presented the images to a total of 28 horses and recorded their reactions.

“What’s really interesting about this research is that it shows horses have the ability to read emotions across the species barrier,” Smith told The Guardian. “We have known for a long time that horses are a socially sophisticated species but this is the first time we have seen that they can distinguish between positive and negative human facial expressions.”

Ability may have evolved as a ‘warning system,’ say authors

During the experiments, one volunteer held the horse while another, who did not know which facial expression each of the pictures contained, held up the photographs. In most instances, the horses looked at the angry faces with their left eye, which sends signals to the right side of the brain, where negative stimuli are processed.

Furthermore, heart monitors equipped to the horses found that angry faces caused a significant increase in the heart rate of the creatures. Smith said that the reaction to the negative expressions was “was particularly clear,” telling The Guardian, “There was a quicker increase in their heart rate, and the horses moved their heads to look at the angry faces with their left eye.”

The study authors claim that this behavior has only previously been observed in dogs, and that the impact of facial expressions on an animal’s heart rate had not previously been demonstrated by any heterospecific studies. The findings suggest that domestication of a species could cause it to develop the ability to recognize emotions in humans, according to BBC News.

“It’s interesting to note that the horses had a strong reaction to the negative expressions but less so to the positive,” Smith said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “In this context, recognizing angry faces may act as a warning system, allowing horses to anticipate negative human behavior such as rough handling.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

Scientists recreate Big Bang ‘primordial soup’ with LHC

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Christopher Pilny

CERN has recreated the primordial soup that composed the universe a few billionths of a second after the Big Bang in order to understand it better—with some surprising results.

The recipe for such a soup is simple. It requires a few lead nuclei; a 16.8-mile-long Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator; and sprinkle of 5.02 tera electron volts (TeV), the highest amount of energy ever used in such an experiment. What comes out is known as quark-gluon plasma, an extremely hot and dense material composed of the most fundamental particles, but especially (surprise) quarks and gluons.

This isn’t the first time this soup has been made by humans—that honor falls to CERN in June of 2015. But more than recreating the quark-gluon plasma, researchers have now been able to discover properties of the primordial soup that they couldn’t determine before.

“The analyses of the collisions make it possible, for the first time, to measure the precise characteristics of a quark-gluon plasma at the highest energy ever and to determine how it flows,” said You Zhou, a postdoc in the ALICE research group at the Niels Bohr Institute and a member of the international team tasked with examining the soup, in a statement.

Behaving like a liquid

In fact, the researchers have been hard at work studying the plasma’s collective properties—which has revealed that it actually behaves more like a liquid than a gas, even at its highest energy densities. Further, they were able to determine the viscosity of this fluid with high precision.

In order to discover such things, the researchers shot the spherical lead nuclei at each other so that they hit off-center, forming primordial soup in the shape of a very tiny football. Because of its non-spherical shape, the difference in pressure between the center of the “football” and the surface varies along the different axes. Further, the pressure differential pushes the “football” to expand and flow, meaning one can measure a characteristic variation in the number of particles produced in the collisions as a function of the angle.

“It is remarkable that we are able to carry out such detailed measurements on a drop of ‘early universe’, that only has a radius of about one millionth of a billionth of a meter,” said Jens Jørgen Gaardhøje, professor and head of the ALICE group at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

“The results are fully consistent with the physical laws of hydrodynamics, i.e. the theory of flowing liquids and it shows that the quark-gluon plasma behaves like a fluid. It is however a very special liquid, as it does not consist of molecules like water, but of the fundamental particles quarks and gluons.”

These results have been submitted to Physical Review Letters, the top scientific journal for nuclear and particle physics but the researchers aren’t stopping with these results. According to Jens Jørgen Gaardhøje, the team is now aiming to map the quark-gluon plasma with even more precision—and to study it even farther back in time.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Health

Why ugly criminals are 2X as likely to go to prison

Written By: Christopher Pilny
Christopher Pilny

Do you want to understand more about your own thoughts and motivations? Do you wish you had a better understanding of what motivates other people and drives their decisions? Has psychology always fascinated you, but you’ve been missing a way to apply those lessons practically in your day-to-day life?
“The Science of Success” is redOrbit’s newest podcast, featuring entrepreneur and investor Matt Bodnar, who explores the mindset of success, the psychology of performance, and how to get the most out of your daily life.
With gripping examples, concrete explanations of psychological research, interviews with scientists and experts, and practical ways to apply these lessons in your own life, “The Science of Success” is a must-listen for anyone interested in growth, learning, personal development, and psychology.
This week’s episode: Why ugly criminals are 2X as likely to go to prison

This week we are continuing our new miniseries within “The Science of Success” called “Weapons of Influence”. This is the fourth episode in a six-part series based on the best selling book Influence by Robert Cialdini. If you loved the book, this will be a great refresher on the core concepts. And if you haven’t yet read it, some of this stuff is gonna blow your mind.
So what are the six weapons of influence?
–Reciprocation
–Consistency and Commitment
–Social Proof
-Liking Bias
-Authority
-Scarcity
Each one of these weapons can be a powerful tool in your belt – and something to watch out for when others try to wield them against you. Alone, each of them can create crazy outcomes in our lives and in social situations, but together they can have huge impacts.
This episode covers the fourth weapon of influence: Liking Bias. In it, we’ll cover what made Joe Girard the greatest car salesman of all time; how Tupperware grew their sales to 2.5 million per day; and why uglier criminals are more than TWICE as likely to go to jail; and much more.

For more episodes, check it out on iTunes: The Science of Success.
Also continue the conversation by following Matt on Twitter (@MattBodnar), visiting his websiteMattBodnar.com, or visiting ScienceOfSuccess.co.
Space

March asteroid flyby may come within 11,000 miles of Earth

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

A small asteroid that will pass relatively close to the Earth early next month poses no threat, but could present a tremendous opportunity for astronomy enthusiasts to observe the object from the ground as it zooms to within 11,000 miles (17,000 km) of the planet, NASA has revealed.

In a statement issued recently, the US space agency said that asteroid 2013 TX68, which passed to within 1.3 million miles (2 million km) of Earth two years ago, will be even closer this March 5, provided that current calculations of the object’s trajectories are correct.

However, they noted that the object has only been tracked for a short time, and that the variation in possible closest approach distances is sizable. Either way, the asteroid is extremely unlikely to pose any threat, but if it comes close enough, stargazers might be able to catch a glimpse.

Asteroid 2013 TX68 is estimated to be about 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter – larger than the 65 foot (20 meter) wide asteroid that broke up in the atmosphere over Russia’s Ural Mountains in 2013. Were it to enter Earth’s atmosphere, it would likely produce an atmospheric explosion twice the energy of the incident two years ago, NASA said.

Little chance that the object will hit Earth – this time around

Fortunately, that isn’t anything that humanity needs to worry about – yet. However, scientists at the agency’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California report that there is a remote chance the object could hit Earth in the future.

In fact, when it next passes by the Earth on September 28, 2017, CNEOS scientists believe there’s a 1-in-250 million chance it could crash into the planet’s surface. Subsequent flybys in 2046 and 2097 have even lower impact probabilities, meaning that in all likelihood, mankind has nothing to fear from this particular asteroid.

“The possibilities of collision on any of the three future flyby dates are far too small to be of any real concern,” said CNEOS manager Paul Chodas explained, adding that he expected “any future observations to reduce the probability even more” – which is a good thing, given its size.

Chodas added that asteroid 2013 TX68’s orbit “is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it. There is a chance that the asteroid will be picked up by our asteroid search telescopes when it safely flies past us next month,” which could provide them with enough data to “more precisely define its orbit around the sun.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Indian man killed by falling meteorite; three others injured

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

A meteorite is believed to be responsible for the death of a 40-year-old man and injuries to three other people after falling near a cafeteria on the campus of Bharathidasan Engineering College in India, CNN.com and the Wall Street Journal are reporting.

The alleged incident took place at approximately 12:30 pm local time at the campus, which is located in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. While the exact nature of the object has not yet been confirmed, it left at least a two-foot crater, and authorities believe it was a meteorite.

If so, this would be the first death ever to be attributed to a falling space rock, according to the Washington Post. The victim, who has been identified as V. Kamaraj, worked as a bus driver at the school and was standing close to the affected area at the time of impact. He passed away en route to a hospital, and three others, including a student and two gardeners, were injured.

Eyewitnesses said that the incident generated a loud noise, similar to an explosion, that could be heard up to two miles away and smashed the windows of classrooms and nearby parked vehicles. No evidence of explosives were found at the scene, but investigators reported finding tiny pieces of diamond-like rock that were “blue-ish black” in color.

Analysis will determine if the object is actually a meteorite

P.K. Senthil Kumari, the police chief in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore district, told CNN that it had not yet been confirmed that the impact was caused by a meteorite and not some other kind of debris such as a piece of falling space junk. The recovered rocks have been sent to the Indian Institute of Astrophysics for further analysis.

Sujan Sengupta, an associate professor at the Institute, told the Wall Street Journal that there is “extremely little possibility of a small meteorite falling to the ground” and hitting and killing a person. NASA noted that there was no record “in modern times of any person being killed by a meteorite,” and that there was a “small” risk of such an incident occurring.

A senior official at the facility who did not wish to be identified told AFP, “Our team has taken samples from the site and the object. It will take a couple of days to determine its origin… As of now we cannot confirm if it is a meteor or not.”

According to the Washington Post, the last human fatality caused by a meteorite came in 1825, also in India. However, there have been several close calls since then, including a 1954 incident in which an Alabama woman was injured after a meteorite tore through the roof of her home and a 2013 explosion that injured more than 1,000 people in Russia’s Ural Mountains.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Astronomers have discovered hundreds of hidden galaxies behind the Milky Way

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

Hundreds of hidden galaxies located extremely close to the Milky Way, but long obscured by our galaxy itself, have been observed for the first time by an international team of researchers using a specially-equipped radio telescope, according to a new Astronomical Journal study.

At a distance of 250 million light years from Earth (very close in astronomical terms), the galaxies previously avoided detection due to dense clouds of dust in the Milky Way, lead author Professor Lister Staveley-Smith of the University of Western Australia branch of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) explained.

“The dust clouds in the plane of our own Milky Way are so dense that not even large infrared and space telescopes can peer through them to see on the ‘other side’ of our galaxy,” Staveley-Smith told redOrbit via email. “Only a large radio telescope with a sensitive wide-field receiver can see these objects. Even then, it required many months of mapping the sky!”

He and a team of colleagues from the US, Australia, South Africa and the Netherlands outfitted the Parkes radio telescope at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) facility in New South Wales with the innovative receiver that allowed them to peer into the dust cloud and observe a previously unexplored part of the universe.

hidden galaxies

This is an annotated artist’s impression showing radio waves traveling from the new galaxies, then passing through the Milky Way and arriving at the Parkes radio telescope on Earth (not to scale). (Credit: ICRAR)

Discovery could explain Milky Way’s movement, the Great Attractor

In all, Staveley-Smith’s team said they discovered 883 galaxies on the other side of the Milky Way dust cloud, one-third of which had never previously been seen. As Professor Renée Kraan-Korteweg, an astronomer at the University of Cape Town, explained, scientists have tried to map the distribution of galaxies behind the Milky Way for several decades.

“We’ve used a range of techniques but only radio observations have really succeeded in allowing us to see through the thickest foreground layer of dust and stars,” she said in a statement. “An average galaxy contains 100 billion stars, so finding hundreds of new galaxies hidden behind the Milky Way points to a lot of mass we didn’t know about until now.”

The discovery could also provide new insight into the Great Attractor, an extremely massive and gravitationally strong region of intergalactic space which the researchers said seems to be pulling on several hundred thousand galaxies (including the Milky Way) with as much force as a million billion suns. It could also help explain the movement of the Milky Way itself.

“Knowledge of the positions and properties of the new galaxies allow us to better map the structure of the local Universe, and better assess what is responsible for the motion of the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies,” Staveley-Smith said. “It will also enable us to assess whether our knowledge of how the Universe evolves is correct. In the best cosmology model, gravitational acceleration is not predicted to arise from very distant structures. So finding the distance of the Great Attractor is very important.”

Currently, the study authors note that experts don’t fully understand what causes gravitational acceleration on the Milky Way, nor are they certain what the source of this acceleration is. But our galaxy is currently moving towards a few large clusters or superclusters of galaxy at speeds of more than two million kilometers per hour, and several new structures identified in this new study could help explain why.

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This is an artist’s impression of the galaxies found in the “Zone of Avoidance” behind the Milky Way. This scene has been created using the actual positional data of the new galaxies and randomly populating the region with galaxies of different sizes, types and colors. (Credit: ICRAR)

Science

Late Antique Little Ice Age associated with fall of eastern Roman Empire, rise of Arab Empire

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Christopher Pilny

The last three decades may have the warmest summers seen in Europe of the course of two millennia, but now researchers have identified the coldest temperatures in the same time frame—and discovered they coincide with an extremely riotous time in history.
In fact, these cold temperatures were so cold and lasted so long that the researchers believe that have identified a previously unrecognized mini ice age. Lasting from 536-660 CE, they have dubbed this cold snap the Late Antique Little Ice Age—as the time period in which it fell correlates to the end of the Age of Antiquity.
According to the study, which is published in Nature Geoscience, the researchers investigated tree ring data from 150 living and 500 dead trees from the Russian Altai-Sayan Mountains, whose tissue chronicled temperatures from between 358 BCE to 2011 CE. They discovered that the average temperature fell by around 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) colder than today’s average in this Little Ice Age—which may seem small, but of the 20 coldest summers in that region within a 2,300-year span, 13 occurred consecutively in this 120-year time period.
Or, as lead author Ulf Büntgen from the Swiss Federal Research Institute put it, “This was the most dramatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the past 2000 years.”
This Ice Age seems to have begun thanks to three volcanic eruptions that occurred in quick succession: one in 536, another in 540, and the last in 547 CE. These eruptions spewed large amounts of sulfate aerosols, which entered the atmosphere and blocked out sunlight by reflecting it back into space, thereby dropping temperatures globally. The researchers think that these events coincided with the solar minimum, which paired with the reactions of sea ice drew out this temperature plunge across the sixth and seventh centuries.
The other shoe drops
But the researchers have uncovered something even more fascinating than a new mini-Ice Age, because they believe that this temperature drop directly changed the course of human history.
In fact, they believe that the temperature change led to the decline of the eastern Roman Empire and the rise of the Arab Empire.
After the team—which consisted of naturalists, historians, and linguists—mapped the new climate information against the turbulent events of the mid-fifth century in and around the eastern Roman Empire, they were able to draw links between the climate change and historical events.
“With so many variables, we must remain cautious about environmental cause and political effect, but it is striking how closely this climate change aligns with major upheavals across several regions,” said Büntgen.
For example: Following the eruptions, first went the food. As temperatures plunged, food supplies did too—or so they guessed, as a major famine struck the region in the time immediately after the eruptions. And then, directly following (and perhaps exacerbated by) the famine, plague struck—as in the Justinian Plague, which killed millions of people across the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile…
At the same time in central Asia, multiple tribes began to migrate eastwards towards China, likely because their pasturelands were in decline thanks to cooler temperatures. These nomadic tribes clashed with local ruling powers in the steppes of northern China. Then, these populations allied themselves with the Eastern Romans to bring down the Sasanian Empire in Persia—clearing the way for the Arab Empire to rise up in its wake.
Meanwhile, to the south of the Eastern Empire, the Arabian Peninsula began receiving more rain than usual, allowing more vegetation to grow than before. The researchers believe this boom in plant life allowed the Arab armies to grow in size, as the increase in food sources meant they could use more camels on their campaigns. Naturally, this led to more successes for the Arab Empire, which could now being fill the void left by the Sasanian Empire.
Or in short, the researchers believe the Late Antique Little Ice Age played an enormous role in shaping the events of the time period.
“Spanning most of the Northern Hemisphere, we suggest that this cold phase be considered as an additional environmental factor contributing to the establishment of the Justinian plague, transformation of the eastern Roman Empire and collapse of the Sasanian Empire, movements out of the Asian steppe and Arabian Peninsula, spread of Slavic-speaking peoples, and political upheavals in China,” they wrote.
All of which raises the question: In our current dramatic climate shift, who will rise?
And who will fall?
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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Health

Implantable electrode may enable mind-control of bionic limbs

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

A new device designed to allow patients suffering from paralysis to regain the ability to move by using their thoughts to power bionic limbs or exoskeletons will its inaugural in-human trials next year in Australia, researchers at The Royal Melbourne Hospital announced Monday.

The interface is comprised of a stent-based electrode or “stentrode” that is implanted in a blood vessel within the patient’s brain, and is used to record type of neural activity that a brain uses to control motion-assist technology, doctors at the Victoria-based medical facility explained.

The decision to move forward with in-patient trials comes following the publication of research in the latest edition of Nature Biotechnology, in which neurologist Dr. Thomas Oxley and his co-authors demonstrated that the unit is capable of recording the high-quality signals emitted by the brain’s motor cortex – without requiring patients to undergo open-brain surgery.

Stentrode unit essentially acts like a ‘bionic spinal cord’

In a statement, Dr. Oxley called the paperclip-sized stentrode a revolutionary device, adding that it is “the world’s only minimally invasive device that is implanted into a blood vessel in the brain via a simple day procedure, avoiding the need for high risk open brain surgery.”

Dr. Oxley, who in addition to his work at The Royal Melbourne Hospital is a research fellow at The Florey Institute of Neurosciences and the University of Melbourne, said that his team hopes that the stentrode will be able to “return function and mobility to patients with complete paralysis by recording brain activity and converting the acquired signals into electrical commands.”

This, in turn, would result in movement of the limbs through a mobility-assist device such as an exoskeleton or a bionic limb, creating what is essentially “a bionic spinal cord.” The trial is set to begin at The Royal Melbourne Hospital sometime in 2017 and will involve patients chosen from the Austin Health Victorian Spinal Cord Unit, the authors explained in Monday’s statement.

According to the researchers, stroke and spinal cord injuries affect one out of every 50 men and women, and are the leading causes of disability. There are an estimated 20,000 Australians who suffer from spinal cord injuries and another 150,000 facing post-stroke mobility issues that could benefit from the stentrode technology, which University of Melbourne biomedical engineer and co-lead investigator Dr. Nicholas Opie compared to an implantable cardiac pacemaker.

Technology could also help epilepsy, Parkinson’s patients

“Utilizing stent technology, our electrode array self-expands to stick to the inside wall of a vein, enabling us to record local brain activity,” Dr. Opie said. “By extracting the recorded neural signals, we can use these as commands to control wheelchairs, exoskeletons, prosthetic limbs or computers. “In our first-in-human trial, that we anticipate will begin within two years, we are hoping to achieve direct brain control of an exoskeleton for three people with paralysis.”

“Through our pre-clinical study we were able to successfully record brain activity over many months. The quality of recording improved as the device was incorporated into tissue,” added neurophysiologist and co-author Professor Clive May. “Our study also showed that it was safe and effective to implant the device via angiography, which is minimally invasive compared with the high risks associated with open brain surgery.”

Professor Terry O’Brien, Head of Medicine at Departments of Medicine and Neurology at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and University of Melbourne, called the stentrode’s development the “holy grail” of bionics research, adding that creating a device capable of recording brain activity without damaging the brain itself is “amazing development in modern medicine” that could also be used to treat epilepsy, Parkinsons and other neurological conditions.

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Feature Image: University of Melbourne

Space

North Korea launches mystery satellites into orbit

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

A long-range rocket launch conducted by North Korea over the weekend has reportedly put a pair of different objects – possible satellites – into orbit, while drawing condemnation from the global community as a missile test conducted in blatant disregard of international warnings.

According to Associated Press and Reuters reports, the launch took place at approximately 9:00 local time Sunday at a site on the west coast of North Korea. The liftoff was tracked individually by the US Strategic Command and by their counterparts in Japan and South Korea.

Japanese television coverage air footage taken from a camera at the border between China and North Korea that showed a streak of light heading into the sky, and North Korea said the launch was conducted to put the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite into orbit earlier than originally expected. Reports indicate that its launch window was originally scheduled to open on February 8.

The US Joint Space Operations Center (JSPOC) told Reuters that the launch actually placed two objects into orbit, and that it was tracking both of them travelling in orbit at an inclination of 97.5 degrees – a nearly polar, sun-synchronous orbit. It is unclear at this time if either is transmitting signals, they added.

Was this a scientific launch, or something more sinister?

The JSPOC, a division of the US Strategic Command, also said that the launch vehicle is likely the same used during North Korea’s last launch in December 2012, the Unha-3, as the orbits of the satellite and other details of the launch are said to be extremely similar in nature.

The North Korean National Aerospace Development Administration has called the launch “an epochal event in developing the country’s science, technology, economy and defense capability by legitimately exercising the right to use space for independent and peaceful purposes,” while the US and its international allies believe that the launch was actually a covert missile test.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye called the launch an “intolerable provocation,” telling the AP that Sunday’s missile launch was “all about maintaining the regime” of current North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe added that his country would be ready to “take action to totally protect the safety and well-being of our people.”

The UN Security Council condemned the launch in an emergency meeting on Sunday, according to Reuters, and promised to take “significant measures” over what they called a violation of UN resolutions. US Ambassador Samantha Power added she would “ensure that the Security Council imposes serious consequences” in response to North Korea’s “latest transgressions,” which come on the heels of an alleged atomic bomb test conducted by the country back in January.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Health

Researcher finds first-ever native North American malaria strand

Written By: Chuck Bednar
Christopher Pilny

One researcher’s attempt to discover a strain of malaria that could infect birds has led to the discovery of a parasite that infects white-tailed deer, making it the first parasite ever found to live in a deer species and the first found in any North or South American mammal.

Ellen Martinsen, a research associate at the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute and adjunct faculty in the University of Vermont’s biology department, and her colleagues had been collecting mosquitoes at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo two years ago when they discovered a unique DNA profile from parasites in those insects that they were unable to identify.

The parasite they discovered, Plasmodium odocoilei, is believed to infect up to one-fourth of white-tailed deer living along the east coast of the United States, the researchers reported in a new study published in the February 5 edition of the journal Science Advances.

“You never know what you’re going to find when you’re out in nature–and you look,” Martinsen said last week in a statement. “It’s a parasite that has been hidden in the most iconic game animal in the United States. I just stumbled across it.” She added that while malaria is widespread in the deer, it is “cryptic: in that infected animals appear to have very low levels of the parasite.

Parasite found to affect up to 25 percent of East Coast deer

Martinsen, who conducted the research with University of Vermont biologist Joseph Schall and colleagues from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the University of Georgia, the National Park Service and the American Museum of Natural History, noted that the parasite is unlikely to pose a direct health risk to people.

That said, they explained that the discovery highlights the fact that some human health concerns are connected to larger-scale ecological systems, and that obtaining a better understanding of the biology of other types of creatures can bolster both conservation and global health efforts.

In light of recent concerns over the Zika virus, Schall said that the discovery of this new parasite is “a reminder of the importance of parasite surveys and basic natural history.” The study authors found that the disease affected between 18 and 25 percent of deer living in areas from New York to West Virginia and even as far south as Louisiana.

Martinsen said that the discovery fundamentally alters our understanding of the distribution and the evolutionary background of malaria parasites in mammals. While some experts wondered if deer malaria could have been transmitted from people or other animals, the new study found that deer actually carry two different genetic lineages of the parasites. These lineages, which are most likely different species, are substantially different from one another, the researchers said.

She went on to note that the evolutionary split between these two lineages took place between 2.3 and 6.0 million years ago, meaning that malaria likely arrived in North America from Europe when the evolutionary ancestors to the white-tailed deer crossed the Bering Land Bridge during the Miocene epoch between 4.2 and 5.7 million years ago.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

New human-driven virus is devastating bee populations; What can be done?

Written By: Susanna Pilny
Brian Galloway

Bee populations are plummeting again, and this time not because of neonicotinoid pesticides: Now, a virus is taking hold worldwide, and it looks like humans are to blame for its spread.

The disease—called the deformed wing virus—is especially deadly when carried by the parasitic Varroa mite. Together, the mite and the virus wiped out millions of bees within a few decades, as the Varroa mites feed on bee larvae and the virus it carries kills off bees of all ages.

Which means that the bee populations are devastated twice over—bringing new concerns about the fate of the little creatures that pollinate $16 billion worth of crops per year in the US alone.

What’s the buzz?

According to the paper published in Science, the virus isn’t just spreading naturally, but instead is being driven by human movement and bee transportation. To reach this conclusion, the researchers examined the phylogeography—simply speaking, genetics and geographic locations—of Varroa mites and the deformed wing virus.

Through this work, they discovered that the virus seems to have spread from one main region: Europe. From there, it has reached North America (Hawaii in particular), Australia, Asia, and New Zealand.

In terms of the spread of the mites and virus, there appears to be some forward and backward movement of the virus between Asia and Europe, but none between the geographically closer Australasia and Asia; it’s unidirectional in those cases, mostly just being carried over from Europe. The researchers believe this suggests that the virus does not spread normally, but it carried such distances via human methods.

“This is the first study to conclude that Europe is the backbone of the global spread of the bee-killing combination of deformed wing virus and Varroa,” said coauthor Lena Wilfert, from the University of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation, in a statement.

“This demonstrates that the spread of this combination is largely man-made—if the spread was naturally occurring, we would expect to see transmission between countries that are close to each other, but we found that, for example, the New Zealand virus population originated in Europe. This significantly strengthens the theory that human transportation of bees is responsible for the spread of this devastating disease.”

More bees, please

The solution, then, to saving the global populations of pollinators seems clear—although it may sting a little.

“We must now maintain strict limits on the movement of bees, whether they are known to carry Varroa or not,” said Wilfert. “It’s also really important that beekeepers at all levels take steps to control Varroa in their hives, as this viral disease can also affect wild pollinators.”

But researchers believe that, with such controls, we can turn things around.

“The key insight of our work is that the global virus pandemic in honey bees is manmade not natural,” says senior author Mike Boots, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Exeter. “It’s therefore within our hands to mitigate this and future disease problems.”

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Image credit: Thinkstock