NASA moves closer to building fully 3D printed rocket engine

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 22, 2015 Last Edited: December 22, 2015

Christopher Pilny

NASA has moved one step closer to completing a 100-percent 3D printed, high-performance rocket engine following a recent test-firing of the combined engine parts that produced 20,000 pounds of thrust, officials at NASA announced late last week.

According to Gizmodo and Popular Mechanics, the test took place at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama back in October, and a record 75 percent of its components were constructed using additive manufacturing processes.

The rocket’s engine burned fuel at temperatures of more than 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the fuel pumps supplied liquid oxygen at temperatures of less than minus-400 degrees. It generated up to 90,000 revolutions per minute, and one test reportedly lasted a full 10 seconds.

The tests were conducted using cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen—propellants which are frequently used in spacecraft propulsion systems—NASA explained. While the agency could switch to methane and oxygen fuel for its proposed mission to Mars, however, the results prove that the 3D printed engine is capable of handling extreme conditions.

NASA hoping to calm fears that 3D printed parts are too fragile

Among the benefits of the October tests are the fact that they demonstrated that the components of the engine were exposed to cryogenic hydrogen, which can cause them to become brittle, and that they were not adversely affected. Next, the team plans to test the engine using methane fuel, as well as adding other key components, such as a cooled combustion chamber.

The goal of using additive manufacturing to produce engine parts is to reduce costs and produce improved technology, NASA officials explained. It will also save time and allow them to reduce the total number of components required by making what had been multi-component pieces as a single unit. The tests were conducted in part to quell concerns that such parts may be too fragile.

“By testing the turbopumps, injectors, and valves together, we’ve shown that it would be possible to build a 3-D printed engine for multiple purposes such as landers, in-space propulsion or rocket engine upper stages,” said Elizabeth Robertson, project manager for the additively manufactured demonstrator engine at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

David Eddleman, a propulsion designer at the Alabama facility, added that the 3D printing process “really opened the design space and allowed for part geometries that would be impossible with traditional machining or casting methods. For the valve designs on this engine, we used more efficient structures in the piece parts that resulted in optimized performance.”

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Feature Image: NASA/MSFC

Science

African lions have now joined all other big cats on the endangered species list

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 22, 2015 Last Edited: December 22, 2015

Emily Bills

Six months after the death of Cecil the Lion, the US Fish and Wildlife Service have moved to add two subspecies native to Africa to the endangered species list, making it more difficult for hunters to import trophies from their conquests into the country.

According to Reuters, the agency listed lions found primarily in western and central Africa as endangered and those native to the eastern and southern parts of the continent as threatened. Those changes follow the recent extension of similar protections to elephants and cheetahs and will officially take effect starting in January.

Jeff Flocken, North American regional director of the animal welfare fund, told the Washington Post that the ruling was “very exciting… for those who want to see greater protections for lions.” While the decision is not explicitly the result of Cecil’s death at the hands of a Minnesota dentist, Flocken noted that it was “impossible to ignore the public outcry” of that event.

The new regulations will not prevent the hunting of lions, the Post noted, but it will require all hunters to obtain an import permit from the FWS to bring back trophies. To be granted a permit, they will have to demonstrate that a trophy will “enhance [the] survival of the species, explained Teresa Telecky, director of wildlife at the Humane Society International.

New regulations set ‘a very high bar’ for trophy import permits

Telecky’s group—along with the International Fund for Animal Welfare first petitioned for the addition of these lions to the Endangered Species act almost five years ago—praised the move and said that it set “a very high bar” for hunters to obtain permits to bring back trophies.

Tens of thousands of both groups of lions roamed across Africa at one point, Reuters said, but in recent years their numbers have dropped off drastically due to the loss of prey, the loss of habitat, and their attractiveness as a target for trophy hunters—both locally and internationally. Now, only 1,400 of the most threatened of the two subspecies remain, the news organization added.

While the practice is condemned by many, some countries call it an important source of income, and some claim that it actually helps promote conservation efforts. The newly passed regulations will ask hunters to prove those claims, Luke Hunter, president of Panthera, a global organization promoting wild cat conservation, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Lions are now the last of the big cats to be added to the endangered species list, joining jaguars, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, and cougars in the register, the Post said. The US is the latest country to address the hunting of the creatures, following France, who last month said that it would not be issuing any future permits to import trophy lions, and Australia, which had previously passed a similar measure, according to reports.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Dry ice, not liquid water, responsible for gullies on Mars, study says

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 22, 2015 Last Edited: December 22, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Gullies observed on the surface of Mars might have been created by carbon dioxide gas causing sand to flow downhill, not liquid water eroding into soil, a pair of French researchers reported in the latest edition of the journal Nature Communications.

In their new study, authors Cedric Pilorget from Université Paris-Sud and Francois Forget from Sorbonne Universités believe that a layer of dry ice (CO2 frost) forms on many parts of the Red Planet’s surface, and traps gaseous carbon dioxide as it begins to defrost.

This, in turn, causes pressure to build up, and could well be responsible for carving out the deep, mid-latitude gullies on Mars surface, especially since the frost is most abundant in places where the small valleys are most prominent, according to BBC News and the Los Angeles Times.

In addition, as Colin Dundas from the US Geological Survey explained in a commentary on the research (which he was not involved in), gully activity “appears to be seasonal,” usual occurring during spring and winter, “when CO2 frost is observed on mid-latitude slopes.”

‘Gas-lubricated debris flow’ explains (most) of the features

Scientists had been somewhat puzzled by these gullies, with some arguing that they were proof of a wet period that took place sometime in the planet’s past. However, many of the features are relatively young, geologically speaking, and others are still forming, BBC News noted.

For that reason, something other than water must have been the cause, as the surface of modern-day Mars is simply too cold to support liquid H2O. The new method developed by Pilorget and Forget does not require liquid water. Instead, as CO2 frost begins to sublime into gas at the end of the Martian winter, a portion of it becomes trapped beneath a layer of dry ice.

The French scientists developed a model that shows how the process could occur on a dune in Russell Crater, where NASA satellites have spotted newly formed gullies, the BBC said. As the pressure builds up, it produces what the authors call a “gas-lubricated debris flow” which carves out a small valley as it travels down the slope.

While their model does appear to be a better fit over the behavior of the Red Planet over the past one million years or so, Dundas noted that there are a few gullies located near the equator which cannot be explained by dry ice frost alone. This does not mean that the CO2 explanation was not responsible for the mid-latitude valleys, only that there may be multiple processes responsible for the planet’s surface features, he explained.

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Feature Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Science

Hitler really did have only one testicle, German historian says

Written By: Susanna Pilny

Published Date: December 21, 2015 Last Edited: December 21, 2015

Christopher Pilny

For anyone who has ever been a little testy about how much purer past time periods were, here’s a rude awakening: In a 1939, Toby O’Brien wrote a British propaganda song, which was titled “Hitler Has Only Got One Ball”.

Better yet, the recent study of one of Hitler’s past medical examinations has proven that the song is actually true, as it appears he has an undescended right testicle.

To set the tone for the rest, we invite you to play the melody of the song (“The Colonel Bogey March”) while you read:

And maybe sing along, too:

Hitler has only got one ball,

Göring has two but very small,

Himmler has something sim’lar,

But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.

Obviously, people have long debated whether or not this song was true, but according to the Telegraph, a German historian, Peter Fleischmann of Erlangen-Nuremberg University, claims to have discovered interconvertible evidence that Hitler was indeed a little testy, too.

The evidence surfaced at an auction in 2010 in the form of medical records that were believed to be long lost—and so they were quickly seized by the Bavarian government.

Despite their swift action, though, they have only been thoroughly studied just now. The documents record the November 12, 1923 medical examination Hitler received in Landsberg Prison. He had just been arrested, following his failed coup d’état, at the Munich Beer Hall Putsch.

So, uh, what happened?

Dr. Josef Steiner Brin, the prison’s medical officer, wrote that “Adolf Hitler, artist, recently writer” was “healthy and strong” but suffered from “right-side cryptorchidism”.

Cryptorchidism is when a testicle fails to properly descend—meaning Hitler had an undescended right testicle.

“The testicle was probably stunted,” said Fleischman.

However, these findings are in direct contrast to other claims—like by an account of an army medic discovered in 2008, which claimed that Hitler lost a testicle due to a shrapnel injury in World War I. Further, Hitler’s childhood doctor, Eduard Bloch, had claimed that Hitler’s genitals were “completely normal.”

And then, the Soviet autopsy carried out after the fall of Berlin discovered that Hitler was missing a testicle entirely—except they found that it was the left one.

Of course, cryptorchidism can develop later in life, making Bloch’s account valid as well—and the prison medical examination seems to be from a more reliable source than the 2008 claims.

But there is one more caveat as well: No paper appears to have been published yet by Fleischman, meaning there is no peer review out yet. Further, all of this seems to have been broken by Bild—a German tabloid (in the sense of scandalous gossip and not alien abductions, as it often is in the US).

Regardless, the consensus is clear: Hitler only had one ball.

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Feature Image: Wikimedia Commons

Science

Rare, venomous sea serpent washes ashore on California beach

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 21, 2015 Last Edited: December 21, 2015

Emily Bills

For the second time in eight weeks, a rare and venomous sea serpent has washed up on a local California beach, as wildlife rescue team members last week found a snake that had only been seen in the state on two other occasions, various media outlets are reporting.

According to ABC News and the Los Angeles Times, individuals affiliated with the Surfider Foundation came across the 27-inch long, male yellow bellied sea snake during a campaign to clean up Bolsa Chica State Beach, a waterfront located 30 miles south of Los Angeles.

One of those previous encounters came earlier this year, when a two-foot long yellow bellied sea snake was found on Silver Strand State Beach in Ventura County in October. That serpent ended up dying shortly after being transported to a nearby US Fish and Wildlife Service facility.

As for the snake discovered last week, reports indicate that it was already dead by the time the cleanup crew members found it. While it typically lives several hundred miles south of where it was found, experts believe the reason that it ventured north was due to El Nino.

Our snake expert, Lisa Powers, weighed in on why the snake had ventured so far. “While it is not a frequent visitor to the California coast, the yellow-bellied sea snake is a common resident of warm tropical waters throughout the Pacific. It is a pelagic species and even gives birth in the sea. With the occurrence of warmer waters and particularly with an increase in the frequency of El Niño weather patterns, they are likely to be more frequent visitors.

Although these snakes are venomous, they are not considered a threat to humans who leave them alone. They have small mouths and like the vast majority of snakes, sea snakes will only bite in self-defense.”

El Nino likely the root cause of its migration northward

The snake, whose official species name is the Pelamis platura, was originally seen in Southern California during an El Nino event in 1972. In both that case and the more recent sighting, they likely traveled northward because of the warmer-than-usual water in the region.

As Greg Pauly, herpetological curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, told the Times on Saturday, “It is incredible and fascinating to have two of these aquatic, highly venomous snakes suddenly show up around here. But this is not an invasion, and no one has ever died from the bite of this animal.”

“Their fangs are tiny and they can barely open their mouths wide enough to bite a person,” he added. “So, unless you pick one up, the biggest safety concern with going to the beach is with driving there and then driving home.” Just to be safe, however, Pauly cautions people who see one to keep their distance, and to send their photos to the museum.

The Pelamis platura is called the yellow bellied sea snake for good reason: It has a bright yellow underside, as well as a flat tail that it covered in black spots and resembles a paddle. It has one of the biggest ranges of any snake on Earth, and can be found in the tropical waters in Asia, Africa, Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere.

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Feature Image: Wikimedia Commons

Science

Archaeologists discover evidence of violent coup in ancient Greek city of Phanagoria

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 21, 2015 Last Edited: December 21, 2015

Christopher Pilny

A team of Russian archaeologists has reportedly discovered evidence of a violent coup at the ancient Greek city of Phanagoria—the one-time capital of the Kingdom of Bosporous—that took place sometime during the fifth century BC.

The discovery, which was announced last week by the Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation, came after archaeologists reached layers dating back to the 5th and 6th century. What they found were fragments of a city that had been destroyed by a large fire around 480 BC.

According to Popular Archaeology, the ruins match historical records that describe a transition of power in the Kingdon of Bosporus that occurred when the Archaeanactids dynasty wound up being deposed by a Thracian dynasty of Spartocids during the fifth century BC.

The new find suggests that the day after the coup was accompanied by a series of violent clashes which ended up destroying the entire city, the archaeologists noted. While weather conditions at the site somewhat limited access, a more detailed expedition is scheduled for next year.

Acropolis would be the oldest ever discovered in Russia

If the remains found by the research team are confirmed to be part of an acropolis, it will be the oldest such building ever discovered in modern-day Russia. Phanagoria was first established by the Milesian Greeks during the seventh and sixth century BC, said Popular Archaeology.

In addition, the archaeologists found evidence to support the account of the city’s collapse during the 10th century, when inhabitants fled from the region for reasons which remain unknown. New evidence, combined with historical records, revealed that Panagoria was one of the main cities of Khazar Kaganate at that time, and that it was attacked by the Slavic warlord Helgu.

“One of the main results of the Phanagoria fieldwork this year is the hypothesis about possible reasons for the residents’ exodus in the 10th century,” expedition head Vladimir Kuznetsov said in a statement. “Phanagoria studies allow us to tie the history of the Byzantine Empire, Khazar Kaganate and Ancient Rus together.”

Based on their findings, he and his colleagues “can see that the emerging Old Russian state had a strong political and social influence in the region. As for the ancient cultural layers, we possess unique historical artifacts that have no analogues in the world. We’re currently working with 6th-5th century BC layers covering 1,000 square miles, so the new finds are to follow.”

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Feature Image: Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation

Science

It took 100 million years for there to be enough oxygen on Earth to support life, study says

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 21, 2015 Last Edited: December 21, 2015

Christopher Pilny

The oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere that led to the explosion of animal life on the planet began earlier and took longer than previously believed, as new research from University College London has found that the process took a total of about 100 million years.

The UCL study, which was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and published Friday in the journal Nature Communications, explained that the process was fragmented—taking place in fits and starts over a longer period of time than scientists had originally believed.

Based on their findings, lead investigator Dr. Philip Pogge von Strandmann of the UCL Earth Sciences department and his colleagues believe that animal evolution likely started as a response to increased oxygen levels instead of being the cause of that atmospheric oxygenation.

“We want to find out how the evolution of life links to the evolution of our climate. The question on how strongly life has actively modified Earth’s climate, and why the Earth has been habitable for so long is extremely important for understanding both the climate system, and why life is on Earth in the first place,” Dr. von Standmann explained in a statement.

New approach culled data using selenium isoltopes

Working alongside a team of researchers from US, UK, and Danish universities, the UCL team studied rock samples to track oxygen levels between 770 and 520 million years ago. The rocks, they explained, were laid beneath the sea at different times and taken from different locations in order to compile a long-term global picture of the planet’s oxygen levels.

Dr. von Standmann’s team measured selenium isotopes in the rocks and found that it took about 100 million years for oxygen levels to increase from less than one percent of modern levels to 10 percent. This new approach gave them more data on the gradual changes in oxygen’s abundance than traditional means, and sheds new light on one of Earth’s most significant events.

“We took a new approach by using selenium isotope tracers to analyze marine shales which gave us more information about the gradual changes in oxygen levels,” the professor noted. “We were surprised to see how long it took Earth to produce oxygen and our findings dispel theories that it was a quick process caused by a change in animal behavior.”

They also found that, during the three “snowball Earth” glaciations that occurred from 580 and 716 million years ago, temperatures fell drastically before rising again, causing glaciers to melt. This released a large amount of nutrients into the ocean, which in turn produced more plankton, which buried organic carbon in seafloor sediments and caused oxygen levels to increase.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Technology

New microscope allows for first look at muscle in action

Written By: Susanna Pilny

Published Date: December 20, 2015 Last Edited: December 20, 2015

Brian Galloway

To study the cellular level of living humans, you usually have to cut out a sample of tissue to study it under a microscope, which means you aren’t studying living tissue. Obviously, being able to do that would have enormous benefits—like helping scientists to better understand and treat certain diseases.

Researchers from Stanford have found a solution to this problem: They have created the world’s first microscope that allows them to look at muscle in action.

Understanding muscle movement

“When it comes to muscle microstructure and dynamics, we have not been able to visualize normal muscle, and we don’t know how it changes with disease,” said co-author Scott Delp, a Stanford professor of bioengineering, of mechanical engineering and, by courtesy, of orthopaedic surgery, in a statement.

“With this microscope, we have opened up a new window to how muscles change with strokes and diseases like ALS or muscular dystrophy. We can immediately use it in humans; it’s very low risk, and it gives us a new way to examine muscle microstructure and dynamics.”

Muscle contraction relies on the electrically-driven firing of units called sarcomeres found within muscle fibers. Thousands of sarcomeres within the muscle contract when triggered, causing the entire muscle to shorten and pull (usually) on a bone, allowing you to move a part of your body.

The length of a sarcomere greatly affects its efficacy—if it’s too long or too short, it doesn’t pull the muscle fiber together as efficiently. Because of this, many scientists believe that certain neuromuscular disorders cause the sarcomeres to lose their ideal length, which in turn results in muscle weakness.

“We stand to gain important insights by visualizing the contractions of individual motor units in live patients,” said co-author Mark Schnitzer, an associate professor of biology and of applied physics at Stanford.

Miniaturized optics

According to their paper published in Neuron, this new microscope is a miniaturized version of previously-developed technology—it can fit neatly into a bedside pushcart. This unit contains a small optical needle which is inserted into the patient’s muscle.

The needle beams out an ultrafast infrared light (100-femtosecond pulses) onto the muscle, which, through a process known as harmonic generation, converts the infrared light into green light. The light then re-enters the needle and is interpreted by the unit’s computer into images.

The end result is an image of sarcomere activation, as well as precise measurements of the duration of muscle twitch.

“The size of the needle is similar to a flu shot, but it has optics in it, and produces the same optical performance as the table-size systems with an equivalent objective,” explained said co-author Gabriel Sanchez.

The potential uses for this technology are staggering.

“We see this as a very useful companion diagnostic to track disease progression and, in the future, help personalize medicine by gauging how a person responds to a drug,” said Sanchez.

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Image credit: Stanford/YouTube Screenshot

Science

Mesoamerican pyramid yields evidence of captive carnivores 1000 years before previous date

Written By: Susanna Pilny

Published Date: December 20, 2015 Last Edited: December 20, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Carnivores have long been used as a display of power across human societies, whether in the blood-washed sands of the Roman Colosseum or in the room where Jada Pinkett-Smith auditioned for Gotham, with a man on a leash in tow*. It’s not entirely certain when this practice began—but the timeline in Mesoamerica has now been set back another 1000 years, according to a new study in PLOS ONE.

The researchers investigated a cache of about 200 carnivorous animals, human sacrificial victims, and other symbolic artifacts found within the Sun and the Moon pyramids of Teotihuacan—one of the largest pre-Hispanic cities, containing a population of at least 25,000 people at its height.

The pyramids date from 1-550 CE, and the cache found inside is evidence of one of the largest known animal sacrifices in Mesoamerica, indicating that the animals played an important role in state-level ritual activities. Inside were the remains of carnivores like wolves, eagles, jaguars, and pumas, and researchers wondered if they might point to a sort of carnivore menagerie.

Previously, though, the only strong evidence of captive carnivores were the accounts of infamous Conquistador Hernán Cortés, who documented the extensive breeding facilities of the Aztecs in his 16^th century letter Segunda Carta de Relación. The Aztec ruler, Moctezuma, hired 300 specialists to capture, breed, and care for carnivores ranging from jaguars to rattlesnakes—and this was in the capital city alone. Other programs existed elsewhere in the Aztec Empire, too.

Bones to pick

To investigate the possibility of captive carnivores 1000 years before Moctezuma, the team used inspected the bones using, among other things isotope analysis—with promising results.

The physical condition of the bones themselves points to captivity; signs of stress and bone breaks characteristic of being tied to prevent their escape are evident on many of the skeletons. For example, three of the eagle skeletons have evident stress on the lower part of their legs congruent with being tied to a perch.

Moreover, many bones reveal deformities like abnormal growth that is evidence of infection—the kinds of which usually only occur when animals are kept in close quarters in captivity.

The isotope analysis added weight to these discoveries. Certain chemical isotopes may be absorbed into an animal’s bones from the foods they consume—and many of the animal bones had high levels of the isotope specific to maize, carbon isotope C4. Since maize was typically something cultivated by humans—and since these animals were carnivores—it’s unlikely they consumed the maize in the wild.

Human sacrifices?

There were also interesting levels of nitrogen isotopes—the ratios of which can indicate where an animal is on the food chain. The higher you are, the greater the level of nitrogen isotopes.

In two of the pumas found in the cache, the levels of both nitrogen and C4 isotopes were very high—suggesting that the cats were fed both maize and herbivores that were also fed maize (for the carbon), as well as omnivores that were higher up the food chain—like dogs.

Or maybe even humans.

Carnivores seem to have been linked to human sacrificial ceremonies, based on the art found throughout Mesoamerica. At Teotihuacan alone, there is what appears to be a depiction of a puma eating human hearts:

Line drawing of puma devouring hearts. From the Tetitla apartment compound, Portico 13, Mural 3. (Credit: Drawing by N. Sugiyama.)

Of course, we don’t know for sure if this was the case, but there is definitely strong evidence that many of the carnivores were kept in captivity, and were eventually used for state offerings.

“These data also speak to a direct connection between carnivore manipulation and state power,” wrote the authors. “There was an impetus to bring live carnivores into the city as cubs/chicks to be raised within the urban metropolis as sacrificial victims par excellence. It is not a coincidence that such active animal management programs coincided with the development of large monumental structures where animals were embedded into pyramids as key symbols of the Teotihuacan state.”

* “But humans are omnivores!” Usually the agreed definition, although some studies define humans as carnivores based on the amount of meat they consume. Regardless, a man on a leash is definitely a meat-eating status symbol, although we appreciate your exactitude, Orbitals.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Curiosity discovers high concentration of silica in rocks on Mars; scientists puzzled

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 19, 2015 Last Edited: December 19, 2015

Christopher Pilny

The Mars Rover Curiosity has recently discovered rocks that have far higher concentrations of silica than any it had analyzed since originally landing on the Red Planet more than three years ago, and now NASA is trying to find out what’s behind this unusual phenomenon.

According to the US space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which announced the discovery of the silica-rich rocks Thursday in a statement, this combination of the elements silicon and oxygen makes up nearly 90 percent of the composition of some of the rocks.

While silica is common in quartz and other elements on Earth, on Mars rocks this rich in silica are “a puzzle,” according to Albert Yen, a member of the Curiosity science team at JPL. “You can boost the concentration of silica either by leaching away other ingredients while leaving the silica behind, or by bringing in silica from somewhere else.”

However, both processes “involve water,” he added. In one, acidic water would remove other substances and leave silica behind. In the other, neural or alkaline water transports silica that has already been dissolved and leaves it behind. If the JPL team can figure out which happened, Yen said, “we’ll learn more about other conditions in those ancient wet environments.”

What could have caused a rare mineral called tridymite to form?

Making things a little more complicated is a previous discovery by the Spirit rover, which found signs of sulfuric acid at a different location on Mars, and the fact that some of the silica detected by Curiosity is in the form of a mineral called tridymite. Tridymite is rare on Earth and had never been seen on Mars before, yet it was found by the rover at a site called “Buckskin.”

On Earth, tridymite is typically formed in igneous or metamorphic rocks exposed to extreme heat but the rocks analyzed by Curiosity have been interpreted as lakebed deposits. Also, tridymite is typically found in volcanic deposits rich in silica, but rocks found on the surface of Mars tend to have lower amounts of the substance. NASA believes that the discovery of the mineral could be evidence that magmatic evolution could be taking place on the Red Planet.

The discovery of these rocks have come over the last seven months, as the rover studies the area known as Mount Sharp. Specifically, its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument fired its laser and detected an abundance of the element in some targets it traveled over en route to a part of the formation known as Marias Pass.

Jens Frydenvang from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, called the high silica content “a surprise” and said that the team was so stunned by the discovery that they “backtracked to investigate it” using the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments.

Currently, the Curiosity team is trying to explain how the tridymite may have formed. “We could solve this by determining whether trydymite in the sediment comes from a volcanic source or has another origin,” said Liz Rampe of Aerodyne Industries at the Johnson Space Center. “A lot of us are in our labs trying to see if there’s a way to make tridymite without such a high temperature.”

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Image credit: NASA JPL

Science

Archaeologists have uncovered the Luna colony, America’s oldest multi-year European settlement

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 19, 2015 Last Edited: December 19, 2015

Christopher Pilny

The earliest multi-year European settlement in the United States, a Spanish colony established near modern-day Pensacola, Florida in the 16th century, has been discovered by archaeologists from the University of West Florida.

Those artifacts, which were found in the privately-owned residence of a Pensacola native back in October, date back to a Spanish settlement of Tristán de Luna y Arellano, which stood from 1559 to 1561 and predated a similar settlement in St. Augustine, Florida by six years.

After multiple visits to the property, several collected artifacts were brought to UWF labs so that they could be analyzed, associate historical archaeology professor Dr. John Worth explained in a statement. That analysis, he said, revealed “an amazing assemblage of mid-16th century Spanish colonial period artifacts. These items were very specific to this time period.”

Dr. Worth noted that archaeologists from UWF and several other universities had been working at the site for decades, but had never had this kind of success before. Among the things found by the team were multiple pieces of broken ceramic cookware, several small personal items such as a copper lacing aglet, and beads uses to trade with Native Americans.

Glass trade beads found at the Luna settlement, including five seven-layer faceted chevron beads, and one tubular Nueva Cadiz twisted bead. (Credit: University of West Florida)

UWF archaeologists plan to return to the site in 2016

The artifacts, which the study authors said are consistent with materials previously identified in the shipwrecks in the waters of Pensacola Bay, were likely brought to Florida as part of the Luna expedition: a group of 1,500 soldiers, colonists, slaves and Aztecs that traveled from Veracruz in Mexico to Pensacola to colonize the area in 1559.

One month after their arrival, the colony was hit by a hurricane, sinking several ships and wiping out their food stocks. Two years after they first arrived, they were rescued by a Spanish fleet and returned to Mexico. If circumstances were different, the Luna colony and not St. Augustine may have served as the center for Spanish colonization in what is now the US, Dr. Worth said.

The discovery also verified that a pair of shipwrecks discovered in Pensacola Bay were wrecked at the anchorage for the Luna fleet, the researchers said. This knowledge could help them narrow down the potential locations of the remaining shipwrecks. Dr. Worth and his colleagues also plan to continue working at the site, whose exact location is not being disclosed.

“The shipwrecks have provided a tremendous insight into the nature of the machinery that brought Spain to the New World and how they operated this entire vast empire. In terms of understanding who they were after coming to the New World, this kind of archaeology at the terrestrial site will provide us that window,” the professor explained.

“It’s hard to believe that this opportunity is finally here. Not only do we know where the site is, but now we get to explore it,” Dr. Worth added. He and a team of archaeology students from the university plan to conduct additional excavations there starting next summer.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

New model suggests Plesiosaurs swam like penguins

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 19, 2015 Last Edited: December 19, 2015

Christopher Pilny

For more than a century, paleontologists have wondered exactly how plesiosaurs swam, but now a team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Wollaston Hall, Nottingham Natural History Museum believe that they have solved this long-standing mystery.

Writing in the latest edition of the journal PLOS Computational Biology, lead author Greg Turk from Georgia Tech and his colleagues ran a series of computer simulations and found that these ancient, four-flippered marine reptiles actually used a technique similar to that of a penguin.

Plesiosaurs were long-necked creatures that lived from the Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous, and had a body shape that was unlike anything else ever to roam the Earth, Sarah Gibson, a Ph D candidate in the Department of Geology and the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Kansas who was not involved with the research, explained in a blog for the Public Library of Science.

Previous research examining their swimming technique compared them to a variety of tetrapods, including sea turtles, and even to the way in which oars are used to row a boat. While all of these methods were plausible based on the plesiosaur’s anatomy and musculature, none of them could fully explain how all four of the creature’s flippers moved in relation to one another.

Rear flippers likely only steered, provided stability

According to Gizmodo, Turk and his colleagues selected one particular pleisosaur species called the Meyerasaurus as the subject of their computer simulations. They found that, in order to swim most efficiently, the reptile likely flapped its two front flippers like a penguin, and that using the rear flippers did not appear to increase the creature’s swimming speed.

“What was unexpected was that no matter what motion we simulated for the back flippers, they could not substantially contribute to the plesiosaur’s forward motion,” Turk told Reuters. Based on their findings, he and his colleagues concluded that the rear flippers were probably used only to help the plesiosaur steer and to keep it stable while it was traveling through the water.

The researchers plan to continue their work by conducting future simulations to determine just how much of an agility boost creatures like the Meyerasaurus received from their back flippers, Gibson said. They may also be able to use the technique in order to gain new insights into the swimming technique of other ancient marine animals.

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Feature Image: Screenshot from YouTube/SciNews

Science

Fossilized femur suggests Red Deer Cave people were archaic human ancestors

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 19, 2015 Last Edited: December 19, 2015

Christopher Pilny

An unusual bone recently recovered from a site in southwestern China seems to confirm that the Red Deer Cave people, a mysterious group of human-like primates first discovered in 2012, were actually pre-modern humans not unlike the Neanderthals.

In an article published earlier this week, Darren Curnoe, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of New South Wales in Australia and one of the researchers that initially reported on the discovery of the Red Deer Cave people, revealed that the team found and studied a femur belonging to the group at a site near northern Vietnam.

Like the cranial bones, jaw bones, and teeth originally used to identify the Red Deer Cave people three years ago, the leg bone was dated to be approximately 14,000 years old. However, it paints a more complete picture of what at least some of these people’s bones might have looked like, he added, and closely resembles the thigh bones early Homo erectus and Homo habilis.

For example, the femur is small like those of pre-modern humans, Curnoe said. It has a narrow shaft and a thin outer layer (cortex). The walls of this shaft are reinforced in areas of high strain, he added. The femur has a long neck, and the area where the hip’s primary flexor muscle (lesser trochanter) attaches is said to be quite large and backwards-facing.

Pictured is an image of the Red Deer Cave. (Credit: Ji Xueping & Darren Curnoe)

If they were an ancient species, how did they survive so long?

The research team previously reported that the Red Deer Cave people were anatomically unique amongst modern humans, and they represented either an extremely early human population that lived in isolation, or an archaic species similar to the Neanderthals that survived in isolation. Other colleagues suggested they may have been a hybrid of the two, Curnoe said.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal PLOS One, he and his colleagues reported that the newly discovered femur had “affinities to archaic hominins,” particularly those living during the Lower Pleistocene. While they were unable to match the bone to any specific species, they noted that it was “probably” from “an archaic population that survived until around 14,000 years ago in the biogeographically complex region of Southwest China.”

Curnoe admitted that other experts may have difficulty accepting that species this ancient could be so young and that his team’s work is “controversial.” However, he added that the thigh bone “might… represent a relic, tropically adapted, archaic population that survived relatively late in this biogeographically complex, highly diverse and largely isolated region.”

Despite their progress, the researchers note that they still have much to learn about the Red Deer Cave people, such as why they were able to survive as long as they did and why they can only be found in the tropical climates of southwestern China. Curnoe said that he hopes he and his fellow researchers are able to solve those mysteries in the near future.

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Feature Image: Artist’s reconstruction of a Red Deer Cave man. (Credit: Peter Schouten)

Science

New Chinese satellite will join the hunt for dark matter

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 19, 2015 Last Edited: December 19, 2015

Brian Galloway

China has launched a new satellite that will search for high-energy particles and γ-rays as part of an overall goal of learning more about dark matter, the invisible force believed to make up about 85 percent of the universe’s mass, various media outlets reported this week.

According to Nature and Phys.org, the Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), also known as the “Wukong” or “Monkey King” in honor of a character from a 16th century Chinese novel, lifted off Thursday from a launch pad in the Gansu province of northwestern China and was carried into orbit by a Chinese Long March 2D rocket.

The DAMPE project is a collaboration among the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Geneva, and several academic institutions in Italy. The probe will use four instruments (a BGO calorimeter, a neutron detector, a plastic scintillator detector, and a silicon-Tungsten Tracker) to capture high energy particles and track them back to their original sources.

It is believed that those sources will be dark matter collisions, and scientists believe that if they can find and study them, they will be able to gain new insights into dark matter itself. Wukong has a large surface area that can not only observe high volumes of cosmic rays, but will also be able to survey the sky at higher energies than existing detectors.

Several other Chinese space science missions to come

DAMPE is one of five space science missions scheduled to be launched under a new Chinese Academy of Sciences initiative known as the Strategic Priority Program on Space Science. The next step in the program, which officially began four years ago, will be the launch of two new satellites next year, according to Nature and Phys.org.

One of those satellites is being hailed as the first quantum-communications satellite, and will be used to see if photons sent from Earth to the satellite can be used as part of a quantum network. Another of the projects will involve placing an X-ray telescope with unique energy band sensing capabilities into orbit, where it will be used to monitor radiation emitted by black holes.

As for Wukong itself, theoretical astrophysicist David Spergel of Princeton University called it “an exciting mission,” telling Science that it could detect dark matter annihilation products, and Philipp Azzarello, a University of Geneva in Switzerland astrophysicist who helped design the satellite’s detector, said that he was “confident” that it would “contribute to the dark matter search.”

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Image credit: Department of Nuclear and Particle Physics, University of Geneva

Science

Ancient calendar reveals two startling discoveries about Egyptian astronomy

Written By: Susanna Pilny

Published Date: December 18, 2015 Last Edited: December 18, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Close analysis of an ancient calendar has revealed that the ancient Egyptians made an astronomical discovery thousands of years earlier than the previous 1638 CE record—and tied it closely to their mythological calendar.

This papyrus document, known as the Cairo 86637 Calendar, is the oldest preserved historical text of naked eye observations of a variable star—a star whose brightness seems to fluctuate over time. The star in question, Algol, is actually composed of two stars; it’s part of a binary star system whose brightness dips when one star eclipses the other.

The Cairo Calendar lists the luckiness of each day of the year, ranging from very favorable to very adverse, tying them to actions of ancient Egyptian deities.

Another startling discovery

Published in PLOS One, the study found the amount of time it takes for Algol’s two stars to complete an orbit around themselves (2.85 days) and the amount of time it takes for the Moon to complete an orbit around the Earth (29.6 days) strongly correlates to the listed actions of the deities.

In fact, the actions of Horus, the sky god, tied strongly to the phases of Algol. The Moon, however, correlated strongly with Seth, the god of chaos. It appears that the brightest phases of Algol and the Moon were especially lucky.

“Until now, there were only conjectures that many of the mythological texts of the Cairo Calendar describe astronomical phenomena. We can now unambiguously ascertain that throughout the whole year the actions of many deities in the Cairo Calendar are connected to the regular changes of Algol and the Moon,” said co-author Sebastian Porceddu, of the University of Helsinki, in a statement.

Since this document dates to between 1244 and 1163 BCE, this means that both the first documentation of a variable star and its orbital period came nearly 3000 years before “classical” natural scientists did in 1638.

Not that everyone is convinced, though.

“I would have serious doubts if someone claimed, for example, that the Bible contains information about water in Mars. We claimed that Ancient Egyptian religious texts contain astrophysical information about Algol. It was no surprise to us that there were, and there still are, sceptics,” said co-author Lauri Jetsu.

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Feature Image: One page of the Cairo Calendar. Inside the superimposed rectangle is the hieratic writing for the word ‘Horus’. (Credit: Lauri Jetsu)

Space

Congress proposes giving NASA $19.3 billion in funding, more than Obama asked for

Written By: Brett Smith

Published Date: December 18, 2015 Last Edited: December 18, 2015

Christopher Pilny

The Republican Party is known for railing against excess spending and climate change research, so it may have come as a surprised to some that the GOP-led Congress has proposed giving NASA more money than the Obama Administration had requested for the space agency, according to a report from the Verge.

Earlier this week, Congress released its massive omnibus spending proposal, and in it, legislators have proposed giving NASA nearly $19.3 billion for next year—$800 million more than the Obama Administration’s budget request and $1.27 billion more than the space agency got in 2015.

The Republican-led infusion of cash might be explained by the fact that many private companies tied to space exploration stand to benefit. NASA is currently relying on companies like SpaceX to deliver supplies up to the International Space Station, and this budget signals that those private-public partnerships will only get bigger.

NASA is also relying on the Russian and European space programs to send its astronauts up to the ISS. Given the current tenuous relationship between the US and Russian governments, NASA’s dependency on our Eurasian neighbors is less than ideal.

We can go to Mars now!

If this proposed budget passes, many of NASA’s top-billed initiatives are expected to get off the ground. NASA’s next-generation rocket system, The Space Launch System (SLS), will get $2 billion, which is $300 million greater than what the program obtained for 2015 and $644 million higher than the administration’s ask for the program.

Furthermore, NASA’s Orion crew capsule, which would sit atop SLS and carry astronauts into space, will get $1.27 billion. That program has been plagued by setbacks, partly due to budget restrictions. The first crewed test flight of the Orion was originally slated to happen no later than August 2021, but that flight will now happen before April 2023.

NASA’s Science division would receive about $5.6 billion, which is nearly $300 million more than what the Obama administration asked for. Tucked inside that funding increase is $175 million for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, a top candidate for life in our Solar System. The bill directs NASA to send both an orbiter and lander to the Jovian moon before 2022.

The budget proposal will be voted on today, before legislators leave Washington DC for the holidays.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Health

Fish oil helps turn fat-storage cells into fat-burning cells, study shows

Written By: Abbey Hull

Published Date: December 18, 2015 Last Edited: December 18, 2015

Christopher Pilny

According to a new study in Scientific Reports, Kyoto University researchers discovered that fish oil transforms fat-storage cells into fat-burning cells. Sounds fishy, doesn’t it? Well, for those of us wishing to reduce weight gain later on, it may be just the thing we need.
The oil activates receptors in the digestive tract, fires up the sympathetic nervous system, and induces storage cells to metabolize fat.
Fun fat fact: not all fat tissues store fat. There are three types of fat tissues:

“white” cells, or so they’re named, store fat to keep up energy supply
“brown” cells metabolize fat to maintain body temperature and decrease in number as we age
“beige” cells, which, after being recently discovered in humans and mice, act like brown cells by metabolizing fat and decreasing in number with age

Knowing that without these metabolizing fat cells, fat continues accumulating (something most don’t want), the team investigated whether the number of these beige cells could be increased later in life by taking in certain types of foods.
Time to buy some fish oil
“We knew from previous research that fish oil has tremendous health benefits, including the prevention of fat accumulation,” said senior author Teruo Kawada. “We tested whether fish oil and an increase in beige cells could be related.”
During testing, the team fed one group of mice fatty foods and other groups fatty food with fish oil additives. The results are music to our dieting ears—the mice that ate the fish oil gained 5-10 percent less weight and 15-25 percent less fat compared to the other group.
The team also found that when the sympathetic nervous system was activated, beige cells formed from white fat cells, showing that certain fat-storage cells acquired the ability to metabolize. Another happy reality for those seeking to lose those last five pounds.
“People have long said that food from Japan and the Mediterranean contribute to longevity, but why these cuisines are beneficial was up for debate,” explained Kawada. “Now we have better insight into why that may be.”
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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

In 6000 years, humans have changed relationships between species that lasted 300 million years, study says

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 18, 2015 Last Edited: December 18, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Relationships between species that persisted for more than 300 million years suddenly started being disturbed approximately 6,000 years ago, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have revealed in a new study—and it may be all humanity’s fault.

Writing in the latest edition of the journal Nature, UW botany professor Donald Waller and his colleagues explained that they had conducted the first long-term analysis of how different types of living organisms interacted with one another throughout the history of life on Earth.

“We did not expect, or predict, that we would see continuity in the fossil record for such a long time,” Waller said in a statement. “The fraction of plant and animal species that were positively associated with each other was mostly unchanged for 300 million years.”

Afterwards, however, there was a sharp decline in those positive associations (species that are found in the same place at the same time) over the past 6,000 years. At that point, an abundance of negatively associated plant and animal species started to arise, which means that longstanding relationships were starting to become disturbed for some reason.

So what caused this sudden shift? Humans, of course!

After eliminating possible causes for erroneous results, the researchers found that the patterns were real and were most likely the result of rapid human population growth. The spread of men and women caused “systematic changes around the world in ecological conditions,” explained Waller, “prompting changes in the pattern of species coexistence.”

This is a part of global change that had previously been unnoticed and undocumented, he noted, and while the UW researchers do not have direct evidence for the cause of any specific species assemblage, they did find that species living together tended to form an intricate ecological web that included predatory behavior, symbiosis, disease, and evolution, among other things.

Typically, island habitats tend to be more fragmented and have more vulnerable species, while continents tended to be safer and more stable. Recently, however, continents are starting to look increasingly like islands, which Waller said are good examples of what can happen once species begin to die off and the biodiversity becomes compromised.

“The Paris accord on climate signed last week reflects a global recognition that humans have fundamentally changed our planet’s climate,” he added. “Now we present evidence that humans are changing the Earth in another fundamental way: how species are associated with one another. It’s fossil evidence that we have entered the ‘anthropocene,’ a geologic era marked by human dominance of the planet.”

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Feature Image: David J. Tenenbaum, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Science

Genetics analysis reveals this fish is actually three species in one

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 18, 2015 Last Edited: December 18, 2015

Christopher Pilny

The orange-spotted grouper, one of the most commercially important types of fish in the Arabian Gulf, is actually three different and distinct species, geneticists from New York University report in research appearing in the latest edition of the Marine Pollution Bulletin.

Remi Ketchum, a graduate of NYU Abu Dhabi, and her colleagues sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 140 different tissue samples collected in four markets. They discovered that the grouper, currently marketed as a single species (Epinephelus coioides), is actually three.

In addition to Epinephelus coioides, the species Epinephelus areolatus and Epinephelus bleekeri are also being sold throughout the United Arab Emirates, the study authors explained earlier this week in a statement. While they look similar, they are genetically distinct from one another, associate professor of biology and study co-author John Burt explained.

“This has important implications for fisheries management, as earlier management efforts, which had assumed there was just one species, need to be broadened to account for possible differences in the biology of these three species,” he added. Their work will help generate molecular markers that can be used to identify and monitor the different species.

Findings could lead to improved efforts to protect the species

Epinephelus coioides is currently marketed throughout the UAE as hammour, and is so popular that even when it was believed to be one species, it was reportedly overfished at six times levels deemed to be sustainable. The NYU-led study could help improve conservation efforts.

“This work provides a much needed snapshot of the genetic makeup of grouper species in the UAE,” said NYUAD Assistant Professor of Biology Youssef Idaghdour. “With the rates of climate change, overexploitation and other environmental pressures in the region, biodiversity and genetic variation of marine species are under severe threat. These findings reinforce the importance of genetic monitoring for sustainable management practices.”

“From a highly informative mitochondrial DNA marker, we were able to tell that these three species have levels of genetic diversity that are similar to other critically endangered grouper species and that there are two species that remain underreported in the UAE,” added Ketchum. “I hope these findings will aid fisheries management and also prompt people to choose a more sustainable fish for consumption.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Health

Men with mustaches more likely to hold leadership positions than women

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 18, 2015 Last Edited: December 18, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Women who want to obtain leadership positions at elite medical institutions in the US may want to consider growing a little bit of facial hair, according to a study that found a significantly higher number of men with mustaches than females holding such jobs.

Dr. Mackenzie Wehner, a dermatology resident at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, and her colleagues analyzed the headshots of more than 1,000 department heads at the top ranked National Institutes of Health-funded academic medical institutions, and noted their sex, medical specialty, institution, and whether or not they sported a ‘stache.

The results, published this week in the special Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal, showed that of the 20 specialties examined, just five had at least one-fifth female department leaders (obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, dermatology, family medicine and emergency medicine) versus 10 where men with mustaches made up 20 percent of leadership.

Even mustached men hold twice as many leadership jobs as women

Dr. Wehner and her colleagues analyzed 1,018 medical departments leaders, examining their websites to determine who was serving as the chair, chief or head of each respective specialty. Their findings match up with the results of an earlier study which analyzed more than 90,000 academic physicians and found that women were less likely to be full professors, according to a statement.

According to the Washington Post, the study authors defined a mustache as “the visible presence of hair on the upper cutaneous lip.” This included both standalone mustaches like the Handlebar and the Pencil, as well as mustaches grown in combination with other facial hair.

However, those with mutton chops or other facial hair that did not cover the upper lip were not counted— and yes—for the sake of equality, they also evaluated the presence of facial hair amongst women. They found that mustached men “significantly” outnumbered females as leaders in US medical departments, and for departments and institutions to “strive for a mustache index ≥1.”

In all seriousness, Dr. Wehner said in a statement that the “lack of women in leadership roles in medicine is well-documented,” and that “despite the eccentricities of the study, our results show that even when you focus solely on men with mustaches… women are still outnumbered across various specialties.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Newly-discovered planet is closest habitable exoplanet ever found

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 18, 2015 Last Edited: December 18, 2015

Christopher Pilny

A newly discovered world orbiting a red dwarf star a mere 14 light years away is the closest potentially habitable exoplanet discovered to date, experts from the University of New South Wales in Australia report in the latest edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The planet, which is more than four times the mass of Earth, was found during observations of the star Wolf 1061, conducted using the HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6 meter telescope run by the European Southern Observatory, and located at La Silla Observatory in Chile.

It was one of three planets discovered by the UNSW team. The planets orbit the relatively cool, small, and stable red dwarf once every five, 18, and 67 days, respectively. The other two planets have masses 1.4 and 5.2 times that of the Earth, with the largest of them residing too far outside the habitable zone and the smallest orbiting too close to its host star.

“It is a particularly exciting find,” lead author Dr. Duncan Wright said in a statement, “because all three planets are of low enough mass to be potentially rocky and have a solid surface, and the middle planet, Wolf 1061c, sits within the ‘Goldilocks’ zone where it might be possible for liquid water – and maybe even life – to exist.”

Proximity may allow scientists to study the planet’s atmosphere

Dr. Wright added that it was “fascinating to look out at the vastness of space and think a star so very close to us – a near neighbor – could host a habitable planet.” While scientist have found a few planets orbiting stars closer than Wolf 1061, none have been potentially habitable.

According to Professor Chris Tinney, head of the Exoplanetary Science at UNSW group, he and his colleagues were able to discover these new worlds using a new method that they used to look at data collected by the 3.6 meter telescope’s spectrograph for more than a decade.

Tinny said that the planet residing in Wolf 1061’s habitable zone—or the area around a star where liquid water could exist on the surface—“join the small but growing ranks of potentially habitable rocky worlds orbiting nearby stars cooler than our Sun.” Unlike most of those planets, though, it is not located thousands or even hundreds of light years away.

“The close proximity of the planets around Wolf 1061 means there is a good chance these planets may pass across the face of the star,” added Dr. Rob Wittenmyer, co-author of the new paper. “If they do, then it may be possible to study the atmospheres of these planets in future to see whether they would be conducive to life.”

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Feature Image: University of New South Wales

Science

Here’s the scientifically correct way to wrap Christmas presents

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 17, 2015 Last Edited: December 17, 2015

Christopher Pilny

You’ve survived the crowded stores, took advantage of all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, and picked out the perfect presents for all of your friends and family. Now comes the part that everybody hates: wrapping the darn things and making them look halfway presentable.

Fortunately, there’s a video making the rounds online (with Gizmodo and Flowing Data among those who shared it earlier this week) featuring Manchester-based mathematician Katie Steckles demonstrating the correct way to wrap a Christmas present using good old fashion science.

While it’s too late for some of us to take advantage of her advice (and our presents look like they were gift-wrapped by a hyperactive preschooler) hopefully Steckles’ tips and tricks are in time for most of our readers to wow others with their mad wrapping skills.

Better gift wrapping through equations and geometry

Steckles begins by showing us the standard cube-shaped method of wrapping a present, which is all well and good if your present is actually one of the few that will actually be the perfect shape and size for this method to work without a hitch. What if it has, say, a square-shaped end?

Don’t worry: Katie’s got your back. The first thing you need to do is to make sure that the paper will reach the halfway point of the end. If they do, and you use the standard method, you’ll find that all of the corners meet in the middle, forming a rather sweet-looking cross shape.

Another tip she passes along involves the proper wrapping technique for an equilateral triangular prism. The key here, she explained, is to ensure that the height of the side comes to the top of the triangular side of the object, which allows it to cover the entire triangular end of the gift.

The entire video runs 4:28 and also includes tips on how to determine how much paper you will need to wrap a cylindrical present by using the mathematical constant pi and an alternate way to wrap a square-shaped present that uses the diagonal length and height of a box in an equation to determine how much paper you need to wrap it. You can watch the whole video below!

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Health

Millions of bacteria are lurking in our water pipes, study says

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 17, 2015 Last Edited: December 17, 2015

Christopher Pilny

The pipes through which our drinking water travels to make it to our homes and the purification plants designed to ensure the quality of our H2O are infested with millions of bacteria, according to research published recently in the journal Microbes and Environments.

In fact, according to the Lund University scientists responsible for the report, there can be up to 10 million bacteria in a single glass of clean drinking water. Fortunately, this bacteria is the good kind, but little was known about the different kinds of microbe colonies in these pipes.

That’s why Catherine Paul from the Swedish academic institution and her colleagues decided to study the diversity of microbial species that grow in water treatment plants and which coat pipes in the form of a biofilm. What they found was a “previously… unknown ecosystem.”

As Paul explained in a statement, “Formerly, you could hardly see any bacteria at all and now, thanks to techniques such as massive DNA sequencing and flow cytometry, we suddenly see eighty thousand bacteria per millilitre in drinking water… From having been in the dark with a flashlight, we are now in a brightly lit room, but it is only one room.”

Findings could help improve the quality of drinking water

This bacteria actually helps to purify the water that we drink, the study authors said. In fact, they may actually play a larger role in doing so than previously believed—playing a role as essential as purification plants themselves in making sure that each glass is free from harmful pathogens.

According to the authors, their findings have led to spirited discussions of the role of biofilms in maintaining the purity of drinking water within the industry itself. There are a couple of thousand types of bacteria in water pipes, they said, and it is likely that there is a link between the diversity of these microbes and the quality of our drinking water.

“We suspect there are ‘good’ bacteria that help purify the water and keep it safe – similar to what happens in our bodies. Our intestines are full of bacteria, and most the time when we are healthy, they help us digest our food and fight illness,” said Paul, and even though the study took place in Sweden, the results are universal and can be applied to any country in the world.

“The hope is that we eventually may be able to control the composition and quality of water in the water supply to steer the growth of ‘good’ bacteria that can help purify the water even more efficiently than today,” she added.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Health

British teeth are better than American teeth, British study says

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 17, 2015 Last Edited: December 17, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Editor’s Note: It’s important to understand this study is coming out of the BMJ’s Christmas edition, which is notoriously “silly”. Last year they had a study about “Men are bigger idiots than women“, in which they looked at Darwin Awards winners and found most were men. So, purposefully, they made a sweeping generalization that this was proof men were bigger idiots. It’s just the BMJ having fun. Yes, it’s actual research, but it’s also not as strict. Just scientists having a good time within the parameters of “getting published”.

You know all those stereotypical jokes about how bad British people’s teeth are? Turns out that folks in the UK are having the last laugh, as a new British Medical Journal study reports that the molars and incisors of the average American are no better.

According to CNN.com and The Washington Post, Professor Richard Watt of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London and his colleagues compared data from a pair of nationally representative samples: the British Adult Dental Health Survey (ADHS) in 2009 and the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2005-08.

They found that the average number of missing teeth was actually higher in America (7.31) than in England (6.97), and adults in the differences in oral care quality among rich and poor adults in the US are much wider than they are in the UK. Similar inequalities among less educated people were also more pronounced in the States than they were in Great Britain, the authors noted.

“Contrary to popular belief, our study showed that the oral health of US citizens is not better than the English,” they wrote. “Indeed, our study showed a mixed picture, with Americans having significantly more missing teeth, the English reporting more oral impacts, and no differences in self rated oral health between the two countries.”

Smoking, eating habits of Americans may explain the results

Watt, himself a native of Scotland, told the Post that he and his colleagues were “surprised” by the results of their work. One reason for the difference, they explained, may be that dental care in the US is provided privately and can be on the expensive side, while they are provided as part of the nationalized health-care system in the UK.

Another possibility may be that Americans engage in more behaviors that could put their teeth at risk, such as smoking or eating sugary foods more often. However, despite having better teeth on the whole, the British reportedly said that dental problems had a greater impact on overall quality of life – something that Watt says may be because “the English complain more!”

The research also found that, in both the US and the UK, women reported a greater number of oral impacts and had a greater number of missing teeth than men. Among people aged 25 to 64, Americans were found to have a higher number of missing teeth and edentulousness, while UK residents 65 years or older tended to have a greater number of missing teeth.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

Researchers observe tool use in parrots for first time ever

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 17, 2015 Last Edited: December 17, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Add parrots to the list of creatures that are apparently capable of using tools, as a new study by psychologists from the University of York and the University of St. Andrews has found that the tropical birds are able to utilize pebbles and date pits to gain obtain calcium in seashells.

Writing in the latest edition of the journal Biology Letters, lead author Megan Lambert and her colleagues explained that they were studying 10 captive greater vasa parrots (Coracopsis vasa) when they observed the birds using tools to grind calcium power of the shells or to break off small fragments that they could ingest.

The behavior had never been reported in this species before, Lambert’s team explained, and is the first time that nonhumans have been seen using tools for grinding purposes. Furthermore, the birds were seen sharing tools among themselves—also a rarity among nonhuman creatures.

Tool use innate in parrots, or is this a case of trial and error?

The authors monitored and filmed the parrots from March through October as they interacted with cockle shells (a common source of calcium for birds) on the floor of their aviary. Five out of 10 birds being observed were documented using either pebbles or date pits as tools inside the shells—either as a way to grind off calcium flakes or break off pieces of the shell.

The birds exhibited the greatest interest in the shells just prior to the breeding season, in March and early April, and Lambert and her colleagues believe that this may be because of the key role of calcium in the egg-laying process. Oddly, they found that males were initially most interested in the shells, and that they tended to engage in regurgitative feeding of females prior to mating with them. This practice may pass along the benefits of the calcium.

“The use of tools by nonhuman animals remains an exceedingly rare phenomenon. These observations provide new insights into the tool-using capabilities of parrots and give rise to further questions as to why this species uses tools,” Lambert explained in a statement.

“Tool use could reflect an innate predisposition in the parrots, or it could be the result of individual trial and error learning or some form of social learning,” she added. “Whether these birds also use tools in the wild remains to be explored, but ultimately these observations highlight the greater vasa parrot as a species of interest for further studies of physical cognition.”

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Feature Image: Dave Ellis/Flickr

Health

Scientists have found the genes responsible for puberty

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 17, 2015 Last Edited: December 17, 2015

Christopher Pilny

In a discovery that could help determine what causes early-onset puberty in females, a team of researchers from Oregon Healthy and Science University and the University of Pittsburgh have for the first time discovered the genes responsible for triggering the process.

According to medical experts, puberty typically begins around ages 10 or 11 for girls and around age 12 for boys, though it can start earlier or later based on an individual. Now, as the authors of the new study report in the latest edition of the journal Nature Communications, they have found new insight into just how the process of sexual development is controlled by the brain.

The key is an elaborate supergroup of genes known as the Zinc finger (ZNF) family, a group of about 800 individual genes that OHSU neuroscientist Dr. Alejandro Lomniczi and his colleagues have found are responsible for regulating puberty’s timing in advanced nonhuman primates.

Some of these genes, they explained, operate within the neuroendocrine brain and act as a sort of “neurobiological brake”—delaying the activation of the hypothalamic genes that kickstart puberty until the end of childhood. Typically, this prevents puberty from starting prematurely.

Experiments successfully delayed puberty in female rats

As Dr. Lomnicizi’s team explained in their research, the ZNF gene family encodes repressors (proteins which inhibits gene expression) to suppress the launch of puberty. Knowing this can enable them to determine what environmental factors are involved in precocious or early onset puberty, which has been linked to a number of cancers and other health issues.

“Deepening our understanding of how the brain controls the initiation of puberty will allow us to understand why girls are initiating puberty at much earlier ages,” Dr. Lomniczi said Wednesday in a statement. “This knowledge may help build a foundation for developing new avenues to treat precocious puberty. Our suspicion, is that chemical substances contained in man-made products and other environmental factors, such as nutrition, may accelerate reproductive development by epigenetically antagonizing gene repressors such as ZNFs.”

ZNFs work through the activation of mechanisms that can modify the activity of a gene without altering the sequence of DNA, he and his fellow researchers explained. For this reason, the ZNFs are considered to act “epigenetically,” which means that they communicate environmental data to a person’s genes without actually altering their genetic code in any way.

They found that the abundance of some ZNFs, including messenger RNAs encoding GATAD1 and ZNF573, decreases during the transitional stage before puberty in nonhuman primates, when the so-called neurological brake is released and the hypothalamic genes are begin the process are released. They found that by increasing the amount of GATAD1 or ZNF573 in the hypothalamus of prepubescent female rates, they could delay puberty’s onset in these rodents.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

New dinosaur with sail-like structure on its back discovered in Spain

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 17, 2015 Last Edited: December 17, 2015

Christopher Pilny

A newly discovered species of dinosaur that inhabited what is now northeastern Spain roughly 125 million years ago had a distinctive sail-like structure on its back, research published in the Wednesday edition of the open-access scientific journal PLOS One has revealed.

The creature—which according to a statement has been named Morelladon beltrani—was a four-legged, medium-sized, herbivorous styracosternan ornithopod that grew to about six meters long and 2.5 meters high, lead author José Miguel Gasulla of the Grupo Biología Evolutiva (UNED-UAM) and his colleagues explained.

Morelladon beltrani was described based on the discovery of a partial skeleton composed mainly of dorsal and sacral vertebrae and pelvic bones at the Arcillas de Morella Formation in Castellón, Spain, the study authors said. They also found a pelvic bone, a thigh bone, and teeth.

The dorsal vertebrae of the sail-back dinosaur. Credit: Gasulla et al.

Sail structure may have helped regulate heat, store food

Of course, the most notable feature of the new dinosaur was the tall neural spines on its dorsal vertebrae—the function of which can only be speculated upon at this point. The two foot tall sail-like structure was formed by a series of bony spines protruding out the creature’s back.

“The sail could help in heat exchange – thermoregulation – focused on releasing excess body heat into the environment, like the ears of the modern-day elephants, or as a storage place for fat to be used during periods of low food supply,” paleontologist Fernando Escaso of the National University of Distance Education’s Evolutionary Biology Group in Spain told Reuters.

Alternatively, he and his colleagues believe the “sail” might have been used in order to attract potential mates. As Escaso explained, such structures appear periodically throughout the history of vertebrate evolution, often times in groups which are not closely related to each other, such as the reptilian Arizonasaurus, the amphibian Platyhystrix, and the mammalian Dimetrodon.

Morelladon beltrani was found in the same area and comes from the same basic time frame as its relatives, Iguanodon bernissartensis and Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis, the research team noted. The discovery, Escaso said, “shows an interesting rise of the iguanodontoid diversity in southern Europe,” particularly in the eastern Iberian landmass about 125 million years ago.

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Feature Image: Carlos de Miguel Chaves

Science

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider yields evidence of possible new particle

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 17, 2015 Last Edited: December 17, 2015

Christopher Pilny

As the Large Hadron Collider was shut down for the holidays, scientists at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) reported on Tuesday that they had caught a brief glimpse of what could turn out to be a new particle.

Researchers involved with both experiments at the Geneva-based particle accelerator, CMS and ATLAS, gathered together to announce the first set of findings since the LHC underwent a major upgrade earlier this year, according to Nature and New Scientist.

Those findings included what Nature referred to as “an intriguing if very preliminary whiff of a possible new elementary particle,” but little else. Both the CMS and ATLAS detectors have seen an unexpected excess of proton pairs—each packed with roughly 750 gigaelectronvolts (GeV) of energy, in the debris of proton-proton collisions—the publication’s website noted.

This could be the first indication of a new particle that that would weigh the equivalent of about 1,500 GeV and would decay into two equal-mass photos, according to the researchers. While it would be a boson, much like the Higgs boson discovered by CERN in 2012, the particles would not necessarily be similar. In fact, the new one would be far more massive.

Not enough evidence to support theory of supersymmetry

The yet-unconfirmed boson would be nearly nine times more massive than the heaviest particle previously discovered at the LHC—the top quark—and a dozen times larger than the Higgs, which is often referred by the sensationalistic but not entirely inaccurate name, the “God particle.”

According to New Scientist, CMS team member Jim Olsen from Princeton University kicked off proceedings by presenting results confirming the standard model of particle physics, which helps show that the Collider’s new run is performing up to expectations. As of yet, Olsen said that they do not have enough data to “rediscover” the Higgs, but that it should happen in 2016.

He also presented findings of another potential particle—a particle that CERN researchers dubbed “the edge.” Finding such a particle would support the theory of supersymmetry, which would, in turn, extend the standard model to a series of heavier partner particles. While proving that such a particle exists is a top priority for the LHC, scientist have found no solid evidence thus far.

ATLAS scientist Marumi Kado of the Linear Accelerator Laboratory in Orsay, France reported similar findings. They confirmed the standard model and said that they had started to see signs of the Higgs boson, and what they said they were able to find a slightly stronger signal in support of “the edge” than their CMS counterparts, they could not come to any concrete conclusions.

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Feature Image: CERN

Science

DNA study shows dogs have been man’s best friend for 33,000 years

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 17, 2015 Last Edited: December 17, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Having previously established than humans and canines first made contact roughly 33,000 years ago—most likely in southeastern Asia—scientists are now turning their attentions towards filling in some of the details about the epic journey that turned dogs into “man’s best friend”.

In a paper published this week in the journal Cell Research, experts from the US, China, Canada, Finland, Singapore, and Sweden compared the genomes of 58 different canid species—including a dozen grey wolves, 12 indigenous dogs from northern China, 11 canines from southeast Asia, and four from Nigeria, as well as 19 selectively-bred dogs from various parts of the world.

By comparing the DNA of so many different types of canines, and determining when and where different mutations occurred, they could chart many of the connections and separations that took place throughout the ages, the Guardian and the Los Angeles Times explained on Tuesday.

What they found was that 15,000 years ago—roughly 18,000 years after a gray wolf first made contact with humans in Asia—a small pack of ancestral dogs started migrating to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, and reached Europe about 10,000 years ago. One group also migrated to the east, breeding with endemic populations in northern China before moving on to the New World.

A more holistic approach to canine evolution

Peter Savolainen, an evolutionary geneticist at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, and his colleagues sequenced the whole genomes of the 46 dog and 12 wolf species that exhibited the highest levels of genetic diversity. Their findings confirmed the date and place of origin, as dogs from East Asia shared more DNA with wolves than those anywhere else on Earth.

Furthermore, dogs from East Asia had the largest genetic diversity among the various species of canines, according to the Times. Again, this was initially discovered during an analysis of canine mitochondrial DNA, but Savolainen’s team confirmed with through their analysis of the genomic DNA, which they claim provides a more holistic approach to understanding dog evolution.

While the authors wrote that their study “for the first time, begins to reveal a large and complex landscape upon which a cascade of positive selective sweeps occurred during the domestication of dogs,” they noted that there are “many potential avenues for future research,”—such as looking at how wolves and dogs originally intermingled in the Middle East and Africa.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Health

Scientists discover genetic processes that drive most cancers

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 16, 2015 Last Edited: December 16, 2015

Emily Bills

The same gene responsible for preventing genetic mutations is also responsible for causing more than half of all types of cancer, and now, scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University and the Van Andel Research Institute in Michigan have found out why.

According to Dr. Richard Moran of the VCU Massey Cancer Center and his colleagues, the gene in question is called p53. Mutations can cause it to activate a protein complex, mTORC1 (aka mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1) which helps regulate the energy resources needed by the body for the process of cell proliferation.

This complex is comprised of dozens of proteins held together by the intracellular membranes of their lysosome, and in response to a typically cell’s need, the p53 gene maintains proper levels of a protein known as tuberous sclerosis complex 2 (TSC2) in the lysosome. However, when p53 is not functioning properly, TCS2 levels in the lysosome begin to decrease.

When this occurs, it is replaced by another type of protein called Ras homolog enriched in brain (RHEB), Dr. Moran’s team explained in the journal Molecular Cancer Research. Accumulation of RHEB activates mTORC1, which in turn causes abnormal cell growth and reproduction.

Possible new uses for the lung cancer drug, Pemetrexed

“We have uncovered for the first time the signaling process that leads to excessive growth of cancer when p53 is lost,” said Dr. Moran, who is the cancer research chair at the Massey Center as well as a pharmacology and toxicology at the VCU School of Medicine.

He added that these protein interactions “are like individual links in the chain of events leading to the development of cancer.” In a separate but similar study, the researchers also found that the cancer drug pemetrexed, which was co-developed by Dr. Moran, could inhibit one of the main controlling compounds of the mTORc1 protein complex, thus halting cell proliferation.

This research showed that the lung cancer medication was effective, regardless of whether or not there were p53 mutations or if the main mTORC1 regulator, TSC2, was no longer functional. He said that the results suggest pemetrexed may have “much greater clinical use” than first thought.

“This research lays the foundation for its use against other cancers in which p53 is not functioning properly, as well as tuberous sclerosis complex, a syndrome driven by loss of TSC2 function that causes disastrous growth of benign but progressive tumors in major organs,” added Dr. Moran, whose work was funded in part by the US National Cancer Institute.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

Mystery of missing water on hot Jupiter exoplanets solved

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 16, 2015 Last Edited: December 16, 2015

Christopher Pilny

The enigma of hot Jupiters, or exoplanets that are slightly larger and warmer than the gas giants found in our solar system—yet appear to have less water than they should based known concepts of planetary formation—may have been solved in a newly-published Nature study.

In the paper, astronomers from the US, UK, and France used NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to study 10 different hot Jupiters. They found that they appear to be oddly dry because thick clouds and haze are preventing the water from being detected.

Gas giant exoplanets that only had a faint water signal were covered by such clouds, the study authors explained in a statement. However, the scientists reported that they were able to locate evidence that H2O was present on those hot Jupiters that lacked such cloud cover. In short, the water molecules do exist on these planets, but on some, they are obscured from detection.

“Our results suggest it’s simply clouds hiding the water from prying eyes, and therefore rule out dry hot Jupiters,” explained University of California, Santa Cruz astronomy professor and study co-author Jonathan Fortney. “The alternative theory to this is that planets form in an environment deprived of water, but this would require us to completely rethink our current theories.”

It’s not that the H2O isn’t there; we just couldn’t see it

As the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post reported, scientists have long believed that gas giants would contain an abundance of water, as the elements needed to form molecules of H2O are among the most abundant in the universe and the temperatures would be conducive to its existence. This made the absence of it around hot Jupiters so puzzling.

In theory, the researchers explained, it should be easier to detect water around these exoplanets than around the actual Jupiter, since their proximity to their host stars cause their atmospheres to be heated and well mixed. Thus, water vapor should be evenly distributed throughout the air. In most cases, however, their atmospheres appeared to be drier than they should be.

Fortney and his colleagues analyzed 10 hot Jupiter exoplanets—all of which had orbits in which they pass in front of their host stars (transit)—and found that those that appeared to be lacking in water were the same ones that had clouds formed out of exotic materials such as liquid droplets of iron. This, the authors noted, solves the mystery as to why these exoplanets appear dry.

The next goal, Fortney told the Times, is to use this information to precisely measure the amount of water in each planets’ atmosphere, and to measure the abundance of oxygen in their host stars to see if there is a correlation between the chemical composition of a star and that of its planet.

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Feature Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Science

Climate change is slowing down Earth’s rotation, making days longer

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 16, 2015 Last Edited: December 16, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Scientists have long believed that rising sea levels due to warming temperatures and melting glaciers could lead to an increase in extreme weather events and threaten global food supplies, and now research suggests that it could even cause days to become longer.

The phenomenon is known as “polar wander”, and as the Daily Mail explained, it is driven by the influx of meltwater from glaciers into the oceans. The movement of all this ice and water has caused the planet’s axis to migrate at a rate of one centimeter per year, and over the past century it has added one one-thousanth of a second to the length of the average day.

“Because glaciers are at high latitudes, when they melt they redistribute water from these high latitudes towards lower latitudes, and like a figure skater who moves his or her arms away from their body, this acts to slow the rotation rate of the Earth,” Harvard geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica, lead author of a new Science Advances paper detailing the findings, told Reuters.

“Imagine a figure skater who doesn’t stick their arms straight out but rather sticks one at one angle and the other out at another angle. The figure skater will begin to wobble back and forth. This is the same thing as polar motion,” he added. While the effects are “small” now, they may worsen unless more is done to combat climate change, Mitrovica noted.

Phenomenon unlikely to have any significant impact

The geophysicist and colleagues from the US, Canada, and France studied changes in the Earth’s rotation and axis against the backdrop of global sea level increases during the 1900s. Their work builds upon previous research from the same team which revealed that—as warming temperatures cause glaciers to melt—the redistribution of their mass throws off the planet’s axis.

While the rotational slowdown does not pose a danger to the planet at this time, Mitrovica told the Daily Mail that if polar ice sheet melting rates increase before the end of the century as many experts predict, than it could further slow down the Earth’s rotation—ultimately leading to significantly longer days and possibly other types of disruptions.

Or not. Mitrovica said told CNN that polar wander is unlikely to have any lasting significant impact on the planet in practical terms. However, he said that his team’s research provides a new tool to help assess the amount of melting that is taking place. As he explained, “It gives you one, simple, unpolluted measurement of what the Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers are doing.”

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Feature Image: NASA

Health

How limiting beliefs from your subconscious may be hindering your success

Written By: Christopher Pilny

Published Date: December 15, 2015 Last Edited: December 15, 2015

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: “Limiting Beliefs”

It’s been said that whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right. And nothing is truer when it comes to success. But underlying what you try to do in your day to day is your subconscious motivations–which are powerful, and can override any “new leaves” you try to turn over. So how do you take back control? Matt explores it all on this episode of “The Science of Success”.

For more episodes, check it out on iTunes: The Science of Success.

Also continue the conversation by following Matt on Twitter (@MattBodnar) or visiting his website MattBodnar.com.

Space

World’s most sensitive dark matter detector yields new, exciting results

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 15, 2015 Last Edited: December 15, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Already touted as the most sensitive dark matter detector on the planet, the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment in South Dakota has been tweaked, and will now apparently do an even better job of hunting for the unseen substance believed to make up most of the universe.

According to the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which runs LUX along with officials from Brown University’s Center for Computation and Visualization, new calibration techniques employed by scientists working with the detector has “dramatically” improved its sensitivity.

The LUX detector, which is housed underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in the Black Hills of South Dakota, is used by scientists to search for a type of particle known as WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) that are believed to be dark matter candidates.

“We have improved the sensitivity of LUX by more than a factor of 20 for low-mass dark matter particles, significantly enhancing our ability to look for WIMPs,” Brown physics professor Rick Gaitskell, co-spokesperson for the experiment, said in a statement. “It is vital that we continue to push the capabilities of our detector in the search for the elusive dark matter particles.”

Closer than ever to discovering WIMPs

Scientists involved with the experiment report that the improvements made to LUX have made it possible for them to test additional particle models of dark matter, and makes it possible for them to exclude some previous candidates. While dark matter has never been directly detected, experts are confident that it exists because of the way it bends light in the universe.

Likewise, WIMPs are only believed to interact with other matter in extremely rare cases, and like dark matter itself, they have yet to be directly detected. Following an initial three-month run, the LUX scientists have decided to use new calibration techniques that should enable them to search for particles that they did not previously know would be visible to the detector.

Their findings, which have been submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters, involved the re-examination of data collected during that initial three-month run in 2013, and helps eliminate what were previously categorized as potential dark matter detections at low-mass ranges.

While the detector has yet to pinpoint a dark matter signal, it has enabled researchers to rule out all but vast mass ranges where dark matter particles could exist, the study authors said. With the new calibrations, its improved sensitivity should bring them even closer to findings WIMPs.

“The search continues,” explained Dan McKinsey, a physics professor at UC Berkeley and co-spokesperson for LUX. “LUX is once again in dark matter detection mode at Sanford Lab. The latest run began in late 2014 and is expected to continue until June 2016. This run will represent an increase in exposure of more than four times compared to our previous 2013 run. We will be very excited to see if any dark matter particles have shown themselves in the new data.”

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Feature Image: Matthew Kapust/Sanford Underground Research Facility

Technology

Amazon pulls ‘exploding’ hoverboards from site to conduct safety check

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 15, 2015 Last Edited: December 15, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Concerns over recent reports of Back to the Future-style hoverboards catching fire have caused one of the largest Internet retailers to pull the products from its online marketplace (temporarily, at least) in order to conduct a safety check, various media outlets are reporting.

According to Slashgear, Amazon has removed hoverboards from its website until it can verify that the two-wheeled gadgets meet safety standards. That means anyone hoping to order one in time for Christmas will have to look elsewhere—at least for the time being, that is.

It was Best Reviews that first noticed links to some brands of hoverboards, including those made by Swagway and Phunkeeduck, disappearing from Amazon’s site, Re-code/MSN reported earlier this week. Other models, including those from Razor and Jetson, do not appear to be affected.

There have been reports of at least 10 hoverboard-related fires in nine states during the past few weeks, and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission is currently investigating the issue. In the wake of these incidents, hoverboards have been banned by several airlines, and other online retailers—most notably Overstock.com—have stopped selling them.

One hoverboard manufacturer responds to the move

In a statement provided The Verge, Swagway said that Amazon sent out a notice to hoverboard makers asking them “to provide documentation demonstrating” that each of their products “are compliant with applicable safety standards, including UN 38.3 (battery), UL 1642 (battery), and UL 60950-1 (charger).”

“Swagway already meets all those certifications and is happy that Amazon has decided to take steps to weed out the low quality boards,” they added. “As safety is always on the forefront for Swagway, we’re glad that this is taking place, especially in light of recent concerns with the fires with the poor quality batteries.”

Furthermore, the company told the website that it was “in the process of working on measures” designed “to help consumers identify between an authentic Swagway and the many imitation boards that are adding our branded logo to their unauthorized boards. Meanwhile, we ask that consumers only purchase from authorized retailers as an added precaution.”

Hoverboard fires have been reported in Louisiana, Alabama, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, New York, and Washington, Fox 59 in Indianapolis reported last Friday. It is not clear which brands or products were involved in any of those incidents.

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Feature Image: Swagway

Science

Extinct Galapagos tortoise species may soon be resurrected, scientists say

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 15, 2015 Last Edited: December 15, 2015

Christopher Pilny

With the passing of Lonesome George in 2012, it was believed that he was the last member of his species—which made it the third type of Galapagos tortoise to become extinct since the iconic creatures originally helped inspire Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in the 1800s.

Scientists believe that there were originally eight different species of Galapagos tortoises, though those native to Santa Fe Island and Floreana Island eventually became extinct. With the death of George three years ago, experts believed the Pinta Island lineage had also come to an end.

However, a recent scientific expedition has discovered evidence to the contrary, according to the New York Times. While analyzing blood samples they had obtained from the 1,600-plus tortoises living near Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island in 2008, a group of Yale University geneticists found that—much to their surprise—89 of the creatures had at least some DNA from Floreana tortoises.

In fact, some had genes indicating that their parents were living purebred Floreana tortoises, and 17 others were found to have high levels of Pinta DNA—meaning that some of them may even be directly related to Lonesome George. Last month, the scientists returned to the island. The goal? To find tortoises with this DNA and bring the extinct species back from the dead.

Populations could be restored to the island within 10 years

According to History.com, this startling find can be traced back to the activity of whalers, who more than 100 years ago released unneeded saddleback tortoises into Banks Bay near Wolf Volcano. It is believed that those tortoises managed to survive and travel to Isabela Island, where they interbred with the native creatures that called that region home.

Upon their return, the Yale scientists, along with colleagues from the Galapagos Conservancy, split up into nine three-person teams and searched a 20 square mile area near the volcano. They were able to find both a male and female with Pinta genes, and one male and four females that had Floreana DNA. They told the Times that within the span of a few generations, they should be able to breed tortoises with 95 percent of their so-called “lost” ancestral genes.

“The size of this population is mind-boggling,” Adalgisa Caccone, a senior research scientist at Yale and the expedition’s geneticist, told the newspaper, adding that she and her fellow research team members are “optimistic that some of these animals will have high conservation value.” In a best-case scenario, they believe that they could at least partially restore the Pinta and Floreana tortoise populations within the next five to 10 years.

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Science

Forensic expert draws what Jesus’ face may have actually looked like

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 14, 2015 Last Edited: December 14, 2015

Christopher Pilny

This holiday season, images of Jesus Christ as a Caucasian man with long, flowing brown hair and fair-colored eyes will likely dominate the landscape, but now a retired anatomical artist from the UK has revealed that he would have actually looked quite different.

Credit: Richard Neave

According to The Daily Mail and Yahoo News, Richard Neave of the University of Manchester studied the skulls of first-century Jewish men, and re-imagined the Christian messiah as having a tanned complexion, wider facial features, hazel-colored eyes and short, dark curly hair.

Dr. Neave explained that these features would have been typical among Semites living in or near Galilee in northern Israel around the same time as Jesus, and that his recreation was finished with the help of computerized x-rays and drawings depicting typical males living in the same area and around the same time as the man many believe to be the Son of God.

While the image has only recently started trending on social media, likely due to the fact that this is the Christmas season, Dr. Neave’s image of Jesus was actually first published back on January 23 by Popular Mechanics, along with an explanation of how the portrait came to be.

Using skeletons, history and religious texts to paint an accurate picture

In that article, the website’s Mike Fillons explains that the doctor used the description of events in the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, contained in the gospel of Matthew to determine that his facial features were typical of Galilean Jews of the era.

On that basis, Dr. Neave and his colleagues acquired skulls from near Jerusalem during that time, and used computerized tomography to create detailed X-rays of the skulls’ structures. Next, they used computer software to measure soft tissue thickness in order to recreate the muscles and skin that would have been found on the face of a typical Jewish man.

Using this data, they created a digital 3D reconstruction of the face and a cast of his skull, then they applied simulated skin, a nose, lips and eyelids. Next, they used drawings from first century archaeological sites to determine the color of his eyes, and a combination of the Bible and Jewish custom to determine that he was bearded and would have had short, tightly curled hair.

Finally, using historical records, they concluded that the average Semite male living during the time of Jesus would have been 5-foot, 1-inch tall and weighed approximately 110 pounds. As a carpenter through much of his early life, Jesus likely would have been more muscular than most Jews, and probably would have looked older because of the time he spent outdoors.

Alison Galloway, professor of anthropology at the University of California in Santa Cruz, told Popular Mechanics that while forensic recreations such as this are not an exact science, she said that Dr. Neave’s picture of Jesus is most likely “a lot closer to the truth than the work of many great masters.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Technology

Model of Terrafugia’s flying car given FAA go-ahead to test

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 14, 2015 Last Edited: December 14, 2015

Christopher Pilny

A small, Massachusetts-based company currently developing a flying car has been given special permission from the US Federal Aviation Administration to fly an autonomous drone version of its proposed vehicle, and we’re so excited.

According to TopGear.com and the Aero News Network, the FAA has given Terrafugia the go-ahead to fly a 1/10th scale small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) based on the design of its proposed TF-X airborne automobile for purposes of research and development.

The TF-X will be a four-seat, hybrid electric vehicle that is semi-autonomous and capable of vertical take-off and landing, Terrafugia explained on its website. Development is currently in the early stages, and the car is not expected to be released for at least eight years. However, it will purportedly be capable of traveling 200 mph with a range of up to 500 miles.

In a statement, Terrafugia called the FAA exemption “a significant milestone” in the ongoing development of the TF-X, adding that “extensive sub-scale flight testing of sUAS, along with wind tunnel testing and aerodynamic simulation, are key to refining the vehicle’s design.”

Tests can reach altitudes of 400 feet, speeds of 100 mph

Specifically, the company will now be able to test the hovering capabilities of the scale drone prototype to collect flight data which can help them fine-tune the proposed design of the flying car, which is essential because of the unusual configuration of the TF-X.

The exemption was necessary, Terrafugia explained, in order to conduct commercial R&D work using an sUAS vehicle in the US. It will enable the company to operate scale TF-X prototypes in all airspace. The drone will be able to reach altitudes of 400 feet and travel under 100 mph.

As of last Wednesday, Terrafugia engineers were “building the TF-X sUAS and preparing the detailed test plans that will be used for their operation,” the company explained. They added that testing of the of drones would be conducted by their “experienced flight test team in partnership and communication with all relevant authorities.”

Once completed, Terrafugia claims that the TF-X will be a fixed wing street-legal aircraft with electric ground drive and electric power assist on takeoff and landing, that it will be able to auto-land at approved sites provided the weather is acceptable, and that it will be able to recharge its batteries at plug-in charging stations.

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Feature Image: Terrafugia

Science

Scientist scanned his brain 2X a week for more than a year, and what he found will change the game

Written By: Susanna Pilny

Published Date: December 14, 2015 Last Edited: December 14, 2015

Christopher Pilny

If you’ve ever felt an attachment to coffee, Russell Poldrack’s brain shares your pain—or so it appears, according to his newly published data. Poldrack drew blood and scanned his brain twice a week for 18 months—which makes his brain the most studied brain in the world—and has already made some interesting discoveries. (Although he needs your help making more.)

Poldrack began his experiment at the University of Texas before finishing it at Stanford, in the hopes of achieving a greater understanding of how different parts of the brain talk to each other and how this behavior changes with time.

At any given moment, many different regions of the brain are probably communicating with each other, assuring that the proper actions are taken to deal with whatever situation is at hand. This crosstalk happens across dozens of networks—collectively known as the connectome.

According to his paper in Nature Communications, Poldrack aimed to study these connections by climbing into an MRI machine every Tuesday and Thursday for a year and a half, having his brain scanned for 10 minutes. On Tuesdays, he further fasted and had his blood drawn, in order to analyze the connections between brain behavior and genes. For each scan, Poldrack attempted to do more or less absolutely nothing.

“I would get in the MRI and basically close my eyes and zone out while it took a picture of my brain every second for 10 minutes,” he said in a statement. “Once we had that data, we could get ideas of which regions of my brain are talking to each other by how correlated they are over time. This tells us how much connectivity there is within each network.”

Caffeine radically changes brain connectivity

This connectivity was surprisingly consistent across the months, although there were some changes of note. For example, on the days he fasted: “Easily the biggest factor we found in terms of affecting my brain connectivity was whether I had had breakfast and caffeine or not,” Poldrack said.

On these days, when he was scanned before he drank his coffee, his connections rearranged themselves—an influence that had never been seen before. Specifically, the connections between the somatosensory motor network (which deals with moving your body and the sense of touch) and the systems in charge of higher vision (i.e. seeing fine detail as opposed to the larger, rougher picture) grew significantly tighter.

“That was totally unexpected, but it shows that being caffeinated radically changes the connectivity of your brain,” Poldrack said. “We don’t really know if it’s better or worse, but it’s interesting that these are relatively low-level areas.

“It may well be that I’m more fatigued on those days, and that drives the brain into this state that’s focused on integrating those basic processes more.”

The blood draws also yielded interesting results, as the change in expression of genetic material (RNA) from his white blood cells strongly correlated to his brain activity.

The results, of course, are limited to Poldrack’s state of mind (pun intended)—but the data is so useful, he hopes others of diverse backgrounds will follow his lead.

“I’m generally a pretty happy and even-keeled person,” he says. “My positive mood is almost always high, and my negative mood is almost always non-existent. It would be interesting to scan people with a wider emotional variation and see how their connections look over time.”

Looking to others for help

Scans from others may help researchers discover differences between healthy brains and those of patients with neurological disorders that may stem from disrupted connectivity—like schizophrenia.

Of course, the researchers have only scratched the surface of the enormous quantity of data from Poldrack’s scans—and so have put the entire dataset online with various tools, in the hopes that others will discover new connections he never considered. Not that all of it can be understood at the moment.

“It’s a hard dataset to know what to do with, because it’s hard to tell if something is noise or if it’s real with just one person. But there’s potentially some really interesting stuff here,” he said. “There are a ton of relationships between brain connectivity and gene expression in the blood, that are clearly there and seem to be strong, but we just don’t have a way to understand them based on current neuroscience.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock

Space

ESA plans to begin harvesting water on Mars in 2019

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 14, 2015 Last Edited: December 14, 2015

Christopher Pilny

A new device that will be traveling to the Red Planet as part of the ESA’s ExoMars mission in 2018 could harvest water from beneath the surface—theoretically creating a moisture farm which could provide much needed H2O to humans once colonies are established there.
According to New Scientist and the Daily Mail, the unit is known as Habitat and will use salts to capture approximately five milliliters (0.16 fluid ounces) of water per day. It can hold as much as 25 ml of water at one time, and if successful, could be upscaled to increase production.
Habit is the brainchild of Javier Martin-Torre from Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, who a few months ago used data from NASA’s Curiosity rover to determine that liquid water pools beneath the surface of Mars at night and evaporates during the day.
Using their device, they hope to examine whether or not that water can be harvested and used by astronauts living on the Red Planet. Martin-Torre told New Scientist that, if successful, he hopes the technology could “adapted to ‘water-farms’ for in-situ resource production.
“We will produce Martian liquid water on Mars, that could be used in the future exploration of Mars for astronauts and greenhouses,” he added, noting that the process used by Habit “requires no extra energy,” is self-sustained, and produces dry salts that can be utilized in the process.
ExoMars platform, lander expected to reach Mars in 2019
Habitat will be mounted onto a static lander and will also measure the temperature and relative humidity on Mars, according to New Scientist. By doubling as a weather station, it will help to develop models of the Martian atmosphere, and will also monitor seasonal dust levels.
The ESA’s ExoMars mission is currently scheduled to launch in May 2018, the Daily Mail said, and will also include a rover that will travel both across the surface of the Red Planet and drill to depth of two meters below the surface. It is scheduled to reach Mars in 2019.
Upon its arrival, the rover will exit the science platform on a ramp, at which time both units will begin their scientific operations. The platform is expected to monitor the planet’s climate, study the atmosphere, image the landing site, and analyze radiation for at least 12 Earth months.
“The surface science platform will serve as a long-lived stationary laboratory to monitor the local environment, which could include passing dust storms, lightning, and space weather effects,” ExoMars project scientist Jorge Vago told the UK newspaper. “At the same time, the rover will travel several kilometers to search for traces of past life below the surface. It’s a very powerful combination of instruments.”
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Feature Image: ESA

Technology

SexFit, the world’s first penis pedometer, has hit the market

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 14, 2015 Last Edited: December 14, 2015

Christopher Pilny

It was only a matter of time before someone had the bright idea to take the technology featured in fitness trackers and pedometers, and combine it with every red-blooded male’s favorite brand of exercise—sex. Behold, the SexFit, better known as the world’s first penis pedometer.

As Engadget and the Huffington Post explain, the device is a combination activity monitor and sex toy that fits securely over a man’s gentleman sausage. Specifically, it is fitted to the base of the penis, where it apparently traps blood to improves the quality of a man’s erection while also measures the quality of his performance using an accelerometer and wireless connectivity.

The SexFit, which was designed and marketed by UK adult retailer Bondara, can be synched up to a mobile app that will record statistics such as number of thrusts per minute and the amount of calories burned during a particularly intense session. For those who are truly proud of their work, there’s even an option to share the numbers via social media. Yes, really.

When Bondara first announced the SexFit last year, the device was only a prototype. Recently, however, the company posted an update proclaiming that the concept of sex-tracking technology was “settling in”, and that their research and development team was “coming up with more and more ideas for future projects in this area.”

SexFit was only the beginning, it seems

“Historically, sex toys have always evolved with technology,” Bondara representative Louise Bagley said in a press release. “[SexFit] is a natural next step alongside the influx of personal health trackers and with the added benefit of improving an individual’s sex life.”

In addition to its fitness tracker-like capabilities, the device doubles as a pleasure enhancer, the company explained. It vibrates at pre-determined intervals, and has five LED lights atop the unit that will light up once they guy begins doing his thing at a steady rhythm.

Now, Bondara is looking to tech bedroom gadgets to the next level by offering something known as the Kirroo Couple’s Set, which includes VR headsets, an Interactive Masturbator for men, and an Interactive G-Spot Vibrator for women that allows a couple to enjoy virtual reality intercourse over long distances.

“The future of sex toys and the fascinating world of sex tech is growing everyday and constantly coming up with innovative and exciting new concepts that will expand the kinky world as we know it,” the company said. “We at Bondara are excited to be delving into this new frontier and we would love to take you with us on this adventure into the future.”

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Feature Image: Bondara

Space

NASA releases closest ever image of Pluto’s ‘heart’

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 14, 2015 Last Edited: December 14, 2015

Christopher Pilny

On the heels of close-up images of the dwarf planet’s mountains and ice fields, NASA has released new pictures of the heart-shaped region of Pluto known as Tombaugh Regio, showing this prominent feature in greater detail than ever before.

According to Engadget, the latest pictures were taken by the New Horizons spacecraft when it made its closes approach to the surface in July. Using the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instrument, it captured the images at a distance of 9,550 miles.

The pics represent the highest-resolution images ever obtained of a series of pits which scar the surface of Tombaugh Regio. Those pits seem to follow an intricate pattern and may have formed through a combination of evaporation and ice fracturing, NASA said.

The features are hundreds of yards across and several yards deep, and the rarity of impact craters in the area have led scientists to believe that they formed relatively recently. Due to the layout of the cracks, experts believe that they could provide new insights into the ice flow on Pluto as well as the exchange of nitrogen between the dwarf planet’s surface and atmosphere.

Mission set to continue with analysis of Kuiper Belt object

New Horizons used its LORRI telescopic camera to capture the images of the surface a mere 13 minutes before its closest approach, and it also managed to capture photographs of the southeast portion the dwarf planet’s ice sheet—a region known as Sputnik Planum—at the same time.

Launched on January 19, 2006, New Horizons was the first mission ever to be sent to the Pluto system and to the Kuiper Belt, the US space agency said. It completed a six-month long flyby of the dwarf planet and its moons this past summer, and is currently en route to a small Kuiper Belt object (KBO) known as 2014 MU69, where it will continue its mission.

“Even as the New Horizon’s spacecraft speeds away from Pluto out into the Kuiper Belt, and the data from the exciting encounter with this new world is being streamed back to Earth, we are looking outward to the next destination for this intrepid explorer,” John Grunsfeld, chief of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement back in August.

“There’s so much that we can learn from close-up spacecraft observations that we’ll never learn from Earth, as the Pluto flyby demonstrated so spectacularly,” added New Horizons science team member John Spencer from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Colorado. “The detailed images and other data that New Horizons could obtain from a KBO flyby will revolutionize our understanding of the Kuiper Belt and KBOs.”

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Feature Image: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Technology

Anonymous launches cyberattacks against Donald Trump for anti-Muslim comments

Written By: Susanna Pilny

Published Date: December 13, 2015 Last Edited: December 13, 2015

Brian Galloway

It appears that Anonymous has had enough of Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim polemics—and they’ve started taking action.

On Wednesday, Anonymous launched #OpTrump, which—similar to #OpISIS—aims to take down Trump’s online presence. This operation seems to have been launched in response to Trump’s declaration that all Muslims should be banned from entering the country, as a masked Anonymous representative explained in a video:

Donald Trump, it has come to our attention that you want to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. This policy is going to have a huge impact. This is what ISIS wants. The more Muslims feel sad, the more ISIS feels they can recruit them. The more the United States appears to be targeting Muslims, not just radical Muslims, you can be sure that ISIS will be putting that on their social media campaign. Donald Trump, think twice before you speak anything. You have been warned, Mr. Donald Trump.

Soon after the video was posted, Anonymous took action:

Trump Towers NY site taken down as statement against racism and hatred. https://t.co/n5ftLrOs1P (what you see is cloudflare offline backup)

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) December 11, 2015

Taking down websites

According to the International Business Times, the Trump Towers website was partially down for a few hours Thursday night, limiting access to the page, but has since regained function.

Donald Trump does not seem to have made a public response to the hacktivists, or to have altered his policies at all:

“When my friends call me up, and they call me up very strongly, and they say — these are Muslims — and they say, ‘It’s something, Donald, that has to be talked about,'” he told CNN yesterday.

“But they don’t support the ban?” asked the CNN interviewer, Jake Tapper.

“Not really. I mean, why would they support the ban?” Trump responded. “But without the ban, you’re not going to make the point. You’re not going to be able to make the point.”

Which means we can probably expect more action from Anonymous in the near future. Besides going after Trump, they have been busy taking on the ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh online presence. Friday was “ISIS Trolling Day,” where they asked fellow hacktivists and the rest of the Internet to post mocking images and videos to social media sites using the hashtag #Daeshbags. They’ve also posted plenty of images mocking Donald Trump—who apparently needs no special day for derision.

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Image credit: Wikimedia Commmons

Science

Jurassic Period ice age likely caused by volcanoes, study finds

Written By: Susanna Pilny

Published Date: December 13, 2015 Last Edited: December 13, 2015

Christopher Pilny

The word “Jurassic” usually calls to mind images of tropical Isla Nublar, with dinosaurs pottering about between humidity-drenched greenery. But hot weather wasn’t always the norm during the Jurassic Period. Around 170 million years ago, an ice age that lasted millions of years took hold—and a new study has found evidence that volcanoes were to blame.

At the time, the world consisted of a single supercontinent known as Pangaea, which was divided by a broad seaway called Tethys. Tethys connected the warm equatorial ocean to the north polar sea.

An international team of experts spent 10 years studying the change in seawater temperatures in this time period using mollusk shells that deposited in the seaway. They discovered that this cooling period coincided with a large-scale volcanic event out of what is known as the North Sea Dome in the oceanic corridor.

According to the paper in Nature Communications, this volcanic activity lifted up the dome, restricting the flow of Tethys around it and preventing the flow of warm water into the Arctic regions. Meanwhile, the cold Arctic waters were able to exert a stronger cooling influence in lower latitudes.

This dropped the temperature of the ocean water in the area by as 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and plunged the Earth into an ice age for millions of years, until the North Sea Dome finally dropped back down.

“We tend to think of the Jurassic as a warm ‘greenhouse’ world where high temperatures were governed by high atmospheric carbon dioxide contents,” said co-author Professor Stephen Hesselbo from the University of Exeter in a statement. “This new study suggests that re-organization of oceanic current patterns may also have triggered large scale climate changes.

“Although we have known about the occurrence of cold periods during greenhouse times for a while, their origins have remained mysterious. This work suggests a mechanism at play that may also have been important for driving other climate change events in the Jurassic and at other times in Earth history.”

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Feature Image: No, it’s not the North Sea Dome, it’s a volcano in South America. But you get the idea. (Credit: Thinkstock)

Science

Evidence of Caesar-led massacre in the Netherlands discovered

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 12, 2015 Last Edited: December 12, 2015

Brian Galloway

Dutch archaeologists have discovered evidence proving that Roman emperor Julius Caesar traveled to the Netherlands, where he engaged and defeated a pair of Germanic tribes at a site near the modern-day village of Kessel in the southern province of Brabant.

According to The Guardian, the battle would have taken place in 55 BC and resulted in the death of approximately 150,000 people from the Tencteri and the Usipetes tribes, who had purportedly gone to Caesar seeking asylum only to be wiped out by the emperor’s legions and cavalry. The findings were announced during a press conference held Thursday at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam.

Skeletal remains, weapons, and armor extracted from the area provide the first concrete evidence that Caesar’s army had indeed entered what is now Dutch territory, Popular Mechanics wrote on Friday. Carbon dating, along with historical and geochemical analyses, indicate that the artifacts originated from the first-century BC, around the time of the battle.

While Caesar himself had discussed the battle in his account of the Gallic wars, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Nico Roymans, an archaeologist with VU University in Amsterdam, told reporters that his team’s research marks “the first time the presence of Caesar and his troops on Dutch soil has been explicitly shown.”

Women, children among the at least 150,000 dead

In Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Caesar said that he encountered and wiped out the two tribes, which would have put the death toll over 400,000. However, Roymans and his colleagues noted that the actual number of fatalities would have been closer to the 150,000 to 200,000 range.

The Tencteri and the Usipetes originally came from a region east of the Rhine and asked Caesar for asylum when he instead had his army turn their swords upon them, the Daily Mail said. Even though the account of the battle was well known, its exact location (and the degree to which the Roman emperor exaggerated his conquests) had remained a mystery until now.

Roymans’ team found hundreds of bones at the site, along with swords, spearheads, a helmet, and belt hooks. The enamel on teeth found at the site were analyzed in order to determine the victims’ ages, and the analysis revealed that women and children were among those killed in what the VU University researchers said would have been declared an act of genocide today.

“Though Caesar did not explicitly pronounce a desire to destroy Germanic tribes, he must have realized that his actions resulted in the partial destruction of [these] ethnic groups,” they said. “Remarkably, in the then Roman political culture no moral objections existed for mass murder on a defeated enemy, especially when it came to barbarians.”

“Interestingly, some swords were deliberately folded or bent. This may indicate that the deposit of the battlefield remnants at the time was accompanied by rituals,” they added, according to the Daily Mail.

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Image Credit: Thinkstock

Technology

German fusion device switched on, produces helium plasma

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 12, 2015 Last Edited: December 12, 2015

Christopher Pilny

After nearly two decades of construction and an investment of more than $1 billion, the new Wendelstein 7-X stellarator fusion device at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) was activated on Thursday and produced helium plasma for the first time.

The successful activation comes following more than 12 months worth of tests and technical preparations, IPP officials explained in a statement. The team fed approximately one milligram of helium gas into the device’s evacuated plasma vessel and heated it to a temperature of nearly one million degrees Celsius. The ensuing plasma lasted for one tenth of a second.

Project leader Professor Thomas Klinger explained that his team decided to start with helium, a noble gas, because it is “easier to achieve the plasma state with helium,” and they can “clean the surface of the plasma vessel with helium plasmas.” Starting early next year, the IPP team intends to begin making hydrogen plasma to demonstrate its effectiveness as a clean energy source.

Dr. Hans-Stephan Bosch, who is a part of the team responsible for the operation of the device, said that they were “very satisfied” with the Wendelstein 7-X’s initial results. “Everything went according to plan,” he added, noting that the next task will be to extend the plasma discharges’ duration and the evaluate different methods for producing and heating helium plasmas.

A ‘turning point’ in stellarator-type fusion technology

Touted as the world’s largest stellarator-type fusion device, the Wendelstein 7-X will be used to study whether or not such devices could be effectively used as a power station. Assembly on the device was completed in April following more than one million hours of work, after which time, the unit’s cooling system, superconducting coils, and other components were tested.

According to Science, the machine is 16 meters wide and resembles what the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo’s spaceship from Star Wars, would look like if it was in the garage being repaired. The fusion device has “innumerable cables trailing off to unknown destinations” and contains 50 six-ton magnetic coils that are “strangely twisted as if trampled by an angry giant,” they added.

The overall objective of fusion research, the IPP team explained, is to find a new power source that is environmentally friendly and which can harvest energy from the fusion of atomic nuclei, similar to what occurs naturally in the sun. Historically, such devices have been “devilishly hard to build” and “prone to cost overruns,” Science explained, but they believe that the Wendelstein 7-X “could mark a turning point” for the technology.

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Image Credit: IPP, Tino Schulz

Space

Curiosity to conduct first analysis of extraterrestrial sand dunes

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 12, 2015 Last Edited: December 12, 2015

Brian Galloway

Having already gazed longingly upon them from afar, NASA’s Curiosity rover has traveled to the nearly two-story sand dunes located on the lower portion of Mount Sharp, where it will begin an up-close investigation of the feature, the US space agency has confirmed.

The images captured by the rover provide “the first detailed look at the Martian dunes for further study,” according to Engadget, and the plan is for Curiosity to obtain samples of materials found in the dunes for further analysis using its built-in laboratory instruments, NASA added.

The photographs captured by the rover depict the rippled surface of the feature informally called “High Dune,” which is part of the larger “Bagnold Dunes” on the northwest part of Mount Sharp, as well as a wheel track exposing material beneath the surface of nearby sand sheets.

Curiosity captured those images using its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on November 27, and during its stay at the dunes, it will determine exactly how much the area has changed over time. NASA has already conducted observations from orbit showing that the edges of individual dunes move as much as three feet (one meter) per Earth year.

Current project part of an ongoing investigation of Mount Sharp

Curiosity, which arrived on Mars in August 2012, traveled to the base of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater after investigating outcroppings near the rover’s landing site. It arrived at the mountain in 2014 and its current primary mission is to examine successively higher layers of crater’s central peak.

According to the Daily Mail, Mount Sharp stands roughly three miles (five kilometers) tall. The rover is currently investigating its lowest sedimentary layers, many of which have been exposed and are evidence of the repeated filling and evaporation of a sizable body of water on Mars.

One of the goals of NASA’s ongoing Mars Science Laboratory Project is to use the rover to look at ancient and potentially habitable environments, and to determine how the landscape of the Red Planet changed over the course of several million years, the UK news outlet added. The research part the agency’s ongoing attempts to sent a manned mission to Mars before 2040.

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Pictured is a close-up of the Martian sand. Image credit: NASA JPL

Space

Massive Jupiter-like storm discovered on tiny brown dwarf star

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 12, 2015 Last Edited: December 12, 2015

Brian Galloway

Using NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes, a team of astronomers discovered an unusual brown dwarf star that is nearly as big as Jupiter and has a large, persistent storm similar to that planet’s Great Red Spot, officials at the US space agency announced Thursday.

The brown dwarf in question is known as W1906+40, and according to USA Today, it is nearly 53 light years (or more than 300 trillion miles) from Earth. The storm continued for at least two years and provides the best evidence yet for a star with this type of activity, John Gizis from the University of Delaware, Newark and his colleagues wrote in The Astrophysical Journal.

W1906+40 belongs to a class of objects known as L-dwarfs, which Popular Mechanics explains are at the crossroads between small, cool stars and those known as brown dwarfs, which failed to reach temperatures hot enough to fuse atoms into new elements. At 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, it is hot enough to be considered a star, but cool enough to form clouds in its atmosphere.

This marks the first time that this type of weather phenomenon has been directly observed on an L-dwarf star, although some weather patterns were previously spotted around brown dwarfs, according to NASA. Astronomers believe that the storm clouds and their precipitation are made out of molten iron, hot sand or salts, and that its lightning is likely more violent than storms found on Jupiter.

Researchers now plan to see how common these storms are

Gizis and his fellow researchers monitored atmospheric changes in W1906+40 for more than 24 months. The L-dwarf, which was originally detected in 2011 with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), was later found to be located in the same region of the sky after being analyzed by NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler mission.

Typically, Kepler seeks out new worlds by looking for dips in starlight occurring when a planet passes in front of its star. However, in this instance, the study authors found flickers that clearly were not coming from planets. Initially, they thought that a star spot could have been the cause, but follow-up observations conducted using the Spitzer telescope proved otherwise.

Star spots are the result of concentrated magnetic fields, but Spitzer found that the object was not magnetic in nature, but was instead a massive, cloudy storm with a diameter they said would be large enough to hold three Earths. The storm orbits its star once every nine hours.

Gizis and his colleagues said that they now plan to hunt for other, similar features on other stars and brown dwarfs using Kepler and Spitzer. “We don’t know if this kind of star storm is unique or common,” he said in a statement Thursday, “and we don’t why it persists for so long.”

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An artist’s concept of the storm in question. Image credit: NASA JPL

Space

Have astronomers found a Super Earth in our own solar system?

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: December 12, 2015 Last Edited: December 12, 2015

Brian Galloway

The long-abandoned possibility that a “Planet X” at the edge of the solar system is causing abnormalities in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus has once again resurfaced thanks to two new controversial studies.

In these papers, which have been uploaded here and here on the pre-publication research sharing website arXiv, researchers from Sweden and Mexico claim they were able to detect a Super Earth orbiting the Sun at six times the distance of Pluto, according to Ars Technica.

This object, which the team detected using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile, is believed to be either an extreme trans-Neptunian object (a minor planet orbiting the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune),a Super-Earth, or a very cool brown dwarf star located in the extreme outer reaches of the solar system.

The authors report that this new “blackbody point source” appears to be moving in conjunction with the Alpha Centauri star system, which is located approximately 4.3 light years from Earth, but it is not likely to be part of that star system, as an object so far away would likely have been luminous enough to have been spotted previously.

Astronomers are skeptical about the new claims

Other scientists are reacting with skepticism to the papers’ claims, neither of which have underdone peer review as of yet. Experts quickly noted that observations conducted using the NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer have eliminated the possibility of a Saturn-size planet to a distance of 10,000 AU and a Jupiter-sized planet out to 26,000 AU.

California Institute of Technology astronomer Mike Brown, who according to Scientific American helped discover several TNOs partially responsible for Pluto’s demotion to a dwarf planet, said via Twitter, “Fun fact: if it is true that ALMA accidentally discovered a massive outer solar system object in its tiny, tiny, tiny, field of view, that would suggest that there are something like 200,000 Earth-sized planets in the outer solar system. Which, um, no.”

“Even better,” he added later, “I just realized that this many Earth-sized planets existing would destabilize the entire solar system and we would all die.” Even so, Brown admits that “the idea that there might be large planets lurking in the outer solar system is perfectly plausible.”

Similarly, in a public Facebook group dedicated to discussing exoplanets, Stanford University’s Bruce Macintosh said it would be an “astonishing coincidence” if the first two trans-Neptunian objects discovered by ALMA were located next to bright stars. The most likely explanation, the professor said, is that these objects are actually residual artifacts, illusions appearing in the data due to unusual quirks in the telescope array’s complex calibration system.

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Image credit: NASA

Health

Pesticides in milk have been linked to Parkinson’s disease

Written By: Susanna Pilny

Published Date: December 11, 2015 Last Edited: December 11, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Everyone knows that drinking milk is good for your bones, but a new study may indicate that it’s not great for your brain—as researchers have now linked milk consumption to signs of Parkinson’s disease.

“The link between dairy products and Parkinson’s disease has been found in other studies,” explained study author R. D. Abbott, PhD, with the Shiga University of Medical Science in Otsu, Japan, in a statement. “Our study looked specifically at milk and the signs of Parkinson’s in the brain.”

According to the paper, which is published in Neurology, Abbott and his team followed 449 Japanese-American men who were participating in the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study. These men were an average of 54 years old, and were followed usually for 30 or more years until death. Then, they were autopsied, with the focus being on the substantia nigra region of the brain—which plays a key role in Parkinson’s. Loss of cells in this area leads to the tremors associated with the disease.

The team also measured the amount of a pesticide called heptachlor epoxide in 116 of the brains—which was found to be in very high concentrations in the milk supply of Hawaii in the early 1980s. At the time, it was a popular agent for protecting pineapples against insects, but was quickly removed from use in the US. It may still exist in significant concentrations in certain water supplies.

Two cups of milk per day could lead to fewer brain cells

The researchers discovered that nonsmokers who drank more than two cups of milk per day had 40 percent fewer brain cells in the substantia nigra than the people who drank less. Interestingly, smokers exhibited no connection between milk consumption and reduction in brain cells—which ties into previous studies which showed that people who smoke have a lower risk of developing Parkinson’s. (Not that that should be a reason to take up smoking.)

Moreover, traces of the pesticide heptachlor epoxide were found in 90 percent of the men who drank the largest amount of milk daily, whereas it was found in only 63 percent of men who did not drink any milk.

The researchers stressed, however, that they cannot definitively show that the milk consumed contained the pesticide, merely that there seems to be a link between the two. Further, the study does not show that the pesticide or milk intake directly causes Parkinson’s disease, but suggests there is an association between them.

“There are several possible explanations for the association, including chance,” said Honglei Chen, MD, PhD, with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, who wrote a corresponding editorial. “Also, milk consumption was measured only once at the start of the study, and we have to assume that this measurement represented participants’ dietary habits over time.”

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Feature Image: Thinkstock