A newly released study, conducted by scientists from the Regenstrief Institute and the schools of medicine at Indiana University and Moi University, is one of the first to explore and demonstrate the impact of electronic record systems on quality of medical care in a developing country.
, Martin Chieng Were, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine and a Regenstrief Institute investigator, and his colleagues report that computer-generated reminders about overdue tests yielded nearly a 50 percent increase in the appropriate ordering of CD4 blood tests. CD4 counts are critical to monitoring the health of patients with HIV and guide therapy decisions.
The research evaluating impact of just-in-time physician support (implemented within electronic medical records) on health care provider behavior and quality of care was conducted in clinics in Eldoret, Kenya. The comparative study, which is one of the first to use computer-generated clinical reminders in sub-Saharan Africa, observed that clinical summaries with computer-generated reminders significantly improved physician adherence to CD4 testing guidelines.
This work is especially significant because of the a number of medical errors that occur in settings where too few skilled health-care providers deal with a large patient population with critical illnesses. In developed countries, patients with HIV are often seen by infectious disease specialists for their HIV care. In contrast, a large number of HIV-positive patients in resource-limited countries like Kenya are taken care of by clinical officers whose level of training is similar to that of nurse practitioners. The combination of overworked staff with limited training, increasingly busy clinics, the challenges of providing chronic disease management, and the difficulty of keeping up-to-date often results in suboptimal patient care.........
Source
March 18, 2011, 6:19 PM CT
Enhancing the Magnetism
"The nation that controls magnetism will control the universe," famed fictional detective Dick Tracy predicted back in 1935. Probably an overstatement, but there's little doubt the nation that leads the development of advanced magnetoelectronic or "spintronic" devices is going to have a serious leg-up on its Information Age competition. A smaller, faster and cheaper way to store and transfer information is the spintronic grand prize and a key to winning this prize is understanding and controlling a multiferroic property known as "spontaneous magnetization".
Now, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have been able to enhance spontaneous magnetization in special versions of the popular multiferroic material bismuth ferrite. What's more, they can turn this magnetization "on/off" through the application of an external electric field, a critical ability for the advancement of spintronic technology.
"Taking a novel approach, we've created a new magnetic state in bismuth ferrite along with the ability to electrically control this magnetism at room temperature," says Ramamoorthy Ramesh, a materials scientist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, who led this research. "An enhanced magnetization arises in the rhombohedral phases of our bismuth ferrite self-assembled nanostructures. This magnetization is strain-confined between the tetragonal phases of the material and can be erased by the application of an electric field. The magnetization is restored when the polarity of the electric field is reversed".........
Posted by: Jaison Read more Source
March 17, 2011, 10:39 PM CT
Wind and solar energy
This is the Kahuku Wind Project, which was included in the Oahu Wind Integration Study.
Credit: Hawaiian Electric Company
When combined with on-Oahu wind farms and solar energy, the Interisland Wind project planned to bring 400 megawatts (MW) of wind power from Molokai and Lanai to Oahu could reliably supply more than 25% of Oahu's projected electricity demand, as per the Oahu Wind Integration Study (OWIS).
For the purposes of the research project, the OWIS released recently studied the impact on the Oahu grid of a total of 500 MW of wind energy and a nominal 100 MW of solar power, though a good deal more utility-scale and customer-sited solar power is expected on Oahu.
The study observed that the 500 MW of wind and 100 MW of solar power could eliminate the need to burn approximately 2.8 million barrels of low sulfur fuel oil (LSFO) and 132,000 tons of coal each year while maintaining system reliability, if many recommendations are incorporated, including:.
- Provide state-of-the-art wind power forecasting to help anticipate the amount of power that will be available from wind;.
- Increase power reserves (the amount of power that can be called upon from operating generators) to help manage wind variability and uncertainty in wind power forecasts;.
- Reduce minimum stable operating power of baseload generating units to provide more power reserves; .
- Increase ramp rates (the time it takes to increase or decrease output) of Hawaiian Electric's thermal generating units;.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
March 15, 2011, 10:12 PM CT
Large Hadron Collider could be world's first time machine
An illustration of the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, located in Switzerland (CERN)
If the latest theory of Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho is right, the Large Hadron Collider - the world's largest atom smasher that started regular operation last year - could be the first machine capable of causing matter to travel backwards in time.
"Our theory is a long shot," admitted Weiler, who is a physics professor at Vanderbilt University, "but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints".
A main goals of the collider is to find the elusive Higgs boson: the particle that physicists invoke to explain why particles like protons, neutrons and electrons have mass. If the collider succeeds in producing the Higgs boson, some researchers predict that it will create a second particle, called the Higgs singlet, at the same time.
As per Weiler and Ho's theory, these singlets should have the ability to jump into an extra, fifth dimension where they can move either forward or backward in time and reappear in the future or past.
"One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all the big paradoxes," Weiler said. "Because time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his parents before he himself is born, for example. However, if researchers could control the production of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send messages to the past or future".........
Posted by: Kevin Read more Source
March 13, 2011, 11:59 AM CT
New measurement technology
Confocal micrograph of an actin-filamin network. Credit: Kurt Schmoller, Technische Universtaet Muenchen (Technical University of Munich)
The development of a new measurement technology under a research project funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation is probing the structure of composite and biological materials.
"Our results have provided some of the first microscopic insights into a sixty year old puzzle about the way polymeric networks react to repeated shear strains," said Dr. Daniel Blair, Assistant Professor, and principal investigator of the Soft Matter Group in the Department of Physics at Georgetown University.
Blair, Professor Andreas Bausch and other scientists at Technische Universtaet Muenchen (Technical University of Munich) used the muscle filament known as actin to construct a unique polymer network. In their quest to understand more about bio-polymers, they developed the rheometer and confocal microscope system (measures the mechanical properties of materials), which provide a unique and unprecedented level of precision and sensitivity for investigating polymeric systems which were previously too small to visualize during mechanical stress experiments. The rheometer and confocal microscopes clearly visualized the fluorescently labeled actin network and they filmed the polymer filaments'movement in 3-D when mechanical stress was applied.........
Posted by: Kevin Read more Source
March 10, 2011, 7:57 AM CT
Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction
Earth's warming climate is contributing to an infection responsible for tropical frog extinctions.
Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation
With the steep decline in populations of a number of animal species, researchers have warned that Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction like those that have occurred just five times during the past 540 million years.
Each of these "Big Five" saw three-quarters or more of all animal species go extinct.
In results of a study published in this week's issue of journal Nature, scientists report on an evaluation of where mammals and other species stand today in terms of possible extinction compared with the past 540 million years.
They find cause for hope--and alarm.
"If you look only at the critically endangered mammals--those where the risk of extinction is at least 50 percent within three of their generations--and assume that their time will run out and they will be extinct in 1,000 years, that puts us clearly outside any range of normal and tells us that we are moving into the mass extinction realm," said Anthony Barnosky, an integrative biologist at the University of California at Berkeley, and first author of the paper.
Barnosky is also a curator in the university's Museum of Paleontology and a research paleontologist in its Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.
"A modern global mass extinction is a largely unaddressed hazard of climate change and human activities," said H. Richard Lane, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
March 10, 2011, 7:55 AM CT
Black Holes: A Model for Superconductors?
(l to r) Mohammad Edalati, Rob Leigh, and Philip Phillips. Not shown is co-author Ka Wai Lo.
Black holes are some of the heaviest objects in the universe. Electrons are some of the lightest. Now physicists Robert G. Leigh and Philip Phillips along with postdoctoral fellow Mohammad Edalati and graduate student Ka Wai Lo of the University of Illinois have shown how charged black holes can be used to model the behavior of interacting electrons in unconventional superconductors.
Unlike the old superconductors, which were all metals, the new superconductors start off their lives as insulators. In the insulating state of the copper-oxide materials, there are plenty of places for the electrons to hop but nonetheless-no current flows. Such a state of matter, known as a Mott insulator after the pioneering work of Sir Neville Mott, arises from the strong repulsions between the electrons. Eventhough this much is agreed upon, much of the physics of Mott insulators remains unsolved, because there is no exact solution to the Mott problem that is directly applicable to the copper-oxide materials.
Enter string theory-an evolving theoretical effort that seeks to describe the known fundamental forces of nature, including gravity, and their interactions with matter in a single, mathematically complete system.
In string theory, some strongly interacting quantum mechanical systems can be studied by replacing them with classical gravity in a space-time in one higher dimension, a relationship that was first conjectured by string theorist Juan Maldacena some fourteen years ago. The conjecture was made possible by thinking about D-branes, important objects in string theory, in two different but equivalent ways. Physical features of the quantum systems, such as temperature, charge density, etc., become properties of black holes in the classical gravity theory.........
Posted by: Kevin Read more Source
March 10, 2011, 7:52 AM CT
California Islands Give Up Evidence of Early Seafaring
Evidence for a diversified sea-based economy among North American inhabitants dating from 12,200 to 11,400 years ago is emerging from three sites on California's Channel Islands.
Reporting in the March 4 issue of Science, a 15-member team led by University of Oregon and Smithsonian Institution scholars describes the discovery of scores of stemmed projectile points and crescents dating to that time period. The artifacts are linked to the remains of shellfish, seals, geese, cormorants and fish.
Funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the team also found thousands of artifacts made from chert, a flint-like rock used to make projectile points and other stone tools.
Some of the intact projectiles are so delicate that their only practical use would have been for hunting on the water, said Jon Erlandson, professor of anthropology and director of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon. He has been conducting research on the islands for more than 30 years.
"This is among the earliest evidence of seafaring and maritime adaptations in the Americas, and another extension of the diversity of Paleoindian economies," Erlandson said. "The points we are finding are extraordinary, the workmanship amazing. They are ultra thin, serrated and have incredible barbs on them. It's a very sophisticated chipped-stone technology." He also noted that the stemmed points are much different than the iconic fluted points left throughout North America by Clovis and Folsom peoples who hunted big game on land.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
March 10, 2011, 7:49 AM CT
Some Antarctic Ice is Forming from Bottom
Researchers endured extreme wind and cold at a high-elevation field camp near the center of the ice sheet. (Michael Studinger/AGAP)
Researchers working in the remotest part of Antarctica have discovered that liquid water locked deep under the continent's coat of ice regularly thaws and refreezes to the bottom, creating as much as half the thickness of the ice in places, and actively modifying its structure. The finding, which turns common perceptions of glacial formation upside down, could reshape scientists' understanding of how the ice sheet expands and moves, and how it might react to warming climate, they say. The study appears in this week's early online edition of the leading journal Science; it is part of a six-nation study of the invisible Gamburtsev Mountains, which lie buried under as much as two miles of ice.
Ice sheets are well known to grow from the top as snow falls and builds up annual layers over thousands of years, but researchers until recently have known little about the processes going on far below. In 2006, scientists in the current study showed that lakes of liquid water underlie widespread parts of Antarctica. In 2008-2009, they mounted an expedition using geophysical instruments to create 3-D images of the Gamburtsevs, a range larger than the European Alps. The expedition also made detailed images of the overlying ice, and subglacial water.
"We commonly think of ice sheets like cakes--one layer at a time added from the top. This is like someone injected a layer of frosting at the bottom--a really thick layer," said Robin Bell, a geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and a project co-leader. "Water has always been known to be important to ice sheet dynamics, but mostly as a lubricant. As ice sheets change, we want to predict how they will change. Our results show that models must include water beneath." The Antarctic ice sheet holds enough fresh water to raise ocean levels 200 feet; if even a small part of it were to melt into the ocean, it could put major coastal cities under water.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
March 8, 2011, 7:45 AM CT
Hunt for green catalysts
L. Keith Woo's hunt for green catalysts has led him to experiment with iron porphyrins. Here he's holding a model of an iron porphyrin compound in his Iowa State University research lab.
Credit: Photo by Bob Elbert/Iowa State University
L. Keith Woo is searching for cleaner, greener chemical reactions.
Woo, an Iowa State University professor of chemistry and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, has studied catalysts and the chemical reactions they affect for more than 25 years. And these days, his focus is on green catalysis.
That, he said, is the search for catalysts that lead to more efficient chemical reactions. That could mean they promote reactions at lower pressures and temperatures. Or it could mean they promote reactions that create less waste. Or it could mean finding safer, cleaner alternatives to toxic or hazardous conditions, such as using water in place of organic solvents.
"We're trying to design, discover and optimize materials that will produce chemical reactions in a way that the energy barrier is lowered," Woo said. "We're doing fundamental, basic catalytic work".
And much of that work is inspired by biology.
In one project, Woo and his research group are studying how iron porphyrins (the heme in the hemoglobin of red blood cells) can be used for various catalytic applications. Iron porphyrins are the active sites in a variety of the enzymes that create reactions and processes within a cell. Most of the iron porphyrin reactions involve oxidation and electron transfer reactions.........
Posted by: Sarah Read more Source
March 7, 2011, 7:30 AM CT
Observing Arctic ice-edge plankton blooms
"Ice-edge phytoplankton blooms in the Arctic Ocean provide food for planktonic animals called zooplankton, which are in turn exploited by animals higher up the food chain such as fish," explained Dr Andrew Yool, one of the team of NOC researchers.
During the Arctic spring and summer, sea-ice melts and breaks up. Freshwater from melting ice forms a blanket over the denser, saltier water below. This stratification of the water column, along with seasonal sunshine, triggers the appearance of phytoplankton blooms, which often form long but narrow (20-100 km) bands along the receding ice-edge.
Arctic ice-edge blooms have in the past been studied largely during research cruises. These studies have often focused on regions such as the Barents Sea between Norway and the Svalbard Archipelago, and the Bering Shelf bordering Alaska, where blooms are thought to account for 50% or more of biological production.
However, advances in modern satellite technology now offer the opportunity to observe and monitor ice-edge blooms at high spatial resolution over large areas and extended periods of time from space.
"Our aim was to use satellite data to get a synoptic view of ice-edge blooms across the whole Arctic region," said Dr Yool.
To do this, the research team used daily data from the NASA's SeaWiFs satellite, which was launched in 1997. SeaWiFs continuously observes ocean colour (sea-ice, cloud and fog cover permitting), sampling the whole globe every two days. To provide an alternative estimate of bloom occurrence, and an independent check on their findings, the scientists also used data from the MODIS satellite.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
March 7, 2011, 6:55 AM CT
An 'eye' on nanoparticles
This is an optical microscope image of the microfluidic channel (light pattern) and sensing electrode (gold) of the analyzer. Nanoparticles are suspended in a fluid flow through the channel, and are detected individually as they pass through the sensing volume.
Credit: J.L. Fraikin and A.N. Cleland, UCSB
Precision measurement in the world of nanoparticles has now become a possibility, thanks to researchers at UC Santa Barbara.
The UCSB research team has developed a new instrument capable of detecting individual nanoparticles with diameters as small as a few tens of nanometers. The study will be published on line this week by
Nature Nanotechnology, and appear in the April print issue of the journal.
"This device opens up a wide range of potential applications in nanoparticle analysis," said Jean-Luc Fraikin, the main author on the study. "Applications in water analysis, pharmaceutical development, and other biomedical areas are likely to be developed using this new technology." The instrument was developed in the lab of Andrew Cleland, professor of physics at UCSB, in collaboration with the group of Erkki Ruoslahti, Distinguished Professor, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute at UCSB.
Fraikin is presently a postdoctoral associate in the Marth Lab at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute's Center for Nanomedicine, and in the Soh Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara.
The device detects the tiny particles, suspended in fluid, as they flow one by one through the instrument at rates estimated to be as high as half a million particles per second. Fraikin compares the device to a nanoscale turnstile, which can count �� and measure �� particles as they pass individually through the electronic "eye" of the instrument.........
Posted by: Kevin Read more Source
March 1, 2011, 10:21 PM CT
World's oldest Pteranodon?
Fossilized bones discovered in Texas from a flying reptile that died 89 million years ago appears to be the earliest occurrence of the prehistoric creature known as Pteranodon.
Previously, Pteranodon bones have been found in Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming in the Niobrara and Pierre geological formations. This likely Pteranodon specimen is the first of its kind found in Texas, as per paleontologist Timothy S. Myers at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who identified the reptile. The specimen was discovered north of Dallas by an amateur fossil hunter who found various bones belonging to the left wing.
Pteranodon was a type of pterosaur that lived about the same time as some dinosaurs, about 100 million to 65 million years ago. The only reptiles to dominate the ancient skies, pterosaurs had broad leathery wings and slim torsos.
Adult pterosaur, toothless variety with about a 12-foot wing span.
The specimen identified by Myers is an adult pterosaur of the toothless variety and while larger than most birds, wasn't among the largest pterosaurs, Myers said, noting it had a wing span between 12 and 13 feet, or 3.6 to 4 meters. It was discovered in the Austin Group, a prominent rock unit in Texas that was deposited around 89 million years ago, early in the geological time period called the Late Cretaceous.........
Posted by: William Read more Source
March 1, 2011, 10:01 PM CT
Ecological importance of sounds
Luis J. Villanueva-Rivera, from right, Bryan Pijanowski and Sarah Dumyahn collect data from a remote listening post that records sounds from the surrounding area. (Purdue Agricultural Communication photo/Tom Campbell)
A Purdue University researcher is leading an effort to create a new scientific field that will use sound as a way to understand the ecological characteristics of a landscape and to reconnect people with the importance of natural sounds.
Soundscape ecology, as it's being called, will focus on what sounds can tell people about an area. Bryan Pijanowski, an associate professor of forestry and natural resources and main author of a paper outlining the field in the journal BioScience, said natural sound could be used like a canary in a coal mine. Sound could be a critical first indicator of environmental changes.
Pijanowski said sound could be used to detect early changes in climate, weather patterns, the presence of pollution or other alterations to a landscape.
"The dawn and dusk choruses of birds are very characteristic of a location. If the intensity or patterns of these choruses change, there is likely something causing that change," Pijanowski said. "Ecologists have ignored how sound that emanates from an area can help determine what's happening to the ecosystem".
Part of his research will be to capture sounds that are being lost and attempting to restore their value to people. Pijanowski said natural sounds such as birds chirping, wind rustling through leaves and even the absence of noise not only have aesthetic significance, but also can give people valuable information about what's happening around them.........
Posted by: Jaison Read more Source
February 22, 2011, 8:00 AM CT
Volcanoes along Pacific Ocean Seamount Trail
Nearly half a mile of rock retrieved from beneath the seafloor is yielding new clues about how underwater volcanoes are created and whether the hotspots that led to their formation have moved over time.
Georesearchers have just completed an expedition to a string of underwater volcanoes, or seamounts, in the Pacific Ocean known as the Louisville Seamount Trail.
There they collected samples of sediments, basalt lava flows and other volcanic eruption materials to piece together the history of this ancient trail of volcanoes.
The expedition was part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP).
"Finding out whether hotspots in Earth's mantle are stationary or not will lead to new knowledge about the basic workings of our planet," says Rodey Batiza, section head for marine geosciences in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences.
Tens of thousands of seamounts exist in the Pacific Ocean. Expedition researchers probed a handful of the most important of these underwater volcanoes.
"We sampled ancient lava flows, and a fossilized algal reef," says Anthony Koppers of Oregon State University. "The samples will be used to study the construction and evolution of individual volcanoes.".........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
February 22, 2011, 7:55 AM CT
Oldest Fossils of Large Seaweeds
Almost 600 million years ago, before the rapid evolution of life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche near what is now Lantian, a small village in south China.
Then they simply died, leaving some 3,000 nearly pristine fossils preserved between beds of black shale deposited in oxygen-free and unbreathable waters.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Virginia Tech in the United States and Northwest University in Xi'an, China report the discovery of the fossils in this week's issue of the journal
NatureIn addition to ancient versions of algae and worms, the Lantian biota--named for its location--included macrofossils with complex and puzzling structures.
In all, researchers have identified some 15 species at the site.
The fossils suggest that structural diversification of macroscopic eukaryotes--the earliest versions of organisms with complex cell structures--may have occurred only tens of millions of years after the Snowball Earth event that ended 635 million years ago.
Snowball Earth proposes that the Earth's surface became almost, or completely, frozen at least once during the planet's history.
The presence of macroscopic eukaryotes in the highly organic-rich black shale suggests that, despite the overall oxygen-free conditions, brief oxygenation of the oceans did come and go, as per H. Richard Lane, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.........
Posted by: William Read more Source
February 22, 2011, 7:54 AM CT
The Year of the Higgs?
This February, scientists will renew their search for one of the universe's most elusive mysteries, the Higgs boson--a hypothetical particle that if found would give an insight into why particles have certain mass.
The search will take place at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the world's largest particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Higgs boson is the only remaining Standard Model particle that has not been observed in particle physics experiments. But using two separate and complimentary experiments, the A Toroidal LHC Apparatus (ATLAS) and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), researchers hope to prove its existence.
Both ATLAS and CMS are particle physics detectors. They are located on opposite sides of the 27-kilometer (17-mile) LHC ring circling the countryside on the outskirts of Geneva, buried deep below ground.
The LHC has been offline during a winter break, which temporarily halted the experiments.
"The research program over this past year was essentially to commission the accelerator and the experiments to make sure that they work and they are giving us sensible results," said physicist Aaron Dominguez of the University of Nebraska and the US CMS experiment, whose work is supported by the National Science Foundation.........
Posted by: Sarah Read more Source
February 22, 2011, 7:40 AM CT
First harmful algal bloom species genome sequenced
Aureococcus anophagefferens cells of a harmful algal bloom brown tide.
Credit: Chris Gobler, Stony Brook University
The microscopic phytoplankton
Aureococcus anophagefferens, which causes devastating brown tides, appears to be tiny but it's proven to be a fierce competitor.
In the first genome sequencing of a harmful algal bloom species, scientists observed that
Aureococcus' unique gene complement allows it to outcompete other marine phytoplankton and thrive in human-modified ecosystems, which could help explain the global increases in harmful algal blooms (HABs).
The research team, led by Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences in collaboration with researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), will publish its findings online in the February 21 edition of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesThe brown tides caused by
Aureococcus do not produce toxins that poison humans, but the long-lasting blooms are toxic to bivalves and have decimated sea grass beds and shellfisheries leading to billions of dollars in economic losses. The blooms, which had not been documented before 1985, are now chronic, annual events in estuaries along the heavily populated coastlines of the eastern United States and South Africa. While HABs occur naturally, impacts from human activities, such as increased pollutants and excess nutrients from fertilizer runoff, have been associated with the rise in HAB outbreaks. Like a number of other HABs,
Aureococcus blooms in shallow estuaries where light levels and inorganic nutrients are low, and organic carbon and nitrogen concentrations are high.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
February 21, 2011, 7:54 AM CT
Testing the limits of where humans can live
These are stone artifacts, mostly tips for spears and harpoons, found on the Kuril Islands.
Credit: Photo credit: Coby Phillips, U. Washington.
On an isolated segment of islands in the Pacific Ring of Fire, residents endure volcanoes, tsunamis, dense fog, steep cliffs and long and chilly winters.
Sounds homey, huh?
At least it might be for inhabitants of the Kuril Islands, an 810-mile archipelago that stretches from Japan to Russia. The islands, formed by a collision of tectonic plates, are nearly abandoned today, but anthropologists have learned that thousands of people have lived there on and off as far back as at least 6000 B.C., persevering despite natural disasters.
"We want to identify the limits of adaptability, or how much resilience people have," said Ben Fitzhugh, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Washington. "We're looking at the islands as a yardstick of humans' capacity to colonize and sustain themselves".
Understanding what made residents stay and how they survived could inform how we adapt to modern vulnerabilities, including climate change. The findings also have implications for how we rebound from contemporary catastrophes, such as the Indonesian tsunami in 2004, hurricanes Katrina and Rita and last year's earthquake in Haiti.
Fitzhugh is leading an international team of anthropologists, archaeologists, geologists and earth and atmospheric researchers in studying the history of human settlement on the Kuril Islands.........
Posted by: William Read more Source
February 21, 2011, 7:51 AM CT
Are population estimates off the mark?
"Almost all of the growth in world population will occur in poor countries, particularly in Africa and South Asia," says the Population Council's John Bongaarts. "But larger investments in family planning right now would have a very beneficial impact on human welfare and any environmental issue we care about."
Credit: The Population Council Inc.
In 2011 the Earth's population will reach 7 billion. The United Nations (UN) reports that the total number of people will climb to 9 billion in 2050, peak at 9.5 billion, stabilize temporarily, and then decline. Despite the confidence with which these projections are presented, in an American Association for the Advancement of Science press briefing and presentation today the Population Council's John Bongaarts presents evidence that the actual population trajectory is highly uncertain.
What could happen depends on trends in fertility and mortality�and both variables are complex and not easy to forecast.
With respect to fertility, some analysts assume that the very low levels of childbearing now prevailing in Southern and Eastern Europe, where women have fewer than two children on average, will continue in those countries and spread to other parts of the world. But scholars have different expectations of how rapidly and widely that trend will unfold. If fertility remains higher than the UN projects the world population could exceed 10 billion in 2100.
In terms of mortality, pessimists say that life spans in developed countries are close to the biological limit. However, optimists predict that life expectancy will continue to rise very rapidly, exceeding 100 years before the end of this century. If the optimists are right, the world's population could also exceed 10 billion in 2100. This higher population scenario also has implications for the solvency of social security systems that provide income to the elderly.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
February 21, 2011, 7:48 AM CT
Black carbon and tropospheric ozone in climate change
lack carbon (BC) and tropospheric ozone (O3) are harmful air pollutants that also contribute to climate change. The emission of both will continue to negatively impact both human health and climate.
While our scientific understanding of how black carbon and tropospheric ozone affect climate and public health has significantly improved in recent years, the threat posed by these pollutants has catalysed a demand for knowledge and concrete action from governments, civil society, United Nations (UN) agencies and other stakeholders.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was requested to urgently provide science-based advice on actions to reduce the impact of these pollutants and the Integrated Evaluation of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone is the result. Its main findings are:
.- A small number of emissions reduction measures targeting black carbon and tropospheric ozone could immediately begin to protect climate, public health, water and food security, and ecosystems. These measures target fossil fuel extraction, residential cooking and heating, diesel vehicles, waste management, agriculture and small industries. Full implementation is achievable with existing technology but would require significant and strategic investment as well as institutional arrangements.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
February 21, 2011, 7:31 AM CT
Is it safe to drink?
"Over the last couple of generations, there has been a huge amount of groundwater pollution worldwide, and this has had a negative impact on our drinking water supply," says Barbara Sherwood Lollar, Canada Research Chair in Isotope Geochemistry of the Earth and the Environment at the University of Toronto.
Sherwood Lollar is taking part in the THINK CANADA Press Breakfast Sunday at AAAS. Her research examines society's efforts to reverse and stop groundwater pollution, and the effectiveness of bioremediation technologies�using microbes to clean up organic contaminants such as petroleum hydrocarbons (oil, gasoline or diesel) or chemicals used in the electronics or transportation industries.
While the disposal of these organic contaminants tends to be well regulated today, this has not always been the case. Lax regulations and enforcement during the period immediately after the Second World War has left Europe and North America with a legacy of past contamination.
"This contamination has had a pervasive impact on the environment," says Sherwood Lollar. "It is still out there, and it needs to be dealt with".
Over the past decade, a number of techniques used to clean up groundwater contamination have harnessed the power of microbiology and the work of geochemists like Sherwood Lollar. "We are not genetically engineering microbes," she explains. "In a number of settings, naturally occurring microbes feed off the organic contaminants and, in the process, convert them to non-toxic end products".........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
February 21, 2011, 7:26 AM CT
New study illustrates shifting biomes in Alaska
newly released study released recently in the EarlyView of
Ecology Letters addresses forest productivity trends in Alaska, highlighting a shift in biomes caused by a warming climate. The findings, conducted by researchers at the Woods Hole Research Center and three other institutions based in Alaska and France, linked satellite observations with an extensive and unique tree-ring data set. Patterns observed support current hypotheses regarding increased growth of evergreen forest at the margins of present tundra and declining productivity at the margins of temperate forest to the south. This study provides a regional picture of forest productivity which did not previously exist.
As per main author Pieter Beck, a post-doctoral fellow at WHRC, "The results provide evidence for the initiation of a biome shift in response to climate change, and indicate that some ecosystem models appears to be missing fundamental changes taking place in the circumpolar region." .
He adds that "while the findings contrast with some recent model predictions of increased high latitude vegetation productivity, they are consistent with longer-term projections of global vegetation models".
Scott Goetz, a senior scientist at WHRC, proposed the study and co-authored the manuscript. He says, "Most people don't think of high latitudes forests as being drought stressed - and they are not in the traditional sense of having soils dry up and blow away - but their growth is negatively impacted by hot dry air masses and those have increased in recent years. This paper shows those drought impacts are captured in both the satellite and the tree ring record. Of course the tree rings go back in time much further than the satellite observations, which only extend about 30 years, but the changes that we observe from satellites are clearly supported not only by the tree rings but also by carbon isotope analysis of the wood."........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
February 14, 2011, 7:42 AM CT
Measuring Science Investments
Measuring the results of scientific research has seen little federal focus until now.
A 2010 administrative memorandum calls on U.S. federal agencies and executive departments to develop tools to "better assess the impact of [.] science and technology investments.".
Translation: There is increasing pressure to document the results of [.] research investments in a scientific manner, writes Julia Lane,
Science of Science and Innovation Policy program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and her co-author Stefano Bertuzzi, Office of Science Policy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
They make the observation in, "Measuring the Results of Science Investments," a Policy Forum paper appearing in this week's edition of the journal
ScienceLane and Bertuzzi examine critical questions for measuring the effects of scientific research. Is it possible to create such a system? What would be the inputs, outputs and structure of the system? What scientific disciplines should inform the formulation of such a model?
"It is important that the scientific community, together with the federal government, engage in describing the results," said Lane of the special burdens placed on measuring the fundamental and exploratory research that NSF is responsible for funding, but does not always show immediate results.........
Posted by: Jaison Read more Source
February 14, 2011, 6:52 AM CT
Archaeologists find hidden African side
In West African practice, placing metal and pointed objects at the doorway helps deter harmful spirits from entering. These were found buried at the entrance to the slave quarters, until now known only as a potting shed -- its most recent use.
Credit: UMD
One of North America's most famous Revolutionary-era buildings � a lone-surviving testament to an Enlightenment ideal � has a hidden West African face, University of Maryland archaeologists have discovered.
Their excavation at the 1785 Wye �Orangery� on Maryland's Eastern Shore � the only 18th century greenhouse left in North America � reveals that African American slaves played a sophisticated, technical role in its construction and operation. They left behind tangible cultural evidence of their involvement and spiritual traditions.
Frederick Douglass, who lived there as a young man, made it famous through his autobiography. But the team concludes that he failed to appreciate the slaves� full contribution.
"For years, this famous Enlightenment structure has been recognized for its European qualities, but it has a hidden African face that we've unearthed," says University of Maryland archaeologist Mark Leone, who led the excavation. "Concealed among the bricks of the furnace that controlled the greenhouse temperature, we found embedded a symbol used in West African spirit practice. An African American slave built the furnace, and left an historic signature".
His team also found African charms buried at the entrance to a part of the Wye greenhouse that once served as living quarters for the slaves who maintained the building.........
Posted by: William Read more Source
February 8, 2011, 6:48 AM CT
Bound Neutrons Pave Way to Free Ones
Some experiments seem to show that the building blocks of protons and neutrons inside a nucleus are somehow different from that of free ones. Other experiments show they behave differently when they pair up: they move faster and frequently overlap.
A study of bound protons and neutrons conducted at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has allowed scientists, for the first time, to extract information through experimentation about the internal structure of free neutrons, without the assistance of a theoretical model. The result was reported in the Feb. 4 issue of Physical Review Letters.
The major hurdle for researchers who study the internal structure of the neutron is that most neutrons are bound up inside the nucleus of atoms to protons. In nature, a free neutron lasts for only a few minutes, while in the nucleus, neutrons are always encumbered by the ubiquitous proton.
To tease out a description of a free neutron, a group of researchers compared data collected at Jefferson Lab and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory that detail how bound protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the atom display two very different effects. Both protons and neutrons are referred to as nucleons.
"Both effects are due to the nucleons behaving like they are not free," says Doug Higinbotham, a Jefferson Lab staff scientist.
Nucleons appear to differ when they are tightly bound in heavier nuclei versus when they are loosely bound in light nuclei. In the first effect, experiments have shown that nucleons tightly bound in a heavy nucleus pair up more often than those loosely bound in a light nucleus.........
Posted by: Sarah Read more Source
February 7, 2011, 3:48 PM CT
Neutron analysis reveals superconductivity link
Neutron scattering analysis of two families of iron-based materials suggests that the magnetic interactions thought responsible for high-temperature superconductivity may lie "two doors down": The key magnetic exchange pairings occur in a next-nearest-neighbor ordering of atoms, rather than adjacent atoms.
Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, using the Spallation Neutron Source's ARCS Wide Angular Range Chopper Spectrometer, performed spin-wave studies of magnetically ordered iron chalcogenides. They based their conclusions on comparisons with prior spin-wave data on magnetically ordered pnictides, another class of iron-based superconductors.
"As we analyze the spectra, we find that even though the nearest neighbor exchange couplings between chalcogenide and pnictide atoms are different, the next nearest neighbor exchange couplings are closely similar," said Pengcheng Dai, who has a joint appointment with ORNL's Neutron Sciences Directorate and the University of Tennessee.
Dai referred to theories that have suggested second-nearest-neighbor couplings could be responsible for the widely acclaimed but poorly understood properties of high-temperature superconductors.
"There are theories suggesting that it's the second nearest neighbor that drives the superconductivity," he said. "Our discovery of similar next-nearest-neighbor couplings in these two iron-based systems suggests that superconductivity shares a common magnetic origin."........
Posted by: Sarah Read more Source
February 3, 2011, 7:56 AM CT
Earliest cemetery in Middle East
The Middle Epipalaeolithic site of 'Uyun al-Hammam, with inset showing the location of the site and other Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic sites discussed in the text.
Anthropologists at the University of Toronto and the University of Cambridge have discovered the oldest cemetery in the Middle East at a site in northern Jordan. The cemetery includes graves containing human remains buried alongside those of a red fox, suggesting that the animal was possibly kept as a pet by humans long before dogs ever were.
The 16,500-year-old site at 'Uyun al-Hammam was discovered in 2000 by an expedition led by University of Toronto professor Edward (Ted) Banning and Lisa Maher, an assistant professor of anthropology at U of T and research associate at the University of Cambridge. "Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered the remains of at least 11 individuals - more than known from all other sites of this kind combined," says Banning, of U of T's Department of Anthropology.
Prior research had identified the earliest cemeteries in the region in a somewhat later period (the Natufian, ca. 15,000-12,000 years ago). These were notable for instances of burials of humans with dogs. One such case involved a woman buried with her hand on a puppy, while another included three humans buried with two dogs along with tortoise shells. However, this new research shows that some of these practices occurred earlier.
Most of the individuals buried at the Jordan site were found with what are known as "grave goods," such as stone tools, a bone spoon, animal parts, and red ochre (an iron mineral). One grave contained the skull and right upper arm bone of a red fox, with red ochre adhered to the skull, along with bones of deer, gazelle and wild cattle. Another nearby grave contained the nearly complete skeleton of a red fox, missing its skull and right upper arm bone, suggesting that portions of a single fox had been moved from one grave to another in prehistoric times.........
Posted by: William Read more Source
February 3, 2011, 7:51 AM CT
Field study of smoggy inversions to end
Motorized glider pilot Chris Santacroce ascends toward Lone Peak in the Wasatch Range above Salt Lake City with automated weather sensors attached to his helmet. He was a volunteer in a two-month field campaign to study temperature inversions that trap smog in the urban Salt Lake Valley. The field work was ending Feb. 7, 2011, and scientists from the University of Utah and other institutions planned to spend the next two years analyzing the data.
Credit: Amanda Oliver, University of Utah
During the past two months, scientists launched weather balloons, drove instrument-laden cars and flew a glider to study winter inversions that often choke Salt Lake City in smog and trap dirty air in other urban basins worldwide.
The field campaign � part of a three-year study by the University of Utah and other institutions � ends Monday, Feb. 7 as atmospheric researchers begin analyzing data they collected to learn how weather conditions contribute to inversions, which occur when warmer air aloft holds cold air near the ground, trapping pollutants.
"Our study applies to urban basins around the world, any location with a lot of people and mountains nearby," says John Horel, a University of Utah professor of atmospheric sciences and one of the principal researchers for the study.
"Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tehran and Mexico City experience these winter inversions and cold-air pools. Unfortunately, one of the advantages of studying them in Salt Lake City is just how frequently they occur here".
Salt Lake City residents already have experienced more than 20 days with air pollution levels exceeding federal standards this winter, and on some smoggy days, the city has the nation's dirtiest air.
Some 50 scientists and volunteers from the University of Utah and other institutions are wrapping up the two-month monitoring program to better understand the winter weather conditions frequently linked to inversions � known as cold-air pools by meteorologists � and the resulting poor air quality.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
February 2, 2011, 7:53 AM CT
Ice Cores Yield Rich History of Climate Change
On Friday, Jan. 28 in Antarctica, a research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth's climate history reached an important milestone completing the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS). The project will be completed over the next two years with some additional coring and borehole logging to obtain additional information and samples of the ice for the study of the climate record contained in the core.
As part of the project, begun six years ago, the team, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has been drilling deep into the ice at the WAIS Divide site and recovering and analyzing ice cores for clues about how changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have influenced the Earth's climate over time.
Friday's milestone was reached at a depth of 3,331 meters--about two miles deep--creating the deepest ice core ever drilled by the U.S. and the second deepest ice core ever drilled by any group, second only to the ice core drilled at Russia's Vostok Station as part of a joint French/U.S./Russian collaboration in the 1990s.
"By improving our understanding of how natural changes in greenhouse gas influenced climate in the past, the science community will be able to do a better job of predicting future climate changes caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases by human activity," said Kendrick Taylor, chief scientist for the WAIS Divide Ice Core Project.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
February 1, 2011, 8:00 AM CT
Quantum-mechanical implementation of 'shell game'
The photon shell game architecture: Two superconducting phase qubits (squares in the center of the image) are connected to three microwave resonators (three meander lines).
Credit: Erik Lucero, Matteo Mariantoni, Dario Mariantoni
Inspired by the popular confidence trick known as "shell game," scientists at UC Santa Barbara have demonstrated the ability to hide and shuffle "quantum-mechanical peas" �� microwave single photons �� under and between three microwave resonators, or "quantized shells".
In a paper reported in the Jan. 30 issue of the journal Nature Physics, UCSB scientists show the first demonstration of the coherent control of a multi-resonator architecture. This topic has been a holy grail among physicists studying photons at the quantum-mechanical level for more than a decade.
The UCSB scientists are Matteo Mariantoni, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Physics; Haohua Wang, postdoctoral fellow in physics; John Martinis, professor of physics; and Andrew Cleland, professor of physics.
As per the paper, the "shell man," the researcher, makes use of two superconducting quantum bits (qubits) to move the photons �� particles of light �� between the resonators. The qubits �� the quantum-mechanical equivalent of the classical bits used in a common PC �� are studied at UCSB for the development of a quantum super computer. They constitute one of the key elements for playing the photon shell game.
"This is an important milestone toward the realization of a large-scale quantum register," said Mariantoni. "It opens up an entirely new dimension in the realm of on-chip microwave photonics and quantum-optics in general".........
Posted by: Sarah Read more Source
January 28, 2011, 7:40 PM CT
Precise way to monitor ocean wave behavior
Engineers have created a new type of "stereo vision" to use in studying ocean waves as they pound against the shore, providing a better way to understand and monitor this violent, ever-changing environment.
The approach, which uses two video cameras to feed data into an advanced computer system, can observe large areas of ocean waves in real time and help explain what they are doing and why, researchers say.
The system appears to be of particular value as climate change and rising sea levels pose additional challenges to vulnerable shorelines around the world, threatened by coastal erosion. The technology should be comparatively simple and inexpensive to implement.
"An ocean wave crashing on shore is actually the end of a long story that commonly begins thousands of miles away, formed by wind and storms," said David Hill, an associate professor of coastal and ocean engineering at Oregon State University. "We're trying to achieve with cameras and a computer what human eyes and the brain do automatically - see the way that near-shore waves grow, change direction and collapse as they move over a seafloor that changes depth constantly".
This is the first attempt to use stereo optical imaging in a marine field setting on such a large scale, Hill said, and offers the potential to provide a constant and scientifically accurate understanding of what is going on in the surf zone. It's also a form of remote sensing that doesn't require placement of instruments in the pounding surf environment.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
January 28, 2011, 7:25 PM CT
Ecology-evolution dynamic
Thomas Schoener's paper in the Jan. 28 issue of Science is based on his talk, "The Newest Synthesis: Evolution + Ecology = EvoEco," at the Darwin/Chicago 2009 conference. Darwin conference videos are here: http://darwin-chicago.uchicago.edu/List%20of%20Video%20Talks.html.
Credit: University of Chicago
Ecology drives evolution. In today's issue of the journal
Science, UC Davis expert Thomas Schoener describes growing evidence that the reverse is also true, and explores what that might mean to our understanding of how environmental change affects species and vice-versa.
A classic example of ecology influencing evolution is seen in a Gal�pagos ground finch, Geospiza fortis. In this species, larger beaks dominated the population after dry years when large seeds were more abundant. After wet years, the direction of natural selection reversed, favoring smaller beaks that better handled the small seeds produced in the wet environment.
Environmental factors had given birds with certain genes a survival advantage.
But does evolution affect ecology over similar time scales? Researchers are increasingly thinking that the answer is yes, says Schoener, who points toward numerous examples of organisms evolving rapidly. This sets the stage for the possibility that evolutionary dynamics routinely interact with ecological dynamics.
Schoener writes: "If ecology affects evolution (long supported) and evolution affects ecology (becoming increasingly supported), then what? The transformed ecology might affect evolution, and so on, back and forth in a feedback loop".........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
January 28, 2011, 7:16 PM CT
Chemistry Now Video Series
In celebration of the International Year of Chemistry, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, have teamed up to launch "Chemistry Now," a weekly online video series that uncovers and explains the science of common physical objects in our world and the changes they undergo every day. The series also looks at the lives and work of researchers on the frontiers of 21st century chemistry.
"Chemistry Now" consists of 32 learning packages that aim to break down the chemistry behind things such as cheeseburgers and chocolate or soap and plastics. A new topic will be explored each week starting in January and running through May. The series will then resume in the fall of 2011 to keep pace with the academic school year.
Made particularly for students and teachers to explore chemistry in and beyond the classroom, the online videos are matched with lesson plans from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and are available cost-free on NBC Learn and NSF's Science360 websites and on the NSTA blog.
Weekly content includes original video stories that illustrate real-world applications of chemistry; current events and archival news stories correlation to chemistry; original source documents and images from the Chemical Heritage Foundation; articles from the archives and current publications of
Scientific American; and content-coordinated lesson plans for middle and high school students, produced by national curriculum specialists at NSTA.........
Posted by: Sarah Read more Source
January 28, 2011, 7:12 PM CT
Physics-Based Space Weather Model
The first large-scale, physics-based space weather prediction model is transitioning from research into operation.
Researchers affiliated with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling (CISM) and the National Weather Service reported the news today at the annual American Meteorological Society (AMS) meeting in Seattle, Wash.
The model will provide forecasters with a one-to-four day advance warning of high speed streams of solar plasma and Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
These streams from the Sun may severely disrupt or damage space- and ground-based communications systems, and pose hazards to satellite operations.
CISM is an NSF Science and Technology Center (STC) made up of 11 member institutions. Established in 2002, CISM scientists address the emerging system-science of Sun-to-Earth space weather.
The research-to-operations transition has been enabled by an unprecedented partnership between the Boston University-led CISM and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center.
"It's very exciting to pioneer a path from research to operations in space weather," says scientist Jeffrey Hughes of Boston University, CISM's director. "The science is having a real impact on the practical problem of predicting when 'solar storms' will affect us here on Earth.".........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
January 28, 2011, 7:59 AM CT
Cow rumen for better biofuels enzymes
The researchers placed mesh bags of switchgrass in the cow rumen to isolate those microbes that adhere to the grass and the microbial enzymes that help break down plant biomass. This effort yielded dozens of new candidate enzymes for biofuel production.
Credit: L. Brian Stauffer
When it comes to breaking down plant matter and converting it to energy, the cow has it all figured out. Its digestive system allows it to eat more than 150 pounds of plant matter every day. Now scientists report that they have found dozens of previously unknown microbial enzymes in the bovine rumen � the cow's primary grass-digestion chamber � that contribute to the breakdown of switchgrass, a renewable biofuel energy source.
The study, in the journal
Science, tackles a major barrier to the development of more affordable and environmentally sustainable biofuels. Rather than relying on the fermentation of simple sugars in food crops such as corn, beets or sugar cane (which is environmentally costly and threatens the food supply) scientists are looking for better ways to convert the leaves and stems of grasses or woody plants to liquid fuel. These "second-generation" biofuels ideally will be "carbon neutral," absorbing as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as is emitted in their processing and use.
But breaking down and releasing the energy in the plant cell wall is no easy task.
"The problem with second-generation biofuels is the problem of unlocking the soluble fermentable sugars that are in the plant cell wall," said University of Illinois animal sciences professor Roderick Mackie, an author on the study whose research into the microbial life of the bovine rumen set the stage for the new approach. "The cow's been doing that for millions of years. And we want to examine the mechanisms that the cow uses to find enzymes for application in the biofuels industry".........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
January 28, 2011, 7:56 AM CT
Ecosystems and Fishing in Northwest Mexico
Fisherman on small boats return to Golfo de Santa Clara with gulf corvina fish.
Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have completed a newly released study on the geography of commercial fisheries in Northwest Mexico and the results could have far-ranging implications for the sustainable future of marine wildlife in the area.
The scientists, led by Scripps postdoctoral researcher Brad Erisman, analyzed data from local fisheries offices around the region that includes Baja California as well as Gulf of California coasts from Sonora south to Nayarit. The region accounts for more than 60 percent of fishing production in Mexico.
The scientists' goal was to detect any patterns between the geography of the species and their habitats in Northwest Mexico, and the localized fishing information revealed in the data. After poring over the data the scientists found clear-cut overlapping patterns in their analysis and used the results to create a new map proposing five clearly defined fishery sub-regions around Northwest Mexico.
While fisheries resources in Northwest Mexico are currently managed as one homogeneous area, the researchers' proposed sub-regions differentiate between areas rich in mangroves versus rocky shores, reefs versus soft sea bottoms, as well as temperate versus tropical regions, and geological features distinguishing west and east.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
January 28, 2011, 7:43 AM CT
Dinosaurs survived mass extinction by 700,000 years
University of Alberta scientists determined that a fossilized dinosaur bone found in New Mexico confounds the long established paradigm that the age of dinosaurs ended between 65.5 and 66 million years ago.
The U of A team, led by Larry Heaman from the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, determined the femur bone of a hadrosaur as being only 64.8 million years old. That means this particular plant eater was alive about 700,000 years after the mass extinction event a number of paleontologists believe wiped all non-avian dinosaurs off the face of earth, forever.
Heaman and his colleagues used a new direct-dating method called U-Pb (uranium-lead) dating. A laser beam unseats minute particles of the fossil, which then undergo isotopic analysis. This new technique not only allows the age of fossil bone to be determined but potentially can distinguish the type of food a dinosaur eats. Living bone contains very low levels of uranium but during fossilization (typically less than 1000 years after death) bone is enriched in elements like uranium. The uranium atoms in bone decay spontaneously to lead over time and once fossilization is complete the uranium-lead clock starts ticking. The isotopic composition of lead determined in the hadrosaur's femur bone is therefore a measure of its absolute age.........
Posted by: William Read more Source
January 27, 2011, 10:53 PM CT
Humans may have left Africa for Eurasia earlier than believed
These small hand axes are at least 100,000 years old. A team of scientists found these tools in the United Arab Emirates.
Researchers have discovered new evidence suggesting that modern humans first left Africa to explore Eurasia much earlier than previously thought.
An international team of researchers has uncovered a tool kit that indicates that modern humans, who looked and perhaps behaved much like us, must have lived in eastern Arabia about 100,000 to 125,000 years ago. The collection of small hand axes, scrapers and other tools was found in Jebel Faya, United Arab Emirates. A report about the discovery appears in the journal Science.
The people who made these tools "are our ancestors, I have no doubt about that," said Hans-Peter Uerpmann, of the University of Tubingen in Gera number of, who collaborated on the project, at a press teleconference Wednesday.
But the findings still do not prove definitively that modern humans made these tools, as the scientists did not find human remains near them, said Ted Goebel, anthropologist at Texas A&M University, who was not involved in the study. They potentially could have been made by Neanderthals or Neanderthal-like hominids, who were already in Eurasia at that time, Goebel said.
Prior research suggested that modern humans first left Africa along the coast by way of the Indian Ocean rim about 60,000 years ago, based on genetic evidence.........
Posted by: William Read more Source
January 26, 2011, 6:59 AM CT
Evolution by mistake
Just like erasing misspellings on a whiteboard, organisms have evolved mechanisms to deal with errors that pop up when genetic information is translated into proteins. Joanna Masel (left) and Etienne Rajon discovered that such errors help organisms adapt to evolutionary challenges. Here, they write "GATTACA" on a whiteboard, for the 1997 movie spelled with letters of the genetic alphabet.
Credit: Beatriz Verdugo/UANews
Charles Darwin based his groundbreaking theory of natural selection on the realization that genetic variation among organisms is the key to evolution.
Some individuals are better adapted to a given environment than others, making them more likely to survive and pass on their genes to future generations. But exactly how nature creates variation in the first place still poses somewhat of a puzzle to evolutionary biologists.
Now, Joanna Masel, associate professor in the UA's department of ecology and evolutionary biology, and postdoctoral fellow Etienne Rajon discovered the ways organisms deal with mistakes that occur while the genetic code in their cells is being interpreted greatly influences their ability to adapt to new environmental conditions � in other words, their ability to evolve.
"Evolution needs a playground in order to try things out," Masel said. "It's like in competitive business: New products and ideas have to be tested to see whether they can live up to the challenge".
The finding is reported in a paper reported in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesIn nature, it turns out, a number of new traits that, for example, enable their bearers to conquer new habitats, start out as blunders: mistakes made by cells that result in altered proteins with changed properties or functions that are new altogether, even when there is nothing wrong with the gene itself. Sometime later, one of these mistakes can get into the gene and become more permanent.........
Posted by: Jaison Read more Source
January 26, 2011, 6:55 AM CT
A new look at the atom
Graduate student Vincent Lonij (left), associate professor of physics Alex Cronin, research assistant Will Holmgren and undergraduate student Catherine Klauss perform maintenance on a chamber used to beam atoms through a grating to measure a tiny force that helps physicists better understand the structure of atoms.
Credit: Norma Jean Gargasz/UANews
Measuring the attractive forces between atoms and surfaces with unprecedented precision, University of Arizona physicists have produced data that could refine our understanding of the structure of atoms and improve nanotechnology. The discovery has been reported in the journal
Physical Review LettersVan der Waals forces are fundamental for chemistry, biology and physics. However, they are among the weakest known chemical interactions, so they are notoriously hard to study. This force is so weak that it is hard to notice in everyday life. But delve into the world of micro-machines and nano-robots, and you will feel the force � everywhere.
"If you make your components small enough, eventually this van-der-Waals potential starts to become the dominant interaction," said Vincent Lonij, a graduate student in the UA department of physics who led the research as part of his doctoral thesis.
"If you make tiny, tiny gears for a nano-robot, for example, those gears just stick together and grind to a halt. We want to better understand how this force works".
To study the van-der-Waals force, Lonij and his co-workers Will Holmgren, Cathy Klauss and associate professor of physics Alex Cronin designed a sophisticated experimental setup that can measure the interactions between single atoms and a surface. The physicists take advantage of quantum mechanics, which states that atoms can be studied and described both as particles and as waves.........
Posted by: Sarah Read more Source
January 25, 2011, 7:34 AM CT
new light on dawn of the dinosaurs
Careful dating of new dinosaur fossils and volcanic ash around them by scientists from UC Davis and UC Berkeley casts doubt on the idea that dinosaurs appeared and opportunistically replaced other animals. Instead -- at least in one South American valley -- they seem to have existed side by side and gone through similar periods of extinction.
Geologists from Argentina and the United States announced earlier this month the discovery of a new dinosaur that roamed what is now South America 230 million years ago, at the beginning of the age of the dinosaurs. The newly discovered Eodramaeus, or "dawn runner," was a predatory dinosaur that walked (or ran) on two legs and weighed 10 to 15 pounds. The new fossil was described in a paper by Ricardo Martinez of the Universidad Nacional de San Juan, Argentina, and his colleagues in the journal Science Jan. 14.
The fossils come from a valley in the foothills of the Andes in northwestern Argentina. More than 200 million years ago, it was a rift valley on the western edge of the supercontinent Pangaea, surrounded by volcanoes. It's one of the few places in the world where a piece of tectonically active continental margin has been preserved, said Isabel Montañez, a UC Davis geology professor and a co-author of the Science paper.........
Posted by: William Read more Source
January 25, 2011, 7:31 AM CT
Debris on certain Himalayan glaciers
These are crevasses of a steep glacier in the Sutlej Valley of the Western Himalaya. This glacier has a debris-covered toe.
Credit: Bodo Bookhagen, UCSB
A new scientific study shows that debris coverage �� pebbles, rocks, and debris from surrounding mountains �� appears to be a missing link in the understanding of the decline of glaciers. Debris is distinct from soot and dust, as per the scientists.
Melting of glaciers in the Himalayan Mountains affects water supplies for hundreds of millions of people living in South and Central Asia. Experts have stated that global warming is a key element in the melting of glaciers worldwide.
Bodo Bookhagen, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at UC Santa Barbara, co-authored a paper on this topic in
Nature Geoscience, published this week. The first author is Dirk Scherler, Bookhagen's graduate student from Gera number of, who performed part of this research while studying at UCSB.
"With the aid of new remote-sensing methods and satellite images, we identified debris coverage to be an important contributor to glacial advance and retreat behaviors," said Bookhagen. "This parameter has been almost completely neglected in prior Himalayan and other mountainous region studies, eventhough its impact has been known for some time".
The finding is one more element in a worldwide political controversy involving global warming. "Controversy about the current state and future evolution of Himalayan glaciers has been stirred up by erroneous reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)," as per the paper.........
Posted by: Tyler Read more Source
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Net World Directory
