An Atlas V rocket carrying Landsat 8 seen just after launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. (NASA)

NASA’s latest Earth-observing satellite rocketed into space today continuing a program which began more than 40 years ago.

An Atlas V rocket carrying the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California.

NASA officials called today’s launch “picture perfect.”   The spacecraft is now on its own after a successful separation from the Centaur upper stage.

The LDCM is the eighth in a series of global observational spacecraft called Landsat, a collaborative effort between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

According to NASA, it will play a critical role in monitoring, understanding and managing the resources, such as food and water, needed to sustain human life.

After three months of testing in orbit, the satellite will become known as Landsat 8, and all operational control of the spacecraft will transfer to USGS.

All Landsat data and imaging will continue to be collected by USGS primary ground stations in South Dakota and Australia.

Orbiting Earth every 99 minutes, Landsat 8 will be able to image Earth every 16 days as it circles the globe in a near polar orbit. Two new sophisticated instruments, Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), will allow Landsat 8 to provide image and data information that wasn’t possible with previous Landsat satellites.

Landsat 7 took these images showing the significant shrinkage of central Asia’s Aral Sea from 1977 to 2010 due to water diversion for agricultural use. (USGS)

The OLI will cover wide areas of the Earth’s surface, sending back data and high definition images to help observers distinguish between various surfaces; such as urban, agricultural and forested areas.

The TIRS will use new technology which applies quantum physics to measure land surface temperature in two thermal bands, helping observers differentiate the temperature of the Earth’s surface from that of the atmosphere.

The Landsat mission to study and monitor our planet’s land masses began with the launch of Landsat 1  in 1972.

Since then, Landsat 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 have all been put into service.  Landsat satellites 1 through 4 were taken out of service from the late 1970s through the early 1990s.

Landsat 5 , launched in 1984, was recently taken out of service and Landsat 6 never made it into orbit after a fuel line exploded seven minutes after liftoff.  Along with the just-launched Landsat 8, Landsat 7, which was sent into orbit in 1999, is the only remaining Landsat observing satellite still in service.

Landsat satellites snapped these Washington state images of  Mount St. Helens, which was surrounded by forests in 1974. Three months after the 1980 volcanic eruption, devastation caused by the blast is evident. By 2011, much of the damaged region had started to regrow. (USGS)

The imaging and data provided by the Landsat spacecraft  have helped scientists  better understand our planet’s climate, carbon cycle, ecosystems, water cycle, biogeochemistry and changes to Earth’s surface, as well as our understanding of visible effects  human have made to land surfaces.

NASA and USGS say the information provided by Landsat over the last 40 years has helped improve human and biodiversity health, energy and water management, urban planning, disaster recovery, and agriculture, which in turn has helped develop the world economy.

NASA video overview of the LDCM Mission

Georgia Tech researchers found many types of bacteria, include E.coli, in the middle to upper regions of the troposphere. (Photo: USDA)

Scientists have discovered a considerable number of living microorganisms, including bacteria, in the middle to upper regions of the troposphere, the region of our atmosphere that’s about seven to 20 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology said their findings might help other scientists learn more about the role microorganisms play in forming ice that may impact weather and climate.

Health and medical experts studying the transmission of disease could also benefit by gaining new insight into long-distance transport of bacteria.

Conditions in the troposphere cannot support most other forms of life without the aid of special equipment. Temperatures there can drop to as low as -55° C and the air pressure and density are considerably lower than on earth.

Microorganisms, such as bacteria, are plentiful and can be found everywhere on the Earth and in the sea.

These hardy little forms of life not only survive but actually thrive in some of the harshest conditions known to man. They live within other forms of life, such as the human body; in the soil and the air surrounding us; in scalding hot springs; the great depths of the ocean; and inside rocks deep within the Earth’s crust.

A view outside the window of a DC-8 aircraft as air samples are gathered for a NASA study. Georgia Tech scientists found living microorganisms in the samples. (Photo: NASA)

The microorganisms  documented by Georgia Tech scientists were gathered from air samples recovered as part of NASA’s 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) program, which studies low- and high-altitude air masses associated with tropical storms.

NASA gathered the air samples from aboard a DC-8 aircraft that flew over both land and ocean, including the Caribbean Sea and portions of the Atlantic Ocean during and after two major tropical hurricanes in 2010, Earl and Karl.

Attaching a special filter system developed by the Georgia Tech team to the aircraft’s outside air sampling probes, researchers were able to collect numerous particles, including the microorganisms.

Once the air samples were taken, the filters were removed from the aircraft and sent to researchers for examination.

Rather than resorting to conventional cell-culture techniques to make their analysis, the researchers instead used genomic techniques, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) – a biochemical technology used in molecular biology that magnifies a piece of DNA, allowing scientists to generate millions of copies of the DNA sequence, as well as gene sequencing to spot and estimate the quantities of microorganisms contained within the air samples.

The researchers found more bacteria than fungi among the microorganisms.

“We did not expect to find so many microorganisms in the troposphere, which is considered a difficult environment for life,” said one of the study’s authors, Kostas Konstantinidis, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech. “There seems to be quite a diversity of species, but not all bacteria make it into the upper troposphere.”

Terry Lathem, a graduate student in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, aboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft while gathering samples of microorganisms in the atmosphere. (NASA)

The living bacterial cells found made up about 20 percent of the total particles detected within the size range of 0.25 to 1 microns in diameter.

Air samples taken over the ocean were found to contain mostly marine bacteria, while primarily terrestrial bacteria was found in samples taken above land.

The researchers also found that hurricanes had a major impact on the distribution and dynamics of microorganism populations.

Kostas Konstantinidis joins us for this weekend’s radio edition of Science World.  He’ll tell us how these findings could help advance research in climatology and medicine.

Check out the right column for scheduled air-times or listen now to the interview below.

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Waste heat from major cities is contributing to warmer winters, according to a new study. (Photo: Petr Magera via Creative Commons at Flickr)

Everyday energy consumption in urban areas could be significant enough to cause winter temperatures to rise.

According to a new study funded by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), waste heat released in major cities in the Northern Hemisphere in the northern-most parts of North America and Eurasia.

“The world’s most populated metropolitan areas, which also have the highest rates of energy consumption, are along the east and west coasts of the North American and Eurasian continents, underneath the most prominent atmospheric circulation troughs and ridges,” said Ming Cai, from Florida State University and an author of the study. “The concentrated and intensive release of waste energy in these areas causes a noticeable interruption to normal atmospheric circulation systems, leading to remote surface temperature changes far away from the regions where the waste heat is generated.”

According to the study published Nature Climate Change, the total amount of energy consumed throughout the world in 2006 was 16 terawatts, 16 trillion watts with 6.7 terawatts of that amount consumed within the 86 metropolitan areas considered in the study.

“The burning of fossil fuel not only emits greenhouse gases but also directly effects temperatures because of heat that escapes from sources like buildings and cars,” said Aixue Hu of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, another of the study’s authors.

The excess energy and resulting warmer winter temperatures could also help explain the discrepancies between actual observed warming over the last half-century, compared to the amount of warming that computer models have been able to account for.

US National Weather Service illustration of two atmospheric systems known as jet streams traveling northeast across the United States. (NOAA)

Waste heat from urban areas is different from energy found naturally in atmosphere, such as what’s produced by our Sun-warmed planet.  That atmospheric energy is normally distributed from one region to another by various circulation systems, like the Jet Stream.

Humans consume energy produced by fossil fuel sources, oil and coal, that have stayed hidden and unused for millions of years.  Although the amount of energy produced and used by humans represents only a small portion of what’s actually transported throughout the atmosphere by nature, the researchers say that it is highly concentrated in urban areas.

“What we found is that energy use from multiple urban areas collectively can warm the atmosphere remotely, thousands of miles away from the energy consumption regions,” said study co-author Guang Zhang, from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “This is accomplished through atmospheric circulation change.”

The influence of heat generated in urban areas can widen the jet stream and strengthen atmospheric flows in regions located at mid-latitudes, areas which lie between the tropics and the polar regions of the world.

Researchers point out this warming effect generated by urban heat is not necessarily even and uniform throughout the world.  They say changes in major atmospheric systems, that can cool parts of Europe by up to 1 degree C mostly during the fall, can offset this heating effect. That’s why the impact of the urban winter heat on global temperatures is slight, raising the temperature by an average of about .1 degree C worldwide.

The study does not address whether the effects of urban heating can actually disrupt atmospheric weather patterns or if it plays any role in hastening global warming.

This map shows the global Mohorovičić discontinuity – known as Moho – based on data from the European Space Agency's GOCE satellite. (Image: ESA/GEMMA project)

The European Space Agency (ESA) has produced the first global high-resolution map of the boundary area between the Earth’s crust and mantle, which could offer new clues into the dynamics of Earth’s interior.

The new map, of what’s called the Mohorovičić discontinuity (Moho), was created with data provided by the GOCE satellite.

The Moho boundary was named after Andrija Mohorovičić, a Croatian scientist who discovered it back in 1909.

Although this region has never been seen, scientists can spot it through seismic measurements when there are sharp and sudden changes in the speed of earthquake waves, compared to measurements taken within the crust.  Scientists presume that this may be due to a change in rock types.

Earth’s crust is the outermost shell of the planet.  The crust is important because we live on it and it’s where all our geological resources – such as natural gas, oil and minerals – come from.

The crust and upper mantle layers of the Earth are where major geological processes, like earthquakes and volcanism, take place.

In order to study and understand the Moho, scientists currently use data models based on either seismic or gravity measurements, but those methods can  provide limited information.

According to ESA, the new maps make it possible to estimate the Moho depth worldwide, including areas where ground data is not currently available.

People take shelter as a ceiling collapses in a bookstore during the 9.0 magnitude earthquake in northeastern Japan, March 11, 2011 - (Photo: Reuters)

Sunday marks the one year anniversary of the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tsunami off the eastern coast of Japan.

A year later, scientists worldwide continue to sift through huge amounts of data provided by, what they call, the best-recorded earthquake of all time.

Seismologist  Zhigang Peng, associate professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, came up with a unique way to utilize and share some of that information with others.

He took the seismic waves, created by the earthquake and its aftershocks, and converted them into audio files, so people can actually hear what the quake sounded like as it traveled through the earth and throughout the world.

“We’re able to bring earthquake data to life by combining seismic auditory and visual information,” said Peng.  “People are able to hear pitch and amplitude changes while watching seismic frequency changes. Audiences can relate the earthquake signals to familiar sounds such as thunder, popcorn popping and fireworks.”

Vehicles are crushed by a collapsed wall at a carpark in Mito city in Ibaraki prefecture after a massive earthquake rocked Japan, March 11, 2011 - (Photo: AFP)

Peng says he and his colleagues were motivated to produce the audio representations of the earthquake in order to easily convey the information and scientific knowledge that came out of  the event.

While people can generally hear audio between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, the actual sounds produced by the earthquake’s seismic data were below the normal range of human hearing.

In order to create an audio representation humans can hear, Peng’s team increased the speed of the data playback until it produced audio that fell within the range of normal human hearing.

The process allowed for a bit of time compression as well, condensing hours of material into just a few seconds.

Three of these audio clips are available on the Internet.  The first two clips were made from data recorded in Japan itself.

Clip #1 provides the sound of the main earthquake taking place. The audio was produced from seismic data recorded near the earthquake’s epicenter.

>>> Clip #1

In clip #2, you can not only hear the main earthquake, but the immediate aftershocks as well. Peng says the aftershocks you hear in the clip are actually the sounds of tectonic plates adjusting after the main quake.

>>> Clip #2

Clip #3 was taken from seismic data recorded in California, approximately 9656.064 kilometers away.  In this clip, what sounds like thunder is actually the main quake in the distance, and the rainfall sounds are the sounds of subtle fault movements induced by the Japan earthquake.

>>> Clip #3

A seismologist points to a seismographic graph showing the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan, March 11, 2011. (Photo: REUTERS/David Moir)

Peng says the way in which last year’s massive earthquake became so well-recorded can be traced back to the 6.9 magnitude quake that struck Kobe Japan in January 1995.

The Kobe quake was considered, at the time, to be the worst in Japan since the Great Tokyo Earthquake of 1923, which measured 7.9 on the Richter Scale and killed 140,000 people.

Soon after Kobe quake, the Japanese government purchased and deployed thousands of high quality seismic instruments across the entire nation.  It’s this network of sophisticated measuring devices that made the abundance of data on the 2011 Japan Earthquake possible.

Dr.  Zhigang Peng joins us this weekend on the radio edition of “Science World.”   He shares more on how he and his research team were able to take raw seismic data and turn it into audio recordings.  Tune in (see right column for scheduled times) or check out the interview below.

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Other stories we cover on the “Science World” radio program this week include:

• Lessons learned from Japan’s Devastating Magnitude 9 Earthquake
• Apple rolls out newest version iPad tablet computer
• Surgery helps those suffering seizures from epilepsy
• Tiny gecko feet help scientists develop new super adhesive
• New guidelines would help ensure HIV treatment

Artist's conception of exoplanet GJ1214b orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth (Photo: David A. Aguilar (CfA))

Data from the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a new class of planet, one which is water-covered and has a steamy atmosphere.

We currently have three types of planets in our Solar System; rocky (Earth, Venus, Mercury and Mars), gas giants (Saturn and Jupiter) and ice giants (Uranus and Neptune).

While studying the exoplanet, GJ 1214b, astronomers found it to be like no other known planet because a significant portion of its mass is made up of water.

The GJ 1214b, discovered back in 2009, is about 2.7 times Earth’s diameter and weighs almost seven times as much.

GJ 1214b orbits a red-dwarf star every 38 hours at a distance of two million kilometers, and scientists estimate that it has a temperature of 230 degrees Celsius.

Scientists determined a type of haze that surrounds the planet is, most likely, the result of the planet’s steamy atmosphere.

Astronomers calculate the exoplanet has more water and is less rocky than Earth.

The astronomers say that GJ 1214b is located in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer), about 40 light-years from Earth.

>>> Read more…

Why Earth has active volcanoes while the moon doesn’t

Image of an artificial moon rock sample, measuring about half a millimeter across (Image: Nature)

Earth is in a constant state of change and evolution thanks in part to the active volcanism taking place throughout our planet.

The moon also has a history of volcano activity, but evidence of its volcanic past dates back billions of years.

So, if both the Earth and moon have a history of volcanism, why doesn’t the moon currently have active volcanoes?

Scientists are puzzled because many of the rocks on the moon’s surface are thought to be molten and recent moon-quake data suggests there is a huge supply of liquid magma deep within its surface.

A team of European scientists now thinks the reason the moon lacks current volcanic activity is because the magma – hot, molten rock deep within the moon’s interior – might be so dense that it is simply too heavy to rise to the surface.

The researchers created microscopic copies of moon rock collected by the Apollo missions and then melted them at the extremely high pressures and temperatures found inside the moon. They then measured the density of these melted rocks with powerful x-rays.

The scientists found small droplets of titanium-rich glass that produce a liquid magma as dense as the rocks that are found in the deepest parts of the lunar mantle today.

Scientists say, since the magma was so dense, it would not be able to move towards the surface the same way magma on Earth does during a volcanic eruption.

>>> Read more…

Ancient rock art found in Brazil

This is the oldest reliably dated petroglyph ever found in the New World. (Photo/Image: Neves WA, Araujo AGM, Bernardo DV, Kipnis R, Feathers JK (2012) Rock Art at the Pleistocene/Holocene Boundary in Eastern South America. PLoS ONE 7(2): e32228. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032228)

Back on Earth, researchers recently found an extremely old human-like figure engraved in rock in central Brazil.

The engraving, or petroglyph,was found in an ancient limestone rock shelter called Lapa do Santo.

According to the researchers’ report, the petroglyph dates back to between 9,000 and 12,000 years ago, which would make it  the oldest reliably-dated specimen of this kind of rock art ever found in the Americas.

New World art produced during the time this discovery was engraved is quite rare.  Because of the rarity of this type of rock art, scientists know little about the differences of symbolic thinking of those who settled the Americas thousands of years ago.

Authors of this study suggest symbolic thought in South America was very diverse at that time, and that their discovery shows humans settled the New World earlier than first thought.

>>> Read more…

Scientists find new life forms deep within the Earth’s surface

Plutomurus ortobalaganensis found nearly two kilometers underground. (Image: University of Navarra)

Scientists exploring what’s been called the world’s deepest cave say that they’ve found a new species of arthropod that lives and thrives deep underground.

The creature, Plutomurus ortobalaganensis, is a tiny, primitive, wingless and eyeless, six-legged insect which lives in total darkness.

The scientists say the discovery of life in such a deep environment should provide new insight into how we look at life on Earth.

Since they live without light and have extremely limited food resources, animals such as the Plutomurus ortobalaganensis have had to develop some uncommon methods of surviving in its subterranean environment.

The new creature was found 1,980 meters below ground level in the Krubera or Voronja Cave, located in Abkhazia, a remote area near the Black Sea in the mountains of Western Caucasus.

The Krubera/Voronja cave reaches a depth of more than two kilometers below the surface of the Earth.

>>> Read more…

Hardly a week goes by that we aren’t reporting a story on concerns about global warming.

But, a growing number of people in the scientific community are coming forward to express doubts about the prevailing scientific opinions concerning global warming.

Recently, 16 respected scientists signed a letter, published in the Wall Street Journal, which indicated there is no need to panic about global warming, arguing there’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize‘ the world’s economy.

A few days after the letter appeared, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) released a study which finds human activity contributes to global warming.

The NASA study, “Earth’s energy imbalance and implications,” was recently published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The study was led by James Hansen, director of  GISS, a respected scientist who is well known for his work in climatology.

Data collected by Argo floats, such as this one, helped Dr. Hansen's team improve the calculation of Earth's energy imbalance. (Photo: Argo Project Office)

Many say it was his testimony on climate change before the US Congress in 1988, that was responsible for increasing awareness of global warming and climate change, bringing the issue to the forefront of the public’s consciousness.

At the heart of the new paper is an emphasis that greenhouse gases generated by human activity – and not changes in solar activity – are the primary force driving global warming.

The study calculated the balance of energy the Earth takes in from the sun, the amount of energy that’s absorbed by the surface of the Earth and compared it to what energy is returned from the Earth to space in the form of heat.

The researchers found, despite unusually low solar activity between 2005 and 2010, Earth continued to absorb more energy than it returned to space.

Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a colleague of Dr. Hansen’s at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, tells us that basically, we’re putting greenhouse gases – which are primarily water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone – into the atmosphere, making it harder for energy coming in from the sun and processed by Earth’s climate systems to make it back out to space.

Schmidt says that their research showed that temperatures are changing because of increases in greenhouse gases.  The increased emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere keep more energy trapped near the ground than what would be considered normal.

Dr. Gavin Schmidt (Photo: NASA/GISS)

That imbalance – more energy coming into Earth than is leaving it – is part of the whole global warming story.

As far as other evidence supporting the theory of human-caused global warming, Dr. Schmidt points to conditions such as the temperature changes that scientists are recording around the world; the heat content changes in the ocean; stratospheric cooling, which he says is a “very clear signature of carbon dioxide;” as well as the spectral radiation scientists are measuring from satellites.

Dr. Schmidt says those along, with other signs to look for, such as sea ice, the phenology of plants and glacial melting, prove that the actual fact of warming is incontrovertible, that the planet has clearly warmed over the last 100 years and that the warming has increased over the last few decades.

Dr. William Happer, a professor of physics at Princeton University is one of the 16 scientists who signed the Wall Street Journal letter, and he raises doubts about what has almost become conventional wisdom on global warming.

Dr. Happer also testified before Congress, in 2009, saying, “I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind.”

Dr. Happer says the Wall Street Journal letter is the result of a scientific examination of  global warming and increasing CO², which found “there’s more smoke than fire there,” and demonstrates that not all scientists think there’s a drastic problem that must be immediately addressed.

Dr. William Happer (Photo: Denise Applewhite, Princeton University Office of Communication)

The Wall Street Journal letter was directed toward “candidates running for public office in any contemporary democracy who may have to consider what, if anything, to do about ‘global warming.’”

The signatories of the letter said that they were speaking for “many scientists and engineers, who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate,” and that their basic message to the candidates was that, “there is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to “decarbonize” the world’s economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.”

Many people today believe that anthropogenic global warming is a cold, hard and irrefutable fact.  But, scientists such as Dr. Happer say this might not necessarily be true.

Dr. Happer describes climate change as happening all the time, that it’s been changing and that it has clearly warmed up over the last 200 years.  But Dr. Happer insists the current warming trend started from a very cold period at the end of what has been called the “little ice age”.

“Most of the warming you hear about and most of the glacier melting was over by 1900,” says Dr. Happer.

Dr. Happer finds it hard to believe the early phase of the warming, which he says is the biggest part, was all independent of CO2 because its levels hadn’t increased much before 1900.

In the Wall Street Journal letter, Dr. Happer points out there has been no warming for over 10 years.  He invites anyone to “look it up on the Internet.”

CO2 (Image: David Gaya/Generated with KPovModeler via Wikimedia)

“Just look at the graph of temperature versus time since the year 2000 and there has been no warming,” says Dr. Happer.

According to Dr. Happer, the data implies that the models, which predicted quite a lot of warming, have greatly exaggerated the effect of C02.

Dr. Happer thinks that most, if not all, of those who signed the letter believe  CO2 will cause some warming but that the amount has been enormously exaggerated.

You, of course, can find volumes and volumes of information and data that support both sides of this issue on the Internet or in your local library.

But, by sharing what Drs. Happer and Schmidt shared with us on this issue, we wanted to give you just a little “food for thought” so that you draw your own conclusions regarding global warming and whether or not it’s been primarily caused by human activity.

Both Dr. Gavin Schmidt, from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and, Dr. William Happer of Princeton University join us this weekend on the radio edition of “Science World.”

They’ll each give us their insight into the global warming/climate change issue. Tune in (see right column for scheduled times).

Other stories we cover on the “Science World” radio program this week include:

• Mating call of prehistoric katydid chirps again
• Pakistani fisherman reel in a big one – a 12-meter whale-shark
• President Obama holds science fair at White House
• Scientists: plants can talk to each other
• Russian scientists say they’ve drilled through thick Antarctic ice to reach freshwater lake
• Researchers reverse Alzheimer’s disease in mice
• Farming may have helped rainforests of Central Africa disappear

Russian researchers at the Vostok station in Antarctica after reaching subglacial Lake Vostok. (Photo: AP/Arctic and Antarctic Research Insitute of St. Petersburg)

After 20 years of drilling, Russian scientists say they’ve reached Lake Vostok, Antarctica‘s largest subglacial lake, which has been buried nearly four kilometers below the ice sheet for about 20 million years.

The development could lead to the discovery of new life forms which existed before the Ice Age.  Scientists hope to find material that could help in the search for life on other planets – such as in the ice-encrusted moons of Jupiter and Saturn or under Mars’ polar ice caps – where conditions could be similar.

“There is no other place on Earth that has been in isolation for more than 20 million years,” Lev Savatyugin, a researcher with Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), told the Associated Press. “It’s a meeting with the unknown.”

Savatyugin told the AP that scientists hope they’ll find primeval bacteria that could further human knowledge of the origins of life.

“We need to see what we have here before we send missions to ice-crust moons, like Jupiter’s moon Europa,” he said.

The project has not been without controversy.  Some environmentalists worried the Russian team’s use of 60 metric tons of lubricants and antifreeze in the drilling process could contaminate the unspoiled lake.

But project’s researchers have said their drill bore would only slightly touch the surface of the lake. The resulting surge in pressure, once the drill made it through the ice and into the lake, would send the water rushing up the drill shaft where it would immediately freeze, which the Russian scientists say, would seal out the toxic chemicals.

>>> Read more…

Spanking your kids may cause long-term harm

“Spare the rod and spoil the child” as the old saying goes, but a new study from Canada shows spanking and other forms of physical punishment is harmful to the long-term development of children.

The study’s authors analyzed 20 years of research and found, virtually without exception, “that physical punishment was associated with higher levels of aggression against parents, siblings, peers and spouses.”

For the study, researchers developed methods of discipline designed to both reduce difficult behavior in children and help the parents cut back on physical punishment like spanking.

Parents in 500 families were trained in and encouraged to use these methods.

After a trial period, the researchers found that as physical punishment was reduced, so too were the difficult behaviors exhibited by the children.

Spanking and other forms of physical punishment has been associated in past studies with a variety of mental health problems, like depression, anxiety and drug and alcohol use.

Recent neuroimaging studies also suggest that physical forms of punishment could alter parts of the brain that are linked to performance on IQ tests and increase vulnerability to drug or alcohol dependence.

Over the years, parenting attitudes toward using physical punishment have changed, with many countries  shifting instead to a focus on positive discipline of children.  Some countries have legally abolished physical punishment.

>>> Read more…

Sea Monster is oldest living thing in the world

Posidonia oceanica (Photo: Albert Kok via Wikimedia Commons)

An international research team says that they have found the oldest living thing on Earth and it’s a monster!

Actually it’s a giant ancient sea grass called Posidonia oceanica.  One single organism of this species of sea grass has been found to span up to 15 kilometers wide, reaching a mass of more than 6,000 metric tons.

Reproducing asexually, it generates clones and may well be more than 100,000 years old.

The researchers studied 40 meadows of the sea grass across 3,500 kilometers of the Mediterranean Sea.   The scientists developed and used various computer models that helped demonstrate the species clonal reproductive system which they say allowed the Posidonia oceanica to spread and maintain high-quality clones over the years.   The researchers point out that even the hardiest genotypes of organisms that can only reproduce sexually are disappear with each generation.

“Clonal organisms have an extraordinary capacity to transmit only ‘highly competent’ genomes, through generations, with potentially no end,” says Professor Carlos Duarte, director of the University of Western Australia’s Ocean’s Institute.

But, scientists say that sea grass, which serves as the foundation of key coastal ecosystems, have declined globally for the past 20 years and that the Posidonia oceanica meadows are now decreasing by an annual estimated rate of five percent.

“The concern is that while Posidonia oceanica meadows have thrived for millennia their current decline suggests they may no longer be able to adapt to the unprecedented rate of global climate change,” said the researchers in their report.

>>> Read more…

New discovery may allow faster more efficient hard drives

Experimental images showing the repeated deterministic switching of nano islands. Initially the two nano islands have different magnetic orientation (black and white respectively). (Photo: Johan Mentink and Alexey Kimel, Radboud University Nijmegen; Richard Evans, University of York)

A radical new technique of magnetic recording allows information to be processed hundreds of times faster than current hard drive technology allows.

An international team of scientists, led by the University of York’s Department of Physics, has developed and demonstrated the technique.

Instead of using the traditional method of using magnetism to record information onto ferrous material, the researchers used heat to record information, something that has long been thought to be unimaginable.

The researchers believe this finding will not only make future magnetic recording devices faster, but would also allow them to be more energy-efficient, too.

“Instead of using a magnetic field to record information on a magnetic medium, we harnessed much stronger internal forces and recorded information using only heat,” said York physicist Thomas Ostler. “This revolutionary method allows the recording of Terabytes of information per second, hundreds of times faster than present hard drive technology. As there is no need for a magnetic field, there is also less energy consumption.”

The principle that has long been used in magnetic recording technology is that the North Pole of a magnet is attracted to the South Pole of another and two poles that are alike will repel one another. Until this discovery it’s been thought that you had to apply an external magnetic field to be able to record just one bit of information.

But this new method of magnetic recording showed that the positions of both the North and South poles of a magnet can be reversed by an ultra-short heat pulse, which they say harnesses the power of much stronger internal forces within magnetic media.

>>> Read more…

Image of the surface of Venus taken by the space probe, Venera 13 (Photo: L. Ksanfomaliti-Solar System Research)

A renowned Russian astronomer drew lots of attention after claiming there is life on Venus.

Leonid Ksanfomaliti, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, analyzed photos made by Venera-13, a Soviet-era space probe that explored Venus.

According to Ksanfomaliti, the photos showed objects – which looked like a disk, black flap and scorpion – that appeared to “emerge, fluctuate and disappear.”

This indicated, he said, that these objects had changed locations on the photos and traces on the ground.

But Ksanfomaliti’s claims are refuted by a number of experts including Jonathon Hill, a researcher and mission planner, who processes many of the images taken during NASA’s Mars missions.

Hill told an online journal his examination of higher-resolution versions of the Venera-13 photos determined one of the objects identified by Ksanfomaliti is not a living creature, but rather a mechanical component.

He points out the very same object also appeared in a photograph that was taken by an identical Venusian landing probe, the Venera-14.  One of the other objects was determined to be nothing more than processed noise.

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Oldest dinosaur nest found

Close-up of embryonic skeleton of Massospondylus from clutch of eggs at the nesting site (Photo: D. Scott)

Scientists excavating in South Africa say they’ve discovered the oldest dinosaur nesting site ever found.

It is 190 million years old and belongs to the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus.

The researchers say the discovery reveals significant clues about the evolution of complex reproductive behavior in early dinosaurs.

The scientists found clutches of eggs, many with embryos, as well as tiny dinosaur footprints, which they say is the oldest known evidence showing that dinosaur hatchlings remained at their nesting site long enough to at least double in size.

The dinosaur nesting ground is believed to be more than 100 million years older than previously known nesting sites.

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Saliva HIV test shown to be as accurate as standard blood test

OraQuick ADVANCE® Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test (Photo: OraSure Technologies)

A saliva test is as accurate as traditional blood tests when testing for HIV, according to a new study.

Scientists in Canada analyzed data from five worldwide databases and found the saliva HIV test, OraQuick HIV1/2, had the same accuracy as the blood test for high-risk populations.

The researchers found the saliva test is 99 percent accurate for HIV in high risk populations, and about 97 percent in low risk populations.

The oral HIV test has become popular for a number of reasons, including its acceptability and ease of use.  The test is also non-invasive, pain-free, convenient and provides test results within 20 minutes.

“Getting people to show up for HIV testing at public clinics has been difficult because of visibility, stigma, lack of privacy and discrimination,” says study lead author Dr. Nikita Pant Pai. “A confidential testing option such as self-testing could bring an end to the stigmatization associated with HIV testing.”

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Scientists observe scorpions to learn how to protect machine parts

Androctonus australis - Yellow fattail scorpion (Photo: Creative Commons)

Scientists looking for ways to protect a machine’s moving parts from wear and tear looked to the yellow fattail scorpion for inspiration.

This scorpion uses its bionic shield to protect itself from scratches caused by desert sandstorms.

The researchers examined bumps and grooves found on the scorpions’ backs, scanned the arachnids with a 3D laser device, and developed a special computer program simulating the movement of sand-filled air over the scorpions.

The tools allowed researchers to create a computer model that helped them to develop a number of patterned surfaces to test. The team tested these surfaces by conducting erosion tests on them.

They found that a series of small grooves, cut at a 30-degree angle, gave steel surfaces the best protection from erosion, which they say is a key cause of material damage and equipment failure.

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Large amount of fresh water found in Arctic Ocean

Map of the Arctic Ocean (Image: US Geological Survey)

A large dome of fresh water that’s been building up in the Arctic Ocean over the last 15 years has the potential to impact weather patterns.

English researchers say a change in wind direction could cause this water to spill into the north Atlantic, which in turn would cool Europe.

In a study published in Nature Geoscience, researchers report this fresh-water dome may have been created by strong Arctic winds, which sped up a large ocean circulation known as the Beaufort Gyre, causing the surface of the sea to bulge out.

The researchers say a change in wind direction would allow the fresh water to flow into the remainder of the Arctic Ocean, possibly reaching the north Atlantic.

If this happens, the researchers say a crucial ocean current which originates from the Gulf Stream, could be slowed.

That would then cool Europe.  This current usually helps maintain relatively-mild conditions on the continent compared to other parts of the world located at similar latitudes.

Katharine Giles, the lead author of the study says, “Our next step is to look into how changes in the sea ice cover might affect the coupling between the atmosphere and the ocean in more detail to see if we can confirm this idea.”

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