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On this date in 1859, a massive solar superstorm took place. It's sometimes called the "perfect space storm" or the Carrington Event, after British astronomer Richard Carrington. He reported witnessing a massive white-light solar flare: a bright spot suddenly appearing on the surface of the Sun. At the same time, the Sun produced a coronal mass ejection, or CME: a large eruption of magnetized plasma. CMEs usually take three to four days to reach Earth, but the magnetic burst from the superstorm of 1859 reached us in just under 18 hours.
People were growing accustomed to rapid communication over the telegraph, which had been in use for 15 years. Within hours of the CME, telegraph wires began shorting out, starting fires and disrupting communication in North America and Europe. Compasses were useless because the Earth's magnetic field had gone haywire. The northern lights were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii, and the southern lights — aurora australis — were seen in Santiago, Chile. People in the northeastern United States could read the newspaper by the light of the aurora, and the Sun itself was twice as bright during the event. Subsequent solar storms have caused satellites, broadcast stations, and cell phones to malfunction; they've disrupted GPS systems on airplanes and have even knocked out entire power grids; in 1989, a storm much weaker than the superstorm of 1859 brought down the Hydro-Quebec power grid for more than nine hours. While scientists cannot predict the storms with any degree of confidence, some speculate that the Sun is expected to reach a period of peak activity in 2013, and the large flares often follow the peak periods. They're monitoring the Sun's activity closely, because with a little advance warning, power grids could be taken offline and satellites put in "sleep" mode for the duration of the storm, averting a global catastrophe from which it could take a decade and trillions of dollars to recover. |
dang...
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http://myscienceacademy.org/2012/09/...tum-tunneling/
Quantum tunneling illuminated in about a minute. |
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Actually, whatever else you might be able to do with superfluid helium one thing you *can't* do is make a perpetual engine. The Second Law of Thermodynamics utterly precludes any type of perpetual motion machine. The reason is that perpetual motion machines violate either of the aforementioned laws. Perpetual motion machines of the First Kind violate the First law of Thermodynamics because they do work without an input of energy. Energy is conserved in a closed system (the Universe is a closed system, the Earth is not) which means you cannot create new energy and you can't destroy existing energy you can only transform it from state to state. Perpetual motion machines of the Second Kind (which is the kind under discussion here) violate the Second Law because in any system where work is done there is some loss due to inefficiencies. That can't be eliminated no matter how hard you try. This means that even if you could harness the superfluid helium to drive a turbine, say, you would *still* lose some energy due to friction which would, eventually, run down the power source. You might be able to build an exceedingly long-lived power source from superfluid helium but it wouldn't be a perpetual energy source. Cheers Aj |
This looks interesting. I wonder if there will be real world applications for it.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/09/12/15544/ Note the limitations, though: you have to start with a penis. There are relatively few of those to spare, although since histocompatibility matching isn’t an issue, it ought to be doable as part of an organ donor program — we’ll just grab the penis as well as the corneas and kidneys. This procedure does not regrow the entire penis, but just the spongy erectile tissue in the core; this is implanted into the sheath of skin of the normal penis. I know all you body modification fans are dreaming of the day you can have multiple penises, but this isn’t quite there yet, and sorry, I should hope injured people who need the procedure get priority over cosmetic uses. But here’s the astonishing thing: it works. The procedure has only been tested in rabbits so far, but with amazing success. I know what you are saying. You are saying, “Really? Then show me the bunny penises, with erections.” And I will. |
http://news.yahoo.com/enormous-roman...191743498.html
Enormous Roman mosaic found under farmers field. |
Warp Factor 10!
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Cheers Aj |
http://news.yahoo.com/50-million-old...231502312.html
50 Million y/o chunk of Redwood found in diamond mine in Canada. |
The Science Channel has a new weekly series called The Code. It is about math holding the code or key to everything from music to how branches on a tree are formed to fractals......way good highly recommend it.
A new season of Curiosity is also starting. I couldn't figure out where to post these fascinating little tidbits of news about good science related TV.........so I put it here..... |
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Good choice, I'll be looking for the shows. |
Sadly Code is not on either netflix or amazon
Curiosity is only on amazon for rent, not on the free list (I hate commercials enough to disallow them, streaming or nothing in this house) |
Evidence for Mars having had liquid water
Evidence of an alluvial fan showing that rocks were moved by water flowing at a steady clip.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ms...l20120927.html So it appears that at one point in its geological history, Mars had liquid water and where there is liquid water, there's the possibility of life. Cheers Aj |
http://news.yahoo.com/asteroid-dust-...132248031.html
Interesting theory, doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. |
Wasn't sure where to put this link, but medicine IS science so...
NEW YORK (AP) — The potential scope of the meningitis outbreak that has killed at least five people widened dramatically Thursday as health officials warned that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of patients who got steroid back injections in 23 states could be at risk... http://news.yahoo.com/hundreds-seen-...nlwYWdl;_ylv=3 |
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Thank you and WOW! I get steroid injections in my hip so thanks for the info and before the next injection me and the Doc are gonna have a lil discussion. |
Economics and genetics meet in uneasy union
"Use of population-genetic data to predict economic success sparks war of words.
The invalid assumption that correlation implies cause is probably among the two or three most serious and common errors of human reasoning.” Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould was referring to purported links between genetics and an individual’s intelligence when he made this familiar complaint in his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man. Fast-forward three decades, and leading geneticists and anthropologists are levelling a similar charge at economics researchers who claim that a country’s genetic diversity can predict the success of its economy. To critics, the economists’ paper seems to suggest that a country’s poverty could be the result of its citizens’ genetic make-up, and the paper is attracting charges of genetic determinism, and even racism." for the complete article: http://http://www.nature.com/news/ec...-union-1.11565 |
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Stem-cell fraud hits febrile field
"After heart-treatment claims collapse, researchers caution against a rush to the clinic.
Rarely has such a spectacular scientific claim been debunked so rapidly. For a few brief hours last week, Hisashi Moriguchi, a project researcher at the University of Tokyo, was riding high, lauded by his nation’s press for pioneering work on induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. His feat was said to be the first successful use in humans of a technology that days earlier had won his countryman, Kyoto University’s Shinya Yamanaka, a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine1. Yet a swift investigation by Nature and several stem-cell researchers found that Moriguchi’s claim to have cured six heart-failure patients with cells derived from iPS cells was untrue; that he had lied about his university affiliations; and that he had plagiarized key parts of his research papers2. At a hastily convened press conference on 13 October, Moriguchi recanted. “I admit that I lied,” he told reporters, adding that his “career as a researcher is probably over”." for complete article: http://www.nature.com/news/stem-cell...-field-1.11598 |
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Orionid meteor showers (northern Hemisphere) tonight through Sunday morning. They say one can see up to 25 an hour :) I'll be bundling up tonight and heading out to my back yard for the show!
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Beluga whale 'makes human-like sounds'
Researchers in the US have been shocked to discover a beluga whale whose vocalisations were remarkably close to human speech.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...leucas-spl.jpg On the page at BBC News (use above link), below the Beluga photo, is a recording of the sounds...Love this! |
http://news.yahoo.com/hawaii-volcano...221623347.html
Hawaii volcano lava lake threatens to overflow. Very cool about the Beluga I could have sworn I heard "I love you" in there. |
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http://news.yahoo.com/tomb-ancient-e...162840581.html
Unusual burial site for ancient Egyptian Princess. |
Pac Man in space!!!
"You could call this "Pac-Man, the Sequel." Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have spotted a second feature shaped like the 1980s video game icon in the Saturn system, this time on the moon Tethys. (The first was found on Mimas in 2010). The pattern appears in thermal data obtained by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer, with warmer areas making up the Pac-Man shape."
source (and for images): http://http://www.nasa.gov/mission_p.../pia16198.html |
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Bloom TownThe Wild Life of American Cities By MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER Published: November 27, 2012 "As damaging as urbanization can be to its immediate environs, city living, on the whole, is greener than living in the suburbs." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/ma...ties.html?_r=0 |
http://news.yahoo.com/drought-may-ki...165436243.html
Draught may have killed off Sumerian language. |
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http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...gloveslice.jpg
A dark lump of rock found in the Moroccan desert in 2011 is a new type of Martian meteorite, say scientists. Weighing 320g, the stone has been given the formal name Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034 - but is nicknamed "Black Beauty". Its texture and chemistry set it apart from all previous objects picked up off the surface of Earth but known to originate on the Red Planet. The researchers' analysis, reported in Science magazine, shows the meteorite to be just over two billion years old. The study was led by Carl Agee from the University of New Mexico, US. "It has some resemblance to the other Martian meteorites but it's also distinctly different in other respects," he told BBC News, "both in the way it just looks in hand sample, but also in its elemental composition." There are just over 100 Martian meteorites currently in collections worldwide. They were all blasted off the Red Planet by some asteroid or cometary impact, and then spent millions of years travelling through space before falling to Earth. Their discovery was mostly chance (few were seen in the act of falling) but their dark forms mean they will have caught the eye of meteorite hunters who scour desert sands and polar ice fields for rare rocks that can trade for tens of thousands of dollars. Virtually all the Martian meteorites can be put in one of three classifications referred to as Shergotty, Nakhla, and Chassigny after key specimens. Scientists will often refer to these rocks simply as the SNC meteorites. Prof Agee and colleagues argue that NWA 7034 now be put in its own class. This rock is a basaltic breccia in character. It is made of a jumble of fragments that have been cemented back together in the high temperatures of a volcanic eruption. There are many examples of Moon meteorites that look this way, but no SNC ones. Geochemically, NWA 7034 is dominated by alkali elements such as potassium and sodium. This is precisely what the robot rovers studying basalts down on the ground on Mars also see. This is not a trait seen in the SNC meteorites, interestingly. Prof Agee's team also see much more water in the new meteorite - about 6,000 parts per million. That is about 10 times more water bound into the rock than is the case in the most water-rich SNC specimens. This says something about the environment in which the rock formed, indicating there was a much greater abundance of water to interact with the basalt. "This rock is from two billion years ago and a lot of the SNCs are from only about 200-400 million years ago," explained Prof Agee. "And of course those most recent times on Mars have witnessed a cold, dry planet with a thin atmosphere. A lot of people believe that early Mars, on the other hand, was a lot warmer and a lot wetter, and maybe even a harbour for life. "So, what happened in between? When did this transformation to drier conditions occur? Well, NWA 7034, because of its greater age, may be able to address those questions." |
Interesting
"Flesh-eating flies map forest biodiversity
DNA in insects' guts reveals inventory of rare mammals. The blowflies and flesh flies that settle on dead animals aren't just feasting on the carrion — they're sampling their DNA. Scientists in Germany have now shown that this DNA persists for long enough to be sequenced, providing a quick and cost-effective snapshot of mammal diversity in otherwise inaccessible rainforests." complete article: http://www.nature.com/news/flesh-eat...ersity-1.12147 |
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