Space/Astronomy
Reuters--Ingredients for life found on strange Saturn moon
The basic ingredients for life -- warmth, water and organic chemicals -- are in place on Saturn's small moon Enceladus, scientists said on Wednesday in detailing the content of huge plumes erupting off its surface.
Physorg.com--Old Solar Cycle Returns
Solar Cycle 23, how can we miss you if you won't go away? Barely three months after forecasters announced the beginning of new Solar Cycle 24, old Solar Cycle 23 has returned. Actually, it never left. Read on.
NYT--Star’s Dust May Hold Clue to New Planet
A gap in the dust circling a young star in the constellation Auriga may mark where material is condensing into a planet, 11 astronomers led by Ben R. Oppenheimer of the American Museum of Natural History say in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Science Magazine--Organics in the Mist
Radio astronomers have found the first evidence of an amino acid-like molecule in outer space, floating in a dust cloud 25,000 light-years away. Although the discovery doesn't prove that complex organic structures originated in space, it does present strong evidence that the basic ingredients for living organisms exist elsewhere in the galaxy--and that they could be seeding many young planets with life's building blocks.
L.A. Times--South Pole telescope peers heavenward for dark energy
Anywhere on Earth this would be a big telescope, as tall as a seven-story building, with a main mirror measuring 32 1/2 feet across. But here at the South Pole, it seems especially large, looming over a barren plain of ice that gets colder than anywhere else on the planet.
Scientists built the instrument at the end of the world so they can search for clues that might identify the most powerful, plentiful but elusive substance in the universe: dark energy.
Physorg.com--Crafty Tricks for Finding Moon Water
Recent radar maps of the Moon's southern pole revealed a dramatic, jagged landscape that astronauts could someday call home. But unfortunately, these radar images didn't provide any new information about something that would make living at the lunar pole much easier: frozen water.
NYT--Space Shuttle Completes 16-Day Mission, and Lands
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The space shuttle Endeavour returned safely to Earth on Wednesday evening, completing a record-breaking 16-day mission to the International Space Station.
Washington Post--Another Firm Joins the Commercial Space Race
The race to become the first private company capable of launching paying customers into space got more crowded last week as a small but well-respected California firm announced plans to have a two-seat spacecraft ready within two years.
The mini-ship, built by Mojave-based Xcor Aerospace and designed to fly to the edge of space, is expected to be ready for test flights by 2010, around the time Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic hopes to send its much larger spaceship on its maiden voyage.
AFP--Space memorial firm will rocket cremated remains on the moon
A US firm specializing in sending people's cremated ashes into orbit is going to turn the moon into a graveyard for earthlings beginning next year.
Scientific American--Stern Steps Down as NASA Science Chief After Mars Budget Dustup
NASA's top science official, Alan Stern, abruptly resigned his post yesterday as associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. The announcement came two days after NASA Administrator Michael Griffin overturned a directorate budget adjustment that might have meant shutting down one of the twin rovers currently operating on Mars.
Evolution/Paleontology
National Geographic--"First European" Confirmed to Be 1.2 Million Years Old
An analysis of an ancient jaw containing teeth has confirmed that humans reached Western Europe well over a million years ago, far earlier than previously thought.
Physorg.com--Scientists say early Americans arrived earlier
A team led by two Texas A&M University anthropologists now believes the first Americans came to this country 1,000 to 2,000 years earlier than the 13,500 years ago previously thought, which could shift historic timelines.
Physorg.com--Good luck indeed: 53 million-year-old rabbit's foot bones found
One day last spring, fossil hunter and anatomy professor Kenneth Rose, Ph.D. was displaying the bones of a jackrabbit’s foot as part of a seminar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine when something about the shape of the bones looked oddly familiar.
National Geographic--New Fossil Is World's Oldest Plant-Eating Lizard
A rare fossil discovered in Japan is the oldest known plant-eating lizard, which could shed light on an evolutionary puzzle that Charles Darwin described as an "abominable mystery," scientists say.
FoxNews (Forgive me)--Teenage Dinosaurs Might Have Butted Heads
Dome-headed dinosaurs might have passed through a combative teenage stage in which they butted heads in violent clashes.
New research reveals the skulls of a group of these young dinosaurs would have compressed and rebounded after a head ram, preventing a brain bashing.
The study, to be announced Friday and detailed in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, sheds light on a debate over head-butting in so-called pachycephalosaurs, or thick-headed reptiles.
Geology
AP--Lava Watchers Drawn to Hawaii Eruption
Visitors are flocking to witness the spectacular eruption at Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, despite explosions and toxic fumes.
Nearly 9,000 people a day are touring Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on average so far this year, a 2.5 percent increase over last year when the volcano's 25-year eruption was much more peaceful, said Cindy Orlando, the park's superintendent.
Physorg.com--Under the sea
For the first time scientists have mapped the layers of once molten rock that lie beneath the edges of the Atlantic Ocean and measure over eight miles thick in some locations.
The research, reported in this week’s edition of Nature, gives us a better understanding of what may have happened during the break up of continents to form new mid-ocean ridges. The same volcanic activity in the North Atlantic may also have caused the subsequent release of massive volumes of greenhouse gases which led to a spike in global temperatures 55 million years ago.
Physorg.com--New findings from Tibetan Plateau suggest uplift occurred in stages
The vast Tibetan Plateau--the world's highest and largest plateau, bordered by the world's highest mountains--has long challenged geologists trying to understand how and when the region rose to such spectacular heights. New evidence from an eight-year study by U.S. and Chinese researchers indicates that the plateau rose in stages, with uplift occurring first in the central plateau and later in regions to the north and south.
AFP via Physorg.com--Stinking seas not to blame for 'mother of all mass extinctions'
Scientists on Sunday said they had ruled out a key hypothesis to explain Earth's greatest extinction, when 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species were wiped out.
Physorg.com--Britain’s biggest meteorite impact found
Evidence of the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles has been found by scientists from the University of Aberdeen and the University of Oxford.
Physorg.com--Scientists discover clue to 2 billion year delay of life on Earth
Scientists from around the world have reconstructed changes in Earth’s ancient ocean chemistry during a broad sweep of geological time, from about 2.5 to 0.5 billion years ago. They have discovered that a deficiency of oxygen and the heavy metal molybdenum in the ancient deep ocean may have delayed the evolution of animal life on Earth for nearly 2 billion years.
Psychology/Behavior
Washington Post--Schizophrenia Linked to Rare, Often Unique Genetic Glitches
Patients with schizophrenia are three to four times as likely as healthy people to harbor large mutations in genes that control brain development, and many of those glitches are unique to each patient, researchers reported yesterday.
The findings are forcing scientists to rethink the reigning model of how genes and environment conspire to cause the debilitating disease, which affects about 1 percent of the population worldwide.
NYT--What a Rodent Can Do With a Rake in Its Paw
Degus are highly social, intelligent rodents native to the highlands of Chile. They adorn the openings of their burrows with piles of sticks and stones, have bubbly personalities and like to play games.
But in a laboratory setting, degus can do much more than play hide-and-seek, according to a study in the online journal Plos One (www.plosone.org). They can learn to use tools.
Physorg.com--Who's bad? Chimps figure it out by observation
Chimpanzees make judgments about the actions and dispositions of strangers by observing others’ behavior and interactions in different situations. Specifically, chimpanzees show an ability to recognize certain behavioral traits and make assumptions about the presence or absence of these traits in strangers in similar situations thereafter. These findings, by Dr. Francys Subiaul - from the George Washington University in Washington DC - and his team, have just been published online in Animal Cognition, a Springer journal.
Environment
Christian Science Monitor--Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf eroding at an unforeseen pace (Already diaried but worth another look.)
A crumbling ice shelf along the West Antarctic Peninsula has become the latest polar poster child for global warming.
This week, researchers in the United States, Britain, and Taiwan released images of long stretches of ice shearing away from the shelf. What started with the loss of a relatively thin, 26-mile-long iceberg at the end of February cascaded into the loss of 160 square miles of ice by the end of last week.
Washington Post--Wolves Are Back. Humans Are Howling.
By the time the wolf became one of the first animals to be covered by the Endangered Species Act of 1973, it had been hunted, trapped and poisoned into extinction everywhere in the contiguous United States except Montana and Minnesota. Its amazing resurgence since then is one of the nation's great environmental success stories. But if the ranchers, hunters and other special interests prosecuting the new campaign against it are victorious, they will undermine not only the law that gave rise to endangered-species recovery but also the integrity of ecosystems in which wolves historically have played a vital role.
AP--Antelope in Mongolia Under Threat
A rare antelope species already under threat from poaching in Mongolia is facing a new danger - worsening traffic. As affluent residents acquire motorbikes and cars in parts of western Mongolia, they are clogging roads that run along a key migration route for the saiga, which if not addressed could reduce their already low numbers, a researcher said Saturday, March 29, 2008.
Globe and Mail--The end of the road
To most Canadians, migration is a spectacle that marks the seasons. We know spring is here, despite the snowbanks in much of the country, because northbound geese have begun to appear from the south, just as we knew winter was coming when we saw them flying the other way.
But many long-distance travellers — from the whooping crane and the red knot to sea turtles and the rarest of the world's large whales, the North Atlantic right — are in serious trouble. Over millions of years, they have been hardwired to undertake long journeys to survive. But these feats of strength and endurance are increasingly perilous in a world ever more congested and plagued by a changing climate.
The situation is so precarious that one of Dr. Wikelski's Princeton colleagues fears that migration, as a phenomenon, is slipping away.
Columbia Tribune (MO)--Blinded by the lights
Light pollution is a major problem for stargazers, and lawmakers in the Missouri General Assembly want to do something about it. The Missouri Night Sky Protection Act, now under consideration by a legislative committee, would place mandatory restrictions on light pollution in and around state parks and certain historic sites and wildlife areas.
MSNBC--Embrace the dark side
Lights are going dark for a round-the-world, voluntary rolling blackout at 8 p.m. local time Saturday. Earth Hour - which originated in Australia a year ago and is now going global, thanks to the World Wildlife Fund - focuses awareness on saving energy and doing something about climate change. But the turn to the dark side didn't just begin last year, and it's about much more than one consciousness-raising hour. Saturday night also marks the beginning of a whole week of activities aimed at making our skies darker for good.
National Dark-Sky Week got its start five years ago - and this year, the week's organizers are teaming up with Earth Hour (as well as the folks behind Lights Out America) to support Saturday's hourlong celebration of the dark side. In hundreds of cities around the world, people will be dousing their lights from 8 to 9 p.m. local time as a symbolic gesture for action on the climate change issue.
Physorg.com--Black carbon pollution emerges as major player in global warming
Black carbon, a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to scientists in an upcoming review article in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Physorg.com--Satellites take sustainability to new heights
Shell Canada has incorporated Earth Observation data into its Sustainable Development Report, demonstrating the potential of satellites to provide a global and cost-effective way to measure objectively the sustainability of business activities.
Meteorology
Physorg.com--Gravity Waves Make Tornados
Did you know that there's a new breakfast food that helps meteorologists predict severe storms? Down South they call it "GrITs."
GrITs stands for Gravity wave Interactions with Tornadoes. "It's a computer model I developed to study how atmospheric gravity waves interact with severe storms," says research meteorologist Tim Coleman of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
According to Coleman, wave-storm interactions are very important. If a gravity wave hits a rotating thunderstorm, it can sometimes spin that storm up into a tornado.
Biotechnology
Washtington Post--Dollar Signs In Double Helixes
Although Identigene's product is the first kit to be sold in stores, at-home paternity tests have been available online for several years. The kits are just one more example of what some are calling the democratization of DNA. As the cost of decoding and analyzing our genes plummets, companies are even starting to offer "personalized genomics" tests to consumers that promise to help them discover what diseases they are likely to get or even who their soul mate might be.
Science Education
NYT--Harlem to Antarctica for Science, and Pupils
The pitch: Eight weeks in Antarctica. Groundbreaking research into the climate before the Ice Age. Glaciers. Volcanoes. Adorable penguins.
The details: Camping on the sea ice in unheated tents, in 20-below-zero temperatures. Blinding whiteouts. The bathroom? A toilet seat over a hole in the ice.
Stephen F. Pekar, a geology professor from Queens College, was selling Shakira Brown, a 29-year-old Harlem middle school science teacher, on his expedition.
Her response: I’m in.
L.A. Daily News--Concern growing at CSUs over cuts
NORTHRIDGE - CSUN professor Aida Metzenberg has cherished more than a decade of teaching genetic counseling, a graduate-degree program available on only 30 campuses in North America.
But amid continuing budget squeezes, California State University, Northridge, is cutting the program that melds the study of genetics and medical counseling.
"I was shocked," Metzenberg said, adding that she is hopeful a donor might come forward to save the program. "I never thought this would end."
AP--Moscow Planetarium Mired in Dispute
For decades, Soviet schoolchildren flocked to the Moscow Planetarium to gaze at the stars.
Now plans to reopen the landmark silver-domed structure, shut for repairs 14 years ago, are mired in a struggle for control of an institution situated on a pricey patch of real estate.
Physics
NYT--Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More
More fighting in Iraq. Somalia in chaos. People in this country can’t afford their mortgages and in some places now they can’t even afford rice.
None of this nor the rest of the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit, though, if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe.
Science Writing
NYT--Sexual Advances
In her previous books, "Stiff" and a follow-up, "Spook," Mary Roach set out to make creepy topics (cadavers, the afterlife) fun. In "Bonk," she turns to sex, covering such territory as dried animal excreta used as vaginal "drying agents"; a rat’s tail "lost" in a penis; and a man named William Harvey, patent-holder for a rolling toaster-size metal box outfitted with a motorized "resiliently pliable artificial penis." In short, she takes an entertaining topic and showcases its creepier side.
Science is Cool
Downtown L.A. Scene--Party With a T Rex
The Opening of a Dinosaur Lab Takes the Natural History Museum's First Fridays to Another Level
A First Fridays event at the Natural History Museum is not your typical night out. Sure, there are bands, DJs and food and wine, but where else can you explore billions of years of history and find intellectual stimulation to boot?
(I've been to parties at the LACMNH. They're always lots of fun. L. A. area Kossacks who love science take note--the next one is April 4th.)
