| NASA's Kepler Announces 11 Planetary Systems Hosting 26 Planets Mar 25th 2012, 00:15 http://www.naturenplanet.com/article...ms-hosting.htm Great stuff.... Quote:
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.
The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen are between Earth and Neptune in size. Further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun.
"Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky," said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits."
| | | More Brain Research: How perception information flows Mar 24th 2012, 09:37 We continue to learn. Quote:
Highly Flexible Despite Hard-Wiring: Even Slight Stimuli Change the Information Flow in the Brain
ScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2012) — One cup or two faces? What we believe we see in one of the most famous optical illusions changes in a split second; and so does the path that the information takes in the brain. In a new theoretical study, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, the Bernstein Center Göttingen and the German Primate Center now show how this is possible without changing the cellular links of the network. The direction of information flow changes, depending on the time pattern of communication between brain areas. This reorganisation can be triggered even by a slight stimulus, such as a scent or sound, at the right time.
The way that the different regions of the brain are connected with each other plays a significant role for information processing. This processing can be changed by the assembling and disassembling of nerve fibres joining distant brain circuits. But such events are much too slow to explain rapid changes in perception. From experimental studies it was known that the responsible actions must be at least two orders of magnitude faster. The Göttingen scientists now show for the first time that it is possible to change the information flow in a tightly interconnected network in a simple manner.
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| http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0323205339.htm | | Your earliest ancestor was a leech. Mar 23rd 2012, 11:01 Earliest chordate fossil ancestor found in Canada Quote:
Fossils dating back 505 million years preserve the relics of tiny, slithering animals which are the oldest life forms ever discovered with primitive spinal cords.
As the precursor of vertebrates the species is also believed to be the direct ancestor of all members of the chordate family, which includes fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals.
The finding means the 5cm long creatures, known as Pikaia gracilens, were the forerunners of animals as diverse as snakes, swans and humans, scientists said.
The fossils, preserved in shale beds in Canada, were first found 100 years ago by American paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott, who suggested they could have been an early type of leech or worm.
Scientists had since speculated that the creatures could have been chordates because they appeared to have a simple form of notochord, a flexible rod which makes up part of the backbone in vertebrates.
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| http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/e...-ancestor.html | | Self-Awareness in Animals - A growing consensus Mar 23rd 2012, 09:49 Quote:
Do Animals Have Reflective Minds Able to Self-Regulate Perception, Reasoning, Memory?
ScienceDaily (Mar. 22, 2012) — According to one of the leading scholars in the field, there is an emerging consensus among scientists that animals share functional parallels with humans' conscious metacognition -- that is, our ability to reflect on our own mental processes and guide and optimize them.
In two new contributions to this influential field of comparative psychology, David Smith, PhD, of the University at Buffalo and his fellow researchers report on continuing advances in this domain.
Smith is a professor in the Department of Psychology at UB, and a member of the university's graduate program in evolution, ecology and behavior and its Center for Cognitive Science. His co-authors on the articles are Justin J. Couchman, PhD, visiting assistant professor of psychology, State University of New York at Fredonia, and Michael J. Beran, PhD, senior research scientist, Language Research Center, Georgia State University.
In "The Highs and Lows of Theoretical Interpretation in Animal-Metacognition Research," in press at the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Smith, Couchman and Beran examine the theoretical and philosophical problems associated with the attribution of self-reflective, conscious mind to nonverbal animals.
"The possibility of animal metacognition has become one of the research focal points in comparative psychology today," Smith says, "but, of course, this possibility poses difficult issues of scientific interpretation and inference." In this article, they evaluate the standards that science brings to making difficult interpretations about animal minds, describing how standards have been applied historically and as they perhaps should be applied. The article concludes that macaques do show uncertainty-monitoring capacities that are similar to those in humans.
The other contribution, "Animal Metacognition," will be published in March by Oxford University Press in the volume "Comparative Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence."
In this article, Smith and his colleagues provide a comprehensive review of the current state of the animal-metacognition literature. They describe how Smith inaugurated animal metacognition as a new field of study in 1995 with research on a bottlenosed dolphin. The dolphin assessed correctly when the experimenter's trials were too difficult for him, and adaptively declined to complete those trials.
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| http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0322131504.htm | | Controlling specific memories in the brain Mar 23rd 2012, 09:35 More interesting brain research: Quote:
Scientists Wrest Partial Control of a Memory
ScienceDaily (Mar. 22, 2012) — Scripps Research Institute scientists and their colleagues have successfully harnessed neurons in mouse brains, allowing them to at least partially control a specific memory. Though just an initial step, the researchers hope such work will eventually lead to better understanding of how memories form in the brain, and possibly even to ways to weaken harmful thoughts for those with conditions such as schizophrenia and post traumatic stress disorder.
The results are reported in the March 23, 2012 issue of the journal Science.
Researchers have known for decades that stimulating various regions of the brain can trigger behaviors and even memories. But understanding the way these brain functions develop and occur normally -- effectively how we become who we are -- has been a much more complex goal.
"The question we're ultimately interested in is: How does the activity of the brain represent the world?" said Scripps Research neuroscientist Mark Mayford, who led the new study. "Understanding all this will help us understand what goes wrong in situations where you have inappropriate perceptions. It can also tell us where the brain changes with learning."
On-Off Switches and a Hybrid Memory
As a first step toward that end, the team set out to manipulate specific memories by inserting two genes into mice. One gene produces receptors that researchers can chemically trigger to activate a neuron. They tied this gene to a natural gene that turns on only in active neurons, such as those involved in a particular memory as it forms, or as the memory is recalled. In other words, this technique allows the researchers to install on-off switches on only the neurons involved in the formation of specific memories.
For the study's main experiment, the team triggered the "on" switch in neurons active as mice were learning about a new environment, Box A, with distinct colors, smells and textures.
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| http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0322161251.htm | | Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founder) give $300 Million for brain research Mar 22nd 2012, 17:25 Excellent we'll get this brain thing mapped and moving forward ever faster. :) Quote:
Paul Allen Gives Millions for Brain Research
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: March 22, 2012
Paul G. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, announced on Wednesday that he would commit $300 million over the next 10 years to turn the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a nonprofit organization he established to build a database of neural information, into a center for basic neuroscience investigation.
The institute will focus on counting and classifying the different types of neurons, illuminating the molecular machinery within the cells that can cause problems, and studying how the cells process information in networks, using as a model the visual system in mice.
Mr. Allen, whose 2011 book about Microsoft's early days, "Idea Man," exposed a rift with his fellow philanthropist and company co-founder Bill Gates, said in a news conference that his growing investment in brain science, now more than $500 million, has both intellectual and personal motives. "As someone who has been touched by the impact of a neurodegenerative disease — my mother has Alzheimer's — there's both a fascination in basic research and the hope that we can move things forward."
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| http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/he....html?src=recg | | Does anyone like my idea regarding revolutionizing agriculture? Mar 22nd 2012, 16:14 Imagine this:
Hydroponic skyscrapers situated in areas where passive solar energy exists. (to derive power) The place is run by overseerers and engineers. Robots pick the crops and ship them to irradiation plants outside the large buildings. The irradiation plants get rid of vermin by shooting gamma rays at the food. (destroying the ability to reproduce) The radiation wears off and rotting becomes a slower process through isotopes. Water is distilled from the oceans and sent to the skyscrapers by desalination plants to provide water for the crops. We ship the food through hybrid vehicles. And with multiple kilometers filled with these plants we can provide enough fruit for USA and Canada. Then we can replant forests in the barren lands
Money might be a problem:( | | Tennessee needs to Evolve! Mar 22nd 2012, 11:24 I don't think this is a dup/repost, just ran across it. Quote:
Scopes Monkey Trial Revisited: Tennessee Is Still Officially Anti-Evolution As Science Education Bill Passes (VIDEO)
Monday evening, a new bill (SB 893) was approved by the Tennessee Senate that will protect teachers who wish to promote "alternate" scientific theories, essentially allowing anti-evolutionists and climate change deniers a voice in the science classroom. A similar version of the bill (HB 368) passed in the House about a year ago. Advocates of the bill claim that it improves academic freedom, while its critics see it as an open door to the promotion of pseudoscience and religious doctrine within the public school system.
I spoke with Josh Rosenau from the National Center for Science Education to better understand how this new law could impact the students of Tennessee, national views about science education, and the economic future of this country. Please see the video above and/or read the full transcript ....
| http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...tml?ref=topbar | | Noise pollution can alter plant ranges Mar 22nd 2012, 11:20 Quote:
Abstract: Noise pollution is a novel, widespread environmental force that has recently been shown to alter the behaviour and distribution of birds and other vertebrates, yet whether noise has cumulative, community-level consequences by changing critical ecological services is unknown. Herein, we examined the effects of noise pollution on pollination and seed dispersal and seedling establishment within a study system that isolated the effects of noise from confounding stimuli common to human-altered landscapes. Using observations, vegetation surveys and pollen transfer and seed removal experiments, we found that effects of noise pollution can reverberate through communities by disrupting or enhancing these ecological services. Specifically, noise pollution indirectly increased artificial flower pollination by hummingbirds, but altered the community of animals that prey upon and disperse Pinus edulis seeds, potentially explaining reduced P. edulis seedling recruitment in noisy areas. Despite evidence that some ecological services, such as pollination, may benefit indirectly owing to noise, declines in seedling recruitment for key-dominant species such as P. edulis may have dramatic long-term effects on ecosystem structure and diversity. Because the extent of noise pollution is growing, this study emphasizes that investigators should evaluate the ecological consequences of noise alongside other human-induced environmental changes that are reshaping human-altered landscapes worldwide.
| http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.o...rspb.2012.0230 Interesting. Noise alters the behaviors of its pollinators and seed dispersal agents. | | Mercury Messenger latest Finding Mar 22nd 2012, 10:20 Iron Core 83% of radius... Quote:
Messenger mission reveals surprises on — and inside — Mercury
NASA's Messenger spacecraft finds evidence that Mercury has unexpected inner layers and lopsided craters. The planet also appears to have been geologically active well beyond its early years.
By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times
March 21, 2012, 6:19 p.m.
The smallest planet in the solar system keeps serving up big surprises. Scientists working on the Messenger mission to Mercury have found that the planet has unexpected inner layers and craters with tilted bottoms, and it may have been geologically active far later into its life than previously imagined.
In the first of two studies released Wednesday by the journal Science, a team led by MIT geophysicist Maria Zuber scanned the surface of Mercury's northern hemisphere and found the planet's surface to be unusually flat when compared with the terrain of the moon or Mars.
The scans also showed that in the 960-mile-wide Caloris impact basin, the northern part of its floor is higher than the south, with parts standing higher than its rim. This strange lopsidedness may have resulted from tectonic forces — and is one of the growing number of clues that the planet's surface must have been changing well past its youth.
In the second study, led by David Smith of MIT, researchers used tiny shifts in radio frequency to measure Mercury's gravitational influence as the Messenger spacecraft orbited the planet. Knowing how much gravity was exerted on the spacecraft would help the team understand how dense the planet must be inside — and thus, what material lies within.
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| http://www.latimes.com/news/science/...,7068784.story | | How Mankind Remade Nature Mar 22nd 2012, 09:48 Quote:
Maps: How Mankind Remade Nature
By Brandon Keim
August 27, 2010
As scientists get used to the idea that Earth is in a new geological age, that the Holocene — the last geological age — has been replaced by Anthropocene, they're figuring out how it got to be that way.
Two years ago, ecologists Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, released a map of the world's biological areas, traditionally known as biomes. Similar maps were found on science classroom walls across the land, but theirs was different in one very fundamental way: They updated the definition of biome to reflect how human beings used the land.
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| http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...anthrome-maps/ | | The wonders of aspirin Mar 21st 2012, 09:12 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17443454 Quote:
Taking a low dose of aspirin every day can prevent and possibly even treat cancer, fresh evidence suggests.
The three new studies published by The Lancet add to mounting evidence of the drug's anti-cancer effects...
...previous work suggested people needed to take the drug for about 10 years to get any protection.
Now the same experts believe the protective effect occurs much sooner - within three to five years - based on a new analysis of data from 51 trials involving more than 77,000 patients.
And aspirin appears not only to reduce the risk of developing many different cancers in the first place, but may also stop cancers spreading around the body...
...Taking a low (75-300mg) daily dose of the drug appeared to cut the total number of cancer cases by about a quarter after only three years - there were nine cancer cases per 1,000 each year in the aspirin-taking group, compared with 12 per 1,000 for those taking dummy pills.
It also reduced the risk of a cancer death by 15% within five years (and sooner if the dose was higher than 300mg)
And if patients stayed on aspirin for longer, their cancer death risk went down even further - by 37% after five years.
Low-dose aspirin also appeared to reduce the likelihood that cancers, particularly bowel, would spread (metastasise) to other parts of the body, and by as much as half in some instances...
...Critics point out that some of the doses given in the study were much higher than the 75mg dose typically given in the UK. Also, some very large US studies looking at aspirin use were not included in the analysis. The researchers acknowledge both of these points in their published papers.
| | | Dutchman flies like a bird with homemade wings Mar 20th 2012, 22:43 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-57...news&tag=title Quote:
(Not loaded: GYW5G2kbrKk)
Dutchman flies like a bird with homemade wings
Just when you thought jet packs would never be reality, a Dutch mechanical engineer has created his own functioning bird wings.
Dave Rosenberg
by Dave Rosenberg March 20, 2012 2:33 PM PDT
If Red Bull doesn't actually give you wings, maybe this guy can.
Dutch mechanical engineer Jarno Smeets recently posted a video of his first successful flight with his homemade bird wings. Smeet's efforts take cloud computing to a (literally) whole new level, as the wings rely on an Android-powered HTC Wildfire S smartphone to process arm acceleration and compute the motor output. The phone is connected to a microcontroller that is, in turn, connected to a Nintendo Wii Remote to measure acceleration and other flight parameters.
According to his project site, Smeets took this project on as part of a lifelong interest in flight. He developed initial 3D visualizations of his bird wing design, then started tinkering with his kiteboard kite and a number of consumer electronics.
Admittedly, this all sounds kind of nuts, but Smeets has documented his work on the wings over an eight-month period, so if it's a fake, it's a darn good one.
| My bold. | |
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