Daily Science

Alaska volcano erupts twice, ash soars 65,000 feet

2009-03-28T04:36:00.000-07:00

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska's Mount Redoubt has erupted twice, with the larger burst sending an ash cloud 65,000 feet into the air.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory says the eruptions were about an hour apart on Thursday, with the first and smaller one about 8:30 a.m. The ash cloud in that eruption reached about 30,000 feet.

The National Weather Service says prevailing winds are expected to carry ash from the larger eruption east across Cook Inlet.

An ash fall advisory has been issued for the western Kenai Peninsula, and covers the towns of Kenai, Soldotna and Cooper Landing.

The smaller ash cloud was expected to reach Homer later Thursday with only trace amounts expected to fall.

Mount Redoubt started erupting late Sunday.

New trend in bedroom linen, the electric blanket is one of the most revolutionary inventions of the last century. The blancket has a device that produces head. Usually the electric blanket is positioned on top of the bed sheet, but there are some exceptions as well. The electric mattress pad is a derivation of the electric blanket that stays under the bottom bed sheet; most of the times it goes for the name electric blanket also.

(This version CORRECTS name of Cooper Landing.)

This photo released by the Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey shows a webcam image of Mount Redoubt at 8:43p.m.Alaska Daylight Time Monday March 23, 2009 near Kenai, Alaska. The volcano has been erutping staring Sunday night March 22, 2009, sending an ash cloud an estimated 50,000 feet into the air. The Ash cloud is expected to reach the Susitna Valley including Talkeetna, and Willow about 90 miles north of Anchorage. (AP Photo/ Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey )

Sex, Age And Ethnicity Assciated With Colorectal Cancer Survival

2008-05-31T14:03:00.000-07:00

The interaction of sex, age and ethnicity has a significant impact on overall survival in metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC) patients, a study led by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) and USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests.

While age and ethnicity are well-established factors that impact survival in colorectal cancer, the study found that gender also plays an important role in overall survival, says Andrew Hendifar, M.D., MPH, fellow in the division of hematology/oncology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and lead author of the study. Researchers found that pre-menopausal women with metastatic colorectal cancer (18-44 years old) lived longer than younger men, while older women (75 and older) had significantly worse overall survival than older men.

The study adds to the growing evidence that female hormones are protective for colon cancer, researchers say.

"This study provides further evidence that estrogen may play an important role not only in colon cancer development but also progression of the disease, and may impact how we develop therapies for women and men with colon cancer," says Heinz-Josef Lenz, M.D., professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine and a senior investigator on the study.

Researchers screened 56,598 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer from 1988 to 2003, using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registry. Models were created using the patients' age at diagnosis, sex, ethnicity and overall survival. Independent of age, there were no survival differences between men and women with MCRC. However, when age was added to the model, sex became significantly associated with survival across all ethnicities.

Researchers also found that certain ethnicities had better overall survival than others. Namely, Hispanics and Asians have better outcomes than Caucasians and African-Americans. Further studies in this area should look at how certain diets or specific surroundings contribute to the development of colorectal cancer, Hendifar notes.

"The data warrant further studies to determine the role of estrogen and ethnicity in colorectal cancer development," he says. "In the future, we may tailor different treatments for men and women."

The study was funded by grants in honor of Sharon A. Carpenter and from the Dhont Family Foundation.

The results of the study will be presented at a poster discussion "Gastrointestinal (Colorectal) Cancer" on Sunday, June 1, at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) held at McCormick Place in Chicago. The authors and title are: A.E. Hendifar, G. Lurje, F. Lenz, A. Pohl, P. Manegold, K. Togawa, H. Husain, H. Lenz, D. Yang, "Sex, age and ethnicity are associated with survival in metatstatic colorectal cancer."

Source:
ScienceDaily (May 31, 2008)

Mars Signal is Back

2008-05-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

source

Radio signals from the Mars Phoenix lander are restored.

The communications glitch forced NASA to find a "work-around" by using the Odyssey to communicate with the lander throughout the mission.

By: Captain Maverick May 29, 2008, 4:58 PM EDT NASA reported that the Phoenix Mars lander suffered a one day delay caused by a communications glitch that was repaired late Tuesday night. With communications restored, commands to deploy the Phoenix's robotic arm were able to be uploaded to the probe on Wednesday. Despite the glitch in the communications, the Phoenix seems to be performing well according to NASA's mission specialists. Project Manager Berry Goldstein was reported as saying that the craft is experiencing excellent "health". Now the goal will be to unstow the scoop-tipped robotic arm, which is expected to take place on Wednesday afternoon. This task will involve moving the scoop towards the arm with the wrist joint. It will release a spring-loaded pin that kept the arm restrained during the launch of the craft and the landing on Sunday. This robotic arm is a very critical component of the Phoenix. The communications glitch forced NASA to find a "work-around" by using the Odyssey to communicate with the lander throughout the mission. But this was a contingency that was planned for, if needed. Radio signals from the Mars Phoenix lander are restored.

NASA pullout could cut 'hope' short

2008-05-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

By Traci Watson, USA TODAY

The space shuttle Discovery, scheduled for liftoff Saturday, will take to orbit a project nearly 25 years and $1 billion in the making: one of the biggest laboratories ever built for the International Space Station.

Excitement over the launch is tempered by concern that the lab's mission may be cut short if NASA follows through on its plan to withdraw from the station after 2015.

Named Kibo, which means "hope" in Japanese, the space lab is designed to last at least 10 years and could probably be used for 20, says Yoshinori Yoshimura of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, which built the lab. NASA's withdrawal from the space station could lead the lab to prematurely shut down.

Besides Japan and the United States, 12 other nations have invested in the station. NASA has been responsible for 75% of the $157 billion cost of building and operating the 10-year-old station, according to the European Space Agency. It "does not seem feasible" that other nations could fill NASA's shoes, says Cristina Chaplain of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress.

Withdrawing from the station for lack of money a few years after finishing it is "like buying a new car and saying, 'You paid $40,000 for a new car, and now I can't put the gas in the tank,' " said former senator John Glenn, the first American in orbit, during a Capitol Hill visit this month.
The space agency has made no final decisions.

NASA's space-operations chief William Gerstenmaier said last month that NASA has "done nothing to preclude" U.S. participation in the station beyond 2015. He said if NASA does want to continue research on the station, "we need to do that planning now."

NASA wants to end its commitment to the space station, so it can use the money — about $2 billion a year — to return humans to the moon.

If NASA were to pull out of the station in 2015 without getting its partners' approval, "there would be a lot of problems," says Alan Thirkettle, station manager for the European Space Agency.

He notes the United States signed a 1998 treaty establishing the station that requires Europe to get 10 years of use from the station's lab. A 2015 shutdown would allow Europe seven years of research.

Kibo's biggest section, including the main laboratory, will be fixed in place by the seven-member crew on Discovery — the second of three shuttle flights needed to transport and assemble the lab. The shuttle's launch is scheduled for 5:02 p.m. ET Saturday.

Astronauts in Kibo will be able to use equipment such as a furnace for growing crystals and a chamber for growing cells. Rather than addressing industrial or medical questions, experiments will focus on basic research — including how fluids behave in zero gravity.

The space station was repeatedly redesigned in the 1980s and '90s, driving up the lab's cost and delaying its flight. The lab won't be done until 2009, when a platform for astronomy equipment is launched.

Discovery commander Mark Kelly, who called the lab "pretty amazing," said it "would be great if we could continue to operate it" beyond 2015.

It's "ridiculous to be thinking about decommissioning the station before it's even completed," says space researcher Louis Stodieck of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Others point out that NASA has cut funding for research on the station. "What are we losing?" says David Goldston, former chief of staff of the House Science Committee. "In terms of actual science … it's going to do virtually nothing."

World's Greatest Extinction Not Caused By Toxic Gases

2008-03-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

Helen Scales
for National Geographic News
March 24, 2008

Poisonous, ozone-destroying gases bubbling out of the oceans may not have triggered the world's greatest mass extinction after all, a new study shows.

The "Great Dying" took place about 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, when the world lost about 90 percent of its ocean species and 70 percent of its land species.

Scientists had suspected that the cause was high levels of hydrogen sulfide and methane in the atmosphere, which poisoned creatures and caused a collapse of the protective ozone layer.

"Toward the end of the Permian, we had a warming climate with much more carbon dioxide than today, ocean circulation was extremely sluggish, and the oceans became anoxic—essentially deprived of oxygen," explained geobiologist and study co-author David Beerling from the University of Sheffield in England.

Under these conditions, ocean microbes metabolize sulfur to produce hydrogen sulfide, which could have built up in the ocean and then welled up into the atmosphere.

"There is evidence for massive methane release at the end Permian as well, either from warming oceans or from coal deposits heated by extreme volcanic activity at around the same time," Beerling said.

But the discovery that the chemicals were unlikely to build up enough to destroy ozone leaves scientists hunting for another answer to the mystery of what caused such a biological catastrophe.

A map shows Earth approximately 250 million years ago, at the time of the Great Dying extinction that wiped out most existing life. Scientists had blamed the deaths on ozone-destroying hydrogen sulfide released from the sea because of low oxygen levels.

But a new study finds that hydrogen sulfide probably couldn't reach high enough levels in the atmosphere to destroy the ozone layer, prompting scientists to come up with a new explanation for the biological cataclysm.

Image by Nicolle Rager, National Science Foundation, based on Pangaea map data, Paleogeographic Atlas Project, University of Chicago

Self-Cleaning System

Beerling and his colleagues set up computer simulations of the Permian oceans and atmosphere to predict what might have happened when different amounts of hydrogen sulfide and methane were added to the mix.

"We found some interesting things going on with ozone chemistry, but we didn't find any evidence that hydrogen sulfide and methane triggered a collapse of the ozone layer," Beerling said.

Previous models also used figures averaged for the globe—examining only altitude and not latitude—and thus overlooked the effects of hydroxyl radicals, he added.

"These are chemicals produced mainly at the tropics that oxidize [and thus neutralize] ozone-destroying pollutants," Beerling said.

Even when extremely high levels of hydrogen sulfide were added to the two-dimensional models, hydroxyl radicals mopped them up and prevented ozone collapse.

The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Not So Disastrous

Lee Kump, a geochemist from Pennsylvania State University in University Park, was involved in earlier studies that predicted catastrophically high hydrogen sulfide levels at the end of the Permian.

The conditions created by earlier models "should have wiped out all life on Earth and not allowed anything to survive," Kump said. "It would have been impossible to hide from."

Kump said he welcomes the new study since it mitigates the dire consequences of anoxic oceans and helps to explain how some life managed to hold on.

But he also warned that the chemicals could still have played a substantial role in the mass extinction.

"Hydrogen sulfide levels may not have been enough to trigger ozone collapse. Nevertheless, these new models still show substantial increases," Kump said.

"We don't know what the consequences of that would be for terrestrial life."

Co-author Beerling added: "Hydrogen sulfide poisoning in the ocean is still a possibility. Our calculations don't rule that out."

UV Damage

Scientists also believe that the ozone layer still suffered some sort of collapse during the Permian—but that another set of chemicals was responsible.

Researchers, for example, have discovered mutated plant pollen that supports the theory that a depleted ozone layer was allowing damaging levels of ultraviolet light to reach Earth's surface.

"There is a very high increase in the abundance of tetrads—weird, mutated spores—in end-Permian rocks from all around the world," Beerling said.

"This new study shows quite nicely that the collapse of the ozone layer may have required other circumstances than simply a large increase in hydrogen sulfide flux into the atmosphere," Kump added.

One alternative theory is that a bout of massive volcanic activity known as the Siberian Traps released hydrochloric acid and organohalides into the air.

"Volcanic activity is an even more likely explanation for the extinctions now, because we have ruled out these other possible alternatives from the list," Beerling said.

Paul Wignall, a palaeobiologist from the University of Leeds in England, was not involved in the study.

"Now that this study has shown the hydrogen-sulfide-and-methane model is unlikely to work, we're back to square one and scratching around for an extinction mechanism," Wignall said.

He pointed out, however, that the volcanic theories are still pure speculation.

"They might be correct about organohalogens," he said, "but there is no supporting field evidence yet."

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Save The Deers Off The Road !

2007-12-18T06:07:00.000-08:00

Hanover, Germany - A motorists' group in Germany on Monday demanded greater use of repulsive odours to keep deer off roads. Deer are scared by the smell of humans and wolves, so the decade-old German technology requires a foam containing those odours to be stuck to trees every 5 metres along the side of the road.

The noise of traffic combined with the scent deters deer from crossing the road and being killed in collisions with cars. When the road is quiet, the deer pluck up courage to run across. The Lower Saxony branch of the ADAC appealed for hunters to create more of the odour barriers, saying 2,300 people were injured or killed last year in 220,000 collisions with wild animals. A much higher number of the deer and boar perished in the crashes. The group said animal-car collisions had been reduced 80 per cent in places in Lower Saxony where the virtual barrier was employed. The blobs of polyurethane foam about the size of tennis balls have to have fresh scent repeatedly added to them.
Copyright, respective author or news agency

Supermassive black hole batters adjacent galaxy with powerful jets

2007-12-18T05:57:00.000-08:00

A massive black hole present at the center of a galaxy is battering a nearby galaxy with powerful jets of particles, according to latest images released by NASA.

While there have been instances of two galaxies colliding with each other, this is the first time that a destruction on such a huge scale has been witnessed by the astronomers. NASA said that the phenomenon has been occurring in a galaxy system called 3C321, which is located around 1.4 billion light years away from Earth.

The two galaxies are in the process of merging with each other but the smaller one has unfortunately come in the way of the jet's line that is powerful enough to destroy any planets that is positioned in its way.

Lead researcher, Dan Evans from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said that it was the first time that such a spectacle has been witnessed. "We've seen many jets produced by black holes, but this is the first time we've seen one punch into another galaxy like we're seeing here. This jet could be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it is pummeling", he added.

The images of these powerful jets were obtained courtesy of the Chandra X-ray Observatory owned by NASA. Latest observations show there may be supermassive black holes at the center of the two galaxies that are on the verge of merging.

Jets of particles from supermassive black holes are known to produce X-rays, gamma rays and electrons in huge quantities. These particles travel with the speed of light as well. Evans said that the so-called "Death Star" galaxy began blasting the nearby galaxy about 1 million years ago, which meant they could learn a lot from this event.

The details of this study are due to appear in a forthcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Copyright, respective author or news agency

Cheep thrills at annual Audubon bird countCheep thrills at annual Audubon bird count

2007-12-16T05:11:00.000-08:00

By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer
Source

A few dozen bird watchers swooped into the Valley on Saturday, peering into trees and into the blue sky above, on the lookout for the winged and the feathery.

The excursion by bird watchers with the San Fernando Valley chapter of the National Audubon Society makes the local group one of the first in the country to participate in the 108th annual Christmas Bird Count.

Audubon groups started the count Friday, and it runs to Jan. 5. The goal is to document numbers and types of birds and keep tabs on how birds are faring in a changing environment.

"We have records going back more than 100 years, and it's proven to be extremely valuable ... to track the impacts of developments and global warming," said Garrison Frost, spokesman for Audubon California.

Bird watchers get to engage in a favorite pastime and contribute to science at the same time.

Arthur Langton of West Hills, who has taken part in almost every Christmas Bird Count since its inception in the late 1950s, said what keeps him coming back is the thrill of seeing the usual collection of birds, along with those that are total surprises.

But he has noticed certain species that populated the Valley years ago are nowhere to be seen - which he attributes to development, drought and changes in the environment.

"Now you see other birds that are new, or birds that have disappeared completely because of loss of habitat," Langton said.

"Some things surprise you when they show up, and some things surprise you because they're not around."

The local bird count in the Valley divides the community into eight sections, all within a 15-mile diameter from the corner of Nordhoff Street and Balboa Boulevard. Bird enthusiasts spend all day scouring the area.

The day offers bird watchers a good test of their skills, having to identify some winged creatures by sight and others by sound.

Kris Ohlenkamp of Topanga said the highlight of his day was seeing a few unusual birds: the red-naped sapsucker, Cassin's kingbird and a marsh wren.

He caught sight of 75 species Saturday, bringing the total number of bird species he's seen this year in the United States to 486.

"It's a wow moment," Ohlenkamp said. "You see a bird you've never seen before or something you don't expect and it's really exciting. And you study up on their habitat and you go out and see it and it's a real feeling of accomplishment."

The regional bird counts done throughout the country help the Audubon Society compile data to document significant changes - not just in bird populations but also in the environment.

The society released a report last year showing steep declines in the birds people see every day - pigeons, doves and swallows.

The group also released a watch list of hundreds of birds in danger of extinction - research based on the Christmas Bird Count, Frost said.

"Birds are one of the early indicators of significant environmental change, so the bird count is about birds, but it's about more than that," Frost said.

"It's about habitat, other forms of wildlife, and ... (with) global warming, birds are among the first wildlife species that you'll start to see changes in - migration patterns change, populations rise or decline, or they move."

The Santa Clarita Valley will hold its bird count on Dec. 29. For more information, visit www.sfvaudubon.org.

When The West Was Really Wild

2007-12-15T09:59:00.000-08:00

Soon after humans crossed the Bering land bridge into North America some
13,000 years ago, almost 75 percent of the continent’s large mammals (those
weighing more than 45 kilograms) disappeared (color). One of the goals of
Pleistocene rewilding is to restore some of these species or close proxies to the
American West. For example, the same species of lion and cheetah that once
lived in North America survive today in Africa; the African or Asian elephant
could substitute for the extinct mammoth; and Bactrian camels might stand
in for the extinct Camelops.

COPYRIGHT 2007 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.

Just in time for Christmas: Cloned cats that glow

2007-12-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

by Reuters

Source

South Korean scientists have cloned Turkish Angora cats with a red fluorescent protein produced by manipulating their genes, which makes them give off an eerie glow when hit by certain ultraviolet light.

A team lead by Kong Il-Keun, an animal cloning expert at Gyeongsang National University, said the cats would be used for genetic research.

The cats do not glow in the dark, but their ears, noses and other places where fur cover is minimal give off a red glow when hit with the ultraviolet light.

This picture taken under ultraviolet light in a dark room shows a cloned Turkish Angola cat, right, whose genes were modified with a fluorescent protein, giving it a red fluorescent glow. A normally cloned cat of the same variety, at left, appears green in the ultraviolet light.

Choi Byung-gil, Reuters

The cats were born earlier this year, but the results of the procedure were only made public by the Ministry of Science and Technology this week.

Kong is a pioneer in South Korean in cat cloning.

South Korea, once a world leader in cloning and human embryonic stem cell studies, suffered a major setback after two papers on human embryonic stem cells by once acclaimed scientist Hwang Woo-suk were found to be based on faked data.

© The Calgary Herald 2007

Wikipedia Competitor Being Tested by Google

2007-12-15T08:02:00.000-08:00

By MIGUEL HELFT
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/technology/15web.html?ref=business

SAN FRANCISCO — Google is testing a new Web service intended to become a repository of knowledge from experts on various topics, one that could turn into a competitor to Wikipedia and other sites.

If it attracts a following, the service could accelerate Google’s transformation from a search engine into a company that helps create and publish Web content. Some critics said that shift could compromise Google’s objectivity in presenting search results.

The service, called Knol, which is short for knowledge, would allow people to create Web pages on any topic. It is designed to include features that permit readers to submit comments, rate pages and suggest changes. However, unlike Wikipedia, which allows anyone to edit an entry, only the author of a “knol,” as the pages in the service would be called, would be allowed to edit. Different authors could have competing pages on the same topic.

Google said that a main idea behind the project was to bring attention to authors who have expertise on a particular topic.

“Somehow the Web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors’ names highlighted,” Udi Manber, vice president for engineering at Google, wrote in an announcement of the test Thursday evening on a Google corporate blog. “We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of Web content.”

Mr. Manber said the goal of Knol was to cover all topics, from science to medicine to history, and for the articles to become “the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.”

That is often the role played by Wikipedia pages, which frequently turn up at or near the top of results presented by Google and other search engines.

“I think Google is looking at the growth of sites like Wikipedia, that aggregate knowledge, and feels it has to play in that space,” said Danny Sullivan, a search expert and editor of the Web site Search Engine Land.

Several other services have taken different approaches in their efforts to become repositories of knowledge on various topics. They include Yahoo Answers, Squidoo, Mahalo and About.com, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

Despite the existence of these services, as well as countless free tools for experts and ordinary people alike to share what they know online, Mr. Manber said Google thought many people who possessed useful knowledge did not publish it “because it is not easy enough to do that.”

Google declined to make Mr. Manber or anyone else available to discuss Knol, saying the project was an experiment that like many Google tests, might never be opened to the public.

While many technology analysts and bloggers noted that Knol appeared to be a direct competitor to Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, that site’s founder, shrugged off the potential challenge.

Mr. Wales said that Google’s service would encourage competing, opinionated articles on any topic, whereas Wikipedia strived for objectivity and had a single article per topic that represented the collective knowledge of its authors.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what it ends up looking like,” Mr. Wales said.

Knol and Wikipedia would be different in other ways. While Wikipedia is a not-for-profit and ad-free endeavor, Knol has a more commercial bent: Authors could choose to have Google place ads on their pages and would get part of the revenue.

“At some point, Google crosses the line, where they are not only a search engine, but also a content provider,” Mr. Sullivan said. Technically speaking, he said, authors, not Google, would create Knol pages. “But it matters how it appears,” he said. “I do a search on Google, I go to some place that Google hosts and I also find Google ads.”

What’s more, Mr. Sullivan said, Google’s goal of making Knol pages easy to find on search engines could conflict with its need to remain unbiased. Google already carries content generated by users in a variety of services, including YouTube, the photo storage site Picasa and Blogger.