inkycircus

In space no-one can hear you scream

We depend on the Sun for life, but it an unpredictable master. Every now and again it flings out bundles of joy known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), which can do an awful lot of damage when they slam into our vulnerable little planet. The CMEs can produce magnetic storms that could have the power to knock our gadget-heavy lifestyle back into the dark ages. Most of the CMEs aren't anything like that powerful, in fact they happen reasonably often and usually don't do that damage. But they can do some damage, including messing with our satellites and electrical transmission lines. Which is why it's interesting news that a team at SOHO (The Solar and Heloispheric Observatory) have discovered that the really big ones are preceded by radio 'screams' from the Sun. Here's how it works:

Strong CME shocks accelerate electrons in the solar wind, which in turn produce the radio signal. The same strong shock must also accelerate atomic nuclei in the solar wind, which produce the radiation storm.

The radio signal moves at the speed of light, but the particles lag behind. So we can 'hear' the scream and know that the CME isn't far behind. The article from the European Space Agency explains how the early warning system could be helpful (and has a nice clear explanation of the phenomenon) - if astronauts are showboating around on the outside of spacecrafts they could be told to get inside rightaway to be protected from the extra radiation. Handy indeed. But seeing as how the Sun is quite big and we are quite small, if a big ejection is on the way it's not like we can say 'Umbrellas up! CME a-coming' just yet...

PHOTO: ETAC

Fiddling with the food chain

Is is ok to kill a shark to save a seal? Not an easy decision to make. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thinks it's ok, and is currently seeking permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to kill 10 sharks in the coming year. The seal in question is the Hawaiian Monk Seal, and the shark is the Galapagos Shark.

The justification for the plan is that the monk seal is classified as endangered (IUCN - Hawaiian Monk Seals) and the sharks are not. They've asked for and got permission to do this before, so they clearly think it's a good way to protect the few seals that are left.

The sharks don't give an arse for the IUCN red list, or the fact that we meddlesome humans think that Monk Seals are cute and worthy of protection. We see an endangered species, they see lunch. Protecting endangered species is never a straightforward task, because the animals are never killed 'just because'. If a poacher has killed an elephant, he's not done it just to be mean. He's done it because the ivory is obscenely valuable and he can make a large amount of money from it. If we stop him, his livelihood is gone. And in stepping in to protect a disappearing species, you sometimes have to take extreme steps, like sacrificing one group of animals for another.

However, the shark is classified as near-threatened (IUCN - Galapagos Shark) meaning it is not vulnerable now but is likely to be in the near future. I would therefore hope that anyone making decisions like this has the mantra Beware The Cane Toad echoing their heads the whole time as an example of when we can get it wrong. We as a species do not have a particularly good track record in meddling with the natural world. But with that in mind, it is possible to get it right, and hopefully the NOAA will manage to do just that for the seals.

(PHOTO: PKEMP)

How to pick a headline

In today's list of 'Most Popular' stories on BBC News (as you will see from the screenshot above) is a story with the headline "Star dies in monstrous explosion". When I first noticed it, my mind immediately jumped to an entirely understandable (I feel) conclusion. Despite my interest in all things science, as I clicked on the link to read more, I was already speculating as to which famous person had died, and what had happened to them. Was it an actor? A singer? Some other flavour of celebrity? And how bad was the accident that the explosion would be described as monstrous? But once the page had loaded, I don't mind admitting that my first feeling was of deflation. No tragic Hollywood death today. Just a boring old star exploding to make a supernova. But once I was there, I decided to stay around to read about the explosion of SN 2006gy, the biggest supernovae ever. And about the star in the Milky Way called Eta Carinae that could at some point explode too, creating a truly spectacular light show. If it were to go bang, "it would be so bright that you would see it during the day, and you could even read a book by its light at night". So whatever my motives in clicking on that link, I'm glad I did. Which reiterates the key importance of a catchy (and maybe even slightly ambiguous) headline for any news story.

(PS - I console myself by thinking that it's reasonably unlikely I was the only person to make this mistake. Even though space and star stories always catch the attention, they aren't usually quite so high up in the most popular list...)

Star trekkin' across the universe

You can always tell it's a special day when Google goes all themed, and today is no exception. On the 12th of April in 1961, soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin made history and became the first person ever in space. Most people in the world were delighted, one notable exeption probably being American Alan Shepherd who missed out on claiming the title by a mere 23 days. Yuri did one leisurely loop of the Earth in Vostok 1, then landed just under two hours later. He apparently landed in a field in front of a farmer and his daughter, scaring the life out of them. In an attempt to reassure them, he is meant to have said "I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow". That seems typical of his straightforward style, while he was up in space, he is reported to have said things like "I am feeling fine. I am in good spirits. I feel splendid. The craft is operating normally." I can't helping thinking that if that were me who was the first person in space there'd be a lot more swearwords involved, but maybe that's one of the many reasons I'm not an astronaut...

Diminutive 5 ft 2 Yuri never lived to see NASA steal back the lead in the space race by sending the first men to the moon in 1969 - he died tragically in a plane crash in 1968. As recognition of his stellar acheivement, Yuri has a couple of commemorative coins bearing his likeness, a crater on the dark side of the moon, an asteroid, a town near to where he was born, numerous streets and squares, and the Cosmonaut Training Facility in Star City named after him. He also has his own mineral, gagarinite, and a 40ft titanium statue in Moscow. Nobody could ever say that Russia is not proud of it's trailblazing son - their very own Columbus of the Cosmos. Happy Anniversary, Yuri, wherever you are.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

PHOTO: ELIAS MINASI
Scientific literacy is at an all time high in the US. It now stands at a paltry 28% - up from an abominable 10% circa 1980.

Still, there's trouble down the line. According to the latest International Mathematics & Science Study from 2003, 4th graders in the US outperformed kids from at least 13 other countries out of 45. By the time they got to 8th grade, American students fared better and were ranked 15th best in Math know-how and 9th best in Science (again out of 45 countries). Still, across the board, American kids were creamed by those from Japan, China, Korea, and Hungary. Some of you may find it hard to believe that the world's political and economic leader produces such substandardly educated tots.

Look no further than Science Humour's collection of quotes from 11 year old science exams as a case in point.

A smattering of comic, and in turn tragic, quotes:

"Liter: A nest of young puppies."
"Magnet: Something you find crawling all over a dead cat."
"Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away."
"Planet: A body of Earth surrounded by sky. "
"Rhubarb: A kind of celery gone bloodshot."
"Vacumm: A large, empty space where the pope lives."

Forensic nuclearology

The same despot who is referred to as the "Master of the Computer Who Surprised the World" and "Eternal Bosom of Hot Love" by the international community (see Harper's for more bullshit titles) blew up a nuclear bomb on Monday.

While the politicians are busy urging UN actions, sanctions, and Kim-Jong-Il-is-a-bastard factions, scientists are busy sussing out exactly what blew up last week in North Korea. Test nukes are often detonated underground to stem radioactive pollution and ensure a degree of secrecy. The explosion triggers a unique pattern of shockwaves which are caught by seismic sensors. But no one knows for sure how big the blast was and whether it was indeed nuclear.

USGS clocked an an explosion of 4.2 on the richter scale near the surface some 40 miles north of Kimchaek, N.Korea. Estimates of the blast's strength place it at 500-2,000 tons of TNT, small fry as far as nukes go. Manhattan Project veteran Wolfgang Panofsky told USA Today that "most likely they tried to get a larger yield and things went wrong." Also measurements of airborne radioactivity, which spike after a nuclear explosion, haven't come in yet. Arms Control Wonk doesn't mince his words about it: "NHK and Yonhap have both reported on what Japan and South Korea have found in the atmosphere after the DPRK’s Monday test: bagel."

For more info read the BBC's Factfile: Underground nuclear testing and check out the Washington Post's FAQ on Verifying Nuclear Test Blasts . For a running well informed update on it all, keep tabs on Arms Control Wonk.

And to laugh about it all watch The End of The World. Zee aynd.

Toxalicious!

This is a note to all of you considering Botox...that Absolutely Fabulous chemical, which, when injected superficially into the face, kills those wrinkly muscles dead! But please remember not to squirt any in your juice. Because "lethal paralyzing neurotoxin party" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Fruit juice - good for the brain?

DOESN'T IT MAKE YOU THIRSTY JUST LOOKING AT IT? (PHOTO: CJCJ).

Fruit juice is great. It tastes nice, it gives you your daily dose of vitamins and apparently it can protect you from Allzheimers. That's according to the results of a 10 year study recently completed by scientsts at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Qi Dai and colleauges found 1836 dementia-free patients in Seattle, and assessed what they ate and their cognitive function over a decade, paying particular attention to fruit and veg intake.

After controlling for a range of other lifestyle factors such as smoking, diet, exercise and physical activity, the researchers identified a key variable in onset of dementia - intake of fruit juice. Patients who drank fruit juice more than three times a week (they did not specify the type) were 76% less likely to suffer from Alzheimers. 76% is a massive amount, and if it really is due to the juice this is an important finding.

The caution here is the usual one about causation and correlation. The people who drank the juice could have been doing something else right too, like exercising their brain by doing the crossword while they drank their juice. The scientists plan to follow up their study by testing the effect of the ingredient in the juice that they believe is the magic bullet - polyphenols. It's been suggested before that polyphenols help to protect the brain (eg in Green tea via NCNI, or in apples via Sciencedaily), so this might be one step nearer to confirming that. Until they do confirm it, drink juice. And tea. Just to be safe. And because they're nice.

Via The Times, and Eurekalert.

Nuke The Whales For Jesus

Science versus religion. The epic battle of logic, reason, heart n' soul. Or is it? Francis Collins, the head of the NIH human genome project and finder of the gene for cystic fibrosis, says no. Collins converted to Christianity at the age of 27, while getting his M.D. (post the physics Ph.D btw) and has since been a vocal supporter of the notion that science and religion can coexist. He even managed to get Bill Clinton to say, in his 2000 speech announcing the completion of the HGP, that "...we are learning the language in which God created life."

Now Collins has been plastered all over the media recently, because he has a new book out: "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief." I read a a great article about Collins in Time Magazine about a month ago (sorry, subscription applies), and then this Q&A with Collins from Salon.com (watch the ad, read the full interview).

The two stories are different, and not just because of their basic structure. Time concludes that Collins is - almost accidentally - more a Christian proponent of science than a scientist proponent of Christianity. His rock solid support of evolution, disfavour of both intelligent design and the literal interpretation of Genesis - hallmarks of todays science v. religion battle -  land him squarely on the science team.

In the Salon article, we get a slightly clearer picture of his real beliefs, I think. Again he reiterates his support of evolution and disparages the attempts to discredit the "theory" through intelligent design. He also says that scientists, especially Richard Dawkins, begun the recent spate of conflict between Christian fundamentalists by asserting that science/evolution has proved that God doesn't exist. Collins also talks about the proof for the existence of God: the nothingness before the Big Bang, the 15 natural constants (gravitational constant etc.) and finally the morals and altruism that pervades all humanity (especially behaviours that counter evolutionary predictions, such as putting your life in danger to help non-related others).

Now I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, because I don't believe in God. But his fence-straddling finesse is powerful. It made me realise how guttural and unfair my presentation of Christianity can be  - and how irrationally vehement my defence of science is. Do I understand the origin of the gravitational constant, what was before the Big Bang? Nope, no sir. Indeed it was a Christian inkycircus reader who mailed in the Salon article, saying that our approach to Christians was "very us vs them, and I find it unfair, because I am a Christian AND I am a nerd girl who is interested in science."

And man. She's right. I feel that the "flavour" of my posts is really a lesson about what extremism does...be it science vs. religion, religion vs. religion, Republican vs. Democrat, extremism polarises otherwise happily co-existing populations and forces people to choose sides. In a perfect world I'd like to think of myself as pro-science, not anti-Christianity, because ideologically they shouldn't be the same thing. But dude. When a bunch of vocal Christians start trying to kick evolution out of school curriculum (along with sex ed) and stem cells research out of laboratories, I get a little, um REACTIVE. Of course that's how some Christians must feel when gay people can get married, kids get free condoms, science claims to have killed God and tiny proto-humans are destroyed for the fancy of medical researchers..

I love that people like Francis Collins are making people think about their (meaning MY) knee-jerk reactions. And theoretically I agree with him: Christianity and science are not mutually exclusive. No where in the Bible does it say that we should teach creationism in science class. Just as no microbiology text deals with the biochemical proof that God doesn't exist. But theory and practice are different worlds. Today, where science, culture and politics overlap in increasingly dramatic ways - from education, to women's health, to medical research - and we actually end up VOTING for people/parties/bills/referendums that reflect our views, and we are literally forced to pick a side.

Where's the silver lining in this sucker?

The crazy cloud you see at left was photographed in 2003 22km above Iceland. It's called a nacreous cloud and a bunch were just seen in the skies above Antarctica. They only happen super high up in super frigid temperatures. The latest batch of these pearly clouds formed in temperatures of -87 degrees Celsius.

The Globe and Mail quotes Aussie Antarctic Division atmospheric scientist Andrew Klekociuk:

“These clouds are more than just a curiosity,” he said. “They reveal extreme conditions in the atmosphere and promote chemical changes that lead to destruction of vital stratospheric ozone.

“We are using instruments on the ground, on balloons and on satellites in an international program to find out what this type of phenomenon tells us about the current and future state of climate,” Ms. Klekociuk said.

Notice anything fishy there? Asides from the fact that these clouds may be harbingers of doom, it's Andrew's miraculous sex change in the kicker.