Solid Hydrogen Ice May Explain Interstellar Glow, Say Chemists
Astronomers have never been able to explain the weak glow they can see in interstellar space. Now new evidence suggests that solid hydrogen ice may be responsible.
Astronomers have long known that much of the universe is filled with diffuse hydrogen. In fact, they can see ionised hydrogen gas by the electromagnetic waves it gives off.
But back in the 1960s, some astronomers suggested that the interstellar medium might also be filled with solid hydrogen ice too. Various others later pointed out that this was unlikely because the ice ought to sublimate, even in the extreme cold of interstellar space.
More recently, astronomers have taken a second look at this idea and the pendulum of scientific opinion has begun to swing back in favour of hydrogen ice. That’s because chemists have discovered that hydrogen ice is more stable if it contains impurities. The extra ions in the lattice help to stabilise H2 ice.
So if hydrogen ice forms in space in the presence of other impurities, interstellar space could be full of it.
That raises an interesting question. Hydrogen ice is more or less transparent at optical frequencies. So how can we detect it in space?
Today, Ching Yeh Lin at the Australian National University in Canberra and a few buddies make an interesting suggestion. They say that when photons bombard hydrogen ice, they ought to ionise it creating ionised clusters of hydrogen and in particular H6+. This ion cluster does not form in hydrogen gas so its presence is a good marker for hydrogen ice.
The problem is that nobody knows what H6+ looks like–this work hasn’t yet been done in the lab. So Ching Yeh Lin and co have calculated from first principles its vibrational transitions. Their conclusion is that H6+ (and its deuterated cousin (HD)3+) ought to produce various emissions in the infrared part of the spectrum.
They then go on to compare their predictions with the emissions that astronomers can see coming from interstellar space.
Scientists have discovered an entirely new branch of life
NPR.ORG: If you think biologists have a pretty good idea about what lives on the Earth, think again. Scientists say they have just now discovered an entirely new branch on the tree of life. It’s made up of mysterious microscopic organisms. They’re related to fungus, but they are so different, you could argue that they deserve their very own kingdom, alongside plants and animals.
This comes as a big surprise. Just a few years ago, professor Timothy James and his colleagues sat down and wrote the definitive scientific paper to describe the fungal tree of life.
“We thought we knew what about the major groups that existed,” says James, who is curator of fungus at the University of Michigan. “Many groups have excellent drawings of these fungi from the last 150 years.”
Many fungi are already familiar. There are mushrooms, yeasts, molds like the one that makes penicillin, plant diseases such as rusts and smuts. Mildew in your shower is one, along with athlete’s foot. There are even fungi that infect insects — as well as fungi that live on other fungi.
Biologists figure they’ve probably only cataloged about 10 percent of all fungal species. But they thought they at least knew all of the major groups.
Thomas Richards, at the Natural History Museum in London, says biologists can mostly only study microscopic fungi if they can grow them in the lab.
“But the reality is most of the diversity of life we can’t grow in a laboratory. It exists in the environment,” he says. ”We know they have at least three stages to their life cycle,” Richards says. “One is where they attach to a host, which are photosynthetic algae. Another stage … they form swimming tails so they can presumably find food. And [there's] another stage, which we call the cyst phase, where they go to sleep.”
Full Story over at NPR.org
Ugly Truth of Space Junk: Orbital Debris Problem to Triple by 2030
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Dealing with the decades of detritus from using outer space — human-made orbital debris — is a global concern, but some experts are now questioning the feasibility of the wide range of “solutions” sketched out to grapple with high-speed space litter.
What may be shaping up is an “abandon in place” posture for certain orbital altitudes — an outlook that flags the messy message resulting from countless bits of orbital refuse.
“The traffic is increasing. We’ve now got over 50 nations that are participants in the space environment,” Shelton said last month during the Space Foundation’s 27th National Space Symposium. Given existing space situational awareness capabilities, over 20,000 objects are now tracked.
Fruit Salad Tree Bears Eight Different Types Of Fruit
Spring is in the air and the flowers are a bloomin’. If your the gardening type, you know it’s time to bust out the shovel and get to work. If you have a sweet tooth and enjoy growing fruit, you’re gonna love this… An Australian company has fabricated a tree that can bear up to eight different fruits, yep and they call it The Fruit Salad Tree!
How the heck do you grow eight different fruits on a single tree? With an asexual plant propagation technique known as grafting. Typically grafting is used for the commercial production of trees and shrubs, however The Fruit Salad Tree Company utilized this technique to create the ultimate buffet of fruit super tree!
Full story at TechniGlee
Cognitive Neuroscience book reveals why humans believe in gods
Dr Andy Thompson claims, in his new book, that the human mind generates religious beliefs as part of an evolutionary process. The recent revolution in cognitive science demonstrates the reasons why we create such myths, why we spread them and want other people to believe them too. His book shows the mechanisms in which the human mind constructs dogma, powers religious institutions and how irrational constructs can be harmful to society and its progression.
Every book bought contains a donation to the Richard Dawkins Foundation. The RDF finances research into the psychology of belief and religion, finances scientific education programs and materials, and publicises and supports secular charitable organisations.
It’s essential reading for all those who are interested in religious belief (whatever side of the fence you’re on), the way the mind works and gives an insight in to some of the recent breakthroughs in neuroscience and cognitive studies without being overly technical.
Play the game Phylo whilst performing important research
Though it may appear to be just a game, Phylo is actually a framework for harnessing the computing power of mankind to solve a common problem — Multiple Sequence Alignments.
Phylo is a game in which participants align sequences of DNA by shifting and moving puzzle pieces. Your score depends on how you arrange these pieces. You will be competing against a computer and other players in the community.
A sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA or protein to identify regions of similarity. These similarities may be consequences of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences. From such an alignment, biologists may infer shared evolutionary origins, identify functionally important sites, and illustrate mutation events. More importantly, biologists can trace the source of certain genetic diseases.
Inverted Art Made with Spools of Thread
Devorah Sperber is exhibiting at Art Paris – which brings together emerging and established artists in painting, photography, sculpture, and more. Sperber takes multi-colored spools of thread and arranges them in a way so that they appear like pixels. Taken as a whole, the spools look like a “hot mess,” in other words, like your grandma went crazy and glue gunned her thread collection on a wall. Look through a “viewing sphere” (a small, transparent ball) that’s conveniently placed in front of the piece, however, and get ready to be amazed. As Brooklyn Museum states, “Sperber deconstructs familiar images so that the brain can reconstruct them. Her framed crystal reproductions similarly address the way we think we see versus the way the brain processes visual information.”
See more wonderful examples and more info of this at MyModernment
Learning how the brain does its coding
Most organisms with brains can store and process a staggering range of information. The fundamental unit of the brain, a single neuron, however, can only communicate in the simplest of manners, by sending a simple electrical pulse. The challenge of understanding how information is contained in the pattern of these pulses has been bothering neurobiologists for decades, and has been given its own name: neural coding.
In principle, there are two ways coding could be handled. In dense coding, a single neuron would convey lots of information through a complex series of voltage spikes. To a degree, however, this creates as many problems as it solves, since the neuron on the receiving end will have to be able to interpret this complex series properly, and separate it from operating noise.
The alternative, sparse coding, tends to be used for memory recall and sensory representations. Here, a single neuron only conveys a limited amount of information (i.e., there’s something moving horizontally in the field of vision) through a simple pulse of activity. Detailed information is then constructed by aggregating the inputs of lots of these neurons.
Full story at Arstechnica
Chinese teenager has carried friend to school on back for eight years
In Hebei, China, 16-year-old Lui Shi Ching has carried his friend to school daily for the last 8 years. His friend Lu Shao has a congenital disorder which makes it difficult for him to walk.
Eight years ago on a rainy day, Lu Shao was stuck at school when his mother didn’t come to pick him up. Lui Shi Ching, who was smaller than Lu Shao, decided to help and carried him home.
Full story at NTDWA
