Sun's energy influences 1,000 years of natural climate variability

This is a composite created from three images received from MODIS instruments carried on NASA's Terra and Aqua polar orbiting satellites. 

The images were received at the Dundee Satellite Receiving Station at 1151, 1205 and 1342 UTC on 7th Jan. 2010. 

Credit: NASA

Changes in the sun's energy output may have led to marked natural climate change in Europe over the last 1000 years, according to researchers at Cardiff University.

Scientists studied seafloor sediments to determine how the temperature of the North Atlantic and its localised atmospheric circulation had altered.

Warm surface waters flowing across the North Atlantic, an extension of the Gulf Stream, and warm westerly winds are responsible for the relatively mild climate of Europe, especially in winter.

Slight changes in the transport of heat associated with these systems can led to regional climate variability, and the study findings matched historic accounts of climate change, including the notoriously severe winters of the 16th and 18th centuries which pre-date global industrialisation.

The study found that changes in the Sun's activity can have a considerable impact on the ocean-atmospheric dynamics in the North Atlantic, with potential effects on regional climate.

Predictions suggest a prolonged period of low sun activity over the next few decades, but any associated natural temperature changes will be much smaller than those created by human carbon dioxide emissions, say researchers.

The study, led by Cardiff University scientists, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Bern, is published today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Paola Moffa-Sanchez

Dr Paola Moffa-Sanchez, lead author from Cardiff University School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, explained: "We used seafloor sediments taken from south of Iceland to study changes in the warm surface ocean current."

"This was done by analysing the chemical composition of fossilised microorganisms that had once lived in the surface of the ocean."

"These measurements were then used to reconstruct the seawater temperature and the salinity of this key ocean current over the past 1000 years."

The results of these analyses revealed large and abrupt temperature and salinity changes in the north-flowing warm current on time-scales of several decades to centuries.

Cold ocean conditions were found to match periods of low solar energy output, corresponding to intervals of low sunspot activity observed on the surface of the sun.

Using a physics-based climate model, the authors were able to test the response of the ocean to changes in the solar output and found similar results to the data.

Ian Hall

"By using the climate model it was also possible to explore how the changes in solar output affected the surface circulation of the Atlantic Ocean," said Prof Ian Hall, a co-author of the study.

"The circulation of the surface of the Atlantic Ocean is typically tightly linked to changes in the wind patterns."

"Analysis of the atmosphere component in the climate model revealed that during periods of solar minima there was a high-pressure system located west of the British Isles."

"This feature is often referred to as atmospheric blocking, and it is called this because it blocks the warm westerly winds diverting them and allowing cold Arctic air to flow south bringing harsh winters to Europe, such as those recently experienced in 2010 and 2013."

The study concludes that although the temperature changes expected from future solar activity are much smaller than the warming from human carbon dioxide emissions, regional climate variability associated with the effects of solar output on the ocean and atmosphere should be taken into account when making future climate projections.

More information: Solar forcing of North Atlantic surface temperature and salinity over the past millennium, Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2094

Studies Link the Rise Of Significant Earthquakes to Oil and Gas extraction

Two new papers tie a recent increase in significant earthquakes to re-injection of wastewater fluids from unconventional oil and gas drilling.

The first study notes “significant earthquakes are increasingly occurring within the United States midcontinent.” In the specific case of Oklahoma, a Magnitude “5.7 earthquake and a prolific sequence of related events … were likely triggered by fluid injection.”

The second study, of the Raton Basin of Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico by a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team, concludes;

”the majority, if not all of the earthquakes since August 2001 have been triggered by the deep injection of wastewater related to the production of natural gas from the coal-bed methane field here.”

Both studies are being presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union this week.

These studies, together with other recent findings, make a strong case that we need national regulations on wastewater injection to prevent induced earthquakes.

Background
As hydraulic fracturing has exploded onto the scene, it has increasingly been connected to earthquakes. Some quakes may be caused by the original fracking — that is, by injecting a fluid mixture into the earth to release natural gas (or oil).

More appear to be caused by reinjecting the resulting brine deep underground.

In August 2011, a USGS report examined a cluster of earthquakes in Oklahoma and reported:

Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased.

In November 2011, a British shale gas developer found it was “highly probable” its fracturing operations caused minor quakes.

In March 2012, Ohio oil and gas regulators said “A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth.”

In April, the USGS delivered a paper at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America that noted “a remarkable increase in the rate of [magnitude 3.0] and greater earthquakes is currently in progress” in the U.S. midcontinent.

The USGS scientists pointed out that ”a naturally-occurring rate change of this magnitude is unprecedented outside of volcanic settings or in the absence of a main shock, of which there were neither in this region.”

They concluded:

While the seismicity rate changes described here are almost certainly manmade , it remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production.

Martian Meteorite on Display [VIDEO]

Researchers from the Natural History Museum in London have discovered a huge Martian meteorite which is now on temporary display in the Museum's vault gallery.

Researchers believe the meteorite will help them unravel the mysteries of Mars. The meteorite fell in a desert at Tissint in Morocco on July 18, 2011. It weighs around 1.1kg and is now the largest Martian meteorite in the museum's collection. This meteorite is also known as the Tissint Meteorite.

According to the researchers, every year about 1,000 meteorites land on Earth, ranging from the size of a football to a washing machine. Even though so many meteorites fall, it is very rare to get a Martian meteorite because it easily get contaminated when it reaches the earth's atmosphere due to moisture present in the air. The researchers should recover it very quickly before it completely gets contaminated.

"Arguably this is the most important meteorite to have fallen in 100 years and we now have the largest piece in our collection," said Dr Caroline Smith from the Natural History Museum. "Martian meteorites are incredibly rare, and when they have been seen to fall and recovered quickly, like Tissint, they offer a unique insight into the Red Planet."

"The importance of this new acquisition cannot be understated," said Dr David Parker, Director of Science, Technology and Exploration from the UK Space Agency. "And the fact that the UK now holds the largest sample of the Tissint meteorite in any public collection in the world is a great opportunity for UK planetary researchers," he added.

"Man may not set foot on Mars in the near future, but Mars has come to us. This close-up view will bring new scientific understanding, to spur our children on to further exploration on the surface of the planet itself," Dave Gheesling from the Falling Rocks Collection in Atlanta, sold the main mass to the Museum.

The skull of Australopithecus Sediba

The skull of Australopithecus Sediba at the UK's Natural history Museum, London.

It is currently the hottest topic in palaeoanthropology, and visitors to London's Natural History Museum can now get to see what all the fuss is about. 

This 1.9-million-year-old creature caused a sensation when the discovery of its fossil remains in South Africa was first announced in 2010.

A. sediba has a curious mix of ape and human features, suggesting it could be one of our direct ancestors.

"This is one of the most exciting and controversial fossil finds of recent years and it's fantastic to have this material at the museum," said Prof Ian Owens, the NHM's director of science.

"Researchers will get to work with it, but also the public will get to see it, and we hope that will really help bring the science alive," he told BBC News.

The replicas are a gift from the government of the Republic of South Africa and the University of the Witwatersrand, which is leading the investigation into the fossils.

The real specimens were found at Malapa in the famous Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, just to the northwest of Johannesburg.

They were pulled from a pit - a depression left in the ground by a cave complex that subsequently lost its roof through erosion.

Identified as the remains of an adult female and a juvenile male, the two individuals were quite possibly mother and son.

It seems they died together in some tragic accident that saw them either fall into the cave complex or become stuck in it.

After death, their bodies were washed into a pool and cemented in time along with the skeletons of many other animals - sabre-tooth cats, hyenas, antelope, even birds and mice.

"All of this accumulation happened very, very quickly - in a few days, weeks or months," said lead researcher Prof Lee Berger of the Institute for Human Evolution at Wits University.

"Once we've completed this project, we're going to be able to show a texture of a moment in time that we have never seen before except in maybe the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the burial of Pompeii."

Scientists are now engaged in an intense debate over the status of A. sediba in the story of our origins.

Prof Berger and his colleagues say the creature's mix of ancient and modern traits probably make it central to that story. They propose that A. sediba could even sit on, or very close to, the line that led directly to us - modern humans (Homo sapiens).

Other scientists remain to be convinced, and argue too little is known about the diversity of ancient human forms this far back in time to make any bold statements.

Natural drug Abscisic Acid's infection fighting mechanism revealed

The scientists had reported some of the key molecular events in the immune system of mice that contribute to inflammation-related disease, including the involvement of a specific molecule found on the surface of immune cells involved in the body’s fight against infection (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21068720). 

They have now gone one step further and revealed the mechanism by which the natural drug abscisic acid interacts with this protein, known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma, to block inflammation and the subsequent onset of disease.

“In previous work, our research group demonstrated that abscisic acid has beneficial effects on several conditions and diseases including obesity-related inflammation, diabetes, atherosclerosis, and inflammatory bowel disease,” said Josep Bassaganya-Riera, associate professor of immunology at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, leader of the Nutritional Immunology and Molecular Medicine Group in the institute’s CyberInfrastructure Division, and principal investigator of the study.

“One idea for how abscisic acid reduces inflammation in these instances is that it binds to a special region of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma, a binding site known as the ligand-binding domain where the drug would be expected to latch on to and exert its effect. 

Our results show that this is not the case and, for the first time, we have demonstrated that abscisic acid works independently of this ligand-binding domain of the receptor.”

More information on this article here Science Blog

Transcendental Meditation activates the brain's natural ground state

A new EEG study conducted on college students at American University found they could more highly activate the default mode network, a suggested natural "ground state" of the brain, during their practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique.

This three-month randomized control study is published in a special issue of Cognitive Processing dedicated to the Neuroscience of Meditation and Consciousness, Volume 11, Number 1, February, 2010.

Specifically, the study found the TM technique:

• Produces a unique state of "restful alertness," as seen in the markedly higher alpha power in the frontal cortex and lower beta and gamma waves in the same frontal areas during TM practice.
• Creates greater alpha coherence between the left and right hemispheres of the brain suggesting the brain is working as a whole.
• Enhances an individual's sense of "self" by activating what neuroscientists call the "default mode network" in the brain. (This is considered the natural ground state of the brain, glimpsed by neuroscientists during eyes-closed rest but more fully activated during Transcendental Meditation practice.)

"The finding of significant brain wave differences between students practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique and those simply resting with their eyes closed is especially convincing because subjects were randomly assigned to conditions, and testing was conducted by a researcher unaware of the experimental condition to which the subject had been assigned," said David Haaga, Ph.D., coauthor and professor of psychology at American University.

"Research has already shown that simply closing one's eyes and relaxing increases the default mode. A significant additional finding of this new study is that activity in the default mode increases during TM compared to simple eyes-closed rest," said Fred Travis, Ph.D., lead author and director of the Centre for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management.

"Different meditation techniques entail various degrees of cognitive control. Thus, activation patterns of the default mode network could give insight into the nature of meditation practices."

Previous published research, funded by the NIH, shows TM practice decreases high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, cholesterol, stroke, and heart failure.

If you wish to see more visit their website http://www.mum.edu/

Natural human protein could prevent H1N1: study

Natural human protein could prevent H1N1: study

A strain of natural human proteins have been found to help ward off swine flu and other viruses including West Nile and dengue, in a discovery that could spur more effective treatments, US researchers said Thursday.

In cultured human cells, researchers lead by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) found that these certain proteins have powerful antiviral effects by blocking the replication of viruses.

The findings, reported Thursday in an online article from the journal Cell, "could lead to the development of more effective antiviral drugs, including prophylactic drugs that could be used to slow influenza transmission," the team said.

The influenza virus, along with the other viruses, must take over proteins in cells to sustain itself. In their study, researchers found some 120 genes that are needed by H1N1 -- commonly known as swine flu.

"But in the process of figuring that out, we found this other class of genes that actually have the opposite effect, so that if you get rid of them, influenza replicates much better," according to HHMI team leader Stephen Elledge at the Harvard Medical School.