Plasma Plume protects the Earth against solar storms

The Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, stretches from the planet's core out into space, where it meets the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun. 

For the most part, the magnetosphere acts as a shield to protect the Earth from this high-energy solar activity.

But when this field comes into contact with the sun's magnetic field, a process called "magnetic reconnection," powerful electrical currents from the sun can stream into Earth's atmosphere, whipping up geomagnetic storms and space weather phenomena that can affect high-altitude aircraft, as well as astronauts on the International Space Station.

Now scientists at MIT and NASA have identified a process in the Earth's magnetosphere that reinforces its shielding effect, keeping incoming solar energy at bay.

By combining observations from the ground and in space, the team observed a plume of low-energy plasma particles that essentially hitches a ride along magnetic field lines, streaming from Earth's lower atmosphere up to the point, tens of thousands of kilometers above the surface, where the planet's magnetic field connects with that of the sun.

In this region, which the scientists call the "merging point," the presence of cold, dense plasma slows magnetic reconnection, blunting the sun's effects on Earth.

John Foster

"The Earth's magnetic field protects life on the surface from the full impact of these solar outbursts," says John Foster, associate director of MIT's Haystack Observatory.

"Reconnection strips away some of our magnetic shield and lets energy leak in, giving us large, violent storms."

"These plasmas get pulled into space and slow down the reconnection process, so the impact of the sun on the Earth is less violent."

Foster and his colleagues publish their results in this week's issue of Science.

Philip Erickson

The team includes Philip Erickson, principal research scientist at Haystack Observatory, as well as Brian Walsh and David Sibeck at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Mapping Earth's magnetic shield
For more than a decade, scientists at Haystack Observatory have studied plasma plume phenomena using a ground-based technique called GPS-TEC, in which scientists analyze radio signals transmitted from GPS satellites to more than 1,000 receivers on the ground.

Large space-weather events, such as geomagnetic storms, can alter the incoming radio waves—a distortion that scientists can use to determine the concentration of plasma particles in the upper atmosphere.

Using this data, they can produce two-dimensional global maps of atmospheric phenomena, such as plasma plumes.

These ground-based observations have helped shed light on key characteristics of these plumes, such as how often they occur, and what makes some plumes stronger than others but as Foster notes; "this two-dimensional mapping technique gives an estimate only of what space weather might look like in the low-altitude regions of the magnetosphere."

To get a more precise, three-dimensional picture of the entire magnetosphere would require observations directly from space.

Toward this end, Foster approached Walsh with data showing a plasma plume emanating from the Earth's surface, and extending up into the lower layers of the magnetosphere, during a moderate solar storm in January 2013.

Walsh checked the date against the orbital trajectories of three spacecraft that have been circling the Earth to study auroras in the atmosphere.

As it turns out, all three spacecraft crossed the point in the magnetosphere at which Foster had detected a plasma plume from the ground.

The team analyzed data from each spacecraft, and found that the same cold, dense plasma plume stretched all the way up to where the solar storm made contact with Earth's magnetic field.

More information: "Simultaneous Ground- and Space-Based Observations of the Plasmaspheric Plume and Reconnection" Science, 2014.

Dependency drives Conservation of Earth's Coral Reefs

Credit: IUCN

More than 275 million people are dependent on coral reefs for food, coastal protection and livelihoods.

Global Consciousness - Edgar Mitchell: Apollo 14 Astronaut - Cartoon

 

 

All credit for the cartoon goes to Zen Pencils

Tile Makers Creating Orion Shield

Workers recently began cutting and coating the first thermal protection system tiles - part of the heat shield that will protect an Orion spacecraft during an upcoming flight test which will simulate the re-entry speed and heating of returning from deep space.

The tiles are made of the same material and coating as those used on the space shuttle's belly.

On Orion, however, the tiles will be placed along the sides and top of the conical spacecraft.

A separate heat shield akin to the ablative design used during Apollo is being developed to protect the bottom of the spacecraft, which will encounter the highest temperatures.

The manufacturing work at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., marks an important time in the progression of the spacecraft following the shuttle's retirement in 2011, said Thermal Protection System, or TPS, engineers Joy Huff and Sarah Cox.

"We're making something that's going to fly again, which is what we were doing for years," Huff said.

There are about 40 people involved in the tile work: 20 to make the tiles and 20 to install them.

"We're at the starting line," Cox said. "It's going to take some time to get all the parts fabricated."

The same shop that manufactured space shuttle tiles will make the 1,300 tiles needed for the Orion flight.

It is not fast work. In fact, workers will spend about 11 months shaping the insulating blocks and laying on a heat-resistant, ceramic coating.

They use a 5-axis mill loaded with precise dimensions to cut blank tiles to their shapes. So far, the shop has finished 33 tiles.

Many of the tiles will have special cutouts for instruments to collect data during the flight test. Many fewer cutouts will be needed for future missions.

In an advancement from the shuttle days, each tile's dimensions are sent over digitally from Orion builder Lockheed Martin and the final tile is photographed with a 3-D camera so computers can fit the pieces together virtually before they are placed together physically, Huff said. The details are far more exact than in the past.

"They've had such good success that (technicians) are going to eliminate one pre-fit step," Huff said.

The comparisons with the tile work for the space shuttles are plentiful. For example, the smaller Orion uses tiles that average 8-inches by 8-inches compared to the shuttle's 6-inches by 6-inches.

Also, Orion's design allows for many of the tiles to be the same dimensions with the same part number, but each shuttle tile was a unique configuration unto itself, with individual part numbers.

"That's a huge improvement over shuttle," Huff said. "Even having nine or 10 of the same part is a big improvement."

Perhaps the biggest comparison, though, is the sheer number of tiles involved. A space shuttle heat shield required more than 23,000 tiles to the Orion's 1,300.

"It's smaller, so there's less parts," Cox said.

iPhone: Amazing spray coating can make it waterproof [video]

NeverWet on Electronics and Conformal Coatings from Ross Nanotechnology on Vimeo.

Neverwet, a new spray coating, can turn almost anything waterproof. Like seriously waterproof, as in messy sauces, juice, ink and oil don’t just bead off — they shoot off the surface.

It’s also anti-corrosive, sending even bacteria and ice running and screaming for the hills.

While there are a host of water-resistant coatings and products available, most only offer hydrophobic properties and fall short of the litmus test to be considered “waterproof.”

Ross Technologies claims that their silicon-based product is superhydrophobic, meaning it repels liquids at a very high “contact angle” (175 degrees), which is the distance wedged between a water droplet and the surface. So the higher the contact angle, the rounder the water droplet.

The secret to how the patent-pending technology works is a proprietary arrangement of nanoparticles that turns water droplets into near-perfect spheres.

Originally, researchers at the company had set about developing a material that would prevent steel from corroding and realized that such a product might also work on a variety of surfaces, including fabrics.

They eventually came up with a separate coating that can be applied just about anywhere.


To demonstrate Neverwet’s mighty water, stain and dirt-repelling abilities, the company has produced a series of mini-infomercials where spilled water scurries away in terror, chocolate syrup simply slides off a treated shoe and a coated iPhone is shown to still work while submerged underwater — even after half an hour.

The company says that the coating is exceptionally durable, stating on their website that “NeverWet™ coatings have remained under seawater for over a year and reemerged completely dry.”
The final product isn’t scheduled to hit the market until sometime next year.

Malaria vaccine has potential to save millions

After more than 30 years of work, researchers have for the first time succeeded in creating a vaccine against malaria, a deadly disease that kills nearly 800,000 a year, most of them children.

The experimental vaccine, still in the testing phase, only protects about 50% of children who receive it, but even that could "potentially translate into tens of millions of cases of malaria in children averted annually," says Tsiri Agbenyega, the principal investigator for the vaccine trials at Agogo Presbyterian Hospital in Agogo, Ghana.

"This is remarkable when you consider there has never been a successful vaccine against a human parasite nor against malaria."

Malaria is one of the most devastating diseases on the planet. Half the world's population is at risk of malaria. There are about 225 million cases yearly and more than 780,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. In Africa, one in five children die from malaria, one every 30 seconds, WHO says.

The vaccine was tested on 15,460 children in two age groups, 6 to 12 weeks old and from 5 to 17 months of age in seven African countries.

It was given in three doses. In children 5 to 17 months, the vaccine was 50% protective against the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite, which is carried by mosquitoes. Results in children 6 to 12 weeks old will be released in 2012.

Researchers hope to improve the effectiveness of the vaccine over time, but even at 50% effectiveness it means that for every 1,500 children vaccinated, 750 won't get malaria, says Andrew Witty, the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, one of the vaccine's developers. "This is a very meaningful start."

Not all vaccines are 100% effective, even in the United States, says William Schaffner, chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

For example, the meningitis vaccine given to teens "doesn't have the staying power we anticipated it would, so we have to give a booster." But they still prevent disease and will be "great stimulus for further work."

The vaccine may be available in Africa "perhaps as early as 2015," Witty says.

The project is a collaboration between GlaxoSmithKline, the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

It is being funded in part by more than $200 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and $300 million from GlaxoSmithKline.

An exact cost for the series of three vaccination is not known, but GlaxoSmithKline will supply the vaccine at the lowest possible cost, Witty says: the cost of producing it plus 5%, which will go to researching other neglected diseases. "We have no intention of making a profit," he says.

The vaccine is being produced in Europe and will go through licensing there for production and use in Africa, says Mary Hamel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It will then need to undergo market authorization for each African country.

GlaxoSmithKline says its expects the initial production capacity to be about 30 million doses, enough for 10 million children a year. It hopes to scale up manufacturing capability in both Europe and later in Africa and perhaps India, to lower costs.

The vaccine will not be available in the United States because being developed in Europe there is no way for it to undergo the Food and Drug Administration's licensing process.

The vaccine is meant to be used alongside long-proven malaria protections such as insecticide-impregnated bed nets and indoor spraying, both of which have begun to lower malaria rates in Africa in the past decade.

When both are in place "we could expect hundreds of thousands of lives to be saved," CDC's Hamel says.

The way the vaccine was developed is exciting, says Seth Berkley, CEO of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. In the past, such work would be done either by a government or a large company.

In an indication of the weight of expectation around this vaccine, still known only as RTS,S , the results were announced at a malaria forum in Seattle called by Bill and Melinda Gates, with World Health Organisation director general, Margaret Chan, and the UK development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, present. They were published at the same time online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Protecting the Croatia Limestone Cave System and it's unique animal life

Species of animals, millions of years old, could be wiped out by pollution and development in Croatia according to a new breed of cave biologists.

Jana Bedek and her team of bio-speleologists have recently discovered that the underground networks of the Balkans, especially Croatia, have the richest cave fauna in the world.

"We are now in the place with the best range of cave animals in the world," she says.

"The other countries have their own rich fauna in rainforests, marine ecosystems etc, but here in this area we have cave fauna. Really important at world level."

But on a political and economic level, Croatia is emerging from decades of communism, and the devastating Balkan war, with a desire to develop.

Tornado Alley Trailer (HD)

Filmmaker Sean Casey has been chasing tornadoes for more than a decade. And it takes one tough ride to get in and out of the violent storms safely.

We met up with the storm chaser this week at The Tech Museum in San Jose, Calif., where his Imax film, Tornado Alley, opens today.

Driving directly into violent storms with an Imax camera, Casey attempts to document a high-definition view of a direct hit from an F3 tornado, giving moviegoers a large-format view of one of nature's most violent displays. (F3 tornadoes are considered severe and characterize a storm with winds of 158 mph to 206 mph.)

To accomplish this, he's built a custom, bunker-like, 14,000-pound storm-chasing truck that is armored with layers of steel and Kevlar. Tucked safely inside, he aims to plant himself and his team directly in the path of these spectacular storms.

His second-generation Tornado Intercept Vehicle, the TIV2 shown here, has been built to withstand the worst. In this slideshow, we take a tour of some of the technology used to capture this unprecedented footage--and make sure everyone makes it out unharmed.

Mercury vapour released from broken energy saving light bulbs can exceed safe exposure levels

Once broken, a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) or energy saving light bulbs continuously releases mercury vapour into the air for weeks to months, and the total amount can exceed safe human exposure levels in a poorly ventilated room, according to study results reported in Environmental Engineering Science, a peer-reviewed online only journal published monthly by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

The amount of liquid mercury (Hg) that leaches from a broken compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) is lower than the level allowed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), so CFLs are not considered hazardous waste.

However, Yadong Li and Li Jin, Jackson State University (Jackson, MS) report that the total amount of Hg vapour released from a broken CFL over time can be higher than the amount considered safe for human exposure.

They document their findings in the article "Environmental Release of Mercury from Broken Compact Fluorescent Lamps."

As people can readily inhale vapour-phase mercury, the authors suggest rapid removal of broken CFLs and adequate ventilation, as well as suitable packaging to minimize the risk of breakage of CFLs and to retain Hg vapour if they do break, thereby limiting human exposure.

Tests of eight different brands of CFLs and four different wattages revealed that Hg content varies significantly from brand to brand. To determine the amount of Hg released by a broken CFL, Li and Jin used standard procedures developed by the EPA to measure leaching of mercury in liquids and used an emission monitoring system to detect Hg vapour.

"This paper is a very nice holistic analysis of potential risks associated with mercury release from broken CFLs and points to potential human health threats that have not always been considered," according to Domenico Grasso, PhD, Editor-in-Chief and Vice President for Research, Dean of the Graduate College, University of Vermont (Burlington).

Magnetic Anomalies Shield The Moon

Scientists have discovered a new type of solar wind interaction with airless bodies in our solar system.

Magnetised regions called magnetic anomalies, mostly on the far side of the Moon, were found to strongly deflect the solar wind, shielding the Moon's surface.

This will help understand the solar wind behaviour near the lunar surface and how water may be generated in its upper layer.

Observational evidence for these findings will be presented by Dr. Yoshifumi Futaana and Dr. Martin Wieser at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome, on Friday 24th September.

Atmosphere-less bodies interact with the solar wind quite differently than the Earth. Their surfaces are exposed without any shielding by a dense atmosphere or magnetosphere. This causes them to be heavily weathered by meteoroids or the solar wind, forming a very rough and chaotic surface called regolith.

Previously, the solar wind was thought to be completely absorbed by the regolith. However, recent explorations of the Earth's moon by the Chang'E-1, Kaguya and Chandrayaan-1 spacecrafts have revealed that this interaction is not that simple.

A significant flux of high energy particles was found to originate from the lunar surface, most probably due to the solar wind directly reflected off the Moon's regolith.

"These results may change dramatically the way we understood the solar wind-regolith interaction so far," says Dr. Futaana of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics.

Marine Reserves now! | Greenpeace International

Marine Reserves now! | Greenpeace International

Study details machinery of immune protection against colitis and inflammatory diseases

Study details machinery of immune protection against colitis and inflammatory diseases ScienceBlog.com

Scientists report a protein made by a gene already associated with a handful of human inflammatory immune diseases plays a pivotal role in protecting the intestinal tract from colitis.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators led the research, which points to possible new strategies for combating colitis. Colitis is a chronic inflammatory disease associated with colon damage, resulting in abdominal pain, bleeding and other symptoms.

The work also expands the link between the Nlrp3 protein and Crohn's disease, said Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, Ph.D., assistant member of the St. Jude Department of Immunology and the paper's senior author.

Md. Hasan Zaki, Ph.D., a St. Jude postdoctoral fellow, is first author of the study, which appears in the March 18 online edition of the journal Immunity.

Researchers demonstrated that in a mouse model of colitis, Nlrp3 plays a pivotal role in keeping the intestinal tract intact, thus preventing further damage that occurs if intestinal bacteria leak into the body.

Nlrp3 works by anchoring a large, multi-protein complex known as the Nlrp3 inflammasome where the messenger protein interleukin 18 (IL-18) is made. IL-18 belongs to a family of molecules known as cytokines, which shape the body's immune response.

In this study, researchers showed IL-18 produced by the Nlrp3 inflammasome helped mice maintain healthy colon by triggering production of more epithelial cells to compensate for those damaged or destroyed by colitis.

"This paper provides the basis for more effective, potentially disease-modifying approaches to treatment," Kanneganti said. She added that in this study, scientists showed the specific pathway activated in the epithelial cells lining the colon for IL-18 production.

Previous studies linked changes in the NLRP3 gene to several auto-inflammatory problems in which a person's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue. The gene is part of the body's innate immune response. That is the branch of the immune system programmed to act immediately against infectious diseases and other threats.

"I believe if we target molecules that are part of the innate immune response we can find cures for many diseases, including cancer," Kanneganti said. She and her colleagues focused on Nlrp3 in colitis after reports that patients with Crohn's disease, another disorder characterised by chronic intestinal inflammation, had low levels of the protein.

In a series of experiments, scientists demonstrated that the Nlrp3 inflammasome not only helps protect against chemically induced colitis in mice, but also showed how and where in the body the protection occurred.

The researchers demonstrated that in response to colitis, the Nlrp3 inflammasome is activated in the epithelial cells lining the colon, where IL-18 can be produced.

Investigators also established that IL-18 is crucial for protecting the colon from colitis. In fact, researchers reported that injecting IL-18 into mice that lacked the molecule eased colitis symptoms.

The other authors of this study are Kelli Boyd, Peter Vogel and Michael Kastan (all St. Jude) and Mohamed Lamkanfi (Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium).

This research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and ALSAC.

To read the full article click here

Saving Gorillas Starts With Understanding Their Human Neighbours

Saving Gorillas Starts With Understanding Their Human Neighbours

Understanding local human cultures is key to preserving gorillas, elephants and other wildlife in African parks and reserves, according to new research from Purdue University.

"Conservation efforts and the management of protected areas are often designed with the best intentions, but sometimes supporting scientific data is missing or incorrect assumptions are made about a local culture or even the outsiders or trade that plays a role in the area," said Melissa Remis, a professor of anthropology who studies gorillas.

"Conservation isn't just about protecting wildlife, you also need to consider the human dimension such as how local hunting technologies or even migration can change how land is used."

FBI Shutdown by Mysterious Virus Attack!

The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service were forced to shut down parts of their computer networks after a mystery virus struck the law-enforcement agencies.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed that it had disconnected from Justice Department computers as a precaution after being hit with the virus, while an FBI spokesperson would only say that it was experiencing similar issues.

"We too are evaluating a network issue on our external, unclassified network that's affecting several government agencies," reported FBI spokesman Mike Kortan.

The virus' type and origin are unknown, but spokespeople for both agencies said agencies' access to the Internet and e-mail was shut down while the issue was evaluated.

Government regulations require agencies to report any security issues to US-Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), but a call to CERT late Thursday for comment was not immediately returned.

All this following reports that a number of unfriendly governments may have penetrated the US Government sites and planted spybots, viruses, trojans, etc.