Researchers construct a model of impact for El Nino / La Nina events

The 1997 El Nino seen by TOPEX/Poseidon. 

Credit: NASA

A small team made up of researchers from the U.S. and Europe has constructed a model that helps map parts of the world that are most at risk of flooding due to El Niño/La Niña events.

In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes how they compared weather data over the past half century with economic impacts of actual floods to create a model that may soon be used to help predict flooding events in the future.

By now, most everyone has heard about El Niño/La Niña weather events, El Niño is where warm water west of South America causes more rain to fall in some places.

La Niña is where the same waters are cooler than normal resulting in different changes to rain patterns.

Perhaps less well known is that such events have a worldwide impact, causing more flooding than normal in some parts of the world and less in others.

Ofen the flooding results in damage to property and loss of life, thus it would be a good thing if forecasts could be made, warning people in areas most at risk.

Unfortunately, up till now, such forecasts have not been available because such events don't always cause the same types of flooding in the same places.

In this new effort, the researchers sought to provide a model for building such a forecasting ability by using data over a long period of time.

"El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most dominant interannual signal of climate variability and has a strong influence on climate over large parts of the world."

"In turn, it strongly influences many natural hazards (such as hurricanes and droughts) and their resulting socioeconomic impacts, including economic damage and loss of life."

"However, although ENSO is known to influence hydrology in many regions of the world, little is known about its influence on the socioeconomic impacts of floods (i.e., flood risk)."

The research team obtained weather data for the years 1959 to 2000, pulling out periods of El Niño/La Niña weather events which they then compared with reports of damage due to flooding.

Next they compared those results with flood reports during normal times and used what they found to create a model.

The model showed that during El Niño events, 34 percent of the Earth's surface had higher or lower than normal amounts of flooding, that number jumped to 38 percent for La Niña weather events.

The model also showed which parts of the planet are more susceptible on average, to flooding due to such events.

The Southwest in the U.S. for example and parts of South America, both experience more flooding during El Niño events, while places like the Sahel in Africa, and most of Australia experience less.

The research team acknowledges that their model is still in its infancy but believe that over time, as more research is conducted, it will improve to the point that it will be useful in helping areas prepare for flooding during El Niño/La Niña weather events.

More information: Strong influence of El Niño Southern Oscillation on flood risk around the world, PNAS, Philip J. Ward, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1409822111

HZDR Research: Cosmic jets of young stars formed by magnetic fields

This is an artist's rendering showing the birth of a star: A dust and gas cloud is forming a spiraling disk around a massive baby star while jets of material shoot from its core. 

Credit: ESO/L. Calada

Astrophysical jets are counted among our Universe's most spectacular phenomena: From the centers of black holes, quasars, or protostars, these rays of matter sometimes protrude several light years into space.

Now, for the first time ever, an international team of researchers has successfully tested a new model that explains how magnetic fields form these emissions in young stars.

Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) were part of this research.

Their findings have been published in the journal Science. The insights gleaned from this research may even apply to cancer therapy.

Whenever an object in space forms a rotating disc of matter, chances are that it gives rise to a "jet" – a thin, straight emission of matter which emanates from the disc's center and that looks like a spintop.

These structures can be observed especially during the formation of new stars, but understanding how such thin beams are able to form within the disc is something that continues to elude scientists.

Now, HZDR researchers, along with their European, American, and Asian colleagues, have investigated this process in the lab.

At the Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses (LULI), in France, scientists hit a plastic sample with laser light which set the electrons at the target's core in motion, transforming the solid plastic object into conductive plasma.

"Think of it as a sort of rapidly expanding hot cloud of electrons and ions. On a small scale, the plasma represents a young star's accumulation of matter," explains Professor Thomas Cowan, the study's co-author and Director of the HZDR Institute of Radiation Physics.

Miniature versions of young stars for the lab
What made the experiment special was the fact that the plasma was exposed to a very powerful pulsed magnetic field.

The idea behind it: under a magnetic field's influence, the normally widely scattered plasma begins to focus, forming a hollow center.

This ultimately produces a shockwave, from which a very thin beam starts to project, a jet.

The experiment was set up in such a way as to allow for extrapolation to conditions as they would be encountered in the Universe: within as little as 20 nanoseconds, over 100,000 times faster than a fly flapping its wings, the lab plasma forms structures similar to a young star's jet in approximately six years.

This allowed the researchers to test their model with astronomical observations, which were made possible through space telescopes, in the last two decades.

The data were in good agreement. In a jet, for instance, a crossing over of particle streams can occur, which in turn results in the formation of very hot spots.

"X-ray measurements of actual jets show these features at the exact same points as our true-to-scale plasma model in the lab," says Cowan.

With its help, the researchers were able to offer a model that, for the first time ever, is capable of explaining the formation of jets solely by way of magnetic fields.

Previous approaches had considered the rotation of matter about the young star another influencing factor.

The realisation that plasma can be focused in this way may prove a real practical boon in the field of medical engineering.

According to Cowan, it's conceivable that with the help of pulsed magnetic fields, a particularly thin proton beam could be produced for use in radiation therapy.

It's what Florian Kroll, Ph.D. student at the HZDR and one of the study's co-authors, is investigating.

Special pulse generator designed at the Dresden High Magnetic Field Lab

To produce strong pulsed magnetic fields for the experiment, the researchers drew on the expertise at the HZDR's Dresden High Magnetic Field Lab: "We developed a special pulse generator which allowed our French colleagues to set up powerful magnetic fields within a small, enclosed lab space," says Dr. Thomas Herrmannsdörfer, head of division at the High Magnetic Field Lab.

The generator, just about the size of a wardrobe, is capable of generating currents of up to 300 kiloampere.

According to Herrmannsdörfer, building such a compact facility was a real technical challenge: "Our electrical engineers came up with some very innovative solutions."

"This is also helping us now with developing these types of generators for application in industry and medical technology."

Currently, the pulse generator is still located at the French laser lab at Palaiseau near Paris, because beginning in December the Dresden scientists are planning on once again working together with their LULI colleagues.

More information: Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1259694

NASA aeronautics research tests new wildfire detection tool

NASA researcher Mike Logan plans to use this small unmanned aerial vehicle to check for fires at a Virginia-North Carolina wildlife refuge as part of an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Credit: NASA Langley/David C. Bowman

NASA's research in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) may soon provide a means for early detection and mitigation of fires in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, a nearly 50,000-square-acre region centered on the Virginia-North Carolina border.

NASA's Langley Research Center, in nearby Hampton, Virginia, has signed a one-year agreement with the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to test small UASs for the detection of brush and forest fires.

The research is part of the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's UAS Integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) project.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating the feasibility of airborne unmanned platforms and their ability to offer a safer and more cost-effective alternative for surveillance of potential areas of interest immediately following thunderstorm activity," said Great Dismal Swamp Refuge Manager Chris Lowie.

"The agency hopes to see a significant decrease in cost to survey the Great Dismal Swamp, as well as a reduction in time to detect nascent fires, which could potentially save millions of dollars to the taxpayer in firefighting costs," added Lowie.

Mike Logan, the research lead at Langley, came up with the idea after a forest fire in 2011 that lasted almost four months and cost more than $10 million to extinguish.

Smoke from that fire, which was caused by a lightning strike, traveled as far north as Maryland only three years after another $10-million blaze in 2008, according to FWS.

"I made a phone call to the local fire captain after days of inhaling peat bog smoke," said Logan. "I learned most fires are caused by lightning strikes and the only way they can spot them is by hiring an aircraft to do an aerial survey of the huge swamp. So I figured why not use a UAV as a fire detector?"

After approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, the team at Langley plans to fly a lightweight UAS equipped with cameras and transmitters over the wildlife refuge.

"One is an out-of-the-nose camera that can see smoke plumes as they are rising," Logan explained.

"The other is an infrared camera housed in the body of the plane that points down. It can find hot spots by detecting heat signatures."

Although the aircraft can fly as fast as 40 miles an hour, when used in this capacity it will be flown slower while it transmits video, allowing individuals on the ground to observe what is occurring in the live video.

The transmissions can be viewed on a laptop computer in a mobile ground station.

Logan says the drone, which weighs about 15 pounds and has an almost six-foot wingspan, has a range of about eight miles and can stay aloft as long as an hour, before the batteries need recharging.

The aircraft also can be programmed to fly on its own, but a safety pilot will monitor operations during the tests.

"This kind of application for unmanned aerial systems shows just one public benefit," said Dave Hinton, Langley associate director for UAS technologies and applications.

"They can be used to detect fires or locate people who are lost."

Scientists concerned over the future of satellite-based research

Landsat 8 captured fine details of the lava flowing in Iceland between the Bardarbunga and Askja volcanoes.

Credit: NASA, NOAA.

The U.S. has more than 30 civilian, Earth-observing satellites circling the planet, providing scientists with a torrent of crucial environmental and climate information.

More satellites are on deck to launch in the next few years, but, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society, scientists have registered serious concerns over the lack of a long-term, cohesive vision for the scientific missions.

Jyllian Kemsley, a senior editor at C&EN, reports that satellites are marvels of technology.

From their orbits up to thousands of miles above the planet's surface, they collect Earthly measurements and beam down to scientists information they can't get any other way.

The satellites map cloud cover; they track snow and ice cover; they measure atmospheric carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas; they detect chemical reactions in the atmosphere; they help meteorologists make weather predictions.

Future launches will undoubtedly add to the treasure trove of scientific data.

But some scientists say that despite the state-of-the-art sensors the satellites are equipped with, a short-sighted vision for the future, may cause the resulting science to suffer.

They say that the division between two agencies leading the way, NASA, which operates under a "first and best" vision, and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which takes the longer view, has created a "valley of death."

This gap hinders the use of NASA's research instruments for NOAA's desired sustained monitoring, which is critical to understanding complex systems of atmospheric chemistry and climate.

More information: Observing Earth - cen.acs.org/articles/92/i36/Observing-Earth.html

Scientists' research supports discovery mission into Asteroid cores

Dr. Richard S. Miller’s research could influence future asteroid mining operations and how we might deal with an impending strike.

Future asteroid mining operations and how we deal with an impending strike could be influenced by research on a potential NASA mission that's being done by team that includes a University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) scientist.

"If you identify an asteroid coming toward us, how you deal with it could depend on its density and structure," says Dr. Richard S. Miller, a UAH physics professor.

"Likewise, if this technique pans out, you could imagine sending out a specialized telescope to determine what the densities and interior structure of various asteroids are, then decide on the basis of that information what ones to mine."

Little is now known about asteroid interior density and composition. Are they uniform or are they what astrophysicists call differentiated bodies, having denser and less-dense areas?

"Asteroids are time capsules of the early solar system," Dr. Miller says.

"We know about their surface properties and we can also infer the mass of some asteroids. But what we want to do is actually probe the interior of asteroids and determine information about their structure, are there interior density gradients, what is the composition, is it solid or like Swiss cheese, and do they have cores or not? Is it a pile of rubble?

It turns out this structure can tell us a great deal about the conditions present during the early epochs of solar system formation and its evolution."

To find that out, the team's scientists will be borrowing imaging technology concepts developed for medicine and high-energy physics.

They are developing a mission concept to probe asteroids using a technique similar to human computerized tomography (CT) scans.

Dr. Miller is a co-investigator in a collaborative effort with the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), NASA's Johnson Space Center, the Universities Space Research Association's Arecibo Observatory (Arecibo/USRA) and the University of Houston to do the fundamental research and design that could lead to such a mission.

Led by principal investigator Dr. Tom Prettyman, senior scientist at PSI, the group has $500,000 in funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase II program.

The team's two-year proposal, "Deep Mapping of Small Solar System Bodies with Galactic Cosmic Ray Secondary Particle Showers," is one of only five projects selected for funding.

Other funded collaborators include Dr. Steven Koontz, NASA Johnson Space Center; Dr. Michael Nolan, Arecibo/USRA; Dr. Lawrence Pinsky, University of Houston; and Dr. Mark Sykes, PSI.

By detecting the number of muons that pass through the object at left, scientists can discover and measure the size of its core, shown reconstructed at right. 

Credit: Richard S. Miller / UAH

The team proposes using ever-present cosmic rays to perform its measurements.

All objects in space are constantly bombarded by these particles, which are thought to be the remnants of massive supernovas and are primarily protons. On Earth, the atmosphere breaks them up and shields us from direct hits.

"In space, on contact with dense matter like the moon's surface or other airless planetary bodies, they interact within the first few centimeters of depth and create a shower of particles," Dr. Miller says.

Studying those interactions has provided us surface knowledge of asteroids. "But cosmic rays also contain muons, which are particles similar to electrons, but which can go a lot farther into the asteroid, in some cases up to one kilometer."

The idea is to position a telescope to orbit the asteroid and measure the number and trajectories of the muons passing through it.

"Muons are like an SUV," says Dr. Miller. "Once they are moving it is not easy to knock them off their course."

An asteroid composed of varying densities of material would return a different pattern than one with a single density, just as a CT scan differentiates between densities of structures in the body.

Likewise, if an asteroid has a denser core, it will stop muons from passing through and the telescope will detect the change.

That process is called muon tomography and is well understood. Developed in the 1950s, it was even used in the 1960s by Luis Alvarez to map the Pyramid of Chephren.

"What's different about a CT scan is that instead of using cosmic rays and muons to determine densities, a CT scan uses x-rays," Dr. Miller says.

To mature the concept, the scientists must first solve a number of fundamental challenges. They'll be using computer modeling to work on:

• Detailed estimates of the particle signatures, including muons and other radiations that will be present in deep space and in the neighbourhood of any asteroids;
• Doing the initial work on the muon telescope's design and operation. There are competing ideas, and the team will evaluate a variety of performance tradeoffs; 
• The development and implementation of advanced algorithms for asteroid structure reconstruction;
• Establishing the preliminary outlines of how a proposed NASA mission would be conducted, its feasibility and making predictions of the ultimate science return. 

"What it has to do is detect those muons and give us a direction they are coming from," Dr. Miller says of the telescope, but getting to that goal involves tradeoffs.

For example, the bigger the area the telescope can scan as it orbits, the less time it will take to get results encompassing an entire asteroid being studied.

But the greater the telescope's size, the more resources will be involved to launch the mission. Also, to tell where the muons are coming from, the telescope will have to be able to tell directional "up" from "down."

Dr. Miller says he was already exploring using muons to probe asteroids when he attended a conference and found that PSI's Dr. Prettyman was working on the same thing.

"This is a good story of how you had two independent groups who were both looking at the same idea," Dr. Miller says, "and we have joined forces to make a stronger project."

NASA IBEX and Voyager driving advances in outer heliosphere research

This image highlights the statically combined survival probability and C-G corrected maps, indicative of energetic neutral atom (ENA) fluxes in the outer heliosphere directed inward and before ionization losses. 

Credit: Southwest Research Institute (SrWI)

Scientists yesterday highlighted an impressive list of achievements in researching the outer heliosphere at the 40th International Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Scientific Assembly in Moscow.

"Between NASA's Voyager and IBEX missions, it's an incredible time for outer heliospheric science," says Dr. Dave McComas, IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute, who also will be recognized with a 2014 COSPAR Space Science Award at the assembly.

"Ten years ago you could hardly find an outer heliosphere technical session. Now it's the hottest thing going."

The million-mile-per-hour solar wind pushed out by the Sun inflates a giant bubble in the interstellar medium called the heliosphere, which envelops the Earth and the other planets.

After the two Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, completed their mission to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, they continued on their journey to interstellar space.

IBEX

Another mission, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) launched in 2008, is designed to map and study the global interactions at the boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space.

Together, the Voyagers and IBEX have helped advance an important area of research to provide insight to humankind's evolving home in the galaxy.

This image shows a selection of dominant ribbon ENA emission regions (red outlined areas in each map). 

The ribbon emissions are strongest at increasingly higher latitudes for higher energies, consistent with the latitude ordering of the solar wind around solar minimum. 

Vredit: Southwest Research Institute (SrWI)

Both Voyagers provide "point" measurements along their journey out of the solar system.

Those measurements offer important details about interactions occurring along their paths.

IBEX complements the Voyagers' measurements by imaging the interactions occurring at the edge of the heliosphere over all directions in space.

"It's a lot like the difference between a CT scan and associated biopsies."

"A biopsy provides specific information at the point it samples, while a CT scan provides the global images and context for the big picture of what's going on."

Dave McComas

The combination of point and global measurements is really dynamite," says McComas.

A ribbon of enhanced emissions snakes through the sky at the boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space, right between the two Voyager spacecraft point measurements.

The ribbon went undetected until IBEX observed it in 2009.

IBEX creates images of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) to make visible the invisible energetic interactions at the edge of the solar system. In the paper "IBEX:

The First Five Years (2009)," published this month by The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, the science team summarised its first five years of accomplishments, including the first five years of maps showing interactions at the edge of the solar system, a trove of data in multiple formats, and aspects of data analysis and the methods used to refine them.

Podcast | Sopwith Lecture 2014 - The UK Aerospace Technology Enterprise: Latent Growth or Losing Ground?

International acquisition activity in the UK pharmaceutical sector has recently heightened concern over investment in UK research and development and the implications for the nation’s science base.

The UK aerospace sector is a major export revenue earner and similarly has deep roots both in research and in advanced manufacturing, facets that are vital in the re-balancing of the UK economy.

Much has been achieved through the creation of a number of ‘growth partnerships’ between dwindling UK industry and focussed exploitation by a profit-focused UK Government.

The sustainability of this approach in the aerospace and defence sectors was discussed at the lecture, as was the long-term implications for the creation of intellectual property in the UK.

Consideration was also given to whether design, development and manufacture in the UK will ultimately give way to build-to-print.

About the speaker:

Sir Brian Burridge, Vice President Strategic Marketing, Finmeccanica UK

Sir Brian Burridge is the Vice President Strategic Marketing at Finmeccanica UK and is currently the Technology and Enterprise Team Lead in the Defence Growth Partnership.

He previously spent a full career as a pilot in the Royal Air Force holding a front-line command at every level in the Service and spent a number of years in MOD policy posts.

He left the Royal Air Force in January 2006 as Commander-in-Chief Strike Command.

He is the President of the Air League and also the Vice President Defence on the Council of ADS, the aerospace, defence and security sectors' trade association.

With a first degree in physics, an MBA and two honorary doctorates, Sir Brian was previously a research fellow in political science at King's London and is now a visiting professor at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading.

Decontamination system to up research on space station

The in-orbit decontamination system inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) will enable advances in life science research aboard the International Space Station. 

Credit: NASA

Just like eating, drinking and even trying to wash your hair aboard the International Space Station, conducting science experiments in space is not a simple task for astronauts.

There are so many more factors for crews to consider than scientists on Earth have to worry about. If not contained, microgravity can turn gasses, dust, fluids and sharp objects into a floating nightmare.

Thanks to the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG), those aboard the space station have safely performed science experiments since 2002 without these worries.

They conducted hundreds of studies within the sealed, negative pressured, nine-cubic-foot work area, developed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and the European Space Agency.

The crew members put the MSG to good use for a wide range of microgravity research, including fluid physics, combustion science, materials science, biotechnology, fundamental physics and other investigations.

This helps researchers looking to understand the role of gravity in basic physical and chemical interactions.

Now NASA will add even more studies to the growing list of MSG participants. With the recent installation of a decontamination system, the facility gains the capability to host an entire additional research discipline—life science.

This upgrade was designed and manufactured by Huntsville's Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc. in partnership with Marshall.

"We are really excited to be able to provide this new system that will enable astronauts aboard the space station the ability to conduct important life science research," said Lee Jordan, project manager of the MSG at Marshall.

"For example, with this system, crews can conduct experiments related to non-human cell biology that we couldn't do before in the MSG. The work we do aboard the space station is so vital because it helps us discover technologies that can lead to bettering our lives on Earth."

The decontamination system was designed with crew members' safety in mind by using high-power, ultraviolet, light-emitting diodes (UV LEDs) to sanitize surfaces inside the MSG.

This cleaning process takes only a matter of minutes before and after the crew conducts the experiments.

The sanitation process also removes airborne contaminants, such as biological and chemical impurities, and cleans up spills inside the glovebox, providing optimal accommodations for cell science and life science research.

It also has an exchangeable glove system that was redesigned to be better suited for these types of studies.

The system is based on the Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) method of disinfection where UV light, at sufficiently short wavelengths, is used to kill microorganisms.

NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, Expedition 38 flight engineer, prepares to test the ultraviolet light decontamination hardware, which will be used for life science experiments inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox. 

Credit: NASA

"This application of UV has been an accepted practice for disinfection since the mid-20th century," said Lee.

"The DNA of the microorganism is disrupted by the UV radiation, leaving them unable to grow or reproduce. With this technology, it is possible to destroy more than 99.99 percent of all pathogens within seconds, without addition of chemicals, without harmful side effects, inexpensively, highly efficiently and absolutely reliably."

The UV LEDs incorporated in the system are manufactured by Sensor Electronic Technology Inc. of Columbia, South Carolina, and were developed in part through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Compact Mid-Ultraviolet Technology program in Arlington, Virginia.

NASA UAVSAR: An airborne research team focuses on Andean volcanoes

This false-colour image of Peru's Ubinas volcano was acquired on April 14, 2014, by NASA's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR). 

Located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the city of Arequipa, Ubinas is Peru's most active volcano. 

UAVSAR flew exactly the same flight path over Ubinas in 2013. 

By combining the images from the two years, researchers will produce detailed maps of surface motions that can improve models of volcanic deformation. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A NASA-developed airborne imager called a synthetic aperture radar took a detailed look at volcanoes in Central and South America during an Earth science study in late April and early May 2014.

The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR), developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was flown on NASA's C-20A.

The 29-day deployment ended May 6 when the aircraft returned to its base in Palmdale, California, after 19 flights totaling 97 hours in the air.

This is the second consecutive year the UAVSAR team has conducted a campaign to study sites in Central and South America.

Many of the flights imaged the Andean volcanic belt located in western South America.

"By combining images acquired in 2013 with the 2014 images, researchers will produce detailed surface motion measurements to improve volcanic deformation models," said Naiara Pinto, JPL's UAVSAR science coordinator.

NASA's C-20A features a high-precision autopilot designed and developed by engineers at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, allowing the aircraft to fly the same flight lines this spring as those flown in 2013 within 15 feet (4.5 meters) or closer.

With the autopilot engaged, the synthetic aperture radar is able to acquire repeat-pass data that can measure land-surface changes within fractions of an inch (centimeters).

NASA's C-20A aircraft crew preparing for flight from Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, Panama. 

The aircraft was deployed to Central and South America for a research study using JPL's UAVSAR airborne radar, located in an underbelly pod (note red cover). 

Credit: NASA/Armstrong Flight Research Center

In coordination with the volcano studies, the agency's C-20A gathered data over Amazonian forests in Peru, agricultural sites in Chile and glaciers on the Chilean/Argentinian border.

All of these research projects involve Latin American institutions, including universities and hazard monitoring agencies.

NOAA Hurricane Research Storm Drones

In this April 29, 2014 photo, Joe Cione, who studies how storms interact with the ocean at the (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) NOAA's Hurricane Research Division in Miami, displays a drone he hopes to use this hurricane season for research. 

NOAA researchers plan to test five or six drones in the peak of hurricane season that will be transmitting data that could help forecasters understand what makes some storms fizzle while others strengthen into monsters. AP Photo/J Pat Carter

The point where the roiling ocean meets the fury of a hurricane's winds may hold the key to improving storm intensity forecasts, but it's nearly impossible for scientists to see.

That may change this summer, thanks to post-Hurricane Sandy federal funding and a handful of winged drones that can spend hours spiraling in a hurricane's dark places.

The drones will be transmitting data that could help forecasters understand what makes some storms fizzle while others strengthen into monsters.

Researchers at the NOAA's plan to test five or six drones in the peak of hurricane season.

The $1.25 million project is among a slew of other NOAA hurricane research funded by last year's Sandy supplemental bill that authorised $60 billion for disaster relief agencies.

Amazon Electric Ghost Knifefish inspire underwater robotics research

Northwestern has developed a number of robotic prototypes based on the Ghost Knifefish.

Electric Ghost Knifefish from South America are opening up new ideas in robotics.

Knifefish put a small current through the water to sense their environment, and undulate a long fin to move around.

Scientists at the Neuroscience and Robotics Lab in Northwestern University, US, believe both features could be harnessed in a new class of autonomous underwater vehicles.

They are developing robots that will be able to swim around debris in total darkness, such as inside a sunken ship.


"Today, we don't really have underwater robots that work well in really cluttered conditions or in conditions where vision isn't useful," said Prof Malcolm MacIver.

"Just consider the sunken cruise ship. It is very dangerous to send divers into such situations where the water can be very cloudy.

"But we can learn from the electric fish. They don't use vision to hunt at night in the rivers of the Amazon basin, and their movement through the cluttered root masses and flooded forests requires incredible precision. They fit a big hole in terms of our capabilities in underwater robots."

Prof MacIver was explaining his work here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

He has studied knifefish for years, deciphering their sensory and locomotion systems.

The animals generate an electric field from modified neurons running along their spinal cord. When prey, such as aquatic insects, enter this field the fish measure a tiny change in voltage at the surface of their skin.

The perturbation is only one-tenth to one-hundredth of a millionth of a volt, but sufficient for the receptors to detect it.

Knifefish hunt in darkess

"The fish have evolved an amazing system," said Prof MacIver.

"Imagine your retina stretched over your entire body and what that would be like. That's the situation that knifefish find themselves in.

"They perceive in all directions. They emit a kind of radar, but it's an electric field; and the sensory receptors scattered over their entire body surface mean they can detect things coming from all directions."

The technology in Prof MacIver's lab is now simulating this enabling a robot in a tank to react to what is around it and move accordingly.

But it is the special propulsion technique employed by knifefish that the Northwestern researcher also wants to copy.


"The knifefish inspired GhostBot. We've built one of the most advanced fish robots in the world, with 34 degrees of freedom (the humanoid robot ASIMO has 26; the Roomba floor vacuum robot has 2), to better understand knifefish mechanics and sensorimotor coupling. "

"The video is the first where we discovered that inward counter-propagating waves generate a strong downward jet, producing vertical thrust. "

"This is a key element of knifefish maneuverability. The water is seeded with reflective particles for subsequent particle imaging velocimetry. "

You will see that the ripples sent through the long fin on the belly undulate one way, and the fish will move forward; undulate the other way, and the direction of travel is reversed.

Use counter-propagating waves that meet in the middle, and the fish will move up.

"From all our simulations, we now have mathematical relationships between things like the frequency and amplitude of the travelling wave and how much propulsion you get," said Prof MacIver.

"So now we can put that into technology and get it to work properly."

Currently, the Northwestern lab is demonstrating artificial sensory and locomotion capabilities on two separate robotic platforms. The aim now is to bring them together into a single working device.

New paper reviews research on the grain of space-time

Smooth" or grainy? Is space-time continuous or is it made up of very fine (10-35 metres on the "Planck scale") but discrete grains, if we look at it very close up ?

If the latter were true, scientists think, this would lead to deviations from the theory of special relativity formulated by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago.

In some theoretical scenarios, the "non-continuity" of space-time implies violations to the invariance of the physical laws under the so-called Lorentz transformations (which establish that physical laws are the same for all inertial reference frames that are at the basis of special relativity).

Since the 90s physicists have devised several methods (often based on phenomena connected to high-energy astrophysics) to test these deviations from standard physics.

Stefano Liberati

Stefano Liberati, coordinator of the Astroparticle Physics group of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste, recently published a systematic review to present the state of the art in this field and the constraints that can be placed on the various models that predict violations to Special Relativity.

The paper is an invited Topic Review published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

This journal periodically asks leading world experts to "sum up" what is known in a specific field of study.

The review has now been selected as one of the journal's Highlight papers for 2013.

"Physicists have been wondering about the nature of space-time for years. We've been asking ourselves whether it is continuous at all scales, as we perceive it in our daily experience, or whether at very small sizes it presents an irregular grain that we, in our direct experience, are unable to perceive", explains Liberati.

"Imagine looking at a slab of marble from some distance: it will probably seem to have a uniform texture.

However, on closer inspection, for example using a powerful microscope, you can see that the marble is porous and irregular".

"In a certain sense physicists have been trying to do something similar with space-time: to find something that acts as a microscope to find out whether at very small length scales there is indeed some irregularity.

In my paper I presented a systematic overview of the experiments and observations that can be exploited to investigate the existence of these irregularities.

Special relativity is one of the cornerstones of modern physics and as such it is very important to test its validity, insofar as current observations allow us".

More information: 'Tests of Lorentz invariance: a 2013 update' S Liberati 2013 Class. Quantum Grav. 30 133001 doi:10.1088/0264-9381/30/13/133001

NASA Mars Rover: Terramechanics research keeps rovers rolling

The Curiosity rover, which lifted off Nov. 26, 2011, will arrive at the Red Planet in August 2012. 

The rover, shown here during testing inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, is about the size of a Mini Cooper and weighs roughly five times as much as the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

In May 2009, the Mars rover Spirit cracked through a crusty layer of Martian topsoil, sinking into softer underlying sand. 

The unexpected sand trap permanently mired the vehicle, despite months of remote maneuvering by NASA engineers to attempt to free the rover.

The mission mishap may have been prevented, says MIT's Karl Iagnemma, by a better understanding of terramechanics—the interaction between vehicles and deformable terrain.

Iagnemma says scientists have a pretty good understanding of how soils interact with vehicles that weigh more than 2,000 pounds. But for smaller, lighter vehicles like the Mars rovers, the situation is murkier.

"There's a lot of knowledge in civil engineering about how soils will react when subjected to heavy loads," says Iagnemma, who is a principal research scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

"When you take lightweight vehicles and granular soils of varying composition, it's a very complex modeling process."

Karl Iagnemma

Now Iagnemma and researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., have developed a model called Artemis that accurately simulates rover mobility over various types of soil and terrain.

The model works much like a video game: A user plugs in commands to, for example, move the simulated rover forward a certain distance—instructions similar to those that NASA engineers give to rovers on Mars.

The simulation then predicts how the rover will move, based on the underlying soil properties, vehicle characteristics and a terrain's incline.

The team tested the model against observations in the field, including actual drive paths from previous Mars rovers, and found that the simulations behaved much like actual rovers in various terrains.



The researchers also performed experiments in the lab, rolling a replica of a Mars rover's wheel over Martian-like sand. The tests established relationships between wheel dynamics and soil properties—information that the team used to further refine the model.

Carmine Senatore

"Once you have a model you trust that is really representative of how the rover behaves, it can help mission planners make path plans in a safer way," says team member Carmine Senatore, who is a research scientist at MIT.

"It could say that this path looks shorter and faster, but if the soil is not what we expected, it may be much more dangerous, so it's better to go another way."

Senatore, Iagnemma, Raymond Arvidson of Washington University, and collaborators will outline the details of the model in a paper to appear in the Journal of Field Robotics.

Beach Sand and Cake Flour
For the most part, the terrain over which Mars rovers travel—including the most recent Curiosity mission—is relatively benign, consisting mostly of flat, firm surfaces.

But occasionally, rovers encounter more challenging environments, such as steep dunes covered in fine, loose soil.

"Think about the difference between beach sand, which you can walk on and even play volleyball on, and cake flour," Iagnemma says. "The reason [for that difference] goes down to the microscale of the material."

To know how much work is required for a rover to get over a dune, Iagnemma says one needs to understand the properties of an environment's soil.

To develop its model, the team estimated soil properties on Mars based on a variety of data sources, including measurements of the planet by orbiting sensors and images from the rovers themselves, as well as data on the amount of torque required to drive a wheel through a particular type of terrain.

The team coupled Martian soil data with properties of the rover, such as its size and weight, and developed a model to predict the likelihood and extent to which a rover may sink into a given terrain.

Iagnemma and Senatore refined the model with experiments in the lab. The researchers set up a bed of both coarse and fine soil, similar to sediment that has been observed on Mars. They built a straight track overhead, and attached a spare wheel from the Mars rover Opportunity.

Powering the wheel with a motor, the team observed the wheel's performance, noting how much the wheel sank into the soil, and the amount of torque needed to overcome sinking.

"Sometimes in a car you end up doing things like rocking it back and forth," Iagnemma says. "There's limited strategies for a Mars rover because it's not a very dynamic vehicle, and moves very slowly. So we have to be more creative and develop strategies to get out."

More information: Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1556-4967

Metascreen: Metamaterial research into light transparency

Researchers have now developed a cloak that is just micrometers thick and can hide three-dimensional objects from microwaves in their natural environment, in all directions and from all of the observers’ positions. 

Credit: Image courtesy of Institute of Physics

Their research, which has so far produced an ultralow profile cloak designed for "scattering suppression of a finite-length rod in free space", has been published in the New Journal of Physics.

Presenting their study today, 26 March, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, the researchers, from the University of Texas at Austin, have used a new, ultra-thin layer called a "metascreen."

The cloak is made of a new kind of material called a metascreen, made up of strips of copper tape attached to a flexible polycarbonate film.

Andrea Alu

The copper strips are only 66 micrometres thick and the polycarbonate film is 100 micrometres thick, and the two combined make a diagonal fishnet pattern.

It works by scattering and cancelling out incoming waves, and the researchers were able to use the cloak to shield an 18 centimetre-tall cylindrical rod from microwaves.

"When the scattered fields from the cloak and the object interfere, they cancel each other out and the overall effect is transparency and invisibility at all angles of observation," said Andrea Alu, one of the physicists.

Journal Reference: 
J C Soric, P Y Chen, A Kerkhoff, D Rainwater, K Melin, A Al. Demonstration of an ultralow profile cloak for scattering suppression of a finite-length rod in free space. New Journal of Physics, 2013; 15 (3): 033037 DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/15/3/033037

Revolutionary New Burn dressing 'lights up' to signal an infection

Scientists have developed a medical dressing that 'lights up' when a burn is infected.

It could be lifesaving in young children with serious burns in whom infections can rapidly become fatal, the Bristol researchers said. 

A prototype is available for demonstration purposes but trials in humans are still some years away.

Fast diagnosis of infection in children with burns, such as those caused by scalds from hot drinks, is a big problem for clinicians, the researchers said.

Current tests for an infected wound can take up to a couple of days but children - especially those of pre-school age - are particularly at risk from the effects of infection due to their relatively poor immunity.

They can quickly develop a condition called toxic shock syndrome, which if left untreated can be fatal in half of cases.

Fluorescent dye 
The dressing developed by scientists at the University of Bath uses nanocapsules containing a dye that burst open in the presence of disease-causing bacteria.

Using a UV light, doctors can quickly check whether there is infection by seeing if the dressing glows.

The nanocapsules are activated when they come into contact with toxins produced by harmful bacteria, so do not release the dye in response to normal bacteria that live on the skin.

So far the dressing has been tested on skin samples in the laboratory.

Dr Toby Jenkins

Dr Toby Jenkins, reader in Biophysical Chemistry at Bath, and project lead said about 5,000 children a year in England and Wales are treated in hospital for burns.

"The big problem for clinicians is the fast diagnosis of infection. Current methods take between 24 and 48 hours to get an answer as to whether the wound is infected.

"However, our burns dressing gives a simple colour change under UV light if a pathogenic, disease-causing bacteria is present in the burn, meaning clinicians can be alerted quickly to a potential infection."


Dr Amber Young, consultant paediatric anaesthetist at the South West Paediatric Burns Centre at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol and clinical adviser to the project said when a child with a small burn develops a high temperature there is no easy way of knowing if the child has a serious bacterial infection, or simply a cough or cold.

Dr Amber Young

"We currently have to remove the dressing to test for infection, which may result in slower healing and potentially life-long scarring and is very distressing for the child.

"This new dressing will mean we will be able to detect the early signs of infection so we can diagnose and treat the child quickly."

Prof Sheila MacNeil

Prof Sheila MacNeil, from Sheffield University, said the technology was based on two clever concepts - that it only reacts in the presence of life-threatening bacteria and that the florescent dye only shows up once the nanocapsules have burst.

"It has been developed for use in paediatrics but it could also be useful in lots of other contexts, such as the management of chronic ulcers in the home," she added.

Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (TB) treatment a Global threat

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria says that strains of tuberculosis with resistance to multiple drugs could spread widely and highlight an annual need of at least $1.6 billion in international funding for treatment and prevention of the disease.

Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of WHO, and Dr. Mark Dybul, executive director of the Global Fund, said that the only way to carry out the urgent work of identifying all new cases of tuberculosis, while simultaneously making progress against the most serious existing cases, will be to mobilize significant funding from domestic sources and international donors.

With the overwhelming majority of international funding for tuberculosis coming through the Global Fund, they said, it is imperative that efforts to raise money be effective this year. Growing alarm about the threat of multi-drug resistant TB, also known as MDR-TB, is making that even more pressing.

“We are treading water at a time when we desperately need to scale up our response to MDR-TB,” says Chan. “We have gained a lot of ground in TB control through international collaboration, but it can easily be lost if we do not act now.”

WHO and the Global Fund have identified an anticipated gap of $1.6 billion in annual international support for the fight against tuberculosis in 118 low- and middle-income countries on top of an estimated $3.2 billion that could be provided by the countries themselves.

Filling this gap could enable full treatment for 17 million TB and multidrug-resistant TB patients and save 6 million lives between 2014-2016.

“It is critical that we raise the funding that is urgently needed to control this disease,” says Dybul. “If we don’t act now, our costs could skyrocket. It is invest now or pay forever.”

Chan and Dybul spoke to the media in Geneva in advance of World TB Day on March 24, which commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch discovered the mycobacterium that causes tuberculosis.

Read more on TB Research in the European Respiratory Journal