The Universe Is Missing Some Light

New data from the Hubble Space Telescope and computer simulations have revealed that the universe has much less ultraviolet light than previously thought.

Credit: Ben Oppenheimer and Juna Kollmeier

An extraordinary amount of ultraviolet light appears to be missing from the universe, scientists have found.

One potential source of this missing light might be the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the mass in the cosmos but a simpler explanation could be that ultra violet light escapes from galaxies more easily than is currently thought, according to the new research.

This puzzle begins with hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, which makes up about 75 percent of known matter. High-energy ultraviolet light can convert electrically neutral hydrogen atoms into electrically charged ions.

The two known sources for such ionizing rays are hot young stars and quasars, which are supermassive black holes more than a million times the mass of the sun that release extraordinarily large amounts of light as they rip apart stars and gobble matter.

Astronomers previously found that ionizing rays from hot young stars are nearly always absorbed by gas in their home galaxies. As such, they virtually never escape to affect intergalactic hydrogen.

Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph

However, when scientists performed supercomputer simulations of the amount of intergalactic hydrogen that should exist and compared their results with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, they found the amount of light from known quasars is five times lower than what is needed to explain the amount of electrically neutral intergalactic hydrogen observed.

"It's as if you're in a big, brightly-lit room, but you look around and see only a few 40-watt lightbulbs," lead study author Juna Kollmeier, a theoretical astrophysicist at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.

"Where is all that light coming from? It's missing."

The researchers are calling this giant deficit of ultraviolet light "the photon underproduction crisis."

"In modern astrophysics, you very rarely find large mismatches like the one we are talking about here," Kollmeier told reporters.

"When you see one, you know that there is an opportunity to learn something new about the universe, and that's amazing."

"The great thing about a 400 percent discrepancy is that you know something is really wrong," study co-author David Weinberg at Ohio State University said in a statement.

"We still don't know for sure what it is, but at least one thing we thought we knew about the present day universe isn't true."

Strangely, this missing light only appears in the nearby, relatively well-studied cosmos.

When telescopes focus on light from galaxies billions of light years away, and therefore from billions of years in the past, no problem is seen.

In other words, the amount of ultraviolet light in the early universe makes sense, but the amount of ultraviolet light in the nearby universe does not.

"The authors have performed a careful and thorough analysis of the problem," said theoretical astrophysicist Abraham Loeb, chairman of the astronomy department at Harvard University, who did not take part in this research.

The most exciting possibility these findings raise is that the missing photons are coming from some exotic new source, not galaxies or quasars at all, Kollmeier said.

For example, dark matter, the invisible and intangible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe, might be capable of decay and generating this extra light.

"You know it's a crisis when you start seriously talking about decaying dark matter," study co-author Neal Katz at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst said in a statement.

Metaflex: Scottish Scientist develop 'Invisibility Cloak'

The material, called "Metaflex" may in future provide a way of manufacturing fabrics that manipulate light.

Metamaterials have already been developed that bend and channel light to render objects invisible at longer wavelengths.

Visible light poses a greater challenge because its short wavelength means the metamaterial atoms have to be very small.

So far such small light-bending atoms have only been produced on flat, hard surfaces unsuitable for use in clothing.

But scientists at the University of St Andrews in Scotland believe they have overcome this problem. They have produced flexible metamaterial "membranes" using a new technique that frees the meta-atoms from the hard surface they are constructed on.

Metaflex can operate at wavelengths of around 620 nanometres, within the visible light region. Stacking the membranes together could produce a flexible "smart fabric" that may provide the basis of an invisibility cloak, the scientists believe.

Other applications could include "superlenses" that are far more efficient than conventional lenses.

Describing their work in the New Journal of Physics, the researchers write: "Arguably, one of the most exciting applications of Metaflex is to fabricate three-dimensional flexible MMs (metamaterials) in the optical range, which can be achieved by stacking several Metaflex membranes on top of one another...

Dr Andrea Di Falco

"These results confirm that it is possible to realise MMs on flexible substrates and operating in the visible regime, which we believe are ideal building blocks for future generations of three-dimensional flexible MMs at optical wavelengths."

Lead scientist Dr Andrea Di Falco said: "Metamaterials give us the ultimate handle on manipulating the behaviour of light."

Scientist Conquers Antarctica with Super-Tiger Air Balloon

The Super Tiger Balloon getting ready for its release at McMurdo ice station Antarctica.

Dr. John E Ward, an Astrophysicist at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, has been in Antarctica since October getting ready for the record attempt.

Dr. Ward is part of a NASA research project called Super-TIGER (Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder), a two-ton machine that collects cosmic-ray particles at the top of the atmosphere.

Although cosmic rays were discovered over 100 years ago, physicists are still uncertain about where in the Universe they originate.

Dr. Ward and his team are trying to show that cosmic rays come from cosmic explosions within groups of enormous hot stars, known as OB associations.

The Super-TIGER instrument is about the size of a snooker table and weighs in at around two tons.

It was launched from the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica on a NASA high-altitude balloon on the 9th December 2012.

The balloon itself is massive, weighing some 5,000 lbs. It is made of plastic and is a little thicker than cling film.

An image of the two and a quarter turns taken around the South Pole by the Super Tiger

The balloon has circled the South Pole twice, at an altitude of around 130,000 feet.

So far the team have collected over 50 million cosmic-ray particles.

This morning Dr. Ward’s balloon flight surpassed the previous record of 42 days, set in 2004 by an Irish man, Jojo Boyle from Donegal, with the CREAM cosmic-ray project.

It is expected that Dr. Ward’s balloon will stay in the air for another 10-14 days.

When the balloon is back close to McMurdo Station, it will be brought down by a remote controlled explosion triggered from a NASA satellite that will rip a massive hole in the balloon and allow the Super-TIGER instrument to fall back to Earth on a parachute.

Dr. Ward will then fly in a small Twin Otter ski plane to whereever in Antarctica that the parachute lands.

His first job will be to secure the valuable data disks before dismantling and recovering the two ton instrument. Dr. Ward is expected to leave Antarctica at the close of the summer season in February 2013.

NASA Scientist Plan Return to Uranus

A pair of enhanced images of Uranus from the Keck telescope on Hawaii are among the best from the Earth. Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison/ W. M. Keck Observatory

An image of Uranus, its rings and moons from the Hubble space telescope in 1997. Credit NASA/ESA

While spacecraft continue to study the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, some space scientists are clamouring for missions to the neglected planets of the Solar System.

A NASA probe, New Horizons, is currently racing towards an ex-planet, Pluto, to speed past and tell us more about that world and its Kuiper Belt relatives. But ice giants Uranus and Neptune have not been properly studied from space since the Voyager missions of the 1980s.

There are no plans currently to return to the most distant planet Neptune. However, NASA has made a Uranus mission the third highest priority for planetary exploration in the 2020s, after another martian rover and further study of Jupiter.

The US financial crisis has put many future missions on hold due to budgetary restraints. But planetary scientists are pressing for such a mission to fly as soon as possible, especially after a similar proposal for a European mision, Uranus Pathfinder, was passed over in 2011.

Warp Drive More Possible Than Thought, Scientists Say

A ring-shaped warp drive device could transport a football-shape starship (center) to effective speeds faster than light. 

The concept was first proposed by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre.

CREDIT: Harold White

A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.

A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light.

A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.

Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.

"There is hope," Harold "Sonny" White of NASA's Johnson Space Center said here Friday (Sept. 14) at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting to discuss the challenges of interstellar spaceflight.

Multiple Sclerosis research links brain activity to steep Cognitive decline

When it comes to communication in the brain, more is usually better but now scientists have linked increased communication in a network of brain regions to more severe mental impairment in patients with early-stage multiple sclerosis (MS).

“Measuring how well this network’s connections are working may provide a way to look beyond the wide-ranging symptoms of MS to help us quantify the disorder’s effects on the brain,” says co-author Maurizio Corbetta, MD, the Norman J. Stupp Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“This assessment could be very useful in diagnosing the disease and tracking the effectiveness of new treatments.”

Scientists at Washington University and the University Medical Center at Hamburg-Eppendorf and the University of Tübingen, both in Germany, published the results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

MS damages brain cell branches, impairing the cells’ ability to communicate. The disease is highly unpredictable and produces a hodgepodge of symptoms that vary from patient to patient. These include fatigue, numbness, dizziness, pain, bowel and bladder dysfunction, visual impairments, speech disorders, headache, depression and problems with balance, coordination and walking.

The brain can redirect energy and resources to make it possible for more signals to flow through damaged circuits. But in MS, the researchers speculate, that redirection may lead to a decrease in the brain’s ability to reconfigure itself for different cognitive tasks, such as speaking, processing sensory information, controlling movement, regulating mood and creating and accessing memory.

The current study focused on whether correlations could be made between the structural damage caused by MS, the cognitive problems experienced by patients and changes in brain networking, which refers to the ability of various regions in the brain to work with each other.

The study involved 16 patients who had been diagnosed with MS in the previous four years. For comparison, scientists also included 16 healthy individuals. All participants were given an extensive battery of behavioral and cognitive tests, as well as brain scans to look for structural damage. Researchers also evaluated the connectedness of brain regions that often work together in networks.

ESA - Human Spaceflight and Exploration - Fly us to the Moon…south pole to be precise

ESA - Human Spaceflight and Exploration - Fly us to the Moon…south pole to be precise



The south polar region of the Moon, with dark craters and high ridges, is a world away from the relatively smooth terrain visited by Apollo astronauts four decades ago. This rugged moonscape is the target for Europe’s next leap into space.

The possible deposits of water ice, heavily cratered terrain and long periods of sunlight make the lunar south pole and areas around it extremely interesting for explorers and scientists. It is therefore a prime target for future human missions to the Moon.

Europe is now looking at a lander mission to pave the way for astronauts. This precursor would be the first European Moonlander and the first to visit the south polar region.

ESA is now asking industry to submit proposals for this Lunar Lander mission.

'Cold fusion' moves closer to mainstream acceptance

'Cold fusion' moves closer to mainstream acceptance ScienceBlog.com

"Years ago, many scientists were afraid to speak about 'cold fusion' to a mainstream audience," said Jan Marwan, Ph.D., the internationally known expert who has organised the 'New Energy Technology' symposium.

Marwan heads the research firm, Dr. Marwan Chemie in Berlin, Germany. The symposium will include nearly 50 presentations describing the latest discoveries on the topic, including cold fusion.

The presentations describe invention of an inexpensive new measuring device that could enable more labs to begin cold fusion research; indications that cold fusion may occur naturally in certain bacteria; progress toward a battery based on cold fusion; and a range of other topics.

Marwan noted that many of the presentations suggest that cold fusion is real, with the potential to positively contribute to alternative energy supplies in the 21st Century.

"Now most of the scientists are no longer afraid and most of the cold fusion researchers are attracted to the ACS meeting," Marwan said. "I've also noticed that the field is gaining new researchers from universities that had previously not pursued cold fusion research. More and more people are becoming interested in it.

Clearly, there's still some resistance to this field but we just have to keep on as we have done so far, exploring cold fusion step by step, and that will make it a successful alternative energy source. With time and patience, I'm really optimistic we can do this!"

The term "cold fusion" originated in 1989 when Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons claimed achieving nuclear fusion at room temperature with a simple, inexpensive tabletop device.

That claim created an international sensation, because nuclear fusion holds the potential for providing our world with a virtually limitless and arguably, clean, new source of energy.

Fuel for fusion comes from ordinary seawater, and estimates indicate that 1 gallon of seawater packs the energy equivalent of 16 gallons of gasoline at 100 percent efficiency for energy production.

The claim also ignited scepticism, because conventional wisdom said that achieving fusion required multi-billion-dollar fusion reactors that operate at tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit.

When other scientists could not reproduce the Pons-Fleishmann results, research on cold fusion fell into disrepute.

To read the full article, click here.

US Scientist eyes 39-day voyage to Mars

A journey from Earth to Mars could in the future take just 39 days -- cutting current travel time nearly six times -- according to a rocket scientist who has the ear of the US space agency.

Franklin Chang-Diaz, a former astronaut and a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says reaching the Red Planet could be dramatically quicker using his high-tech VASIMR rocket, now on track for liftoff after decades of development.

The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket -- to give its full name -- is quick becoming a centerpiece of NASA's future strategy as it looks to private firms to help meet the astronomical costs of space exploration.

NASA, still reeling from a political decision to cancel its Constellation program that would have returned a human to the moon by the end of the decade, has called on firms to provide new technology to power rovers or even future manned missions.

Hopes are now pinned on firms like Chang-Diaz's Texas-based Ad Astra Rocket Company.

"In the early days... NASA support for the project was rather minimal because the agency did not emphasize advanced technologies as much as it's doing now," Chang-Diaz told AFP.

NASA was focused instead on the series of Apollo missions that delivered men to the moon for the first, and so far last, times.

"They were mesmerized by the Apollo days and lived in the Apollo era for 40 years, and they just forgot developing something new," he said.

Click here to read the full article

Sacked scientist promises impartial drugs advice

The scientist sacked by the British government for allegedly criticising government drugs policy today made good on his promise to set up his own committee to investigate and publicise the science of recreational drugs.

"We will provide the truth about drugs unfettered by any political interference," said David Nutt of Imperial College London, and the former head of the government's Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) until he was asked to leave last October by Home Office minister, Alan Johnson.

Now, true to his promise, Nutt is chairman of his newly created Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, and today proudly announced that its first meeting took place yesterday.

So far it has 14 members, including four of the five who resigned from the ACMD last October in protest at the sacking of Nutt. "This is the strongest grouping of scientists we've ever had in this country [who are experts on recreational drugs]," said Nutt. "The best science will come from us."

Already, the new committee has decided on its first three programmes.

Full article here ......

In Liquid and Air, Scientists Find Order Among the Chaos - NYTimes.com

In Liquid and Air, Scientists Find Order Among the Chaos - NYTimes.com

Assisted by instruments that can track in fine detail how parcels of fluid move, and by low-cost computers that can crunch vast amounts of data quickly, researchers have found hidden structures beyond Monterey Bay, structures that explain why aircraft meet unexpected turbulence, why the air flow around a car causes drag and how blood pumps from the heart's ventricles. In December, the journal Chaos will highlight the research under way to track the moving skeletons embedded in complex flows, known as Lagrangian coherent structures.

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Does Experimental Vaccine helps prevent HIV infection

For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result.

Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.
The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31% in the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday.

Even though the benefit is modest, "it's the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine," said Col. Jerome Kim. He helped lead the study for the U.S. Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The institute's director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that this is "not the end of the road," but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome.

"It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result" and developing a more effective AIDS vaccine, Fauci said. "This is something that we can do."

Even a marginally helpful vaccine could have a big impact. Every day, 7,500 people worldwide are newly infected with HIV; 2 million died of AIDS in 2007, the U.N. agency UNAIDS estimates.

"Today marks an historic milestone," said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, an international group that has worked toward develping a vaccine.

"It will take time and resources to fully analyse and understand the data, but there is little doubt that this finding will energize and redirect the AIDS vaccine field," he said in a statement.

Further Mystery Surrounds Plague Death of Scientist

A follow up Story to the Death of a Chicago Scientist caused by Plague - Previous Story

Before Malcolm Casadaban died on September 13, the 60-year-old microbiologist at the University of Chicago had been suffering from flu-like symptoms.

Another victim of swine flu? Perhaps - but an autopsy revealed he had plague bacteria in his blood.

Casadaban was reported to have been working with a weakened vaccine strain of Yersinia pestis, intended for the development of vaccines against plague.

However, doctors are not sure the bacilli in Casadaban's blood were the cause of death, or how they got there. So what's going on?

Y. pestis has been linked to the medieval Black Death, though proof has been elusive. We do know that it kills several thousand a year by causing bubonic plague, and it is considered a potential biological weapon.

The University of Chicago has not revealed which strain the Yersinia was, but says it should have been safe:

This strain is not known to cause illness in healthy adults and has been used in some countries as a live-attenuated vaccine to protect against plague. It has been approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for routine laboratory studies. The weakened strain does not require the special safety precautions required for work with virulent strains.

But the case reminds me of misgivings that have been voiced about weakened strains, which might not be as safe as they seem.

The strain seems likely to have been EV76, which is used as a vaccine in Russia and Madagascar. It is considered unlikely to revert to the virulent strain - but even without reverting, it kills some mice immunised with it.

Worse, up to a fifth of people vaccinated with EV76 develop flu symptoms such as fever, headache, weakness and malaise, according to Rick Titball of the University of Exeter, UK, a leading Yersinia expert. Some even need hospitalisation, he says, though no deaths have ever been reported that we know of.

Of course, we don't yet know whether these findings have any bearing on Casadaban's tragic death. For that we'll need to which strain was in his blood and whether it was the bacteria that killed him.

Chicago Research Scientist Dies of the Plague

There's no sign of any spread after the rare, possibly plague-related death of a University of Chicago scientist, public health officials said Monday as federal authorities flew in to help investigate.

As a precaution, antibiotics have been offered to about 100 co-workers, friends and family of genetics researcher Malcolm Casadaban, who died earlier this month after lab exposure to a weakened form of the bacterium that causes plague.

The strain is federally approved for lab studies. Dr. Kenneth Alexander, a UC infectious disease specialist, likened it to a "crocodile with no teeth" and called Casadaban's death a mystery.

Casadaban's lab on the South Side campus has been sealed off while authorities investigate.

Officials have said it's unlikely anyone else would be infected, and a Chicago Department of Public Health spokesman said Monday the window for that happening was nearly over.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent three scientists to Chicago on Monday to help with the investigation.

"It is very rare for a scientist's death to be linked to a pathogen he or she was studying," said CDC spokesman Dave Daigle. He didn't have information on any cases.

Alexander said the last one he recalled was Howard Taylor Ricketts, a former University of Chicago scientist who did pioneering research on two other bacterial diseases — Rocky Mountain spotted fever and typhus. Ricketts died of typhus in 1910 while researching the organism.

Casadaban, who studied the genetics of dangerous bacteria, was interested in what made such organisms so aggressive.

Cassini Equinox Mission: Scientist for a Day

Cassini Equinox Mission: Scientist for a Day







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NASA: MISSE: science in microgravity

This suitcase-sized experiment may look like the ultimate cosmetics kit, but it is used to test the effect of radiation on a range of materials, from ceramics to spores. The first Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) box was attached to the station in 2001.

Astronauts from the space shuttle Discovery removed the sixth set of boxes from the station on 1 September this year.

A recent NASA report on space station science called MISSE "perhaps the most prolific suite of experiments to date" aboard the outpost.

(Image: NASA-MSFC)

H1N1 Vaccine Production delayed: Poor most at risk

The WHO says countries such as China and India expect to produce their own vaccine supplies, but smaller low- and middle-income countries representing 2.7 billion people have "no current access to H1N1 vaccine".

The report was presented to a closed, extraordinary meeting last week of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation (SAGE), a panel of independent scientists who advise the WHO on vaccine issues.

Wenqing Zhang of the WHO's flu programme told SAGE that five different "seed" viruses have been produced and evaluated (pdf format). But the two highest yielding strains are growing only half as fast as the seasonal H1N1 viruses used to make vaccine for ordinary flu.

NASA reveals the South Pole of the Moon

The highest-resolution topography map to date of the Moon’s south pole has been generated by scientists at Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, Californina.

It uses data collected by the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone solar system radar located in the Mojave Desert and provides contiguous topographic detail over an areaof approximately 311 miles by 249 miles

NASA/AP

Reflecting on Earthshine

The moon will be full Thursday, which means we'll see it in all its illuminated glory. But when the moon is just a sliver, we sometimes see our own reflection shining back at us from the moon's shrouded side, in a phenomenon called "earthshine."

Now scientists say the difference in light reflection from the Earth's land masses vs. the oceans can be seen on the moon. By tracking changes in earthshine as Earth rotates, scientists measured brightness variations that correspond to the brilliant, mirror-like reflections from oceans compared to the dimmer reflections from land.

Earthshine was first proposed by Leonardo da Vinci, who suggested that sunlight could bounce off our planet and be reflected back to us by the moon. This light is only visible when there is little sunlight reflecting directly off the moon, which would otherwise drown out the much dimmer earthshine. Thus, Earth's reflection is only visible to the naked eye on the darker portion of thin crescent moons, and not full moons.

The phenomenon can sometimes be seen by the naked eye as a ghostly glow, and is easily visible with a telescope. It is best seen once a month when the crescent moon hangs just above the western horizon right after sunset.

Herschel & Planck satellites ready to go

Herschel, the monster space telescope, will position itself in an extended orbit (1.5Mn Km) on the other side of the Earth from the Sun (L2, Le Grange point). It will use the Earth as a shield to protect it from the Sun's local radiation. Its mission is to reveal the young universe in new detail.

Whereas the Planck satellite will take up a similar orbit at the L2, Le Grange point and start to record the background radiation left after the Big Bang. (Image: ESA)