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July 17, 2015
New Horizons Transforms Pluto from a Speck to a Sphere [Slide Show]
This week the Internet is flush with photos of Pluto from the New Horizons mission. To someone who is not necessarily a Plutophile, it might be kind of difficult to see what all the hype is about. After all, the Hubble Space Telescope has shown us galaxies near the edge of the observable universe. What’s so exciting about seeing a dwarf planet in our own solar system?
Setting aside the fact that New Horizons’ safe arrival means that scientists successfully guided a piano-size robot across the solar system for nearly a decade, the New Horizons flyby is momentous because the spacecraft is churning out photos that show Pluto in unprecedented detail. To really appreciate how striking our new views of Pluto are, let’s take a look back at photos of the former ninth planet, now Kuiper Belt object, from the earliest glimpses to the New Horizons pictures.
This Dead Fish Does Something Pretty Unexpected After Being Decapitated
Photo credit:
Salmon for sale at firsh market. Fawcett5/Wikipedia Commons.
So we've been sent this one a LOT recently, with everyone asking for an explanation – how and why is this fish still flailing about and seemingly trying to escape – minus his head and guts?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWB3a...]
The explanation is a reasonably simple one, and also a pretty common phenomenon as well – we also see the same jerking movements from fresh raw frogs’ legs and diced up squid.
Plankton Blooms Fuel Cloud Droplet Formation
The Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, is the cloudiest place on Earth. It’s relatively free of humans. And the dust, pollen and spores that float off more temperate lands don’t make it that far south—making the Southern Ocean an ideal lab to study the natural formation of clouds.
"So this is a little bit like, if you want to hear someone talking, it's easier to hear them in a quiet room than in a room where a lot of other people are talking as well." Susannah Burrows is an atmospheric scientist at Pacific Northwest National Lab in Washington.
The isolated signal Burrows and her colleagues wanted to 'hear' was how particles from floating phytoplankton influence cloud droplet formation. They used computer models to simulate the stuff that seeds clouds over the Southern Ocean: particles like sea salt; organic bits from phytoplankton kicked up by sea spray; and sulfates, from the gases the critters emit.
They compared those particulate simulations to actual satellite measurements of clouds. And they found that during the southern summer, when plankton bloom, the phytoplankton may actually double cloud droplet formation. That in turn increases the reflectivity of the clouds, meaning more sunlight bounces back into space during the brighter summer months.
Almost like the Southern Ocean slips on a pair of sunglasses, just when it gets too bright? " That's an interesting analogy… um it's less like sunglasses and more like…" We later agreed—it’s more like the sunshade you unfold in your car in the summer months, to reflect hot sunlight back into the sky. The study is in the journal Science Advances. [D.T. McCoy et al, Natural aerosols explain seasonal and spatial patterns of Southern Ocean cloud albedo]
The goal, Burrows says, is to understand cloud formation, free from the influences of human pollution. "And that will help us to better understand the magnitude of changes in climate that are due to human impacts." And as the Arctic loses its ice—opening up a whole lot of new watery habitat for phytoplankton—she says the Arctic Ocean could someday have a cloudier forecast, too.
—Christopher Intagliata
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
July 12, 2015
Fly Through Space with this Awesome Interactive Video
Photo credit:
IM_photo/shutterstock
You may not be an astronaut and you may not have your own spaceship (yet), but thanks to the animation powers of Scott Manley, you can now soar through space from the comfort of your own computer with his latest interactive.
You may remember Manley from his last incredible video of how the night sky would look like if we could see every asteroid.
Shark Attack Risk Has Fallen Significantly Since The 1950s
Photo credit:
solarseven/Shutterstock
This may sound paradoxical, but while there has been a rise in the number of people bitten by sharks, the actual risk of being involved in an attack has fallen significantly. According to a new study, the individual risk of a person entering Californian waters being involved in a shark attack is 91% lower than it was in 1950.
Designer Microbes Might Be Coming To A Gut Near You
Photo credit:
Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (white) living on mammalian cells in the gut (large pink cells coated in microvilli). Janet Iwasa/MIT.
The bacteria living inside your body outnumber your own cells 10 to 1. With such an abundant population of microbial guests in our bodies, why not start ordering them to do some housework? Biologists from MIT have successfully taken bacteria found in the human gut and genetically modified them to have useful properties, such as monitoring intestinal health and alerting us when there's something wrong.
These Four Astronauts Will Fly New Private Spacecraft For NASA In 2017
Photo credit:
The astronauts will fly SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft via NASA
By 2017, there will be two new spacecraft capable of launching man from U.S. soil: SpaceX’s Dragon and Boeing’s CST-100. Now, NASA has selected the pioneering astronauts that will fly on these vehicles for the first time, ushering in a new era of space travel.
Schizophrenia Linked To Smoking
Photo credit:
Smoking tobacco could cause a modest increase in risk of developing psychosis. underworld/Shutterstock
The association between psychosis and smoking tobacco has been observed for a long time. In England alone, 42% of cigarettes are smoked by people with mental health problems, and in the United States, 80% of those with schizophrenia smoke, compared to a national average of 20%. This has focused a debate around what came first, the smoking or the mental illness?
July 11, 2015
‘Female Viagra’ & New Insights Into Narcolepsy
Recent research has offered some new insights into our biochemistry — from a proposed drug for sexual arousal to a possible link between the flu and narcolepsy.
Hosted by: Hank Green
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/opinion/a-pill-to-boost-female-libido.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/business/panel-backs-a-drug-to-increase-womens-sex-drive.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2015/02/10/big-pharma-ed-drugs-and-pink-viagra/
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/294/294ra105
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/narcolepsy/detail_narcolepsy.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/h1n1_narcolepsy_pandemrix.html
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/07/journal-retracts-paper-linking-vaccine-and-narcolepsy.html
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/under-microscope/nightmare-flu-induced-narcolepsy
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/sumc-ssi062915.php
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