A great picture of a Great Horned Owl fledgling in a Montana granary window. great horned owls are somewhat flexible on the time of year they nest and thus have fledglings. This bird may have started life back in November, but many owl pairs may not breed until late spring.
Old garage top, turned into new apartment, bottom.
I’ve posted previously about using foams on the battlefield to help stop bleeding until the wounded can reach a hospital surgical team. That seems as though it will become a reality, Injectable Foam Blocks Internal Bleeding on the Battlefield
The polyurethane foam begins as two liquids stored separately and injected together into the abdominal cavity. One liquid is a polyol, a type of alcohol. The other is made of isocyanates, a family of highly reactive chemicals widely used in the manufacture of flexible and rigid foams. Within about one minute after a medic inserts the liquids at the midline—near the belly button—the mixture expands to nearly 30 times its original volume and then turns solid. It slows or halts hemorrhaging by sealing wounded tissues. Once the patient can get to intensive care, doctors would remove the solid mass and then perform surgery to permanently stop any bleeding.
Two new studies by Broad Institute researchers are among the first to account for some of autism’s heritability. Both studies, which were published January 23 in Neuron, investigate the role recessive genes play in ASD. These genes can be passed on through generations, but their effects are seen only if an individual inherits two identical copies of the gene – one from each parent.
One study, led by Mark Daly, a senior associate member of the Broad and co-director of its Medical and Population Genetics program, found that approximately 5% of autism cases could be linked to inherited, recessive mutations that completely disrupt gene function. A second study, led by Broad associate member Christopher A. Walsh, found that autism risk could also be attributed to inherited mutations that resulted in only a partial loss of gene function. Moreover, Walsh’s team found that many of these partially-disabling mutations occurred in genes in which a complete disruption of the gene has been known to cause more severe or even fatal inherited diseases. This suggests that milder forms of some severe, Mendelian diseases – diseases caused by a single gene – may present as autism spectrum disorders.
This also serves as another reason for the anti-vaccine movement – some of whom attribute autism spectrum disorders to vaccines – to pause and reconsider.
Scottie (puppies) form pinwheel to get goat’s milk treat
Why use any old lightbulb when there’s the NanoLight! Using only 12 watts of electricity, the NanoLight generates over 1600 lumens, equivalent to a 100W incandescent lightbulb.
There are plenty of 20-60W Equivalent LED light bulbs in the market today, but the selection for 75-100W equivalents is still quite rare. To most light bulb manufacturers high efficiency and cost effective light bulb production is still uncharted territory.
The NanoLight takes energy efficient lighting to a whole new level by offering a lightbulb far more efficient than any existing LED bulb. It is a true breakthrough for LED Lighting technology.
Omnidirectional Lightbulb.
Unlike other LED light bulbs, the NanoLight emulates the classic lightbulb and directs light in all directions. This allows for light to be distributed evenly, and provide the ultimate lighting experience.
Instant-On Capabilities.
Unlike compact fluorescent lights, the NanoLight achieves full brightness the instant it is turned on. The performance of the NanoLight is not affected by frequently turning on and off.
The Coolest Light Bulb.
Our energy efficient design allows for very little energy lost due to heat. You will never burn your hand when you touch the NanoLight.
This is from Kickstarter. Probably too late to get in one being an initial investor since they have far surpassed their start-up goal.
Cook County last month took a big step toward the ambitious zero-waste goal it outlined earlier this year. Leapfrogging Chicago’s standards, Cook County enacted the Midwest’s first demolition debris ordinance that requires reuse. At least 70 percent of construction and demolition debris must be recycled, and an additional 5 percent must be reused on residential structures.
This law, which took effect November 21, affects some 2.5 million residents across 30 townships in suburban Cook County. While the City of Chicago mandates that 50 percent of debris be recycled—a 2007 ordinance, which, government officials note, contractors now easily exceed—building debris makes up a staggering 40 percent of landfill material nationwide.
Abstract: Recent Amazonian droughts have drawn attention to the vulnerability of tropical forests to climate perturbations. Satellite and in situ observations have shown an increase in fire occurrence during drought years and tree mortality following severe droughts, but to date there has been no assessment of long-term impacts of these droughts across landscapes in Amazonia. Here, we use satellite microwave observations of rainfall and canopy backscatter to show that more than 70 million hectares of forest in western Amazonia experienced a strong water deficit during the dry season of 2005 and a closely corresponding decline in canopy structure and moisture. Remarkably, and despite the gradual recovery in total rainfall in subsequent years, the decrease in canopy backscatter persisted until the next major drought, in 2010. The decline in backscatter is attributed to changes in structure and water content associated with the forest upper canopy. The persistence of low backscatter supports the slow recovery (>4 y) of forest canopy structure after the severe drought in 2005. The result suggests that the occurrence of droughts in Amazonia at 5–10 y frequency may lead to persistent alteration of the forest canopy.
Study Finds Severe Climate Jeopardizing Amazon Forest At left, the extent of the 2005 megadrought in the western Amazon rainforests during the summer months of June At left, the extent of the 2005 megadrought in the western Amazon rainforests during the summer months of June, July and August as measured by NASA satellites. The most impacted areas are shown in shades of red and yellow. The circled area in the right panel shows the extent of the forests that experienced slow recovery from the 2005 drought, with areas in red and yellow shades experiencing the slowest recovery. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC
The full report is behind a registration wall so those interested in further reading about the long terms effects of climate change on the Amazon and the long term consequences might find the write-up at NASA easier access. So you live In Kansas or India or Ireland, why should you care what happens in the Amazon. Weather and precipitation in the Amazon has world wide consequences
Some creatures that may or may not exist, Fun Bestiary by Juan Carlos Paz Bakea. I tend to think, though I might be mistaken, this three-eyed monkey owl does not exists, but maybe some of the others do.
A research team led by U.S. scientists says it’s developed a system of transmitting as much as 2.56 terabits of data per second using twisted beams of light.
Broadband cable can move about 30 megabits per second, so the twisted-light system transmits more than 85,000 times more data per second, scientists at the University of Southern California, which led the research, reported Monday.
The technology has potential applications for high-speed satellite communication links, short free-space terrestrial links or could be adapted for use in the fiber optic cables used by some Internet service providers, researchers said.
“You’re able to do things with light that you can’t do with electricity,” Alan Willner, a USC electrical engineering professor, said. “That’s the beauty of light; it’s a bunch of photons that can be manipulated in many different ways at very high speed.”
Even if 1.5 tb connections became a standard that would be amazing. I might be easily impressed since I don’t have a a particularly fast connection. Since my ISP also has terrible customer service I wonder if researchers could start working on customer service robots would be an improvement.
The $3 million Department of Energy facility allows for collaboration with industry and other national labs while protecting intellectual property of industrial partners. The laboratory is attracting battery manufacturers, chemical and materials suppliers, system integrators and original equipment manufacturers.
“We’re able to integrate advanced material components into a complete battery, analyze how it perform and better understand how to improve it,” said Claus Daniel, deputy director of ORNL’s Sustainable Transportation Programs. “With this capability, we can isolate and evaluate a material or process and quantify any advantage that each would provide.”
Through the nation’s largest open access battery manufacturing R&D facility, American businesses could gain a competitive advantage in the global market.
This announcement is not important in terms of a new break through – today anyway, but because Oak Ridge does have state of the art abilities to look at new processes or new process theories it can greatly streamline the development process. An ability that will benefit consumers, business and hopefully the development of clean energy and the jobs that go with it. Currently ORNl does research contracts with eight battery developers to help with their research.
Funding for this project was provided by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
Gene discovery may mean more, better rice. They discovered a gene that could improve the shape and color of rice grains, enhancing its appearance, but could also change the arrangement of starch inside the grain, enhancing its quality for eating. We’re not talking about GM (genetically modified) crops, but rather the age old process of cross breeding strains to produce a rice ( could have been wheat or corn) that provides more nutritional quality per serving.
Conducting polymer hydrogels represent a unique class of materials that synergizes the advantageous features of hydrogels and organic conductors and have been used in many applications such as bioelectronics and energy storage devices. They are often synthesized by polymerizing conductive polymer monomer within a nonconducting hydrogel matrix, resulting in deterioration of their electrical properties. Here, we report a scalable and versatile synthesis of multifunctional polyaniline (PAni) hydrogel with excellent electronic conductivity and electrochemical properties. With high surface area and three-dimensional porous nanostructures, the PAni hydrogels demonstrated potential as high-performance supercapacitor electrodes with high specific capacitance (~480 F·g-1), unprecedented rate capability, and cycling stability (~83% capacitance retention after 10,000 cycles). The PAni hydrogels can also function as the active component of glucose oxidase sensors with fast response time (~0.3 s) and superior sensitivity (~16.7 µA·mM-1).
What are the real world implications. To be able to fabricate electronic and electrochemical devices such as biosensor arrays and microsupercapacitors both easily and on a large scale. Biosensors arrays can be used to track the change in a protein for medical diagnostics and can also be used to warn of biological threats. Since smartphones are becoming communication devices, data storage devices, portable entertainment centers and mini-computers they call on all the capacity modern battery technology can offer and obviously those batteries could last longer and supply more power. Microsupercapacitors could be the answer to that.
*Ploughshare tortoises have their shells defaced to make them worthless on the black market. There are only a few hundred left in the wild and they are critically endangered.
*Vulnerable Galapagos Giant tortoises mate in a way which means that the female is not crushed by the male, who can weigh about 400kg.
*Poachers known as “the tortoise mafia” and locals who eat tortoise meat threaten Madagascar’s rare tortoises, which include the Ploughshare, Spider, Radiated and Flat-tailed species.
*Radiated tortoises are “one of the world’s most beautiful species”, according to David Attenborough. They are only found in southern scrublands in Madagascar.
*Burmese starred tortoises are also listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. They get their name from the striking yellow and dark brown star pattern on their shells.
*Kleinmann’s tortoise, also known as the Egyptian tortoise, is the smallest of the Mediterranean species.
What happens when three curious animals meet at sea, Dolphin ‘KISS’ a Dog on a Boat!
In 2010, Svante Pääbo and his colleagues presented a draft version of the genome from a small fragment of a human finger bone discovered in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia. The DNA sequences showed that this individual came from a previously unknown group of extinct humans that have become known as Denisovans. Together with their sister group the Neandertals, Denisovans are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans.
The Leipzig team has now developed sensitive novel techniques which have allowed them to sequence every position in the Denisovan genome about 30 times over, using DNA extracted from less than 10 milligrams of the finger bone. In the previous draft version published in 2010, each position in the genome was determined, on average, only twice. This level of resolution was sufficient to establish the relationship of Denisovans to Neandertals and present-day humans, but often made it impossible for researchers to study the evolution of specific parts of the genome. The now-completed version of the genome allows even the small differences between the copies of genes that this individual inherited from its mother and father to be distinguished. This Wednesday the Leipzig group makes the entire Denisovan genome sequence available for the scientific community over the internet.
“The genome is of very high quality”, says Matthias Meyer, who developed the techniques that made this technical feat possible. “We cover all non-repetitive DNA sequences in the Denisovan genome so many times that it has fewer errors than most genomes from present-day humans that have been determined to date”.
Researchers have now been able to sequence the entire Denisova genome using 10 milligram of a finger bone fragment that was found in the Denisova-Cave in Southern Sibiria
This genome is the first complete genome sequence of an archaic human group. A big step in the study of study of extinct forms of humans. Biologists who specialize in human evolution will be able to use comparisons between the Denisovans and the modern human genome to discover genetic changes in the development of modern humans. Including the development of culture and technology. In terms of the evolution of modern mammals all of this took place in the relatively past. Ancestors to modern humans left Africa and spread around the world just 100,000 years ago.
The year 2011 was full of reports that space debris was re-entering the atmosphere and raining down on Earth. First came a 12,500-pound decommissioned satellite, which fell in the Pacific Ocean, then a mysterious space ball, which dropped on Namibia, and finally pieces of a Russian space probe crashed somewhere off Chile’s coastline. By September of last year, a report from the National Research Council said, ominously, that space debris has reached a “tipping point.”
But the ever-tidy Swiss think they have a solution to all the old satellites, broken rocket ships or other junk humans have left out in space. On Wednesday, Swiss scientists announced plans to launch a “janitor satellite,” designed, as its name implies, to clean up space debris, the Associated Press reports.
An artist’s impression of a CleanSpace One satellite chasing a piece of debris. (AFP/GETTY IMAGES/Swiss Space Center )
There are an estimated 500,000 pieces of debris orbiting Earth, according to NASA. That space junk, rather big or as small as a bolt, travels at about 17,500 mph. The space janitor would grab a piece of junk or two and then guide them into the earth;s atmosphere where they would burn up. It will be a few years before the space janitor is ready for launch. The first two targets are said to old Swiss satellites.
A plant has been generated from the fruit of the narrow-leafed campion. It is the oldest plant by far to be grown from ancient tissue.
…Many plants can be propagated from a single adult cell, and this cloning procedure worked with three of the placentas, the Russian researchers report. They grew 36 ancient plants, which appeared identical to the present day narrow-leafed campion until they flowered, when they produced narrower and more splayed-out petals. Seeds from the ancient plants germinated with 100 percent success, compared with 90 percent for seeds from living campions.
The Russian team says it obtained a radiocarbon date of 31,800 years from seeds attached to the same placenta from which the living plants were propagated.
The researchers suggest that special circumstances may have contributed to the remarkable longevity of the campion plant cells. Squirrels construct their larders next to permafrost to keep seeds cool during the arctic summers, so the fruits would have been chilled from the start. The fruit’s placenta contains high levels of sucrose and phenols, which are good antifreeze agents.
The narrow-leafed campion photo by Svetlana Yashina
There is still some doubt about this discovery and thus the plant being from a seed reported as old as 32,000 years. So we’ll have to watch for further reports. previously the oldest plant from an ancient seed was from a date palm grown from a seed some 2,000 years old that was recovered from the ancient fortress of Masada in Israel.
I did not have a science question last week so this is the question and the answer. I’m using this question because of a news report I read that many adults do not know the answer. How long does it take for the earth to orbit the sun? The Earth’s orbit is the motion of the Earth around the Sun, at an average distance of about 150 million kilometers(93,205,678.8 miles), every 365.256363 mean solar days or one year. For those 18% of US citizens who believe the sun revolves around the earth, try to keep up. The fact that the earth revolves around the sun has been an established fact for over 500 years.
The Baillon’s Crake (Porzana pusilla) is a very small waterbird of the family Rallidae. Until modern drainage projects the Crake was found in Great Britain. It’s current breeding range includes sedge beds in Europe, mainly in the east, and across Asia.
The goal isn’t to save the world from baddies, but to explore new frontiers in the nature of matter. After all, most material in the universe exists at bone-crushing pressures. Think massive stars and planetary cores — realms no comic book fan or other Earth dweller has ever seen.
Deep within the planet, rock experiences pressures more than 1 million times as great as the “1 atmosphere” that ordinary humans live under at sea level. Pressures at the centers of ultradense neutron stars are some trillion quadrillion times greater. Under such extreme conditions, atoms themselves begin to buckle.
To mimic these hellish realms, scientists are ramping up pressure in the lab, like the Hulk getting ever stronger as he gets madder. In the process, they’re squeezing out some surprising insights.
One team has found a new kind of iron oxide, a compound that somehow had never been seen before, even though it contains two of the most common elements in Earth’s crust.
Chemical compounds at normal atmospheric pressure behave in predictable ways. Look around you, most objects or materials within your line of sight was created based on what is known about the orbitals of compounds at regular atmospheric pressures or relatively easily created pressure. When these elements and their compounds are taken to extreme pressues it opens up a whole new avenue of chemical possibilites.
It turns out that squishing matter doesn’t just compress its atoms so that they stack closer together, like a pile of well-arranged oranges at a farmers market. Compression also radically alters electron orbitals, in different ways depending on their original shapes.
Suddenly electrons can zip around in places they haven’t been before, and the rules typically governing the periodic table of the elements go out the window.
Perhaps the poster child for odd behavior at high pressures is hydrogen, the most common element in the universe. As the simplest element, with just one proton in its nucleus and one orbiting electron, hydrogen seems like it should behave in a straightforward way. But recent experiments have shown that, like Bruce Banner, it suffers from multiple personalities.
Most intriguing, scientists say, is the fact that if you squeeze hydrogen hard enough, this flighty gas transforms into a dense fluid whose electrons move in an ill-defined sea, allowing it to conduct electricity and behave as a metal. Understanding how two atoms linked as a gaseous H2 molecule split and form single atoms flowing as a liquid could illuminate what happens to more complicated molecules under pressure, says physicist Alexander Goncharov of Carnegie. “Once we understand that simple system, others may become simpler,” he says. ( there is some disagreement in the science community on exactly what is happening. So there will be papers down the road that dispute the metallic hydrogen claims. At high enough pressures and temperatures, hydrogen starts reacting with just about everything around it ).
While all this might mean new materials with special properties down the road the immediate benefits will be to have more insights into the earth’s core and how compounds might behave in distant planets where there are naturally the kinds of extreme pressures being created in the lab.
Tanjung Puting National Park — 1,174 square miles of peat and freshwater swamp forest on the southern coast of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo — is prime habitat for orangutans. It is also home to the endemic proboscis monkey, clouded leopards, Malaysian sun bears and more than 230 species of birds. The park authorities employ local villagers as guards to patrol rivers and forest, an effective strategy in deterring illegal activities like logging.
The 2007 Cosco Busan disaster, which spilled 54,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay, had an unexpectedly lethal impact on embryonic fish, devastating a commercially and ecologically important species for nearly two years, reports a new study by the University of California, Davis, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
One interesting and sad finding of this study was that previous understanding of the effects of oil on embryonic fish have lead to the belief that there was not enough oil from the Cosco Busan spill to cause such wide spread long lasting damage. What researchers found is that the ultraviolet light dramatically increased toxicity in the actual environment.
Warming in the North Atlantic Ocean has decreased winter sea ice and increased the death rate for baby harp seals over the past three decades, according to a new study.
Winter sea ice cover in harp seal breeding grounds has decreased up to 6 percent per decade since 1979, when satellite observations of sea ice began, found the research, published yesterday in the journal PLoS Biology.
To balance all the bad news today, Bearded Dragon playing Ant Crusher
There is an advertisement for the game in the short video. Even this video might be a little sad in that as good as he or she might be at picking out the ants, it never gets to actually eat one.
tangledwing 
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