Wired Science

A controversial proposal would regulate sugar as a toxic substance, and not simply because it’s a calorie-rich enabler of obesity. Some researchers say it’s intrinsically dangerous, not unlike alcohol or tobacco, with unique properties that set off a hormonal cascade ending in higher risks of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

It’s not a scientifically certain proposition, though a growing body of research suggests it may very well be true, and the implications are thorny. Even people sympathetic to public health-based regulations may balk at treating pastries as cigarettes, as University of California, San Francisco nutritionists suggested in a Feb. 2 Nature paper.

But to anyone looking to artificial sweeteners as an alternative, as pastel-packaged reassurances that regulators won’t ever need to pry donuts from their cold, dead and pudgy hands, science offers only more uncertainty. Some studies even suggest that fake sugar may cause the same problems as real sugar.

“That’s the $64,000 question,” said Susan Swithers of the Ingestive Behavior Research Center at Purdue University. “There are several epidemiological studies showing increased risk of metabolic syndrome in coincidence with the consumption of diet sodas” — a rich source of sweeteners. “But how they should be interpreted is not really clear right now. Because they’re correlational studies, they don’t tell us what caused what.”

Artificial sweeteners are a fast-growing, multi-billion dollar product, present in thousands of foodstuffs and synthesized by chemists as zealously as drug researchers pursue blockbuster drugs. But as described in a massive 2008 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Review, the seemingly obvious health benefits expected of low-calorie sugar replacements have failed to materialize.

Even as Americans consumed more sweeteners, waistlines continued to expand. Cause and effect was ambiguous: Sweeteners might lead to weight gain, but maybe people most prone to gaining weight consume the most sweeteners. “This association may be coincidental or causal, and either mode of directionality is plausible,” concluded that study’s authors.

'Artificial sweetener use might be fueling -- rather than fighting -- our escalating obesity epidemic.'Other researchers, however, are more suspicious. When University of Texas Health Science Center epidemiologists conducted a 9-year-long study of 5,158 adult residents of San Antonio, Texas, they found a link between sweeteners and obesity. It persisted even after statistically accounting for gender, ethnicity, diet and beginning-of-diet body mass index. “These findings raise the question whether artificial sweetener use might be fueling — rather than fighting — our escalating obesity epidemic,” they wrote.

Another study of 6,184 adult Americans linked diet soda consumption with higher rates of metabolic syndrome, the umbrella term for a physiological disruption that leads to heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Once again, the link survived statistical adjustment for demographics, lifestyle and diet.

That’s precisely what’s expected from eating too much sugar, which at least in rats is converted in the liver to fat. That in turn provokes, via as-yet-unidentified mechanisms, resistance to insulin, a hormone used by cells to process glucose, better known as blood sugar. When insulin’s signals are ignored, blood sugar levels rise. Metabolic syndrome follows. But why should this happen when eating fake sugar, not real?

Swithers thinks she knows. In 2008, she and fellow Purdue researcher Terry Davidson fed rats a yogurt supplement sweetened either with glucose, a simple sugar, or zero-calorie saccharin. Apart from the supplement, both groups ate standard rat fare. Those that ate saccharin packed on more fat, gained more weight and consumed extra calories. A follow-up 2009 study reinforced the findings, and found that unusual weight gain persisted even when rats stopped eating sweeteners.

According to Swithers, two mechanisms may be responsible. When the rats’ bodies learned that sweetness didn’t predict an imminent caloric rush, as would naturally be produced by sugar-rich foods, their bodies may have automatically shifted into calorie-saving mode. At the same time, metabolic acceleration that normally occurs when eating high-calorie foods, and helps to process them, may have been slowed.

“All of our work has been in rats. We think similar processes happen in humans, but we haven’t tested them,” Swithers said.

Image: Steve Snodgrass/Flickr

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Photos like this could pass for a Cold War-era Russian propaganda program, or perhaps shots straight from the set of the movie Moonraker — if not for a stray pair of late-20th century sneakers.

Renowned fashion photographer Arthur Elgort, now 72, actually created these images for the December 1999 issue of Russian Vogue. (The magazine is owned by Conde Nast, which also owns Wired.)

In the images, supermodel Natalia Semanova mingles with real-life cosmonauts at Star City, a town northeast of Moscow and home of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, where for more than 50 years the Russian Federal Space Agency has trained willing citizens to fly in space. (Recently they’ve also been trained to survive 520 days inside a tin can.)

The photos experienced a recent resurgence in social media circles, so Wired tracked down Elgort to learn more about the timeless photos.

Wired: What led you to merge the worlds of fashion, science and technology for this shoot?

Arthur Elgort: I find it more interesting to put fashion in a setting that is different. Anywhere that the story can be about places that enhance the clothes.

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All images by Arthur Elgort and used with permission from Russian Vogue

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The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft is heading for a comet.

The ambitious mission — scheduled to enter orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in January of 2014 and place a tiny lander named Philae on its surface the following November — will no doubt return incredible, never-before-seen pictures. Until then, observers on Earth will have to make do with artists’ renderings like the ones in this video.

In past decades, about a dozen probes have performed comet flybys, sending back photographs of their nuclei. In 2005, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft shot a projectile that hit comet Temple 1.

But Rosetta and Philae will be the first mission to enter orbit around a comet and attempt a controlled landing onto its surface. The comet’s gravity is weak and its surface uneven, so Philae will shoot harpoons into the ground to help anchor it.

The probe will get to watch as the icy comet comes to life. Currently just a frozen ball of ice and dust, Churyumov-Gerasimenko will soon feel heat from the solar wind. Eventually, this radiation will melt the comet’s surface, generating a spectacular tail for Rosetta to observe.

The mission is named after the famed Rosetta stone, which allowed archeologists to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Since comets are frozen remnants from our solar system’s formation, researchers hope that the probe will help them understand how the planets came to be.

Image: Astrium - E. Viktor/ESA

Video: NASA

By Mark Brown, Wired UK

Last week, NASA released its 2012 version of the famous “Blue Marble” image. By using a planet-pointing satellite, Suomi NPP, the space agency created an extremely high-resolution photograph of our watery world.

The photo centered on the western hemisphere, highlighting North and Central America. It went viral and got even more hits on Flickr than the iconic “Situation Room” photo, taken at the time of the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Now, responding to public demand, the agency has created a companion image: this time focusing its lens toward the East and showing Africa, Saudi Arabia and India.

The Suomi NPP satellite hugs the Earth too closely to get this kind of image in one shot. It’s in a polar orbit with an altitude of 824 kilometers, but the perspective of the Eastern hemisphere Blue Marble is from 12,743 kilometers away.

As such, Nasa Goddard oceanographer Norman Kuring used images from six different orbits of the satellite over an eight-hour time period on Jan. 23, then stitched the photos together to achieve the final composite.

Both of the 2012 Blue Marble images are taken by a new instrument aboard Suomi NPP called the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). As for those four vertical lines: That’s the reflection of sunlight off the ocean, or “glint,” that VIIRS captured as it orbited the globe.

Other famous photos of Earth include the original Blue Marble, which was taken on Dec. 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft. There’s also the equally famous 2002 one, which you might recognize as the default lock screen on the first iPhone. Plus “You Are Here,” an arresting photo of Earth from the surface of Mars, snapped by the Spirit rover in 2004.

Image: NASA/NOAA [high-resolution]

Source: Wired.co.uk

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Toxic barbs on a cucumber’s skin, nanoscopic flakes of metal and a mouse’s technicolor eyeball (above) are just a few of 2011′s top science visualizations.

A panel of judges picked the best of more than 200 entries from 33 countries for the 2011 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

“I think because information technology tools and visualization tools have advanced, people have found ever-increasingly clever ways to display difficult scientific concepts,” said competition judge Thomas Wagner, a cryosphere scientist at NASA, in an interview provided by the contest.

Contest judges made their picks based on visual impact, originality and clarity. The winners, which include “people’s choice” awards as well as honorable mentions, were published online Feb. 2 in the journal Science.

The entries weren’t just limited to photographs. Contest categories also included illustrations, informational graphics, videos and even interactive video games.

See the best of these science and engineering visualizations in this gallery.

Images and videos courtesy of AAAS/Science

Above:

Mouse Eyeball Cells

Researchers stained ultra-thin slices of a mouse’s eye to create this first-place photography winner.

The stain was made of three antibodies that bind to three different molecules present in all cells, but in differing concentrations. Assigning red, blue and green to each antibody allowed the creators to depict more than 70 different cell types in the organ.

Image: Bryan William Jones/University of Utah/Moran Eye Center [high-resolution]

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By Mark Brown, Wired UK

After 20 years of drilling, a team of Russian researchers is close to breaching the prehistoric Lake Vostok, which has been trapped deep beneath Antarctica for the last 14 million years.

Vostok is the largest in a sub-glacial web of more than 200 lakes that are hidden 4 km beneath the ice. Some of the lakes formed when the continent was much warmer and still connected to Australia.

The lakes are rich in oxygen (making them oligotrophic), with levels of the element some 50 times higher than what would be found in your typical freshwater lake. The high gas concentration is thought to be because of the enormous weight and pressure of the continental ice cap.

If life exists in Vostok, it will have to be an extremophile — a life form that has adapted to survive in extreme environments. The organism would have to withstand high pressure, constant cold, low nutrient input, high oxygen concentration and an absence of sunlight.

The conditions in Lake Vostok are thought to be similar to the conditions on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus. In June, NASA probe Cassini found the best evidence yet for a massive saltwater reservoir beneath the icy surface of Enceladus. This all means that finding life in the inhospitable depths of Vostok would strengthen the case for life in the outer solar system.

Back on planet Earth, the team at Vostok are running short on time. Antarctica’s summer will soon end and the researchers need to leave their remote base while they still can. Temperatures will drop as low as -80C, grounding planes and trapping the team.

They missed their chance last year. “Time is short, however. It’s possible that the drillers won’t be able to reach the water before the end of the current Antarctic summer, and they’ll need to wait another year before the process can continue,” we wrote in January 2011. The drill halted in February.

Meanwhile, Russian engineers are planning to venture into the lake itself, with swimming robots. In the Antarctic summer of 2012 to 2013, they plan to send a robot into the lake to collect water samples and sediments from the bottom. An environmental assessment of the plan will be submitted at the Antarctic Treaty’s consultative meeting in May 2012.

Image: Wikipedia/NASA

Source: Wired.co.uk

A view across the Santorini caldera. The newest eruptions in the caldera can be seen on the right on Nea Kameni.

This appears to be a week of media interest in new journal articles. Earlier, I discussed a study that claimed that volcanoes were the cause of the onset of the Little Ice Age. Now, we have a study in Nature that discusses the magmatic events that lead up to the Minoan eruption at Santorini – a fairly timely topic considering the rumblings there – that has gotten the media’s attention.

Now, I’m not going to pick apart this paper by Timothy Druitt and others as such – the study, called “Decadal to monthly timescales of magma transfer and reservoir growth at a caldera volcano“, is actually quite solid. The long-and-short of the study is that they examined plagioclase feldspar crystals looking at the zoning of different elements in these crystals (see below).

There are two main pieces to the study. First, if a crystal grows in a certain magma, it will suck in certain amounts of different elements – some are major constituents of the minerals. In plagiolclase feldspar, we can define the “An” of a crystal by looking at proportions of Ca and Na in the crystal (high “An” means high Ca – closer to the perfect feldspar endmember anorthosite). The “An” can then tell us if a crystal came from one type of magma or another (see figure below). If there are low abundance elements in the mineral, like strontium, magnesium and titanium in plagioclase feldspar, then the amount of the element is controlled by the partitioning of the element between the liquid magma (melt) and the crystal. This is what geologists call the “partition coefficient” – or how likely is an element to want to be in the crystal or melt. The partition coefficient will change depending on the overall composition, pressure and temperature of the magma and crystal, so crystals in different magmas will suck up different amounts of these elements. This gives them distinctive compositions depending on the magma in which they grew – a “compositional signature” so to speak. (Note: I looked that is in zircon from the Okataina Caldera in my Earth and Planetary Science Letters study from last year).

Part of Figure 1 from Druitt et al. (2012) that shows the zoning of plagioclase feldspar from the Minoan eruption of Santorini.

The second piece is diffusion. Elements in crystals will diffuse back into the melt (or vice versa) if there is a large compositional gradient between the crystal and the melt. So, throw a crystal of one composition into a new magma of another, the elements will begin to exchange over time starting at the rim of the crystal. So, assuming specific thermal parameters and compositional gradients, you can use diffusion as a clock – how long has the foreign crystal been exposed to this new magma based on how much diffusion of certain elements has occurred. Now, different elements have different abilities to diffused based on their size and charge, so you need to choose wisely.

The Druitt et al. (2012) study used these two petrologic characteristics of minerals and melt to determine two main conclusions: (1) the magma erupted from Santorini during the Minoan eruption in ~1600 BC was a mixed magma and (2) the intrusion that “got the ball rolling” towards the Minoan eruption and the subsequent mixing happened geologically quickly – in the the timescales of a century to a few months. Now, there is a big caveat not mentioned in the study to this second point. One quandary we have in petrology is that when we look at timescales of processes inside magmatic systems, diffusion profiles like the kind used in this study imply events occur much faster than if you try to date mixed crystals using radiometric elements (such as Ra, Th and U). This disconnect has not been resolved, so I would say that the timescales suggested by Druitt et al. (2012) are minimum timescales for the intrusion and mixing, not maximum. This will be important later on.

You might have noticed a lot of the media coverage about this study is claiming things like “supervolcanoes offer 100 year early warning” and “they may be predicted”. That is never said in the study. The authors do discuss some of the ways that this recharge/mixing might be manifested once the events have begun – interestingly not as “bulging” but rather “sagging” of the bottom of the magmatic system as the magma fills in, so uplift at Santorini might have been minimal. They actually predict that sinking of the land surface might be more likely rather than the classic St. Helens-1980-style bulge.

However, what I see as the biggest problem in this “early warning” claim is that it might still not be easily detectable – what if their timescale is off by even a factor of 2, so it takes 2 centuries to lead to an eruption? Human monitoring of an event 200 years in the making might be very problematic. Secondly, this intrusion isn’t a big event at 100 years than than over, it is growth and mixing over that century with a rapid culmination only months before the eruption according to Druitt et al. (2012). Whether or not this is detectable by current monitoring methods is unclear as well. The authors are right about one thing: “Long-term monitoring of large, dormant caldera systems, even in remote areas of the world, is essential if late-stage growth spurts of shallow magma reservoirs are to be detected well in advance of caldera-forming eruptions.” However, as usual, the many in the media has boiled down their research into meaningless copy that both misses the point of the research but also recklessly mischaracterizes the ramifications.

Image 1: Santorini caldera. Image by Navin75/Flickr.
Image 2: Figure 1 from Druitt et al., (2012)

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Moving big animals to places they don't already live is at once appealing and disturbing, a sort of adolescent environmental fantasy come to life: African lions in Nebraska! Komodo dragons in Australia!

But at the beginning of the 21st century, with 7 billion humans competing for space and resources on a rapidly warming planet, exercising arguable control over the fate of nature, moving species around is a legitimate option.

It's called assisted migration. Often the goal is to save endangered plants and animals, though not always. Sometimes, as with the Komodo dragon proposal, the goal is to restore ecological balance, and other proposals are motivated by an almost romantic sense of possibility: Wouldn't it be marvelous to watch cheetahs dash across the grasslands of South Dakota?

As an idea, assisted migration has been around for decades, but since the millennium's turn it's moved from a mostly fringe concept to something that scientists discuss, if not argue. After all, many examples of unwittingly assisted migration show what can happen when relocation goes wrong: Cane toads swarming across Australia, brown tree snakes devouring Guam's birds, kudzu swallowing much of the southeastern United States, and of course the voracious Burmese pythons of Florida.

On the flip side, however, are pheasants and sweet clover, brown trout and Norway maple, which despite their non-native origins are now considered a natural part of North American life. Sometimes relocation works fine, and an argument can be made that consciously acting as landscape-scale zookeepers and gardeners is a legitimate response to impending catastrophe.

Above:Komodo Dragons to Australia?

In a Feb. 1 Nature paper, biologist David Bowman of Australia's University of Tasmania raises the hypothetical possibility of introducing elephants and Komodo dragons to Australia. At first it sounds mad, but what's happening now in Australia is a form of madness, too. Massive wildfires that have become a regular and lethal fact of Australian life don't only represent climate change or natural susceptibility, but the buildup of vegetation that until 50,000 years ago would have been eaten by Australia's now-extinct megafauna.

Elephants could fill that role again, writes Bowman. "The idea of introducing elephants may seem absurd, but the only other methods likely to control gamba grass involve using chemicals or physically clearing the land, which would destroy the habitat," he writes. "Using mega-herbivores may ultimately be more practical and cost-effective." Komodo dragons wouldn't do much for fires, but they would eat feral pigs and buffalo, the targets of ongoing and largely unsuccessful animal control efforts.

Image: Komodo dragon (Adhi Rachdian/Flickr)

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This 30-second clip was captured by one of NASA’s twin GRAIL satellites on Jan. 19, the first movie taken of the moon’s far side by the mission.

The entire far lunar hemisphere appears in the video, starting with the moon’s north pole. It then pans down over well-known features such as the giant impact basin Mare Orientale, located off to the right, and the prominent Drygalski crater, seen left of center, which contains a distinctive star-shaped formation created when a comet or asteroid smacked into the moon billions of years ago.

Because the moon is tidally locked to Earth, it always shows the same familiar face to our planet. The other hemisphere is sometimes referred to as the ‘dark side of the moon,’ though it actually receives equal sunlight as the facing side during the moon’s orbit.

Other than small slivers, the far side of the moon had never been seen by humanity before the space age, when the Soviet Luna 3 took pictures of it in 1959. The crew of Apollo 8 — Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders — was the first to directly observe the far side in 1968.

Video: NASA

Photo: Gnissah/Wikimedia

Spider silk is well known for some spectacular properties. It is stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar yet flexible enough to be spun into a wide variety of shapes.

New research shows that the material is not only strong but also smart.

“Spider silk has a particular way of softening and then being stiff that is really essential for it to function properly,” said engineer Markus J. Buehler of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who co-authored the new study, which appears in Nature Feb. 2.

A spider web provides its occupant with a home and a way to catch prey. It needs to stand up to pesky attackers and sometimes withstand hurricane-force winds. Using computer models of spider silk and experiments on the webs of common European garden spiders (Araneus diadematus), Buehler and his team found a web’s unique skills come from its ability to react differently to different stress levels.

A light wind, for instance, softens the web, allowing it to lengthen but retain its overall structure. If a larger force is applied at a specific location, such as when a particular thread is poked, the silk becomes rigid and breaks.

Furthermore, only the most extended silk threads get severed. Having small portions of the web come apart not only helps retain the overall structural integrity but actually makes the web stronger. The researchers found that removing up to a tenth of the threads at different locations allowed the structure to carry 3 to 10 percent more weight. This shows the web’s advantage over materials such as steel, which would simply break apart under such conditions.

The work provides insight into spiders’ success with catching prey, said biologist Todd A. Blackledge of the University of Akron in Ohio, who was not involved in the study. “It’s really important for the silk to stretch under impact, cradling the insect so it doesn’t bounce out,” he said.

Engineers could also apply the secrets of spider silk to other challenges, Buehler suggested. Its ability to sustain small damage without compromising the entire structure could be useful in designing virtual networks, such as the Internet, where a local node gets sacrificed during an attack to keep the whole system from going down. Understanding how its microscopic protein structure gives rise to its macroscopic properties might help in stringing together carbon nanotubes, which may one day be used to produce objects ranging from combat gear to space elevators.

Spending long periods at low gravity may alter genes, suggests a new experiment involving a magnet-powered trick used on Earth to simulate weightlessness in space.

Subjected to magnetic levitation that generated an effect similar to microgravity experienced by astronauts orbiting Earth, fruit flies experienced changes in crucial genes.

Humans won’t necessarily respond like fruit flies, but the system is considered an useful model for probing the effects of permanent free-fall on biology. However, it’s also possible that the gene disruption was caused by magnetism, not low gravity.

“We have tried to separate the effects of microgravity and magnetism, but we’ve learned it’s not so easy,” said molecular biologist Raul Herranz of Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas in Spain, leader of the upcoming study in BMC Genomics. “We don’t know yet what is causing what — the magnetism or the microgravity?”

Sending anything into space is expensive. The cost to launch an experiment into low-Earth orbit can exceed as $10,000 per pound. Yet as the United States, Russia, China and other nations eye a human future off-Earth, understanding what will happen to our bodies is crucial.

NASA already knows that astronauts in space lose as much bone each month as they would in a year on Earth, where resisting gravity keeps muscles strong. But rigorously studying the molecular mechanisms behind those changes in humans — a large, highly complex creature — isn’t easy or ethical. As a result, researchers look to animal models in an Earth-based weightless environment.

'Everything works differently in space, including genetics.'Machines called clinostats can simulate the effects of zero-gravity over time in plants by constantly and randomly turning them over days and weeks. But animals usually can’t survive such conditions.

Magnetic levitation of animals, discovered in the late 1990s, uses magnetic fields that are up to 350,000 stronger than Earth’s natural magnetism. The fields push on water molecules in an animal and lift it off the ground. Animals readily survive the intense magnetic fields and even display behaviors seen in space-based experiments.

“The quality you get is not same as it is in orbit, but it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and more convenient,” said physicist and study co-author Richard Hill of the University of Nottingham. “You can use [magnetic] levitation to try out experiments before you launch them.”

To preview what happens in space at the molecular level, Herranz and his team followed the development of fruit flies over 22-day periods in a variety of magnetically tweaked gravitational experiments.

As a rule, flies raised in low gravity developed slowly and had difficulty reproducing. When the researchers examined the flies’ genetic expression, they discovered significant increases and decreases in the activities of some 500 genes. Many regulated immune response, temperature and even stress response.

“Magnetic fields can cause things like proteins in the cell to align with the field lines, so these fields could be triggering responses we don’t yet understand,” Hill said.

However, flies exposed to powerful but non-levitating magnetism also displayed similar changes, albeit not so powerfully.

Herranz said it’s too soon to precisely separate the effects of magnetism from weightless on genetics, but that weightlessness seems to be having at least a “small effect” on gene expression. (Correcting for magnetism, weightlessness alone seemed to modulate nearly 200 genes.)

In the context of an astronaut on a multiple-year mission in zero gravity to Mars, such small effects could build up to significant risks over time.

“Everything works differently in space, including genetics,” Herranz said. “Because of this, you may need to do something to adjust, for example, things like food and nutrients and oxygen to make sure everything lasts and works for astronauts.”

Video: RJA Hill, OJ Larkin et al./CSIC

Image: NEAR Project, NLR, JHUAPL, Goddard SVS, NASA

This week, there will be a faint new object in the night sky: the asteroid 433 Eros. Anyone planning to train their binoculars or telescope on the asteroid can help scientists use the asteroid to precisely calculate the size of the Solar System.

The peanut-shaped, 20-mile-wide Eros is one of the largest near-Earth asteroids. It has a highly elliptical orbit that brings it within 20 million miles of Earth every 1.76 years. Right now, it is making its closest approach to Earth since 1975, 16.6 million miles — astronomically close, though not enough to worry about any doomsday scenarios.

The passage of Eros is one of only two rare celestial events that allow astronomers to calculate the size of our solar system from Earth. The other, the transit of Venus, will take place in June this year.

Because of this, Astronomers Without Borders, working with Steven van Roode and Michael Richmond from the Transit of Venus project, has created the Eros Parallax Project.

From now until Feb. 3, the venture is calling on amateur astronomers to capture pictures of Eros with a telescope or telephoto lens at specific times depending on their location. Different observers on Earth will see Eros shifted slightly relative to background stars, a phenomenon known as parallax.

A computer program will then use the parallax data to calculate the distance to Eros. Because the asteroid moves around the sun according to Kepler’s third law, the information will provide a very precise estimate of the Solar System’s size.

The project’s website has loads more information, including star charts for finding Eros and a place to submit photos.

Image: Eric Kilby/Flickr

By Dan Smith, Wired UK

Psychologists from the University of Portsmouth have published a paper suggesting gorillas use human-like facial expressions to communicate moods with one another. Not only that, but two of the expressions, both of which resemble grinning, could show the origins of the human smile.

However, the findings published in the American Journal of Primatology show their smiles mean different things. The Portsmouth researchers found these expressions, observed in Western Lowland gorillas, expressed a number of emotions.

One, a “play face”, featuring an open mouth and showing no teeth, denotes a playful mood, usually accompanied with physical contact. Another, which is open-mouthed and displaying top teeth, could be a submissive smile — as it mixes the play face and a bared-teeth expression, which indicates appeasement.

“Many primate species also show their teeth when they scream,” Bridget Waller, the lead researcher told Wired.co.uk in an e-mail. “These expressions tend to look different to the expressions I studied in gorillas, as the upper and lower teeth are both exposed, and the mouth widely open. The expression is more tense, and accompanied by very different vocalisations. The vocalised element of the scream can differ depending on whether the screamer is an aggressor or a victim.”

In short: subtle differences in facial expression and vocals mean quite different things in primate posturing — one is obedient and appeasing, the other screaming and aggressive. But does this mean that our own smile is inherently passive and submissive?

“In some primate species the bared-teeth display (the expression similar to the human smile) is used only by subordinates, but these species have a very different social organisation to humans,” says Waller. “They tend to have very strict dominance hierarchies, whereas we have a more relaxed social structure. So, in some circumstances humans might use smiling as a subordinate signal, but is can also be used as a genuine signal of friendliness.”

No need to worry about smiling then. Grin away; you won’t be doing your social status any harm.

Source: Wired UK

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Rarely is sleeping so enjoyable to watch as when the sleeper is a bear.

Thanks to fiber-optic camera technology, you can watch real-time footage of a black bear named Lugnut as she hibernates in a den beneath an upturned sugar maple in northern Maine.

Just two weeks ago, the 8-year-old Lugnut gave birth to two cubs (watch video above.) Because of their demands, her hibernation won’t be as deep as usual, and she’ll wake regularly to check on them. Most of the time, however, the cubs will be curled up against Lugnut’s warm belly, nursing as she sleeps.

The camera is a joint project of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Wildlife Research Foundation.

Viewers will notice that Lugnut is wearing a radio collar. At any given moment, between 75 and 100 female Maine black bears wear the collars, which allow researchers to monitor their locations and habits.

The cubs will likely stay in the den for several months, and with their mother for more than a year, departing only when they’ve learned enough to survive on their own. The camera is expected to stay on indefinitely, so viewers will have a chance to watch them grow up.

Video: Lugnut gives birth to two cubs. (Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife/Wildlife Research Foundation)

By Jill U. Adams, ScienceNOW

If you’re paying premium prices for pesticide- and antibiotic-free meat, you might expect that it’s also free of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Not so, according to a new study. The prevalence of one of the world’s most dangerous drug-resistant microbe strains is similar in retail pork products labeled “raised without antibiotics” and in meat from conventionally raised pigs, researchers have found.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a drug-resistant form of the normally harmless S. aureus bacterium, kills 18,000 people in the United States every year and sickens 76,000 more. The majority of cases are linked to a hospital stay, where the combination of other sick people and surgical procedures puts patients at risk. But transmission also can happen in schools, jails, and locker rooms (and an estimated 1.5% of Americans carry MRSA in their noses). All of this has led to a growing concern about antibiotic use in agriculture, which may be creating a reservoir of drug-resistant organisms in billions of food animals around the world.

Tara Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa College of Public Health in Iowa City who studies the movement of staph bacteria between animals and people, wondered whether meat products might be another mode of transmission. For the new study, published this month in PLoS ONE, she and colleagues bought a variety of pork products—395 packages in all—from 36 different stores in two big pig farming states, Iowa and Minnesota, and one of the most densely populated, New Jersey.

In the laboratory, the team mixed meat samples “vigorously” with a bacterial growth medium and allowed any microbes present to grow. MRSA, which appears as mauve-colored colonies on agar plates, was genetically typed and tested for antibiotic susceptibility.

The researchers found that 64.8% of the samples were positive for staph bacteria and 6.6% were positive for MRSA. Rates of contamination were similar for conventionally raised pigs (19 of 300 samples) and those labeled antibiotic-free (seven of 95 samples). Results of genetic typing identified several well-known strains, including the so-called livestock-associated MRSA (ST398) as well as common human strains; all were found in conventional and antibiotic-free meat. (The label “antibiotic-free” is not regulated, and the products were not “certified organic.”)

Smith says she was surprised by the results. In a related investigation, which has not been published, her group tested pigs living on farms and found that antibiotic-free pigs were free from MRSA, whereas the resistant bug is often found on conventional pig farms.

The study reveals an important data point on the path from farm to fork, yet the source of the MRSA on meat products is unknown, Smith says. “It’s difficult to figure out.” Transmission of resistant bugs might occur between antibiotic-using and antibiotic-free operations, especially if they’re near each other, or it could come from farm workers themselves. Another possibility is that contamination occurs at processing plants. “Processing plants are supposed to be cleaned between conventional and organic animals,” she says. “But how well does that actually happen?”

In another recent study, researchers from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, found that beef products from conventionally raised and grass-fed animals were equally likely to be contaminated by antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli. In a second study by the same group, poultry products labeled “no antibiotics added” carried antibiotic-resistant E. coli and Enterococcus (another bacteria that causes invasive disease in humans), although the microbes were less prevalent than on conventionally raised birds.

“The real question is, where is it coming from, on the farm or post-farm?” says Paul Ebner, a food safety expert who led the Purdue studies. And the biggest question of all, he says, “Is it impacting human health?”

“There’s a tremendous amount of interest in this issue—feeding antibiotics to food animals,” says Ellen Silbergeld, an expert on health and environmental impacts of industrial food animal production at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. “Thus, determining when amending that practice makes a difference is important.”

“The definitive study would take every bacterium and follow that along until it gets in humans—from food supply to causing a certain disease,” Smith says. “It would be a huge and costly study that no one’s going to do, but that’s what the meat producers” say is missing.” Meanwhile, Smith says she will continue her investigations of MRSA, one potential transmission point at a time.

This story provided by ScienceNOW, the daily online news service of the journal Science.

Image: Even pigs raised antibiotic-free may harbor MRSA bacteria. (Janice Haney Carr/CDC)

Updated: Feb. 1, 2012 at 10:20 a.m. EST. All original references to “organic” have been replaced by “antibiotic-free” because the meat used in this study was not certified organic.

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Insects hold at least 13 titles in the Guinness Book of World Records. They also have their own tome of distinctions titled The Book of Insect Records, and its contents are a wealth of awesomeness.

Entomologists at the University of Florida scoured the literature to come up with insects that were the fastest, largest, longest, loudest and brightest. They also selected more unusual champions: best imitator, least specific vertebrate bloodsucker and most spectacular mating.

We've selected our favorites from among 40 categories, along with some of the Guinness honorees. Read on to find out who's who among six-legged bugs.

Above: Highest Jumper

The insect world championship title for high jump belongs to the 0.2-inch long froghopper, a common agricultural pest. Some species can jump as high as 28 inches.

Image: Kaldari / Wikimedia Commons. 

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If you’ve ever wondered whether mammalian evolution has a speed limit, here’s a number for you: 24 million.

That’s how many generations a new study estimates it would take to go from mouse- to elephant-sized while operating on land at the maximum velocity of change. The figure underscores just how special a trait sheer bigness can be.

“Big animals represent the accumulation of evolutionary change, and change takes time,” said evolutionary biologist Alistair Evans of Australia’s Monash University.

Evans and co-authors revisit a fossil record dataset of mammal body size during the last 70 million years, in a study published Jan. 31 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The data was originally used to describe the evolutionary growth spurts experienced by mammals soon after dinosaurs ceased to be Earth’s dominant animals.

The relative sizes of mouse and elephant skulls. To go from mouse-sized to elephant-sized would take at least 24 million generations. Photo: Alistair Evans

For the previous 140 million years, mammals had been rat-sized or smaller. With dinosaurs significantly reduced, mammals had a chance to fill newly vacant ecological niches, particularly that of the large-bodied plant-eater.

In this context, size isn’t simply a visible sign of change, but a proxy for modifications to diet, metabolism and body structure. To become big is to change, radically and fundamentally.

“How fast can all of these interconnected changes be made? This to me is the main question that drives why maximum evolutionary rates are fascinating,” said Evans.

In the new study, Evans’ team measures the time taken, in total years and likely number of generations, for 28 mammal lineages to become larger and smaller over the fossil record.

Odd-toed ungulates, including horses and rhinoceroses, had the highest maximum rates of growth. (The largest land mammal ever, the now-extinct Paraceratherium, was part of this group.) Rodents placed in the middle of the pack, while carnivores changed quite slowly, and primates even more slowly.

At the fastest observed terrestrial rates, going from rabbit- to elephant-sized takes roughly 10 million generations, while the aforementioned mouse- to elephant-sized jump takes 24 million generations. In the oceans, however, body size could change twice as fast, perhaps because water’s support of body weight lessened physiological constraints.

The researchers also found that mammals shrink more rapidly than they grow, with size lost 100 times faster than it’s gained. An implicit conservation message: Treasure bigness, because it’s difficult to achieve, and won’t likely happen again so long as humans remain Earth’s dominant species.

“Very large land mammals need a huge area to be able to source enough food,” said Evans, and there just isn’t enough remaining land. It’s likely that “animals will not get enough food or live long enough to grow as large as they have, even compared to 100 years ago,” he said.

Image: African elephant chasing a black rhinoceros. (Alistair Rae/Flickr)

Citation: “The maximum rate of mammal evolution.” By Alistair R. Evans, David Jones, Alison G. Boyer, James H. Brownd, Daniel P. Costa, S. K. Morgan Ernest, Erich M. G. Fitzgerald, Mikael Fortelius, John L. Gittleman, Marcus J. Hamilton, Larisa E. Harding, Kari Lintulaakso, S. Kathleen Lyons, Jordan G. Okie, Juha J. Saarinen, Richard M. Sibly, Felisa A. Smith, Patrick R. Stephens, Jessica M. Theodor, and Mark D. Uhen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 109 No. 5, Jan. 31, 2012.

Some time ago I asked the Wired readers if they would like to contribute in the design process of the Tycho Deep Space space capsule hatch . After receiving so much great work on the uprighting issues by Wired readers I thought it might also be the case for this job. I thought it would perhaps bring me a few ideas, but I was literally bombarded with fantastic sketches and idea. How amazing is that!?

So, everyone who did send me ideas and drawings.. Thank you so much!

Also, it is never to late to send me more stuff. Inspirational sketches and ideas are always welcome and I love the process of opening up the project and letting people hit me with their fifty cents. There are many great minds out there and surely they are very much represented among the Wired audience.

I have received about 30 ideas so far, and this blog will only show some of it. So, if yous idea is not represented here please accept my apologies but do know that your idea was received and considered it the work here at Copenhagen Suborbitals. I also got much explanatory text with all the ideas which is impossible to present to you in full, so I will either make a quick summarization on the basics or let the drawing do the talking based on the text added to them.

Please enjoy and study the work….

Concept-1

Idea/image: Christian Merrild

Idea/Image: Christian Merrild

Concept-2

Concept-3

Hatch idea using middle plange with bolts on both sides for hatch opening on from inside or outside. Idea/image: Jeppe Norsker

Concept-4

Double sided door to be opening from both sides. Idea/image: Pedro Alegria

Concept-5

2 identical plates for in and outside. Locked with electromagnets. Idea/image: Cliff Williams

Concept-6

Idea/image: Michael Ryan

Idea/image: Michael Ryan

Idea/image: Michael Ryan

Idea/image: Michael Ryan

Idea/image: Michael Ryan

Idea/image: Michael Ryan

Concept-7

Translation: Vacuum door with outer and inner door plates. Idea/image: Tommy Poulsen

Translation: Attach both sides and create a vacuum to hold door in place and for sealing. Idea/image: Tommy Poulsen

Translation: hatch release done by venting (can be done from both sides). Idea/image: Tommy Poulsen

Concept-8

Idea/image: Simon Barnard

Idea/image: Simon Barnard

Concept-9

Idea/image: Bjørn Larsen

Idea/image: Bjørn Larsen

Concept-10

Hatch as one big bolt. Left: outside handle, middle: inside handle. Idea/image: Bruno Balmes

Hatch as one big bolt. Idea/image: Bruno Balmes

Idea/image: Bruno Balmes

Idea/image: Bruno Balmes

All of the ideas are in many way useful. Either as a general idea in whole or they hold small hidden concepts which are interesting used in various combinations. Right off the bat I really like ideas like Jeppe Norsker´s double flange, providing an opening option from both sides. However, this is still complex to create when your hatch is not placed on a flat surface, but a cone. The cone itself probably provide the biggest challenge because the hatch will be hand-made in the end, even though many parts will be laser-cut.

We still flip through all these concept given to us and there are no real conclusions yet. But, we will naturally share the coming process with you and hope you enjoyed participating so far.

There will most likely be more challenges for the readers later on.. Stay tuned. Your brain might just save the day..or a life!

Thanks to the contributors:

Cliff Williams
Bjørn Larsen
Jordan Larson
Christian Merrild
Tommy Poulsen
John Aarts
Pedro Alegria
Bruno Balmes
Sid Clinton
Dave Howes
Andrew Hsia
Matthew Latimer
David (Tomakali)
Michael Ryan
Dion Dixon
Jeppe Norsker
Jens Lindhard
Aigar Rullinkoff

Ad Astra
Kristian von Bengtson

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The sun is waking up. After several quiet years, it bombarded the Earth with two consecutive solar storms this week, which generated many nights of spectacular auroras seen from backyards around the Northern Hemisphere.

A relatively powerful flare burst from the sun’s surface on Jan. 19, throwing off charged particles that reached our planet on Jan. 22. But this was nothing compared to the enormous flare that erupted the next day. The biggest solar flare in six years, this impressive event propelled a gigantic, fast-moving storm that reached Earth on Jan. 24.

The Earth’s magnetic field directs the torrent of charged particles from these storms toward the poles. Interactions with the atmosphere produce the wavering lines of beautiful color known as auroras, or Northern Lights.

Because the sun is now entering a more active part of its solar cycle, the next few months and years are expected to see more frequent solar storms. Just today, it produced an X-class solar flare, the most powerful category of flare. Though this particular one was not directed at Earth, such events can damage satellites and screw up communications on Earth.

Despite these drawbacks, increased solar storms mean more pretty auroras. Here, we indulge in some incredible views taken by ordinary folk of these atmospheric light shows.

Above:

Eagle Lights

The central light ribbon in this image resembles the head and beak of a bird, flanked by a radiant wingspan. The photo was taken in Grøtfjord, close to Tromsø in northern Noway.

Image: Bjørn Jørgensen

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What a great week!

Power - BANG - out. Image: Kristian von Bengtson

I managed to finish the basic seating structure completely, now only awaiting ergonomic foam build up and coating. But, even better Claus Nørregaard and I managed to perform the first two tests of the drogue separation system for space capsule Tycho Deep Space.

If you have no idea what the drogue separation system is, you better read this previous blog post before proceeding. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/top-dome-and-drogue-chute-jettison-system/

This system was designed one late night after work by myself and Claus after a couple of old nasty beers and was based on previous wonderful experiences with thin alu-sheets which hold the parachutes of the old spacecraft Tycho Brahe-1. In general, the idea is to have 3 fragile points holding the lid of the new space capsule, containing the drogue, which will break during induced pressure. So, no matter the amount of fragile alu-plates holding the lid or the amount of nitrocellulose, providing the pressure, the system should work. Bang. Lid off. Drogue out.

And it did…

We rigged the top lid, holding the drogue, to a rope preventing self destruction or damage to the spacecraft when deployed from the spacecraft. Claus brutally drilled holes for the igniter cable through various parts of the capsule which we will close later on.

Preparing the test. Image: Claus Mejling

Ready to rock´n´roll approved by Claus Mejling. Image: Kristian von Bengtson

Alu-plates holding the lid

Underneath the top-lid we placed nitrocellulose and the actual drogue. In each of the 3 openings where the lid will be bolted to the spacecraft we placed alu-plated. 2 plates in each opening for test 1 and 3 for test 2.

The bolts where tightened using a regular Copenhagen Suborbitals method. This time it was: until your fingers give up and then a little more with a wrench before the alu-plates became deformed. I do not want to rely on accurate measurement on such adjustments. If it works the “sloppy” way it will always work. As long as your design are made for this you are GO.

The test can be seen in the video below.

After performing a couple of tests like these you always get back home from work a little high. Somehow it is the climax of any development period. You have worked hard for a long time preparing for this, building the hardware really not knowing if it is a good idea or not. The minutes before the test everyone is very excited. Will you blow up the entire space capsule? Will you create a hole in the ceiling or get knocked out yourself by a flying top dome from a space capsule. Many questions which can only be answered by letting someone push the button… KABOOM..

Test 1 was really right on the spot. More than we expected. The lid was lifted off the space capsule with an even pressure and the 3 attachments point using alu-plated where beautifully deformed the way we predicted. The second test was less great but would still work. The main difference was that the nitrocellulose was formed as a ball which always becomes a joker. If you do this the explosion and pressure has a tendency to move to one certain direction instead of 360 degrees which is pretty clear in the test2-part of the video.

Coming test will include: adding more alu-plates and identify by brute force (crowbar) how much the lid is actually attached the top of the space capsule. More lid detonations using more nitro preferably placed above the drogue chute instead of underneath.

I have a great feeling about this system and it is only a matter of fine tuning and small adjustments. I will bet one beer with all the readers that the drogue will be deployed from the capsule. Whatever happens after deployment is not for betting yet..

Ad Astra
Kristian von Bengtson