Category Archives: Celestial Bodies

New solar storm forecasting technique breaks the 24-hour warning barrier for Earth

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Solar storms start their lives as violent explosions from the sun’s surface. They’re made up of energetic charged particles wrapped in a complex magnetic cloud. As they erupt from the sun’s surface, they can shoot out into interplanetary space at speeds of up to 3,000 kilometers per second (that’s 6.7 million miles per hour). Depending on their direction of travel, these energetic storms can journey past Earth and other planets.

If a solar storm makes it to Earth, it can disrupt a variety of modern technologies including GPS and high-frequency communications, and even power grids on the ground, causing radio blackouts and citywide loss of power. It can also wreak havoc within the aviation industry by disrupting communication methods.

To combat related potential economic losses, affected industries have been seeking a solution that can provide them with at least 24 hours of warning. With enough lead time, they can safely change their operational procedures. For example, passenger planes can be rerouted or power grid transformers can begin the slow process of “winding down,” all of which require at least a day’s notice – a huge jump beyond the 60-minute advance warning currently common. By building on earlier research, my colleagues and I have come up with a technique we think can meet that 24-hour warning goal.

A false alarm issued on January 7 2014 about an unusually large coronal mass ejection underscored the scope of the forecast problem.

Magnetic fields dictate solar storm severity

The strength with which a storm can affect our everyday technological infrastructure depends largely on the orientation of its magnetic field. Often the magnetic field within a solar storm has a helical structure, twisted like a corkscrew. But, much like tornadoes on Earth, these solar storms undergo significant changes during their evolution – in this case, as they leave the sun and travel toward the planets.

NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale mission investigates magnetic reconnection.

With a specific field orientation, the floodgates open, allowing the solar particles to enter the otherwise protective bubble of Earth’s atmosphere (the magnetosphere). This interaction between the solar material and Earth’s magnetosphere is predominately driven by a process of joining each other’s magnetic fields together. This interaction is called magnetic reconnection.

North and south attract and combine.
Geek3, CC BY-SA

This realignment of the field works in a similar way as two bar magnets attracting. If similar poles of each magnet (north and north) are brought together, the field lines repel each other. Unlike poles attract and combine together. If the poles are unlike, in our case between the solar storm and the Earth’s magnetosphere, they become magnetically connected. This new connectivity of the Earth’s magnetosphere now contains the trapped energetic particles that were previously isolated in the solar storm. If a large penetration of energetic particles makes it into the Earth’s upper atmosphere, the reaction provides the visual extravaganza that’s often called the Northern Lights.

Solar plasma hitting the Earth’s magnetosphere lights up the sky over Antarctica.
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, CC BY

In search of: advance forecast

To date, predicting the magnetic field structure within solar storms hitting Earth has remained elusive. Modern forecasting centers around the world, such as at NOAA and UK Met Office, are dependent on direct measurements from inside the solar storm by a spacecraft just in front of Earth (for example, the newly launched Discvr satellite by NOAA). Measurements tell us the direction of a solar storm’s magnetic field and thus whether it’s liable to reconnect with the Earth’s magnetosphere in a dangerous way for our technology. We’ve been stuck with less than 60 minutes of advance warning.

The difficulties in creating a reliable forecast have centered around our inability to reliably estimate the initial structure of the storm above the sun’s surface, and the difficulty in observing how storms evolve as they spend about two days traveling to Earth.

My colleagues and I recently published an article in Space Weather that proposes an improved method for predicting the initial magnetic structure of a solar storm. Getting a better handle on the origin of these solar storms is a substantial step toward predicting how the storm can affect us on Earth, and to what extent.

Our method relies on correctly modifying a previous discovery about how the motions of solar plasma (of mostly hydrogen ions) and magnetic field hidden below the sun’s surface can affect the initial structure of a solar storm. It’s called the solar dynamo process. This is a physical process that is believed to generate the sun’s magnetic field. It’s the engine and energy source driving all observed solar activity – that includes sunspots and long-term solar variability as well as solar storms.

Exploded view of a solar storm flaring out from the sun.

We think combining this modified initial storm model with a new method that incorporates a storm’s early evolutionary stages will lead to significant improvements to our forecasting predictions. Triangulating the entire solar storm by using cameras at three locations from NASA’s STEREO and SOHO spacecraft in interplanetary space, using modern modeling techniques we’ve developed, enables a more robust prediction system. Since these cameras are located at very different vantage points in space, we can use them in conjunction to improve our estimations of the total shape and location of the solar storm – much like the depth of field we achieve by seeing the world through two eyes.

Predictions matching reality

So far, we’ve tested this new predictive technique on eight different solar storms, with the first forecasts showing significant agreement with the real data. Further advanced statistical testing with a larger number of storms is now under way within NASA Goddard’s Community Coordinated Modeling Center.

A burst of solar material erupts out into space. Where’s it headed?
NASA/Goddard/SDO, CC BY

“We’ll test the model against a variety of historical events,” said Antti Pulkkinen, director of Space Weather Research Center at NASA Goddard and a coauthor of the publication. “We’ll also see how well it works on any event we witness over the next year. In the end, we’ll be able to provide concrete information about how reliable a prediction tool it is.”

We’re working toward improving the user interface and implementation into current systems. Once proven reliable and statistically significant for forecasting, our technique may soon become a regular operational tool used by the forecasters at Space Weather Prediction Center at NOAA.

The Conversation

Neel Savani is Research Faculty in Space Weather at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Where We Can Move When We’re Done Destroying Earth

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Alan
Displayed with permission from Liberaland

Once we’ve used up this planet, is there a planet B?

Planet-hunting for Earth-alternatives is now in full swing, says Professor Sara Seager, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We already know about thousands of planets orbiting stars other than the sun, we call them ‘exoplanets,'” she told me via Skype from California. “And I believe there’s definitely a ‘planet B’ out there somewhere, we just have to find it. And right now, myself and others around the world are building the next-generation of telescopes so that we’ll have the capability of finding and identifying another Earth.”

In the video [below], you can watch Seager detail three recently discovered exoplanets that have each generated a lot of excitement in the scientific community. These planets orbit their stars in the so-called “Goldilocks” zone. They are not too close to, and not too far away from, their respective stars. That means they are-potentially-hospitable to life. Among Seager’s favorites is the Earth-sized Kepler 186-f, but it’s over 500 light-years away, so humans probably won’t be going there. Closer possibilities include HD 40307-g, a large planet in a solar system with as many as six planets.

So will human explorers ever really make it to an exoplanet?

“I really think somehow, some day, someone will find a way to get there,” Seager said. “But it’s definitely not the solution to the problems on our planet right now.”

Understanding Cognitive Bias Helps Decision Making

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in·tu·i·tion
ˌint(y)o͞oˈiSH(ə)n/
noun
noun: intuition
  1. the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

People tend to trust their own intuition. Has there been much formal study about the veracity of intuition?

Brain science itself is a young field, and the terminology has yet to mature into a solid academic lexicon. To further increase your chances of being confused, modern life is rife with distractions, misinformation, and addictive escapisms, leaving the vast majority of society having no real idea what the hell is happening.

To illustrate my point, I’m going to do something kind of recursive. I am going to document my mind being changed about a deeply held belief as I explore my own cognitive bias. I am not here to tell you what’s REALLY going on or change your mind about your deeply held beliefs. This is just about methods of problem solving and how cognitive bias can become a positive aspect of critical thought.

Image: "Soft Bike" sculptiure by Mashanda Lazarus http://www.ilovemashanda.com/

Image: “Soft Bike” sculptiure by Mashanda Lazarus
http://www.ilovemashanda.com/

I’m advocating what I think is the best set of decision making skills, Critical Thought. The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking defines critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. (I’m torn between the terms Critical Thinking and Critical Thought, although my complaint is purely aesthetic.)

Ever since taking an introduction to Logic course at Fitchburg State college I have been convinced that Logic is a much more reliable, proven way to make decisions. Putting logic to practice when decision-making is difficult, though. Just like a math problem can be done incorrectly, Some logic can even counter-intuitive. My favorite example of intuition failing over logic is always chess. Even as I write this I can’t convince myself otherwise: I have regretted every intuitive chess move. It’s statistically impossible that all my intuitive moves have been bad moves yet logic works in the game so much better that my mind has overcompensated in favor of logic. In the microcosm of chess rules, logic really is the better decision-making tool. Often the kernel of a good move jumps out at me as intuition but then must still be thoroughly vetted with logic before I can confidently say it’s a good move.

In high school, I was an underachiever. I could pass computer science and physics classes without cracking a book. My same attempt to coast through math classes left me struggling because I could not intuitively grasp the increasingly abstract concepts. The part of my mind that controls logic was very healthy and functioning but my distrust for my own intuition was a handicap. I would be taking make up mathematics courses in the summer but getting debate team trophies during the school year.

duchamp

Photograph of Marcel Duchamp and Eve Babitz posing for the photographer Julian Wasser during the Duchamp retrospective at the Pasadena Museum of Art, 1963 © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris.

I’m not just reminiscing; everyone’s decision making process is an constantly-updating algorithm of intuitive and logical reasoning. No one’s process is exactly the same but we all want to make the best decisions possible. For me it’s easy to rely on logic and ignore even a nagging sense of intuition. Some people trust intuition strongly yet struggle to find the most logical decision; everyone is most comfortable using a specially-tailored degree of intuition and logic. People argue on behalf of their particular decisions and the methodology behind them because a different method is useful in for each paradigm.

In chess, intuition is necessary but should be used sparingly and tempered with logic. It’s my favorite example because the game can be played without any intuition. Non-AI computers are able to beat the average human at chess. Some AI can beat chess masters. So, I’m biased towards logic. Chess is just a game, though. People are always telling me I should have more faith in intuitive thinking.

“But,” you should be asking, “Isn’t there an example of reliance on intuition as the best way to decide how to proceed?”

At least that’s what I have to ask myself. The best example I found of valuable intuition is the ability to ride a bike. It is almost impossible to learn to ride a bike in one session; it takes several tries over a week or longer to create the neural pathways needed to operate this bio-mechanical device. Samurais trained to feel that their weapon was part of themselves, or an extension of their very arm.  The mechanical motion of  the human body as it drives a bicycle becomes ingrained, literally, in the physical brain. The casual, ubiquitous expression, “It’s like riding a bike”, is used to idiomatically describe anything that can be easily mastered at an intermediate level, forgotten for years, but recalled at near perfect fidelity when encountered once again.

The Backwards Brain Bicycle – Smarter Every Day episode 133

Destin at Smarter Everyday put together a video that shows the duality of intuitive thinking. It is completely possible to train the human mind with complicated algorithms of decision making that can be embrace diversification and even contradictory modes of thinking.

Cont. below…

After watching this video, I embraced a moment of doubt and realized that there are very positive and useful aspects to intuition that I often don’t acknowledge. In this case of reversed bicycle steering, a skill that seems to only work after it has been made intuitive can be “lost” and only regained with a somewhat cumbersome level of concentration.

The video demonstrates the undeniable usefulness of what essentially amounts to anecdotal proof that neural pathways can be hacked, that contradictory new skills can be learned. It also shows that a paradigm of behavior can gain a tenacious hold on the mind via intuitive skill. It casts doubt on intuition in one respect but without at least some reliance on this intuitive paradigm of behavior it seems we wouldn’t be able to ride a bike at all.

This video forced me to both acknowledge the usefulness of ingrained, intuitive behaviors while also reminding me of how strong a hold intuition can have over the mind. Paradigms can be temporarily or perhaps permanently lost.  In the video, Destin has trouble switching back and forth between the 2 seemingly over-engaging thought systems but the transition itself can be a part of a more complicated thought algorithm, allowing the mind to master and embrace contradictory paradigms by trusting the integrity of the overall algorithm.

Including Confirmation Bias in a greater algorithm.

These paradigms can be turned on and off and just as a worker might be able to get used to driving an automatic transmission car to work and operating a stick shift truck at the job site and drive home in the automatic again after the shift.

This ability to turn on and off intuitive paradigms as a controlled feature of a greater logical algorithm requires the mind to acknowledge confirmation bias. I get a feeling of smug satisfaction that logic comprises the greater framework of a possible decision making process anytime I see evidence supporting that belief. There are just as many people out there who would view intuition as the the framework of a complex decision making process, with the ability to use or not use logical thought as merely a contributing part of a superior thought process. If my personal bias of logic over intuition is erroneous in some situations, can I trust the mode of thinking I am in? Using myself as an example, my relief at realizing data confirms what I have already accepted as true is powerful.

That feeling of relief must always be noted and kept in check before it can overshadow the ability to acknowledge data that opposes the belief. Understanding confirmation bias is the key to adding that next level to the algorithm, in the video example from Smarter Everyday, steering a normal bike is so ingrained in the neural pathway that the backwards steering’s inability to confirm actually fill in the blank and the mind sends an incorrect set of instruction of the mechanical behavior to the body. Understanding the dynamics of confirmation bias would enable the mind to embrace the greater thought system that would enable the mind to go back and forth between those conflicting behavioral paradigms. I’m positing that it should be possible to master a regular bike and the “backwards bike” and be able to switch back and forth between both bikes in quick succession. The neural pathways between both behavior paradigms can be trained and made stronger than the video shows.

I believe that with practice, someotrciksne could alternate steering mechanism quickly and without as much awkwardness as we are seeing in the video just as my initial confirmation bias, now identified, doesn’t have to dictate my decision and I might be more open minded to an intuitive interpretation leading to the best decision in certain situations.

An inability to acknowledge that one’s own mind might be susceptible to confirmation bias paradoxically makes one more susceptible.  Critical thinking is a method of building immunity to this common trap of confidence. Identifying the experience of one’s own confirmation bias is a great way to try and understand and control this intuitive tendency.  No matter what your thoughts are regarding logic and intuition, examining one’s confirmation biases and better embracing them should lead to better decision making skills.
Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Space debris: what can we do with unwanted satellites?

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There are thousands of satellites in Earth orbit, of varying age and usefulness. At some point they reach the end of their lives, at which point they become floating junk. What do we do with them then?

Most satellites are not designed with the end of their life in mind. But some are designed to be serviced, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, which as part of its final service was modified to include a soft capture mechanism. This is an interface designed to allow a future robotic spacecraft to attach itself and guide the telescope to safe disposal through burn-up in the Earth’s atmosphere once its operational life has ended.

Thinking about methods to retire satellites is important, because without proper disposal they become another source of space debris – fragments of old spacecraft, satellites and rockets now orbiting Earth at thousands of miles per hour. These fragments travel so fast that even a piece the size of a coin has enough energy to disable a whole satellite. There are well over 100,000 pieces this size or larger already orbiting Earth, never mind much larger items – for example the Progress unmanned cargo module, which Russian Space Agency mission controllers have lost control of and which will orbit progressively lower until it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.

A hole punched in the side of the SMM satellite by flying orbital debris.
NASA

We don’t know exactly how many or where they are. Only the largest – about 10% of those fragments substantial enough to disable a satellite – can be tracked from the ground. In fact damage to satellites is not unknown, with Hubble and the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellites among those to have coin-sized holes punched into them by flying debris. There is a risk that over the next few years there will be other, perhaps more damaging, collisions.

The soft capture mechanism was installed to prevent more space debris. Engineers worldwide are devising ingenious ways to try to limit the amount of debris orbiting the planet – for good reason. Predictions show that if we don’t tackle the problem of space debris then many of our most useful orbits will become too choked with flying fragments for satellites to safely occupy them.

At some point, there may be enough debris in a given orbit for debris-satellite collisions and debris-debris collisions to cascade out of control. This is known as the Kessler syndrome, as shown (in somewhat exaggerated fashion) in the film Gravity.

Given the degree to which we rely on satellites these days – for communication, GPS and time synchronisation, upon which in turn many vital services such as international banking rely – it’s crucial we prevent near-Earth space from reaching this point. And like it or not, one of the important steps required is to remove large defunct satellites that could become the source of many more chunks of debris.

Designed for disposal

Satellites such as the UK’s TechDemoSat-1 (TDS-1), which launched in 2014, are designed for end-of-life disposal. TDS-1 carries a small drag sail designed and built at Cranfield University that can be deployed once the satellite’s useful science life is over. This acts like a parachute, dragging the satellite’s orbit lower until it re-enters the atmosphere naturally and burns up high in Earth’s atmosphere.

TDS-1 is small enough to burn up – larger or higher satellites will require other ways of moving them away from the most important, valuable, and busy orbits. It’s possible, with enough fuel on-board (and all systems functioning after perhaps decades in space), for satellites to de-orbit themselves. Other, more exotic solutions include tug satellites using nets, tethers, and even high power lasers.

Bag it and bin it – ESA’s e.Deorbit project may use nets to collect debris and drag it into the atmosphere to burn up.
ESA

However, space debris isn’t just an engineering problem. Suppose Europe develops a tug satellite and tries to de-orbit old Russian satellites, or passes close to an active US spy satellite. Clearly this could get political. Simply put, we haven’t yet found a way to use space sustainably, and the problem is almost as complex as finding ways to ensure sustainable development on Earth. What we need are practical solutions – and soon.

One that got through: part of the Delta rocket fuel tank that came back to Earth in 1997.
NASA

So what will happen to Hubble, perhaps the most well-known case of a satellite that requires a retirement plan? One day, perhaps in the early 2020s, a small spacecraft will be launched to rendezvous with the space telescope. It will attach using the soft capture mechanism and then fire its engines to guide Hubble toward re-entry over the South Pacific. For a satellite as large as Hubble, it’s likely that some parts will survive re-entry so a large uninhabited region over the ocean is best suited to avoid risk of damage or casualties.

The re-entry can be tracked carefully from other satellites, aircraft, and ships – all will capture the moment that Hubble itself, having spent decades watching the heavens, will become a bright shooting star for other telescopes to capture. It somehow seems fitting that a mission as remarkable and long-lived as Hubble should itself end in a blaze of glory.

The Conversation

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Chile’s Calbuco Volcano erupts without warning

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Around 5:00 pm local time on April 22, scientists at Southern Andean Volcano Observatory in Chile began picking up volcanic earthquakes at the Calbuco volcano. A disturbingly short 60 minutes later, the volcano was in full eruption, producing an impressive column of ash extending to more than 49,000 feet into the sky. Ash primarily drifted north and northeast of the volcano, covering towns below in a layer of fine ash. Observatory scientists quickly called for an evacuation zone of 12.5 miles.

A second explosive eruption began at 1:00 pm local time on April 23 and lasted for at least six hours. During this time an average of 150 earthquakes were recorded per hour. This eruption also produced a similar-sized column of ash, which drifted north, northeast and east of the volcano.

My colleague Dr Jeff Johnson, who co-taught a Boise State University geophysics and volcanology course with me at Villarrica volcano just after a March 3 eruption, reports from Pucón, Chile, that the Calbuco ash cloud blocked sunlight and turned morning to night. As of 11 AM, on April 23, Pucón, which is more than 130 miles north of Calbuco, was still covered in darkness.

People who live this part of Chile are well-accustomed to volcanoes, yet is still causing widespread concern.

As a physical volcanologist, I’ve studied how people who live near volcanoes can deal with the hazards and risks from sudden eruptions as we’re seeing now in Chile.

On close monitoring

It’s hard to miss the multiple, large, ominous volcanoes that can be seen at any point along the drive from Chile’s capital city Santiago to the south of the country. Many of the volcanoes are remote and in sparsely populated areas, but others are popular tourist destinations for skiing, trekking, horse-back riding and visiting hot springs.

Because of frequent volcanic activity in Chile, especially as of late, volcano observatory scientists closely monitor Chilean volcanoes.

If a volcano begins to show signs of unrest, such as an increase in shallow earthquakes or ground swelling, observatory scientists go on a 24/7 monitoring schedule. Such was the case prior to the March 3 eruption of Villarrica. However, sometimes, despite careful monitoring, a volcano erupts with no warning at all.

An ash cloud rose at least 15 kilometers above the Calbuco volcano, menacing the nearby communities of Puerto Montt, Chile, and San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina.
NASA’s Earth Observatory/flickr, CC BY

Calbuco is a 6,570-foot-high volcano located in the Los Lagos region of southern Chile, 20 miles northeast of the town of Puerto Montt. It is one of the most active volcanoes in Chile and is known to erupt explosively. The largest witnessed eruption of Calbuco occurred in 1893, registering an impressive level 4 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index — similar in size to the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens in Washington state in the US. Calbuco has erupted 10 times since, with the most recent eruption occurring unexpectedly on April 22, 2015.

Volcanoes typically show signs of unrest for weeks, months and sometimes even years prior to an eruption. Unrest may include a slow inflation, or the swelling of magma in the volcano; increased earthquake activity beneath the volcano; and potentially an increase in the amount and type of gas escaping from the volcano. The only sign of activity from Calbuco was increased gas venting in 1996; since then, it has been quiet.

Volcanic Hazards

The most serious hazard to towns within the 12.5 mile evacuation zone are lahars – mudflows generated by melted snow and ice mixing with volcanic ash. Lahars are confined to places where water normally drains, but have the capacity to destroy bridges and any other man-made structure in their path.

So far at Calbuco, lahars have traveled more than nine miles from the volcano. Lahars are often produced during eruptions, but also can occur long after an eruption has ceased when ash is remobilized by heavy rain. Thus,residents of nearby towns can be displaced for weeks to months depending on the activity, amount of falling ash and climate.

The most widely disruptive hazard from this eruption will be the ash fall, which currently has covered regions as far as 165 miles to the north under millimeters of ash.

Ash from the Calbuco volcano eruption in Chile has fallen on surrounding towns, including Ensenada, pictured here.
Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

Ash presents a health hazard to those with respiratory problems such as asthma. Ash also can result in loss of electricity and severe disruption of transportation. Only one to three millimeters of ash – or about one tenth of an inch or less – can significantly reduce visibility on roadways, and less than one millimeter of ash will shut down an airport.

Safety

Despite the negative consequences of such an eruption, natural hazards such as this and the March 3 eruption of Villarrica are quite survivable. It comes down to taking a few basic steps to be prepared.

Everyone lives at risk from some form of natural hazard, such as wildfires, tornadoes, earthquakes, severe storms and many more. These natural events can knock out power for days at a time and displace loved ones. The people in the towns around Calbuco certainly reported being scared, but their knowledge of evacuation routes and readiness to go at a moment’s notice likely saved many lives.

Each of us can rest easier at night by taking a few easy steps to ensure that we also know what to do if disaster strikes in our own backyard, such as preparing food and water for at least three days, getting a first aid kit, and making a plan for contacting loved ones if separated unexpectedly. The preparedness statement from our own Cascade Volcano Observatory sums it up well: Don’t be Scared, Be Prepared.

In the meantime, scientists such Dr Johnson and I will continue to research these natural events in an effort to better understand their consequences and better forecast eruptions and volcanic hazards in the future.

The Conversation

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Spider Venom and the Search for Safer Pain Meds

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Some of the most poisonous animals on the planet are found down under. Australian researchers retrieved exciting new data when taking a closer look at spider venom. Biosynthesized chemicals designed to be highly reactive with other organisms could inspire new drugs and, eventually, an entire new class of painkillers.

It can be defensive but the function of spider venom is often to incapacitate or kill prey. University of Queensland academics released their findings in The British Journal of Pharmacology, after they isolated seven unique peptides found in certain spider venoms that can block the molecules that allow pain-sensitive nerve pathways to communicate with the brain. One of the pepetides originated in the physiology of a Borneo orange-fringed tarantula. That peptide possessed the correct chemical structure, combined with a stability and effectiveness to become a non-opiate painkiller.

15% of all adults are in chronic pain, according a study published in 2012 Journal of Pain. Most readers are already aware of the danger of addiction and lagging effetiveness of opiate drugs like morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone. The medical community is hungry for a change in available medications. Opiates are all derivatives or inspired by opium plants which have been tried and tested for centuries. Venomous spiders are difficult to study but the motivation for new drugs has loosened funding with the help of promising finds like this one.

“Spider venom acts in a different way to standard painkillers,” ~ Dr. Jennifer Smith, research officer @ University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience.

While cessation from pain might in itself create an addictive reaction, this venom is promising, according to Dr. Smith, because it blocks the channel through which the pain would even reach the brain. Opiates merely block the widespread opioid receptors in actual brain cells, deep within and in the surrounding nerve tissue of the brain itself.

What’s the mechanism of action for this spider-drug? Some people are born with a rare genetic defect that renders them unable to feel pain. Geneticists identified the human gene responsible, known as SCN9A. Dr. Smith hopes the peptide will enable the cells of a human without the defect to shut down part of the DNA that manifests this immunity to pain.

There could be other breakthroughs in medicine and chemistry. The findings are awesome in the Australian project but those researchers only documented findings of roughly 200 out of 45,000 known species of spider.  Out of those 200, 40% contained peptides that interacted with the way pain channels communicate. The next step would be to test the painkillers on animals.

“We’ve got a massive library of different venoms from different spider species and we’re branching out into other arachnids: scorpions, centipedes and even assassin bugs,” said Dr. Smith.

 
Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY

Is There Water on Mars?

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Despite a partially broken arm and a heavy cover of dust, the Mars Curiosity rover sent by NASA a decade ago, continues to make intriguing discoveries. Just last month when drilling rocks on the red planet’s surface it came across organic compounds, suggesting that at one time in the distant past, Mars was a hospitable place for life. Now, the rover’s latest discovery suggests the presence of salt water entrenched far beneath the surface of Mars, where the majority of its remaining water is thought to exist in its polar ice caps.

In its past, the red planet was likely also home to a vast ocean, larger than the Arctic Sea, but lost much of its water due to the thinning of its atmosphere and solar wind, according to recent analysis.

If this salt water, or brine, does in fact exist on the red planet, there’s only trace amounts of it. When it does occur in its liquid form, there’s hardly enough to provide potential nutrients to any living things. However, it may be of use to solving one elusive mystery on the red planet. The findings were published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience, and may account for the mysterious dark streaks known to routinely appear and vanish across the Martian slopes – something that has fueled the speculation of many UFO enthusiasts.

However, this may not quite be the news they’ve been looking for. These findings in fact serve as a reminder that the presence of water outside our planet doesn’t always promise that we’ll find life.

“Perhaps the statement ‘Follow the water’ as a clue, should be reexamined,” said the study’s lead author F. Javier Martin-Torres, a planetary scientist from Lulea University of Technology in Sweden, in a recent email.

“Finding signs of the brines involved a little serendipity,” as Martin-Torres called it.

“Well, it was not that we were looking for them,” he said. He, along with his colleague Maria-Paz Zorzano of the Centro de Astrobiologia in Spain, started the project out of what seemed like routine mapping of Curiosity’s data. They drew a plot of Martian temperatures and conditions of relative humidity with the help of the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station instrument before they came to realize that, provided with the right conditions, Mars could hold a thin skin of perchlorate-filled water just below its surface.

“We realized that we were seeing conditions where brines should be formed. Since then, we have been studying the process in collaboration with other [Curiosity] team members,” said Martin-Torres.

The scientists think that rather than the norm, these brines are actually an unusual phenomenon that occurs on the planet – likely happening on only a few nights each year when Mars’ relative humidity happens to be very high and contrasts with the very low temperatures that Mars is known for. At that point, the small pools of brine lie just beneath the surface, mixing in the top layer of soil. Once the sun rises, starting a day that is 2.7 percent longer than those on Earth, the pools quickly shrivel up and dry out.

Perhaps future rover missions may be able to capture such a phenomenon when it does take place. So how does it happen? The brines is created by perchlorates, which can be found all throughout the red planet. They are composed of a single chlorine atom, joined by four oxygen atoms, and two of their properties make them perfect for capturing liquid water. Like table salt, perchlorates reduce the freezing temperature of water, which allow it to remain a liquid even in glacial climates. But there’s something more interesting to them that makes their name worth remembering. They are able to draw water molecules out from the air, bringing them to a liquid state. The entire process is known as deliquesence.

“It’s a dual property of the perchlorates that they can absorb large amounts of water vapor and they can release it in a way that forms a liquid — with the salt acting like an antifreeze,” said the study’s co-author Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Unfortunately, while perchlorates permit the water to keep its liquid form when near the planet’s surface, they also would suffocate any microbes that would use the water.

“If you were able to sample these little films of water, they would have so much salt dissolved in them that it would be impossible for life to use that water,” Vasavada said.

Martin-Torres supported his statements. Brines strong enough could destabilize the metabolism of microbes and reduce the places in which they could reproduce. Remember why drinking sea water is never considered a good idea?

“Nature and extremophiles always surprise us,” said Martin-Torres, “but in our paper we mention that the combination of relative humidity and temperature when at brine conditions are not compatible with [our knowledge of] current terrestrial microorganisms.”

The Curiosity is not equipped with the tools for sampling brines, should they exist, but this could be something for future Mars missions to consider. NASA hopes to send a manned mission to the red planet by 2039, but has a rover mission in the works for the 2020s.

Whether or not they exist, the possibility that these brines may be able to appear within the Gale Crater landmark suggests to scientists that they are both more likely to exist – and to withstand longer durations of time – in much colder regions of Mars, that are nearer to the poles.

Although the brines show no astrobiological potential, they might offer some explanation of dark flows on the Martian surface, according to Vasavada. Unusual, flowing dark bands have been sighted on Martian mountains by NASA’s Reconnaissance Orbiter. These lines could in fact be the result of brines that rise all the way up to the surface – an explanation supported by the lower temperatures existing higher up in the Martian atmosphere.

“They haven’t been able to definitely find liquid at those places either, so brine is still a candidate for those,” Vasavada said. “But I think it helps us understand better what the chances are of forming brines on Mars.”
James Sullivan
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and a contributor to Truth Is Cool and OMNI Reboot. He can usually be found on TVTropes or RationalWiki when not exploiting life and science stories for another blog article.

PEEK UNDERGROUND WHEN A MISSILE OR METEOR STRIKES EARTH

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In a demented kind of way, when either a missile or a meteor strikes Earth, as much havoc as it can cause, it is pretty exciting. While the destruction it can cause above ground is fairly apparent, there is a whole three-ring circus going on underground that is a bit more difficult to see. But physicists at Duke University have come up with special techniques that have fitted them with the means to simulate high-speed impacts in artificial soil and sand, and observe the underground ramifications in slower-than-slow motion.

One discovery that they have come up with via their lab experiments is that upon such forceful impact, soil and sand indeed become stronger the harder they are struck. This unearthing serves to explain why efforts to force ground-penetrating missiles deeper underground by just shooting at them more quickly and with greater impact don’t really pan out. In reality, projectiles come against resistance to a greater extent and will actually stop before their strike speed has a chance to reach full throttle.

THE EXPERIMENT

In order to replicate the occurrence of a missile or meteor thrashing into soil or sand, the scientists plummeted a metal projectile with an orb-shaped tip from 7 feet above into a pit of beads. Upon impact, the kinetic energy of the projectile was taken on by the beads and dissipated as the beads bumped into one another below the surface, absorbing the energy and force of the collision.

To visualize this force as it moved away from the point of the crash, the researchers employed beads that were made of clear plastic which transmit light differently when compacted. When observed through polarizing filters such as those found in regular sunglasses, the portions of greatest stress showed up as branching chains of light referred to as “force chains” that move from one bead to the next during the impact, akin to lightening bolts that zig-zag their way across the sky.

The metal projectile plunged into the vat of beads at a speed of 6 meters/second, or close to 15 MPH. Via the use of beads of varying hardness, the researchers made it possible to trigger pulses that rippled through the beads at speeds ranging from 67 to 670 MPH. At low speeds, a small number of beads carried the brunt of the force, and at higher speeds the “force chains” grew more extensive, resulting in the energy of the crash to move away from the point of the collision a lot more quickly than predicted by previous models. New contacts are generated between the beads at higher rates of acceleration as they are pressed together, and that is the cause for strengthening the material.

TO SUM IT UP

Said co-author Abram Clark, currently a postdoctoral researcher in mechanical engineering at Yale University:

“Imagine you’re trying to push your way through a crowded room…If you try to run and push your way through the room faster than the people can rearrange to get out of the way, you’re going to end up applying a lot of pressure [to] and ramming into a lot of angry people!”