Spectacular view of thousands of Devil Rays massed off the Californian coast scoops top photography prize

Packed fin to gill as they swim in tight formation, this incredible picture of rays swimming through the ocean in a colossal school has scooped a top photography prize,

The thousands-strong group of Munkiana Devil Rays were spotted in Baja California Sur, Mexico, by German conservation photographer Florian Schulz.

The remarkable photo won the Environmental Photographer of the Year 2010 awards.

Schulz, who went on to become the overall winner after topping the Underwater World pool, described how he was able to capture his jaw-dropping image named Flight of the Rays.

Schulz said: ‘During an aerial expedition I came across something I had never seen before. Not even my pilot, who has surveyed this area for 20 years, had seen anything like it.

‘As we got closer we started to discover its nature: an unprecedented congregation of rays. The group was as thick as it was wide, all heading towards the same direction.

‘I have asked around why this took place but no one has been able to explain it to me.

‘After such a unique sighting, I realise there are so many marvels in the oceans that we are yet to understand. Our knowledge of the oceans is so limited. I just hope that we are in time to rescue it before it collapses from pollution and over fishing.’

via Spectacular view of thousands of Devil Rays as they mass off the Californian coast scoops top photography prize | Mail Online.

Acute pain is eased with the touch of a hand, study shows

There may be a very good reason that people naturally clutch their hand after receiving an injury. A new report published online Sept. 23 in Current Biology shows that self-touch offers significant relief for acute pain under experimental conditions. The researchers suggest that the relief comes from a change in the brain’s representation of the rest of the body.

“Pain is quite an important, but also complicated, experience and can be caused in many different ways,” said Patrick Haggard of University College London. “We show that levels of acute pain depend not just on the signals sent to the brain, but also on how the brain integrates these signals into a coherent representation of the body as a whole.”

Haggard and his colleague Marjolein Kammers, also of University College London, made the discovery by studying the effects of self-touch in people who were made to feel pain using an experimental condition known as the thermal grill illusion (TGI). “The TGI is one of the best-established laboratory methods for studying pain perception,” Haggard explained. “In our version, the index and ring fingers are placed in warm water and the middle finger in cold water. This generates a paradoxical feeling that the middle finger is painfully hot.” That’s ideal because it allows scientists to study the experience of pain without actually causing any injury to those who participate in the studies.

When TGI was induced in an individual’s two hands and then the three fingers of one hand were touched to the same fingers on the other hand immediately afterwards, the painful heat experienced by the middle finger dropped by 64 percent compared to a condition without self-touch. That relief didn’t come when only one hand was placed under TGI conditions. Partial self-touch in which only one or two fingers were pressed against each other didn’t work either. Nor did it work to press the affected hand against an experimenter’s hand that had also been warmed and cooled in the same way.

“In sum,” the researchers wrote, “TGI was reduced only when thermosensory and tactile information from all three fingers was fully integrated. That is, TGI reduction required a highly coherent somatosensory pattern, including coherence between tactile and thermal patterns and coherence of stimuli between the two hands.” …

via Acute pain is eased with the touch of a hand, study shows.

Saturn’s Northern Lights: Incredible new Nasa images show planet’s glowing poles

A video and images are part of a new study that, for the first time, extracts information about Saturn’s aurora from the entire catalogue of images taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument (VIMS) aboard Cassini.

The new, false-colour images show Saturn’s aurora glowing in green around the planet’s south pole over a 20 hour period, about two days on Saturn.

‘Detailed studies like this of Saturn’s aurora help us understand how they are generated on Earth and the nature of the interactions between the magnetosphere and the uppermost regions of Saturn’s atmosphere,’ said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Auroras on Saturn occur in a process similar to Earth’s northern and southern lights.

via Saturn’s Northern Lights: Incredible new Nasa images show planet’s glowing poles | Mail Online.

Scientists create living model of basic units of human brain

17 March 2009

Prof Mike Coleman and his team of researchers

Researchers in the School of Life & Health Sciences at Aston University in Birmingham, UK are developing a novel new way to model how the human brain works by creating a living representation of the brain.

They are using cells originally from a tumour which have been ‘reprogrammed’ to stop multiplying. Using the same natural molecule the body does to stimulate cellular development, the cells are turned into a co-culture of nerve cells and astrocytes – the most basic units of the human brain.

These co-cultures can be developed into tiny, connected balls of cells called neurospheres, which can process information, which, at a very simple level, is the basis of thought. The research process does not require animal testing and since 2007 has been generously supported by the Humane Research Trust.

In the future, the tiny three-dimensional cell clusters, which are essentially very small models of the human nervous system, could be used to develop new treatments for diseases including Alzheimer’s, Motor Neurone and Parkinson’s Disease. These progressive and debilitating neurodegenerative conditions are becoming more common as the population of the UK ages.

Professor Michael Coleman, who is leading the research team, said: ‘We are aiming to be able to study the human brain at the most basic level, using an actual living human cellular system. Cells have to be alive and operating efficiently to enable us to really understand how the brain works. In the longer term we hope that our procedure can be used to help us understand how conditions such as Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases develop. At the moment, most people are only too aware that current treatments for these conditions do not halt their progress and often have side-effects. We hope that our technique will provide scientists with a new and highly relevant human experimental model to help us understand the brain better and develop new drugs and treatments to tackle neurodegenerative disease ’

via Scientists create living model of basic units of human brain.

26 Mar 2009

Researchers at Aston University in Birmingham took cells from a cancerous tumour and “reprogrammed” them to create those identical to the human nervous system.

Scientists say that the development could mean that a breakthough in conditions such as dementia and Parkinson’s Disease has been brought closer

via Telegraph

Friday, 24 September 2010

Researchers have developed an artificial bit of human brain to help them study Alzheimer’s and other diseases, a huge improvement over animal models.Mike Coleman and his team from Aston University, Birmingham, have developed artificial brain tissue that responds to some chemicals like human brains do. Their findings were presented at the British Festival of Science in Birmingham.  …

via CosmosMagazine

The British Science Festival  is one of Europe’s largest science festivals, taking place each September. Each year the Festival travels to a different UK location, bringing you the latest in science, technology and engineering.

This year’s Festival was held in Birmingham from 14-19 September. Many events will took place at Aston University campus and at various venues across Birmingham.

via BritishScience

How do you know you are not an artificial brain in a vat?

Engineers have been faking life since 1000 BC

Modern biomimesis makes solar cells grow like plants, molecules walk like people, and art run like centipedes. But it’s a very old science. Take a look at ancient engineers who made lifelike machines fight, sing, flirt, and yes, poop.

Biomimesis is the science of imitating life. Today, scientists copy the mechanical functions of a body to make robots that can walk, and the functions of a brain to create artificial intelligence. This is one of the forefronts of modern technology, a kind of final frontier.

But it turns out that engineers and scientists have been settling that frontier for thousands of years. Mary Shelley assumed that the creation of life was going to happen through the science of biology. These people wanted to create it through mechanics.

One of the most famous of those scientists was Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria, who lived around 100 AD. Like many of the Greeks, he decided that he was going to be the father of something, and not one of those stupid, temporary ‘children’ that everyone was talking about. Instead he decided to be the father of pneumatics, the science of using pressurized steam to cause motion. His notebooks contained sketches of fountains and siphons, but he really made his name with his so-called ‘miracles’. They were statues that used steam power to move, and they made a big splash in temples, where people gathered to watch scenes of legend re-enacted by living statues.

Looking at the scene, it’s not difficult to know what’s going to happen. Until the dragon lobby gains power, the man with the club is always going to wack the monster a good one. What was impressive about this figure is, if the man turned aside, a suction was created which allowed the dragon to ‘drink’ any water that was presented to it. Then the man turned back and smacked it again. Life isn’t fair, sometimes. …

Dragons got a better press in China around a thousand years later, where they got to unleash hell on their human oppressors. Engineers actually managed to make a dragon-shaped rocket that spit fire on opposing forces.

That was a step back for the Chinese, who in 1000 BC had robots walking around. Yan Shi, an engineer, made a walking, singing, lecherous human figure and presented to the reigning king. It had to be taken apart when it supposedly started making advances on the king’s ladies. Other inventions around the same time include a horse that moved on springs and birds that flew.

All well and good. Motion was an excellent thing, but people knew that mechanical parts moved. And singing was amazing, but most societies had wind instruments and could recognize them. That drinking statue was a

good bit, but there was one criteria for life that only people without indoor plumbing could really understand: does it poop?

In the seventeen hundreds, a proud Frenchman stepped forward and assured the masses that yes, yes it does. Jacques de Vaucanson was a well-known maker of automatons. He was also obsessed with anatomy, and wanted to make models of it that actually moved. In 1730s, he surpassed himself. He presented a duck which flapped its wings, moved around, wagged its tail, quacked, ate, and after eating did what all living beings do. People were amazed, and Vaucanson toured Europe, getting people to hand over a lot of money to see a duck crap.

Although sketches of Vaucanson’s duck still survive, the actual model is gone. There is some dispute over how exactly the duck digested its food, but most people go with the simplest solution. In a time when there wasn’t a large stretch of highway between people and their food, it wasn’t hard for a rich guy to get hold of some duck poop. One of the internal compartments probably was storage for it. Still, the mechanical duck had hundreds of moving parts, and remains a high point of early biomimesis.via Engineers have been faking life since 1000 BC.

Stone Age Carving: Ancient Dildo?

Sex toys have come a long way since the Stone Age – but then again, perhaps not as much as we might think.

Last week, an excavation in Sweden turned up an object that bears the unmistakable look of a penis carved out of antler bone. Though scientists can’t be sure exactly what this tool was used for, it’s hard not to leap to conclusions. [See "Sex Myths and Taboos"]

“Your mind and my mind wanders away to make this interpretation about what it looks like – for you and me, it signals this erected-penis-like shape,” said archaeologist Göran Gruber of the National Heritage Board in Sweden, who worked on the excavation. “But if that’s the way the Stone Age people thought about it, I can’t say.”

The resemblance is uncanny.

“Without doubt anyone alive at the time of its making would have seen the penile similarities just as easily as we do today,” wrote Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist on his blog, Aardvarchaeology.

The discovery is so recent, Gruber said, there hasn’t been enough time to submit the finding for publication in a scientific journal, though the researchers plan to. …

The carved bone was unearthed at a Mesolithic site in Motala, Sweden, that is rich with ancient artifacts from between 4,000 to 6,000 B.C. The area’s unique features may have allowed bone artifacts, which usually get destroyed over the millennia, to survive.

“It’s an organic object, that’s why it’s special,” Gruber told LiveScience. “Normally when we excavate early Mesolithic sites we never get the organic material. But this site where we’re excavating now is along the shoreline. The preservation is very good here – it’s been lying in the bottom sediments and clay layers of the river, and it’s been well preserved there.” …

It’s not the first time that such a phallic object has been found from the ancient world. Another item strongly resembling a penis was unearthed in Germany in 2005. That one is even older – dating from 28,000 years ago – and made of stone.

Yet the recent discovery was enough to shock the scientists working at the dig, which is led by National Heritage Board archaeologist Fredrik Molin.

“Nobody here, and nobody that we heard of or talked with, had ever seen something like this in northern European or Scandinavian sites,” Gruber said.

via Stone Age Carving: Ancient Dildo? | Ancient Penis | Early Sex Artifacts | LiveScience.

South African Nanotech ‘Tea Bag’ To Filter Water for Pennies

Provide people cheap access to clean water and you could save billions of lives. South Africa may use tea bags to do just that. Researchers at Stellenbosch University’s Water Institute have developed a new water filtration system that uses activated carbon and nanofibers to quickly filter out pathogens. The carbon and nanofibers are placed in common tea bags and then fitted into a bottle. Fill the bottle with dubious water, install a filter, and drink. It’s that easy. According to SciDev Net, the ultimate price for these ‘tea bag’ nanfiber filters will be around half a cent (USD) each and be able to handle around 1 L before being replaced. A super cheap, portable, easy to use system to purify water? Sounds amazing. Watch developer (and SU dean) Eugene Cloete describe the project in the video below. You know a scientist believes in a product when he’s willing to test it on himself in front of a camera.

The nanofiber filter system is part of the Hope Project in South Africa, which hopes to improve the lives of millions of Africans by addressing major problems like poverty and health. Sounds a little like our own Singularity University. Providing potable water is an arduous task, as each region has its own variety of difficulties, be they availability, pollution, disease, or salinity. The on-the-spot purification system that Stellenbosch University has developed won’t solve all of these problems, but it does allow people to bring the means of filtering water everywhere.

The ‘tea bag’ filtering system works thanks to the nanofibers contained within. According to Engineering News, those fibers are bonded to thin films of biocides. As water passes through the bag, activated carbon removes various chemical compound and impurities while the biocides on the nanofibers quickly destroy microbes. Simply by passing through the filter diseased water can be made safe to drink.

South Africa’s Bureau of Standards is currently reviewing the nanofiber filter and accessing its viability. Once approved, the products could theoretically go into mass production. It’s unclear, however, how quickly the Hope Project could scale up manufacture of the filters. It’s final price will undoubtedly be low, but the actual half cent per bag estimate could change.

I should mention that there are many other water purification systems out there, each with their own promises and limitations. Current military grade water cleansing tablets cost around 30 cents (USD) and handle around 1 liter of water. Charitable projects, like the Life Straw, are seeking to get hundreds of liters through a device that costs a few dollars, and that might be able to handle water with high salt content. We’ll likely want a plethora of these water purification technologies, including Stellenbosch’s tea bag nanofiber filters, to succeed so that people in water scarce areas have a variety of cheap options to chose from….via South African Nanotech ‘Tea Bag’ To Filter Water for Pennies | Singularity Hub.

A natural disaster prediction come true?

A Manglorean academic’s prediction of natural disaster following whale deaths at New Zealand on August 20, has come true.

Dr Arunachalam Kumar, professor at KS Hedge Medical Academy, had espoused the theory that the unexplained whale deaths are linked to natural disasters over the years and has been proved to be spot-on this time also.

After whale deaths of the New Zealand coast, he had received an e-mail query regarding the possible outcome of this event. He had said the incident was prelude to eruption of a volcano in Indonesia within seven days and an earthquake would follow within two weeks.

Both predictions, based on the observations of Dr Kumar on changes in whale behaviour, have turned out to be absolutely right. On August 29, Mt Sinabung, a long dormant volcano in Sumatra erupted suddenly, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people from its vicinity. On September 4, Christchurch, New Zealand, was rocked by one of the most powerful earthquakes in its history.

The doctor had in December 2004 predicted the coming of the titanic Asian tsunami a full three weeks before it struck, killing 150,000 people. …

via A natural disaster prediction come true? – The Times of India.

Plague Researchers Race To Beat Bioterrorists

Given the many pressing concerns of the day, fear of plague probably isn’t what causes most Americans to lose sleep. But for those whose responsibility it is to combat bioterrorism, plague is among the highest priorities.

Those charged with that mission include scientists like medical researcher Steve Smiley, whose lab at the Trudeau Institute is working to develop a vaccine that will protect the public against weaponized forms of plague.

The Institute, which is dedicated to studying how the immune system responds to infectious diseases, is at the forefront of an international effort to protect the public against an ominous foe, whose very name conjures up images of widespread suffering and death.

Caused by the organism Yersinia pestis, plague is a severe and potentially deadly bacterial infection most often spread by rodents. Although rare in the United States, there have been outbreaks of plague in California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Humans typically contract the disease from fleas that spread the bacteria from infected animals like rats, but plague can also spread from human to human, transported in the air through the coughs of the infected.

While plague is usually sensitive to antibiotics, the governments of the United States and Great Britain are concerned that weaponized plague would likely resist such treatment.

During the Middle Ages, resourceful armies hurled plague-infested bodies over castle walls to spread disease and fear, and it is widely believed this early form of biowarfare initiated the “Black Death,” the plague pandemic which decimated a third of Europe’s population. During World War II, the Japanese experimented with germ warfare by dropping plague-infested fleas on the Chinese.

And the former Soviet Union’s biowarfare division produced bombs designed to release plague-causing bacteria into the air above American cities. A World Health Organization study concluded that the detonation of a plague “bio-bomb” over a city of five million could cause 150,000 cases of pneumonic plague, leading to 36,000 fatalities. …

via Plague Researchers Race To Beat Bioterrorists.

‘Flying Robot’ Pilot Helps Find IEDs In Helmand

Talisman has been designed to provide an increased level of assurance along routes throughout the region. It consists of a suite of cutting-edge equipment, including armoured vehicles, optical cameras and remote-controlled vehicles.

This life-saving equipment is being used to support combat logistic patrols, which can comprise several hundred vehicles and trek through the country delivering vital supplies to bases for the troops on the front line. …

Each Talisman system consists of:

+ a Mastiff 2 protected patrol vehicle + a Buffalo mine protected vehicle, with a rummaging arm + a JCB high mobility engineer excavator + a Micro Air Vehicle + a Talon tracked, remote-controlled robot.

via ‘Flying Robot’ Pilot Helps Find IEDs In Helmand.

Honeywell is developing for the FCS program a  backpack-sized Miniature Air Vehicle (MAV) designed to gather and transmit battlefield Information in support of small units operations. The development of the MAV was part of an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program developed for DARPA and has since transitioned into advanced development under the US Army Future Combat Systems’ program. Once matured, the micro air vehicle will become become the smallest unmanned aerial element of the U.S. Army’s Future Combat Systems program, providing “hover and stare” capability at the platoon level. Class I is one of four UAV systems organic to platoon, company, battalion and brigade echelons that form the aerial component of the FCS networked system-of-systems, providing protection and information to soldiers on the ground.

The MAV ACTD is designed as a ducted fan air vehicle, and flies like a helicopter, using a propeller that draws in air through a duct to provide lift. The MAV’s propeller is enclosed in the duct and is driven by a gasoline engine. A heavy fuel engine variant of the MAV will be available in 2006. The MAV is controlled using Honeywell’s micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS) electronic sensor technology.  …

On May 24, 2006 Boeing, the FCS program integrator awarded Honeywell a $61 million development contract to fully develop the Class I UAVS. First prototype deliveries and flight tests are scheduled for December 2008.. - defenseupdate

October 26, 2005 As the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have unfolded, one of the new stars in the theatre of battle has been the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). As each new conflict redefines war based on the technologies coming of age at that time, the Iraq campaign has seen the coming of age of the UAV in its many wonderous forms. It is the most-requested capability among combatant commanders and in the last 18 months, UAV numbers in Iraq have jumped from fewer than 100 to more than 400 and there are now nearly 600 UAVs in the Afghanistan and Iraq theatres. Even more interesting is the dizzying array of unmanned aircraft used in traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance UAV roles. Now we’re set to see UAVs get smaller – much smaller. The United States Future Combat Systems (FCS) program recently passed a significant milestone in its progress toward selecting a Class I Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system. The MAV has achieved a technology readiness level 6 and is now ready to begin transitioning the technology to the FCS program as an affordable backpackable systems suitable for dismounted soldier, Marine, and Special Forces missions. It will focus on the development of lift augmented ducted fan MAVs to accomplish unique military missions, particularly the hover and stare capability in restricted (e.g urban) environments to provide real-time combat information. – gizmag