Black Jets

Stephen Smith – An electromagnetic phenomenon on the fringes of galaxy NGC 7793 is confounding astronomers because they insist on seeing it as a gravitational superforce.

Explaining the jets of ionized particles often seen erupting from various objects in space ranks as one of the most difficult tasks facing modern astronomers. What force can create highly energetic particle emissions that span distances measured in light-years? What confines them into narrow beams?

Hundreds of stellar jets have now been observed, but the prevailing theory of “compacted gravitational point sources” exciting gas and dust as they orbit does not address the existence of collimated jets. There is only one force that can hold such a matter stream together over those distances: magnetism.

The only way to generate that magnetic confinement is through electricity flowing through space.

In the past, astronomers observed coherent filaments from so-called “Herbig Haro” stars, some more than 12 light-years long. Charged particles within the filaments were thought to exceed velocities of 500 kilometers per second. The finely knotted jets exceeded three times the distance from our Sun to the nearest star, Alpha Proxima. According to ESO’s recent announcement, however, the jets from the NGC 7793 microquasar are several hundred light-years long.

Most researchers try to account for narrowly confined jets by invoking words like “nozzle” or “high pressure,” defying all that science knows about the behavior of gases in a vacuum. Some are even willing to acknowledge that magnetic fields might focus gases into narrow beams, although there is a commonly held opinion that magnetic fields are not important.

Magnetic fields are only one part of the story, and failure to realize that electric currents create magnetic fields has led many physicists to model plasma in space without considering the flow of electricity. Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén, a pioneer in the field of plasma cosmology, stated that plasma is “too complicated and awkward” for the tastes of mathematicians. …

Stars are nodes in electrical circuits. Electromagnetic energy could be stored in the equatorial current sheets surrounding them until some trigger event causes them to switch into a polar discharge. The electric jet could receive its energy from a natural particle-accelerator, a “plasma double layer” with a strong electric field. Toroidal magnetic fields would form because of the polar plasma discharge, confining it into a narrow channel.

Axial electric currents should be flowing along the jet’s entire length. Only electric fields can accelerate charged particles across interstellar space.

via Black Jets.

Russian domed city would hold 100,000 people

A Russian company has unveiled plans to build a gigantic domed city in an abandoned diamond mine in Siberia.

The city, named Eco-city 2020, would be constructed inside the Mir diamond mine, the second largest excavated hole on the planet. It’s a quarter-mile wide at the top and over 1,700 feet deep, which is so big that air flowing into the hole can actually suck helicopters out of the sky. If the project gets going, the mine would be completely covered over with a glass dome to protect the city from the weather in Siberia (which is apparently lousy almost all the time), and solar cells embedded in the dome would provide power for the entire structure.

Eco-city would be constructed of multiple levels, with a huge central core. The main floor would hold parks and recreation areas, with residential areas terracing up around the walls of the mine. Underneath would be space for vertical farms and forests, subsiding on light piped down the central core. An estimated 100,000 people would be able to live in Eco-city, and architects are hoping that it would help to attract tourists to Eastern Siberia. Um, good luck with that.

So, what’s the likelihood of Eco-city actually being constructed? Probably not great, at least not anytime soon. At the same time, settlement like this (on a much smaller scale) might be the perfect design for a colony in a crater on the Moon or Mars.

via Russian domed city would hold 100,000 people | DVICE.

Meet Mr. Blobby the fathead sculpin fish

Affectionately nicknamed “Mr. Blobby,” this fathead sculpin fish was discovered in 2003 in New Zealand during a Census of Marine Life expedition, according to the Australian Museum in Sydney.

Fathead sculpins—named for their large, globe-like heads and floppy skin—live in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans at depths of between about 330 feet (100 meters) and 9,200 feet (2,800 meters).

(Related: “Bizarre Gelatinous Fish Found in Brazil.”)

Now preserved in 70 percent ethyl alcohol at the Australian Museum, Mr. Blobby’s nose has shrunk—”and he no longer retains his ‘cute’ look,” according to the museum’s website.

via 13 Stunning Photos From 10-Year Sea Census.

Comet Hartley 2 emits ice balls, NASA finds

Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times – A team of astronomers announced its first snow Thursday — not due to the approaching winter, but from a spacecraft that observed a peanut-shaped comet spitting fluffy ice balls into space.

The Deep Impact spacecraft flew within 435 miles of the comet known as Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, snapping images as it whizzed past about 27,000 mph. Images released that day revealed a nearly 1 1/2-mile-long body with a smooth middle and rough, bulbous edges that was spewing gas from its surface.

In the two weeks since, scientists noticed the white specks circling the comet, as if it were inside an invisible snow globe. When they analyzed the images, they were in for another surprise — the smooth, middle portion, which they expected to be relatively inactive, was emitting water vapor; while the ends released chunks of ice, some as large as basketballs.

The flurry of white specks surrounding the comet’s body caused the astronomers’ jaws to drop, Peter Schultz, a team scientist from Brown University, said in a news conference at NASA headquarters in Washington.

Get important science news and discoveries delivered to your inbox with our Science & Environment newsletter. Sign up »

Based on past experience, the scientists hadn’t expected any such snowy showing, University of Maryland astronomer Michael A’Hearn added in an interview. Five years ago, Deep Impact shot an 820-pound copper slug into the much larger comet Tempel 1. That kicked up tiny grains of ice, not large, solid chunks.

After that mission, NASA officials redirected the spacecraft — still intact with a little fuel — to Hartley 2.

Based on the results from the flyby, A’Hearn said he figures that 40% to 50% of the comet’s ice was made of frozen carbon dioxide, with the rest made of frozen water. That is probably the highest proportion of dry ice relative to water ice of any comet studied thus far, he said.

The preponderance of dry ice in the comet’s bulbous ends may be a sign that Hartley 2 was formed way out in the solar system, far from the sun’s rays, he said. But the fact that the middle section appears to lack dry ice may mean this comet was the result of the mixing that occurred as the solar system was coalescing. If so, it could tell us something about how that early development happened.

Though the flyby has come and gone, the spacecraft is still sending about 3,000 new images back to Earth each day, A’Hearn said. By Thanksgiving, the team expects to collect about 125,000 images in total. …

via Comet Hartley 2 emits ice balls, NASA finds – latimes.com.

New microscope reveals ultrastructure of cells

Dr. Gerd Schneider – For the first time, there is no need to chemically fix, stain or cut cells in order to study them. Instead, whole living cells are fast-frozen and studied in their natural environment. The new method delivers an immediate 3-D image, thereby closing a gap between conventional microscopic techniques.

The new microscope delivers a high-resolution 3-D image of the entire cell in one step. This is an advantage over electron microscopy, in which a 3-D image is assembled out of many thin sections. This can take up to weeks for just one cell. Also, the cell need not be labelled with dyes, unlike in fluorescence microscopy, where only the labelled structures become visible. The new X-ray microscope instead exploits the natural contrast between organic material and water to form an image of all cell structures. Dr. Gerd Schneider and his microscopy team at the Institute for Soft Matter and Functional Materials have published their development in Nature Methods (DOI:10.1038/nmeth.1533).

With the high resolution achieved by their microscope, the researchers, in cooperation with colleagues of the National Cancer Institute in the USA, have reconstructed mouse adenocarcinoma cells in three dimensions. The smallest of details were visible: the double membrane of the cell nucleus, nuclear pores in the nuclear envelope, membrane channels in the nucleus, numerous inva­ginations of the inner mitochondrial membrane and inclusions in cell organelles such as lysosomes. Such insights will be crucial for shedding light on inner-cellular processes: such as how viruses or nanoparticles penetrate into cells or into the nucleus, for example.This is the first time the so-called ultrastructure of cells has been imaged with X-rays to such precision, down to 30 nanometres. Ten nanometres are about one ten-thousandth of the width of a human hair. Ultrastructure is the detailed structure of a biological specimen that is too small to be seen with an optical microscope.

Researchers achieved this high 3-D resolution by illuminating the minute structures of the frozen-hydrated object with partially coherent light. This light is generated by BESSY II, the synchrotron source at HZB. Partial coherence is the property of two waves whose relative phase undergoes random fluctuations which are not, however, sufficient to make the wave completely incoherent. Illumination with partial coherent light generates significantly higher contrast for small object details compared to incoherent illumination. Combining this approach with a high-resolution lens, the researchers were able to visualize the ultrastructures of cells at hitherto unattained contrast. …

via New microscope reveals ultrastructure of cells.

Awesome and amazing. Being able to look at the cell with such resolution while it is still alive would be even better.

Surprise link between weird quantum phenomena: Heisenberg uncertainty principle sets limits on Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’

Researchers have uncovered a fundamental link between the two defining properties of quantum physics. The result is being heralded as a dramatic breakthrough in our basic understanding of quantum mechanics and provides new clues to researchers seeking to understand the foundations of quantum theory. The result addresses the question of why quantum behaviour is as weird as it is — but no weirder.

Stephanie Wehner of Singapore’s Centre for Quantum Technologies and the National University of Singapore and Jonathan Oppenheim of the United Kingdom’s University of Cambridge published their work in the latest edition of the journal Science.

The strange behaviour of quantum particles, such as atoms, electrons and the photons that make up light, has perplexed scientists for nearly a century. Albert Einstein was among those who thought the quantum world was so strange that quantum theory must be wrong, but experiments have borne out the theory’s predictions.

One of the weird aspects of quantum theory is that it is impossible to know certain things, such as a particle’s momentum and position, simultaneously. Knowledge of one of these properties affects the accuracy with which you can learn the other. This is known as the “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.”

Another weird aspect is the quantum phenomenon of non-locality, which arises from the better-known phenomenon of entanglement. When two quantum particles are entangled, they can perform actions that look as if they are coordinated with each other in ways that defy classical intuition about physically separated particles.

Previously, researchers have treated non-locality and uncertainty as two separate phenomena. Now Wehner and Oppenheim have shown that they are intricately linked. What’s more, they show that this link is quantitative and have found an equation which shows that the “amount” of non-locality is determined by the uncertainty principle. …

the uncertainty principle… imposes a strict bound on how strong non-locality can be.

The finding bears on the deep question of what principles underlie quantum physics.

via Surprise link between weird quantum phenomena: Heisenberg uncertainty principle sets limits on Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’.

Thailand police find 2,000 foetuses in temple

Thai police say they have found the remains of more than 2,000 foetuses, thought to be from illegal abortions, hidden at a Buddhist temple in Bangkok.

The remains were discovered in the temple’s mortuary in containers usually used for bodies awaiting cremation.

Police were alerted by a terrible smell after the temple’s furnace broke down.

Two temple workers and a woman believed to have been paid to collect and dispose of foetuses from illegal abortion clinics have been arrested.

The bodies, wrapped in plastic bags, were discovered in a newly opened area of the mortuary, days after authorities found 348 in another room.

A 33-year-old woman has admitted taking money to collect foetuses from several clinics.

She earned just over $16 (£10) for each foetus she delivered to the temple.

Police said two temple workers had been charged with hiding the bodies.

Abortion is illegal in Thailand unless pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or a mother’s health is at risk.

Police say they have begun raiding some of the 4,000 clinics in Bangkok they suspect are used to perform illegal abortions. …

via BBC News – Thailand police find 2,000 foetuses in temple.

My god. At first glance I thought this was another picture of turkeys. Wish it was. The following may be related:

A 2004 estimate by Dr. Nitet Tinnakul from Chulalongkorn University gives a total of 2.8 million sex workers, including 2 million women, 20,000 adult males and 800,000 minors under the age of 18. – wiki

Laser camera takes photos around corners

A camera that can shoot around corners has been developed by US scientists.

The prototype uses an ultra-short high-intensity burst of laser light to illuminate a scene.

The device constructs a basic image of its surroundings – including objects hidden around the corner – by collecting the tiny amounts of light that bounce around the scene.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology team believe it has uses in search and rescue and robot vision.

“It’s like having x-ray vision without the x-rays,” said Professor Ramesh Raskar, head of the Camera Culture group at the MIT Media Lab and one of the team behind the system.

“But we’re going around the problem rather than going through it.”

Professor Shree Nayar of Columbia University, an expert in light scattering and computer vision, was very complimentary about the work and said it was a new and “very interesting research direction”.

“What is not entirely clear is what complexities of invisible scenes are computable at this point,” he told BBC News.

“They have not yet shown recovery of an entire [real-world] scene, for instance.” …

If there is a corner, some of the light will be reflected around it. It will then continue to bounce around the scene, reflecting off objects – or people – hidden around the bend.

Some of these particles will again be reflected back around the corner to the camera’s sensor. … Following the initial pulse of laser light, its shutter remains closed to stop the precise sensors being overwhelmed with the first high-intensity reflections.

This method – known as “time-gating” – is commonly used by cameras in military surveillance aircraft to peer through dense foliage.

In these systems, the shutter remains closed until after the first reflections off the tops of the trees. It then opens to collect resections of hidden vehicles or machinery beneath the canopy.

Similarly, the experimental camera shutter opens once the first reflected light has passed, allowing it to mop up the ever-decreasing amounts of reflected light – or “echoes” as Prof Raskar calls them – from the scene. …

via BBC News – Laser camera takes photos around corners.

The images produce so far are very basic, but give them time…

Animal genomes riddled with the ‘skeletons’ of ancient viruses

Ewen Callaway – It’s time for animals – including humans – to admit that the bacteria, viruses and other microbes have won. Our bodies are home to many times more bacterial cells than animal cells and countless trillions of viruses. Ancient retroviruses make up a good size chunk of our genome. Now, scientists have discovered that most any virus can set up shop in an animal’s genomes and lay dormant for millions of years.

A scan of 44 mammal genomes, plus those of several mosquito and tick vectors and two birds that could serve as reservoirs, has uncovered DNA sequences that can be traced to 10 different families of viruses, including some related to viruses that cause hepatitis B, Ebola, rabies and dengue. Most of the viral sequences are riddled with enough mutations to be considered junk, but some appear to encoding working genes co-opted by their host. The work is published online today in the journal PLoS Genetics.

It’s not obvious how all these viruses got into animal genomes. The researchers, Aris Katzourakis at the University of Oxford, UK, and Robert Gifford at Rockefeller University in New York, searched specifically for viruses that aren’t retroviruses, which are obligated to copy their DNA into hosts. Many but not all of the viruses infect their hosts persistently or replicate inside of the nucleus, however, offering ample opportunity to take up residence in the genomes of germ cells.

The work is just a first look at all the non-retroviruses in the animal genome, but Katzourakis and Gifford turned up a few interesting findings. For instance, their scan identified sequences from filoviruses, the family Ebola belongs to, in the genomes of bats, tarsiers, several rodents, opossums and even wallabies. This hints that filoviruses have a much wider host range than the primate and bat species which these viruses are known to infect. …

via The Great Beyond: Animal genomes riddled with the ‘skeletons’ of ancient viruses.

Trained bacteria convert bio-wastes into plastic

… Researcher Jean-Paul Meijnen has ‘trained’ bacteria to convert all the main sugars in vegetable, fruit and garden waste efficiently into high-quality environmentally friendly products such as bioplastics. He will be defending his doctoral thesis on this topic, which was carried out in the context of the NWO B-Basic programme, at TU Delft on Monday 22 November 2010.

 

There is considerable interest in bioplastics nowadays. The technical problems associated with turning potato peel into sunglasses, or cane sugar into car bumpers, have already been solved. The current methods, however, are not very efficient: only a small percentage of the sugars can be converted into valuable products. By adapting the eating pattern of bacteria and subsequently training them, Meijnen has succeeded in converting sugars in processable materials, so that no bio-waste is wasted. …

Meijnen succeeded in modifying a strain of Pseudomonas putida S12 that had previously been modified to produce para-hydroxybenzoate (pHB), a member of the class of chemicals known as parabens that are widely used as preservatives in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. Meijnen tested the ability of these bacteria to produce pHB, a biochemical substance, from xylose and from other sources such as glucose and glycerol. …

via TU Delft – Trained bacteria convert bio-wastes into plastic.