Solar flares on dwarf stars could threaten alien life

… Red dwarf stars have surprisingly frequent flare-ups, scientists say, and these solar flares’ effects could be deadly to life on nearby planets.

The largest flares unleash streams of particles that could play havoc with planets’ atmospheres – or inhabitants.

A study of 200,000 red dwarfs – the most common type of star in our galaxy – turned up many flares of all sizes.

Scientists at the American Astronomical Society meeting said that could pose a risk to any life orbiting dwarfs.

The result is particularly relevant given the recent discovery that the Universe hosts three times as many red dwarf stars than previously thought.

So while the number of exoplanets is rising rapidly, with an implicit hope to find planets with conditions suitable for life, many questions remain about the very long-term habitability that the Earth has enjoyed. …

“Such powerful flares bode ill for any possible biology, life, on any planet that happens to be close to that flaring star.” …

“It’s extraordinary to think that the most numerous stars, the smallest ones in our galaxy, pose this threat to life.”

via BBC News – Solar flares on dwarf stars could threaten alien life.

Stanford researcher uses living cells to create ‘biotic’ video games

Video game designers are always striving to make games more lifelike, but they’ll have a hard time topping what Stanford researcher Ingmar Riedel-Kruse is up to. He’s introducing life itself into games.

Riedel-Kruse and his lab group have developed the first video games in which a player’s actions influence the behavior of living microorganisms in real time – while the game is being played.

These “biotic games” involve a variety of basic biological processes and some simple single-celled organisms (such as paramecia) in combination with biotechnology.

The goal is for players to have fun interacting with biological processes, without dealing with the rigor of conducting a formal experiment, said Riedel-Kruse, an assistant professor of bioengineering.

“We hope that by playing games involving biology of a scale too small to see with the naked eye, people will realize how amazing these processes are and they’ll get curious and want to know more,” he said.

“The applications we can envision so far are on the one hand educational, for people to learn about biology, but we are also thinking perhaps we could have people running real experiments as they play these games. …

“We tried to mimic some classic video games,” he said. For example, one game in which players guide paramecia to “gobble up” little balls, a la PacMan, was christened PAC-mecium. Then there is Biotic Pinball, POND PONG and Ciliaball. The latter game is named for the tiny hairs, called cilia, that paramecia use in a flipper-like fashion to swim around – and in the game enables kicking a virtual soccer ball.

The basic design of the games involving paramecia – the single-celled organisms used in countless biology experiments from grade school classes to university research labs – consists of a small fluid chamber within which the paramecia can roam freely. A camera sends live images to a video screen, with the “game board” superimposed on the image of the paramecia. A microprocessor tracks the movements of the paramecia and keeps score. …

via Stanford researcher uses living cells to create ‘biotic’ video games (w/ Video).

Bullet-proof custard: British soldiers could be wearing revolutionary new liquid body armour within two years

Ian Drury – A revolutionary new form of body armour nicknamed ‘bullet-proof custard’ has been invented to help save British troops’ lives.

Scientists have created a top-secret substance that absorbs the force of a shot or shrapnel by thickening and hardening instantly on impact.

Defence chiefs believe bulletproof jackets made from the goo will be lighter, more flexible and offer greater protection for soldiers on the battlefield.

The hi-tech ‘liquid armour’ was showcased at a defence conference in London today at which companies displayed an array of James Bond-style gadgets and gizmos.

Researchers have inserted the futuristic formula – called a ‘shear thickening fluid’ – between sheets of traditional Kevlar to produce the ‘super armour’.

The liquid has been compared to custard because the molecules lock together and ‘thicken’ in the same way as the dessert sauce reacts to being stirred when heated.

Experts say this will create armour that is about half as heavy as standard bullet-proof vests which allows greater manoeuvrability for troops.

Soldiers currently struggle with bulky body armour made up of ceramic plates and layered Kevlar, which is five times stronger than steel but can restrict movement.

It is also uncomfortable in hot war zones like Afghanistan, where temperatures soar in the summer to 50C. …

via Bullet-proof custard: British soldiers could be wearing revolutionary new liquid body armour within two years | Mail Online.

Airborne Prions Make for 100 Percent Lethal Whiff

When sprayed into the air, prions that cause mad cow and other neurodegenerative diseases may be in one of their most lethal forms.

A new study has revealed one short exposure to sprayed prions can be 100 percent lethal in mice. While the discovery doesn’t present any foreseeable public health threat, it comes as a surprise to scientists who study prion-based diseases and calls existing safety rules for laboratories and slaughterhouses into question.

“Common knowledge is that prions aren’t airborne, and can’t cause infection that way,” said neuropathologist Adriano Aguzzi of University Hospital Zurich, co-author of a study appearing today in PLoS Pathogens. “We were totally surprised and also a bit frightened at how efficient [airborne infections] were.”

Most infectious diseases are spread by bacteria or viruses, which use genes to copy themselves. But prions are a third form of disease discovered in 1982, and they’re made only of misfolded proteins. The molecules resemble regular proteins found in the brain cells and other nervous tissues, but their abnormal shape converts healthy proteins into long fibrils that ultimately kill cells.

Like a chain reaction, fibrils create more prions until the host dies from destroyed brain and nervous tissue. All prion infections are 100 percent fatal, and symptoms appear suddenly months or years after infection.

“Prions are like an enemy within, the alien in some B-movie that transforms people to an evil version,” said prion biologist Edward Hoover of Colorado State University, who was not involved in the study. “The immune system doesn’t see them coming.”

Five known human prion diseases exist, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, as well as six non-human diseases, including scrapie, chronic wasting disease and mad cow disease (which sometimes jumps to humans through contaminated meat)….

“My real hope in studying prions is apply what I learn to much more common but similar diseases, such as Alzheimer’s,” Aguzzi said. “Knowing why aggregated proteins damage neurons will allow us to understand how they affect brain function.”

via Airborne Prions Make for 100 Percent Lethal Whiff | Wired Science | Wired.com.

Nasty Little Predator From Dinosaur Dawn Found

Ker Than – Deadly and dog-size, the dinosaur Eodromaeus (shown in reconstruction) lived in Argentina 230 million years ago, a new study says. The new species is providing fresh insight into the era before dinosaurs overtook other reptiles and ruled the world, a new fossil study says. (Watch video.)

“This is the most complete picture we have of what a predatory dinosaur lineage – what it looked like at the very beginning,” said study co-author Paul Sereno. “It was small but nasty—this animal was fast.”

One of the earliest known dinosaurs, Eodromaeus was only about 4 feet (1.3 meters) long and would have barely reached the knees of an adult human. But this unassuming little dinosaur gave rise to the theropods, including Tyrannosaurus rex and the “terrible claw,” Deinonychus, the new study suggests.

Like those fearsome descendants, Eodromaeus had a long rigid tail, a unique pelvis shape, and air sacs in its neck bones that may have been related to breathing—and which add to evidence that theropod dinosaurs eventually evolved into today’s birds.

via National Geographic | Pictures: “Nasty” Little Predator From Dinosaur Dawn Found.

NASA satellites find high-energy surprises in ‘constant’ Crab Nebula

This view of the Crab Nebula in visible light comes from the Hubble Space Telescope and spans 12 light-years. The supernova remnant, located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus, is among the best-studied objects in the sky. (Credit: NASA/ESA/ASU/J. Hester)

The combined data from several NASA satellites has astonished astronomers by revealing unexpected changes in X-ray emission from the Crab Nebula, once thought to be the steadiest high-energy source in the sky.

“For 40 years, most astronomers regarded the Crab as a standard candle,” said Colleen Wilson-Hodge, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., who presented the findings Jan. 12, 2011 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. “Now, for the first time, we’re clearly seeing how much our candle flickers.”

The Crab Nebula is the wreckage of an exploded star whose light reached Earth in 1054. It is one of the most studied objects in the sky. At the heart of an expanding gas cloud lies what’s left of the original star’s core, a superdense neutron star that spins 30 times a second. All of the Crab’s high-energy emissions are thought to be the result of physical processes that tap into this rapid spin.

For decades, astronomers have regarded the Crab’s X-ray emissions as so stable that they’ve used it to calibrate space-borne instruments. They also customarily describe the emissions of other high-energy sources in “millicrabs,” a unit derived from the nebula’s output.

“The Crab Nebula is a cornerstone of high-energy astrophysics,” said team member Mike Cherry at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La. (LSU), “and this study shows us that our foundation is slightly askew.” The story unfolded when Cherry and Gary Case, also at LSU, first noticed the Crab’s dimming in observations by the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

via Science Daily | NASA satellites find high-energy surprises in ‘constant’ Crab Nebula.

Thunderstorms Make Antimatter

Thunderstorms produce beams of antimatter. That’s the surprising finding reported here yesterday at the 217th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Scientists already knew about flashes of high-energy gamma-rays from Earth, which are associated with large thunderstorms. Every day, about 500 of these terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) are produced worldwide by accelerated electrons interacting with air molecules. Now, astrophysicists working with NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found that some of the high-energy gamma-ray photons from TGFs are converted into pairs of electrons and positrons, the positively charged antiparticles of electrons. Every now and then, the orbiting space telescope is hit by some of these antimatter particles, which rush through Earth’s magnetic field. When the positrons collide with electrons in the atoms that make up the spacecraft, they annihilate each other, producing gamma-ray photons with a telltale energy in the process. The role of lightning in the production of gamma rays and antimatter is still unclear, but the new discovery might help physicists better understand the mysterious TGF’s.

via ScienceShot: Thunderstorms Make Antimatter – ScienceNOW.