B24-ScienceB.txt

Graham L. Kendall
Modified 12/23/2007
Email grahamkendall74135@yahoo.com
I am found on IRC Efnet/Undernet/Dalnet as glk
Files found at http://www.grahamkendall.net/
All are free to use any of this material without limit.
*******************************************************************************
===
Scientistswere hot on the trail this year of a mysterious "force" called
darkenergy that has been expanding the universe at an increasing pace and was
onlydiscovered about 10 years ago.
Though,admittedly, scientists say they are more than a few years away from
solving thepuzzler of what dark energy is, a new method this year confirmed
its existence,suggesting the force is stiflingthe growth of galaxies in the
universe. Basically, in an expanding universedominated by dark energy,
galaxies fly away from one another rather than mingleand merge.
Theseresults also suggest dark energy takes the form of what Einstein called
thecosmological constant  a term in Einstein's theory of general relativity
thatrepresents the possibility of empty space having a density and pressure
associated with it.
==
 Blackhole antics
Black holesare so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape their
gravitationalgrips. Though invisible, astronomers have inferred the presence
of the darkbehemoths from their effects on nearby objects. And this year, it
seems, allthe crazies came out of their cosmic closets.
Take thefastest spinning black hole, found to whirl around at speeds
approaching thespeed of light.
And when itcomes to obesity, oneblack hole could've gobbled up 18 billion
suns. This giant would dwarf thesmallest black hole found this year, weighing
in at about 3.8 times the mass ofour sun and spanning just 15 miles (24 km) in
diameter.
Researchersalso found this year that some supermassive black holes, which
reside at thecenters of many or all galaxies, spew out giant bubbles from the
tips of theirjets. (As material falls into the gravitational clutches of a
black hole, theenergy can be spit out as jets of radiation and high-speed
particles.) Thebubbles ultimately pop, spilling their gaseous guts. Turns out,
the hot gaskeeps the black hole and its galaxy from ballooning to mega sizes.
Black holescan also take the form of "masked fugitive." Computer
simulationsrevealed that when two black holes merge, the energy produced can
kick thenewly merged black hole clear out of its galaxy.
Also, forthe first time this year, scientists detected such arogue black hole
racing along at 5,900,000 mph (2,650 kilometers persecond).
==
The continents are made of rock higher in silicon dioxide (SiO2, or silica)
than basalt, from which it forms. Most basalt is about 50 percent silica, but
continental crusts are about 60 percent silica, and granite has up to
75 percent. Continental rock is formed from magma as relatively silica-poor
compounds crystallize out, leaving silica-rich material that solidifies later. 
==
Many insects during metamorphosis start their development with a body
plan that is characteristic of worms. Similarly, many amphibians start
their individual development with a body structure and behavior that
is characteristic of the class of fishes (they lack legs, have gills,
tail, tiny teeth, two-chambered heart, etc.) before developing their
characteristic amphibian body. Metamorphosis tells us that not only
different morphological traits but even widely different bodies of
various classes can be built with the same genes.
In cases of transgenerational developmental plasticity as well, in
response to specific environmental stimuli, animals induce in the
offspring specific adaptive changes that persist for a varying number
of generations, involving no changes in genes.

The occurrence of these sudden discrete changes in morphology,
inherited or not, is thought-provoking. If invertebrate/vertebrate
species are in possession of mechanisms for inducing adaptive
morphological changes, without changes in genes, might these
mechanisms have been used in the course of their evolution?

A first answer might be: Why not?

However, this would be an inference not a fact. Such facts, if
existing at all, will come from the study of particular evolutionary
changes.

I chose to consider here the evolution of the caste developmental
polymorphism in social insects where individuals of the same brood
(implying the same genotype) exhibit distinct morphologies and
behaviors.

Ants of the genus Pheidole have four castes: the queen, major workers,
minor workers and soldiers. Pheidole megacephala has a winged queen
caste, two wingless (major and minor) worker castes and one wingless
soldier caste. The final instar larvae of presumptive queens and of
major workers develop normal wing discs but only 71% of minor larvae
develop barely detectable wing disks. Late during the prepupal stage,
only queens larvae develop intercellular structures while wing disks
of major workers start degenerating as a result of programmed cell
death (PCD) (Sameshima, S-Y. et al. 2004. Wing disc development during
caste differentiation in the ant Pheidole megacephala (Hymenoptera:
Formicidae). Evolution & Development 6: 336-341).

Experimental evidence from P. megacephala and P. carinata suggests
that a neurally determined early pulse of juvenile hormone (JH) level
induces formation of incipient mesothoracic wing disks in both the
queen and worker lines and a second pulse is responsible for their
growth in major workers and absence of growth in minor workers
(Sameshima et al., 2004. Ibidem; Wheeler, D. and Nijhout, H.F. 1983.
Soldier determination in Pheidole bicarinata: effect of methoprene on
caste and size within caste. Journal of Insect Physiology 29:
847-854). All embryos develop wing disks which later degenerate
during the prepupal stage in all but the presumptive queen, by
evagination in major workers, and by programmed cell death in minor
workers.

In some cases the behavior of the colony has a great role in
determining the female individual that becomes queen. For example, at
the onset of the prepupal stage in females of the Japanese ponerine
ants of various Diacamma species, forewing buds of larvae develop
into a pair of glandular gemmae, secreting pheromones, while the
hindwing buds undergo programmed cell death (Gotoh, A. et al. 2005.
Apoptotic wing degeneration.Development, Genes and Evolution 215:
69-77). Workers of the colony then clip off or mutilate gemmae from
all but one female, which will develop into the sole reproduction-
capable queen in the colony (Miura, T. 2005. Developmental regulation
of caste-specific characters in social-insect polyphenism. Evolution &
Development 7: 122-129).

The evolutionary lability of the different points of interruption of
wing development is in strong contrast with the conservation of the
gene regulatory networks for evolutionarily long periods of time (325
million years according to Abouheif, E. and Wray, G.A. 2002. Evolution
of the Gene Network Underlying Wing Polypehenism in Ants. Science 297:
249-252) in these insects.

What made evolution of the wingless castes of major and minor workers
is a programmed cell death in major workers and a drop in the level of
juvenile hormone (JH) in minor workers.

The evidence presented above shows that the winged-wingless diphenism
in Pheidole megacephala is not related to any genotypic differences
between the presumptive queen, major workers, minor workers, and
soldiers. Development into each of the above castes is determined by
two epigenetic factors: the number of JH pulses and the occurrence/
absence programmed cell death of the wing disks.

It is well known that the secretion of juvenile hormone is determined
by signals coming from the central nervous system in the form of
neurohormones (allatotropins) and its inhibition by antagonist
neurohormones (allatostatins), but also by neurogenic signals coming
to corpora allata via nervi corporis allati I and nervi corporis
allati II originating from the suboesophageal ganglion.

The programmed cell death in insects is also under neural control. The
generalized signal cascade for programmed cell death in insects starts
in the brain with the synthesis of the neurohormone PTTH in response
to internal signals
PTTH--> Ecdysone --> a number of genes --> Effector caspases --->
Apoptosis

Compare this with the signal cascade for apoptotic remodeling of the
intestine in X. laevis:
Catecholamines in the nonhypothalamic brain--> hypothalamic TRH
(thyrotropin releasing homone)--> pituitary TSH (thyroid stimulating
hormone)--> Thyroid hormone -->MMPs (matrix metalloproteinases) -->
Integrins -->signals for apoptotic gene expression --> Apoptotic
remodeling of the intestine).


==
Stars of intermediate mass, around one to eight times the heft of the sun,
terminate their life as an Earth-sized white dwarfs after the exhaustion of
their nuclear fuel. During the transition from a nuclear-burning star to the
white dwarf stage, a star becomes very hot. 
==
Black hole found in Milky 
There is a giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy, a study has confirmed.
German astronomers tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the centre of the
Milky Way, using the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
The black hole is four million times heavier than our Sun, according to the
paper in The Astrophysical Journal.
Black holes are objects whose gravity is so great that nothing - including
light - can escape them.
According to Dr Robert Massy, of the Royal Astronomical Society, the results
suggest that galaxies form around giant black holes in the way that a pearl
forms around grit.
'The black pearl'
Dr Massy said: "Although we think of black holes as somehow threatening, in
the sense that if you get too close to one you are in trouble, they may have
had a role in helping galaxies to form - not just our own, but all galaxies.
"They had a role in bringing matter together and if you had a high enough
density of matter then you have the conditions in which stars could form.
"Thus the first generation of stars and galaxies could have come into
existence".
The researchers from the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in
Germany said the black hole was 27,000 light years, or 158 thousand, million,
million miles from the Earth.
"Undoubtedly the most spectacular aspect of our 16-year study, is that it has
delivered what is now considered to be the best empirical evidence that
super-massive black holes do really exist," said Professor Reinhard Genzel,
head of the research team.
"The stellar orbits in the galactic centre show that the central mass
concentration of four million solar masses must be a black hole, beyond any
reasonable doubt."
==
Only about 175 meteor impact craters are known worldwide.
==
Science routinely deals with processes that a) take millions or billions 
of years to occur; b) are going to occur in the far future, long after 
you and I are dead.
Examples include:  Continental drift; the formation of the planets; the 
formation of stars; the evolution of stars from dwarf stars (like our 
own Sun) into red giant stars; the production of heavy elements from the 
explosions of supernovae; the origin of the basic subatomic particles 
and forces of nature from the Big Bang tens of billions of years ago, etc.
==
The island of Antikythera lies 18 miles north of Crete, where the
Aegean Sea meets the Mediterranean. Currents there can make shipping
treacherous and one ship bound for ancient Rome never made it.
The ship that sank there was a giant cargo vessel measuring nearly 500
feet long. It came to rest about 200 feet below the surface, where it
stayed for more than 2,000 years until divers looking for sponges
discovered the wreck a little more than a century ago.
of things, the ship seemed to be carrying luxury items, probably made in
various Greek islands and bound for wealthy patrons in the growing Roman
Empire. The statues were retrieved, along with a lot of other unimportant
stuff, and stored.
Nine months later, an enterprising archaeologist cleared off a layer of
organic material from one of the pieces of junk and found that it looked
like a gearwheel. It had inscriptions in Greek characters and seemed to
have something to do with astronomy.
That piece of junk went on to become the most celebrated find from the
shipwreck; it is displayed at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
Research has shown that the wheel was part of a device so sophisticated
that its complexity would not be matched for a thousand years it was
also the world's first known analog computer.
==
Scientists recently (2005) petrified wood in one week! This is actually
true but it was done in temperatures of 1400C.
==
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~eric/     space physics
==
In addition to the most common XX and XY chromosomal sexes, there are
quite a few other possible combinations such as Turner syndrome (XO),
Triple X syndrome (XXX), Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), XYY syndrome
(XYY), XX male, Swyer syndrome (XY female), and there are many other
individuals who do not follow the typical patterns (such as individuals with
four or even more sex chromosomes) .
==
The Indian plate completed its cruise across the Indian Ocean to collide with
Asia starting 40 to 50 million years ago, raising the Himalayas & Tibetan
Plateau, which led to some important climatic & atmospheric circulation 
changes. About eight million years ago, the Rift Valley opened East Africa.
===
Monster Black Hole Busts Theory
A stellar black hole much more massive than theory predicts is possible has
astronomers puzzled.
Stellar black holes form when stars with masses around 20 times that of the
sun collapse under the weight of their own gravity at the ends of their lives.
Most stellar black holes weigh in at around 10 solar masses when the smoke
blows away, and computer models of star evolution have difficulty producing
black holes more massive than this.
The newly weighed black hole is 16 solar masses. It orbits a companion star in
the spiral galaxy Messier 33, located 2.7 million light-years from Earth.
Together they make up the system known as M33 X-7.
"We're having trouble using standard theories to explain this system because
it is so massive," study team member Jerome Orosz of the University of
California, San Diego, told SPACE.com.
The black hole in M33 X-7 is also the most distant stellar black hole ever
observed. The findings, detailed in the Oct. 17 issue of the journal Nature,
could help improve formation models of "binary" systems containing a black
hole and a star. It could also help explain one of the brightest star
explosions ever observed.
Black hole eclipse
Black holes can't be seen, because all matter and light that enters them is
trapped. So black holes are detected by noting their gravitational effects on
nearby stars or on material that swirls around them.
The companion star of M33 X-7 passes directly in front of the black hole as
seen from Earth once every three days, completely eclipsing its X-ray
emissions. It is the only known binary system in which this occurs, and it was
this unusual arrangement that allowed astronomers to calculate the pair's
masses very precisely.
The tight orbits of the black hole and star suggests the system underwent a
violent stage of star evolution called the common-envelope phase, in which a
dying star swells so much it sucks the companion inside its gas envelope.
This results in either a merger between the two stars or the formation of a
tight binary in which one star is stripped of its outer layers. The team
thinks the latter scenario happened in the case of M33 X-7, and that the
stripped star explodes as a supernova before imploding to form a black hole.
However, something unusual must have happened to M33 X-7 during this phase to
create such a massive black hole. "The black hole must have lost a large
amount of mass for the two objects to be so close," Tomasz Bulik, an
astronomer at the University of Warsaw in Poland, writes in related Nature
article. "But on the other hand, it must have retained enough mass to form
such a heavy black hole."
The team estimates the black hole's progenitor must have shed gas at a rate
about 10 times less than models predicted before it exploded.
"[M33 X-7] might thus provide both the upper and lower limits on the amount of
mass loss and orbital tightening that can occur in the common envelope," added
Bulik, who was not involved in the study.
Twin black holes
If other massive stars also lose very little material during their last
stages, it could explain the incredibly luminosity of 2006gy, one of the
brightest supernovas ever observed, the researchers say.
One day, the lone star in M33 X-7 will also disappear, notes study team member
Jeffrey McClintock of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in
Cambridge, Mass. "This is a huge star that is partnered with a huge black
hole," McClintock said. "Eventually, the companion will also go supernova and
then we'll have a pair of black holes."
While 16 solar masses is hefty for a stellar black hole, it is miniscule
compared with the black holes thought to lie in the heart of many large
galaxies. Such "supermassive" black holes have masses millions to billions
times that of our sun, but they are thought to form by mechanisms different
from the stellar variety
==
Analysis of the radio tracking data from the Pioneer 10/11 spacecraft has
consistently indicated the presence of an anomalous small Doppler frequency
drift. The drift can be interpreted as being due to a constant acceleration of
a_P= (8.74 +/ 1.33) x 10^{8} cm/s^2 directed towards the Sun. Although it is
suspected that there is a systematic origin to the effect, none has been found.
The nature of this anomaly has become of growing interest in the fields of
relativistic cosmology, astro and gravitational physics as well as in the
areas of spacecraft design and highprecision navigation.
==
The first generation of stars were massive, fast-burning stars that produced
elements heavier than hydrogen, helium & lithium. When they exploded in
supernovae, they seeded surrounding areas with these heavier elements, which
got incorporated into the next generation of stars, some of which were
smaller, like this one. The smallest, red dwarfs are cooler and dimmer than
the sun. The cooler a star the redder it is, just as a dying ember fades from
yellow-orange to cherry-red. They burn for immense periods, so could
last about as long as the universe. Red dwarfs stay active (undergoing
hydrogen fusion) so long because they're so small, ranging between a third to
half the sun's mass, & shine only 1/100 to 1/1,000,000 as brightly. Proxima
Centauri, Earth's closest extrasolar star, is a red dwarf one fifth the
size of the sun. If it were to trade places with the sun, it would shine on
Earth only a tenth as much as the sun currently does on Pluto.
Red dwarfs, because of their small size, undergo fusion much less quickly than
a solar mass star. Therefore, they use up their supply of hydrogen much
less quickly than a main sequence star, so can live for more than 100 trillion
years. The sun is a third-generation star, similarly seeded by a nearby
supernova nearly five billion years ago. It's a yellow dwarf about half way
through its main sequence, so will go red giant in about another 4.5
billion years, engulfing earth unless its previously weakened gravity has
allowed our planet & Venus to escape to a safely wider orbit. Mercury of
course is doomed. Nevertheless, earth's biosphere (if it still exists,
which is doubtful*) will be destroyed as the sun gets brighter while its
hydrogen supply becomes depleted. The extra solar energy will cause the oceans
to evaporate to space, causing our atmosphere to become temporarily similar to
that of Venus, before its atmosphere also gets driven off into space. Venus
will become a burnt out planet; its atmosphere having long been driven off,
and its rock will melt. Life has a better chance of virtually perpetual
existence on planets that might orbit close to long-lasting, effectively
eternal red dwarves. Earth will probably lose its oceans within another
billion years from tectonic plate subduction, coming to resemble Mars, which
due to its small size has evolved more rapidly toward its dry, grim fate than
has earth.
===
Layer by layer the rock grew. For 200,000 years it felt temperatures swing
from high to low and then back again. It watched the sea level rise and fall.
The world hurried by, two ice ages passed, Neanderthals came and went,
civilisations developed and crumbled. All the while, the stalagmite sat in its
quiet cave watching the sea roll in and out. Then, one day, it met a violent
end as Fabrizio Antonioli hacked it from the cave floor.
Antonioli took it back to his lab at the Italian Institute for Alternative
Energy in Rome and sliced it in half down its length. He and his collaborator,
Edouard Bard of the University of Aix-Marseille III in southern France, took a
look inside. They were amazed at what they saw. It contained a perfect record
of the long-term changes in sea level dating back 200,000 yearsenough to cover
the two most recent ice ages.
The researchers now believe this stalagmiteand others like itcould be the
Rosetta stone for climate change. Earth has swung in and out of ice ages for
at least the past two million years, and alongside these variations the oceans
have gone up and down. Some scientists predict that sea levels may rise by 2
metres or more in the next few hundred years, inundating low-lying land and
cities occupied by hundreds of millions of people (New Scientist, 30 October
1999, p 5). But our only real chance of knowing what dangers we face in the
future is to find out what has happened in the past, and that's where the
stalagmite comes in.
Antonioli's discovery was an enormous piece of good luck. Aside from his job
studying how the Earth's past climate is reflected in its geology, he is also
a keen scuba diver. In 1991 he was diving near a small island called
Argentarola, just off the west coast of Italy about 100 kilometres north of
Rome. He chanced upon an uncharted labyrinth of caves nearly 30 metres below
the surface.
As soon as he saw a host of knobbly grey stalagmites on the cave floor, he
knew it must once have been above sea level. That's because stalagmites form
as drips of water strike the floor of a cave and precipitate tiny amounts of
dissolved calcite. Antonioli thought the rocks might have something to say
about past sea levels, but didn't have the means to find out what.
Eight years later, though, he mentioned the cave to Bard, who is one of the
world's experts in dating rocks. Bard was convinced he could decipher the
rocks' secrets, so they set out to collect a sample.
Cutting off a stalagmite and carrying it such a long way up to the surface is
no easy matter. Antonioli went back to the cave equipped with a hacksaw and
set to work. "The biggest problem I had is that the cave walls are covered in
a blanket of thick mud," he says. "After one minute of sawing the base of the
stalagmite I had stirred up so much mud that I couldn't even see my hand in
front of my face." But he persevered, and eventually managed to detach a
30-centimetre long stalagmite and haul it to the surface.
"The first step was to cut the stalagmite in half lengthways so that we could
see its internal structure," said Bard. When they did, they were thrilled by
what it revealed: yellow-brown rock layers alternating with white deposits.
"It told us the stalagmite had observed the sea going up and down," Bard says.
In the past the sea must have fallen far enough to expose the stalagmite to
fresh air on more than one occasion. During these periods it collected the
yellowish layers as calcite-laden water dripped from the roof of the cave.
Then, when the sea level rose again, marine worms colonised the surface and
left the white deposit. "It is at the perfect altitude to record the sea as it
yo-yos up and down over the ice ages," says Antonioli.
The pair realised that if they could accurately date the changes between the
white marine deposit and the yellowish rock layers, they would have an
excellent record of when the sea rose and fell. And it would be far more
precise than other methods, which are based on corals and tiny organisms
called foraminifers. These are often unreliable, not least because the seabed
rises and falls due to movements of the tectonic plates it rests on (see
"Maritime monuments"). "This section of the Italian coast has been very stable
tectonically for at least the last 200 to 300 thousand years," says Antonioli.
They dated the yellowish rock layers using a technique Bard has developed. It
involves measuring minute amounts of the isotopes of uranium and thorium
trapped in the rock. Water always contains trace amounts of uranium, a highly
soluble element. Whenever rock precipitates out of wateras happens when a
stalagmite formsit retains a small amount of uranium-238. This uranium isotope
radioactively decays over time, first into uranium-234, and then into
thorium-230, which is very insoluble and stays put in the rock. As time goes
by, increasing amounts of thorium become trapped in the mineral lattice. The
older the rock, the greater the ratio of thorium-230 to uranium-238. "We know
the half-life of each isotope so this allows us to calculate the time elapsed
since the rock was formed," Bard says. "By measuring the uranium and thorium
isotopes we can date a rock very accurately."
The researchers dated the stalagmite along its whole length and found that it
had started growing a staggering 206,000 years ago. By dating the boundaries
between white deposits and yellowy rock they could identify two periods when
the sea level had reached a "highstand", or maximum, and times in between when
it had fallen to a "lowstand" (see Graphic, p 41). They found that the first
white marine layer began growing 202,000 years ago and stopped 12,000 years
later. This tells us the sea level was at least high enough to submerge the
stalagmite for that period. After that, an ice age began, reducing the sea
level and exposing the rock to further deposits from water dripping off the
cave's ceiling. Then, 145,000 years ago, the ice melted, the sea levels rose,
and the rock has remained submerged. Until, that is, Antonioli brought it to
the surface.
Antonioli and Bard believe their estimates are accurate to around 2000 years,
and their work is to be published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (vol
196, p 135). An estimate for the same highstand made by looking at corals and
foraminifers is much more uncertain. Errors are about 4000 years either way
and results seem to vary wildly. Gideon Henderson, a geochemist at Oxford
University, thinks the stalagmite is a great find, since researchers have long
sought something that is tectonically stable and can be dated so accurately.
It's particularly welcome because the dates it covers are important ones for
understanding climate changeand ones that we previously had little information
about. "These results provide robust constraints on the timing of sea level
change in a crucial period," Henderson says.
Having established the rock as an accurate record of sea levels Bard and
Antonioli are now investigating whether it says anything about why the ice
ages that cause the fluctuations come and go.
The root cause of this cycle is thought to be the natural variation in the
shape and attitude of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Over many thousands of
years, the orbit changes from an almost circular shape to more of an oval, and
then back again. The tilt of the Earth's axis also varies over time, and these
two effects cause periodic variations in the distribution of heat that the
Earth receives from the Sun.
In the 1920s a Serbian geophysicist called Milutin Milankovitch suggested that
the Earth dips in and out of ice ages depending on where we are in the orbital
cycle. Since then astronomers have calculated extremely precisely how the
Earth's orbit has changed over the past million years, providing accurate
dates of when we would expect the Earth to be in glacial and interglacial
stages. The periodic variations are called Milankovitch cycles in honour of
his idea.
When Bard and Antonioli checked their dates from the stalagmite with the dates
predicted by the Milankovitch cycles, they found precise agreement for a period
of high sea level just before the penultimate ice age. This lasted from 202,000
years ago until 190,000 years ago when the penultimate glaciation started. Both
the orbital data and the stalagmite indicate that the sea was at a similar
height to today around 195,000 years ago. "No coral or foram has ever given
such good agreement and this gives us real confidence in the stalagmite," Bard
says.
But that doesn't mean the stalagmiteor the Milankovitch cyclehas all the
answers. The relationship between climate change and the Milankovitch cycle is
not straightforward because there are actually three subtle, superimposed
cycles. And their effects are complicated by feedback mechanisms that kick in
here on Earth. The cycles could set off a chain of eventsmostly to do with
atmospheric carbon dioxide and ice-sheet reflectivitythat would skew the
apparent correlation between the cycles and the climate.
This complexity is borne out by correlating information from the stalagmite
with data from other sources. The date it gives for the rise in sea level
after the penultimate ice age140 000 years agois several thousand years before
the date predicted by the Milankovitch cycle. To find out why, Bard and
Antonioli compared the stalagmite dates for sea level shifts with records of
atmospheric carbon dioxide preserved in the ice cores removed from Vostok,
Antarctica. The sea level rise 140,000 years ago was associated with a jump in
atmospheric carbon dioxide of 100 parts per million. But the sea level rise
202,000 years ago had a tiny increase of around 20 parts per million. Although
both of the highstands indicated by the stalagmite were influenced by
Milankovitch cycles, the most recent one was accelerated by a carbon dioxide
feedback reaction, offsetting it from the astronomical cycles.Mark Maslin of
University College London thinks that stalagmite data could contribute a great
deal to the debate over the mechanisms behind the ice ages. "The precise dating
feeds into the discussion on whether ice-sheet feedback mechanisms or carbon
dioxide are important in stopping and starting ice ages," he says.\
Finding out could give us a much better idea of what the results of our carbon
emissions might be. However, the Argentarola stalagmite won't tell us enough
because it doesn't date back far enough to reveal the full variation in
Milankovitch cycles. To see the long-term pattern in the cycles you'd need
data going back 440,000 years.
==
Burning more brilliantly than a billion suns, the energy-packed star deaths
known as supernovas have lately enabled scientists to discover fundamental
properties of the universe.
Now physicists hope to uncover new cosmic secrets by recreating some supernova
features in the lab.
The REsonator SOLenoid with Upscale Transmission (RESOLUT) joins a small
number of facilities around the world able to recreate some of the emissions
and reactions of nature's biggest fireworks display.
"We're doing experiments that replicate, in a very controlled manner, the
explosions that take place in stars," said Ingo Wiedenhover, a physicist at
Florida State University, where RESOLUT is housed in a particle accelerator
lab.
Recently, RESOLUT was used to create specific types of radioactive nuclei
found in Type 1a supernovas.
Type 1a supernovas occur when a type of star known as a white dwarf reaches a
critical mass and ignites carbon fusion near its center. The nuclear explosion
spreads through the star in about one second and blasts the star's contents
apart. The thermonuclear inferno leaves no remains behind.
Because all Type 1a supernovas release virtually the same amount of energy,
the observed brightness of such an explosion varies only with its distance
from Earth, and so can be used as a gauge for measuring interstellar distances.
"It is what astrophysicists call a 'standard candle' for mapping out
distances," said Wiedenhover. "At the same time they look at the observed
redshift [which describes the supernova's velocity away from Earth] and
measure the expansion of the universe."
Recent observations of ultra-distant supernovas suggest that the universe is
expanding at an increased rate, which contradicts the steady-expansion
viewpoint of famed astronomer Edwin Hubble. A better understanding of the
reactions that take place within a supernova could help astrophysicists create
a more accurate map of the universe.
"Not all Type 1a supernovae have exactly the same brightness," said
Wiedenhover. "Our effort is to make a model of brightness differences. To do
this we need to understand the physics of the explosions."
The reactions themselves are not well-studied, mainly because the highly
unstable isotopes containing the radioactive nuclei are not found on Earth.
"Astrophysicists tell us they need more information on the nuclear physics of
these exotic isotopes," said Wiedenhover. "This type of physics has really
taken off in the last five years because of facilities like this one."
RESOLUT is not the only facility in North America using a beam of atomic
particles to isolate rare nuclei in a particle accelerator, but it is unique
in its flexibility. The TRIUMF Accelerator at the University of British
Columbia and the ORELA facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in
Tennessee have, Wiedenhover admits, "better beams, but we can select more
freely which isotopes to study."
Nor are these experiments the first to mimic the calamity of deep space. In
2001, physicists experimenting with a type of matter called Bose-Einstein
condensate managed to create a miniature explosion that in some ways resembled
a supernova.
==
Stars are born out of icy cocoons of gas and dust that form a disk and clump
together into planets. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope was able to detect water
vapor as it smacks down on a disk circling a forming star called NGC 1333-IRAS
4B. This vapor started out as ice in the outer envelope, but vaporized upon
its arrival at the disk. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The stellar nursery called NGC 1333. Spitzer discovered a pre-planetary disk
of dust surrounding an embryonic star within this region, called NGC 1333-IRAS
4B, that is drenched with water vapor. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech /
Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
An artist's rendition of a fledgling solar system, like one located in the
young star system NGC 1333-IRAS 4B (buried in center of image). Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
This data shows water's "fingerprint" deep within the core of an embryonic
star system, called NGC 1333-IRAS 4B. The Spitzer Space Telescope gathered the
data from light in the distant star system. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech /
University of Rochester
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed a dusty star system being soaked
with a "steamy rain" of water vapor.
The water, pulled from gassy stellar leftovers into a dusty disk, provides
what astronomers think is the first direct look at how the life-giving liquid
makes its way into planets. The disk is the same sort of thing that forms
around many stars and, in the case of our sun, was the seedbed for planet
formation.
The amount of water in the newly observed disk is thought to equal more than
five times that of all oceans on Earth.
"For the first time, we are seeing water being delivered to the region where
planets will most likely form," said Dan Watson, an astrophysicist at the
University of Rochester in New York.
Watson and his colleagues' work will be detailed in the Aug. 30 issue of the
journal Nature.
Steamy surprise
Water is abundant throughout our universe, existing as ice or gas around stars
and in the space between stars, but rarely as a liquid.
"On Earth, water arrived in the form of icy asteroids and comets," Watson
said. "Water also exists mostly as ice in the dense clouds that form stars."
Astronomers found the watery evidence in a young star system called NGC
1333-IRAS 4B, located 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. The
system still grows inside a cooled cocoon of gas and dust, and Spitzer data
show that ice is falling from the cocoon into a warm disk of potential
planet-forming materials circling the star.
As the ice smacks into the dust, it vaporizes.
"Now we've seen that water, falling as ice from a young star system's envelope
to its disk, actually vaporizes on arrival," Watson said. "This water vapor
will later freeze again into asteroids and comets."
Dry search
Watson and his team's discovery comes after a detailed look at 30 similarly
young star systems with Spitzer's infrared spectrograph, an instrument that
reveals "fingerprints" of molecules like water. Of the 30 stellar embryos
investigated, only NGC 1333-IRAS 4B harbors significant amounts of water.
The dry search, however, may not be due to a lack of water in the other star
systems, the astronomers explained. NGC 1333-IRAS 4B is in just the right
orientation for Spitzer to view its dense core and, they added, such a watery
phase is short-lived and hard to catch.
"We have captured a unique phase of a young star's evolution, when the stuff
of life is moving dynamically into an environment where planets could form,"
said Michael Werner, a project scientist with the Spitzer mission at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The astronomers explained that water serves as an important tool for studying
the planet formation process, which is not very well understood.
"Water is easier to detect than other molecules, so we can use it as a probe
to look at more brand-new disks and study their physics and chemistry," said
Watson. "This will teach us a lot about how planets form."
==
Rare dead star found near Earth
Astronomers have spotted a space oddity in Earth's neighbourhood - a dead star
with some unusual characteristics.
The object, known as a neutron star, was studied using space telescopes and
ground-based observatories.
But this one, located in the constellation Ursa Minor, seems to lack some key
characteristics found in other neutron stars.
Details of the study, by a team of American and Canadian researchers, will
appear in the Astrophysical Journal.
If confirmed, it would be only the eighth known "isolated neutron star" -
meaning a neutron star that does not have an associated supernova remnant,
binary companion, or radio pulsations.
Either Calvera is an unusual example of a known type of neutron star, or it is
some new type of neutron star, the first of its kind
The object has been nicknamed Calvera, after the villain in the 1960s western
film The Magnificent Seven.
"The seven previously known isolated neutron stars are known collectively as
The Magnificent Seven within the community," said co-author Derek Fox, of
Pennsylvania State University, US.
"So the name Calvera is a bit of an inside joke on our part."
The authors estimate that the object is 250 to 1,000 light-years away. This
would make Calvera one of the closest neutron stars to Earth - and possibly
the closest.
Neutron stars are one of the possible end points for a star. They are created
when stars with masses greater than four to eight times those of our Sun
exhaust their nuclear fuel, and undergo a supernova explosion.
This explosion blows off the outer layers of the star, forming a supernova
remnant. The central region of the star collapses under gravity, causing
protons and electrons to combine to form neutrons - hence the name "neutron
star".
Data search
Robert Rutledge of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, originally noticed
the object.
He compared a catalogue of 18,000 X-ray sources from the German-American Rosat
satellite, which operated from 1990 to 1999, with catalogues of objects that
appeared in visible light, infrared light, and radio waves.
Professor Rutledge realized that a Rosat source, known as 1RXS
J141256.0+792204, did not appear to have a counterpart at any other wavelength.
The group aimed Nasa's Swift satellite at the object in August 2006. Swift's
X-ray telescope showed that the source was still there, and was emitting about
the same amount of X-ray energy as it had during the Rosat era.
The Swift observations enabled the group to pinpoint the object's position
more accurately, and showed that it was not associated with any known
astronomical object.
The researchers followed up with the 8.1m Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and
a short observation by Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Unusual properties
Exactly what type of neutron star Calvera is remains a mystery. According to
Dr Rutledge, there are no widely accepted alternative theories to explain
objects such as this that are bright in X-rays and faint in visible light.
"Either Calvera is an unusual example of a known type of neutron star, or it
is some new type of neutron star, the first of its kind," said Dr Rutledge.
Calvera's location high above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy is also a
mystery. The researchers believe the object is the remnant of a star that
lived in our galaxy's starry disc before exploding as a supernova.
In order to reach its current position, it had to wander some distance out of
the disc.
==
How Did the Universe Begin?
How did the universe come to be?
It is perhaps the greatest Great Mystery, and the root of all the others. The
rest of humanity's grand questions-How did life begin? What is consciousness?
What is dark matter, dark energy, gravity?-stem from it.
"All other mysteries lie downstream of this question," said Ann Druyan, the
author and widow of astronomer Carl Sagan. "It matters to me because I am
human and do not like not knowing."
Even as the theories attempting to solve this mystery grow increasingly
complex, scientists are haunted by the possibility that some of the most
critical links in their chain of reasoning is wrong.
Fundamental mysteries
According to the standard Big Bang model, the universe was born during a
period of inflation that began about 13.7 billion years ago. Like a rapidly
expanding balloon, it swelled from a size smaller than an electron to nearly
its current size within a tiny fraction of a second.
Initially, the universe was permeated only by energy. Some of this energy
congealed into particles, which assembled into light atoms like hydrogen and
helium. These atoms clumped first into galaxies, then stars, inside whose
fiery furnaces all the other elements were forged.
This is the generally agreed-upon picture of our universe's origins as
depicted by scientists. It is a powerful model that explains many of the
things scientists see when they look up in the sky, such as the remarkable
smoothness of space-time on large scales and the even distribution of galaxies
on opposite sides of the universe.
But there are things about it that make some scientists uneasy. For starters,
the idea that the universe underwent a period of rapid inflation early in its
history cannot be directly tested, and it relies on the existence of a
mysterious form of energy in the universe's beginning that has long
disappeared.
"Inflation is an extremely powerful theory, and yet we still have no idea what
caused inflation-or whether it is even the correct theory, although it works
extremely well," said Eric Agol, an astrophysicist at the University of
Washington.
For some scientists, inflation is a clunky addition to the Big Bang model, a
necessary complexity appended to make it fit with observations. Nor was it the
last such addition.
"We've also learned there has to be dark matter in the universe, and now dark
energy," said Paul Steinhardt, a theoretical physicist at Princeton
University. "So the way the model works today is you say, 'OK, you take some
Big Bang, you take some inflation, you tune that to have the following
properties, then you add a certain amount of dark matter and dark energy.'
These things aren't connected in a coherent theory."
"What's disturbing is when you have a theory and you make a new observation,
you have to add new components," Steinhardt added. "And they're not connected
... There's no reason to add them, and no particular reason to add them in
that particular amount, except the observations. The question is how much
you're explaining and how much you're engineering a model. And we don't' know
yet."
An ageless universe
In recent years, Steinhardt has been working with colleague Neil Turok at
Cambridge University on a radical alternative to the standard Big Bang model.
According to their idea, called the ekpyrotic universe theory, the universe
was born not just once, but multiple times in endless cycles of fiery death
and rebirth. Enormous sheet-like "branes," representing different parts of our
universe, collide about once every trillion years, triggering Big Bang-like
explosions that re-inject matter and energy into the universe.
The pair claims that their ekpyrotic, or "cyclic," theory would explain not
only inflation, but other cosmic mysteries as well, including dark matter,
dark energy and why the universe appears to be expanding at an
ever-accelerating clip.
While controversial, the ekpyrotic theory raises the possibility that the
universe is ageless and self-renewing. It is a prospect perhaps even more
awe-inspiring than a universe with a definite beginning and end, for it would
mean that the stars in the sky, even the oldest ones, are like short-lived
fireflies in the grand scheme of things.
"Does the universe resemble any of the physical models we make of it? I'd like
to hope that the effort society pours into scientific research is getting us
closer to fundamental truths, and not just a way to make useful tools," said
Caltech astronomer Richard Massey. "But I'm equally terrified of finding out
that everything I know is wrong, and secretly hope that I don't."

==
Most Massive Star Discovered
The most massive star known in the universe has been discovered and "weighed,"
astronomers announced today.
The star, part of a binary system, topped the scales at 114 times the mass of
the sun.
Though astronomers suspected that stars with masses up to 150 times the mass
of the sun must exist, this discovery marks the first time a star has broken
the 100-solar-mass barrier. The previous record holder was only a measly 83
solar masses.
The newly weighed star, known simply as A1, is the brightest hot star at the
heart of a giant, but dense, young star cluster called NGC 3603, which lies
20,000 light-years from Earth. The star's companion has a mass 84 times that
of the sun.
These massive stars were "weighed" by inspecting their orbits with the Very
Large Telescope and combining that data with eclipses observed by the Hubble
Space Telescope.
Stars have a mass limit of 150 solar masses because above that, the pressure
pushing outward from the star overwhelms the inward pull of gravity and causes
the star to become unstable.
In the early universe, however, stars with masses up to several hundred times
that of the sun are believed to have existed because the pressure in the stars
was not as high because the heavier elements had not yet been "cooked" by the
nuclear fusion taking place in the cores of stars.
==
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html
size of things
===
Record ice core gives fair forecast
As long as humans do not mess it up, the Earth's climate is set at fair for
the next 15,000 years. That is according to information extracted from the
oldest ice core ever drilled.
The Antarctic core is the first to reach as far back as a warm period with
characteristics similar to our own interglacial. So it should help make more
accurate predictions about when to expect the next deep freeze.
The ice core, drilled from a feature in central Antarctica called Dome C, is
around 3 kilometres long and 10 centimetres wide. Changes in the relative
proportions of hydrogen isotopes in the ice layers allow scientists to compile
a complete record of Antarctic temperatures going back 740,000 years.
The core shows the waxing and waning of eight ice ages. Most critically for
making predictions about our climate, it is the first core to record a period
known as Termination V, around 430,000 years ago.
Warming pattern
At this point, the world moved from a glacial period into a long, warm
interglacial, similar to this era. The previous longest ice-core record,
drilled by the Soviet Union at Vostok in Antarctica between 1980 and 1988,
went back only 420,000 years.
"All interglacials are slightly different, but we believe Termination V is the
most similar to our own," says chief author of the new study, Eric Wolff, at
the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. It mirrors the pattern of solar
warming between seasons and at different latitudes that are caused by
fluctuations in the Earth's orbit known as the Milankovitch cycles.
It shows that the Termination V interglacial was unusually long, lasting
28,000 years. The current interglacial is now 12,000 years old, and some
scientists feared that we might be heading for an ice age soon since at least
one post-Termination V interglacial lasted just 10,000 years.
But the new findings suggest that even without the human hand in global
warming, a new ice age would be unlikely for perhaps another 15,000 years,
Wolff says.
Ice blanket
The core also sheds light on how ice ages have changed over the past million
years. Since Termination V, ice ages have been very intense, with periods of
cold weather that blanketed much of the northern hemisphere in ice for 80,000
years punctuated by short interglacials lasting typically 20,000 years.
But the new core shows that, prior to Termination V, the cold and warm periods
of the glacial cycle each lasted around 50,000 years but were much less
intense.
"Marine deposits suggested some of this, but it stands out much more clearly
in the ice record," Wolff says.
Meanwhile, European and US scientists are discussing plans to survey for a
site in Antarctica that will extend the record still further. "We want to go
back at least 1.2 million years next time," Wolff says. "But we have to find
somewhere that we can do it."
==
Out-of-This-World Hypothesis: Cosmic Forces Control Life on Earth
The rise and fall of species on Earth might be driven in part by the
undulating motions of our solar systemas it travels through the disk of the
Milky Way, scientists say.
Two years ago, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley found the
marine fossil record shows that biodiversitythe number of different species
alive on the planetincreases and decreases on a 62-million-year cycle. At
least two of the Earths great mass extinctionsthe Permian extinction 250
million years ago and the Ordovician extinction about 450 million years
agocorrespond with peaks of this cycle, which cant be explained by
evolutionary theory.
Now, a team of researchers at the University of Kansas (KU) have come up with
an out-of-this-world explanation. Their idea hinges upon the fact that,
appearances aside, stars are not fixed in space. They move around, sometimes
rushing headlong through galaxies, or approaching close enough to one another
for brief cosmic trysts.
In particular, our Sun moves toward and away from the Milky Ways center, and
also up and down through the galactic plane. One complete up-and-down cycle
takes 64 million years suspiciously similar to Earths biodiversity cycle.
Galactic bow shock
The KU researchers independently confirmed the biodiversity cycle and have
proposed a novel mechanism by which the Suns galactic travels is causing it.
Scientists know the Milky Way is being gravitationally pulled toward a massive
cluster of galaxies, called the Virgo Cluster, located about 50 million light
years away. Adrian Melott and his colleague Mikhail Medvedev, both KU
researchers, speculate that as the Milky Way hurdles towards the Virgo
Cluster, it generates a so-called bow shock in front of it that is similar to
the shock wave created by a supersonic jet.
Our solar system has a shock wave around it, and it produces a good quantity
of the cosmic rays that hit the Earth. Why shouldnt the galaxy have a shock
wave, too? Melott said.
The galactic bow shock is only present on the north side of the Milky Ways
galactic plane, because that is the side facing the Virgo Cluster as it moves
through space, and it would cause superheated gas and cosmic rays to stream
behind it, the researchers say. Normally, our galaxys magnetic field shields
our solar system from this galactic wind. But every 64 million years, the
solar systems cyclical travels take it above the galactic plane.
When we emerge out of the disk, we have less protection, so we become exposed
to many more cosmic rays, Melott told SPACE.com.
How cosmic rays affect life
The boost in cosmicray exposure could have both a direct and indirect effect
on Earths organisms, said KU paleontologist Bruce Lieberman. The radiation
could lead to higher rates of genetic mutations in organisms or interfere with
their ability to repair DNA damage, potentially leading to diseases like
cancer.
Cosmic rays are also associated with increased cloud cover, which could cool
the planet by blocking out more of the Suns rays. They also interact with
molecules in the atmosphere to create nitrogen oxide, a gas that eats away at
our planets ozone layer, which protects us from the Suns harmful ultraviolet
rays.
Richard Muller, one of the UC Berkeley physicists who co-discovered the cycle,
said Melott and his colleagues have come up with a plausible galactic
explanation for the biodiversity cycle. Muller and Robert Rohde also
speculated that our solar systems movement through the galactic plane was
behind the cycle, but the pair could not conceive of any reason why conditions
on the north and south side of the galactic plane should differ.
Thats where they succeeded, Muller said in a telephone interview. They
came up with something we didnt think of, which puts an asymmetry in. Im
delighted they did that and I congratulate them.
A first-step hypothesis
Richard Bambach, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
who was not involved in the study, said he is excited the biodiversity cycle
has been independently confirmed, but cautions the galactic hypothesis is
still in the early stages of formulation.
Its a first-step hypothesis, Bambach said. Its an interesting idea, but
were a long way from knowing if that is really why biodiversity changes.
For one thing, scientists have yet to discover a bow shock around the Milky
Way, though such shock waves have been found around other galaxies.
I think its a very nice idea, said Philip Appleton, a Caltech astronomer.
I think were only beginning to come to grips with these kinds of behaviors.
Were realizing that not only do galaxies interact with each other
gravitationally, but also that the environment theyre traveling throughthe
wind they createcan actually produce noticeable effects.
Last year, Appleton and his team discovered a bow shock surrounding a galaxy
in Stephans Quintet, a galactic cluster located 300 million light years away.
The shock wave is traveling about 620 miles (1,000 km) per second relative to
the cluster.
The Milky Way is hurtling toward the Virgo Cluster at about 125 miles (200 km)
per second, so any bow shock it generates would consequently be weaker,
Appleton said.
If future studies confirm the galaxy-biodiversity link, it would force
scientists to broaden their ideas about what can influence life on Earth.
Maybe its not just the climate and the tectonic events on Earth, Lieberman
said. Maybe we have to start thinking more about the extraterrestrial
environment as well.
==
Earth's Protective Magnetic Field Older Than Thought
Earth's magnetic field was at least half as strong 3.2 billion years ago as it
is today, researchers report.
That means the planet was pretty well protected way back then from solar
output that could otherwise have stripped away the atmosphere and doused early
living organisms with lethal radiation.
"The intensity of the ancient magnetic field was very similar to today's
intensity," said geophysicist John Tarduno of the University of Rochester.
"It's interesting because it could mean the Earth already had a solid iron
inner core 3.2 billion years ago, which is at the very limit of what
theoretical models of the Earth's formation could predict."
Records of Earth that far back are difficult to find, because geologic
activity has folded most rocks from that era back into the planet multiple
times and spat it out as molten rock. Further, scientists don't know exactly
what Earth was like early on, nor when it cooled enough to form the rocky ball
with an iron core that we know today.
Why it matters
The Earth's rotating and convecting iron core gives rise to the planet's
magnetic field, which billows out from the poles along invisible field lines
that can be thought of as resembling the wireframe model of a giant pumpkin.
The field acts as a shield against harmful solar radiation and cosmic rays.
Scientists don't know exactly how the magnetic field is created, however, and
a better understanding will be needed when pondering the possibility for life
on other worlds.
For instance, Mars, which has only limited magnetic activity, is considered
very inhospitable to most life as we know it because of the extra radiation
that reaches its surface. Scientists think Mars once had a stronger magnetic
field, and its loss allowed the sun to erode the planet's atmosphere away.
The new finding, detailed in the April 5 issue of the journal Nature, adds to
mounting research about continents and the presence of water that suggest
Earth was a much more habitable place 3 billion years ago than scientists have
long suspected.
Back in time
Tarduno had previously estimated that as far back as 2.5 billion years ago,
Earth's magnetic field was just as intense as today. The new estimate was made
by using a laser to heat ancient crystals of feldspar and quartz and measuring
their magnetic intensity.
The tiny grains were picked out of out of 3.2 billion-year-old granite
outcroppings in South Africa.
"The data suggest that the ancient magnetic field strength was at least 50
percent of the present-day field," Tarduno said. "This means that a
magnetosphere was definitely present, sheltering the Earth 3.2 billion years
ago."
==
1 Telomeres have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces because they
prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other, which would
otherwise result in genomic instability. Telomeres are also thought to be the
"clock" that regulates how many times an individual cell can divide. Telomeric
sequences shorten each time the DNA replicates. When the telomeres reach a
critically short length, the cell stops dividing and ages (senesces) which may
cause or contribute to age-related diseases. Telomeres are essential regulators
of the cellular lifespan and chromosome integrity, however it has recently been
shown that telomeres may also play a role in complex genetic disorders such as
hypertension and diabetes.
==
*The Earths radius is about 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers). The main
layers of its interior are in descending order: crust, mantle and core.
*The crust thickness averages about 18 miles (30 kilometers) under the
continents, but is only about 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the oceans. It is
light and brittle and can break. It is where most earthquakes originate.
*The mantle is more flexible  it flows instead of fractures. It extends
down to about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) below the surface.
*The core consists of a solid inner core and a fluid outer core. The fluid
contains iron, which, as it moves, generates the Earths magnetic field.
*The crust and upper mantle form the lithosphere, which is broken up into
several plates that float on top of the hot molten mantle below.
==
Gould defined "scientific fact" best when he said:
"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be
perverse to withhold provisional assent.'"
==
The Suns atmosphere, or corona, can reach a bubbling 3.6 million degrees F
(2 million degrees C),
==
On the Intermediary Metabolism Chart
In the Citric Acid Cycle. Pick isocitrate dehydrogenase. This enzyme
converts threo-D-(2R: 3S)-isocitrate to alpha-keoglutarate.
==
Although it may seem an anathema to hard-core, fact-loving geeks, there is a
rich seam of philosophy lurking behind science. The key concept that concerns
us here is the principle of the "scientific method" - basically the way in
which science works. In its purest form, the scientific method is a kind of
question-and-answer game. You come up with an idea, or hypothesis, which asks
a question (e.g. all people who carry gene "X" have disease "Y"), then do the
research to either prove or disprove your idea (e.g. screen lots of people for
gene "X" and see if they have the disease or not). Your hypothesis may just be
a wacky idea, or it may be based on observation (in my example, noticing a few
people with both gene "X" and disease "Y"). Once you have proved or disproved
your hypothesis, you have moved forward the frontiers of science! Either you
can say with certainty that your hypothesis holds true, at least under your
experimental conditions, or that it does not. The next step is to formulate a
new hypothesis. If your original idea turned out to hold true, does it work
under all conditions and in all circumstances? Are there any exceptions? Can
other people get the same results? Alternatively, if your idea turned out to
be wrong then your next hypothesis might be another idea you think might be
right. In this rather tortuous way, scientists have managed to demonstrate
millions of principles about life, the universe and everything.
But another tenet of the scientific method is that experiments should be
controlled. This doesn't mean that an uncontrolled experiment is one in which
you flail wildly round the lab, rather that you are controlling things to be
sure your method is working and that your results are reliable. Controls can
be either "positive" or "negative", and both are important in experiments in
all scientific disciplines from ecology to particle physics. Positive controls
ensure that your experimental methods are actually working. This is like doing
a "dead cert" experiment, where you know what should happen. If your positive
control doesn't work, you can't trust the rest of your data as you can't be
sure that the experiments were working for all the other samples you are
investigating. Negative controls are basically the opposite (you expect
something not to work), but are equally important. In the example I gave
above, the negative control would be looking at people without disease "Y" to
make sure none of them had gene "X". So, in a nutshell, science progresses by
doing controlled experiments which attempt to prove or disprove a hypothesis.
Let's assume we've done that, got some interesting results and now we want to
tell the world!
Tell me about it
As a scientist, I can't just rattle off a few exciting experiments then phone
up the newspapers and tell them to hold the front page. How can I be sure my
experiments are reliable and that I have interpreted the results correctly?
And how can I tell the rest of the scientific community about it? At this
point, scientific journals play a key role. A multitude of journals are
published around the world, brimming with new findings and ideas. You may have
heard of some of the top ones like "Science" or "Nature", and they range from
the all-encompassing (such as the "Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences") to the highly specialised ("Blood", "Gut" and "Brain", to name but
a few). Remember the furore that surrounded Dr. Arpad Pusztai's research
showing that feeding GM potatoes to mice was harmful? The scientific community
found it hard to trust research that was first published in a tabloid newspaper
rather than in a respected journal.

But how do the journals ensure they are printing reliable data?
In order to get your research published in a journal, you first write it up as
a research paper. This includes your original idea that you were trying to
prove, the methods with which you tried to prove it, the results you found and
what you think it all means. As much raw data as possible is included, such as
photographs and measurements. The paper is then sent to the editor of a
journal, who decides if it is the sort of thing they want to publish. Of
course, not all journals are created equal, and some have a much higher
profile in the scientific community than others. Generally, all journals
publish reliable research, although the equation which dictates the standing
of a particular publication is a complex one. This relates to how
ground-breaking (or trendy) their papers are, how rigorously the results have
been proved and also how interesting the research is to the wider scientific
community.

The main thing that links virtually all the journals is the process of peer
review. Once an editor is interested in a paper, it will be sent out to around
three other senior scientists who work on similar things. These people know
about the subject and the other experiments that have been done in that area.
They will read the paper and assess it, ultimately reporting back to the
journal editor whether they think it is genuine research or not. Often a paper
will be returned to whence it came, with suggestions for new experiments to do
or other interpretations of the results which must be addressed before the
paper can be accepted for publication. Sometimes a paper may be completely
panned by the critics and demand a serious rethink about the entire thing. For
scientists the most frustrating thing can be when reviewers suggest that
although the science is OK, the paper would be suited to a less high-profile
journal. After a long and fretful process, the paper is finally accepted and
published in the public domain. Science journalists will then see what new
research is being published and write stories based on these papers, bringing
the hottest science straight to your desktop.

Although this system of peer review works well, and seems to have maintained
the integrity of the body of scientific knowledge over the years, there are a
few holes in it. The principle problem is that the identity of the reviewers
of your paper is hidden. In principle, this gives reviewers the freedom to
make fair positive and negative criticism. Unfortunately, your identity is not
hidden from them. In the worst case scenario your paper could be sent to a
major competitor who might swipe your ideas, reject your paper then cash in on
it themselves. Or they might be very close to publishing similar work
themselves and deliberately try to stall the publication of your results. And,
as we are all just human, people may choose to use the peer review process to
grind personal axes or push through the papers of their friends.

One other problem with the journal system is that it is very hard to get
negative results published. By this I mean results that disprove an idea. In
the example I used above, the investigation might find that there is no strong
evidence to link people with gene "X" and their likelihood of having disease
"Y". Providing the study was controlled and thorough, this is still a valid
piece of data. However, unless the established dogma is that the two things
are linked (and you've just proved they're not), it's hardly going to set the
world on fire. As a result, it may be difficult to get such work accepted by a
journal and other researchers working on either gene "X" or disease "Y" will
never know about it. People might then needlessly repeat the same experiments,
wasting time and money, when it might be better to investigate other genes or
diseases. Believe it or not, there is actually now a Journal of Negative
Results, aiming to combat this problem.
==
Carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at any time in the
last 800,000 years, the latest study of ice drilled out of Antarctica confirms.
The in-depth analysis of air bubbles trapped in a 3.2km-long core of frozen
snow shows current greenhouse gas concentrations are unprecedented.
The East Antarctic core is the longest, deepest ice column yet extracted.
Project scientists say its contents indicate humans could be bringing about
dangerous climate changes.
"My point would be that there's nothing in the ice core that gives us any
cause for comfort," said Dr Eric Wolff from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
"There's nothing that suggests that the Earth will take care of the increase
in carbon dioxide. The ice core suggests that the increase in carbon dioxide
will definitely give us a climate change that will be dangerous," he told BBC
News.
The Antarctic researcher was speaking here at the British Association's (BA)
Science Festival.
The ice core comes from a region of the White Continent known as Dome
Concordia (Dome C). It has been drilled out by the European Project for Ice
Coring in Antarctica (Epica), a 10-country consortium.
The column's value to science is the tiny pockets of ancient air that were
locked into its millennia of accumulating snowflakes.
Each slice of this now compacted snow records a moment in Earth history,
giving researchers a direct measure of past environmental conditions.
Not only can scientists see past concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane
- the two principal human-produced gases now blamed for global warming - in
the slices, they can also gauge past temperatures from the samples.
This is done by analysing the presence of different types, or isotopes, of
hydrogen atom that are found preferentially in precipitating water (snow) when
temperatures are relatively warm.
Earlier results from the Epica core were published in 2004 and 2005, detailing
the events back to 440,000 years and 650,000 years respectively. Scientists
have now gone the full way through the column, back another 150,000 years.
The picture is the same: carbon dioxide and temperature rise and fall in step.
"Ice cores reveal the Earth's natural climate rhythm over the last 800,000
years. When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate
change. Over the last 200 years human activity has increased carbon dioxide to
well outside the natural range," explained Dr Wolff.
The "scary thing", he added, was the rate of change now occurring in CO2
concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30
parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years.
"The last 30 ppm of increase has occurred in just 17 years. We really are in
the situation where we don't have an analogue in our records," he said.
The plan now is to try to extend the ice-core record even further back in
time. Scientists think another location, near to a place known as Dome A (Dome
Argus), could allow them to sample atmospheric gases up to a million and a half
years ago.
Some of the increases in carbon dioxide will be alleviated by natural "sinks"
on the land and in the oceans, such as the countless planktonic organisms that
effectively pull carbon out of the atmosphere as they build skeletons and shell
coverings.
But Dr Corinne Le Quere, of the University of East Anglia and BAS, warned the
festival that these sinks may become less efficient over time.
We could not rely on them to keep on buffering our emissions, she said.
"For example, we don't know what the effect will be of ocean acidification on
marine ecosystems. There is potential for deterioration," she explained.
More CO2 absorbed by the oceans will raise their acidity, and a number of
recent studies have concluded that this will eventually disrupt the ability of
marine micro-organisms to use the calcium carbonate in the water to produce
their hard parts.
==
Trofim Lysenko - fiction over fact

Science is not about certainties. Hypotheses or theories that do not fit the
facts are discarded or superseded. Newton's description of the physical world
was the work of a genius (albeit a very odd genius) but have been superseded
by Einstein's theories which have stood the test of experiment and are to-date
the best description we have of how the Universe works. In turn eventually
these will be incorporated and enlarged by whatever comes next (perhaps the
Superstring hypotheses). The point is a hypothesis needs at some point to be
supported by the evidence (in contrast to hypotheses like Intelligent Design
which seem to have more to do with blind faith than science). A great example
of this (and there have been many) is one of the greatest scientific frauds in
history, the Russian Trofim Lysenko (1898 - 1976).
Lysenko came from a peasant family in Ukraine and attended the Kiev
Agricultural Institute. In 1927, at the age of 29, while working at an
experiment station in Azerbaijan he was credited by the Soviet newspaper
Pravda with having discovered a method to fertilize fields without using
fertilizers or minerals, and that he had proved that a winter crop of peas
could be grown in Azerbaijan, "turning the barren fields of the Transcaucasus
green in winter, so that cattle will not perish from poor feeding, and the
peasant Turk will live through the winter without trembling for tomorrow" (a
typical peasant "miracle" of the early Soviet press). The winter crop of peas,
however, failed in succeeding years.
Such was the pattern of Lysenko's success with the Soviet media from 1927
until 1964 reports of amazing (and impossible) successes, which would be
replaced with claims of new successes once the old ones became failures. What
mattered more to the press was that Lysenko was a "barefoot scientist"an
embodiment of the mythical Soviet peasant genius.
Lysenko's "science" was practically nonexistent. When he had any clearly
formed theories, they were generally a mishmash of Lamarckism and various
confused forms of Darwinism.
Lysenko was put in charge of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the
Soviet Union and made responsible for ending the propagation of "harmful"
ideas among Soviet scientists. Lysenko served this purpose faithfully, causing
the expulsion, imprisonment, and death of hundreds of scientists and the demise
of genetics (a previously flourishing field) throughout the Soviet Union. This
period is known as Lysenkoism. He bears particular responsibility for the
death of the greatest Soviet biologist, Nikolai Vavilov, at the hands of the
NKVD.
He had the trust of Stalin and together they broked no criticism of his
methods and the bad results were soon hushed up. At first he had the trust of
Khrushchev but other biologists under the relative thaw of the 60's eventually
had him demoted and eventually virtually exiled. Scientific biology returned to
Russia though his influence was still felt in China for many years.
His work was almost a total disaster and his legacy has been, rightly, almost
forgotten.
see also:
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Lysenkoism
==
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060807_mm_huble_revise.html
[excerpt]

Universe Might be Bigger and Older than Expected
(Space.com, 8/7/2006)

A project aiming to create an easier way to measure cosmic distances
has instead turned up surprising evidence that our large and ancient
universe might be even bigger and older than previously thought.
A research team led by Alceste Bonanos at the Carnegie Institution
of Washington has found that the Triangulum Galaxy, also known as
M33, is about 15 percent farther away from our own Milky Way than
previously calculated.
The finding, which will be detailed in an upcoming issue of
Astrophysical Journal, suggests that the Hubble constant, a number
that measures the expansion rate and age of the universe, is
actually 15 percent smaller than other studies have found.
Currently, most astronomers agree that the value of the Hubble
constant is about 71 kilometers per second per megaparsec (a
megaparsec is 3.2 million light-years). If this value were smaller
by 15 percent, then the universe would be older and bigger by this
amount as well.
Scientists now estimate the universe to be about 13.7 billion years
old (a figure that has seemed firm since 2003, based on measurements
of radiation leftover from the Big Bang) and about 156 billion light-
years wide.
The new finding implies that the universe is instead about 15.8
billion years old and about 180 billion light-years wide.
The researchers reached their surprising conclusion after using a
new method they invented to calculate intergalactic distances, one
that they say is more precise and requires fewer steps than standard
techniques.
The new method took 10 years to develop and relied on optical and
infrared measurements gathered from telescopes all around the world.
The researchers looked at a binary star system in M33 where the
stars eclipsed each other every five days. Unlike single stars, the
masses of paired stars can be precisely calculated based on their
movements. With knowledge of the stars' masses, the researchers
could calculate their true luminosities, or how bright they would
appear if they were nearby.
The difference between the true luminosity and the observed
luminosity gives the distance between the stars and Earth. The
team's results suggested that the stars were about 3 million light-
years from Earthor about half-a-million light-years farther than
would be expected using the commonly accepted Hubble constant value.
==
The genes for colour vision in humans appear on two unrelated chromosomes.
==
Geologists have identified zircon crystals over 4.4 billion years old in a
metaconglomerate in Australia. These are the oldest objects known on Earth. Not
only do they indicate that granitic rocks (and hence continents) existed by
that time, their ratios of O-18 to O-16 suggest that they were formed in rocks
which had contact with liquid water. This means there could have been oceans of
water on Earth just 200-300 million years after it formed. Remarkable news!
==
The Escape Velocities from the Surface of the Planets: (miles/hour)
Mercury 6215.02
Venus 19266.56
Earth 25046.53
Mars 11187.03
Asteroid (typical) 62.77
Jupiter 51211.76
Saturn 20260.96
Uranus 17402.05
Neptune 24611.47
Pluto 894.96
==
This color image shows the faint red galaxies of the galaxy cluster XMMXCS
2215-1738 in the center, along with the bluish haze which represents the
invisible X-ray emission from the extremely hot gas that exists in between the
cluster galaxies. Credit: European Southern Observatory Imaging Survey; NOAO
ghostly blue blob amid a swarm of red dots in a
new cosmic image is the superhot intergalactic gas permeating the space within
the most distant cluster of galaxies found to date.
Located nearly 10 billion light-years away, Cluster XMMXCS 2215-1738 is being
hailed by its discoverers as a tantalizing glimpse of what galaxy clusters
were like at their earliest stages of formation.
Individual galaxies have been detected at greater distances. But the newly
discovered cluster contains several hundred galaxies bound together by mutual
gravitational attraction.
The finding was announced here this week at the 208th meeting of the American
Astronomical Society.
Young and old
A light-year is the distance that light can travel in a year, so the light
from this cluster took almost 10 billion years to reach us. Since the universe
is thought to be 13.7 billion years old, the record-setting cluster must have
formed when the universe was relatively young.
"Yet this distant cluster appears to be full of old galaxies," discovery team
member Adam Stanford noted with amazement.
Stanford and his colleagues said the total mass of the cluster is enough to
contain 500 trillion stars comparable in mass to our Sun. That's a surprising
stellar mass for a galaxy cluster to have achieved at such an early era in the
evolution of the universe, said Stanford, a researcher at the University of
California, Davis, and at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Stanford and the other members of the XMM Cluster Survey, an international
team of astronomers, made their discovery by combining X-ray observations from
the European X-ray Multi Mirror (XMM) Newton satellite with optical
observations using the 10-meter W.M. Keck telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
Intergalactic gas in the record-setting cluster glows with powerful x-ray
emissions at a temperature of 10 million degrees, said team member Robert
Nichol, from the University of Portsmouth, England. That's what made the
detection of this distant cluster possible, says Nichol. It also makes this a
"hot" find in every sense of the word, since this is the hottest cluster yet
found at an extreme distance.
But it doesn't end there. Within the patch of the universe covered by the
Cluster Survey, Nichol says they can see hints of more tan 1,600 additional
galaxy clusters waiting to be confirmed and studied in detail.
"The total number of clusters depends on the amount of dark matter there is,"
Nichol said. "So this will give us a wonderful measure of how much dark matter
there is in the universe."
Dark matter is
mysterious stuff that astronomers say must exist, based on the fact that there
is not enough regular matter in galaxies to keep them from flying apart.
More discoveries
Extremely distant galaxy clusters like these, Stanford said, give astronomers
a great chance "to study galaxy formation by looking at what they were like in
the earlier stages of their lifespan."
Stanford is also a team member for a separate galaxy-cluster study that
presented its results at the same meeting. Co-led by Mark Brodwin of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, this team used the Spitzer Space
Telescope to discover a total of almost 300 galaxy clusters and groups (galaxy
"groups" contain far fewer members than the average galaxy cluster).
Nearly 100 of their finds are at immense distances of over 8 billion
light-years.
"The Spitzer Space Telescope sees the thermal radiation of these galaxy
clusters at infrared wavelengths," Brodwin explained. "Now, we'll be able to
use this large sample of clusters as a laboratory to study the evolution of
galaxies."

==
Type Ia supernovae are believed to result from the explosion of old stars known
as 'white dwarfs' - the endpoint of most low mass stars such as our Sun.
However, a white dwarf only explodes when its mass reaches a certain critical
value (about 1.4 times the mass of our Sun). The general consensus is that this
critical mass can only be attained if the white dwarf has a nearby companion
star from which it can gain matter. Their generally uniform properties combined
with their intrinsic brightness means that Type Ia supernovae can be used to
measure relative distances (see ESO PR 21/98). They have been used to infer
that the Universe is currently accelerating.
==
Recent ice-core samples from the Antarctic have shown that CO2 levels are
higher now than at any time in the last 650,000 years.
===
Soils hold somewhere between 1,500 and 2,300 petagrams--or as much as two
quintillion grams--of carbon globally; this is two to three times the amount
of carbon present in all the plants in the world. A large fraction of this
soil carbon is ancient--hundreds to thousands of years old--meaning that it
has escaped conversion into carbon dioxide by soil decomposers.
==
Tectonic Plates Moved Earlier Than Previously Thought
A new study published in this week's issue of Science concludes that tectonic
movement on earth may have started 500 million years earlier than 1.9 billion
years ago, a date suggested by current theory. Timothy Kusky and colleagues at
St. Louis University, along with researchers from Washington University in St.
Louis, found the oldest complete section of oceanic sea floor on the planet
last summer. Oceanic earth crust is usually "recycled" back into the mantle
through subduction, but a few fragments survive in mountain belts that form
during the collision of two tectonic plates. That is exactly what happened
with Kusky's sample, found in a mountain belt in the Eastern Hebei Province in
China. The sample turned out to be about 2.5 billion years old, dating back to
the Archeanearth's earliest geologic time period.
"This discovery shows that the plate tectonic forces that create oceanic crust
on the earth today were in operation more than 2.5 billion years ago," Kusky
says. He thinks that these findings could help shed a light on when the first
complex organisms evolved on earth: "Because hot volcanic vents on the sea
floor have provided the nutrients and temperatures needed for life to flourish
and develop, it's possible that life developed and diversified around these
vents as plate tectonics began."
==
Credit for sculpting the earth's surface typically goes to violent collisions
between tectonic plates, the mobile fragments of the planet's rocky outer
shell. The mighty Himalayas shot up when India rammed into Asia, for instance,
and the Andes grew as the Pacific Ocean floor plunged beneath South America.
But even the awesome power of plate tectonics cannot fully explain some of the
planet's most massive surface features.
Take southern Africa. This region boasts one of the world's most expansive
plateaus, more than 1,000 miles across and almost a mile high. Geologic
evidence shows that southern Africa, and the surrounding ocean floor, has been
rising slowly for the past 100 million years, even though it has not
experienced a tectonic collision for nearly 400 million years.
==
http://www.tim-thompson.com/radiometric.html#reliability

http://www.c14dating.com/int.html which has a list of items which
have been successfully carbon dated.

#1 A Radiometric Dating Resource List
updated & links checked, 23 August 2005
Reliability of Radiometric Dating
http://www.tim-thompson.com/radiometric.html#reliability

#2 Radiometric dating
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Radiometric_dating

The first (#1) of these mentions the following:

"A Radiometric Dating Resource List" links to the following:

Breakthrough Made in Dating of the Geological Record
By F.J. Hilgen et al.
From EOS 78(28): 285,288-289 (July 15, 1997), a weekly newspaper of
geophysics from the American Geophysical Union.
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/eos96336.html

"The 'breakthrough' documented in this report is an intercomparison
between sedimentary, radiometric and astrochronological dates (also
known as Milankovitch cycles). This evidence of strong agreement
between disparate dating methods is another example of the consistency
between radiometric dating and nature, and another demonstration of
reliability."

The second (#2) of these, for example, mentions the strong agreement
("concordances") which exist between different radiometric dating
methods, then concludes,

"If such variations happened, then it would be very unlikely that they
would happen in exact sync, which is what would be necessary to
produce the observed concordances. In fact, if such discrepancies
existed, it would be possible to produce plots of U-Pb age vs. K-Ar
age. However, searching for such discrepancies has resulted in some
sensitive upper limits, as described in The fundamental constants and
their variation: observational status and theoretical motivations."
==
Astronomers using another space telescope, called Spitzer, think they have
probed even further back in time, to the very first generation of stars. By
subtracting the light from all visible stars and galaxies, they say they can
see the infrared glow of the first stars, which appear to have lit up all at
once.
And two separate teams of astronomers announced in January that sound waves
that roared through space just 400,000 years after the big bang left a
detectable imprint in how galaxies are clustered today. They found that
galaxies are slightly more likely to be grouped together at 500 million light
years apart than any other distance.
The sound waves were freed at the same time the first photons were and these
are detected today as the cosmic microwave background radiation. This year,
astronomers found a pattern in the alignment of elements of this radiation and
dubbed it an "axis of evil" that casts doubt on the theory that the universe
was created in a big bang. But later analysis suggested this alignment might
simply be caused by the largest concentration of mass known in the universe a
supercluster of galaxies called Shapley. An X-ray survey revealed
that this cluster is, in fact, drawing the Milky Way towards it.
==
There are fundamental differences between telomerase and reverse
transcriptase. The most important of which is that telomerase acts
on DNA and is thus a DNA polymerase. Telomerase supplies the
template from which it will extend the strand of DNA. It is also
only capable of producing repeats.
Reverse transcriptase, on the other hand, is a component of
retroviruses, which have genomes composed of RNA. Since infected
host cells do not transcribe RNA, the reverse trancriptase
transcribes the RNA into DNA (this includes whole genes, in fact the
whole viral genome), enabling the virus to take over the machinery
of the host cell.
Reverse transcriptase is used in the lab to evaluate gene
_expression. When a gene is expressed, it must be transcribed from
DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA). You can pop open cells and isolate the
RNA, thus giving you a picture of total gene _expression within the
cells. RNA is unstable and difficult to work with, so we use reverse
transcriptase to turn it back into DNA (which in this case is called
complementary DNA or cDNA). The poly-A tails of mRNAs provide
perfect priming sites to produce cDNA. And there are a number of
ways to quantitate mRNA levels including RT-PCR, microarrays, and gels.
Ligase is the enzyme used to join DNA fragments in the lab. Usually
one isolated from the bacteriophage T4 is used. Doesn't matter where
the DNA came from, when used in combination with restriction
enzymes, it can be joined together.
Unless you're referring to DNA repair mechanisms. DNA polymeases
have proofreading ability, but they still make mistakes. E. coli has
~100 genes that remove and replacing abnormal nucleotides. Look up
base excision repair and nucleotide excision repair. Also, look up
the disease xeroderma pigmentosum. Individuals with this disorder
have a mutation in one of the 7 genes that are part of the
nucleotide excision repair system. They cannot repair damage caused by UV.
==
156 billion light-years is the diameter.
That's based on a view going 90 percent of the way back in time, so it
might be slightly larger.
==
Pure Newtonian physics seemed to exactly explain the motion of all of the
planets except for Mercury. There was a minor inconsistency with Mercury: the
perihelion (the point where the planet is closest to the sun) advanced by 38"
per century more than could be accounted for from pure Newtonian physics
Applying Einstein's general relativity perfectly resolved this
The observed precession of 43" of arc per century was explained by relativity.
==
Analysing the isotopic
composition of ancient raindrops. With this approach, the authors show that
Tibet continuously grew northward over millions of years in response to the
thickening of Earth's crust associated with the collision of the Indian and
Asian continental plates. The driving forces for this collision are
generated deep in Earth's mantle. But the key to unravelling the uplifting
history of the central Tibetan plateau is found in lake sediments on the
plateau, some of which formed as long ago as 40 million years.
2) In these lakes and their surrounds, changes in the oxygen-isotope
composition of surface water (which is controlled by regional climate and
elevation) are recorded in sediments. Systematic variations in
oxygen-isotope composition across the plateau reveal that spatially
variable uplift of the plateau to 4000 meters or more above sea level was
intimately linked to the timing and rates of convergence of India and Asia.
Rowley and Currie[1] estimate that uplift to 4000 meters was initiated as
long ago as 40 million to 50 million years, in the early stages of that
convergence.
==
Flinders Range, South Australia, 5 to 10 km sedimentary succession deposited
between 850 and 550 Million years old, Neoproterozoic.
===
At the core of the bacterial tail is a miniscule rotary motor consisting of
about 30 different protein types that interlock and move in concert. The tail
acts as a propeller, spinning at up to 60,000 revolutions per minute.
==
Scientific statements use well defined terms with generally precise meanings.
You see, science is the way we try to keep from fooling ourselves, or getting
fooled by others, and misunderstood terminology is one of the easiest ways that
happens.
A theory is never ever proven, it is demonstrated. Proof is only valid
in mathematics, when used as a technically rigorous term. What this
means is that a theory in science is much more than just a best guess,
it is a full blown conceptual construct of some class of phenonema!
Furthermore, a theory in science rests upon testable hypotheses.
Testable hypotheses are statements that are derived from a proto-theory
that can be rigorously tested. What that means is that the statement is
generally in the form of "If - Then". If this is true, then we should
expect that. The idea is pretty simple: if you can predict something
successfully, odds are very good that you understand that something well
enough to foretell its behavior. But this is really just the beginning.
A testable hypothesis must be laid out so that a test can be completely
understood, and reproduced/duplicated on demand. It's more than a "Hey,
this works for men, why don't you try it?", it's a "hey, stand where I'm
standing and do what I did, and see if you see what I see!". And then
there's one more thing, and that is that a testable hypothesis has to
withstand any and all attempts to show that it is invalid for whatever reason.
==
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/earth/
Continents.shtml

"The Earth's rocky outer crust solidified billions of years ago, soon after
the Earth formed. This crust is not a solid shell; it is broken up into
huge, thick plates that drift atop the soft, underlying mantle."
"Under the crust is the rocky mantle, which is composed of silicon, oxygen,
magnesium, iron, aluminum, and calcium. The upper mantle is rigid and is
part of the lithosphere (together with the crust). The lower mantle flows
slowly, at a rate of a few centimeters per year. The asthenosphere is a
part of the upper mantle that exhibits plastic properties. It is located
below the lithosphere (the crust and upper mantle), between about 100
and 250 kilometers deep. "
==
Down Syndrome
DS is caused by an extra chromosome 21, a condition called trisomy - a
third copy of a chromosome in addition to the normal two copies. Children
with DS have a variety of abnormalities, such as slowed growth, abnormal
facial features and mental retardation. The brain is always small and has
a greatly reduced number of neurons.
==
Scientists estimate that red dwarfs make up to 85 percent of the stars in
our Galaxy. These stars are about one-fifth as massive as the Sun and up to
50 times fainter.
==
The most commonly-used methods of dating geological formations
involve the process of radioactive decay. Certain atoms are unstable,
and their nuclei sometimes break apart and change into another
element through a process known as "radioactive decay". Some of these
radioactive elements transform themselves by emitting a high-energy
particle consisting of two protons and two neutrons, a process known
as "alpha decay". Other radioactive elements decay when a neutron
inside the nucleus breaks into a proton and an electron. The proton
stays in the nucleus, and the electron is ejected at very high speed--
a process known as "beta decay".
Probably the best-known of the radioactive elements is uranium, which
is the heaviest element found in nature. The uranium nucleus comes in
several versions. Each version is known as an "isotope". All isotopes
of uranium have 92 protons in the nucleus (it is the number of
protons which determines to which chemical element an atom belongs),
but the number of neutrons can range from 141 to 146. Thus, the total
number of particles in the nucleus (protons plus neutrons) in uranium
can vary from 233 to 238. Each of these isotopes is identified by its
"atomic number"--the total number of particles in its nucleus.
Uranium, for instance, is found in three different isotopes, uranium-
233 (abbreviated chemically as U-233), U-235 and U-238.
All of the isotopes of uranium are radioactive, and decay by emitting
an alpha particle. Through a series of intermediate steps, the U-235
atom will decay to form an atom of the lead isotope 207 (abbreviated
chemically as Pb-207). The Pb-207 atom does not undergo radioactive
decay--it is "stable"--and thus over time all U-235 will tend to
decay to form increasing amounts of Pb-207. Other chemical elements
may have some isotopes that undergo radioactive decay, and other
isotopes that do not decay--they are also "stable". The other
radioactive elements will decay to form different stable "daughter
elements".
Radio-dating is possible because of the fact that the decay of a
radioactive element into its daughter element takes place at a
constant rate, known as the "half-life", and the half-life of various
radio-decay rates can be measured very precisely. U-235, for
instance, has a half-life of 713 million years. If we start with a
known quantity of U-235, say one pound, in 713 million years this
material will consist of half U-235 and half Pb-207. In another 713
million years, half of the remaining uranium will decay, and the
material will now consist of three-fourths lead and one-fourth
uranium.
Conversely, if we calculate what the ratio of lead to uranium is in a
given rock, we can calculate the length of time that has passed since
the original uranium started decaying. For instance, if we determine
that a rock consists of one-sixteenth U-235 and fifteen-sixteenths Pb-
207, we know that a total of four half-lives have passed since the
original uranium started decaying, and therefore the rock was formed
approximately 2.8 billion years ago.
Since rocks are virtually never found in a pure elemental state, but
consist of a number of different minerals mixed together when the
rock was formed, it is entirely possible (and even likely) that some
amount of lead was present along with the original uranium when the
rock was formed, and geologists must therefore find a way to
calculate how much of the lead in any given rock is "primordial", or
present from the beginning, and how much is "radiogenic", or produced
by radio-decay after the rock was formed. This is done using the fact
that the isotope lead-204 is non-radiogenic, and is not produced by
any process of radioactive decay. Any Pb-204 in a given rock,
therefore, must be primordial. And since all of the isotopes of any
given element are chemically identical, there is no way for any
natural process to move Pb-204 into a mass of rock without at the
same time moving all of the other isotopes as well. Thus, in a mass
of primordial lead, the ratio of the 204 isotope to the others will
remain the same, and this ratio will depend on the specific
concentration of each of the other isotopes at the time the
primordial lead was formed. This varies slightly from place to place,
but the average rate is 15 parts lead-204 in every 1,000 parts of
primordial lead. Thus, when radio-dating a rock using the uranium-
lead method, we can estimate that for every 15 parts of lead-204 we
find, 985 parts of lead-207 are primordial and are not the result of
uranium decay. Whatever lead-207 is left after we subtract this
amount must therefore be radiogenic, and by comparing this amount
with the amount of uranium-235 left, we can calculate an age. (In
practice, the actual calculation is much more complex since there are
other lead isotopes which must be taken into account, but the
description here is complete enough to illustrate how the process
works.)
One advantage of the uranium dating method is that rocks which
contain U-235 also contain the isotope U-238, which decays to form
lead-206 with a half-life of 4.47 billion years. This provides a
method of cross-checking the dating results by comparing the date
calculated from the U-235---Pb-207 series to that calculated from the
U-238---Pb-206 series.
However, since in the uranium-lead process there is no way of
precisely determining the original amount of primordial lead (the
best we can do is use an estimate based on the average concentration
of lead-204 found today), some error is introduced in this part of
the calculation (most radio-dates using the uranium-lead techniques
vary by a few percent plus or minus). Therefore the uranium-lead
dating technique tends to give a wider range of dates than other
methods, and it is generally considered to be the least precise of
the radio-dating methods. As a result, it has largely been abandoned
in favor of newer radio-decay methods. However, the oldest rocks so
far discovered on earth have been uranium-dated to approximately 3.6
billion years old, plus or minus 0.5 billion years, while rocks from
meteors and the surface of the moon, which are believed to have
formed at the same time as the earth, have been dated to about 4.5
billion years. (The original surface of the earth has long since been
destroyed through erosion.)
A much more precise method of radio-dating depends on the decay of
the isotope potassium-40 (chemical abbreviation K-40) to form argon-
40 (chemical abbreviation Ar-40) through beta decay, with a half life
of 1.2 billion years. The precision of the potassium-argon method
comes from the means it presents for determining the original amount
of "daughter element" that was present in the primordial rock, thus
eliminating the source of the error in uranium-lead dating. Many of
the minerals containing potassium form precise crystalline internal
structures, with a specific number of potassium atoms locked into a
specific position. And since argon is a chemically-inert gas, there
is little opportunity for any atoms of argon to become trapped within
the crystals (the rocks selected for potassium-argon dating are
almost always volcanic rocks which were liquid at the time they were
formed, thus allowing any gaseous argon contamination to diffuse out
of the liquid). Thus, each argon atom that is found should correspond
to exactly one potassium atom which has undergone decay, and the
amount of original potassium atoms can be known exactly because the
mineral crystals will always contain a set number of potassium atoms
per crystal. This makes it possible to determine the amount of
radiogenic argon-40 very precisely, and thus greatly reduces the
error in measuring the ratio of K-40 to Ar-40. And when the potassium-
argon method is used on the oldest terrestrial rocks, we once again
obtain the age of 3.8 billion years, plus or minus one or two
percent. And meteors and moon rocks also date to about 4.5 billion years.
Another very precise method of radio-dating is called "isochron"
dating, and depends on the beta decay of the isotope rubidium-87 (Rb-
87) to strontium-87 (Sr-87), with a half-life of 4.8 billion years.
The rubidium-strontium method takes advantage of the fact that three
other nonradiogenic isotopes of strontium are usually found with
strontium-87; these are Sr-84, Sr-86 and Sr-88. As with the isotopes
of lead, all of the isotopes of strontium are chemically identical,
and no means exists in nature to move one isotope without also moving
the others, in the same ratios.
In any given mineral, no matter how much primordial strontium was
originally present, the proportion of Sr-87 to Rb-87 will increase
over time (as the rubidium decays to strontium), while the ratio of
Sr-87 to each of the non-radiogenic isotopes (Sr-84, Sr-86 and Sr-88)
will also increase. In other minerals present in the same rock, which
may have different initial amounts of primordial strontium, the
proportion of strontium to rubidium will differ (since they have
different amounts of rubidium), but the ratio of the strontium
isotopes to each other will be the same, since they are chemically
identical and cannot be separated. Thus, in each mineral, over time,
the ratio of Sr-87 to Sr-84 or Sr-88 will change, but this change
will itself be proportional to the ratio of rubidium to strontium.
When these ratios are plotted against each other, they will form a
straight line. And the slope of this line will vary according to the
change in the ratio of rubidium to strontium, i.e., according to the
age of the rock.
These sloping lines are known as "isochrons", and they present a
powerful method of radio-dating. In this method, there is no need to
estimate the amount of daughter element that may have contaminated
the sample, because if any strontium or rubidium has been removed or
added from the original rock, this will produce a point that lies
outside the isochron line, thus indicating that the sample has been
contaminated. In any sample which produces ratios lying on a straight
isochron line, it is a certainty that the sample is uncontaminated,
and the calculated half-life age will be correct. Using this method,
the oldest terrestrial rocks so far found have been dated to about
3.7 billion years, while moon rocks and meteors have been dated at
around 4.2 billion years.

The strong and weak nuclear forces which govern radio-decay are very powerful,
but operate at only very short distances (less than the diameter of an atomic
nucleus). They are not affected by temperature, pressure, magnetism, or any
other known physical phenomenon. Even under the most extreme environmental
conditions which can be produced in the lab, the decay rates of radioactive
elements have not been observed to vary by more than four percent

Some of these tests were done on "pillow
basalts" which form during underwater volcanic eruptions.
It was suspected by geologists that dissolved argon gas from the
surrounding sea water might enter the newly emerged lava, and would
not be able to escape quickly enough to dissipate from the rock
before it cooled, and that therefore argon might become trapped
inside the potassium crystals. To test this, geologists selected an
area of basalt that was known to have formed during an eruption in
1801, and used the K-Ar method to date the outer surface. The average
date obtained was 22 million years, thus demonstrating that such
rocks were indeed contaminated and were not suitable for radio-
dating. As geologist G. Brent Dalrymple reported, "The purpose of
these studies was to determine, in a controlled experiment with
samples of known age, the suitability of submarine pillow basalts for
dating, because it was suspected that such samples might be
unreliable . . . The results clearly indicated that these rocks were
unsuitable for dating, and so they are not generally used for this
purpose." (cited in Strahler, 1987, p. 206)
The remaining tests were done on each of the islands in the Hawaiian
chain. And, since the Hawaiian Islands were formed several hundred
million years apart by volcanic eruptions and are not all the same
age (the large island of Hawaii is the youngest, and the islands
become progressively older as one travels west along the chain), it
should not be surprising that the radio-dates given for each island
will differ from the others.
==
Faure, Gunter, 1986. Principles of Isotope Geology (Second Edition).
New York: John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0-471-86412-9.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.html
==
Previous to Pangaea, in the pre-Cambrian, there was another supercontinent
called Rodinia. It broke up, and the pieces later drifted back together to
form Pangaea.

The seashells at the top of the Himalayas are from the ocean and
not from any flood. The continents of India and Africa were once much
further south of Eurasia, leaving a great body of water called The
Tethys Seaway.

Both India and Africa are moving in a northerly direction. India is
moving much faster than Africa and as a result it has slammed into
Asia, pushing up the Himalayas. It continues to do so. This is the
reason for the earthquake and underwater landslide that caused last
year's deadly tsunami in Thailand. That whole region of the world is
seismically active.

Africa is on the move too, slowly moving north towards Europe. Italy
once laid against the northern part of Africa in an east-west
direction. It has broken off, spinning clockwise as well as heading
north, slamming into Europe. Italy is what pushes up the Alps and is
continuing to do so.

Spain and Portugal is a micro continent all unto itself. It came from
out in the Atlantic heading in a northeasterly direction slamming
into Europe and spinning in a counter (anti) clockwise direction. It
is what pushes up the Pyrenees Mountains.

The Aral, Caspian, Black, and Mediterranean Seas are remnants of the
Great Tethys Seaway. The Aral, Black, and Caspian have long been
pinched closed. They will soon be filled in with silt from the rivers
that feed into it. The Mediterranean isn't very far behind. It will
someday be pinched closed and be filled with silt too.

Some of the geologic future is known. For instance, Central America
will someday split open allowing the much cooler and less salty
Pacific Ocean to enter. This will not only affect that area of the
world but also as far away as England as the Gulf Stream will be
interrupted.

Life will be significantly affected throughout the Gulf of Mexico
area. It is estimated that a third of all species will hardly be
affected. One third will adapt and change and the last third will
become extinct. The extinctions will open up a niche for evolution to
do its magic. Extinctions and evolutions filling in of the niches are
the norm here on Earth.
==
*How to argue against a scientific theory:*

/Method One:/ If you want to present a *rational* argument against a
theory -- instead of a meaningless rant -- probably the best method is
to point out a verifiable fact that clearly /contradicts/ the theory.
But to do this, you must understand the theory *[take note here, Joel]*,
so that you understand what might contradict it.

You will accomplish nothing if you argue against an incorrect comic-book
version of the theory, one which no scientist accepts or teaches.
Building up and tearing down straw-men is a useless exercise.*
[Attention: Joel]*

The evidence you present can be something newly discovered, or the
discrediting of something discovered earlier, which turns out to have
been wrongly understood -- or even bogus. However, even if you've really
got something, you must be careful, because this is the stage where
kooks and cranks and Einstein wannabes so often go astray.

For your discovery to completely overturn a theory, the new evidence (or
newly-discredited old evidence) must be /essential/ to the theory, so
that without it, the theory collapses. Merely pointing out that some
unneeded datapoint is wrong -- even a famous one like Piltdown Man --
doesn't bring a well-established theory crashing down in ruins if (as
with Piltdown Man) the theory never depended on such evidence in the
first place. At best, such discredited evidence might require a
footnote, or perhaps a minor correction in the next edition of a
textbook. This goes on all the time as our observations improve. It's no
big deal.

/*Pay close attention to this next part, Joel:*
/

/Method Two:/ Another method of arguing against a theory is to present a
/testable/ /theory/ of *your own,* one which explains /all/ of the
available evidence better than the existing theory. It's a difficult
task, but not impossible. Contrary to the frequent complaint of cranks,
scientists are not closed-minded to new theories. In the last century,
general relativity, quantum mechanics, the big bang, and plate tectonics
prevailed over initial skepticism. But to devise a new theory, you need
to know two things.

First, you must know what a scientific theory is, and what it isn't.
This will help: What's a Scientific Theory?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory] Asserting as a competing "theory"
something that isn't testable is a waste of everyone's time in a
scientific discussion.

Second, you must be aware, at least generally, of the evidence which
supports the existing theory. That is what your competing theory must
explain. The more evidence an existing theory explains, the more
difficult it becomes to devise a credible alternative. Your new theory
has to thread a lot of needles. *[Calling Joel]*

A competing theory which offers an explanation of only /one/ thing (an
ad hoc explanation) isn't of much use. Science is not a collection of
numerous mini-explanations, each of which operates by its own unique
rules, in grand isolation from all the others. One thing, considered as
if it were unrelated to anything else, may have many possible
explanations, and your explanation may seem as plausible as any other.
But does your theory explain all the evidence that the existing theory
explains? Can it survive the same tests that the existing theory has
survived? Is it consistent, or inconsistent, with other branches of
science? If the answer to any of these questions is "no," then you're
unlikely to be successful.

*How* /not/ *to argue against a theory:*

1. Neither ignorance of, astonishment at, dislike of, nor refusal to
accept an existing theory will serve as scientific objections. All such
arguments are really about /you,/ not the theory.

2. No scientist claims that he knows everything, or that he has solved
all problems; and no theory has been subjected to all possible tests.
Therefore, pointing out that that there are things not yet known, or
problems not yet solved, isn't much of an argument. /Theories are based
on that which is known./ A newly-discovered fact may upset an existing
theory. But a list of unknowns is inevitable; and does not refute a theory.

3. It should be obvious that denial of verifiable facts doesn't score
any points; it just costs you credibility. And blindly copying material
found at frequently discredited websites -- especially their often bogus
quotes from alleged experts -- is both foolhardy and ridiculous.

4. A theory is not disproven by pointing out occasional acts of academic
misconduct, or even outright fraud. There are tens of thousands of
scientists, and a few have disgraced themselves. (Similarly, a religion
is not discredited because of the personal flaws of a few clergymen.) A
demonstration of fraud /could/ be a successful attack on a theory, but
/only/ if the theory can't survive without the fraudulent material. This
would amount to a demonstration of evidence that contradicts the theory,
which is Method One described above.

5. Other worthless arguments are attempts to discredit the character of
individual scientists, or to quote them on unrelated topics, because
such matters are irrelevant to the scientific merits of a theory. Isaac
Newton probably was an unpleasant man, and Einstein was a socialist; but
the value of their scientific work is not affected by such
irrelevancies. [Like the foolish and untrue claim Darwin was a racist]

7. Likewise, quoting /opinions/ of people who aren't practicing in the
field is probably of little value, because a scientific theory isn't
about opinion -- it's about testable explanations of verifiable data.

8. Claiming that the theory somehow causes undesirable consequences --
even if such claims were true -- is irrelevant to the validity of the
theory. Atomic theory, for example, is not discredited because of the
bomb, nor is gravity discredited because someone gets tossed out of a
window.

9. Claiming that your opponent's religious views aren't the same as
yours is irrelevant in a debate about a scientific theory. Also
irrelevant is claiming that you can't harmonize your religious views
with the theory. The subject under discussion is the /theory,/ not your
religion, and not your opponent's.

==
http://www.legion-fourteen.com/image.htm Greek Science
==
The year 2005 started with a bang as NASA's Swift telescope, launched at the
end of 2004, observed the first of its quarries: powerful and fleeting
explosions called gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).
These come in two forms long bursts lasting
from seconds to minutes and short ones that rage for only a split second.
Astronomers had previously traced the long bursts to powerful supernovae,
implying they occur when massive stars explode and their cores collapse into
black holes. But the short bursts simply disappeared too quickly for
astronomers to track their source.
Swift, which can swivel towards a gamma ray burst in seconds, changed that in
2005. Astronomers reported in February that a short, bright burst detected in
December 2004 came from magnetic field disturbances in a highly magnetised
neutron star, or magnetar, within our galaxy.
But a short burst in May and two in July suggested that most short GRBs arise
through a different mechanism the violent merger of two neutron stars, or a
neutron star and a black hole.
Swift also discovered that the black holes births that create long GRBs are
messy affairs that can last a day or more. And in September, Swift detected
the most distant GRB ever it exploded when the universe was just 900 million
years old.
Sound waves
Astronomers using another space telescope, called Spitzer, think they have
probed even further back in time, to the very first generation of stars. By
subtracting the light from all visible stars and galaxies, they say they can
see the infrared glow of the first stars, which appear to have lit up all at
once.
And two separate teams of astronomers announced in January that sound waves
that roared through space just 400,000 years after the big bang left a
detectable imprint in how galaxies are clustered today. They found that
galaxies are slightly more likely to be grouped together at 500 million light
years apart than any other distance.
The sound waves were freed at the same time the first photons were and these
are detected today as the cosmic microwave background radiation. This year,
astronomers found a pattern in the alignment of elements of this radiation and
dubbed it an "axis of evil" that casts doubt on the theory that the universe
was created in a big bang. But later analysis suggested this alignment might
simply be caused by the largest concentration of mass known in the universe a
supercluster of galaxies called Shapley. An X-ray survey revealed in December
that this cluster is, in fact, drawing the Milky Way towards it.
==
1991 "The Golem" by Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch offers a insightful view of
science for the interested reader.
==
When 10,000 professional scientists hold one view and a wee handful another,
that doesn't constitute a controversy, but the existence of a lunatic fringe.
==
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein
A highly readable book that may help understanding how decisions are made
and why bad decisions are simply a byproduct of an imperfect universe, rather
than some evil intentions.

The information you have is not the information you want.
The information you want is not the information you need.
The information you need is not the information you can obtain.
The information you can obtain costs more than you can afford to pay.
p. 202 Against the Gods
==
First 144 Primary Fundamental Physical Constants
001) radiant volume = 1.3554076(23) x 10^-113 m-s^2/kg
002) volume of gravity = 6.6467639(49) x 10^-104 m^3
003) gravitational volume = 1.2181796(21) x 10^-96 m^3/kg
004) luminous efficacy = 3.7229891(12) x 10^-96 cd-sr-s^3/kg-m^2
005) current volume = 1.3838179(77) x 10^-93 m^2/A
006) luminous energy = 1.8257112(76) x 10^-86 cd-sr-s
007) charge volume = 4.1485819(27) x 10^-85 m^3/A-s
008) moment of inertia = 8.9530792(67) x 10^-77 kg-m^2
009) gravitational fluidity = 1.0031222(77) x 10^-70 m-s/kg
010) area of gravity = 1.6408674(64) x 10^-69 m^2
014) electric moment = 6.4900394(48) x 10^-54 A-s-m
015) Ezra constant = 1.6752612(69) x 10^-49 kg-m^3/A-s^2
016) Euclid capacitance = 5.234567901... x 10^-48 A^2-s^4/kg-m^2
017) Nehemiah constant = 1.1634040(12) x 10^-47 kg-m/A^2-s
018) magnetic moment = 1.9456648(79) x 10^-45 A-m^2
019) luminous intensity = 1.9720204(06) x 10^-45 cd
020) Einstein time = 1.3511888(38) x 10^-43 s
021) luminous flux = 1.3511888(38) x 10^-43 cd-sr
022) gravitational moment = 2.2102208(82) x 10^-42 kg-m
023) self-mutual inductance = 3.4877974(86) x 10^-39 kg-m^2/A^2-s^2
024) absorption-emission = 2.4763790(61) x 10^-36 s/kg
025) wavelength of gravity = 4.0507622(30) x 10^-35 m
027) Planck constant = 6.6260755(09) x 10^-34 kg-m^2/s
028) relative expansion = 2.8154365(22) x 10^-33 /K
029) electric resistivity = 1.0456153(81) x 10^-30 kg-m^3/A^2-s^3
031) unified substance = 1.6605402(10) x 10^-27 kmol
032) kinematic viscosity = 1.2143879(66) x 10^-26 m^2/s
035) inverse electric current = 8.4334536(86) x 10^-25 /A
037) heat capacity constant = 1.3806578(67) x 10^-23 kg-m^2/s^2-K
038) thermal resistance = 9.7865580(66) x 10^-21 s^3-K/kg-m^2
040) gravitational molality = 3.0433399(76) x 10^-20 kmol/kg
041) elementary charge = 1.6021773(38) x 10^-19 A-s
043) first radiation = 5.9552196(79) x 10^-17 kg-m^4/s^3
045) specific heat = 2.5303881(55) x 10^-16 m^2/s^2-K
046) magnetic flux = 4.1356692(24) x 10^-15 kg-m^2/A-s^2
047) electric permittivity = 1.2922426(95) x 10^-13 A^2-s^4/kg-m^3
048) magnetic exposure = 2.9363759(53) x 10^-12 A-s/kg
049) permittivity of vacuum = 8.854187817... x 10^-12 A^2-s^4-sr/kg-m^3
050) magnetic pole strength = 4.8032068(25) x 10^-11 A-m
052) Newton constant = 6.6723563(41) x 10^-11 m^3/kg-s^2
053) S-B primary constant = 1.3897405(80) x 10^-10 kg/s^3-K^4
054) density of states = 2.0391992(76) x 10^-10 s^2/kg-m^2
055) radiant distribution constant = 3.335640952... x 10^-9 s/m
056) gravitational mass constant = 5.4563086(06) x 10^-8 kg
057) permeability of vacuum = 1.256637061... x 10^-6 kg-m/A^2-s^2-sr
058) electric conductance = 3.8740461(38) x 10^-5 A^2-s^3/kg-m^2
059) magnetic permeability = 8.6102251(57) x 10^-5 kg-m/A^2-s^2
061) fine-structure constant = 7.2973530(80) x 10^-3 /rad
062) second radiation constant = 1.4387688(01) x 10^-2 m-K
063) dielectric constant = 1.4594706(16) x 10^-2 /sr
065) spin half constant = 5.000000000 x 10^-1 sr/rad
066) length fraction = 1.000000000 m/m
067) mass fraction = 1.000000000 kg/kg
068) time fraction = 1.000000000 s/s
069) current fraction = 1.000000000 amp/amp
070) temperature fraction = 1.000000000 K/K
071) spin two constant = 2.000000000 rad/sr
072) gravitational momentum = 1.6357601(69) x 10^1 kg-m/s
074) relative permeability = 6.8517994(75) x 10^1 sr
075) inverse fine-structure = 1.3703598(95) x 10^2 rad
076) molar heat capacity = 8.3145102(91) x 10^3 kg-m^2/s^2-kmol-K
077) spin angle constant = 9.3894312(09) x 10^3 sr-rad
078) Micah constant = 1.1614098(14) x 10^4 A^2-s^2/kg-m
079) electric resistance = 2.5812805(64) x 10^4 kg-m^2/A^2-s^3
082) inverse gravitational mass = 1.8327409(10) x 10^7 /kg
083) Faraday constant = 9.6485308(14) x 10^7 A-s/kmol
084) speed of light in vacuum = 2.99792458 x 10^8 m/s
085) gravitational energy = 4.9038856(17) x 10^9 kg-m^2/s^2
089) Josephson primary = 2.4179883(50) x 10^14 A-s^2/kg-m^2
090) electric displacement = 3.9552490(31) x 10^15 A-s/m
091) absorbed dose = 8.9875517(87) x 10^16 m^2/s^2
092) luminous density = 2.7467671(33) x 10^17 cd-sr-s/m^3
094) gravity displacement = 4.4930522(70) x 10^18 kg-s/m^2
095) molar mass constant = 3.2858635(84) x 10^19 kg/kmol
096) magnetic potential = 1.0209607(45) x 10^20 kg-m/A-s^2
097) thermal conductance = 1.0218097(04) x 10^20 kg-m^2/s^3-K
099) electric current constant = 1.1857538(29) x 10^24 A
100) luminance constant = 1.2018157(77) x 10^24 cd/m^2
102) luminous flux density = 8.2346007(05) x 10^25 cd-sr/m^2
104) Avogadro constant = 6.0221366(15) x 10^26 /kmol
105) gravitational field = 1.3469831(84) x 10^27 kg/m
106) electric potential = 3.0607633(12) x 10^28 kg-m^2/A-s^3
107) electric conductivity = 9.5637460(76) x 10^29 A^2-s^3/kg-m^3
108) Celcius temperature = 3.5518470(84) x 10^32 K
110) gravity wave number = 2.4686711(86) x 10^34 /m
111) mass flow rate constant = 4.0381539(96) x 10^35 kg/s
112) molar energy = 2.9531869(13) x 10^36 kg-m^2/s^2-kmol
114) surface concentration = 1.0119892(35) x 10^42 kmol/m^2
115) frequency of gravity = 7.4008900(30) x 10^42 /s
116) gravitational force = 1.2106081(12) x 10^44 kg-m/s^2
117) inverse luminous intensity = 5.0709414(41) x 10^44 /cd
118) angular velocity = 1.0141882(88) x 10^45 rad/s
122) electric flux density = 9.7642093(17) x 10^49 A-s/m^2
123) radiant intensity = 5.2968739(54) x 10^50 kg-m^2/s^3-sr
124) gravity field strength = 2.2187310(14) x 10^51 m/s^2
125) gravitational power = 3.6293118(17) x 10^52 kg-m^2/s^3
126) magnetic flux density = 2.5204163(73) x 10^54 kg/A-s^2
127) thermal conductivity = 2.5225121(74) x 10^54 kg-m/s^3-K
129) magnetic field strength = 2.9272363(12) x 10^58 A/m
130) absorbed dose rate = 6.6515882(43) x 10^59 m^2/s^3
132) surface density constant = 3.3252585(75) x 10^61 kg/m^2
133) electric field strength = 7.5560181(98) x 10^62 kg-m/A-s^3
134) dynamic viscosity = 9.9688744(17) x 10^69 kg/m-s
135) molar concentration = 2.4982686(65) x 10^76 kmol/m^3
136) surface tension constant = 2.9885933(65) x 10^78 kg/s^2
137) electric charge density = 2.4104622(20) x 10^84 A-s/m^3
138) angular acceleration = 7.5058959(93) x 10^87 rad/s^2
139) thermal transfer constant = 6.2272531(21) x 10^88 kg/s^3-K
140) current density constant = 7.2263839(39) x 10^92 A/m^2
141) gravitational density = 8.2089700(31) x 10^95 kg/m^3
142) energy density = 7.3778543(28) x 10^112 kg/m-s^2
143) radiance constant = 3.2280937(18) x 10^119 kg/s^3-sr
144) irradiance constant = 2.2118250(84) x 10^121 kg/s^3

1) luminous intensity = 1.9720204(06) x 10^-45 cd
2) Einstein time = 1.3511888(38) x 10^-43 s
3) wavelength of gravity = 4.0507622(30) x 10^-35 m
4) unified substance = 1.6605402(10) x 10^-27 kmol
5) gravitational mass = 5.4563086(06) x 10^-8 kg
6) electric current = 1.1857538(29) x 10^24 A
7) Celsius temperature = 3.5518470(84) x 10^32 K
8) relative permeability = 6.8517994(75) x 10^1 sr
9) inverse fine-structure = 1.3703598(95) x 10^2 rad
==
Warped Passages : Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's
Hidden Dimensions by Lisa Randall
==
The following radioactive decay processes have proven particularly useful in
radioactive dating for geologic processes:
Parent 	Half-life
(billion yrs. Daughter Materials Dated
U235 0.704 Pb207 Zircon, uraninite, pitchblende
K40 1.251 Ar40 Muscovite, biotite, hornblende, volcanic rock,
glauconite, K-feldspar
U238 4.468 Pb206 Zircon, uraninite, pitchblende
Rb87 48.8 Sr87 K-micas, K-feldspars, biotite, metamorphic rock,
glauconite

Note that uranium-238 and uranium-235 give rise to two of the natural
radioactive series, but rubidium-87 and potassium-40 do not give rise to
series. They each stop with a single daughter product which is stable.
==
South Africas Vredefort Dome-- an Earth impact crater
Natural and cultural sites are listed to be protected due to their outstanding
universal value around the world.
The roughly circular pattern of Vredefort Dome, approximately 75 miles (120
kilometers) south west of Johannesburg, is a representative part of a larger
meteorite impact structure, or astrobleme. Dating back some 2 billion years
ago, it is the oldest astrobleme found on Earth so far.
With a radius of 118 miles (190 kilometers), the impact feature it also the
largest and the most deeply eroded.
In inscribing the site, the Committee noted: Vredefort Dome bears witness to
the worlds greatest known single energy release event, which caused
devastating global change, including, according to some scientists, major
evolutionary changes.
==
What kind of star produces a supernova?
Two types of stars generate supernovas. The first type, called a type Ia
supernova is produced by a star's burned-out core. This stellar relic, called a
white dwarf, siphons hydrogen from a companion star, thereby making it 1.4
times more massive than our Sun [called the Chandrasekhar limit]. This excess
bulk leads to explosive burning of carbon and other chemical elements that make
up the white dwarf.
A star that is more than eight times as massive as our Sun generates the second
type, called type II. When the star runs out of nuclear fuel, the core
collapses. Then the surrounding layers crash onto the core and bounce back,
ripping apart the outer layers.
==
Scientists found a tiny brown dwarf, or failed star, less than one hundredth
the mass of the sun, surrounded by what appears to be a disk of dust and gas.
==
The Atlas of Life on Earth, by Professor Michael J. Benton
==
Data also indicate that ocean tides on Earth have a direct influence on the
Moon's orbit. Measurements show that the Moon is receding from Earth at a rate
of about 3.8 centimeters per year. Ranging has also improved historic knowledge
of the Moon's orbit, enough to permit accurate analyses of solar eclipses as
far back as 1400 BC.
==
A certain percentage of potassium 40 atoms decay to argon 40 with a half life
of about 1.28 billion years. Thus, if we find argon in a crystal where it
has no other way to get in there, we can be pretty sure it came from the
potassium. The ratio of 40K to 40Ar atoms will tell us how long the crystal
has been a solid rock crystal. Of course some things can upset such dates. A
partial melt, for example, might drive out some of the argon, making the rock
seem younger than it actually is (but not as young as the time of the partial
melt.
==
Neuweiler's Biology of Bats
==
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know
that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,'
and then they actually change their minds and you never
hear that old view from them again. They really do it.
It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists
are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens
every day. I cannot recall the last time something like
that happened in politics or religion.
- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address
==
There are ancient tidal flats of what's du