Author Archives: curiouscat

Scientific American Frontiers Webcasts

All shows of the PBS TV show, Scientific American Frontiers are available online. The shows feature Alan Alda exploring a wide range of scientific ideas. Specific information for teachers if provided for each show. Shows include:

Going Deep – “In 1977, scientists aboard Alvin were exploring the Galapagos Rift in the Pacific Ocean when they made one of the most important discoveries in modern biology. Hydrothermal vents are underwater volcanoes erupting magma-heated, mineral-rich water out of cracks on the seafloor thousands of feet beneath the surface. Despite the enormous pressure and total darkness, the vents were found to support an astonishing array of animal life.”
The Dark Side of the Universe – Dark matter, dark energy and the universe.
Natural Born Robots – “The next generation of robots swim like fish, play soccer and even experience emotions.”
Science and Sports – “Science enables people to run quicker, climb higher, hit farther, and sail faster in this sports special.”

Giant Star Fish and More in Antarctica

photo of giant starfish

Photo by John Mitchell, New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. Read a great deal about the New Zealand Census of Antarctic Marine Life project: 26 scientists and 18 crew took a 50-day voyage aboard RV Tangaroa in February-March 2008.

Benthic invertebrates in Antarctica are well known for their large size. This feature, known as “gigantism” is common amongst certain groups including sea spiders, sponges, isopods, starfish, and amphipods. The phenomenon is a subject of intense scientific investigation, but there are many contributing factors.

Slow growth rates, late reproductive maturation, prolonged periods of embryonic development, and low predation rates that are typical of Antarctic waters contribute to long life-spans for many species and can also result in large size animals. Animal physiology is thought to play a role as well, as those groups that require large amounts of calcium should not, in theory, grow well in Antarctic waters. This is because the calcium carbonate (needed for growth of shells, or starfish ‘tests’) has low solubility in very cold seawater. Yet starfish, which have a calcareous exoskeleton or ‘test’ which needs lots of calcium, can reach much larger sizes than found in New Zealand waters, as seen in [photo].

Another crucial part of the story is that the low sea temperatures allow more oxygen to be dissolved in the sea water than in warmer latitudes. Sea spiders for example are not only larger, but reach more than 1000 times the weight of most temperate species. Amphipod crustaceans in the Southern Ocean are also large; more than five times as long as the largest temperate species.

Google Summer of Code Projects

Over the last three years Google Summer of Code has provided 1500 students from 90 countries the chance to work on open source projects. Each participant will receive $4,500 as a stipend. Student applications will be accepted from March 24th to March 31st.

Details on the software projects are available now. Given the short time that the application is actually open getting a start looking for projects that interest you might be wise.

externs.com offers listings of science internships and engineering internships.

Radiation Tolerant Bacteria

metallireducens bacteria

This image is from the Eye of Science web site (which has many great images):

Bacteria: Uranium waste bacteria (metallireducens bacteria) [the green in the image] Electron microscopy… This bacteria is able to survive in radioactive environments and turn the uranium waste from a soluble form (that can contaminate water supplies) to a solid form.

Other species of Geobacter bacteria can eliminate petroleum contamination in polluted water and convert waste organic matter to electricity. Geobacter sp. are anaerobic bacteria (living without oxygen) that use metals to gain energy in the same way that humans use oxygen. Coloured scanning electron micrograph, Magnification: x3,600 and x4,800

$10 Million X Prize for 100 MPG Car

Progressive Automotive X PRIZE

The window for applications will be open until mid 2008, when a thorough qualification process will assess safety, cost, features and business plans to ensure that only production-capable, consumer-friendly cars compete. Those that qualify will race their vehicles in rigorous cross-country stage races in 2009 and 2010 that combine speed, distance, urban driving and overall performance. The winners will be the vehicles that exceed 100 MPG, meet strict emissions standards and finish in the fastest time. Host cities involved in the competition route are to be announced shortly.

NASA You Have a Problem

Go to NASA’s web site. Use the security settings that are most intelligent to use, the NoScript plugin for Firefox, and NASA makes this bold pointy haired boss statement at the top of every page:

“There’s a problem with your browser or settings.

Your browser or your browser’s settings are not supported. To get the best experience possible, please download a compatible browser. If you know your browser is up to date, you should check to ensure that javascript is enabled.”

Well no, there is no problem with my browser settings. And I am using the latest version of the most popular browser. 0 for 2 phb. What you mean to say is: I am so lame I hired someone who designed our web site so it fails to work properly without javascript enabled.

Jeez, get someone who know how to program a web site that just works. Any marginally competent individual can have your site work for any modern browser and then add in extra features people can take advantage using javascript, or flash or whatever extra things you want. It is amazing that an agency that is suppose to know about technology can do such a lame job of producing a web site. They do manage to provide good content for their web site (probably the content is provided by engineers while some phb decides they know what is best for the web site code).

Explaining the Missing Antimatter

Flipping particle could explain missing antimatter

It is one the biggest mysteries in physics – where did all the antimatter go? Now a team of physicists claims to have found the first ever hint of an answer in experimental data. The findings could signal a major crack in the standard model, the theoretical edifice that describes nature’s fundamental particles and forces.

In its early days, the cosmos was a cauldron of radiation and equal amounts of matter and antimatter. As it cooled, all the antimatter annihilated in collisions with matter – but for some reason the proportions ended up lopsided, leaving some of the matter intact.

Physicists think the explanation for this lies with the weak nuclear force, which differs from the other fundamental forces in that it does not act equally on matter and antimatter. This asymmetry, called CP violation, could have allowed the matter to survive to form the elements, stars and galaxies we see today.
…
“It is tantalisingly interesting at the moment,” says Val Gibson, an expert on B meson physics at the University of Cambridge. “If it is true, it is earth-shattering.” Jacobo Konigsberg, who leads the CDF collaboration, says that Tevatron researchers are “cautiously excited” about the analysis. He points out that more data needs to be analysed to rule out a statistical fluke, which has happened several times before in particle physics.

Baby Sand Dollars Clone Themselves When They Sense Danger

Baby sand dollars clone themselves when they sense danger

The odds of growing up aren’t good for baby sand dollars. Smaller than the head of a pin, the larvae drift in the ocean — easy prey for anything with a mouth.

But a University of Washington graduate student has discovered the tiny animal has a surprising survival strategy: Faced with the threat of being gobbled up, it makes like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies and clones itself. The resulting “mini-me” may escape hungry fish because it is even teenier than the original — and harder to see.

“If you are eaten, but the smaller version of you survives, you’re still a winner from an evolutionary standpoint,” said Dawn Vaughn.
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Familiar inhabitants of Washington’s subtidal zone, sand dollars start life though the chance encounter of sperm and egg, simultaneously released into the water by mature adults. The larvae free-float for about six weeks before metamorphosing into miniature sand dollars that settle in colonies and eventually grow to full size.
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The white shells that wash up on the beach are the creatures’ external skeletons. Living sand dollars are covered with velvety, purple spines used to grab food particles. Vaughn knew many other marine invertebrates shift their shape to avoid being eaten. Colonial animals called bryozoans grow spikes when voracious sea slugs crawl across them. Barnacles take on a bent posture to repel snails. Vaughn’s own previous research showed periwinkle larvae narrow their shell openings to keep out marauding crab larvae.

Photos by Fritz the Cat

Fritz the cat - photographer

fritz-cam by Fritz the cat:

My name is Fritz [photo of me on the left] and I live at 23 Cat Street [in Germany]. My mistress is an artist, and now it’s my turn to show what I can do. Since September 2007 we’ve owned a Mr-Lee-Catcam
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Third time lucky. I went for a long walk with the camera. Perhaps a bit too long, because she was looking for me everywhere. Anyway, she was very pleased when I came home with the camera and a mouse. I’d taken over 200 photos while I was out. Unfortunately the battery gave up the ghost before the final capture … of the mouse, I mean.

See many more great photos by fritz at fritz-cam.

Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace

The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations – and coming up dry.

Whatever the cause, there was widespread agreement among those attending a five-day meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council here last week that the regional $150 million fishery, which usually opens for the four-month season on May 1, is almost certain to remain closed this year from northern Oregon to the Mexican border.
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So what happened? As Dave Bitts, a fisherman based in Eureka in Northern California, sees it, the variables are simple. “To survive, there are two things a salmon needs,” he said. “To eat. And not to be eaten.”

Fragmentary evidence about salmon mortality in the Sacramento River in recent years, as well as more robust but still inconclusive data about ocean conditions in 2005, indicates that the fall Chinook smolts, or baby fish, of 2005 may have lost out on both counts. But biologists, fishermen and fishery managers all emphasize that no one yet knows anything for sure.