Science News Digest 15th November 2010
In the science news this week, we take a look at the creation of a mini Big Bang at CERN, the Natural History Museum's controversial trip to Paraguay, new stone age etchings found in the Amazon, the start of 'thermogeddon' and finally.... how cats get the cream.
Scientists recreate 'mini Big Bang'
By colliding particles of lead at close to the speed of light and producing temperatures a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland have created temperatures close to those generated at the dawn of time.
The aim for doing this was to cause protons and neutrons to melt into their subatomic particles and prove the existence of Quark Gluon Plasma and find the fundamental building blocks of the Universe.
Dr David Evans, a member of the UK team from the University of Birmingham, said
"The collisions generated mini Big Bangs and the highest temperatures and densities ever achieved in an experiment.
"At these temperatures even protons and neutrons, which make up the nuclei of atoms, melt resulting in a hot dense soup of quarks and gluons known as a quark-gluon plasma."
According to the Daily Telegraph, ‘The collisions were produced by firing lead ions – atoms stripped of their electrons – at 0.9999 the speed of light - 670 million miles per hour - in opposite directions around the LHC's underground tunnel at CERN’
"I now look forward to studying a tiny piece of what the Universe was made of just a millionth of a second after the Big Bang." Said Dr Evans
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Natural History Museum defends expedition to Paraguay
Iniciativa Amotocodie, the indigenous people’s protection group has called for an expedition planned by the Natural History Museum to be cancelled.
The trip, aimed at recording biodiversity in the Dry Chaco region of Paraguay, is thought to be risking disturbing indigenous communities in the area, however the NHM working in collaboration with Paraguayan colleagues are putting measures in place to ensure the safety of the indigenous tribes.
According to the BBC, the Dry Chaco, a semi-arid lowland area that stretches into Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil, is one of the few places where there are still isolated groups of Ayoreo people, who have never had contact with the outside world.
The expedition is hoped to draw attention to the need for protection of the habitat, based on the expected discoveries of new species of plants, insects and animals.
But Benno Glauser, director of Iniciativa Amotocodie, told the BBC's Today Programme: "We know of three isolated indigenous groups in the area targeted by the expedition.
"They live in completely virgin forest... it makes them vulnerable to any external intrusion."
However, Professor Richard Lane, head of science at the Natural History Museum, told BBC News: "We've considered the whole expedition from the very beginning.
"We have sought local advice from our guides to ensure there will be no inappropriate contact."
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Stone age etchings found in the Brazilian Amazon
A drought in the Brazilian Amazon near the jungle city of Manaus has led to a series of ancient underwater etchings that could be 7,000 years old being uncovered.
The discovery was made by a fisherman in the Rio Negro, after it fell to its lowest level for more than 100 years.
The stoneage etchings are now submerged again after the water levels rose, but they were photographed by local researchers before they disappeared again.
This discovery furthers the thinking that the Amazon was home to large civilisations thousands of years ago.
Eduardo Neves, president of the Brazilian Society of Archaeology said;"There has always been this idea that the Amazon was empty. The truth is that this hypothesis is not correct. In many parts of the Amazon we now have proof of settlements,"
According to the Guardian, ‘with soy farmers, loggers and urban settlements advancing, cataloguing and preserving ancient Amazon sites had become a race against time.’
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Thermogeddon has begun....
Observations of the earth’s atmosphere have shown that the once theoretical ‘thermogeddon’, where parts of the tropics become so hot and humid that humans will can’t survive, has already begun.
In this process, as air humidity increases, the cooling effect of sweating is less efficient, making us vulnerable to heat stress at lower temperatures. At present the human threshold for heat tolerance is above the air temperature of any place on Earth, with the exception of some caves in Mexico.
Naturally on Earth, humid air rises as it heats and results in storms that then cool things down. However, according to New Scientist; ‘there is a catch. The point at which air begins to rise - the stability threshold - depends on how warm and moist surrounding air is. Models predict that as the entire tropics warm, the stability threshold will rise.’
Research from the University of Hawaii has shown that data collected over the past 30 years have shown that sea surface temperatures must now be 0.3°C than it did in 1980 before the air above starts to produce cooling rain.
Furthermore, the same applies over land masses too.
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And finally…
Cats definitely know how to get the cream…
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech and Princeton University have collaborated to investigate the method that cats use to drink without getting it all over the place.
Apparently rather than ‘lapping’ up the fluids, they have developed a ‘sophisticated and super-efficient technique’ to suck up liquids.
By looking at high speed footage of a range of felines, the team has found that the same method applies to all types of cats.
The tongue formation, described as being like a capital J shape, allows only the top part of the tongue to brush the liquid, causing a column of milk to form between the moving tongue and the liquid’s surface.
When the cat withdraws its tongue, it pinches off the top of the column, allowing the liquid to enter its mouth without spilling any on its chin.
The column of milk is created between a balance of two forces- gravity pulling the milk down and inertia, that sees liquids carry on moving in the direction it has been pulled in.
Each lap only sucks in 0.1millilitres of fluid, but domestic cats typically laps four times a second.
Dr Jeffrey Aristoff of Princeton's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering said: 'The amount of liquid available for the cat to capture each time it closes its mouth depends on the size and speed of the tongue.
'Our research suggests that the cat chooses the speed in order to maximize the amount of liquid ingested per lap,' said Dr Aristoff, a mathematician who studies liquid surfaces.
Read more in the Daily Mail
Scientists recreate 'mini Big Bang'
By colliding particles of lead at close to the speed of light and producing temperatures a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland have created temperatures close to those generated at the dawn of time.
The aim for doing this was to cause protons and neutrons to melt into their subatomic particles and prove the existence of Quark Gluon Plasma and find the fundamental building blocks of the Universe.
Dr David Evans, a member of the UK team from the University of Birmingham, said
"The collisions generated mini Big Bangs and the highest temperatures and densities ever achieved in an experiment.
"At these temperatures even protons and neutrons, which make up the nuclei of atoms, melt resulting in a hot dense soup of quarks and gluons known as a quark-gluon plasma."
According to the Daily Telegraph, ‘The collisions were produced by firing lead ions – atoms stripped of their electrons – at 0.9999 the speed of light - 670 million miles per hour - in opposite directions around the LHC's underground tunnel at CERN’
"I now look forward to studying a tiny piece of what the Universe was made of just a millionth of a second after the Big Bang." Said Dr Evans
---------------------------------------
Natural History Museum defends expedition to Paraguay
Iniciativa Amotocodie, the indigenous people’s protection group has called for an expedition planned by the Natural History Museum to be cancelled.
The trip, aimed at recording biodiversity in the Dry Chaco region of Paraguay, is thought to be risking disturbing indigenous communities in the area, however the NHM working in collaboration with Paraguayan colleagues are putting measures in place to ensure the safety of the indigenous tribes.
According to the BBC, the Dry Chaco, a semi-arid lowland area that stretches into Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil, is one of the few places where there are still isolated groups of Ayoreo people, who have never had contact with the outside world.
The expedition is hoped to draw attention to the need for protection of the habitat, based on the expected discoveries of new species of plants, insects and animals.
But Benno Glauser, director of Iniciativa Amotocodie, told the BBC's Today Programme: "We know of three isolated indigenous groups in the area targeted by the expedition.
"They live in completely virgin forest... it makes them vulnerable to any external intrusion."
However, Professor Richard Lane, head of science at the Natural History Museum, told BBC News: "We've considered the whole expedition from the very beginning.
"We have sought local advice from our guides to ensure there will be no inappropriate contact."
-------------------------------------
Stone age etchings found in the Brazilian Amazon
A drought in the Brazilian Amazon near the jungle city of Manaus has led to a series of ancient underwater etchings that could be 7,000 years old being uncovered.
The discovery was made by a fisherman in the Rio Negro, after it fell to its lowest level for more than 100 years.
The stoneage etchings are now submerged again after the water levels rose, but they were photographed by local researchers before they disappeared again.
This discovery furthers the thinking that the Amazon was home to large civilisations thousands of years ago.
Eduardo Neves, president of the Brazilian Society of Archaeology said;"There has always been this idea that the Amazon was empty. The truth is that this hypothesis is not correct. In many parts of the Amazon we now have proof of settlements,"
According to the Guardian, ‘with soy farmers, loggers and urban settlements advancing, cataloguing and preserving ancient Amazon sites had become a race against time.’
---------------------------------------
Thermogeddon has begun....
Observations of the earth’s atmosphere have shown that the once theoretical ‘thermogeddon’, where parts of the tropics become so hot and humid that humans will can’t survive, has already begun.
In this process, as air humidity increases, the cooling effect of sweating is less efficient, making us vulnerable to heat stress at lower temperatures. At present the human threshold for heat tolerance is above the air temperature of any place on Earth, with the exception of some caves in Mexico.
Naturally on Earth, humid air rises as it heats and results in storms that then cool things down. However, according to New Scientist; ‘there is a catch. The point at which air begins to rise - the stability threshold - depends on how warm and moist surrounding air is. Models predict that as the entire tropics warm, the stability threshold will rise.’
Research from the University of Hawaii has shown that data collected over the past 30 years have shown that sea surface temperatures must now be 0.3°C than it did in 1980 before the air above starts to produce cooling rain.
Furthermore, the same applies over land masses too.
---------------------------------------
And finally…
Cats definitely know how to get the cream…
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech and Princeton University have collaborated to investigate the method that cats use to drink without getting it all over the place.
Apparently rather than ‘lapping’ up the fluids, they have developed a ‘sophisticated and super-efficient technique’ to suck up liquids.
By looking at high speed footage of a range of felines, the team has found that the same method applies to all types of cats.
The tongue formation, described as being like a capital J shape, allows only the top part of the tongue to brush the liquid, causing a column of milk to form between the moving tongue and the liquid’s surface.
When the cat withdraws its tongue, it pinches off the top of the column, allowing the liquid to enter its mouth without spilling any on its chin.
The column of milk is created between a balance of two forces- gravity pulling the milk down and inertia, that sees liquids carry on moving in the direction it has been pulled in.
Each lap only sucks in 0.1millilitres of fluid, but domestic cats typically laps four times a second.
Dr Jeffrey Aristoff of Princeton's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering said: 'The amount of liquid available for the cat to capture each time it closes its mouth depends on the size and speed of the tongue.
'Our research suggests that the cat chooses the speed in order to maximize the amount of liquid ingested per lap,' said Dr Aristoff, a mathematician who studies liquid surfaces.
Read more in the Daily Mail
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