Kid Science Fun: Security Gunk

I published this post on Science 2.0 first, but I discontinued contributing there, and asked to have all traces of my presence removed from that site. Now the content is still there, with Anonymous listed as the author! I hereby re-publish MY original content here (edited slightly).

I was relaxing out back, watching fireflies flash, when a buddy, dad to boy and girl 11 year old twins, called to catch up with news and relate a funny (still unfinished) story.

Growing crankier by the weekend with trespassers holding court on the porch steps and sneaking around bushes on the property (to pee or worse) after bar-closing-time, he and the kids opted to make fun of this annoyance and concocted a silly yet safe deterrence plan.

In Mom's large mixing bowls, they stirred hefty batches of harmless, variously food-colored cornstarch and water gunk. Then, on Friday night, they placed several of these irregular, unattractive gobs strategically, blocking the places mid-night revelers are most likely to loiter, pouring a cup or two of extra water around each for continued moistness.

Then, they retreated to watch this custom reality show they had staged.

Success! Folks looked, did double-takes, signaled revulsion and wandered on, making sure to avoid stepping over, let alone settling near, these irregular, shiny, blobs of not immediately identifiable, easy to guess the worst about, yucky-looking stuff.

Photo Credit: Chicago Blob Monster by Ryemang on Flickr

No one examined the ugly blobs of unknown origin more closely, no matter what color the gunk. I told him to shoot videos of the performances if they ever repeat the prank.

The gunk washes away easily in the morning. It looks liquidy, but doesn't splash if you slap it and freezes solid when you grab it.

Anyway, with a childlike attitude, I'm heading back out into this warm, humid night to sit with my bug-hunting Tortoise Cat colleague and appreciate more bioluminescent firefly antics. Like the cat, I prefer fireflies to fireworks, any night.

Demon Star Rainbow

I published this post on Science 2.0 first, but I discontinued contributing there, and asked to have all traces of my presence removed from that site. Now the content is still there, with Anonymous listed as the author! I hereby re-publish MY original content here (edited slightly).

Wow: University of Iowa (UI) astronomers have made the first clear, rainbow-like, radio telescope images of a distant stellar coronal loop, at the eclipsing, non-nova binary star Algol, found in the constellation Perseus.

This famous variable star's name derives from Arabic Ras al Ghul (meaning "head of the demon") so Algol is often called the Winking Demon Star. Algol's 68.75 hour wink, discernible by the naked eye, exhibits an extra dimming blink, probably caused by a third star orbiting very close to Algol's second star companion, making this a triple-star system.

Artist's conception of Algol's coronal loop, by Peterson et al., NRAO/AUI/NSF

Iowa University radio astronomer Robert Mutel and graduate student William Peterson and their colleagues used 13 computer-linked radio telescopes, high resolution radio interferometery and careful comparison of radio and optical coordinates to capture the data from Algol and pin down the first non-fuzzy images this distant phenomenon, according to the (Jan. 13, 2010) UI press release.

The artist's conception of the Algol star system (above), showing a radio image superimposed on a grid, is what stirred up my wondering today. I am amid further reading about this impressive star.

More knowlege about the space weather around Earth, brought about by radiation and magnetic fields interacting, can be learned from the UI team's new research.

Next, I will study the relatively close-up coronal loops that happen at our Sun.

Caronal loop cartoon produced by Dr. Ian O'Neill, via Wikimedia Commons

Abiogenesis 101

I published this post on Science 2.0 first, but I discontinued contributing there, and asked to have all traces of my presence removed from that site. Now the content is still there, with Anonymous listed as the author! I hereby re-publish MY original content here (edited slightly).

Reconsidering: The Primordial Soup theory of the origins of life on earth has been cooling for years. Probably, by now, it's too cold to reheat.

Abiogenesis, or the study of how life originated from Earth (and Universe) stuff, connects the Earth and Life sciences, for me.

A research team from the University College, London focused their new research into the origins of Earth life on deep sea vents, where geochemical gradients across microscopic caverns could have acted as catalytic cells, generating precursors of the carbon and energy metabolism found in all organisms, which the first true, free-floating living cells internalized, they conclude.

Freelance science writer Richard Robinson gives a comprehensive, straightforward summary and explanation of past and current abiogenesis theories in PLoS Biology, "Jump-Starting a Cellular World: Investigating the Origin of Life, from Soup to Networks," published November 15, 2005.

A view from above a chimney field, showing the chimneys (round black circles) and bubbles, which contain chambers. The object placed for scale is two centimeters across. These fossil chimneys were formed well after life's origin, but may be similar to those in which, according to one hypothesis, metabolism first began (by  Richard Robinson in PLoS, Nov 2005, via Wikimedia Commons).

What is wrong with the soup?

Conceived independently in 1924 by Russian chemist Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin and British biologist J.B.S. Haldane, the soup cauldron scenario swirled gaseous methane, hydrogen, and ammonia together with water vapor over the 3.5-3.8 billion-year-old Earth (when there was still little or no oxygen in the atmosphere). Power sources, such as lightning or ultraviolet radiation or volcanic energy, would have sparked chemical reactions, producing complex organic molecules that fell with rain and sloshed into a prebiotic gumbo of life's essential ingredients (such as amino acids, nucleotides and lipids), which simmered a gradual chemical evolution of life into being.

In 1953, the Miller–Urey experiment showed that laboratory simulations of the early Earth's conditions, as hypothesized in those days – electrode "lightning" sparks and heating and cooling cycles applied to methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2) and water – produced an array of complex organic compounds, when left to run continuously. The Primordial Soup theory heated up after this pioneering study was published.

Since Miller and Urey, scientists have experimented with alternative starting conditions and scenarios of Earth's pre-life days, and some of those simulations have generated complex organic molecules, also.

In May of 2009, scientists at The University of Manchester announced that they had synthesized two of the four building blocks of RNA from chemicals that would have existed on Earth four billion years ago. Their research was published in the May 14, 2009 issue of the journal Nature.

But a primordial cauldron – or complex system – of self-catalyzing, self-replicating organic macromolecules could not chemically evolve into the first living organisms without a sustained energy source.

Could hydrothermal vents birth life?

Since organic molecules are unstable at high temperatures, hydrothermal vent fields – where magma rises up between spreading crustal plates and the Earth's unfaltering heat provides steady energy – were once thought to be too hot, dark and harsh an environment for life to survive, let alone arise. But submarine diving researchers diving in the 1990s discovered many thriving hydrothermal vent habitats, crawling (and swimming) with uniquely adapted species.

In some hydrothermal vent scenarios, the unstable organic precursors of life are not formed in the 300C to 400C waters of the vents, but arise within a temperature gradient between the hydrothermal vent water, and the surrounding cold water.

There are several abiogenesis theories still on the burners of science labs around the world – even a mica sandwich.

But there is no more Primordial Soup today.

Earth's Weaker Paleoarchean Magnetism

I published this post on Science 2.0 first, but I discontinued contributing there, and asked to have all traces of my presence removed from that site. Now the content is still there, with Anonymous listed as the author! I hereby re-publish MY original content here (edited slightly).

Continuing my earlier geomagnetism blurt:

University of Rochester geophysicist John Tarduno and an international team measured the magnetization of nanometer-sized magnetic inclusions, isolated within millimeter-sized quartz crystal inclusions, within 3.5 billion year old South African igneous rocks called dacites using a new, super-sensitive superconducting quantum interface device, or SQUID magnetometer.

According to their measurements and calculations, Earth's magnetic field 3.5 billion years ago was only half as strong as it is today, and the magnetopause was only half the distance from Earth it is today.

Image: The structure of Earth's magnetosphere, the area of space around the Earth that is controlled by its magnetic field, by Image Editor on Flickr.com, based upon a NASA image

"On a normal night 3.5 billion years ago you'd probably see the aurora as far south as New York," explained Tarduno.

This study, supported by the National Science Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, brought together scientists from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), the University of Rochester (New York), NASA, the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences (Beijing) and the University of Oslo (Norway).

Earlier blurt -

When I tweet links to science articles, I lose them in the Twitter stream of  "more" as they descend further and farther below the bottom of the page.

Posting science links with briefest descriptions here as "blog-blurts" -- or even just the links -- might serve me better.

An example: Earth's geodynamo may have churned up as early as 3.45 billion years ago (via Scientific American).

Exoskeletons

I published these posts on Science 2.0 first, but I discontinued contributing there, and asked to have all traces of my presence removed from that site. Now the content is still there, with Anonymous listed as the author! I hereby re-publish MY original content here (edited slightly).

Exoskeletons To Envy

We human primates evolved and innovated extreme flexibility of body and mind, partly because we grow flesh around, instead of within, a bony framework. Yet we envy and copy the crusty, scaly or shelly attire of many biological predecessors.

Who sports the best exoskeleton?

Echinoderms grow some of the most fancy and flashy. Mollusks grow plenty of ornate, effective examples.

According the California Museum of Paleontology website, arthropods have advanced within their chitinous armor to become the real rulers of our world. Three fourths of all known living organisms are arthropods, the article states.

Other chordates besides humans, such as the turtles, hedgehogs, and bony fishes have revisited exoskeletal defense systems with great success.

Both exoskeletons and endoskeletons have advantages and disadvantages, but humans, as the most flexible living beings on earth, have merged ingenious "both/and" capabilities with insistent "do and/or die" attitudes since prehistoric days, and surged in shield inventing ever since.



This print by Gideon Algernon Mantell titled "Battle of the Trilobites" pokes fun at these human nature traits (and the results).

Still, materials scientists at MIT are studying the "scaly-foot" gastropod, Crysomallon squamiferum, hoping to design new and improved battle armor based upon features of its nearly uncrushable, tri-layered shell. The research team is planning to pick up shell construction tips, with military applications, from many armored animals in future projects.

However high-tech portable or mobile protection can serve peaceful or adventurous purposes just as well. HplusMagazine reports that the robotic exoskeletons being developed by the US Department of Defense to give soldiers a boost might become available for medical and recreational uses soon.

Now, I am pausing to imagine some of the relief, fun and trouble those advances could bring.

Have you ever wished you had a natural or high-tech exoskeleton? Have you ever dreamed of running, flying or swimming in powered armor? Do tell!

Exoskeleton Update:

Today's National Science Foundation (NSF) news release about the high-tech armor inspiring "scaly-foot gastropod" mollusk,Crysomallon squamiferum, included better pictures of this deep-sea wonder. So I am posting the pictures in this brief update to my "Exoskeletons to Envy," published January 18.

The scaly-foot snail inhabits the Kairei Indian hydrothermal vent field, two-and-one-half miles below the central Indian Ocean, according to the press release. Yesterday while I was writing about this extra-tough snail from the earlier MIT press release, here and elsewhere, I was unable to find pretty-enough accompanying images with clear permissions for usage.

Now, thanks to the NSF, I can post pictures that almost do this marvelous critter justice!

Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation, inset after Haimin Yao et al., PNAS, January 2010

The scaly-foot snail resists a knight's lance attack in the fanciful illustration above. But the gastropod's unusual, three-layered shell is both penetration and crush resistant.

Key features of this snail's shell that may inspire new and improved vehicle or personal armor design are the outer granular layer made of iron sulfide and a much thicker than usual organic middle layer.

The inmost layer of the scaly-foot snail's shell is highly calcified. Most snails have much thinner, two-layered shells.

Credit: Dr. Anders Warén, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden

Muliverse 101?

I published this post on Science 2.0 first, but I discontinued contributing there, and asked to have all traces of my presence removed from that site. Now the content is still there, with Anonymous listed as the author! I hereby re-publish MY original content here (edited slightly).

This article is about physics but it fits under random thoughts also. My science writing is self-educational, about what I am wondering and learning about. Today, it's multiverse theory.

I reported on the article featured on the January 2010 issue of Scientific American Magazine, "Looking for Life in the Multiverse," by Alejandro Jenkins, postdoctoral associate in theoretical high-energy physics at The Florida State University, and his colleague Gilad Perez, a theorist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, that juxtaposes the anthropic principle and multiverse theory. Among other things, the authors have concluded that the multiverse theory renders the anthopic principle obsolete.

When I searched for an image to go with this post I was most intrigued by artist Jardin Celeste's conception of the multiverse.


Jenkins and Periz found, mathematically and hypothetically at least, that other sorts and conditions of life could exist in other universes, separate from our own, where the laws of nature and physics are not limited by any necessity to generate universal conditions favorable to anthropic, or human-friendly, life (as "we" understand – or can understand – it). While I was wondering over this team's research, I remembered an article by cosmologist and physicist Max Tegmark, "Parallel Universes," published in the May 2003 issue of Scientific American that had grabbed my attention. I am happy to note that Max Tegmark summarizes the concepts and terminology of his "crazy universe" on his own website.

Geodynamics After Breakfast

I published this post on Science 2.0 first, but I discontinued contributing there, and asked to have all traces of my presence removed from that site. Now the content is still there, with Anonymous listed as the author! I hereby re-publish MY original content here (edited slightly).

OK: This morning I was asked to settle an argument about the Magnetic North Pole being a magnetic south pole. That discussion started me wondering about the dynamo theory, widely accepted now, that the Earth's swirling, agitating liquid outer core, interacting through convection with Earth's inmost magnetism, is what regenerates our planet's geomagnetic field.

Earth's inner core of solid iron, at approximately 4000°C is too hot to sustain magnetism through eons of geologic time, by itself.

Recently I was surprised to read that, since 1989, The Magnetic North Pole's migration towards Russia has sped up, from about nine to almost 40 miles per year.  A deep magnetic plume may be stirring up a region of rapid magnetic change on the surface, which may be pulling the pole away from Canada, according to geophysicist Arnaud Chulliat of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France.

After Earth's poles and magnetic field were squared away, this morning's conversation drifted to the magnetic fields of other planets. But what about Earth's churning geodynamo?

We cannot journey 4000 miles down into the center of the Earth to collect data. But Gary A Glatzmaier, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleague Paul Roberts, Professor of Mathematics at UCLA, innovated a 3-D supercomputer simulation and observed results that confirm much of the dynamo theory.

After setting the simulation's parameters to correlate with dynamo theory scenarios and letting it run for almost a year, which represented over 36,000 years of ordinary time, the Glatzmaier-Roberts computer model generated a magnetic field reversal.  This image shows a supercomputer model of flow patterns in Earth's liquid core before magnetic pole reversal.

Geomagnetic reverals have been confirmed by geological records to happen on Earth at varying, infrequent intervals. The supercomputer simulation matched other measured features of Earth's magnetic field, as well.

What I read today that was new to me, is that Earth's inner and outer cores have opposite polarities. This balance prevents geomagnetic reversals from happening more often and it also means that, on some level, everyone arguing about north and south over breakfast this morning was right.