Scientists expose mystery behind northern lights

Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky.

The findings should help scientists better understand the more powerful but less common geomagnetic storms that can knock out satellites, harm astronauts in orbit and disrupt power and communications on Earth, scientists said.

A fleet of five small satellites, called Themis, observed the beginning of a geomagnetic storm in February, while ground observatories in Canada and Alaska recorded the brightening of the northern lights. The southern lights — aurora australis — also brightened and darted across the sky at the same time.

These auroral flare-ups occur every two or three days, on average.

A team led by University of California, Los Angeles, scientist Vassilis Angelopoulos confirmed that the observed storm about 80,000 miles from Earth was triggered by a phenomenon known as magnetic reconnection. Every so often, the Earth's magnetic field lines are stretched like rubber bands by solar energy, snap, are thrown back to Earth and reconnect, in effect creating a short circuit.

It's this stored-up energy that powers the northern and southern lights or, in other words, causes them to dance, according to Angelopoulos.

An opposing theory has these geomagnetic events occurring much closer to Earth, about one-sixth of the way to the moon. More Themis observations are needed to resolve the debate, said David Sibeck, NASA's project scientist.

"Finally, we have the right instruments in the right place at the right time, and it's allowed scientists to be able to make the necessary observations to settle this heated debate once and for all," said Nicola Fox, a Johns Hopkins University scientist who was not involved in the study.

At present, about 20 of these geomagnetic storms are being analyzed. Scientists hope to eventually learn, via this project, more about the bigger solar storms that occur about 10 times a year and can lead to far more expansive and prolonged northern and southern lights.

The five Themis spacecraft — a NASA acronym standing for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interations during Substorms — were launched aboard a single rocket last year.

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Could water really have a memory?

The trial appeared to back the theory of homeopathy

The news that the number of prescriptions for homeopathic medicines written by GPs in England has nearly halved in just two years coincides with the 20th anniversary of a seminal scientific paper on the subject.

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1988, the science world was rocked by one of the most controversial research papers ever published in the highly-respected journal Nature.

According to a charismatic French scientist named Jacques Benveniste, pure water could somehow remember what it had previously contained.

Benveniste had started with a substance that caused an allergic reaction, he diluted it over and over again until there was nothing left except water, and then he observed that the pure water still managed to trigger an allergic reaction when it was added to living cells.

If the experiment was correct then it would mean rewriting the laws of physics and chemistry.

Moreover, the research would have a major impact on the credibility of homeopathy, because it is a form of alternative medicine that relies on remedies made by diluting the key curative ingredient over and over again until that ingredient has disappeared.

Even Benveniste was shocked by the implications of his own work.

"It was like shaking your car keys in the Seine at Paris and then discovering that water taken from the mouth of the river would start your car!"

Supernatural powers

John Maddox, editor of Nature, realised that Benveniste's research would be controversial, so it was accompanied by a disclaimer similar to one that had been run when he published research about Uri Geller's supposed supernatural powers.

It said: "Editorial reservation: Readers of this article may share the incredulity of the many referees ... Nature has therefore arranged for independent investigators to observe repetitions of the experiments."

The investigation team was led by Maddox himself, and he was joined by chemist Walter Stewart and James Randi, a magician, who had a reputation for debunking extraordinary claims.

Unfortunately for Benveniste, the investigators soon discovered that the results in his laboratory were unreliable.

The three of them went on to publish a report explaining how Benveniste's assistants were being subconsciously selective in the way that they interpreted their data.

They said: "We believe that experimental data have been uncritically assessed and their imperfections inadequately reported."

Benvensiste gradually moved out of academia as a result of the Nature debacle, but right up to his death in 2004 he maintained that his research was valid and that he was being ignored by a blinkered scientific establishment.

Twenty years after his research was published, perhaps now is the ideal time to asses his long-term impact on the debate surrounding ultra-dilute solutions and homeopathy.

Was he an unrecognized genius who was ahead of his time or was he a deluded scientist who failed to see that his research deeply flawed?

First of all, it is worth noting that there have been many attempts to reproduce Benveniste's experiments - occasionally there are positive results, but they are neither consistent nor convincing, and in any case these are countered by several negative results.

For example, the BBC science series Horizon attempted to test Benveniste's claims in 2002, and the conclusion was announced by Professor Martin Bland, of St George's Hospital Medical School.

He said: "There's absolutely no evidence at all to say that there is any difference between the solution that started off as pure water and the solution that started off with the histamine [an allergen]."

Phenomenon

Similarly, Benveniste started a spin-off company called DigiBio, which claimed that water could not only have a memory, but that this memory could be digitized, transmitted via email and reintroduced into another sample of water, which in turn could have an impact on living cells.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) tested DigiBio's claim and came to the following conclusion: "Our team found no replicable effects from digital signals."

Nevertheless, Benveniste's research continues to be very influential among many homeopaths, such as Alex Tournier, the founding director of the Homeopathy Research Institute.

He said: "Benveniste was a very inspiring and dedicated scientist, who at the very apogee of his career at the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, was ready to put his reputation on the line to report a phenomenon he didn't understand: homeopathic dilutions.

"Homeopathy is still not understood, however his efforts started a new era of rigorous scientific investigation of the field."

Other homeopaths are convinced by Benveniste's idea of digital homeopathy and are even willing to sell such remedies over the internet.

The vast majority of scientists would argue that, because there is still no convincing evidence that homeopathy is effective after 200 clinical trials, the idea that digitized homeopathy can help patients is fanciful.

But for $1,000 you could go online and buy yourself a digital homeopathy software kit and start treating yourself and others today.

Serious question marks remain over the Benveniste paper, but what is not in doubt is that its influence among homeopaths is still powerful and profound 20 years on.

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Unique Habitat Found Inside Earth

Researchers studying life in the deep subsurface of our planet have discovered a unique bacterium living 1 mile (1.7 km) below the Earth's surface. The tiny bacteria live in a community of subsurface microbes inhabiting a South African platinum mine.

The deep subsurface of Earth harbors many unique microbes that are only accessible through large scale drilling projects or mining. By trekking into the ultra-deep mines of South Africa, researchers are getting a rare glimpse into this unique habitat. In the depths of South Africa's Northam Platinum mine, scientists from the University of Western Ontario and Princeton University have gained access to many previously undiscovered microbial communities.

While mining and drilling allow scientists to sample the unique environment below the Earth's soil, these activities obviously disturb the subsurface of the planet. Digging into the ground disrupts the microbial communities that live there. When people enter mines and caves, they bring with them a massive number of non-native microbes. Because of this, it's difficult to get uncontaminated samples.

The team from the recent study decided to test samples from mines in order to determine just how contaminated they really are. They collected samples from slime, or biofilm, growing on the walls of the Northam mine in South Africa. An explosion of life occurs where subsurface water leaks out of the mine walls and meets with oxygen, leading to films of microscopic organisms.

Previously, researchers overlooked these biofilms because they thought the films would be too heavily contaminated. To test this theory, the team determined whether or not their biofilms were formed by contaminant organisms from the surface, or by unique subsurface organisms.

The study, by Greg Wanger, Tullis Onstott and Gordon Southam, was published in a recent edition of the journal Geobiology.

The authors showed that the biofilms contained a number of unique organisms associated with the deep subsurface, and therefore such films might be an excellent place to search for new and unusual species of microbes. In fact, in their study the team came across one particularly strange microbe shaped like a tiny, microscopic star.

Shaping up bacteria

Microbes come in a number of shapes and sizes, but most of these shapes are rather uncomplicated. The easiest shape for a microbe to make is a sphere. Like a soap bubble, the cell membranes of microbes tend to naturally form this simple structure due to forces such as surface tension.

According to the research team, "the diversity of all bacterial shapes is more difficult to explain." Other shapes often seen in microbes include rods and spirals, but these take a bit of extra work on the part of the microbe. To make more complicated shapes, microbes have to use extra energy to fight against the natural forces that favor the sphere. According to the research team, the biofilms from Northam mine "contained a morphologically diverse assortment of bacteria."

Some rare microbes go beyond the common and form radically unique shapes. The microbe discovered in the depths of the Northam mine is one such microbe. Using high-powered microscopes, the team captured images that show star-shaped cells with four to nine points. It's a unique structure for a microbe and one that has not been witnessed before.

So why would a microbe want to take the shape of a star?

As living organisms, every microbe needs food. When we need food, we can simply pick it up and put it in our mouths. That's not the case for most microbes. Many microbes simply float about in their environment in the hope that they'll be able to absorb the nutrients they need to survive

Many microbes "eat" by letting nutrients diffuse through their cell membrane. A sphere may be easy to form, but it doesn't provide the largest surface area for a cell. By forming a more complicated shape, with a cell wall that folds and bends, the surface area of the cell is increased in relation to its interior volume. This means there's more cell wall through with the microbe can absorb its food.

The new microbe discovered by the researchers in South Africa has likely developed its unique shape in response to its unique environment. The deep subsurface of the planet is thought to be quite "nutrient poor" — there's not a lot of food to go around. Microbes need to develop clever strategies to out-compete their neighbors. The surface-area-to-volume ratio for the star-shaped cells is thought to be as much as ten times better than common bacteria like e. coli. This advantage may help the stars survive amidst a neighborhood of microbes competing for the same food.

Inside planets

Scientists are just beginning to understand the unique types of life beneath the surface of our planet. Astrobiologists are particularly interested in the subsurface because it can help them understand how microbes might survive deep beneath the topsoil of other planets.

Upcoming and current missions to search for signs of past or present life on Mars are focusing on life beneath the martian soil. Right now, NASA's Phoenix Lander is using a scoop to dig on Mars. Recent images returned from Phoenix are already revealing clues about subsurface ice on the red planet.

The European Space Agency's ExoMars rover may take the exploration of Mars' subsurface one step further. Current plans are to place a drill on ExoMars that could allow the rover to dig up to 12 feet.

NASA has also been developing prototype drills for use by human explorers on Mars. Drilling technologies have already been tested by NASA researchers in extreme environments on Earth, including the Canadian high arctic.

Microbes use many methods to survive in the nutrient-poor, oxygen-free, pitch-black world deep beneath our feet. Studying these microbes might provide clues about how organisms could live in harsh environments on other planets like Mars. Because of this, unique microbes like the "stars" of Northam mine may shed a bit of light on the future of planetary exploration.

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Solar Powered Air Conditioning Under Development

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The consumer-grade absorption chiller under development by UC3M uses the heat of the sun to cool water. (Source: Universidad Carlos III of Madrid)

The sun will keep you cool in just a few seasons.

The Montreal Protocol, crafted in 1987 and signed by 191 countries as of 2007, put the hot iron to the cooling industry. It has seen several revisions since 1987 and some of its strictures affect industry as a whole while others involve mainly cooling and refrigeration.

The ultimate goal of the protocol is to reduce the amount of several ozone-depleting chemicals used by industrialized nations to zero. Most CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) were to be phased out of use by 1996; other less dangerous CFCs and chemicals are to be phased out by 2010; HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) are on a longer leash, and have cease and desist date of 2030, 2020 in developed nations.

Unfortunately for the air-conditioning and refrigeration industries, this means an industry-wide change in practice, as HCFCs are commonly used as refrigerants in modern cooling machines. There are several technologies that cool without the use of these refrigerants, but until recently, they have been utilized mostly only in large-scale applications. Absorption chillers are used in many industries, from commercial to machinery cooling.

Absorption chilling differs from standard mechanical air conditioning in that it doesn't use an active force, such as a compressor, to condense the coolant chemical, but rather uses heat to drive a circulatory system. Many absorption chillers are utilized in areas where ample amounts of waste heat are available (turbine power or water heating systems are common sources). This allows them to make use of waste heat for a secondary purpose, thereby making the entire system more efficient and cost-effective.

This nearly century-old technology has not been widely used in consumer arenas like home cooling as the heat needed to power the system would cost more than the typical compressor-driven air-conditioning unit and there are not usually readily available sources of waste heat powerful enough to harness. Professor Marcelo Izquierdo of the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid and his group of researchers are aiming to put this technology into homes, however, with a little help from a very large furnace – the sun.

Izquierdo's team built an absorption chiller unit that closely resembles a typical exterior air-conditioning unit, and it works by capturing solar energy and residual heat to provide the impetus for the system's circulation. The device uses a refined lithium bromide-based coolant process – most absorption chillers use either an ammonia, hydrogen and water or a lithium bromide solution and water system – and is capable of cooling water to a temperature of 7C to 18C with an ambient temperature of 33 to 43C. The machine can produce enough chilled water to cool a 120 cubic meter area via a water-to-air heat exchanger.

Neither the lithium-bromide solution nor the more common ammonia and hydrogen systems are ozone depleting. This makes them a viable alternative to the HCFC refrigerants used in modern compression systems. In the very near future, consumer-grade absorption chiller units could become common in many regions that experience high temperatures during one or many seasons. Using the Big Heater in the Sky itself to power the cooling units is an ironic twist and one definitely worthy of more research.

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Female Soldiers Around the World

These female soldiers are ready to protect their respective countries from enemies, although some of them can easily make their way through to the men’s magazine covers. Enjoy and discuss! Which country’s military has the sexiest girls? Share your views in the comments!

Romania

Germany

Pakistan

Denmark

Nepal

Brazil

Australia

Canada

Belgium

France

Finland

New Zealand

Italy

Greece

Norway

Spain

Vietnam

Ukraine

Kashmir

Bahrain

Iran

Poland

Netherlands

Israel

Algeria

Austria

Chile

United Kingdom

Estonia

Czech Republic

Japan

Russia

Portugal

Switzerland

Sweden

USA

South Korea

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Mankind to wage wars for water by 2025

The shortage of fresh water on planet Earth is likely to become the biggest problem ever during the forthcoming decades. Experts from the International Water Management Institute said in their recent report that the water crisis in the world would occur because of the growing number of population.


Mankind to wage wars for water by 2025.

According to the UN, the population of planet Earth will grow from 6 to 8.5 billion people by 2030. One person living in an industrially developed country consumes up to 3,000 liters of water a year. If the global population grows by 2.5 billion, it will be necessary to find additional 2,000 cubic kilometers of water for their living.

“The global consumption of water has increased six times during the recent 100 years and will double by 2050. There are countries that have already run out of water reserves for the production of their food. The shortage of fresh water will inevitably boost prices on this resource,” the Director of the International Water Management Institute, Frank Rijsberman said.

The accelerating urbanization and the rising living standard will set forth new requirements to the quality of water. Drinking water and industrial water is obtained from one and the same sources. It may just so happen that agricultural producers, for example, will face serious problems with the required volumes of water.

Mankind will have to deal with a serious shortage of water in 25 years. Earth’s fresh water reserves will not be enough to feed the growing population of the planet. Specialists say that one should take urgent measures now to solve the water problem. The list of measures includes the construction of water reservoirs, the use of rain water for irrigation of fields and gardens, etc.

It is not the first time when futurologists raise the water crisis subject. They believe that the crisis may occur even before the planet runs out of its fresh water. The shortage of water can be accompanied with large-scale military conflicts.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon raised the subject in December 2007 at the first Asian-Pacific Water Forum, which took place in Japan. Ban Ki-moon said that one-third of Earth’s population lives in the areas, which already suffer from the lack of water. More importantly, about 1.1 billion people living on the planet nowadays do not have access to fresh water which poses no health risks.

Humans still pollute water sources irresponsibly and do not seem to care about the consequences.

The problem of water shortage is especially serious in the countries of Africa and Asia. It is an open secret that drought-prone countries suffer from the shortage of water most. Deforestation is extremely dangerous at this point too. Flora is the inseparable member of the circulation of water. Water can not be found in the places where flora has been destroyed.

The issue of water shortage in Russia is less serious than in other parts of the world. However, the delivery of water to consumers can become a very big problem instead: water pipelines and supplies are depreciated in many Russian cities. In addition, up to 60 percent of drinking water in Russia does not correspond to sanitary norms. About 40 percent of surface and 17 percent of underground sources of drinking water do not match the norms either.

Not only are there 1.1 billion without adequate drinking water, but the United Nations acknowledges 2.6 billion people are without adequate water for sanitation (e.g. wastewater disposal). The issues are coupled, since, without water for sewage disposal, cross-contamination of drinking water by untreated sewage is the chief adverse outcome of inadequate safe water supply. Consequently, disease and significant deaths arise from people using contaminated water supplies; these effects are particularly pronounced for children in underdeveloped countries, where 3900 children per day die of diarrhea alone.

While these deaths are generally considered preventable, the situation is considerably more complex, since the Earth is beyond its carrying capacity with respect to available fresh water. Often technology is advanced as a panacea, but the costs of technology presently exclude a number of countries from availing themselves of these solutions. If lesser developed countries acquire more wealth, partial mitigation will occur, but sustainable solutions must involve each region in balancing population to water resource and in managing water resources more optimally. In any case the finite nature of the water resource must be acknowledged if the world is to achieve a better balance.

There are many other countries of the world that are severely impacted with regard to human health and inadequate drinking water. The following is a partial list of some of the countries with significant populations (numerical population of affected population listed) whose only consumption is of contaminated water:

Sudan 12.3 million
Iran 5.6 million
Venezuela 5.0 million
Syria 3.8 million
Zimbabwe 2.7 million
Tunisia 2.1 million
Cuba 1.2 million

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Flat screen TVs blamed for accelerating global warming

A gas used in the making of flat screen televisions, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), is being blamed for damaging the atmosphere and accelerating global warming.

Almost half of the televisions sold around the globe so far this year have been plasma or LCD TVs.

But this boom could be coming at a huge environmental cost.

The gas, widely used in the manufacture of flat screen TVs, is estimated to be 17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

Ironically, NF3 is not covered by the Kyoto protocol as it was only produced in tiny amounts when the treaty was signed in 1997.

Levels of this gas in the atmosphere have not been measured, but scientists say it is a concern and are calling for it to be included in any future emissions cutting agreement.

Professor Michael Prather from the University of California has highlighted the issue in an article for the magazine New Scientist.

He has told ABC's The World Today program that output of the gas needs to be measured.

"One of my titles for this paper was Going Below Kyoto's Radar. It's the kind of gas that's made in huge amounts," he said.

"Not only is it not in the Kyoto Treaty but you don't even have to report it. That's the part that worries me."

He estimates 4,000 tons of NF3 will be produced in 2008 and that number is likely to double next year.

"We don't know what's emitted, but what they're producing every year dwarfs these giant coal-fired power plants that are like the biggest in the world," he said.

"And it dwarfs two of the Kyoto gases. So the real question we don't know is how much is escaping and getting out."

Dr Paul Fraser is the chief research scientist at the CSIRO's marine and atmospheric research centre, and an IPCC author.

He says without measuring the quantity of NF3 in the atmosphere it is unclear what impact it will have on the climate.

"We haven't observed it in the atmosphere. It's probably there in very low concentrations," he said.

"The key to whether it's a problem or not is how much is released to the atmosphere."

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Cancer 'cure' in mice to be tested in humans

Scientists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are about to embark on a human trial to test whether a new cancer treatment will be as effective at eradicating cancer in humans as it has proven to be in mice.

The treatment will involve transfusing specific white blood cells, called granulocytes, from select donors, into patients with advanced forms of cancer. A similar treatment using white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice has previously been highly successful, curing 100 percent of lab mice afflicted with advanced malignancies.

Zheng Cui, Ph.D., lead researcher and associate professor of pathology, will be announcing the study June 28 at the Understanding Aging conference in Los Angeles.

The study, given the go-ahead by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will involve treating human cancer patients with white blood cells from healthy young people whose immune systems produce cells with high levels of cancer-fighting activity.

The basis of the study is the scientists' discovery, published five years ago, of a cancer-resistant mouse and their subsequent finding that white blood cells from that mouse and its offspring cured advanced cancers in ordinary laboratory mice. They have since identified similar cancer-killing activity in the white blood cells of some healthy humans.

"In mice, we've been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors," Cui said. "Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans."

The team has tested human cancer-fighting cells from healthy donors against human cervical, prostate and breast cancer cells in the laboratory – with surprisingly good results. The scientists say the anti-tumor response primarily involves granulocytes of the innate immune system, a system known for fighting off infections.

Granulocytes are the most abundant type of white blood cells and can account for as much as 60 percent of total circulating white blood cells in healthy humans. Donors can give granulocytes specifically without losing other components of blood through a process called apheresis that separates granulocytes and returns other blood components back to donors.

In a small study of human volunteers, the scientists found that cancer-killing activity in the granulocytes was highest in people under age 50. They also found that this activity can be lowered by factors such as winter or emotional stress. They said the key to the success for the new therapy is to transfuse sufficient granulocytes from healthy donors while their cancer-killing activities are at their peak level.

For the upcoming study, the researchers are currently recruiting 500 local potential donors who are 50 years old or younger and in good health to have their blood tested. Of those, 100 volunteers with high cancer-killing activity will be asked to donate white blood cells for the study. Cell recipients will include 22 cancer patients who have solid tumors that either didn't respond originally, or no longer respond, to conventional therapies. The study will cost $100,000 per patient receiving therapy, and for many patients (those living in 22 states, including North Carolina) the costs may be covered by their insurance company. There is no cost to donate blood. For general information about insurance coverage of clinical trials, go to the American Cancer Society's web site at www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_6_2x_State_Laws_Regarding_Clinica....)

For more information about qualifications for donors and participants, go to www.wfubmc.edu/LIFT (Web site will be available the evening of 6/27.) Cancer-killing ability in these cells is highest during the summer, so researchers are hoping to find volunteers who can afford the therapy quickly.

"If the study is effective, it would be another arrow in the quiver of treatments aimed at cancer," said Mark Willingham, M.D., a co-researcher and professor of pathology. "It is based on 10 years of work since the cancer-resistant mouse was first discovered."

Volunteers who are selected as donors – based on the observed potential cancer-fighting activity of their white cells – will complete the apheresis, a two- to three-hour process similar to platelet donation, to collect their granulocytes. The cancer patients will then receive the granulocytes through a transfusion – a safe process that has been used for more than 30 years. Normally, the treatment is used for patients who have antibiotic-resistant infectious diseases. The treatment will be given for three to four consecutive days on an outpatient basis. Up to three donors may be necessary to collect enough blood product for one study participant.

"The difference between our study and the traditional white cell therapy is that we're selecting the healthy donors based on the cancer-killing ability of their white blood cells," said Cui. The scientists are calling the therapy Leukocyte InFusion Therapy (LIFT).

The goal of the phase II study is to determine whether patients can tolerate a sufficient amount of transfused granulocytes for the treatment. Participants will be monitored on a regular basis, and after three months scientists will evaluate whether the treatment results in clear clinical benefits for the patients. If this phase of the study is successful, scientists will expand the study to determine if the treatment is best suited to certain types of cancer.

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