Thursday 16 July 2015

Benefits of Vitamin B12 supplements for older people questioned

original post »

Around one sixth of people in the UK aged over 75 have vitamin B12 deficiency, which when severe

The post Benefits of Vitamin B12 supplements for older people questioned has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Despite new information, Pluto will remain a dwarf planet, cosmologist says

more »
Back in 1930, it was an easy answer -- Pluto was a planet because we couldn't see anything else brighter at a similar distance away from us, says a cosmologist. Then, in the 1990s, astronomers began detecting more and more planet-like objects around Pluto and the questions started -- was Pluto a planet or not?
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Planets and dwarf planets poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: astronomy, space, nasa, nebula, galaxy, best, unique, original, quality, custom, affordable, photography, popular, planet, space exploration, solar system, outer space, deep space, space age, space design, space image, space travel, space shuttle, space telescope, space and time, space race, space center, space time, universe, space gifts, laureen, laureenr

Planets and dwarf planets of the solar system

»visit the Nasaworld store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

4 stories: The secret lives of animals

Science Focus

original post »

In this podcast, we take a look at the much-maligned earwig, the koala's cooling techniques, the tragedy of the Tenius Adronicus, and one insect's painful sexual rituals. 

Read more about the stories mentioned:

How I learned to love the evil-looking earwig

The koala's secret to staying cool: Hugging

Presenting Tenuis Andronicus: A parasite and moose tragedy, in six acts

Inside nature's most painfully bizarre sexual ritual

Listen to more of The Week's podcasts:

4 stories: Secrets of Hollywood

4 stories: The curious origins of our most familiar and beloved things

4 stories: On love and family in the modern world

 
#science 
 » see original post http://theweek.com/audio/540909/4-stories-secret-lives-animals
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

How we ruined the oceans

Science Focus

original post »

 Why are the oceans in trouble?
They can no longer absorb the damage inflicted by the 7 billion people on Earth. Over many decades, the human race has overfished key species to near extinction, and polluted them with carbon dioxide emissions, toxic chemicals, garbage, and discarded plastics. A groundbreaking new study, recently published in Science, warned that our oceans are being irreparably damaged by human activity and could be on "the precipice of a major extinction event." Coral reefs, home to a quarter of the ocean's fish, have declined by 40 percent worldwide. Stocks of swordfish, yellowfin tuna, and other large fish that people avidly eat are down by 90 percent. Marine scientists say that if mankind does not dramatically change how it treats the oceans and their inhabitants, many marine species will become extinct — with catastrophic consequences for the food chain. "If by the end of the century we're not off the business-as-usual curve," says Stanford University marine ecologist Stephen Palumbi, one of the report's authors, "there's not much hope for normal ecosystems in the ocean."

How does global warming affect fish?
As the oceans heat up, many species are migrating to cooler waters to survive. Some inevitably will fail in these new habitats. Warmer temperatures also make coral reefs more vulnerable to "bleaching," a chemical process that drains the organisms of their brilliant colors and leads to their death. Other problems are caused directly by the burning of fossil fuels. With oceans absorbing a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions, they have become 30 percent more acidic, causing inhibited shell growth in coral and crustaceans and reproductive disorders in fish. Power plant emissions — especially from burning coal — put tons of highly toxic mercury in the air, which settles into the ocean. The mercury is taken up by sea creatures and concentrated in predatory species. A recent study found that mercury levels in Pacific yellowfin tuna have been rising at a rate of 3.8 percent a year since 1998. "If it keeps going like that," says co-author Carl Lamborg, eventually almost "every kind of fish is going to be potentially hazardous."

What about plastic?
Our oceans contain an estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic — most of them less than 5 millimeters wide — weighing a total of 269,000 tons. A lot of this detritus, which mostly comes from plastic bottles and discarded commercial fishing gear, has collected in vast systems of rotating ocean currents, known as gyres. The largest such collection, the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," covers an area twice the size of Texas. The mostly tiny pieces of plastic in this and other patches contain many potentially hazardous chemicals, and are being eaten by fish and birds that mistake them for plankton or small fish. As smaller animals are eaten in turn by predatory fish, the plastic becomes more concentrated and winds up in people who eat seafood.

Can't we remove all the plastic?
No chance. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that to clean less than 1 percent of the North Pacific it would take 68 ships, working 10-hour days, a whole year. A skimming operation of that scope would also suck up tons of marine creatures. And with global plastic production doubling every 10 years, "there's no way to keep up," says Chris Wilcox of Australia's national science agency. "It would be as if you were vacuuming your living room, and I'm standing at the doorway with a bag of dust and a fan."

How big a problem is overfishing?
Since fishing became industrialized just over a century ago, most commercial species have been reduced by more than 75 percent — and some by 99 percent. As stocks dwindle, fishing fleets are increasingly resorting to "bottom trawling," a hugely destructive technique that involves dragging a large net up to 60 meters wide along the seabed, scooping up everything in its path. Most countries now have fishing quotas, but they're hard to enforce: An estimated 1 in 5 fish sold in a shop or served in a restaurant has been caught illegally.

Why aren't we doing more?
Like global warming, the plight of our oceans is an issue that affects every country in the world. But with each government beholden to its own voters — and its own fishing, plastic, and energy lobbies — it's almost impossible to achieve any consensus. Ecologists insist it's not too late to solve the problems affecting our oceans. Some schemes, such as the introduction of "safe zones" where fish can naturally replenish, have worked on a small scale and could be expanded. The authors of the Science study say it's possible to reverse the current crisis, but political will is required. "The next several decades," they say, "will be those in which we choose the fate of the future of marine wildlife."

The dangers of a fishy diet
For decades, doctors and health officials have encouraged people to eat as much seafood as possible because of fish's high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for heart and brain health. But in recent years that recommendation has been tempered, as emissions from factories and power plants have pushed mercury concentrations in oceans and fish up to potentially dangerous levels. Mercury is highly toxic and can cause neurological damage and accumulate in organs; in children and fetuses, it can lead to long-term cognitive disorders. Last year, the FDA updated its advice on fish to say that pregnant women and children should avoid eating tilefish, shark, swordfish, and king mackerel, and limit their consumption of white tuna — all of which contain particularly high levels of mercury because they're at the top of the food chain. Consumer Reports recently criticized the FDA guidelines on fish consumption as inadequate, saying that anyone who eats 24 ounces or more of fish per week — or about six servings — "should steer clear of high-mercury choices," and warning people not to eat canned tuna or sushi made from tuna.

 
#science 
 » see original post http://theweek.com/articles/538881/how-ruined-oceans
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Boeing patents laser-powered fusion-fission jet engine (that’s truly impossible)

Science Focus

original post »
Assume the brace position: Boeing has received a patent for, I kid you not, a laser-powered fusion-fission jet propulsion system. Boeing envisions that this system could replace both rocket and turbofan engines, powering everything from spacecraft to missiles to airplanes.

The patent, US 9,068,562, combines inertial confinement fusion, fission, and a turbine that generates electricity. It sounds completely crazy because it is. Currently, this kind of engine is completely unrealistic given our mastery of fusion, or rather our lack thereof. Perhaps in the future (the distant, distant future that is), this could be a rather ingenious solution. For now, it's yet another patent head-scratcher.

To begin with, imagine the silhouette of a big turbofan engine, like you'd see on a commercial jetliner. Somewhere in the middle of the engine there is a fusion chamber, with a number of very strong lasers focused on a single point. A hohlraum (pellet) containing a mix of deuterium and tritium (hydrogen isotopes) is placed at this focal point. The lasers are all turned on at the same instant, creating massive pressure on the pellet, which implodes and causes the hydrogen atoms to fuse. (This is called inertial confinement fusion, as opposed to the magnetic confinement fusion that is carried out in a tokamak.)

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

 
#science 
 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/hgGjQIr8mtk/
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Agriculture's next frontier? Growing plants in space

more »
Space may not be the final frontier for researchers who want to grow plants there. Because, who knows, we may one day try to live on Mars, and to survive, we’ll have to grow our own food. Thus far, experiments by the two pioneering scientists have proven so successful that, earlier this month, NASA recognized their research with one of its three awards in the category of the Most Compelling Results.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Relax on Kepler 16b vacation advert space tourism Wrapping Paper

Get your out-of-this-world gift wrap here! Perfect for Christmas gifts for anyone who is fascinated by what the universe holds in store for us!


tagged with: retro style adverts, art nouveau, kepler 16b, nasa exoplanet exploration program, two suns, vacation destinations, holiday destinations, k16bha, outer space vacations, nasa jpl picutres, retro holiday adverts

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A wonderful, retro-style advert in an art-nouveau tradition. Kepler-16b orbits a pair of stars. Depicted here as a terrestrial planet, Kepler-16b might also be a gas giant like Saturn. Prospects for life on this unusual world aren't good, as it has a temperature similar to that of dry ice. But the discovery indicates that double-sunsets are anything but science fiction.
more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: k16bha

Image credit: NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program Office: exep.jpl.nasa.gov

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to personalize with name and message - or just to see it bigger.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

On the way to breaking the terahertz barrier for graphene nanoelectronics

more »
A team of scientists discovered that electrical conduction in graphene on the picosecond timescale -- a picosecond being one thousandth of one billionth of a second -- is governed by the same basic laws that describe the thermal properties of gases. This much simpler thermodynamic approach to the electrical conduction in graphene will allow scientists and engineers not only to better understand but also to improve the performance of graphene-based nanoelectronic devices.
via Science Daily

Carina Nebula - Breathtaking Universe Star Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: star clusters, galaxies, starfields, constellation puppis, the stern, star nurseries, nebulae, space exploration, universe photographs, hrbstslr stlrnrsry, european southern observatory, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous set of oval stickers showing the area surrounding the stellar cluster NGC 2467, located in the southern constellation of Puppis ("The Stern"). With an age of a few million years at most, it is a very active stellar nursery, where new stars are born continuously from large clouds of dust and gas.

The image, looking like a colourful cosmic ghost or a gigantic celestial Mandrill, contains the open clusters Haffner 18 (centre) and Haffner 19 (middle right: it is located inside the smaller pink region - the lower eye of the Mandrill), as well as vast areas of ionised gas.

The bright star at the centre of the largest pink region on the bottom of the image is HD 64315, a massive young star that is helping shaping the structure of the whole nebular region.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: stlrnrsry

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

For faster, larger graphene add a liquid layer

more »
Millimetre-sized crystals of high-quality graphene can be made in minutes instead of hours using a new scalable technique, researchers have demonstrated.
via Science Daily

50 Miles on Pluto

more »
A 50 mile (80 kilometer) trip across Pluto would cover the distance indicated by the scale bar in this startling image. The close-up of the icy world's rugged equatorial terrain was captured when the New Horizons spacecraft was about 47,800 miles (77,000 kilometers) from the surface, 1.5 hours before its closest approach. Rising to an estimated 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) the mountains are likely composed of water ice. Suggesting surprising geological activity, they are also likely young with an estimated age of 100 million years or so based on the apparent absence of craters. The region pictured is near the base of Pluto's broad, bright, heart-shaped feature.

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Out of this world: research into the health impacts of human spaceflight

more »
Pioneering research into the health impacts of spaceflight has been identified as a possible experiment to be conducted by a British astronaut on his maiden voyage to the International Space Station.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Whirlpool Galaxy iPad Mini Case

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: m51, spiral, whirlpool, galaxy, astronomy, space, image, images, nasa, hubble

A lovely, sparkling image of the spiral Whirlpool Galaxy with thanks to NASA/Hubble program.

»visit the annaleeblysse store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

CERN and Sri Lanka develop partnership

New study shows South Africans using milk-based paint 49,000 years ago

original post »

An international research team led by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg,

The post New study shows South Africans using milk-based paint 49,000 years ago has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

NASAs Black hole Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: astronomy, space, nasa, nebula, galaxy, best, unique, original, quality, custom, affordable, photography, gift, popular, science, planet, space exploration, solar system, outer space, deep space, space age, space design, space image, space travel, space shuttle, space telescope, space and time, space race, space center, space time, universe, mystical, laureen, laureenr

This is the latest black hole discovered by NASA. It is absolutely stunning.

»visit the Nasaworld store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Rosetta navcam and Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Wrapping Paper

Get your out-of-this-world gift wrap here! Perfect for Christmas gifts for anyone who is fascinated by what the universe holds in store for us!


tagged with: 67pcg, rosetta mission, comet 67p, comet closeup, space exploration, esa missions, outer space science, rosetta comet, comet ejecting material, navigation camera pictures

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series: Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has 19 very distinct regions. They've been named to continue the ancient Egyptian theme of the Rosetta mission. Grouped according to the type of terrain, five basic categories have been determined: dust-covered (Ma’at, Ash and Babi); brittle materials with pits and circular structures (Seth); large-scale depressions (Hatmehit, Nut and Aten); smooth terrains (Hapi, Imhotep and Anubis), and exposed, more consolidated (‘rock-like’) surfaces (Maftet, Bastet, Serqet, Hathor, Anuket, Khepry, Aker, Atum and Apis). How the ancient Egyptians would have bristled with pride!
more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: 67pcg

Image credit: European Space Agency – ESAm Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to personalize with name and message - or just to see it bigger.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Stellar Nurseries RCW120 Star Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: envelope sealers, nebulae, gstlnrsr, rcw120, breathtaking astronomy images, star nurseries, ionised gas clouds, star forming regions, clusters of stars, starfields, european southern observatory, galaxies, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

A fantastic set of stickers, with a monogram for you to change, featuring a colour composite image of RCW120.

It reveals how an expanding bubble of ionised gas about ten light-years across is causing the surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps where new stars are then formed.

The 870-micron submillimetre-wavelength data were taken with the LABOCA camera on the 12-m Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope. Here, the submillimetre emission is shown as the blue clouds surrounding the reddish glow of the ionised gas (shown with data from the SuperCosmos H-alpha survey). The image also contains data from the Second Generation Digitized Sky Survey (I-band shown in blue, R-band shown in red).

All items with this image
All items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

Image code: gstlnrsr

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

The icy mountains of Pluto

more »
New close-up images of a region near Pluto's equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Orion Nebula Case For The iPad Mini

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: orion, nebula, space, image, nasa, hubble, astronomy

A lovely detail of an image of the Orion Nebula in infrared thanks to NASA/Hubble.

»visit the annaleeblysse store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Out There: A Window Into Pluto, and Hopes of Opening Other Doors

more »
The New Horizons mission was an extraordinary time for a cosmic selfie, but not likely to be the end of a spirit of discovery.










via New York Times