Arsenic in water near coal-fired US plants: monitor - AFP

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Arsenic in water near coal-fired US plants: monitor(AFP) – 13 hours ago?

WASHINGTON — An environmental monitor Tuesday identified 19 new sites across the United States where groundwater near coal-ash dumps from power plants was found to be contaminated with arsenic and other pollutants.

The Environmental Integrity Project said the pollution -- in some cases more than 10 times the maximum contaminant level for arsenic -- is a direct health threat to thousands of residents who live near plants which use coal.

The findings in a report released by the nonprofit environmental group are the latest in a years-long face-off between environmental groups teaming up with residents against the energy industry, which EIP says is leaning on Congress to thwart efforts to regulate the dump sites.

"When you look, you find contamination," the report's main author, environmental consultant Russell Boulding, told reporters.

Jeff Stant, director of the EIP's Coal Combustion Waste Initiative, described the conditions as "a clear and present danger to America's public health."

While power plants smokestack emissions are regulated, environmentalists say laws are more lax on dumping of waste that can seep into groundwater.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2007 had documented 67 potential damage cases.

The new findings show contamination, in addition to arsenic, from several other pollutants including lead, barium cadmium or boron at levels greater than the health advisories issued by EPA.

The study focuses in particular on coal-ash, a fine-grade, toxic residue of the coal combustion process and which is captured by filters before the material goes out the smoke stack. The ash must be disposed of or recycled.

Boulding said ash recycling like structural fill is "bogus" because it is disposing of toxins without environmental controls on the process.

One site, an urban rail trail in Indiana which uses recycled coal-ash, has soil contaminated with arsenic 900 times the federal screening level, the report said.

Many facilities store the ash in ponds, but the EIP says many are leaking into groundwater, and that firms often do little to prevent ash from blowing out of trucks and through nearby communities.

Thousands of citizens have pleaded for greater federal oversight and enforcement of existing standards.

"Do our lives matter to you?" they asked in an October letter urging lawmakers not to pass a pending bill that would deregulate coal-ash management and make it easier for companies to ignore cleanup standards.

"We know what it is like to suffer through the daily onslaught of blowing ash, drink water from faucets contaminated with ash leachate, and see our wetlands and creeks poisoned with toxic metals like arsenic.

Yma Smith of Labelle, Pennsylvania, lives just 300 yards (meters) from the Matt Canastrale coal-ash dump site.

She said 44 of Labelle's 244 people have died in the last five years, and several residents have cancer.

"It's time for us to think about the safety and wellness of the people, not greed," she said on an EIP-arranged conference call.

Copyright ? 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More ?

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Fermi shows that Tycho's star shines in gamma rays - PhysOrg.com

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The detection gives astronomers another clue in understanding the origin of cosmic rays, subatomic particles -- mainly protons -- that move through space at nearly the speed of light. Exactly where and how these particles attain such incredible energies has been a long-standing mystery because charged particles speeding through the galaxy are easily deflected by interstellar magnetic fields. This makes it impossible to track cosmic rays back to their sources.

"Fortunately, high-energy gamma rays are produced when cosmic rays strike interstellar gas and starlight. These gamma rays come to Fermi straight from their sources," said Francesco Giordano at the University of Bari and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Italy. He is the lead author of a paper describing the findings in the Dec. 7 edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Better understanding the origins of cosmic rays is one of Fermi's key goals. Its Large Area Telescope (LAT) scans the entire sky every three hours, gradually building up an ever-deeper view of the gamma-ray sky. Because gamma rays are the most energetic and penetrating form of light, they serve as signposts for the particle acceleration that gives rise to cosmic rays.

"This detection gives us another piece of evidence supporting the notion that supernova remnants can accelerate cosmic rays," said co-author Stefan Funk, an astrophysicist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), jointly located at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, Calif.

In 1949, physicist Enrico Fermi -- the satellite's namesake -- suggested that the highest-energy cosmic rays were accelerated in the magnetic fields of interstellar gas clouds. In the decades that followed, astronomers showed that supernova remnants may be the galaxy's best candidate sites for this process.

This video is not supported by your browser at this time.

Pion production and decay animation. A proton travelling to the speed of light strikes a slower-moving proton. The protons survive the collision, but their interaction creates an unstable particle -- a pion -- with only 14 percent of the proton's mass. In 10 millionths of a billionth of a second, the pion decays into a pair of gamma-ray photons.

When a star explodes, it is transformed into a supernova remnant, a rapidly expanding shell of hot gas bounded by the blast's shockwave. Scientists expect that magnetic fields on either side of the shock front can trap particles between them in what amounts to a subatomic pingpong game.

"A supernova remnant's magnetic fields are very weak relative to Earth's, but they extend across a vast region, ultimately spanning thousands of light-years. They have a major influence on the course of charged particles," said co-author Melitta Naumann-Godo at Paris Diderot University and the Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay, France, who led the study with Giordano.

As they shuttle back and forth across the supernova shock, the charged particles gain energy with each traverse. Eventually they break out of their magnetic confinement, escaping the supernova remnant and freely roaming the galaxy.

The LAT's ongoing sky survey provides additional evidence favoring this scenario. Many younger remnants, like Tycho's, tend to produce more high-energy gamma rays than older remnants. "The gamma-ray energies reflect the energies of the accelerated particles that produce them, and we expect more cosmic rays to be accelerated to higher energies in younger objects because the shockwaves and their tangled magnetic fields are stronger," Funk added. By contrast, older remnants with weaker shockwaves cannot retain the highest-energy particles, and the LAT does not detect gamma rays with corresponding energies.

Enlarge

Tycho's map shows the supernova's position (largest symbol, at top) relative to the stars that form the constellation Cassiopeia. (Credit: Gerstein Science Information Centre, Univ. of Toronto)

The supernova of 1572 was one of the great watersheds in the history of astronomy. The star blazed forth at a time when the starry sky was regarded as a fixed and unchanging part of the universe. Tycho's candid account of his own discovery of the strange star gives a sense of how radical an event it was.

The supernova first appeared around Nov. 6, but poor weather kept it from Tycho until Nov. 11, when he noticed it during a walk before dinner. "When I had satisfied myself that no star of that kind had ever shone forth before, I was led into such perplexity by the unbelievability of the thing that I began to doubt the faith of my own eyes, and so, turning to the servants who were accompanying me, I asked them whether they too could see a certain extremely bright star…. They immediately replied with one voice that they saw it completely and that it was extremely bright," he recalled.

The supernova remained visible for 15 months and exhibited no movement in the heavens, indicating that it was located far beyond the sun, moon and planets. Modern astronomers estimate that the remnant lies between 9,000 and 11,000 light-years away.

After more than two and a half years of scanning the sky, LAT data clearly show that an unresolved region of GeV (billion electron volt) gamma-ray emission is associated with the remnant of Tycho's supernova. (For comparison, the energy of visible light is between about 2 and 3 electron volts.)

Keith Bechtol, a KIPAC graduate student who is also based at SLAC, was one of the first researchers to notice the potential link. "We knew that Tycho's supernova remnant could be an important find for Fermi because this object has been so extensively studied in other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. We thought it might be one of our best opportunities to identify a spectral signature indicating the presence of cosmic-ray protons," he said.

The science team's model of the emission is based on LAT observations, along with higher-energy TeV (trillion electron volt) gamma rays mapped by ground-based facilities and radio and X-ray data. The researchers conclude that a process called pion production best explains the emission. First, a proton traveling close to the speed of light strikes a slower-moving proton. This interaction creates an unstable particle -- a pion -- with only 14 percent of the proton's mass. In just 10 millionths of a billionth of a second, the pion decays into a pair of gamma rays.

If this interpretation is correct, then somewhere within the remnant, protons are being accelerated to near the speed of light, and then interacting with slower particles to produce gamma rays, the most extreme form of light. With such unbelievable goings-on in what's left of his "unbelievable" star, it's easy to imagine that Tycho Brahe himself might be pleased.

Provided by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (news : web)

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Higgs boson: Cern scientists may have glimpsed 'God particle' - video - The Guardian

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Scientists at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory in Switzerland, believe they have seen a hint of the Higgs boson. The results are inconclusive. But confirming the existence of the so-called God particle would confirm how elementary particles acquire mass, and would be the most coveted prize in physics

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Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos Donate $15 million to Princeton University - Patch.com

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Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Bezos, have announced a $15 million donation to Princeton University, their alma mater.

The money will be used to establish the Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics in?the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, led?by co-director David Tank.

"Professor Tank and his colleagues are on an epic quest to unravel one of humankind's greatest challenges — understanding the brain," Jeff Bezos said in a press release. "New tools and techniques are making possible discoveries that would have been unthinkable just two decades ago. We can hope for advancements that lead to understanding deep behaviors, more effective learning methods for young children, and cures for neurological diseases. MacKenzie and I are delighted and excited to support Princeton in their focus on fundamental neuroscience."??

The Bezos Center will be housed a new complex under construction on the south edge of campus. The facility is expected to open in the summer of 2013.

Researchers at the Bezos Center will look for patterns of activity that reveal, for example, how decisions are made or memories are recalled. At the microscopic level, the brain has networks of neurons wired together with synaptic connections to form neural circuits. Each neuron can have differing electrical and chemical activity. As neurons become silent or active, the pattern of activity shifts. These changing patterns are called neural circuit dynamics.

In the new center, measurement of neural circuit dynamics will be combined with complementary measurement of how the neurons are wired together with synaptic connections. The measurement of neural connectivity, and the mining of that data for knowledge about the brain, is an emerging field of research known as "connectomics."

Jeff Bezos '86 was an electrical engineering and computer science major who graduated with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa.?MacKenzie Bezos was an English major who graduated with highest honors in 1992 and a certificate in creative writing.

"I am deeply grateful to Jeff and MacKenzie for so generously supporting this critical initiative," Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman said. "The Princeton Neuroscience Institute is grappling with some of the most fascinating questions in the scientific world today, and the Bezos Center will significantly advance our understanding of how the brain works by taking full advantage of Princeton's strong tradition of multidisciplinary collaboration, its pre-eminence in quantitative and theoretical sciences, and its leadership in developing scientific instrumentation."

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EPA rules could snuff coal plants and hike Gulf Power rates - Pensacola News Journal

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Gulf Power Co. representatives say the Environmental Protection Agency's new mercury emission rules, to be announced Friday, could have a multibillion dollar impact on future operational costs that will bring higher bills to ratepayers.

Spokesman Jeff Rogers said the utility has not seen the new EPA standards but reducing mercury emissions by 90 percent could result in the shutdown of three of its current coal-fired plants.

"We won't know what the impact will be until the new rules come out and we can actually evaluate them," he said. "But our feeling is that coal-fired plants would be at risk."

Rogers also estimated that the new EPA standards could end up costing Gulf Power ? and its 400,000 customers ? up to $2.5 billion and could cost parent Southern Co.'s divisions in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi as much as $18 billion.

Gulf Power, which charges the second highest rate among the Southeast's 20 major power companies, already is in the midst of a weeklong hearing seeking higher rates.

It's asking the state Public Service Commission for an additional $93.5 million a year from ratepayers ? an increase that would raise the residential customer's bill for 1,000 kilowatt hours from $127.16 to $133.46. A decision could be issued by February.

The EPA's new standards are the result of long-delayed regulations imposed by Congress to regulate toxic air pollution.

For nearly two decades, power companies have been trying to persuade the EPA to adopt less-stringent limits on mercury, but federal courts have ruled those regulations were too weak.

As a result, the EPA was given a Friday deadline to issue rules for power plants.

The regulations state that coal-fired power plants will have to cut more than 90 percent of the mercury from their exhaust emissions within three years.

Gulf Power recently built a $500 million scrubber at its Crist plant in Pensacola that removes 80 percent of oxidized mercury emissions, but the system presently is not designed to remove 90 percent.

Despite the EPA's plans to impose higher standards, local health officials say mercury levels in the Pensacola area's fish and shellfish populations do not appear to be alarming.

Ingesting shellfish and certain species of fish is the primary source of mercury poisoning in humans and can cause birth defects and other afflictions in infants.

Escambia County Health Department Director Dr. John Lanza said a May 2008 local study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that mercury poisoning of locally harvested seafood was minimal.

"The study we did with the University of West Florida took hair samples of 600 women between the ages of 16 and 49, and from those samples looked at the measurable levels of mercury they had in their systems," Lanza said. "There were just a few of the women in the sampling who had elevated levels of mercury, but the vast majority had levels that were not clinically significant. Those who did have elevated levels were told to stop eating fish."

The new EPA rules would have an even greater impact on Gulf Power's coal-fired generating plants in Panama City and Sneads.

In addition to mercury, the new rules would mandate that power companies slash arsenic, acid gases and other pollutants that can cause severe health problems.

While the higher emission standards have Gulf Power and other power companies worried, another major concern is the difficulty in meeting the EPA's three-year deadline for complying with the regulations.

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Trillion-frame-per-second video - MIT News

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LHC : Un Higgs boson « peut avoir été aperçu » - BBC News

13 Décembre 2011, dernière mise à jour 12 h 20 et par l'éditeur de Paul Rincon Science, site Web de la BBC News, Genève deux équipes au LHC ont vu des indices de ce qui pourrait bien pour être le Higgs le plus convoité prix en physique des particules - le boson de Higgs - peut-être été un aper?u, disent les chercheurs rapports à la Large Hadron Collider (LHC) à Genève.

La particule est censée être le moyen par lequel tout dans l'univers obtient sa masse.

Les scientifiques dire que deux expériences au LHC voient abordait le Higgs à la même masse, alimentant l'immense enthousiasme.

Mais le LHC n'a pas encore suffisamment de données pour réclamer une découverte.

Trouver le Higgs serait une des plus grandes avancées scientifiques des 60 dernières années. Il est crucial pour nous permettre de donner un sens de l'univers, mais n'a jamais été observé par des expériences.

Continuer la lecture de l'histoire principale Higgs The est une particule subatomique qui est prédit d'exister, mais n'a pas encore été seenIt a été proposée comme un mécanisme pour expliquer de masse par six physiciens, y compris Peter Higgs, en 1964It confère une masse d'autres particules fondamentales via le fieldIt de Higgs associé est le dernier membre manquant du modèle Standard, qui explique comment les particules interactThis constitutif de base de l'univers est un élément manquant important du modèle Standard - l'instruction" Brochure"qui décrit comment les forces et les particules interagissent.

Deux expériences distinctes au LHC - Atlas et CMS - ont mené des recherches indépendantes pour la Higgs. Parce que le modèle Standard ne pas prédit une masse exacte pour le Higgs, physiciens ont à utiliser des accélérateurs de particules comme le LHC à rechercher systématiquement à travers une zone de recherche large.

Lors d'un séminaire au Cern (l'organisation qui exploite le LHC) le mardi, les chefs de l'Atlas et CMS dit ils voient des ? pointes ? dans leurs données à peu près la même masse : 124-125 gigaelectronvolts (GeV; c'est environ 130 fois lourd que les protons dans les noyaux atomiques).

? L'excédent peut être due à une fluctuation, mais il pourrait aussi être quelque chose de plus intéressant. Nous ne pouvons pas exclure n'importe quoi à ce stade, ? dit Fabiola Gianotti, porte-parole de l'expérience de l'Atlas.

Professeur Rolf-Dieter Heuer, directeur général du Cern: '' Nous avons extrêmement bien progressé ''

Guido Tonelli, porte-parole pour l'expérience des CMS, a déclaré: ? l'excès est plus compatible avec un Higgs modèle Standard dans les environs de 124 GeV et ci-dessous, mais la signification statistique n'est pas assez grande pour dire quoi que ce soit concluante.

? Aujourd'hui, ce que nous voyons est compatible avec une fluctuation de l'arrière-plan ou avec la présence du boson. ?

? Passionnant ?

Prof Rolf-Dieter Heuer, directeur général du Cern, dit BBC News: ? ces signaux peut venir et Cour… Bien qu'il y a correspondance entre les deux expériences, nous devons numéros plus solide. ?

Aucun des pointes vus par les expériences est beaucoup plus que le niveau de ? deux sigma ? de certitude.

Continuer de lire l'histoire principale physique des particules a une définition acceptée pour une ? découverte ?: un niveau de cinq-sigma de certaintyThe nombre de déviations standards ou sigmas, est une mesure de c'est comment peu probable qu'un résultat expérimental est simplement vers le bas au hasard plut?t qu'un véritable effectSimilarly, lancer une pièce de monnaie et d'obtenir un certain nombre de chefs d'affilée peuvent être juste chance, plut?t que le signe d'un niveau de ? chargé ? coinThe ? trois sigma ? représente environ la même probabilité de lancer plus de huit chefs dans un sigma de rowFive, en revanche, correspondrait à lancer de plus de 20 dans un rowUnlikely peuvent produire des résultats si plusieurs expériences sont menées à la fois - l'équivalent de plusieurs personnes retournement des pièces à la même confirmation indépendante de fois par d'autres expériences, cinq-sigma conclusions soient acceptées discoveriesA niveau de ? cinq sigma ? est requis pour réclamer une découverte, signifiant est moins qu'une chance d'un sur un million le crampon de données est à une douve statistique.

Un autre facteur de complication, c'est que ces conseils irrésistible composent uniquement d'une poignée d'événements parmi les milliards de collisions de particules analysées au LHC.

Professeur Rolf-Dieter Heuer, directeur général du Cern a dit BBC News: ? Nous pouvons être induit en erreur par un petit nombre, il nous faut plus de statistiques, ? tout en ajoutant: ? C'est excitant. ?

Si elle existe, la Higgs est très courte durée, rapidement en décomposition - ou - transformer les particules plus stables. Il y a plusieurs manières différentes, que cela peut arriver, qui fournit des scientifiques avec différentes voies pour rechercher le boson.

Ils ont regardé itinéraires de désintégration particulier pour le Higgs qui produisent seulement une poignée d'événements, mais ont l'avantage d'avoir le moindre bruit de fond dans les données. Ce bruit de fond consiste en des combinaisons au hasard des événements, dont certains peuvent ressembler Higgs se désintègre.

Autres modes de désintégration produisent plus d'événements - qui sont meilleurs pour la certitude statistique - mais aussi plus de bruit de fond. Prof Heuer dit physiciens ont été ? coincés ? entre ces deux options.

Prof Stefan Soldner-Rembold, de l'Université de Manchester, appelée la qualité des résultats du LHC ? exceptionnel ?, ajoutant: ? Dans l'année nous avons probablement saura si la particule de Higgs existe, mais il est probablement ne pas va pour être un cadeau de No?l. ?

Le simple fait que les Atlas et CMS semblent être voyant un épi de données à la même masse a suffi pour causer une énorme enthousiasme dans la communauté de physique des particules.

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Paul Allen pour construire le remplacement de la navette privée - TG Daily

Co-fondateur de Microsoft Paul Allen a annoncé des plans pour construire un avion plus grande de la workld dans un effort pour créer un remplacement de l'ancien U.S., des navettes spatiales.

Grace à sa nouvelle société, Stratolaunch Systems, il est associé à Burt Rutan, un des créateurs de SpaceShipOne du Virgin Galactic, le premier navire de fusée financés par le secteur privé, habité à voler au-delà de l'atmosphère terrestre.

Le plan est de combiner les deux pour créer un système de lancement-air complète.

? J'ai longtemps rêvé de prendre une autre grande étape en vol de l'espace privé après le succès de SpaceShipOne – afin d'offrir un système de livraison souples, orbitale espace, ? explique Allen.

? Nous sommes à l'aube du changement radical dans l'industrie de lancement de l'espace. Stratolaunch Systems est le pionnier une solution novatrice qui va révolutionner les voyages dans l'espace. ?

Le système aura trois composantes primaires. Un avion porteur, développé par la société Rutan Scaled Composites, sera le plus grand avion jamais piloté.

Il va être combiné avec un booster multi-étages, fabriqué par Space Exploration Technologies du Elon Musk et un système d'accouplement et intégration devait être construit par Dynetics. Cela, dit l'équipe, permettra à l'avion porteur de transporter en toute sécurité un booster pesant plus de 490 000 livres.

Plans d'Allen prévoient un premier vol dans les cinq ans.

Position du projet à titre de président et directeur général est Gary Wentz, un ancien ingénieur en chef à la NASA, et ancien administrateur de la NASA Mike Griffin est membre du Conseil

? Nous croyons que cette technologie a le potentiel pour faire un jour la routine de vol spatial en supprimant la plupart des contraintes associées aux rockets de sol lancé, ? dit Griffin.

? Notre système fournira également la flexibilité pour le lancement d'une grande variété de lieux. ?

Finalement, explique l'équipe, si le système de Stratolaunch elle sera capable de lancer des missions habitées en orbite terrestre basse. Les efforts initiaux, cependant, seront axés sur les charges utiles sans pilote.

L'avion porteur fonctionnera d'un grand aéroport ou le port spatial, tels que le Centre spatial Kennedy et sera capable de voler jusqu'à 1 300 milles au point de lancement de la charge utile.

Il utilisera six 747 moteurs et aura un poids brut de plus de 1,2 millions de livres, avec une envergure de plus de 380 pieds. Il sera construit dans un hangar de Stratolaunch qui commencera bient?t pour remonter à l'Air de Mojave et le Port de l'espace.

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MIT Shows Trillion-Frames-per-Second Video - Tom's Guide

Des chercheurs du Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ont élaboré un fascinant système de caméra streak qui peut prendre la photo de particules de lumières se dépla?ant dans l'espace et de créer et de la ? ultra slow motion movie ? de ces images.

La nouvelle caméra prend des photos à un taux d'un trillion d'images par seconde. Dans l'exemple, les chercheurs MIT ont montré légers déplacement dans une bouteille de soude.

Pour créer le film, le système de caméra de 250 000 $ ainsi que le laser émettant les photons produire ? des centaines de milliers ? d'ensembles de données qui fournissent des informations sur les positions de photons ainsi que leur temps d'arrivée. Les données sont ensuite cousues ensemble pour créer un film qui se développe un processus qui prend seulement environ 1 nanoseconde en temps réel, mais est étiré pour environ six secondes dans le lent-mo. L'effort d'image répétitive prenant et en les combinant en une vidéo prend environ une heure, les chercheurs ont dit.

La partie intéressante de l'invention peut être double : les scientifiques travaillant avec la lumière pourraient obtenir une occasion beaucoup mieux pour surveiller les photons. Cependant, les chercheurs MIT a également dit que la technologie de requête encha?nèrent fera son chemin au consommateur à un certain point.

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Bezos, wife donate $15M for Princeton brain center - The Seattle Times

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Another Seattle tech tycoon appears to be joining the ranks of public philanthropists.

Four months after giving $10 million to Seattle's Museum of History & Industry, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has made a second large public donation, this one outside the Seattle area.

Princeton University said Tuesday that Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, are giving $15 million to their alma mater to create a new center focused on understanding the brain.

Although Bezos, 47, has not always compared favorably with some of Seattle's other well-known tech tycoons for charitable contributions, his latest donation suggests an interest in devoting more money to philanthropy.

Princeton will use the $15 million to create the Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics in its neuroscience institute.

The center, expected to be open in summer 2013, will study how decisions are made or memories recalled, look for treatments for neurological disorders and investigate how children can learn more effectively. David Tank, co-director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, will lead it.

"Professor Tank and his colleagues are on an epic quest to unravel one of humankind's greatest challenges — understanding the brain," Bezos said in a statement. "MacKenzie and I are delighted and excited to support Princeton in their focus on fundamental neuroscience."

Amazon spokesman Andrew Herdener said Bezos was unavailable for additional comment Tuesday.

Bezos graduated from Princeton with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science in 1986. MacKenzie Bezos, who studied English and creative writing at Princeton, graduated in 1992.

Until this year, Bezos had been known for spending money on space exploration and other business investments, but not philanthropy. Forbes lists him as worth $19.1 billion, the 13th-richest person in America, ahead of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (19th) and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (23rd).

In June, Bezos told Wired magazine he planned to spend $42 million to develop a 10,000-year clock in west Texas to encourage long-term thinking.

And in August, Seattle's Museum of History & Industry announced it had received $10 million from Bezos to create a "Center for Innovation" on South Lake Union at the museum's future location, down the street from Amazon's headquarters.

Separately, his parents, Mike and Jackie Bezos, run the Bezos Family Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit that also supports brain research.

As for Bezos' latest donation, it's impossible to tell where it ranks among the largest personal gifts to Princeton, because many are kept private. Nevertheless, a quick online search turned up bigger donations, including $30 million in 2002 from Meg Whitman, then-CEO of eBay and another Princeton graduate.

Elizabeth Boluch Wood, vice president for development at Princeton, said Bezos also has devoted time to his alma mater, delivering its 2010 baccalaureate address. "He has supported the university in many ways," she added, "with his time, talent and through his financial support."

Amy Martinez: 206-464-2923 or amartinez@seattletimes.com

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Coal ash pervasive: 2 billion pounds of power plant waste gets in ponds, landfills - Charleston Post Courier

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Arsenic and other toxic chemicals in concentrations hundreds of times higher than you would want in a cup of tap water are showing up under and near several coal ash dumps in the Lowcountry and Midlands, a review of state records reveals.

And contamination problems at some sites might be growing worse, despite millions of dollars spent by utilities to contain the pollution, records and data from a new report by a watchdog group show.

Coal-fired power plants generate massive amounts of ash as they pump out electricity. Some of this ash can be used to strengthen concrete, but most -- more than 2 billion pounds a year -- ends up in ponds or landfills next to the plants. Some of this ash contains toxic chemicals such as arsenic, lead and mercury. When the ash mixes with water, these chemicals can end up polluting waterways and groundwater.

File/Staff

Each year, coal-fired power plants put more than 2 billion pounds of ash waste in ponds and landfills. In some cases, such as at SCE&G’s Canadys plant in Colleton County, heavy metals from the ash have contaminated groundwater.

At SCE&G's Canadys plant on the Edisto River, for instance, arsenic has been found in groundwater near the plant's boundary along S.C. Highway 15 at levels higher than 600 parts per billion, a Post and Courier review of DHEC records shows. While that might seem minor, federal drinking water standards say anything above 10 parts per billion isn't safe.

Diagrams depicting the arsenic contamination show a torpedo-shaped plume about 600 feet north of a boat landing on the Edisto. It shows the contamination has spread under S.C. Highway 15, beyond SCE&G's plant boundary. Documents also show South Carolina Electric and Gas is in the midst of a major effort to examine the areas around the ash ponds.

The Canadys plant isn't the only place where ash is causing pollution problems.

On Tuesday, the Environmental Integrity Project, a group that's long been critical of how utilities dump coal ash, released a report that cites contamination problems at 19 ash dumps across the country. The group's review of lab tests found several South Carolina power plants with particularly notable levels of arsenic.

At Santee Cooper's Grainger power plant near Conway, tests showed arsenic levels of 1,620 parts per billion in April 2010 and 2,112 parts per billion a year later.

At SCE&G's Urquhart plant near Aiken, recent tests found arsenic levels of 1,209 parts per billion. SCE&G's Wateree Station in the Midlands had arsenic at levels of 1,100 parts per billion, or 110 times higher than federal drinking water standards.

Other states had coal ash dumps with similar problems.

"This report says the problem is getting worse, and that the states are just sitting there," said Jeff Stant, director of the group's coal ash program.

None of this information is surprising to regulators and utilities who have been wrestling with ash disposal for decades.

Mollie Gore, a spokeswoman for Santee Cooper, said the utility is well-aware of the contamination problems at its Grainger plant and other facilities.

"It's important to note that our tests indicate the problem is isolated, and there are no drinking water sources anywhere near the testing wells," she said.

The utility is working with the Department of Health and Environmental Control to find ways to mitigate the problem.

Robert Yannity, a spokesman for SCE&G, said company officials had not seen the Environmental Integrity Project Report and couldn't comment.

The Environmental Integrity Project's report comes amid a national political battle over how to handle the massive amounts of ash generated every year by coal-fired power plants.

For decades, regulators treated coal ash as if it were akin to construction debris. But as communities across the country developed contamination problems, critics began to call for stricter rules. Then in 2008, an ash pond in Tennessee burst, spilling millions of cubic yards of tainted ash waste into a river near Kingston.

The disaster prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to propose rules for ash disposal, efforts now targeted by Republican lawmakers who in turn introduced legislation that would prevent the EPA from regulating coal ash. The House passed a bill earlier this year; the Senate is considering a similar bill.

Stant said he hopes the report will persuade lawmakers to back off efforts to thwart the EPA's work on coal ash.

In 2008, a Post and Courier report, "Coal's Time Bomb," detailed how ash dumps throughout South Carolina were polluting groundwater, and that because of regulatory loopholes, power companies had a free pass to keep polluting as long as the contamination was kept inside designated boundaries. These boundaries were called "mixing zones," areas where polluted water could mix with fresh water.

At SCE&G Wateree's Station, which is just upriver from Congaree National Park, tests in the 1990s showed arsenic levels well above federal drinking water limits. In 2001, SCE&G and DHEC agreed to create a mixing zone where arsenic wouldn't be allowed to exceed 3,000 parts per billion. In recent years, arsenic levels in a well ranged from 1,743 parts per billion to more than 4,000 parts per billion, or 400 times the drinking water limit. After SCE&G officials learned about the 4,000 reading, they asked their consultant to take another sample. This time, the sample had an arsenic concentration of 242 parts per billion, 24 times higher than the drinking water limit but below the 3,000 parts per billion limit in the company's mixing zone deal.

The Environmental Integrity Project said Wateree's recent readings remain troubling. It cited one test in 2006 that found arsenic levels exceeding 5,000 parts per billion. The group said arsenic was found in five of six wells in recent years, and that tests showed high levels of lead, chromium and cadmium.

"It's pervasive," Stant said. "All you have to do is look, and you'll find a contamination problem."

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Mysterious, massive black holes grew fast by pigging out - msnbc.com

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The universe's first supermassive black holes grew so fast by gobbling up a steady stream of cold gas, a new study suggests.

Researchers have long wondered what fueled the rapid growth of these huge black holes, which were already monsters shortly after the first galaxies came together. The new study, based on supercomputer simulations, may provide an answer — thin strands of cold gas flowing straight into the black holes' maws at breakneck speed.

"We didn't know they were going to show up," study co-author Rupert Croft, of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said in a statement on Monday. "It was amazing to measure their masses and go, 'Wow! These are the exact right size and show up exactly at the right point in time.' It's a success story for the modern theory of cosmology."

More space news from msnbc.com Billionaire to build huge jet for space launches Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: Software billionaire Paul Allen is teaming up with SpaceX and aerospace guru Burt Rutan to offer an air-launched orbital delivery system.

Holiday calendar: Light up St. Lucy's Day NASA launches new space station — on radio Massive black holes pigged out, grew fast

Big black holes in the universe's youth
Supermassive black holes are thought to sit at the center of most, if not all, galaxies, including our own Milky Way. They are mind-bogglingly gigantic; scientists recently discovered two that each hold about as much mass as 10 billion suns.

Supermassive black holes have existed since the universe's very early days, just 700 million years after the Big Bang, scientists say. (The universe is about 13.7 billion years old). That's surprisingly early, the researchers added, since the first stars and galaxies had just formed a few hundred million years before.

"The Sloan Digital Sky Survey found supermassive black holes at less than 1 billion years. They were the same size as today's most massive black holes, which are 13.6 billion years old," said lead author Tiziana Di Matteo, also of Carnegie Mellon. "It was a puzzle. Why do some black holes form so early when it takes the whole age of the universe for others to reach the same mass?"

Solving the puzzle
Di Matteo and her colleagues wanted to solve this puzzle. So they used supercomputers to perform a large-scale cosmological simulation that re-created the first billion years after the Big Bang.

"This simulation is truly gigantic. It's the largest in terms of the level of physics and the actual volume," Di Matteo said. "We did that because we were interested in looking at rare things in the universe, like the first black holes. Because they are so rare, you need to search over a large volume of space."

Normally, when cold gas flows toward a black hole, it collides with other gas in the surrounding galaxy, causing it to heat up before entering the black hole. This process, caused shock heating, puts the brakes on black hole growth somewhat.

But the team's simulations suggested that early supermassive black holes encountered no such check on their growth. Rather, streams of cold gas were likely channeled straight into their gullets along the filaments that give structure to the universe, causing the black holes to grow faster than anything in the early universe, researchers said.

The findings will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Follow Space.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

? 2011 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

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Conférence de Durban climatique : Canada se retire du protocole de Kyoto - Inde aujourd'hui

Dans les jours suivant le monde de parvenir à un accord à la Conférence de Durban climatiques sur l'extension du cadre pour un nouveau traité du climat et du protocole de Kyoto, les efforts ont subi un coup majeur avec le Canada annonce sa décision de se retirer de protocole. L'extension du protocole après 2012, quand le premier tour des engagements expire, a convenu de Durban après les pourparlers trépidantes et ? give and take ?. Les pays industrialisés ont convenu pour une deuxième série d'engagements qu'après que les pays en développement ont donné leur clin de ?il pour un nouveau traité de réduction des émissions de 2020 à partir.

La décision du Canada d'exercer son droit de se retirer du protocole a porté un coup à l'esprit de l'accord de Durban. Pendant longtemps, les pays industrialisés ont cherché abandon du protocole. Aux états-Unis, bien entendu, jamais signé cet accord. Un autre émetteur de carbone majeur est maintenant hors de lui. La Russie et le Japon trop sont sont opposés à toute extension des engagements. Tout cela peut rendre le protocole un instrument mort.

Le protocole de Kyoto est actuellement l'instrument juridique uniquement en vigueur pour lutter contre le changement climatique. Il définit un objectif clair pour réduire les gaz à effet de serre de 25-40 % au-dessous des niveaux de 1990 d'ici 2020 pour le groupe de pays qui sont appelés collectivement les parties de l'annexe 1. Canada et les autres pays industrialisés font partie de l'annexe 1. En vertu du protocole, des pays les plus pauvres, dont la Chine et l'Inde, prennent des mesures volontaires, non contraignant pour freiner la croissance des émissions alors qu'ils mettent l'accent sur le développement économique.

Le Canada lundi est devenu le premier pays à renoncer officiellement le protocole. Annon?ant l'arrachement, ministre de l'environnement du Canada, a déclaré Peter Kent que Kyoto ne représente la voie à suivre pour le Canada ou du monde. ? Le protocole ne couvre pas les plus gros émetteurs de deux du monde, les Etats-Unis et la Chine et par conséquent ne peuvent pas travailler. Il est maintenant clair que Kyoto n'est pas la voie à suivre pour une solution globale au changement climatique. Si quoi que ce soit que c'est un obstacle,"a déclaré Kent.

La décision de se retirer à Kyoto, Kent dit, permettrait d'économiser Canada 14 milliards de dollars de sanctions en cas de non atteinte de ses objectifs de Kyoto. ? Pour atteindre les objectifs dans le cadre de Kyoto pour 2012 serait être l'équivalent de l'un ou retirer chaque voiture, camion, VTT, tracteur, ambulance, voiture de police et véhicules de toutes sortes de routes canadiennes ou de la fermeture de la toute agriculture et le secteur agricole et la chaleur de découpage à chaque maison, bureau, h?pital, usine et batiment au Canada, ? Kent dit.

Il dit, qu'il ne serait pas surpris si les autres pays suivent le Canada en retirant de Kyoto.

Le Canada a des réserves de pétrole troisième plus grands du monde, plus de 170 milliards de barils. La production quotidienne de 1,5 million de barils de sables bitumineux devrait augmenter à 3,7 millions en 2025. Seule l'Arabie saoudite et le Venezuela ont plus de réserves. Mais les critiques disent l'énorme quantité d'énergie et l'eau nécessaire à la procédure d'extraction augmente les émissions de gaz à effet de serre.

Annonce de Kent a attiré les critiques immédiat de la Chine, qui a tant insisté le protocole demeurent une Fondation des efforts mondiaux visant à réduire les émissions au réchauffement. ? Il est regrettable et va à l'encontre des efforts de la communauté internationale pour le Canada de quitter le protocole de Kyoto à une époque où la réunion de Durban, comme chacun le sait, réalisé des progrès considérables en obtenant une deuxième phase d'engagement du protocole, ? porte-parole de ministère des affaires étrangères de la Chine Liu Weimin, a déclaré lors d'une conférence de presse.

état Agence de presse la Chine Xinhua, a dénoncé la décision de l'au Canada, comme absurde, qualifiant une excuse pour se dérober à la responsabilité. Tout en décrivant également la décision regrettable, ministre de l'environnement du Japon Goshi Hosono pressé Canada de rester avec le Pacte, disant que le cadre de Kyoto inclus des éléments importants qui pourraient aider à combattre le changement climatique.

La minuscule nation du Pacifique sud de l'?le de Tuvalu, un personnes les plus à risque de montée des eaux causée par les changements climatiques, a été plus émoussé. Pour un pays vulnérable comme Tuvalu, c'est un acte de sabotage sur notre avenir, Ian Fry, dit son négociateur en chef.

Un fonctionnaire Indiens a dit la décision du Canada puisse compromettre les gains réalisés lors de la réunion de Durban.

Scientifiques disent que si les niveaux de gaz à effet de serre continuent d'augmenter, éventuellement le climat mondial atteindra un point de non-retour, irréversible de la fonte des calottes glaciaires d'et un mètre de plusieurs élévation du niveau des mers. Cependant, ils ne peut pas localiser exactement quand qui se produirait, mais les négociations sur le climat ont été mis l'accent sur la prévention des températures mondiales de se lever plus de 1,2 ? ° Celsius au-dessus des niveaux actuels à la fin de ce siècle.

Pour en savoir plus sur lui et son combat contre la corruption en photos, de vidéos et de rapports.

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Ces météorites : pourquoi le spectacle de lumière puzzles scientifiques - Christian Science Monitor

Roll up, roll up pour la douche de mystère (meteor): les Géminides.

Passer au paragraphe suivant

Maintenant, vous avez probablement entendu ce soir, la nuit pour ce qui est sans doute l'un des météores plus spectaculaires de l'année, les Géminides.

La douche tire son nom de son apparent point d'origine, ou rayonnante, dans la constellation des Gémeaux.

Mais où de nombreux météores représentent la rencontre de la terre avec la poussière d'une comète, les Géminides semblent avoir un canard étrange d'une source : un astéro?de que certains maintenant appeler une comète de roche.

Et il n'est pas clairement des observations récentes de savoir si l'objet, connu comme Phaethon 3200, est coup d'assez de matière pour tenir compte de l'intensité de la pluie de météores que rencontre de la terre.

Une équipe d'astronomes a identifié l'écart de débris dans un article publié dans le Journal astronomique en novembre 2010. Et les chercheurs sont toujours curieux au-dessus d'elle.

Bien que les premières observations enregistrées des Géminides n'apparaissent pas jusqu'au début des années 1860, études d'orbite des débris de modélisation suggèrent que le flux est partout de 200 à 6 000 ans.

Phaethon 3200 a été découvert par Satellite astronomique infrarouge de la NASA en 1983. Une fois les scientifiques déterminé son orbite, l'orbite correspondait avec l'orbite du flux de débris.

Une des principales caractéristiques de l'astéro?de est sa proximité avec le soleil au plus proche. Il s'agit plus proche du soleil que toute astéro?de connu, bien à l'intérieur de l'orbite de mercure. Cela permet à des températures de surface atteindre 1 400 degrés Fahrenheit.

Dans leur livre 2010, David Jewitt et Li Jing à l'Université de Californie à Los Angeles a examiné des images de l'un d'une paire de satellites de soleil d'observation de la NASA prises de 3200 Phaethon durant son approche proche du soleil. Sa luminosité augmente brusquement, indiquant qu'il était excrétion matériel, tout comme une comète pourrait.

étant donné la composition rocheuse de l'astéro?de, l'équipe postulait que swing relativement rapide de l'objet dans et hors de cette zone chaude mène à la roche fracturation lorsqu'il est chauffé. En revanche, comètes, hangar matériel lorsque le CIEM qu'ils contiennent chauffer et passer directement à partir de solides à gaz. Dans le processus, une comète éjecte également poussière et rock liée à l'ices.

Pour tenir compte de l'intensité du flux Géminides, le duo calculé, 30-mile-wide 3200 Phaethon aurait à répéter le processus excrétion 10 fois par orbite, quelque chose, personne n'a observé.

Dr Jewitt permet à un échange de courrier électronique que leur estimation de masse puisse être perdus, et que des explosions supplémentaires au cours de chaque orbite émergerait avec les observations plues systématiques.

Mais pour l'instant, l'écart de grit reste.

Bundle,, saisir un salon méridienne, un Thermos de chaud au chocolat et de la tête hors de voir le spectacle du jour au lendemain ce soir ou même mercredi soir. Le pic réellement devrait avoir lieu à propos de 14 heure normale de l'est mercredi.

Mais la douche, qui généralement produit plus de 100 météores une heure durant son apogée sous un ciel sombre, sera un peu moins spectaculaire qu'il pourrait être par ailleurs. Blamer la brillante, si en déclin, la Lune. Moonlight s'estomper les stries meteor gradateurs.

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Photos: « Elvis Monkey, » clonage lézard parmi les nouvelles espèces du Mékong - National Geographic

Gracieuseté d'illustration Martin Aveling, FFI via WWF

Observations de la caméra-shy "Elvis monkey" (en photo) sont environ aussi rares que les observations modernes du roi lui-même.

Connu pour ses Presleyan pompadour, Rhinopithecus strykeri — 1 de certaines espèces nouvelles 208 trouvés dans la région de l'Asie du sud-est Greater Mekong l'an dernier, selon un nouveau rapport WWF — n'a pas encore été capturé vivant sur la caméra.

(Voir la photo d'un mort de r. strykeri [avertissement : image graphique].)

Découvert dans la section du Myanmar du Grand Mékong-a tentaculaire Royaume de l'eau, des terres humides, des montagnes et des forêts-était bien connus des locaux Himalayan chasseurs, mais sa découverte étourdis scientifiques Stuart Chapman, directeur de conservation du WWF est le plus grand programme du Mékong, basé à Vientiane, au Laos.

? C'est vraiment la fin de l'ère de la découverte de grands mammifères, à ont un primate nouvel découvertes dans ce domaine, inconnu de la science, est extrêmement rare, ? dit Chapman. "Tournés vers l'avenir nous pouvons n'a jamais été voir un ou deux découvertes plus comme ?a. Et c'est quelque sorte un moment douce-amère, parce que nous pensons que cette espèce a déjà très faibles effectifs. ?

Chasseurs locaux affirment que le nez de pug sur ? Snubby, ? que les scientifiques ont surnommé les espèces, provoque l'animal à éternuer à plusieurs reprises dans des pluies torrentielles.

Si vrai, Chapman a déclaré, cette anomalie physique peut font que les animaux plus sensibles à la chasse ou placer à certains inconvénients naturelles. ? Mais le fait est que juste que maintenant nous savons très, très peu de choses sur elle. ?

— Brian Handwerk

Publié le 13 décembre 2011

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Scientists develop world's smallest steam engine - CNN

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The device measures only a few micrometresIt's based on the classical heat engine, developed in 1824The scientists are working to refine their creation

Berlin (CNN) -- Two German scientists from the University of Stuttgart have developed the world's smallest steam engine, a creation they say could spark more micromechanical machines in the coming years.

Their development is based on the description of classical heat engines by French physicist Sadi Carnot in 1824.

"Instead of pistons that were common at that time, we use laser beams," one of the scientists, Clemens Bechinger, said Tuesday.

The result: Bechinger needs a microscope to take a look at his experiment, since it is only several micrometres large. A micrometre is one-millionth of a meter.

Even though it's tiny, his invention is of scientific relevance, Bechinger said.

"For the first time, we have build a steam engine out of laser beams that is as effective as classical ones," he explained.

According to Bechinger, the conversion of heat into mechanical work is essential for almost every industrial process.

He and his colleague Valentin Blickle have been working on the device for one year. On December 11, their results were published by "Nature Physics," a monthly magazine that features scientific developments.

Their version of a steam engine is hugely simplified -- but its basic functions remain intact.

Reducing the intensity of the laser beams also compresses the gas particles -- comparable to putting pressure on a device. Increasing its intensity decreases the pressure.

"If we change the temperature in the right rhythm, we operate like a large steam engine," Bechinger said.

"Our experiments offer a rare insight into the conversion of thermal to mechanical energy on a microscopic level, and pave the way for the design of future micromechanical machines."

But according to the two other scientists, the device is unstable.

"And we are lacking a device to make the produced energy usable," Bechinger said. He and his colleague are now trying to enhance its effectiveness.

"Unfortunately this steam engine is not going to solve the world's energy problems," he said.

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208 species discovered in Mekong River region - San Francisco Chronicle

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Hanoi --

A psychedelic gecko and a monkey with an Elvis hairdo are among 208 new species described last year by scientists in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, a conservation group announced Monday.

The animals were discovered in a biodiverse region that is threatened by habitat loss, deforestation, climate change and overdevelopment, the World Wildlife Fund said in a report.

The newly described species include a psychedelic gecko in southern Vietnam and a nose-less monkey in a remote province of Burma, also known as Myanmar, that looks as if it wears a pompadour.

"While this species, sporting an Elvis-like hairstyle, is new to science, the local people of Myanmar know it well," the Swiss group said in its report.

The region is home to some of the world's most endangered species, including tigers, Asian elephants, Mekong dolphins and Mekong giant catfish, the group said.

"This is a region of extraordinary richness in terms of biodiversity but also one that is extremely fragile," said Sarah Bladen, communications director for WWF Greater Mekong. "It's losing biodiversity at a tragic rate."

The Mekong flows through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

In October, WWF announced Vietnam has lost its last Javan rhinoceros, making the 40 to 60 Javan rhinos living in Indonesia the last remaining members of their species.

This article appeared on page A - 9 of the San?Francisco?Chronicle

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A psychedelic gecko and a monkey with an Elvis hairdo are among 208 new species described last year by scientists in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, a conservation group announced Monday. The animals were...

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Did walking evolve underwater? 'Walking fish' suggests that it did. - Christian Science Monitor

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MIT's trillion frames per second light-tracking camera - BBC News

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Study: Greenland faces land crisis as global warming heats up - The State Column

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A new study released Friday finds that Greenland has risen in recent years as the rate of ice melting has increased, a startling revelation that scientists attribute to global warming.

Speaking at a conference on Friday, a team of scientists from Ohio State University said a network of 50 GPS stations measured the uplift as the ice loss, noting that the rate of ice loss has accelerated in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons. The study was lead by Ohio State University researcher Michael Bevis.

Mr. Bevis noted that an unusually hot melting season in 2010 accelerated ice loss in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons, which led to large portions of the island’s bedrock rising an additional quarter of an inch. The discovery was noted by the team in a paper released ahead of the conclusion of a key global climate change conference in Durban, South Africa.

“Pulses of extra melting and uplift imply that we’ll experience pulses of extra sea level rise,” said Mr. Bevis. “The process is not really a steady process.”

Mr. Belvis said the only explanation for the strange uplift is the rate of ice melt caused, in part, by global warming. The melting and the resulting rise in sea level is one of the hallmarks of global warming, which has force researchers to resort to using some novel methods to overcome different seasonal and regional signals that obstruct their ability to measure the effect of rising temperatures.

“Really, there is no other explanation. The uplift anomaly correlates with maps of the 2010 melting day anomaly,” Mr. Bevis said. “In locations where there were many extra days of melting in 2010, the uplift anomaly is highest.”

The team of scientists noted that a melting day “anomaly” refers to the number of extra melting days – that is, days that were warm enough to melt ice – relative to the average number of melting days per year over several decades. The occurrence of “melting day anomalies” have increased in recent years as global emissions continue to increase.

Speaking on Friday, Mr. Bevis noted that in 2010, the southern half of Greenland lost an extra 100 billion tons of ice under conditions that scientists would consider anomalously warm.

Previous studies have recorded measurements indicating that as that ice melted away, the bedrock beneath it rose. The amount of uplift differed from station to station, depending on how close the station was to regions where ice loss was greatest. Southern Greenland stations that were very close to zones of heavy ice loss rose one inch every five months. Stations that were located far away typically rose at least less than half and inch during the course of the 2010 melting season. The weight of ice sheets push down on the bedrock it rests on, scientists noted, and as the ice sheets lose mass, the bedrock rises. Scientists said the process is known as Glacial Isostatic Adjustment, adding that it has been happening since the planet came out of an ice age around 17,000 years ago.

The team that led the study said that is was conducted by using high-precision global positioning system (GPS) data that measure the vertical motion of the rocky margins around Greenland, Iceland and other regions of the island.

The study comes just two weeks after a series of global climate change meetings in Durban, South Africa. The meeting was set to concluded on Friday. The meetings have pitted the U.S. against emerging powers China and India over whether to hold each other accountable for greenhouse-gas emissions. The European Union has indicated that the world’s three biggest polluters, China, India and the United States, have been slowing down the pace of negotiations on a roadmap to a future agreement.

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The 2011 Geminid Meteor Shower - Clarksville Online

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Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Huntsville, AL – The 2011 Geminid meteor shower peaks on the night of December 13th-14th, and despite the glare of a nearly-full Moon, it might be a good show.

“Observers with clear skies could see as many as 40 Geminids per hour,” predicts Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office. “Our all-sky network of meteor cameras has captured several early Geminid fireballs.? They were so bright, we could see them despite the moonlight.”

Skyview

The best time to look is between 10:00pm local time on Tuesday, December 13th, and sunrise on Wednesday, December 14th. Geminids, which spray out of the constellation Gemini, can appear anywhere in the sky. “Dress warmly and look up,” says Cooke. “It’s that simple.”

The source of the Geminids is near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon. Most meteor showers come from comets, so having an asteroid as a parent makes the Geminids a bit of an oddball.

“This is the thing I love most about Geminids,” says Cooke. “They’re so strange.”

Every year in mid-December, Earth runs through a trail of dusty debris that litters the orbit of 3200 Phaethon. Comets vaporizing in hot sunlight naturally produce such debris trails, but rocky asteroids like 3200 Phaethon do not. At least they’re not supposed to. The incongruity has baffled researchers since 1983 when 3200 Phaethon was discovered by NASA’s IRAS satellite.

One clue: 3200 Phaethon travels unusually close to the sun. The asteroid’s eccentric orbit brings it well inside the orbit of Mercury every 1.4 years. The rocky body thus receives a regular blast of solar heating that might somehow boil jets of dust into the Geminid debris stream.

In 2009, NASA’s STEREO-A spacecraft saw this process at work.? Coronagraphs onboard the solar observatory watched 3200 Phaethon as it was swinging by the sun. Sure enough, the asteroid doubled in brightness, probably because it was spewing jets of dust.

“The most likely explanation is that Phaethon ejected dust, perhaps in response to a break-down of surface rocks (through thermal fracture and decomposition cracking of hydrated minerals) in the intense heat of the Sun,” wrote UCLA planetary scientists David Jewitt and Jing Li, who analyzed the data.

Jewett and Li’s “rock comet” hypothesis is compelling, but they point out a problem: The amount of dust 3200 Phaethon ejected during its 2009 sun-encounter added a mere 0.01% to the mass of the Geminid debris stream–not nearly enough to keep the stream replenished over time. Perhaps the rock comet was more active in the past …?

“We just don’t know,” says Cooke. “Every new thing we learn about the Geminids seems to deepen the mystery.”

Led by Cooke, the Meteoroid Environment Office has just released an app for iPhones and iPads to help citizen scientists count meteors and report their observations to NASA. The “Meteor Counter” is available for free from Apple’s app store:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meteor-counter/id466896415

Cooke hopes sky watchers everywhere will use it to monitor the mysterious Geminids.

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'Elvis' Monkey, Psychedelic Gecko among new Asian species - Washington Post

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CERN physicists find hint of Higgs boson - CNET

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These red lines show how the LHC's Atlas experiment registered the arrival of four particles called muons. They could have been the byproducts of a short-lived Higgs boson--or they could have been more humdrum events. CERN's LHC particle accelerator will continue smashing protons into each other to spot the statistical significance that means the Higgs really has been found.

(Credit: CERN)

Researchers at the CERN particle accelerator have found "intriguing hints" of the Higgs boson, a moment of major progress in years of previously unfruitful searching for the elusive subatomic particle.

The search for the Higgs boson is the top priority of CERN's massive and expensive Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. Its Atlas experiment showed a statistically suspicious increase in activity that indicates the Higgs could be pinned down with a mass of 126 giga-electron-volts, and showing some important agreement, its independent CMS experiment found a possible result nearby at 124GeV.

"We observe an excess of events around mass of about 126 GeV," CERN physicist and Atlas leader Fabiola Gianotti said in slides presented today at a CERN seminar to physicists who applauded her results. That equates to about 212 quintillionths of a gram; by comparison, a proton is more than 100 times lighter with a mass of 0.938GeV.

Her small sentence carries big import for physics. That's because the Higgs boson, thought by some to endow other particles with mass, is a key missing ingredient in physicists' understanding of what makes the universe tick. It's predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, but no one has been able to confirm its existence or nature.

"The Higgs could be the first link in a chain of discovery. This is what we hope," said Guido Tonelli of the Universita degli Studi di Pisa and leader of the CMS project, in a news conference after the seminar. Another year of continued data gathering should be enough to provide a conclusive answer on this particular matter, the physicists said.

Gianotti called the findings "beautiful results" at the seminar, but stopped well short of declaring victory because there's not enough data for statistical certainty. "It's too early to draw definite conclusions...We believe we have built a solid foundation on the exciting months to come."

Finding the Higgs boson is essentially a matter of checking for a variety of events--or their absence. The LHC's detectors have been gradually ruling out ranges of possible mass for the Higgs boson.

"The window for the Higgs mass gets smaller and smaller," and today we saw "intriguing hints" of its possible nature, said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "We have not found it yet. We have not excluded it yet. Stay tuned for next year."

The Higgs boson isn't observed directly, but rather is detected by extremely rare side effects of collisions between protons smashing into each other. To increase the likelihood of collisions, the LHC operators have been gradually increasing the beam intensity.

Gianotti also said the CMS results predict with a 95 percent confidence level that the Higgs boson has a mass between 115.5GeV and 131GeV.

Another experiment, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), also helped narrow down the possible mass of the Higgs boson. Its results showed with a 95 percent confidence level that the particle can't be between 127GeV and 600GeV, Tonelli said.

CERN physicist Fabiola Gianotto describes scientific results from the Large Hadron Collider's search for the Higgs boson.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The CMS experiment also found "a modest excess of events" that could be evidence of the Higgs boson between 115GeV and 127GeV, Tonelli said in a presentation at the seminar. "The excess is most compatible with a Standard Model Higgs hypothesis in the vicinity of 124GeV and below, but the statistical significance is not large enough to say anything conclusive."

One of the big mysteries that physicists hope to plumb with the Higgs is an idea called supersymmetry. The Standard Model predicts a wide range of particles, of which the Higgs is the last to be pinned down. But with supersymmetry, each of the conventional elementary particles in the standard model, including the Higgs, has a companion. If there's only one Higgs boson, it's part of the Standard Model. But with supersymmetry, there have to be at least five Higgs bosons. Supersymmetry would double the number of particles to resolve physics problems in a similar way that the prediction--and later discovery--of antimatter did decades ago.

If the Higgs boson weighs about 125GeV, it would match many physicists' general expectations--but also carry some importance. That's because it's at the light end of the range of possibilities, and physicists believe a particle that light needs another particle from the sypersymmetry collection to anchor it.

"Our expectation is that you have something heavy. It could be something related to SUSY," Tonelli said, referring to the nickname for supersymmetry theory. "Or maybe not," he added.

The CMS, or Compact Muon Solenoid, is not what most people would call compact. It's one of the two general-purpose experiments at the Large Hadron Collider with which physicists hope to detect the Higgs boson.

(Credit: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

When it comes to mass, physicists liken the Higgs boson to groupies at a party. Heavy particles interact strongly with Higgs bosons, equivalent to a lot of people swarming a celebrity and making it harder for the famous person to start moving and, once moving, harder to stop. Particles with little mass are those that interact weakly with Higgs bosons, making them more fleet-footed.

"A heavier particle is nothing more that one than has more interactions with the Higgs particle as it passes through the vacuum," said Lawrence Sulak, chairman of Boston University's physics department.

If the Higgs boson is precisely measured in the next year, the LHC can be used to look further down the same pathway, Tonelli added, possibly finding supersymmetric particles--"if they are in the energy range of the LHC."

Such particles would likely be vastly heavier--many thousands, perhaps millions, of GeVs, he said.

That would be quite a coup: supersymmetric particles are a possible explanation for dark matter, material that in the universe outweighs the ordinary matter of which we're made but that generally interacts with ordinary matter only through gravitational pull.

To find harder particles, CERN plans an LHC upgrade that will let protons be smashed together at twice today's energy level. "Hopefully we'll explore a large region of masses," Tonelli said. And then, the supersymmetry work can begin in earnest. "A lot of parameters are still open, a lot of SUSY models are still open and are waiting to be excluded or confirmed," he said.

The LHC is a huge, phenomenally complex instrument built in a circular subterranean tunnel 27 kilometers in circumference. It can accelerate protons fast enough that, when they collide, they reproduce energy levels found only in the earliest moments of the universe after the Big Bang.

Updated at 7:26 a.m. PT and 10:44 a.m. PT with further detail.

Fabiola Gianotti's conclusions about the LHC's Atlas experiment results about the search for the Higgs boson

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET) Guido Tonelli's conclusions about the LHC's CMS experiment results about the search for the Higgs boson.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

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Big Question for 2012: Was There Ever Life on Mars? - Discovery News

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On Aug. 6, 2012 if all goes well, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will touch down to tackle a new set of questions about whether there was life on Mars.

A pair of predecessor rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, as well as a fleet of orbiting spacecraft have laid the groundwork for the mission, amassing an impressive body of evidence for past water on the surface of Mars. Those findings are key, for without water scientists aren't sure life can exist. With water, we know it's possible.

BIG QUESTION FOR 2012: Is the Polar Bear Doomed?

BIG QUESTION FOR 2012: The Great Pyramid's Secret Doors

The Mars Science Laboratory, nicknamed Curiosity, is designed to nail down some specifics about the water, such as how long it existed in liquid form and whether it was too acidic to support life. But it also breaks new ground with the first studies since NASA's '70s-era Viking Mars landers to look for other ingredients for life, namely organics.

Curiosity's landing site, a location near the equator known as Gale Crater, was selected after years of careful deliberation.

The 96-mile-wide crater contains a central mound of what appears to be layered sediment that stretches three-miles high into the sky -- twice the height of the walls of the Grand Canyon. The mountain might be the remains of a eroded lakebed, with the history of water -- and possible remnants of life -- preserved in its clays, rocks and soil.

PHOTOS: Meeting Mars Rover 'Curiosity'

Curiosity is not a life-detection mission, per se. Rather it is an attempt to characterize the conditions necessary for life both in the present, and more likely, from the past. But scientists, who have always been surprised by findings on Mars, are trying to keep an open mind.

"We want to consider that if Tim Allen's 'Galaxy Quest' alien rock creature comes up and bangs us on the head, we don't want to ignore it," said biochemist Steven Benner, who heads the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Fla. "That would be the 'aha!' moment that we would regret having missed. But that's relatively far down in our what-if scenarios."

Image: An artist's impression of Curiosity doing a spot of geology work on the Marian surface (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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Green light for SpaceX flight to space station - CBS News

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(CBS News)?

NASA has agreed to let Space Exploration Technologies -- SpaceX -- make a long-awaited test fight to the International Space Station, pending final tests.

SpaceX will combine two test flights of its unmanned Dragon cargo ship into a single mission, aiming for launch on 7 February.

The primary goal of the demonstration flight is to test the capsule's autonomous navigation and control systems before beginning routine commercial flights to deliver critical supplies to the lab complex.

Is SpaceX the new NASA?

"Pending all of the final safety reviews and testing, SpaceX will send its Dragon spacecraft to rendezvous with the International Space Station in less than two months," Lori Garver, NASA's deputy administrator, said on Friday. "So it's the opening of that new commercial cargo delivery era for ISS."

Boosted into low-Earth orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Dragon capsule will rendezvous with the space station two days after launch and carry out a series of tests to verify its software and control systems are working properly before NASA flight controllers give clearance for final approach.

If all goes well, the Dragon spacecraft will pull up to within about 30 feet of the lab complex on 10 or 11 February and wait for the station's robot arm to lock on and pull it in for a docking at the Earth-facing port of the forward Harmony module. The arm will be operated by Expedition 30 commander Dan Burbank, who arrived at the lab last month, and Donald Pettit, who is scheduled for launch on 21 December aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Assuming an on-time launch and berthing, the Dragon capsule will remain attached to the station for two weeks before the robot arm swings back into action pull the spacecraft away, setting the stage for an automated re-entry, splashdown and recovery.

"This is a critical capability because with the retiring of the space shuttle we have now lost the ability to carry very big loads of cargo to the station and to return cargo from the station," Burbank said in a NASA interview. "So what we've done is we phased into basically a new chapter here where NASA is going to solicit and contract with commercial providers to do exactly that."

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U.N. body agrees to develop new climate pact - MarketWatch

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By Wallace Witkowski, MarketWatch

Reuters Conference of the Parties President Maite Nkoana-Mashabane of South Africa talks with Brazil's chief climate envoy, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo before a plenary session at United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa. SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Nearly 200 countries agreed Sunday to work on extending limits on greenhouse gas emissions well into the next decade, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Participants in the U.N. climate talks agree a legal deal on an effort to control global warming.

At a conference in Durban, South Africa, governments agreed to adopt a legal agreement “as soon as possible” but no later than 2015 to curb greenhouse gas emissions to limit the rise in average global temperatures by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The agreement would extend the Kyoto Protocol that was adopted in 1997 and is set to expire in 2012. The U.S. never ratified the protocol.

While Russia, Canada and Japan had said earlier they would not recommit to the Kyoto Protocol, they all signed onto the new agreement, according to The Wall Street Journal. The U.S., China and India — the largest producers of greenhouse gases — have also signed on to the agreement, according to the Journal.

The agreement would create a Green Climate Fund of about $100 billion by 2020.

Wallace Witkowski is a MarketWatch news editor in San Francisco.

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Canada, out of Kyoto, must still cut emissions: UN - Reuters

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Australia's Minister for Climate Change Greg Combet (L) speaks with Canada's Environment Minister Peter Kent during a break in plenary session at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) in Durban December 10, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Rogan Ward

LONDON | Tue Dec 13, 2011 12:46pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Canada still has a legal obligation under U.N. rules to cut its emissions despite the country's pullout from the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. climate chief said Tuesday.

Christiana Figueres also said the timing of Canada's move, a day after a deal to extend it was clinched at a U.N. summit in South Africa, was both regrettable and surprising.

Canada Monday withdraw from Kyoto, dealing a symbolic blow to the treaty, with environment minister Peter Kent breaking the news just after his return from talks in Durban.

"Whether or not Canada is a party to the Kyoto Protocol, it has a legal obligation under the (U.N. framework on climate change) convention to reduce its emissions, and a moral obligation to itself and future generations to lead in the global effort," Figueres said.

Canada, a major energy producer which critics say is becoming a climate renegade, has long complained Kyoto is unworkable because it excludes so many significant emitters.

Industrialized countries whose emissions have risen significantly since 1990, like Canada, remain in a weaker position to call on developing countries to limit their emissions, Figueres said.

"I regret that Canada has announced it will withdraw and am surprised over its timing," Figueres said in a statement.

Sunday, more than 190 countries agreed to extend Kyoto for at least five years and hammered out a new deal forcing all big polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Kyoto's first phase, due to expire at the end of next year but now extended until 2017, imposed limits only on developed countries, not emerging giants like China and India. The United States never ratified it.

The Canadian government said it would be subject to penalties equivalent to C$14 billion ($13.6 billion) under the terms of the treaty for not cutting emissions by the required amount by 2012.

China and Japan said Tuesday that Canada's decision was regrettable and called on it to continue to abide by its commitments on climate change. [ID:nL3E7ND2XL]

Figueres said the Durban agreement to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is essential "for the new push toward a universal, legal climate agreement in the near future."

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)

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Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight, but moonlight - again - to interfere - Washington Post (blog)

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From NASA: “This fireball, caused by a Geminid meteor, is one of the largest ever recorded.” (Wally Pacholka/AstroPics.com via NASA ) The Geminid meteor shower, one of the year’s top night light shows, peaks tonight. But due to a nearly-full moon, the meteors will be somewhat more difficult to see. Nevertheless, NASA expects a decent showing between 10 p.m. local time and sunrise (on December 14)

“Observers with clear skies could see as many as 40 Geminids per hour,” predicts Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office.

EarthSky says the greatest numbers of meteors will occur one to two hours after midnight. Space.com notes the Geminids “can produce stunning fireballs.” (CWG reader sgustaf1 reported seeing a fireball “streak down the sky north of 66 in Gainesville at 3:50 a.m. this morning”)

The meteors, made up of the debris from near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon and ejected from the constellation Gemini, could appear anywhere in the sky.

“Dress warmly and look up,” says Cooke. “It’s that simple.”

Although NASA is optimistic the Geminids will deliver a spectacle, the full moon may cut the meteor output by a third according to Space.com:

“On a clear night, skywatchers have reported seeing up to 120 meteors per hour during the peak of the Geminids in previous years,” Space.com writes.

To overcome the effect of the moonlight, move away from light pollution towards a rural setting and, if you can, try to catch the shower before moonrise. After moonrise, EarthSky provides this tip: “...try to shade yourself from the moon’s light. Sit in the shade of a house, tree or mountain – but leave an otherwise open view of sky. “

The Geminids is the latest of the big ticket meteor showers to be compromised by unfortunate timing, especially in the U.S. The Perseids coincided with a full moon and the Draconids peaked during the day (in the U.S.). The Orionids occurred at a slightly more fortuitous time, when the crescent moon was waning and about 25% full.

Considering the East Coast of the U.S. missed out on both of the recent lunar eclipses (earlier this week and in June), there is no doubt a large contigent of disappointed skywatchers.

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Mock space shuttle moved to make way for the real thing - collectSPACE.com

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December 11, 2011 — A static, full-scale space shuttle display did something unusual on Sunday morning (Dec. 11) — it moved.

Named Explorer, the 122.7-foot (37.4-meter) long shuttle replica was hoisted onto a wheeled transporter and trucked the 5.4 miles (8.7 kilometers) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to a turn basin adjacent to the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building where real space shuttles were prepared for launch.

Explorer will wait there until it is barged from Florida to Texas in the next several months, where it will be displayed by Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center.

The move was necessary to clear room at the Kennedy visitor complex for a new $100-million, 64,000-square-foot facility to display the space shuttle Atlantis. Now being prepared for display after flying the final mission of NASA's 30-year shuttle program in July, Atlantis will make the same overland trip as Explorer — in the reverse direction — in November 2012.

Explorer was created by the aerospace replica manufacturer Guard-Lee, Inc. and installed at the visitor complex in 1993. Built using schematics, blueprints, and archival documents provided by NASA and shuttle contractors such as Rockwell International (now part of the Boeing Company), some of its core parts, including the tires used on its landing gear, are authentic to the shuttle program.

In addition to offering the public a realistic exterior appearance and a sense of the scale for the real winged shuttles, Explorer also features a walk-through interior, including the payload bay and crew cabin. Visitors could ascend a gantry-style tower positioned alongside the 54-foot (16.5-meter) tall replica and view a mock payload inside the cargo hold and see the commander's and pilot's stations on the flight deck.

Space Center Houston plans to preserve and perhaps enhance Explorer's interior tour. Visitors to Atlantis in Florida and the other authentic orbiters will not be able to go inside.

Before Explorer could depart for its temporary waterside parking spot on Sunday, construction crews needed to first remove full-size replicas of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters and external tank that were displayed separately adjacent to the orbiter. That work was completed Dec. 1 as they were trucked to NASA's transfer and disposal yard to await their next move, still to be decided.

Explorer then needed to clear its own hurdle: a guard house that divides the road leading to the turn basin. Workers raised the replica shuttle on its transporter so that its 78-foot (23.8-meter) wingspan could clear the small building.

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