Also at Centauri Dreams.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
More Russian State Failure Mental Gymanstics
Russia’s population will continue to decline over the coming decades, threatening first some regions and then the country as a whole with depopulation, a trend whose consequences are both more immediate and more widespread than many now assume, according to a leading Moscow demographer.
In an article entitled “The Social Consequences of the Depopulation of Russia,” [google translation of her article] Olga Lebed of Moscow State University argues that “the demographic situation which has arisen in Russia over the course of recent decades has achieved such a critical point that it is impossible not to pay attention to it”
Her list, in brief, depopulation will...
1. change the ethnic mix
2. russians won't be the largest percentile in russia
3. threatens territorial integrity
4. worker shortage
5. population aging will crush the worker
6. exacerbate the gender imbalances[A]
7. cause parents to outlive their kids making things worse
8. destroy the family [B]
9. cause more mental illness, sociopathy, etc. Make everyone crazy
10. cause the state to take radical, even fsckign scary, steps to stop it[C]
A. Not enough men! Sounds like a perfect match for the Chinese!
B. She a conservative republican by chance?
C. such "as state-supported “incubator” children, 'hybridization of embryos,' cloning, and greater efforts to extent life spans and working lives." o.O
Sooo...what are they drinking there? Seriously spiked vodka?! Ahem. I should say: Now That's Some Vodka!
Some Experimental Paleobiology: Alligators Development And Hypoxia
During the last 540 million years, the earth's oxygen levels have fluctuated wildly. Knowing that the dinosaurs appeared around the time when oxygen levels were at their lowest at 12%, Tomasz Owerkowicz, Ruth Elsey and James Hicks wondered how these monsters coped at such low oxygen levels. But without a ready supply of dinosaurs to test their ideas on, Owerkowicz and Hicks turned to a modern relative: the alligator. 'We knew testing the effects of different oxygen levels would work with alligators,' Owerkowicz explains, 'because crocodilians have survived in their basic shape and form for 220 million years. They must be doing something right to have survived the oxygen fluctuations.' Choosing to start at the beginning of alligator development, the trio decided to try incubating alligator eggs at different oxygen levels, to find out how the youngsters grew and developed and publish their results on April 17 2009 in The Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.
Receiving newly laid alligator eggs from Elsey at the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, Owerkowicz divided the eggs into groups incubated at 12% (low) oxygen, 21% (normal) oxygen and 30% (high) oxygen, and waited to see what would happen. After almost 10 weeks of waiting, the eggs began hatching and Owerkowicz could see that there were no obvious differences between the alligators that developed in normal and high oxygen atmospheres.
Abstract:
Atmospheric oxygen level affects growth trajectory, cardiopulmonary allometry and metabolic rate in the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)
Tomasz Owerkowicz1,*, Ruth M. Elsey2 and James W. Hicks1
1 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
2 Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Grand Chenier, LA 70643, USA
* Author for correspondence (e-mail: towerkow@uci.edu)
Accepted 3 February 2009
Recent palaeoatmospheric models suggest large-scale fluctuations in ambient oxygen level over the past 550 million years. To better understand how global hypoxia and hyperoxia might have affected the growth and physiology of contemporary vertebrates, we incubated eggs and raised hatchlings of the American alligator. Crocodilians are one of few vertebrate taxa that survived these global changes with distinctly conservative morphology. We maintained animals at 30°C under chronic hypoxia (12% O2), normoxia (21% O2) or hyperoxia (30% O2). At hatching, hypoxic animals were significantly smaller than their normoxic and hyperoxic siblings. Over the course of 3 months, post-hatching growth was fastest under hyperoxia and slowest under hypoxia. Hypoxia, but not hyperoxia, caused distinct scaling of major visceral organs–reduction of liver mass, enlargement of the heart and accelerated growth of lungs. When absorptive and post-absorptive metabolic rates were measured in juvenile alligators, the increase in oxygen consumption rate due to digestion/absorption of food was greatest in hyperoxic alligators and smallest in hypoxic ones. Hyperoxic alligators exhibited the lowest breathing rate and highest oxygen consumption per breath. We suggest that, despite compensatory cardiopulmonary remodelling, growth of hypoxic alligators is constrained by low atmospheric oxygen supply, which may limit their food utilisation capacity. Conversely, the combination of elevated metabolism and low cost of breathing in hyperoxic alligators allows for a greater proportion of metabolised energy to be available for growth. This suggests that growth and metabolic patterns of extinct vertebrates would have been significantly affected by changes in the atmospheric oxygen level.
So. Does this support Ward's hypothesis about hypoxia strongly effecting vertebrate evolution or not? There are some hints, but I have to wonder about this...has anyone done anything like this for the monotremes?
My post "Gasping for Paleo Air" touches on some of this, btw, as there is evidence that the hypoxic levels may not have dropped as low as what has been hypothesized (17/18% instead of 11/12%) because vegetation won't burn under a certain oxygen level and there is ample evidence for forest fires at multiple geological time periods.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
USN Awards Free Electron Laser Contracts
U.S. Navy ships could one day knock down incoming missiles with energy weapons that never run out of shots, and tune themselves to slice through the ocean air.
On Monday, the Office of Naval Research awarded contracts to both Raytheon and Boeing worth an initial $6.9 million each for preliminary design work on a new free electron laser, or FEL. This model would be about seven times strong than any similar laser -- reaching up to 100 kilowatts, or weapons-grade. Eventually, that could pave the way for a directed-energy weapon that can replace the Navy's current system for close-in ship defense, the radar-guided Phalanx gun.
FELs have the great advantage of being tunable: you can change their output frequency with relative ease. This means you can adapt to the aerial conditions at least. Possibly even making it into a blue-green laser and allow it to travel through water to some degree (huh. Close in torpedo zapper?! huh.) This makes FELs a highly desirable weapon...except you need space and a lot of juice. Sounds like a navy ship to me!
That said, FELs are not easy things to master technologically. We've sunk a lot of money in it to get this far and we're just now getting on the cusp of weapon's grade lasers.
Blasted China: Time For An Ocean Going Iron Great Wall
China will accelerate development of warships, stealth submarines and long-range missiles as the country makes a stronger navy a priority in military modernization, a Chinese admiral told state media.
Admiral Wu Shengli said the Communist Party leadership had ordered the navy to upgrade preparedness to defend the nation's expanding interests, Chinese newspapers reported on Thursday.
"The Party central leadership has demanded that the navy make preparedness for military struggle at sea a priority in national security strategy and military strategy," Xinhua news agency cited Wu as saying in the interview first issued on its website (www.xinhuanet.com) on Wednesday.
"We must accelerate progress in developing key weapons equipment," Wu added, singling out big warships, long-distance stealth submarines, supersonic jet fighters, and high-accuracy long-range missiles.
Chinese media have highlighted the government's hopes to build an aircraft carrier, seen as the badge of a mature ocean-going power. But Wu's remarks highlighted the country's broader ambitions to expand its naval reach.
China's navy had become an "ocean-going iron Great Wall" to "counter a range of security threats," Wu said.
I can list the threats:
- Pirates (ARRRR!)
- USN
- JSDF
India: No Rafale! Thanx!
India has decided not to buy Rafale fighters from French firm Dassault Aviation as part of a 12-billion-dollar upgrade of its air force, an Indian defence ministry official said Thursday.
The official said Dassault, one of six contenders in the race for a share of the mammoth contract, had failed to meet India's technical requirements.
"The Rafale is out of the race for the tender process, because during the technical evaluation the company did not meet all the user requirements," said the senior ministry official, who was speaking on condition he not be named.
"Dassault cannot submit fresh proposals or offer any other variants for technical evaluation, and is permanently out of the race. We now have one less bidder in the process," the official told AFP.
Industry sources have said that US-based Lockheed Martin, offering the F-16, and Boeing with its F-18 "Superhornet" have emerged as front-runners in bidding for the 12-billion-dollar, 126-jet contract.
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company has offered its Typhoon Eurofighter, while Russian manufacturers of the MiG-35 and MiG-29, as well as Sweden's Saab, which makes the Gripen fighter, are also in the running.
The contract includes the outright purchase of 18 fighter jets by 2012 with another 108 to be built in India.
It's fascinating to see the US fighters offered to India. To says a lot about the evolution of relations between the US and India since 1971 (?) when we sent an aircraft carrier off western India to be threatening. I ahve to rather like the change.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Cretaceous Turtle Has Eggs in CT Scan
Michael Knell carried a 75-million-year-old turtle into Bozeman Deaconess hospital recently, then laid it carefully on the bed that slides into the CT scanner.
Hardly an ordinary patient, the turtle fossil was only the second in the world found with eggs inside it, said Knell, a Montana State University graduate student in earth sciences. His turtle (from the genus Adocus) came from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Kanab, Utah. The previously described turtle, which was found in Alberta, is also an Adocus and lived about the same time. Knell wanted his fossil scanned to see if he could find a skull and more eggs and learn whether or not the eggs contained embryos.
"It allows us to peer inside without digging into it," Knell said. "It gives us a hands-off look without having to break anything."
"It's very cool," added Frankie Jackson, an MSU paleontologist who specializes in eggs.
The CT machine looks like a giant doughnut with a narrow bed attached. Patients normally lay on the bed, then ride through the scanner while it takes images of a particular area. In this case, Knell wanted to scan the entire turtle. Although the edges of its shell were missing, the fossil measured about one foot across and weighed 40 to 50 pounds.
[...]
Spence operated the scanner from an adjoining room while Knell and Jackson looked over her shoulders. As the CT scanner took cross-sections of the fossil, white images appeared -- slice by slice -- on Spence's computer screen.
"It's very, very dense," Spence said of the shell. "You can lose some detail when that happens. You have to penetrate enough to see, but you can sometime lose detail that way."
Jackson said CT scans generally work better on fossils than X-rays and MRIs do.
"Usually embryo bone doesn't show up too well on a CT scan, so we might no be able to see embryos very well, but it could clue you in that you need to look at the eggs a little closer," Jackson added.
As time went by, the scientists realized that the eggs weren't showing up as clearly as they'd expected and they'd need to examine the images more closely. As a result, Spence saved her images to a disc and gave it to Knell. He and Jackson said they would contact the Museum of the Rockies, which has special software for looking at CT images from a variety of angles. The researchers expect to present their findings during the fourth international Symposium on Dinosaur Eggs and Babies. Knell's adviser, David Varricchio, and Jackson are organizing the event, which will be held Aug. 8-10 at MSU.
sweet! Anyone have pix?
Could the Neandertals Have Had /Races/?!
The Neanderthals inhabited a vast geographical area extending from Europe to western Asia and the Middle East 30,000 to 100,000 years ago. Now, a group of researchers are questioning whether or not the Neanderthals constituted a homogenous group or separate sub-groups (between which slight differences could be observed). A new study published April 15 in the online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE may provide some answers.
Paleoanthropological studies based on morphological skeletal evidence have offered some support for the existence of three different sub-groups: one in Western Europe, one in southern Europe and another in the Levant.
Researchers Virginie Fabre, Silvana Condemi and Anna Degioanni from the CNRS Laboratory of Anthropology (UMR 6578) at the University of Marseille, France, have given further consideration to the question of diversity of Neanderthals by studying the genetic structure of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and by analyzing the genetic variability, modeling different scenarios. The study was possible thanks to the publication, since 1997, of 15 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences (the mtDNa is maternally transmitted) that originated from 12 Neanderthals.
The new study confirms the presence of three separate sub-groups and suggests the existence of a fourth group in western Asia. According to the authors, the size of the Neanderthal population was not constant over time and a certain amount of migration occurred among the sub-groups. The variability among the Neanderthal population is interpreted to be an indirect consequence of the particular climatic conditions on their territorial extension during the entire middle Pleistocene time period.
Could it be that the Neanderthals, rather than just be the pasty redheaded Euros that are often depicted...could they have had their own 'races' much like modern humans do? Wouldn't that be so damned kewl!!!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Where You Grow Biofuels Matters
A new study finds that it will take more than 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost when biofuel plantations are established on forestlands. If the original habitat was peatland, carbon balance would take more than 600 years. The study appears in Conservation Biology.
The oil palm, increasingly used as a source for biofuel, has replaced soybean as the world's most traded oilseed crop. Global production of palm oil has increased exponentially over the past 40 years. In 2006, 85 percent of the global palm-oil crop was produced in Indonesia and Malaysia, countries whose combined annual tropical forest loss is around 20,000 square kilometers.
Conversion of forest to oil palm also results in significant impoverishment of both plant and animal communities. Other tropical crops suitable for biofuel use, like soybean, sugar cane and jatropha, are all likely to have similar impacts on climate and biodiversity.
"Biofuels are a bad deal for forests, wildlife and the climate if they replace tropical rain forests," says research scientist Finn Danielsen, lead author of the study. "In fact, they hasten climate change by removing one of the world's most efficient carbon storage tools, intact tropical rain forests."
As countries strive to meet obligations to reduce carbon emissions under one international agreement (Kyoto Protocol), they may not only fail to meet their obligations under another (Convention on Biological Diversity) but may actually hasten global climate change.
According to the study, reducing deforestation is likely to represent a more effective climate-change mitigation strategy than converting forest for biofuel production, and it may help nations meet their international commitments to reduce biodiversity loss.
Alternatively, planting biofuels on degraded grasslands instead of tropical rain forests would lead to a net removal of carbon from the atmosphere in 10 years. Any biofuel plantations in tropical forest regions should be considered only in former forest land which has already been severely degraded to support only grassy vegetation.
"The EU and the US should only import and subsidize bio-fuel from guaranteed sustainable productions and only from countries which can demonstrate that their forests are sustainably managed," says Danielsen.
In some ways that feels like a "Well, duh, dude." I mean, you cut down the largest carbon sink around and...
PG&E to Buy 200 MW from Space Based Solar Power Sat Company
Solar power beamed down from space will generate electricity for California homes as soon as 2016, under a new plan by a utility company to ramp up renewable energy technology far beyond solar panels on roofs.
PG&E would buy 200 megawatts of space solar power from Solaren Corp. over 15 years under a power purchase agreement, enough to power tens of thousands of homes. The utility company has begun seeking approval for the deal from California state regulators.
Solaren would use solar panels on satellites in orbit to capture the sun's power, and then convert it into radio frequency energy that could beam down to a receiving station. The energy would then undergo a conversion to electricity and feed into PG&E's power grid.
Having solar panels in orbit could provide a clean, reliable source of solar power that avoids the interruptions of cloudy days and bad weather on Earth. That tempting prospect has led NASA and the U.S. Defense Department to investigate possibilities for space solar power, despite the hefty cost of launching solar panels into orbit.
A former NASA scientist went so far as to demonstrate the radio wave transmission technology that would carry energy from space to Earth. He and his team transmitted solar power over a distance of 92 miles between two Hawaiian islands, during a four-month experiment in 2008.
No one has built a system with equivalent size and scale to what Solaren envisions. But the transmission technology is "very mature" and based on what communications satellites use today, said Gary Spirnak, Solaren CEO.
Now THAT'S a salesman.
No prototype. No hardware at all.
And as far as I can tell...no website even. Sheesh. Solaren.com goes to an Armenian company.
Damn. he's far better than I am.
Monday, April 13, 2009
First Tool Users 300 Million Years Ago?!
The first tool-users in the world may have been scorpion-like sea beasts. The extinct animals used other creatures' shells to help them breathe on land 500 million years ago, new research suggests.
Five years ago paleontologists found dozens of strange fossil tracks, each about four inches (ten centimeters) wide, in half-billion-year-old rocks exposed at a flagstone quarry in Wisconsin.
The marks appear to have been made by multi-legged creatures that had all dragged some weight on their left sides.
The tracks look like those made by modern-day hermit crabs, but the marks date back to some 300 million years before those crustaceans existed. (See a prehistoric time line.)
Based on the footprint patterns, researchers suggest the tracks were made by sea scorpions, critters that resembled "a cross between a scorpion and a horseshoe crab," said lead study author James Whitey Hagadorn of Amherst College.
Sea scorpions—thought to be among the first marine animals to evolve for life on land—breathed underwater using gills on their tails.
The odd drag marks could have been from the coiled shells of snails or similar critters, which the ocean-dwelling scorpions stuffed their tails into so they could venture above water, the researchers suggest.
Humid air trapped inside the shells might have protected the sea scorpions' gills from drying out during brief forays into the open air—like reverse scuba gear.
"Instead of an aqualung, like you have with human divers, you have the reverse: an aerolung," Hagadorn said.
Ok. Not as profound as it sounded at first Curse those people wanting more traffic!!!
oh.
wait.
OTOH, this is kewl...if not much more profound than a hermit crab like behavior.
How to Detect Exoplanetary Oceans
Photometric Variability in Earthshine Observations
Authors: Sally V. Langford, J. Stuart B. Wyithe, Edwin L. Turner
(Submitted on 6 Apr 2009)
Abstract: The identification of an extrasolar planet as Earth-like will depend on the detection of atmospheric signatures or surface non-uniformities. In this paper we present spatially unresolved flux light curves of Earth for the purpose of studying a prototype extrasolar terrestrial planet. Our monitoring of the photometric variability of earthshine revealed changes of up to 23 % per hour in the brightness of Earth's scattered light at around 600 nm, due to the removal of specular reflection from the view of the Moon. This variability is accompanied by reddening of the spectrum, and results from a change in surface properties across the continental boundary between the Indian Ocean and Africa's east coast. Our results based on earthshine monitoring indicate that specular reflection should provide a useful tool in determining the presence of liquid water on extrasolar planets via photometric observations.
Comments: To appear in Astrobiology 9(3). 17 pages, 3 figures, 1 table
Also see here.
Finding Theia
As many of you may or may not know, the leading theory on how the Moon formed is through a collision between a Mars sized world, often dubbed Theia, and the early Earth. Two spacecraft, STEREO, are going to be deployed to the L-5 and there is hope that they will find remnants there of the collision. Both the Universe Today and Centauri Dreams have articles.
California Impacts Under Climate Change
A biennial report released today by a team of experts that advises California’s governor suggests that climate changes are poised to affect virtually every sector of the state’s economy and most of its ecosystems. Significant impacts will likely occur under even moderate scenarios of global greenhouse emissions and associated climate change, but without action, severe and costly climate change impacts are possible across the state.
The state Climate Action Team (CAT) report uses updated, comprehensive scientific research to outline environmental and economic climate impacts. Its authors include Dan Cayan, a climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, and a member of the CAT steering team.
A broad collaboration of scientists, mostly from state academic and government agencies, provided a large set of technical papers that form the underpinnings for much of the CAT report. Assessments include the impacts of sea level rise, higher temperatures, increased wildfires, decreased water supplies, increased energy demand, among others, on the state’s environment, industries and economic prosperity. Each of the papers has undergone peer review by technical experts in private, public and governmental entities.
Impacts of climate change to California’s coast, agriculture, forest and communities have been known and studied for years; however the studies that support the CAT report suggest that actual greenhouse gas emissions are outstripping 2006 projections. Of particular interest are the several papers focusing on the impacts of a rise in sea levels to coastal communities and increased potential of wildfires to residential areas.
[...]
Key Findings:
* Water Supply Impacts: A group of researchers at UC Davis investigated the effect of potential climate-induced reductions in water supply to the agricultural sector. One of their findings is that the lack of water would result in reductions in irrigated crop area contributing to the loss of agricultural lands in the Central Valley. Under the particular climate change scenario investigated, the researchers also found that changes in yields (mostly negative) and changes in water availability could result in gross revenues losses of up to $3 billion by year 2050. (Source: Effect of Climate Change on Field Crop Production in the Central Valley of California; California Perennial Crops in a Changing Climate; Estimating the Economic Impacts of Agricultural Yield Related Changes for California)
* Electricity Demand Impacts: To estimate potential impacts of climate change on electricity demand for the residential sector, researchers at UC Berkeley used a comprehensive household level billing data set for California. This highly detailed study found much larger effects of climate change on electricity demand than previous studies. Statewide electricity demand may increase by up to 55 percent by the end of the century. However, policies aimed at reducing the weather sensitivity of demand can play a large role in reducing future electricity demand. (Source: Impact of Climate Change on Residential Electricity Consumption)
* Wildfire Risks: Scientists at UC Merced and Pardee RAND Graduate School performed a novel analysis of wildfire risk in California. They estimated that wildfire risk would increase throughout the end of the century. Average annual monetary impacts due to home loss may plausibly to be on the order of 2 billion dollars per year by mid-century and up to $14 billion per year by the end of the century. (Source: Climate Change, Growth, and California Wildfire; Potential Effects of Climate Change on Residential Wildfire Risk in California)
* Ecosystem Impacts: The Nature Conservancy’s research has determined that California's historic ranching culture, and a source of local, grass-fed beef, is at significant risk from climate change. (Source: The Impact of Climate Change on California's Ecosystem Services)
To view each of the draft papers and a list of authors, visit http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/publications/cat/.
Monday Militaria: Mystery UCAV in Afghanistan
Afghanistan maybe the testing ground for a new, advanced but as yet undisclosed UCAV programme.
Pictures shown exclusively to Unmanned Vehicles magazine and taken at an airbase in the war-torn country reveal a large flying wing-type design, adopted by UCAV designers, but not yet seen on an operational type.
The image shown in the link below has been drawn directly from the photograph but none of the experts consulted by UV had any concrete idea of what the system might be.
The image shown to UV was taken from a long distance, as the aircraft taxied in on a hazy day, but the image was clear enough to show that this UAV’s design is like no other UAV in current operational service.
There are probably two reasons for a stealthy UCAV being used in Afghanistan. 1. It and iraq are the best real life testing grounds we have: the prototypes can actually be used with live ordinance on real missions. 2. There are elements in Pakistan, probably even a few radar techs, that are feeding info to people on the ground, so if the UCAV can't be seen, there's no chance of a warning...
The picture above is an artist's rendition based on photos taken. Mostly likely that's an American UCAV, since it fits proposals from around 8 to 5 years ago by various defense contractors, but it's not a given.
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