Zark's

The Last Particle

Since 1983, the United States’s most powerful atom smasher has created particle collisions and provided particle beams to fixed target experiments and test beam areas.
Image Credit: Department of Energy

Last Friday, we watched the last soap opera.  At 2 PM today (Friday, 30 September)  Fermilab whirls the last particle around its 4 mile electromagnetic track. 

Bureaucrats will say that the 17 mile Large Hadron Collider makes the smaller facility outside Chicago obsolete.  Hence, there is no reason to fund the Tevatron even though Fermilab will still have 2,300 particle scientists.  Of course the real reason is money.  Why fund it when the Europeans are funding their project?

Sheesh.  The future of civilization depends upon discovering an energy source to replace petroleum.  Discovering something about the Higgs boson could be huge, even if it doesn't result in anti-gravity shoes.

But we are short-changing fundamental energy research in the name of austerity.  I hope next Friday I'm not writing about another last ... something.  Unless of course, it is about the last recession.

Radiation Danger Increases for Airline Travelers

During the early days of the atomic age, the milli-roetgen (mrem) was the standard unit for radiation exposure.  Today, the literature is tending toward the Sievert (Sv), with the conversion of 1 millirem = 10 micro-Sievert.

Radiation exposures of aircrew in high altitude flight tells that flight team members likely to have exposure more than 1 mSv a year must have their exposure assessed.  To place this in perspective, at sea level, radiation exposure is 0.03 uSv/hr, whereas at 35,000 feet, it is about 5-10 uSv/hr.  At Concorde altitudes of 60,000 feet, it increases to 10-20 uSv/hr.  Aircrew flying 700 hours a year can receive between 0.2 to 2.4 mSv/year. 

As I have previously blogged, we are on the upside of new solar cycle, with the solar storm activity expected to peak in 2013. Space Radiation Expected to Rise for Airline Passengers and Astronauts tells researchers are warning exposures could climb much higher with the increased solar storm activity.  This week, as described in Sunspot 1302 Continues to Turn Toward Earth-UPDATED, the sun has experienced strong solar flares which has tweaked the Earth's magnetic fields.  Fascinating Space Weather Seen on the Sun Lately tells this same sunspot is growing larger and because of the Earth's orbit around the sun will be facing the Earth more squarely.  This increases the impact of solar flares or corona mass ejections (CMEs) from the sunspot upon the Earth.

The Fox News article suggests that if the solar activity increases, frequent fliers might want to consider themselves as radiation workers (airline flight crews already have this classification) and have more frequent health examinations.

 

Expect a New H1N1 Variant from Africa

This colorized negative-stained transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicts the ultrastructural details of a number of influenza virus particles, or “virions”
Image Credit: CDC/ Dr. F. A. Murphy

In 2009, the world was struck by the first flu pandemic in 40 years.  It was the H1N1 swine flu, which crossed from pigs to humans in northern mexico, spread to southern California, and then to the rest of the world.  About 17,000 people died in the epidemic.  (You cannot become infected by eating properly cooked pork.)

UCLA researchers find that H1N1 has spread to pigs in Africa provides alarming news.  In Cameroon, UCLA scientists discovered pigs in the village had been exposed to same H1N1 that resulted in the 2009 pandemic, and two of them were infected.

Several bloggers have written that it is probably inevitable the pigs will return a variant of the influenza back to us, possibly resulting in another pandemic.  Public health officials have promised to be alert.

This year's flu vaccination is the same as last year, which included the 2009 H1N1.  Even if you had a vaccination last year, health officials are urging you to do it again this year, because the immunity dissipates over time.

 

Spaceflight Can be Harmful to Eyesight

NASA Astronaut Ed White made history on June 3, 1965, when he floated out of the hatch of his Gemini 4 capsule into the void of space.
Image Credit: NASA

In NASA speak, it it called Risk of Microgravity-Induced Visual Impairment/Intracranial Pressure.  The Washington Post simplifies it to - NASA studies why some astronauts suffer vision problems during spaceflights.

Apparently about 30 percent of the astronauts who have been in space for extended periods have reported gradual blurring of eyesight.  (Those with more than six-months on the ISS have experienced the problem.)  NASA explains that even those that have not reported symptoms have exhibited optic nerve sheath edema on MRI.  The NASA reports speculates that all astronauts suffer idiopathic intracranial hypertension and those with unfavorable eye construction have a high probabilty of developing impairment.  It could even be permanent.  One astronaut could no longer read the gauges on the space station at the end of his mission.

Not a medical doc?  Me neither.  What this means is that because of the microgravity experienced in space, there is increased spinal-fluid pressure on the head and eyes.  It is similar to papilledma, optic disc swelling, which is difficult to treat.

Mmm.  This is pretty serious - a NASA panel has recommended pre- and postflight tests including: a) optic nerve sheath diameter with ultrasound, cornial topgraphy, pre- and post-dadolinium MRI/MRV of the brain and orbit.  These are in addition to current testing protocols.  They noted that a two week space shuttle mission was not a risk (that is certainly true now), but six-month missions on the space station could be a significant risk to some astronauts.

Sounds like a problem for a manned Mars mission, doesn't it?

 

 

Sea Ice Shrinking Faster Than Predicted

Arctic sea ice and melt ponds in the Chukchi Sea.
Image Credit: NASA/Kathryn Hansen

Whales mingle as legendary Northwest Passage ice melts tells that researchers have documented whales traversing the Northwest Passage.  Although there has been some genetic mixing from the geographically separated Atlantic and Pacific families of whales over time, during the summer, they can now swim back and forth. 

This is not the first time in the modern era that the Northwest Passage has been open - Norwegian Roald Amundsen navigated the ice breaks between 1903 and 1906.  After 2007, there has been little challenge due to shrinking sea ice.  Artic sea ice melts to near-record lows explains that Arctic sea ice had shrunk to 1.67 million square miles, far below the modern era average of 2.59 million.  It is possible it could shrink even more in the next few weeks and set a record.

Beating a retreat tells that Arctic sea ice is shrinking faster than climate models predict, so much faster, that it is possible sea ice could vanish completely between 2020 and 2050, not the 2100 earlier predicted by the models.  The energy companies are keen for the ice to disappear, because that will expose 15 percent of the world's remaining petroleum reserves for harvesting.  Rosneft gets access to U.S. projects out of deal with ExxonMobil tells that the American and Russian companies have a plan to begin tapping Arctic reserves.

But back to the shrinking sea ice.  Scientists have noted that air temperatures in the Arctic have warmed up twice as fast as elsewhere.  They are not sure why, because the climate models don't predict this either.  But as the Economist article notes, and my blog on Fifty Percent Higher Energy Consumption in Two Decades suggests, the temperature warming may accelerate if those Arctic reserves are rushed to the market.

 

Last Space Shuttle, Last TV Soap Opera

All My Children, 23 Sept 11

'All My Children', bids a bittersweet adieu tells that Friday ended 41 years of television drama.  The final episode ended with the show's characters attending a party at the Chandler house in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania.  On Monday, viewers will be treated a cooking show instead of the soap opera.

I am reminded of the Last Picture Show, which chronicles three high schoolers trying to figure out what to with their lives in a dying Texas town.  But the moviehouse really does close, hence the name for this semi-biographical film.  Almost 20 years later, a sequel, Texasville, tells the town really didn't die - things changed.

This nation has seen many 'lasts' - East Coasters fondly remember the halcyon days of Coney Island and the Jersey Shore (before Snooki). Some of those 'lasts' are undenably good - no more smallpox, no more polio.  But 'lasts' like the soap opera still sadden me.  It is hard to articulate why, but perhaps because I understood who and what we were.  Now it is harder.

To complete the circle, All My Children first aired in January 1970.  Almost exactly 3 months later, NASA launched Apollo 13.  See what I mean about not knowing who we are anymore?

 

 

Did CERN Scientists Discover an 'Undo' Button?

A view of the OPERA detector in Gran Sasso Image Credit: CERN

Researchers as CERN are puzzled and have asked for help from the greater scientific community.  (Kudos to their candor and open disclosure.)

Their OPERA experiment measures the speed of neutrinos as faster than light.  The dilemma is that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, right?  The official CERN press release says, "observation of over 15000 neutrino events measured at Gran Sasso, and appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature’s cosmic speed limit."

Neutrinos are similar to electrons, but without an electrical charge.  Being so light and unresponsive to electromagnetic force, they are considered a weakly interacting particle.  Like the elusive dark matter, they are influenced by gravity.  Wikipedia explains they can be produced by radioactive decay or special types of nuclear reactions. 

For matter to be able to travel at speeds greater than light implies the world can be non-causal.  This means that you could do something today that could change what is already history.  In other words, a true 'undo' button.  If true, then the physical world is truly bizarre. 

Some scientists are predicting the finding is due to an experimental error.  Although not impossible, this has been studied by 160 physicists for over 6 months.  My conjecture is that the distance is not what they think it is due to space-time warping.  With a shorter distance than believed, the neutrinos could travel faster than light.  But scientists believe the Earth is not near any significant space-time warping. 

Mmm.  I wonder what Albert Einstein would have said?

 

Coffee Rouses Hibernation

American Black Bear
Image Credit: Waverly Traylor, US Fish and Wildlife Service

Wikipedia explains that hibernation is a period of inactivity and metabolic depression noted for lower body temperature, slower breathing, and of course, lower energy consumption. 

Most of us associate the bear with hibernation, but Wikipedia tells that bears do not really hibernate.  The bear's body temperature only drops about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and they are readily roused from their semi-hibernation. 

Something I didn't know - most animals in hibernation will rouse and elevate the body temperature for a short period.  Current research speculates that even hibernating animals must occasionally sleep and to sleep, they must elevate their body temperatures. 

Scientists induce hibernation at will tells that researchers at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks have noted they can rouse hibernating ground squirrels with caffeine. The little animals really hibernate - their body temperature dips to almost freezing and their cycle period between warmups is about three weeks. 

The Science Daily article tells that researchers have identified adenosine as the precursor for hibernation in ground squirrels.  By injecting adenosine, they were able to induce hibernation.  The researchers note that adenosine is what makes humans sleepy.  Adenosine attaches to receptors of the brain and induces sleep.  Curiously, caffeine binds to exactly the same receptors and has the opposite effect.  Caffeine in general inhibits adenosine production in the brain and hence, keeps us awake.

The hibernation research has medical value because doctors would have the ability to place a patient into hibernation while the body heals.  Space fans recognize that long space voyages could be enabled by the ability to truly induce hibernation in humans.

 

Genetic Pollution

The long, stringy DNA that makes up genes is spooled within chromosomes inside the nucleus of a cell.
Image Credit: National Institute of General Medical Sciences

As I have blogged in the past, Nature Fights Back Against Genetically Modified Food, Monsanto's genetically engineered corn appears no longer effective against rootworm. 

In We're Going to Need a Bigger Boat, They're Reproducing, I discussed the University of Arkansas discovery that weeds have somehow incorporated the transgenic DNA of Monsanto's roundup products. Along side a road, they found 46 percent of the weedy canola had the herbicide resistance genes.

Besides plants, fish and other animal species are being produces with transgenic genes.  Despite assurances from the researchers and business concerns, these genes are escaping into the wild, threatening nature's gene pool.

Some scientists and naturalists are raising an alarm about this genetic pollution.  Greenpeace has established a website, GM Contamination Register, for the dissemination of information about genetic contamination.  So far in 2011, there have been 14 reports of genetic contamination indicating it is a global problem.  Nations reporting genetic pollution include France, Australia, China, Uruguay, Finland, Poland, UK, USA, Sweden, Germany, and Cyprus.

A recent discovery is that a modified version of flax, Linum usitatissimum, which was previously believed to have been completely destroyed, has contaminated over 30 countries.

Mmm.  Genetic engineering is not evil, but it is not unlike nuclear engineering.  Nuclear or genetic contamination is dangerous to the at-large world, including future generations.  Somehow and sometime soon, we need to figure this out.

 

 

Fifty Percent Higher Energy Consumption in Two Decades

World Energy Consumption, 1990-1935
Image Credit: DOE/EIA

The Department of Energy has posted its 2011 International Energy Outlook.  I'll try to provide an executive summary.

On the left, I show global energy consumption. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is the established western economies. Their aggregate energy consumption is growing at roughly 0.6 percent a year.  The emerging economies have surpassed the energy consumption of the western world, are are growing at 2.8 percent a year.  Of particular interest is that China and India now account for 21 percent of the global energy consumption.

Energy consumption of China, India, and the United States.
Image Credit: DOE/EIA

Despite the encouragement of alternative energy by almost all governments, the consumption of petroleum and coal remains on a constant slope.  As you might expect, nuclear energy is on a decline.  But because of the continued depenency upon petroleum, the world needs a technological advance in energy to avoid a future energy crisis.

The EIA report (which has historically underestimated) projects petroleum at $108 a barrel in 2020, and $125 a barrel in 2025. The assumption is that OPEC will make the investment to maintain production and remain at about 40 percent market share.  The EIA is not projecting peak oil during the period - oil production increases from 86 million barrels a day to 112 million barrels in 2035.

Global CO2 Emissions
Image Credit: DOE/EIA

As you might expect with no real changes in energy types and increasing usage, carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb.  From about 31 billion metric tons in 2010, it is projected to increase 43 percent to 43.2 billion metric tons in 2035. 

Mmm.  We need an energy technology advancement.