Zark's

Chesapeake Bay - More Work Needed

The Mouth of Elk River, a Tributary of the Chesapeake Bay
Image Credit: USGS

I marvel when flying over Chesapeake Bay.  I think back to the formation of colonies and then a nation.  Looking down at all the rivers and coastline, I am convinced it was the most perfect place on the planet for those early pilgrims. 

Wikipedia tells that Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States.  The drainage basin is over 64,000 square miles, with over 150 rivers and streams emptying into the bay.  Chesapeake Bay Program adds some additional facts - Today over 17 million people live in the region.  The bay was formed 35 million years ago when a comet-like object struck the Delmarva Peninsula and created a 55 mile-wide crater.  Captain John Smith traveled into the bay in small skiff in 1608, discovering the Potomac River.

In the 1970s, marine dead zones alarmingly developed in the bay, primarly as a result of runoff and pollution feeding algae blooms.  USGS has released a report detailing the runoff and pollution have improved substantially since 1985.  Scientists are concerned though, that the improvement has slowed over the past ten years. 

Mmm.  But are there more desirable living things in the water?  Sheesh - scientists!  Bay Health is not encouraging.  From 2010 to 2011, there was a decrease of underwater grasses by almost 25 percent.  From 2011 to 2012, the number of spawning-age blue female blue crabs decreased by almost 50 percent.  In 2011, only half of the waters achieved the phytoplankton (those things that create blooms) goal. 

Mmm.  Pretty discouraging isn't it?  I think to make significant improvement in the environment, we must manage population growth. 

 

Producing Kevlar-Strong Glass

Circa 1930, USDA scientist developed a process to convert biomass such as a corn cob into cellulose
Image Credit: USDA

The U.S. Forestry Service presumably has a more modern laboratory than pictured at the left.  The Forest Products Laboratory has been working on High Performance Nano-Cellulose Composites.

The idea is to produce fibers that can be added to glass that will still be optically transparent, but have the strength of kevlar. 

Was it a Genetically Modified Apple that Caused Snow White to Sleep?

Fresh-cut apple slices like this one quickly turn brown and mushy when exposed to air.
Photo by Brian Prechtel, USDA.

In the fairy tale of Snow White, the wicked queen eats the white half of the apple and convinces Snow White to eat the poisonous red half.

Wikipedia explains that the browning of apple slices is because phenolic substances of the fruit oxidize into melanin upon exposure to oxygen.  The slices can be treated with slightly acidic water to prevent the browning.

Beauty of Arctic Apples is more than skin deep tells that Australian geneticists have discovered genes that express Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) are the culprit for unslightly brown fruit slices. 

By silencing these genes, they have produced a non-browning apple, the Arctic Apple.  Currently they have Golden Delicious and Granny Smith.  Coming next will be Fuji and Gala. 

They explain their trick comes from the cauliflower mosaic virus.  The Arctic Apple plantlets are grown in the lab until they can be grafted onto a healthy apple rootstock.  Within two years, the tree is producing Arctic Apples.

Genetically modified apples spur debate tells that consumers and government regulators are uncertain about the genetically modified fruit.  However, there is another way to obtain a non-browning fruit - the Mendel way.  The University of Minnesota has produced an apple through breeding and no genetic modifications, called the SnowSweet.  However this takes time.  A lot of time.  The quickest new apple breed from the University was 19 years.  In 134 years, they have only released 26 varieties. 

Mmm.  In An Apple a Day, I blogged that some research shows apples are rich in antioxidants.  Perhaps, they could increase your lifespan.  But that research is based upon fruit flies.  But I'm a little bit cautious - I will take the natural fruit, not the genetically modified version.

Were those little guys accompanying Snow White genetically modified?

 

 

Should We Bury All Above-Ground Power Lines?

 

It is a fair question after a storm such as recently experienced with Tropical Storm Debby that left thousands without electrical power. The graphic below shows that new underground or even converting to underground can cost $2M per mile.  So is the 5 to 10 times the cost of underground power distribution worthwhile?

Power Outages Often Spur Questions About Burying Power Lines tells that in the Washington, D.C. area, it would cost $5.8B to bury the power lines.  The cost would be $226 a month added to every consumer's power bill for 10 years.  North Carolina determined it would increase electric rates by 125 percent to bury the power lines in their state.

But what works in North Carolina may not be good in Florida, despite the hurricane wind exposure of the state.  Out of Sight, Out of Mind explains that burying lines in Florida did not realize improvements because the grid failed elsewhere.  The only solution would be to bury state-wide all of the lines. 

Also, underground lines actually have a shorter working life than overhead power lines.  Areas prone to flooding (such as Florida) are not particularly good candidates for underground lines. 

About 18 percent of the nation's distribution system is underground.  The high-voltage (>200 kV) transmission system is less than 0.5 percent underground. 

Conclusions - there may be other technology or strategies that can improve the reliability and robustness of the power grid that are much more cost and performance effective than burying power lines.

 

Unprecedented Ice Sheet Melt

Image Credit: NASA

Greenland stretches from latitudes 60° and 84°N.  As can be seen from the graphic, most of Greenland is the ice sheet - 81 percent. 

Something most people living in the U.S. would expect this hot summer - Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt.  NASA tells that for several days this month, more area melted in Greenland than has ever been observed in 30 years of satellite instrumentation.

In a typical summer, about half of the ice sheet will have melted ice pools.  (Yeah, I know, melted ice = water.)  This year though an extraordinary 97 percent of the surface had melt water.

Usually the melt re-freezes rapidly and only a small portion of the melt is lost into the oceans.  This year, scientists are unsure if the summer melt has dramatically decreased the ice sheet volume.  Fortunately, the high pressure dome over Greenland responsible for abnormal temperatures has dissipated.

NASA scientist Lora Koenig explains that core samples of the ice sheet suggest that about every 150 years there is a widespread melt like this summer.  Hopefully this is just part of the 150 cycle, and not a tipping point for climate warming.

 

Thanks for the Inspiration, Sally!

Sally Ride floats alongside Challenger's middeck airlock hatch.
Image Credit: NASA

Her foundation's web page tells that she died on 23 July after a 17 month courageous fight with pancreatic cancer.

Sally was born in Encino, California and graduated from Stanford with a PhD in physics, and curiously, a degree in English.  Shortly after graduating, she became an astronaut candidate and on June 18, 1983, she soared into space on the shuttle Challenger.

She retired from NASA in 1987 - her  last mission scrubbed because of the Challenger's ill-fated takeoff.

Wikiquote has this phrase attributed to her - "When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen."

The New York Times recalls that at her first 1983 launch, spectators at the Cape wore T-shirts, with the phrase, "Ride, Sally, Ride" in reference to the song, "Mustang Sally".  She caught the attention of the  nation and used it to promote science.

Well done - Sally!

Does Curiosity Rover Landing Have Too Many Moving Parts?

Curiosity's Sky Crane Maneuver -  Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Almost every engineer I have encountered believes the Sky Crane Maneuver illustrated above  has too many moving parts.  It isn't that they don't appreciate out-of the box thinking - everyone agrees the bouncing ball landings were pretty cool.  Unfortunately the new rover weighs a ton (literally) and the bouncing ball landing does not scale to that size of an object. 

As shown above, the descent stage first reduces its speed by firing the 8 adjustable thrust rocket engines.  Then it lowers Curiosity on a bridle, 25 feet down from the descent stage.  When touchdown is detected, the descent stage will cut the ropes and shoot away. 

NASA itself describes this as Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror:  "Entry, descent and landing, also known as EDL, is referred to as the '7 minutes of terror'.' 'Because we've got literally seven minutes to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface of Mars-'going from 13,000 miles an hour to zero, in perfect sequence, perfect choreography, perfect timing...' 'and the computer has to do it all by itself, with no help from the ground.' 'If any one thing doesn't work just right, it's game over.'"

Mmm.  Sometimes life is like that isn't it?  Sometimes you have to accept risk in order to achieve something of greatness or out of the ordinary. For NASA, they are risking a $2.5B interplanetary SUV.

As a space historian, I recall the original approach for landing men on the moon involved a really big rocket.  So big that it would have taken Von Braun's team at least another ten years of development and engineering to build Nova, this monster rocket.  Then the idea of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was proposed by Tom Dolan, an engineer working for Vought Astronautics.  It had too many moving parts, and it risked stranding astronauts in orbit around the moon.  And at the time, NASA had not even achieved Earth Orbit Rendezvous, much less Lunar.  Eventually they chose something more complex and created history.

I have read, watched and studied this new Sky Crane.  It has begun to grow on me.  Maybe more really is less.

 

 

 

What Do We Know About the Drought?

Drought conditions on the Arkansas River at Great Bend, Kansas on July 13, 2012.
Photo by Nathan Sullivan, USGS.

The U.S. Drought Monitor explains a strong upper-level ridge of high pressure resisted any changes to the weather for roughly the regions north of 30 degrees latitude.  (That corresponds to Valdosta, Georgia.)

56 percent of the contiguous U.S. is experiencing drought conditions.  It is a record for the U.S. Drought Monitor's 12-year history.  We don't have direct data comparison, but in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, 80 percent of the nation was experiencing drought. 

Dry Conditions to Persist Throughout the Nation tells that in Arkansas, such in the photograph above, streamflows are only 10 to 50 percent of seasonal streamflow.  Record lows have been recorded at 23 of 127 monitoring stations on the Colorado River.  The water temperature of teh Ninnescah River in Kansas has been measured at 103 degrees because of low water flow. 

Farmers in particular are hoping that El Nino will form and change the weather conditions.  Historically though, El Nino results in dryer and warmer winters for the northern states, and wetter winters for southwestern states.  The southeastern states appreciate El Nino because the upper level wind shear is death to hurricanes.  But the Climate Prediction Center explains that current climate data suggests El Nino is going to form early, perhaps before September.  Yet historical models discredit this early formation. 

Mmm.  Like everyone else, my thoughts and prayers go to the victims and families of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado.  It is difficult to articulate such a tragedy.  Pray also for the family of the suspect.  They too, have to be suffering horribly.

 

Kudzu - the Best Argument Against Genetic Modification?

Kitty McCracken of ORNL's Natural Resources Management Team surveys vegetation that has reclaimed a former stand of kudzu.
Image Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Mmm.  I recall the first time I saw kudzu, growing along I-75 as my family's car motored south for a summer vacation. I thought the green walls of vegetation along the highway shoulders were a good thing.

Kudzu in the United States tells that the green wall has been spreading at the rate of 150,000 acres a year.  Wikipedia tells that it was first imported to the U.S. at the New Orleans Exposition of 1876, with the marketing pitch that it could shade porches.  Later, the Soil Erosion Service funded planting of kudzu.  Today the USDA considers kudzu an invasive specie.

Kudzu crusade tells that at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory a 42 acre patch of kudzu was systematically (or is it scientifically) irradicated by three years of foliar herbicide and then a controlled burn.  The weed is something that cannot be killed in a single season.  Its seeds have the ability to germinate years later.

To be fair, it has some interesting qualities.  It has the ability to obtain 95 percent of its nitrogen from the air instead of the soil as most plants require.  Kudzu grows rapidly.  In the wild though, there is nothing to keep it in check.

And that is what troubles me about releasing genetic modifications in the wild.  The image of a dandelion growing through the sidewalk in New York City is a reminder of how life cannot be contained.  In our ecosphere, we more or less have a balance which keeps any one specie from devastating the planet.  Genetic modifications released in the wild, whether good-intentioned (herbicide-resistant corn), or dubious (fluorescent glowing pets) could run amok.

 

 

 

Inactivity as Bad for Health as Smoking?

Image Credit: CDC/Amanda Mills

Inactivity 'killing as many as smoking' is a provocative suggestion.  The BBC article tells that one-third of adults have inadequate physical activity.  The consequence is about ten percent increase in deaths from heart disease, diabetes, and breast and colon cancer. 

Mmm.  The National Institute on Aging has a booklet, Exercise and Physical Activity.  They distinguish physical activities as motions that move your body such as raking leaves, walking the dog, and taking the stairs instead of the elevator.  In contrast, exercise is a physical activity that is structured and repetitive. 

Exercises fall into four primary categories: a) endurance, b) strength, c) balance, and d) flexibility.  As you might expect, endurance activities benefit the cardio-vascular system.  Strength includes lifting weights and resistance exercise.  (Note the order of words - that is not,  'resist exercise'.)  Balance - catching a football on the sideline and keeping your toes in bounds.  Or things like heel-to-toe walk.  Flexibility - a variety of stretching exercises.

Physical activity can be an important defense against type 2 diabetes.  A modest weight loss of 5 to 7 percent can be a large reduction in the probability of type 2 diabetes.  Similarly even mild physical activity can reduce breast cancer risk.

Let's get mathematical.  There are 1440 minutes in every day.  Use 30 of them every day for physical activity.  Well, at least 5 days a week. 

Since we are talking about smoking - a reader sent me an interesting infographic on smoking.  Check it out.  Nicely done! 

Why do we allow companies to produce products that are harmful and addictive?