Wendy Science

By Neil Hartnell NASSAU, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Hurricane Joaquin strengthened as it battered the Bahamas with torrential rains, storm surges and heavy winds on Thursday and U.S. officials raced to prepare for possible landfall early next week, three years after Superstorm Sandy devastated New York and New Jersey. Joaquin, the third hurricane of the 2015 Atlantic season, intensified into a major Category 4 storm on a scale of 1 to 5, with maximum sustained winds of 130 miles (209 km) per hour, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. U.S. energy installations in the Gulf of Mexico were unaffected by the storm. While forecasts of the storm's trajectory were still uncertain, Joaquin was the first tropical cyclone to potentially threaten the U.S. northeast since Sandy. Several computer models showed Joaquin approaching the coast of the Carolinas by the weekend, then losing strength as it moves offshore past Delaware and New Jersey early next week to head toward Long Island and New Eng...

The Canadian tar sands, or oil sands, are much more carbon-laden than most other fossil fuels produced in North America, and their possible outsized impact on the climate is one of the primary reasons the proposed  Pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil to Texas refineries, is so controversial. Despite long odds as oil prices continue their dip below $50 per barrel, commercial   mining is coming for the first time to the U.S., where an Alberta company called   has begun producing tar sands from a mine in eastern Utah. Up to 76 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil may be locked up in deposits of thick clay-like and hydrocarbon-laced  beneath the state’s redrock canyon country, according to University of Utah estimates. (The Canadian oil industry refers to the sticky bitumen as “ ,” but in the U.S., the federal government   “ ,” a name the Canadian industry   because it is used by its critics.) Oil price volatility makes tar sand...

By Daniel Bases NEW YORK, Oct 1 (Reuters) - As Joaquin strengthened into a major Category 4 hurricane near the Bahamas on Thursday, states along the U.S. East Coast hustled to activate emergency plans developed after Superstorm Sandy slammed the region in 2012, aiming to blunt the storm's potential impact. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose state took a direct hit from Sandy, declared a state of emergency, warning residents to "be prepared but don't panic." The governor of North Carolina made a similar announcement, a day after Virginia declared a state of emergency. "The weather reports are not encouraging," Christie told a press conference, adding he would consider ordering evacuations if necessary. Forecasters are still uncertain of the likely track of the hurricane and where it might make landfall. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters the Federal Emergency Management Agency had increased staffing at its 24-hour National Watch Cen...

Flooding from   will impact areas from South Carolina to Massachusetts regardless of whether it makes landfall or if the center stays out to sea. People should not let their guard down due to a shifting track of the hurricane as the risk to lives and property in this complex situation remains high. A copious amount of moisture will unload very heavy rainfall along parts of the Atlantic Seaboard and the Appalachians into early next week. Strong winds, coastal flooding and beach erosion will occur and could be very damaging even in the absence of a landfall. Hurricane Joaquin strengthened rapidly Wednesday into Thursday. Joaquin reached Category 3 status late Wednesday evening and Category 4 status on Thursday afternoon. JUMP TO:   |   |  The storm will bring pounding surf, dangerous seas, strong winds, drenching squalls and flash flooding to the central Bahamas. Wind gusts could reach between 75 and 100 mph on some of the islands. As a result, Joa...

For the number of people now living along the mid-Atlantic coast that did not experience Sandy or Isabel, this storm could deliver rough weather. In both Sandy and Isabel, gusty winds and flooding occurred well away from the center of the storms. Questions have been raised about the similarity to   with other recent hurricane strikes in the mid-Atlantic states. "There is going to be catastrophic flooding from North Carolina to Massachusetts, and this is going to disrupt the economy regardless of whether or not Hurricane Joaquin makes landfall," Mike Smith, senior vice president and chief innovation executive of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions said. No matter how similar the pattern may seem, no two storms are ever exactly alike. The same can be said about the situation developing this weekend along the Atlantic coast with the approach of Joaquin. A slightly different storm track and the position of other weather systems nearby can translate to huge differences in the w...

Harvard neuroscientist Beth Stevens wins a MacArthur Fellowship for studies of how microglia cells prune away excess neuronal synapses during brain development and how that necessary function might go awry in neurodegenerative diseases. By | | “They’re like the Pac-Man of our brain.” , talking about , which make up more than half . This week Stevens got a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called genius grant, for her studies of glia.  “These cells are incredibly responsive to damage or injury. They can protect our brain by, for example, clearing bacteria or debris in the brain in the case of injury and disease… “Until about 10 years ago, almost all of the research devoted to these cells was in these contexts. We discovered that there was another role for these cells in the normal healthy brain, in particular during development… “So a synapse is the junction of communication between two neurons, it’s how neurons talk to each other…we’re actually born with an excess of synaptic c...

The eye of Hurricane Joaquin is passing over Samana Cay in the Bahamas, the National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory on Thursday October 1, 2015 | Major Hurricane Joaquin is shown at the far eastern periphery of the GOES West satellite's full disk extent, taken at 8 a.m. (EDT) on October 1, 2015. (Reuters) - The eye of Hurricane Joaquin is passing over Samana Cay in the Bahamas, the National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory on Thursday. The hurricane is located about 80 miles (125 km) south southeast of San Salvador, Bahamas, with maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour (205 km/h), the agency said. "A turn towards the northwest and north is expected on Friday, and a faster motion towards the north is expected Friday night and Saturday," the Miami-based weather forecaster said. (Reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernadette Baum) see also:

The dusty-red sphere now called Mars has fascinated stargazers since the dawn of humanity, but Earthlings’ view of the planet has changed drastically over the years. Once thought of as a lush alien world teeming with life, it was later dismissed as an arid, desolate orb. But now, scientists have announced the Red Planet has long, fingerlike strips of seeping, salty, liquid water that just might aid in the search for extraterrestrial life. The  , revealed Monday (Sept. 28) by NASA scientists, once again changes the way people view the bright-red planet, Mars experts told Live Science. The ancient Greeks and Romans named Mars—a planet barely more than half Earth’s size—after the god of war. But they likely didn’t realize it was another world, with two moons to boot, said Bruce Jakosky, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. [ ] In the 1600s and 1700s, astronomers tinkered with nascent telescopes and discovered that Mars, like Earth, was a pl...

Why do wind turbines and airplane propellers look the way they do? The secret is in the symmetry. Learn why engineers design them this way with this fun, hands-on activity. Give it a whirl!  Key concepts FrictionWind power Introduction Background One thing all of these blades have in common is that they are installed in a symmetric pattern. This means they are equally spaced around the center, or "balanced." There might be two blades directly across from one another or four blades that form an "X" and meet at right angles in the middle. There could even be an odd number of blades (for example, three blades evenly spaced would be at 120-degree angles to one another). Why is it important for the blades to be symmetric? Why don't you see windmills with just one blade or with two blades on the same side? This project will show you the best way to get the blades spinning! Materials At least one pinwheel (that can be cut apart) Hair dryer Scissors Adult sup...

This image of Venus is tinted blue to reveal variations in the clouds that surround the planet. Venus and asteroids have emerged as top destinations for NASA's future planetary exploration. On September 30, the agency announced a short list of five contenders for its US$450-million Discovery-class of planetary missions. Two of the five proposed missions would target Venus, which NASA   in more than two decades. A Venus radar orbiter would map the planet’s cloud-enshrouded surface from above, while an atmospheric probe would descend directly through the layers of haze. “They're pretty exciting choices and focus on a body that has not received much attention,” says Steven Hauck, a planetary scientist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Asteroid mission concepts include a telescope to hunt for  ; a visit to the peculiarly metal-rich asteroid Psyche; and a tour of four Trojan asteroids, which orbit near Jupiter. NASA will give each of the proposed miss...

Per capita, the world's greatest carbon emitters are small countries -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

National forests whose names come from their large, majestic trees—such as Redwood National Park and Sequoia National Park in California—may need to rethink their brands as droughts increase in frequency and severity in many regions around the world due to climate change. New research published this week in the journal  finds it’s the large trees that suffer most and are first to die. The four-person team of researchers conducted a global analysis of how forests respond to drought using already published and vetted inventory data from 40 drought events in 38 forests across the globe. In every case, large trees showed a decrease in how fast they grew, and drought-related tree death increased with tree size in 65 percent of the droughts examined. “It shows us that this is really a pretty general trend,” said Kristina Anderson-Teixeira, a staff scientist with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and senior author of the ...

Per capita, the world's greatest carbon emitters are small countries -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

A handful of countries are actually lowering their emissions per person By | | The world is hurtling toward greater global warming, thanks to ever-increasing CO 2 emissions. Although the U.S. and China emit much more CO 2 than other countries do, it is surprising to learn that some very small countries have the highest emissions rates per person (see our graph, ). It is also surprising to learn, however, that a handful of countries have actually lowered their per capita emissions. The plots below reveal these interesting places (blue dots). Click the graphic to see the full, expanded version. SOURCE: WORLD RESOURCE'S INSTITUTE'S CAIT CLIMATE DATA EXPLORER HTTP://CAT2.WRI.ORG Scientific American see also:

Artificially boosting the body's immune response against cancer is the most exciting advance in the treatment of tumors in the past couple of years. But as the jam-packed sessions at a recent scientific conference in New York City made clear, a lot of questions remain to be answered before anyone can declare victory in the war on cancer. Among them: What is the best way to ? Will immunotherapy work for all sorts of people with all kinds of cancer or just for a ? Is there a way to make the treatments less dangerous or expensive? It was standing room only for many of the presentations at the first , which took place from September 16 to 19.* Speaker after speaker started their talks by disclosing financial ties to a variety of companies ranging from pharmaceutical giants to their own start-ups. The audience consisted primarily of scientists and physicians. But sprinkled among the 1,400 attendees, in addition to the usual smattering of journalists, were a number of industry scouts ...

Spot, DARPA's four-legged robotic pack mule, shows off nimbler moves and a quieter drive system than its predecessor. -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

Everyone with HIV should be given antiretroviral drugs as soon as possible after diagnosis, meaning 37 million people worldwide should be on treatment, the WHO said September 30, 2015 | By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Everyone with HIV should be given antiretroviral drugs as soon as possible after diagnosis, meaning 37 million people worldwide should be on treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. Recent clinical trials have confirmed that early drug use extends the lives of those with HIV and cuts the risk of disease transmission to partners, the WHO said in a statement setting out the new goal for its 194 member states. Under previous WHO guidelines, which limited treatment to those whose immune cell counts had fallen below a certain threshold, 28 million people were deemed eligible for antiretroviral therapy (ART). All people at "substantial" risk of contracting HIV should also be given preventive ART, not just men who have sex with ...

From jellyfish to ants, all life is beautiful in the eyes of Elizabeth Blackburn, co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She talks about her fascination with living things and the discovery of telomerase and telomeres. Recorded at the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and produced with support from Mars, Inc.

From jellyfish to ants, all life is beautiful in the eyes of Elizabeth Blackburn, co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. She talks about her fascination with living things and the discovery of telomerase and telomeres. Recorded at the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and produced with support from Mars, Incorporated.

The Sentinel space telescope (artist's impression), in development by a private foundation, has lost NASA's support. NASA has cut ties with a   that intends to launch an asteroid-survey mission. The decision clouds the prospects of the only large-scale space telescope being developed to seek space objects that have the potential to wreak havoc on Earth. NASA said Tuesday that it has ended its commitment to provide analytical and data-downlink support to Sentinel, a US$450-million satellite designed to spot 90% of near-Earth objects (NEOs) larger than 140 metres. NASA said the decision was made because the project has missed its development deadlines, and the money held in reserve for Sentinel operations is needed elsewhere.  The Sentinel team vows to continue, but it is unclear whether the project can overcome perennial cash-flow problems and NASA’s vote of no confidence. Money for the spacecraft’s development was supposed to come from private donors, but fund-raising...

When the digital currency Bitcoin came to life in January 2009, it was noticed by almost no one apart from the handful of programmers who followed cryptography discussion groups. Its origins were shadowy: it had been conceived the previous year by a still-mysterious person or group known only by the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. And its purpose seemed quixotic:  , in which strong encryption algorithms were exploited in a new way to secure transactions. Users' identities would be shielded by pseudonyms. Records would be completely decentralized. And no one would be in charge—not governments, not banks, not even Nakamoto. Yet the idea caught on. Today, there are some 14.6 million Bitcoin units in circulation. Called bitcoins with a lowercase 'b', they have a collective market value of around US$3.4 billion. Some of this growth is attributable to criminals taking advantage of the anonymity for drug trafficking and worse. But the system is also drawing interest from financial instit...

Countries have not pledged to cut enough to restrain global warming By | | The Paris climate talks are a little more than two months away and most of the world’s big carbon emitters have submitted their climate pledges. That’s the good news. The bad news is that despite many countries pledging to cut carbon emissions in the coming decades, the current commitments may not be enough to limit warming to the world’s agreed upon goal of 2°C (3.6°F). The pledges have been rolling in all year. On Monday, Brazil said it would cut emissions to 43 percent of 2005 levels in the next 15 years, stop illegal deforestation and reforest 30 million acres of land. Deforestation is a major source of Brazil’s carbon emissions. The pledge puts Brazil in the company of 82 other countries — including the U.S., China, and other large carbon polluters in the European Union — that have submitted their climate pledges to the United Nations. To gauge the effectiveness of the proposed emissions cuts, the ...

Tesla Motors Inc. frontman Elon Musk unveiled the company’s Model X sport utility vehicle in California last night. The midsized crossover and newest option in the electric automaker’s lineup has several new selling points—a HEPA filter, blazing acceleration, agile “falcon wing” doors, a low center of gravity that reduces rollover risk, a panoramic windshield and the highest crash safety rating federal regulators can give—as well as an old marketing problem: price. The high-end Model X, the Signature version, which Musk rolled out last night, is expected to cost between $132,000 and $144,000, well outside most buyers’ range. The company has said it will eventually produce a less-expensive version. Tesla will reveal the Model 3, the $35,000 baseline sedan, in March 2016, at which point customers will be able to pre-order the cars, Musk announced earlier this month. Production on the Model 3 will begin in 2017, he said. “The mission of Tesla is to accelerate the advent of sustainable...

The toy company WowWee brings expensive university bots to store shelves By | | The robotic butlers and sentries of sci-fi fantasies already roam our planet, but you can't have them—not yet. The fate of most would-be home robots breaks in one of two ways: Bots such as Honda's Asimo, a bipedal assistant, exist only as demonstrations from multimillion-dollar research and development laboratories. Robots that consumers could purchase, such as the $1,600 Pepper companion robot, are unaffordable for most. Toy company WowWee aims to change all that when it delivers the first sub-$600 multifunction home-service robot. The freestanding, self-navigating Switchbot—part concierge, part security guard—will roll out in 2016. Hong Kong–based WowWee's success stems from bringing university research projects to life that might otherwise languish in the prototype stage. A licensing agreement with the Flow Control and Coordinated Robotics Labs at the University of California, San Diego, f...

Long-sought method could turn super-thin material into usuable computer components By and | | Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-shaped lattice, exhibits a range of superlative properties. Since it was discovered in 2003, it has been found to have exceptional strength, thermal conductivity and electric conductivity. The last property makes the material ideal for the tiny contacts in electronic circuits, but ideally it would also make up the components—particularly transistors—themselves. To do so, graphene would need to behave not just as a conductor but as a semiconductor, which is the key to the on–off switching operations performed by electronic components. Semiconductors are defined by their band gap: the energy required to excite an electron stuck in the valence band, where it cannot conduct electricity, to the conduction band, where it can. The band gap needs to be large enough so that there is a clear contrast between a transistor’s on and off ...