Multiple Types of Plastic Are Turned into Vinegar Using Sunlight-Powered Process Without Emissions

Waterloo PhD student Wei Wei, who led the research – credit, University of Waterloo, released

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have discovered a way to turn plastic waste into acetic acid, the main ingredient of vinegar, using sunlight.

The breakthrough offers a promising new approach to reducing plastic pollution through photocatalysis, while simultaneously creating a useful, value-added chemical product through a process inspired by nature.

“Our goal was to solve the plastic pollution challenge by converting microplastic waste into high-value products using sunlight,” said Dr. Yimin Wu, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Plastic waste, notably microplastics, has been found across many of the planet’s ecosystems, raising concerns about threats to terrestrial and marine life as well as human health. Plastic recycling rates remain low around the globe.

To tackle this problem, the team developed a bio-inspired photocatalysis process using iron atoms embedded in carbon nitride, a way that certain types of fungi break down organic matter using enzymes.

When exposed to sunlight, the material drives a series of chemical reactions that transform plastic polymers into acetic acid with high selectivity. The reaction takes place in water, making it particularly relevant for addressing plastic pollution in aquatic environments.

Acetic acid is widely used in food production, chemical manufacturing and energy applications. The study shows it can be produced from common plastic wastes, including PVC, PP, PE and PET, and remains effective across mixed plastic compositions.

This makes the approach well suited to real-world waste streams, offering a promising alternative to plastic incineration, and could support more circular approaches to material use while providing a new strategy for upcycling plastics.

“Both from a business and societal perspective, the financial and economic benefits associated with this innovation seem promising,” said Roy Brouwer, executive director of the Water Institute and a coauthor of the article supporting the techno-economic analysis.

“This method allows abundant and free solar energy to break down plastic pollution without adding extra carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,” Wu adds.

The findings also point to new possibilities for addressing microplastics directly. Because the process degrades plastics at the chemical level, it could help prevent the accumulation of microplastics in water systems.While still at the laboratory stage, the team envisions that this approach could be adapted for scalable, solar-driven recycling and environmental cleanup and the photocatalytic upcycling system can be further enhanced through strategic engineering of the materials and manufacturing processes. Multiple Types of Plastic Are Turned into Vinegar Using Sunlight-Powered Process Without Emissions

Read More........→March 11, 2026

A Rare Cancer-Fighting Plant Compound has Finally Been Decoded

Anti-cancer plant enzyme uncovered by Tuan-Anh Nguyen and Dr Thu-Thuy Dang – UBC Okanagan

Canadian researchers have figured out how plants make a rare natural substance—mitraphylline—with its potential for fighting cancer and becoming a sustainable new medicine.

Mitraphylline is part of a small and unusual family of plant alkaloids, molecules that are defined by their distinctive twisted ring shapes, which help give them powerful anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory effects.

For years, scientists knew these compounds were valuable but had little understanding of how plants actually assembled them at the molecular level.

In solving a long standing biological mystery, progress came in 2023, when a research team led by Dr. Thu-Thuy Dang at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan identified the first known plant enzyme capable of creating the signature ‘spiro’ shape found in these molecules.

Building on that discovery, doctoral student Tuan-Anh Nguyen led new work to pinpoint two key enzymes involved in making mitraphylline—one enzyme that arranges the molecule into the correct three dimensional structure, and another that twists it into its final form.

“This is similar to finding the missing links in an assembly line,” says Dr. Dang, the university’s Research Chair in Natural Products Biotechnology. “It answers a long-standing question about how nature builds these complex molecules and gives us a new way to replicate that process.”

Red vein kratom leaves by Jade at Thehealingeast – CC BY-SA 4.0

Many promising natural compounds exist only in extremely small quantities within plants, making them expensive or impractical to produce using traditional laboratory methods. Mitraphylline is a prime example. It appears only in trace amounts in tropical coffee trees such as Mitragyna (kratom) and Uncaria (cat’s claw).

By identifying the enzymes that construct and shape mitraphylline, scientists now have a clear guide for recreating this process in more sustainable and scalable ways.

Toward Greener Drug Production

“With this discovery, we have a green chemistry approach to accessing compounds with enormous pharmaceutical value,” says Nguyen. “This is a result of UBC Okanagan’s research environment, where students and faculty work closely to solve problems with global reach.”

“Plants are fantastic natural chemists,” Dr. Dang said.

“Our next steps will focus on adapting their molecular tools to create a wider range of therapeutic compounds.”“Being part of the team that uncovered the enzymes behind spirooxindole compounds has been amazing,” added Nguyen, whose team collaborated with researchers at the University of Florida. A Rare Cancer-Fighting Plant Compound has Finally Been Decoded

Read More........→January 08, 2026

A Rare Cancer-Fighting Plant Compound has Finally Been Decoded

Anti-cancer plant enzyme uncovered by Tuan-Anh Nguyen and Dr Thu-Thuy Dang – UBC Okanagan

Canadian researchers have figured out how plants make a rare natural substance—mitraphylline—with its potential for fighting cancer and becoming a sustainable new medicine.

Mitraphylline is part of a small and unusual family of plant alkaloids, molecules that are defined by their distinctive twisted ring shapes, which help give them powerful anti-tumor and anti-inflammatory effects.

For years, scientists knew these compounds were valuable but had little understanding of how plants actually assembled them at the molecular level.

In solving a long standing biological mystery, progress came in 2023, when a research team led by Dr. Thu-Thuy Dang at the University of British Columbia-Okanagan identified the first known plant enzyme capable of creating the signature ‘spiro’ shape found in these molecules.

Building on that discovery, doctoral student Tuan-Anh Nguyen led new work to pinpoint two key enzymes involved in making mitraphylline—one enzyme that arranges the molecule into the correct three dimensional structure, and another that twists it into its final form.

“This is similar to finding the missing links in an assembly line,” says Dr. Dang, the university’s Research Chair in Natural Products Biotechnology. “It answers a long-standing question about how nature builds these complex molecules and gives us a new way to replicate that process.”

Red vein kratom leaves by Jade at Thehealingeast – CC BY-SA 4.0

Many promising natural compounds exist only in extremely small quantities within plants, making them expensive or impractical to produce using traditional laboratory methods. Mitraphylline is a prime example. It appears only in trace amounts in tropical coffee trees such as Mitragyna (kratom) and Uncaria (cat’s claw).

By identifying the enzymes that construct and shape mitraphylline, scientists now have a clear guide for recreating this process in more sustainable and scalable ways.

Toward Greener Drug Production

“With this discovery, we have a green chemistry approach to accessing compounds with enormous pharmaceutical value,” says Nguyen. “This is a result of UBC Okanagan’s research environment, where students and faculty work closely to solve problems with global reach.”

“Plants are fantastic natural chemists,” Dr. Dang said.

“Our next steps will focus on adapting their molecular tools to create a wider range of therapeutic compounds.”“Being part of the team that uncovered the enzymes behind spirooxindole compounds has been amazing,” added Nguyen, whose team collaborated with researchers at the University of Florida. A Rare Cancer-Fighting Plant Compound has Finally Been Decoded

Read More........→December 31, 2025

Study shows eye scans may provide clues to ageing, heart disease risk

(Photo: AI generated image/IANS)

New Delhi, (IANS) Canadian researchers have found that scanning the tiny blood vessels in the eyes may help predict a person's risk of developing heart disease and how fast they're biologically ageing.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, suggests that retinal scans could one day serve as a noninvasive window into the body's overall vascular health and biological ageing status, offering new opportunities for early detection and intervention.

"By connecting retinal scans, genetics, and blood biomarkers, we have uncovered molecular pathways that help explain how aging affects the vascular system," said Marie Pigeyre, Associate Professor at McMaster University’s Department of Medicine in Canada.

"The eye provides a unique, noninvasive view into the body's circulatory system. Changes in the retinal blood vessels often mirror changes occurring throughout the body's small vessels," added Pigeyre.

To conduct the study, the team combined retinal scans, genetic data, and blood sample analyses from over 74,000 participants.

People with simpler, less branched blood vessels were found to be at increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and showed signs of biological ageing, such as higher inflammation and shorter lifespan.

Currently, assessing age-related diseases like heart disease, stroke, and dementia requires multiple tests. The hope is that retinal scans alone could eventually be used as a quick, accessible way to assess ageing and cardiovascular risk. However, more research is needed.

The team also reviewed blood biomarkers and genetic data and identified potential biological causes behind changes in the eye's blood vessels. This helped them identify specific proteins that may drive ageing and disease -- MMP12 and IgG-Fc receptor IIb.

Both proteins are linked to inflammation and vascular ageing. According to Pigeyre, these proteins could be potential targets for future drugs."Our findings point to potential drug targets for slowing vascular ageing, reducing the burden of cardiovascular diseases, and ultimately improving lifespan," she said. Study shows eye scans may provide clues to ageing, heart disease risk | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com

Read More........→November 02, 2025

University secures Saskatchewan funding for nuclear research

(Image: University of Regina)

Three nuclear research projects at the University of Regina have been awarded funding totalling CAD580,000 (USD424,000) by Innovation Saskatchewan through the Innovation and Science Fund (ISF).

ISF matches federal innovation funding dollars for projects from Saskatchewan universities, colleges and research institutes to promote research excellence and competitiveness in the province. Innovation Saskatchewan has provided more than CAD18 million in ISF funding for innovative projects at Saskatchewan institutions since 2018.

The University of Regina (U of R) projects receiving the latest funding are in nuclear energy, subatomic physics and high-performance computing in nuclear science.

The first project - receiving CAD200,000 - will study ways of preventing rust and damage in materials used to protect fuel in small modular reactors (SMRs) and provide advanced training opportunities in SMRs technology.

The second - receiving CAD83,109 - will be used to upgrade simulation laboratory equipment for studying nuclear matter under extreme conditions.

The third project - receiving CAD300,000 - will be used to help construct and test components of the Heavy Gas Cherenkov (HGC) detector, a critical piece of the Solenoidal Large Intensity Device (SoLID), one of the world's most powerful microscopes.

Innovation Saskatchewan said: "These projects leverage the strong research presence U of R has in subatomic physics and nuclear energy and science, furthering Saskatchewan's capacity to attract and retain highly qualified researchers and train the next generation of scientists on emerging technologies and advancements in to support the province's energy, technology and growth goals."

"Many of the world's most significant advancements in renewable energy, medicine, and defence have stemmed from research in subatomic physics and nuclear energy,” said University of Regina President and Vice-Chancellor Jeff Keshen. "The Government of Saskatchewan's support positions our researchers as leaders in innovation, working to ensure a better quality of life both provincially and nationally. Their discoveries will be crucial to a strong and sustainable future for Saskatchewan."

Minister Responsible for Innovation Saskatchewan Jeremy Harrison added: "Saskatchewan continues to showcase its leadership in nuclear and subatomic research, helping advance global efforts and developing solutions in these key areas. This investment at the University of Regina will further support our province's world-class research community, while providing advanced training, employment and economic opportunities for Saskatchewan people."Researched and written by World Nuclear News University secures Saskatchewan funding for nuclear research : New Nuclear - World Nuclear News

Read More........→July 22, 2024

How global warming is reshaping winter life in Canada

H. Damon Matthews, Concordia University and Mitchell Dickau, Concordia University As we begin to emerge out of yet another mild winter, Canadians are once again being reminded of just how acutely global warming has changed Canada’s winter climate.

The impacts of this mild winter were felt across the country and touched all aspects of winter culture. From melting ice castles at Québec’s winter carnival, to a dismal lack of snow at many Western Canada ski resorts, seemingly no part of Canada was unaffected. But the change that will likely be felt most keenly by many Canadians is the loss of a reliable outdoor skating season.

For the second year running, Ottawa’s Rideau Canal Skateway was closed for what should be the peak of the skating season. In 2022-2023, the Skateway did not open at all for the first time ever. This winter, a portion of the Skateway opened briefly in January, but continuing mild temperatures forced a closure again after only four days of skating. In Montréal, fewer than 40 per cent of the city’s outdoor rinks were open in the middle of February.

There is no obvious upside to this story. Outdoor skating in Canada is fast becoming the latest casualty of our failure to confront the reality of the climate crisis.

On thin ice

More than a decade ago, our research group published our first analysis of how outdoor skating was being affected by warming winter temperatures in Canada. We showed that even as of 2005, there was already evidence of later start dates, and shorter skating seasons across most of the country.

A report on the management of the Rideau Canal Skateway in 2023, produced by the CBC.

These conclusions were echoed by subsequent publications from the RinkWatch project, which has reported consistent declines in skating season length and quality in many Canadian cities.

Meanwhile in Ottawa, skating days on the Rideau Canal Skateway have been trending downwards over the last 20 years. In this time, the typical skating season has decreased by almost 40 per cent, a trend that is clearly correlated with increasing winter temperatures over the same period.

Moving in the wrong direction

Climate mitigation progress continues to be far too slow.

Global CO2 emissions reached their highest level ever recorded in 2023, and average global temperatures have now reached 1.3 C above pre-industrial temperatures. If these trends continue, we are on track to reach 1.5 C — the lower threshold of the Paris Agreement temperature target — in less than seven years.

In our 2012 paper, we estimated that suitable rink flooding days could disappear across most of southern Canada by mid-century. In a more recent analysis of Montréal’s outdoor rinks, we estimated that the number of viable skating days in Montréal could decrease to zero by as early as 2070.

In hindsight, these and other similar projections may have been far too optimistic. In a study of Rideau canal skating days published in 2015, the authors projected declining but sustained skating conditions throughout this century, even in a high future emissions scenario. The reality of the past two seasons shows that skating conditions have deteriorated far more quickly than predicted.

Global temperatures in 2023 were the highest ever recorded, as were winter temperatures in December 2023 and January 2024. Since 1950, winter temperatures in Canada have increased by more than 3 C, which is about three times the rate of global warming over this same period.

Outdoor rinks require at least three consecutive very cold days to establish a foundation of ice, followed by enough cold days to maintain a good ice surface. Temperatures above freezing are poorly tolerated by outdoor rinks, and rain is often disastrous.

A few degrees of warming in January and February temperatures can be the difference between a rink that is skatable and one that is not. As winters continue to warm, the case for building and maintaining outdoor municipal rinks will become harder to justify.

A stark and still changing new reality

As years go by without any real progress on climate mitigation, it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine a future in which outdoor rinks will be widely available without artificial refrigeration. Other winter activities will also be affected by changing snow conditions, but outdoor skating will likely be hit first in direct response to warming winter temperatures.

Wayne Gretzky famously learned to skate and play hockey in Branford, Ont. in the 1960s on an outdoor rink built by his father. Reliable winter skating conditions in southern Ontario are already mostly a thing of the past, and are becoming more and more scarce as global warming progresses. It is increasingly unlikely that current and future generations will be able to follow Gretzky’s path.

This reality is both a tragic injustice for many young Canadians and an existential threat to a core aspect of the Canadian winter identity.

Preserving what remains of Canada’s winter skating culture will require that we rapidly step up our efforts to drive down CO2 emissions and stabilize global temperatures. Otherwise, Joni Mitchell’s “river I could skate away on” will become an increasingly wishful dream that soon will exist only in the lyrics of old songs.

H. Damon Matthews, Professor and Climate Scientist, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University and Mitchell Dickau, PhD Candidate, Geography, Planning, and Environment Department, Concordia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→March 28, 2024

Polar bears may struggle to produce milk for their cubs as climate change melts sea ice

During their time onshore, polar bear mothers may risk their survival by continuing to nurse when food is not available. (Shutterstock) Louise Archer, University of Toronto

When sea ice melts, polar bears must move onto land for several months without access to food. This fasting period is challenging for all bears, but particularly for polar bear mothers who are nursing cubs.

Our research, published in Marine Ecology Progress Series, found that polar bear lactation is negatively affected by increased time spent on land when sea ice melts.

Impaired lactation has likely played a role in the recent decline of several polar bear populations. This research also indicates how polar bear families might be impacted in the future by continued sea-ice loss caused by climate warming.

Challenges of rearing cubs

While sea ice might appear as a vast and perhaps vacant ecosystem, the frozen Arctic waters provide an essential platform for polar bears to hunt energy-rich seals — the bread and butter of their diet.

Sea ice is a dynamic environment that can vary through time and in different regions of the Arctic. Polar bears in Canada’s western Hudson Bay area experience seasonal sea ice, which melts in the warmer summer months, forcing the polar bears to move onto land until cooler winter temperatures cause the sea ice to refreeze.

While on shore, hunting opportunities are rare and polar bears generally spend their time in a fasting state. Polar bears rely on their immense body fat stores to fuel them during these leaner months, with some individuals measuring almost 50 per cent body fat when they come onshore in early summer.

While on land, polar bears can lose around a kilogram of body mass per day, so making it to the end of the ice-free season requires them to carefully manage their energy. For most polar bears, this means reducing activity levels and conserving energy until the sea ice returns and seal hunting can resume.

Females with cubs must also factor in the additional burden of lactation. Polar bears produce high-energy milk, which — at up to 35 per cent fat — is like whipping cream. This high-fat milk allows cubs to grow quickly, increasing from just 600 grams at birth to well over 100 kilograms by the time they are around two-and-a-half years old and leave their mothers to become independent.

During the onshore fasting period, polar bear mothers face a difficult trade-off: Stop lactating and risk the health of her growing cubs or continue nursing and risk her own survival as her energy reserves are depleted.

Moderating lactation

Although lactation is important to both mothers and cubs, studies on polar bear lactation are relatively rare.

To better understand how females manage their lactation investment, our research team revisited a data set of polar bear milk samples collected in the late 1980s and early 1990s from polar bears on land during the ice-free period.

We estimated how long each polar bear mom had been fasting based on annual sea-ice breakup dates and found that the energy content of their milk declined the more days spent onshore. Some bears had stopped producing milk entirely. Both milk energy content and lactation probability were negatively related to the mother’s body condition, meaning females in poor body condition had to prioritize their own energetic needs over their cubs.

The bears who reduced their investment in lactation benefited by using up less of their body reserves, meaning they could fast for longer. Yet the cubs who received lower energy milk grew more slowly than offspring of females that maintained their lactation effort. In the long term, this may reduce cub survival and, ultimately, negatively affect population dynamics.

Climate change and population declines

After around three months on land, the probability of a female with cubs lactating was 53 per cent. This dropped to 35 per cent for a female with yearlings (older cubs from the previous year).

The data in our study were collected around three decades ago. Since then, climate warming has meant that the ice-free season in western Hudson Bay has been extending by around seven days per decade. Polar bears are now regularly forced to spend more than four months on land.

As the ice-free season has increased and polar bears must go for longer without food, their average body condition has declined. The ability of female polar bears to nurse their cubs has probably also become increasingly impaired.

This may have contributed to the 50 per cent decline in the population size of the western Hudson Bay population over the last four decades, and is likely to contribute to further declines if climate warming and sea-ice declines continue as projected without mitigation.

This research adds another piece to our understanding of polar bear resilience to climate change. Without action to halt climate warming and sea-ice loss, survival of cubs will be at risk across the Arctic.

Louise Archer, Postdoctoral Fellow, Biological Sciences, University of Toronto

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read More........→October 09, 2023

More than one-third of kids with COVID-19 show no symptoms, says study

DEC 01, 2020 TORONTO: More than one-third of kids infected with the novel coronavirus are asymptomatic, according to a study which confirms that children diagnosed with COVID-19 may represent just a fraction of those infected. The research, published in the journal CMAJ, analysed results for 2,463 children in Alberta, Canada, who were tested during the first wave of the pandemic -- March to September -- for COVID-19 infection. "The concern from a public health perspective is that there is probably a lot of COVID-19 circulating in the community that people don't even realise," said Finlay McAlister, a co-author of the study from the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry in Canada. "When we see reports of 1,200 new cases per day in the province of Alberta, that's likely just the tip of the iceberg -- there are likely many people who don't know they have the disease and are potentially spreading it," he said. Of the 2,463 children, 1,987 had a positive test result for COVID-19 and 476 had a negative result, and of those who tested positive, 714 -- about 36 per cent --reported being asymptomatic. Due to the asymptomatic nature of the disease in up to one-third of children, McAlister said closing schools for a longer period over Christmas was the right decision. "As far as we know, kids are less likely to spread disease than adults, but the risk is not zero. Presumably asymptomatic spreaders are less contagious than the person sitting nearby who is sneezing all over you, but we don't know that for sure," he added. The researchers also found that cough, runny nose and sore throat were three of the most common symptoms among children with COVID-19 infection -- showing up in 25, 19 and 16 per cent of cases respectively. However, they said these symptoms were slightly more common among those with negative COVID-19 test results, and therefore not predictive of a positive test. "Of course, kids are at risk of contracting many different viruses, so the COVID-specific symptoms are actually more things like loss of taste and smell, headache, fever, and nausea and vomiting, not runny nose, a cough and sore throat," McAlister said. "Some people with COVID feel well and don't realise they have it so they socialise with friends and unintentionally spread the virus, and I think that's the big issue," he added Copyright © Jammu Links News, Source: Jammu Links News

Read More........→December 02, 2020

Canada reports first rare strain of swine flu in human

Canadian health authorities on Wednesday reported the country’s first case of a human infected with the H1N2 virus, a rare strain of swine flu.

Accroding to a statement given by the country’s local health officials, the case was detected in the western province of Alberta in mid-October. 

The patient was isolated and “there is no increased risk to Albertans at this time,” the statement said.

“This is the only influenza case reported in Alberta so far this flu season,” the statement read.

It added that the unnamed patient experienced mild influenza-like symptoms “was tested and then quickly recovered. So, there is no evidence at this time that the virus has spread further.”

Canadian health officials are looking into where the virus came from and to verify so that it does not spread.

Since 2005, only 27 cases worldwide have been reported of people infected with the H1N2 — not to be confused with the more common H1N1 swine flu virus. There have been no cases in Canada prior to this one.

The H1N2 strain is not a food-related illness and it is not transmissible to humans by eating pork or other pig products, officials said.

“This a rare type of flu in humans, typically acquired from exposure to infected pigs and not known to spread easily from human to human,” Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, wrote on Twitter.Source: AFP, BSS Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.com/

Read More........→November 21, 2020

World's first fully electric plane takes to air for almost 15 minutes

• The world's first fully electric commercial aircraft took its inaugural test flight on Tuesday, taking off from the Canadian city of Vancouver and offering hope that airlines may one day free themselves from polluting fossil fuels and end their polluting emissions.
• The first flight of the fully electric commercial aircraft took place on Tuesday around Vancouver, Canada. The whole flight lasted just 15 minutes.
• The plane was a 62-year-old, six-passenger seaplane that had been retrofitted with an electric motor. It was designed by Australian engineering firm MagniX and tested in partnership with Harbour Air, the world’s largest seaplane airline. 
• Harbour Air says it plans to electrify its entire fleet by 2022, depending on whether it can secure the necessary safety and regulatory approvals. The aircraft can only fly about 100 miles (160 kilometers) for now, but that’s sufficient for the sort of short-hop journeys the airline needs.
• However, Harbour Air will have to wait at least two years before it can begin electrifying its fleet of more than 40 seaplanes. The e-plane needs to be tested further to confirm it is reliable and safe. In addition, the electric motor must be approved and certified by regulators.
• Harbour Air ferries half a million passengers a year between Vancouver, Whistler ski resort and nearby islands and coastal communities.
• "For me that flight was just like flying a Beaver, but it was a Beaver on electric steroids. I actually had to back off on the power," he said.
• "This proves that commercial aviation in all-electric form can work," said Roei Ganzarski, chief executive of Seattle-based engineering firm MagniX.
• Ganzarski said the technology would mean significant cost savings for airlines - not to mention zero emissions.
• "This signifies the start of the electric aviation age," he told reporters.
• Civil aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of carbon emissions as people increasingly take to the skies and new technologies have been slow to get off the ground.
• At 285 grammes of CO2 emitted per kilometre travelled by each passenger, airline industry emissions far exceed those from all other modes of transport, according to the European Environment Agency. The emissions contribute to global warming and climate change, which scientists say will unleash ever harsher droughts, superstorms, and sea-level rise.
• In Ottawa, transport minister Marc Garneau told reporters ahead of the maiden flight that if the flight proves successful. "it could set a trend for more environmentally friendly flying."
• While battery power can be used to fly about 160 kilometers on lithium battery power, Ganzarski said, "The range now is not where we'd love it to be, but it's enough to start the revolution." 
• The aviation sector is a significant contributor to global carbon emissions, and a move to electric mode is the ultimate goal for many in the industry.Source: https://www.domain-b.com/

Read More........→July 07, 2020

Quantum Computing With Time Travel

Credit: Adapted from npj Quantum Information, doi:10.1038/npjqi.2015.7 (2015)

Why send a message back in time, but lock it so that no one can ever read the contents? Because it may be the key to solving currently intractable problems. That's the claim of an international collaboration who have just published a paper in npj Quantum Information. It turns out that an unopened message can be exceedingly useful. This is true if the experimenter entangles the message with some other system in the laboratory before sending it. Entanglement, a strange effect only possible in the realm of quantum physics, creates correlations between the time-travelling message and the laboratory system. These correlations can fuel a quantum computation. If the universe allows 'open timelike curves', particles travelling back in time along them could help to perform currently intractable computations. Even though such curves don't allow for interaction with anything in the past, researchers writing in npj Quantum Information show there is a gain in computational power as long as the time-travelling particle is entangled with one kept in the present. Around ten years ago researcher Dave Bacon, now at Google, showed that a time-travelling quantum computer could quickly solve a group of problems, known as NP-complete, which mathematicians have lumped together as being hard. The problem was, Bacon's quantum computer was travelling around 'closed timelike curves'. These are paths through the fabric of spacetime that loop back on themselves. General relativity allows such paths to exist through contortions in spacetime known as wormholes. Physicists argue something must stop such opportunities arising because it would threaten 'causality' -- in the classic example, someone could travel back in time and kill their grandfather, negating their own existence. And it's not only family ties that are threatened. Breaking the causal flow of time has consequences for quantum physics too. Over the past two decades, researchers have shown that foundational principles of quantum physics break in the presence of closed timelike curves: you can beat the uncertainty principle, an inherent fuzziness of quantum properties, and the no-cloning theorem, which says quantum states can't be copied. However, the new work shows that a quantum computer can solve insoluble problems even if it is travelling along 'open timelike curves', which don't create causality problems. That's because they don't allow direct interaction with anything in the object's own past: the time travelling particles (or data they contain) never interact with themselves. Nevertheless, the strange quantum properties that permit 'impossible' computations are left intact. "We avoid 'classical' paradoxes, like the grandfathers paradox, but you still get all these weird results," says Mile Gu, who led the work. Gu is at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) at the National University of Singapore and Tsinghua University in Beijing. His eight other coauthors come from these institutions, the University of Oxford, UK, Australian National University in Canberra, the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Australia, and QKD Corp in Toronto, Canada. "Whenever we present the idea, people say no way can this have an effect" says Jayne Thompson, a co-author at CQT. But it does: quantum particles sent on a timeloop could gain super computational power, even though the particles never interact with anything in the past. "The reason there is an effect is because some information is stored in the entangling correlations: this is what we're harnessing," Thompson says. There is a caveat -- not all physicists think that these open timeline curves are any more likely to be realisable in the physical universe than the closed ones. One argument against closed timelike curves is that no-one from the future has ever visited us. That argument, at least, doesn't apply to the open kind, because any messages from the future would be locked. The research is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China Grant 2011CBA00300, 2011CBA00302, the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 11450110058, 61033001, 61361136003, the 1000 talents program of China, the National Research Foundation and Ministry of Education in Singapore, the Tier 3 MOE2012-T3-1-009 Grant 'Random numbers from quantum processes', and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology Project number CE110001027 and the John Templeton Foundation grant 54914,'Occam's Quantum Mechanical Razor: Can Quantum theory admit the Simplest Understanding of Reality?' Contacts and sources:  Jenny Hogan, Mile Gu ,Visiting Senior Research Fellow Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Assistant Professor, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University, Citation: Xiao Yuan et al, 'Replicating the benefits of Deutschian closed timelike curves without breaking causality' npj Quantum Information, doi:10.1038/npjqi.2015.7 (2015) http://www.nature.com/articles/npjqi20157 Preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.5596. Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/

Read More........→December 11, 2015

‘Death Stars’ In Orion Blast Planets Before They Form

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; B. Saxton

The Orion Nebula is home to hundreds of young stars and even younger protostars known as proplyds. Many of these nascent systems will go on to develop planets, while others will have their planet-forming dust and gas blasted away by the fierce ultraviolet radiation emitted by massive O-type stars that lurk nearby. This artist's concept shows two proplyds, or protostars, around a massive O-type star. The nearer proplyd is having its planet-forming dust and gas blasted away by the radiation from the star. The farther proplyd is able to retain its planet-making potential. A team of astronomers from Canada and the United States has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study the often deadly relationship between highly luminous O-type stars and nearby protostars in the Orion Nebula. Their data reveal that protostars within 0.1 light-years (about 600 billion miles) of an O-type star are doomed to have their cocoons of dust and gas stripped away in just a few millions years, much faster than planets are able to form. "O-type stars, which are really monsters compared to our Sun, emit tremendous amounts of ultraviolet radiation and this can play havoc during the development of young planetary systems," remarked Rita Mann, an astronomer with the National Research Council of Canada in Victoria, and lead author on a paper in the Astrophysical Journal. "Using ALMA, we looked at dozens of embryonic stars with planet-forming potential and, for the first time, found clear indications where protoplanetary disks simply vanished under the intense glow of a neighboring massive star." Many, if not all, Sun-like stars are born in crowded stellar nurseries similar to the Orion Nebula. Over the course of just a few million years, grains of dust and reservoirs of gas combine into larger, denser bodies. Left relatively undisturbed, these systems will eventually evolve into fully fledged star systems, with planets -- large and small -- and ultimately drift away to become part of the galactic stellar population. Fly-in to the Orion Nebula where ALMA reveals massive stars blasting away planet-forming dust-gas around young protoplanetary disks. 

Narration: Dr. Rita K. Mann; Video and Images Courtesy of Brian Kent, NRAO/AUI/NSF; Model from Brian Abbot (AMNH/Hayden); Data from Hillenbrand, L., 1997, AJ, 113, 1733; Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF; NASA/ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telscope Orion Treasury Project Team; NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Bally et al.; Smith et al.; NASA, C.R. O'Dell and S.K. Wong (Rice University) Astronomers believe that massive yet short-lived stars in and around large interstellar clouds are essential for this ongoing process of star formation. At the end of their lives, massive stars explode as supernovas, seeding the surrounding area with dust and heavy elements that will get taken up in the next generation of stars. These explosions also provide the kick necessary to initiate a new round of star and planet formation. But while they still shine bright, these larger stars can be downright deadly to planets if an embryonic solar systems strays too close. "Massive stars are hot and hundreds of times more luminous than our Sun," said James Di Francesco, also with the National Research Council of Canada. "Their energetic photons can quickly deplete a nearby protoplanetary disk by heating up its gas, breaking it up, and sweeping it away." Earlier observations with the Hubble Space Telescope revealed striking images of proplyds in Orion. Many had taken on tear-drop shapes, with their dust and gas trailing away from a nearby massive star. These optical images, however, couldn't reveal anything about the amount of dust that was present or how the dust and gas concentrations changed in relation to massive stars. The new ALMA observations detected these and other never-before-imaged proplyds, essentially doubling the number of protoplanetary disks discovered in that region. ALMA also could see past their surface appearance, peering deep inside to actually measure how much mass was in the proplyds. Combining these studies with previous observations from the Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawaii, the researchers found that any protostar within the extreme-UV envelope of a massive star would have much of its disk of material destroyed in very short order. Proplyds in these close-in regions retained only a fraction (one half or less) of the mass necessary to create one Jupiter-size planet. Beyond the 0.1 light-year radius, in the far-UV dominated region, the researchers observed a wide range of disk masses containing anywhere for one to 80 times the mass of Jupiter. This is similar to the amount of dust found in low-mass star forming regions. "Taken together, our investigations with ALMA suggest that extreme UV regions are not just inhospitable, but they’re downright hazardous for planet formation. With enough distance, however, it’s possible to find a much more congenial environment," said Mann. "This work is really the tip of the iceberg of what will come out of ALMA; we hope to eventually learn how common solar systems like our own are." Other researchers involved in this project include Doug Johnstone, National Research Council of Canada; Sean M. Andrews, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Jonathan P. Williams, University of Hawaii; John Bally, University of Colorado; Luca Ricci, California Institute of Technology; A. Meredith Hughes, Wesleyan University, and Brenda C. Matthews, National Research Council of Canada. ALMA, an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA. Contacts and sources: Charles Blue, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Source: Article

Read More........→March 16, 2014

The Council Of Giants And Earth's Place In The Universe

Credit: Marshall McCall / York University

We live in a galaxy known as the Milky Way – a vast conglomeration of 300 billion stars, planets whizzing around them, and clouds of gas and dust floating in between. Though it has long been known that the Milky Way and its orbiting companion Andromeda are the dominant members of a small group of galaxies, the Local Group, which is about 3 million light years across, much less was known about our immediate neighbourhood in the universe. An animation that illustrates the positions of the nearby galaxies, including those in the "Council of Giants, " in three dimensions. 

Now, a new paper by York University Physics & Astronomy Professor Marshall McCall, published today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, maps out bright galaxies within 35-million light years of the Earth, offering up an expanded picture of what lies beyond our doorstep. "All bright galaxies within 20 million light years, including us, are organized in a 'Local Sheet' 34-million light years across and only 1.5-million light years thick," says McCall. "The Milky Way and Andromeda are encircled by twelve large galaxies arranged in a ring about 24-million light years across – this 'Council of Giants' stands in gravitational judgment of the Local Group by restricting its range of influence." This is a diagram showing the brightest galaxies within 20 million light years of the Milky Way, as seen from above. The largest galaxies, here shown in yellow at different points around the dotted line, make up the "Council of Giants." McCall says twelve of the fourteen giants in the Local Sheet, including the Milky Way and Andromeda, are "spiral galaxies" which have highly flattened disks in which stars are forming. The remaining two are more puffy "elliptical galaxies", whose stellar bulks were laid down long ago. Intriguingly, the two ellipticals sit on opposite sides of the Council. Winds expelled in the earliest phases of their development might have shepherded gas towards the Local Group, thereby helping to build the disks of the Milky Way and Andromeda. McCall also examined how galaxies in the Council are spinning. He comments: "Thinking of a galaxy as a screw in a piece of wood, the direction of spin can be described as the direction the screw would move (in or out) if it were turned the same way as the galaxy rotates. Unexpectedly, the spin directions of Council giants are arranged around a small circle on the sky. This unusual alignment might have been set up by gravitational torques imposed by the Milky Way and Andromeda when the universe was smaller." This is a diagram showing the brightest galaxies within 20 million light years of the Milky Way, this time viewed from the side. 

Credit: Marshall McCall / York University

The boundary defined by the Council has led to insights about the conditions which led to the formation of theMilky Way. Most important, only a very small enhancement in the density of matter in the universe appears to have been required to produce the Local Group. To arrive at such an orderly arrangement as the Local Sheetand its Council, it seems that nearby galaxies must have developed within a pre-existing sheet-like foundation comprised primarily of dark matter. "Recent surveys of the more distant universe have revealed that galaxies lie in sheets and filaments with large regions of empty space called voids in between," says McCall. "The geometry is like that of a sponge. What the new map reveals is that structure akin to that seen on large scales extends down to the smallest." Contacts and sources: Robin Heron, York University, Source: Article, Image Source1-2

Read More........→March 13, 2014

Water Found On Extrasolar Planet, Jupiter-Sized Alien World Has Atmosphere With Water Vapor

A team of international scientists including a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory astrophysicist has made the most detailed examination yet of the atmosphere of a Jupiter-size like planet beyond our solar system. The finding provides astrophysicists with additional insight into how planets are formed. Artist's rendering of the planetary system HR 8799 at an early stage in its evolution, showing the planet HR 8799c, a disk of gas and dust, and interior planets.  "This is the sharpest spectrum ever obtained of an extrasolar planet," said co-author Bruce Macintosh, an astronomer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "This shows the power of directly imaging a planetary system -- the exquisite resolution afforded by these new observations has allowed us to really begin to probe planet formation."  According to lead author Quinn Konopacky, an astronomer with the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto and a former LLNL postdoc: "We have been able to observe this planet in unprecedented detail because of Keck Obervatory's advanced instrumentation, our ground-breaking observing and data processing techniques, and because of the nature of the planetary system." The paper appears online March 14 in Science Express and in the March 21 edition of the journal, Science.  The team, using the OSIRIS instrument on the Keck II telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, has uncovered the chemical fingerprints of specific molecules, revealing a cloudy atmosphere containing water vapor and carbon monoxide. "With this level of detail," says co-author Travis Barman, an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory, "we can compare the amount of carbon to the amount of oxygen present in the atmosphere, and this chemical mix provides clues as to how the planetary system formed." One of the discovery images of  the system obtained at the Keck II telescope using the adaptive optics system and NIRC2 Near-Infrared Imager. The rectangle indicates the field-of-view of the OSIRIS instrument for planet C, There has been uncertainty about how planets in other solar systems formed, with two leading models, called core accretion and gravitational instability. When stars form, they are surrounded by a planet-forming disk. In the first scenario, planets form gradually as solid cores slowly grow big enough to start absorbing gas from the disk. In the latter, planets form almost instantly as parts of the disk collapses on itself. Planetary properties, such as the composition of a planet's atmosphere, are clues as to whether a system formed according to one model or the other. Although the planet's atmosphere shows clear evidence of water vapor, that signature is weaker than would be expected if the planet shared the composition of its parent star. Instead, the planet has a high ratio of carbon to oxygen -- a fingerprint of its formation in the gaseous disk tens of millions of years ago. As the gas cooled with time, grains of water ice form, depleting the remaining gas of oxygen. Planetary formation began when ice and solids collected into planetary cores -- very similar to how our solar system formed. "Once the solid cores grew large enough, their gravity quickly attracted surrounding gas to become the massive planets we see today," said Konopacky. "Since that gas had lost some of its oxygen, the planet ends up with less oxygen and less water than if it had formed through a gravitational instability." The planet is one of four gas giants known to orbit a star called HR 8799, 130 light-years from Earth. The authors and their collaborators previously discovered this planet, designated HR 8799c, and its three companions back in 2008 and 2010. Unlike most other planetary systems, whose presence is inferred by their effects on their parent star, the HR8799 planets can be individually seen. "We can directly image the planets around HR 8799 because they are all large, young, and very far from their parent star. This makes the system an excellent laboratory for studying exoplanet atmospheres," said coauthor Christian Marois, an astronomer at the National Research Council of Canada and another former LLNL postdoc. "Since its discovery, this system just keeps on surprising us." Although the planet does have water vapor, it's incredibly hostile to life -- like Jupiter, it has no solid surface, and it has a temperature of more than a thousand degrees Fahrenheit as it glows with the energy of its original formation. Still, this discovery provides clues as to the possibility of other Earthlike planets in other solar systems. "The fact that the HR 8799 giant planets may have formed the same way our own giant planets did is a good sign -- that same process also made the rocky planets close to the sun," Macintosh said. The research is funded by Livermore's Laboratory Directed Research and Development program. LLNL is leading the construction of a new planet-finding instrument for the Gemini South telescope in Chile, known as the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). Designed from the ground up for exoplanet detection, GPI (and similar new instruments at the Palomar and European Southern Observatories) will be capable of seeing planets that are much older, smaller and fainter than the HR-8799 giants. "GPI is the next big step in this field," said Macintosh, the principal investigator for the project. "It will be an order of magnitude more sensitive than we are now." Simulations predict that a large-scale GPI survey should discover dozens of new exoplanets. By studying planets at different stages of their evolution, the GPI science team will further chip away at the puzzle of how planets form. GPI is currently undergoing final testing at UC Santa Cruz and will ship to Chile later in the year. The W. M. Keck Observatory operates the largest, most scientifically productive telescopes on Earth. The two, 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea on the Island of Hawaii feature a suite of advanced instruments including imagers, multi-object spectrographs, high-resolution spectrographs, integral-field spectroscopy and a world-leading laser guide star adaptive optics system. The Observatory is a private 501(c) 3 non-profit organization and a scientific partnership of the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and NASA. Contacts and sources: Anne Stark, DOE/Lawrence, Source: Nano Patents And Innovations, Image: flickr.com

Read More........→November 15, 2013

Could turning on a gene prevent diabetes?

Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90 % of cases of diabetes around the world, afflicting 2.5 million Canadians and costing over 15 billion dollars a year in Canada. It is a severe health condition which makes body cells incapable of taking up and using sugar. Dr. Alexey Pshezhetsky of the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center, affiliated with the University of Montreal, has discovered that the resistance to insulin seen in type 2 diabetics is caused partly by the lack of a protein that has not previously been associated with diabetes. This breakthrough could potentially help to prevent diabetes. "We discovered that Neu1, a protein nicknamed after "neuraminidase 1", turns the absorption of sugar "on" or "off" in body cells, by regulating the amount of sialic acid on the surface of cells", Dr. Pshezhetsky explains. "We are now trying to find a way to restore Neu1 levels and function in diabetes. If we can remove sialic acid residues from the cell surface, this will force the insulin receptor do its job of absorbing blood sugar properly. This could give doctors an opportunity to reduce the use of insulin therapy, and might help to reduce the diabetes epidemic, says Dr. Pshezhetsky. The results of his study done on cells and mice were published this month in the journal Diabetes. Dr Pshezhetsky and his team are now testing their results in diabetic patients. Although type 2 diabetes is initially treated with diet, exercise and tobacco avoidance, doctors try to restore normal levels of insulin by prescribing it when this fails. The number of cases diagnosed around the world continues to grow incredibly quickly: according to the United States Center Disease Control, cases in that country grew on average by 82% between 1995 and 2010. In Oklahoma, the number increased by 226%. The disease accounts for 90% of diabetes cases around the world, and its prevalence has increased in parallel with the obesity epidemic. Obesity is in fact thought to cause this disease which can in turn lead to heart disease, strokes and even limb amputation due to poor circulation. Source: Sciencedex, Image: flickr.com

Read More........→July 22, 2013

Global warming – an impeding catastrophe or a new stage of evolution?

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Scientists have discovered that in the last 30 years, there has been an increase in the number and size of different plant species in the Arctic tundra. Besides, a bigger area is now covered with plants. The conclusion made by the scientists is that the summers in the Arctic are becoming warmer. Moreover, the process is interdependent – the warming of the climate encourages the growth of plants, which, in turn, encourages changes in a number of natural processes, which cause the Earth’s climate to become warmer. This research was conducted by an international group of scientists, headed by Sarah Elmendorf from the University of British Columbia, based in Vancouver, Canada. The scientists studied the data supplied by 50 research stations, situated in various areas of the Arctic. In all these areas, the picture was virtually the same – dwarf shrub and the grass become taller and spread over increasingly greater areas in Alaska, on Spitsbergen, in Iceland, Greenland, in Canada’s arctic zone and in Scandinavia. The increased plants growth is caused, of course, by global warming. The ice which stayed frozen for many years, if not centuries, is now melting, and, after a while, plants will appear in its place. Scientists even believe that leaf-losing plants, which are more heat-loving that the ‘traditional’ dwarf trees growing in the tundra, could soon oust the latter. It would be wrong to suggest that the climate changes which are taking place in the Arctic tundra have no effect on other regions. Andrey Shmakin from the Institute of Geography says: “If the ice melts – and that is what we are witnessing now – bare land starts to absorb a greater amount of heat. This is the main process that causes the global warming.” “Using the example of what is happening in the tundra, one can see that the balance of heat exchange between the atmosphere, the soil and the plants is now changing,” Vladimir Onipchenko, who chairs the department of plant ecology at the Moscow Lomonosov University, says. “And this is affecting the whole planet. Our observations in the Arctic help us understand more about the mechanism of the greenhouse effect, which worsens as a result of melting Arctic sea ice.” “The melting of ice speeds up the processes of organic decomposition in the soil, and greater amounts of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere,” Mr. Onipchenko says. “This causes even greater warming.” “If the pants of the Arctic tundra continue to grow taller and spread over a larger area, the tundra will start turning into a forest-tundra, where the climate is usually milder,” climate expert Andrey Shmakin says. “However, it’s a very slow process. The melting of sea ice could take many centuries, if not many thousands of years. Besides, it would be wrong to say that the ice is currently melting throughout the Arctic.” A lot of scientists agree that it is probably too early to make global conclusions – any moment, the planet’s climate could bring any surprise. After all, for thousands of years, the Earth has experienced warming and cooling many times – but life on Earth has survived.“Nothing catastrophic is happening,” Andrey Shmakin assures us. “The Earth is just entering a new period of evolution. Certain species of plants and animals might die off, others might come to change them – this is an eternal process.” Source: Voice of Russia

Read More........→March 13, 2013

Does Probability Come From Quantum Physics?

Credit: Wikipedia

Ever since Austrian scientist Erwin Schrodinger put his  unfortunate  cat  in  a  box, his  fellow physicists have been using something called quantum theory to explain and understand the nature of waves and particles. Schrödinger's cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other. But a new paper by physics professor Andreas Albrecht and graduate student Dan Phillips at the University of California, Davis, makes the case that these quantum fluctuations actually are responsible for the probability of all actions, with far-reaching implications for theories of the universe. Quantum theory is a branch of theoretical physics that strives to understand and predict the properties and behavior of atoms and particles. Without it, we would not be able to build transistors and computers, for example. One aspect of the theory is that the precise properties of a particle are not determined until you observe them and "collapse the wave function" in physics parlance. Schrodinger's famous thought experiment extends this idea to our scale. A cat is trapped in a box with a vial of poison that is released when a radioactive atom randomly decays. You cannot tell if the cat is alive or dead without opening the box. Schrodinger argued that until you open the box and look inside, the cat is neither alive nor dead but in an indeterminate state. For many people, that is a tough concept to accept. But Albrecht says that, as a theoretical physicist, he concluded some years ago that this is how probability works at all scales, although until recently, he did not see it as something with a crucial impact on research. That changed with a 2009 paper by Don Page at the University of Alberta, Canada. "I realized that how we think about quantum fluctuations and probability affects how we think about our theories of the universe," said Albrecht, a theoretical cosmologist. One of the consequences of quantum fluctuations is that every collapsing wave function spits out different realities: one where the cat lives and one where it dies, for example. Reality as we experience it picks its way through this near-infinity of possible alternatives. Multiple universes could be embedded in a vast “multiverse” like so many pockets on a pool table. There are basically two ways theorists have tried to approach the problem of adapting quantum physics to the "real world," Albrecht said: You can accept it and the reality of many worlds or multiple universes, or you can assume that there is something wrong or missing from the theory. Albrecht falls firmly in the first camp. "Our theories of cosmology say that quantum physics works across the universe," he said. For example, quantum fluctuations in the early universe explain why galaxies form as they did — a prediction that can be confirmed with direct observations. The problem with multiple universes, Albrecht said, is that it if there are a huge number of different pocket universes, it becomes very hard to get simple answers to questions from quantum physics, such as the mass of a neutrino, an electrically neutral subatomic particle. "Don Page showed that the quantum rules of probability simply cannot answer key questions in a large multiverse where we are not sure in which pocket universe we actually reside," Albrecht said. One answer to this problem has been to add a new ingredient to the theory: a set of numbers that tells us the probability that we are in each pocket universe. This information can be combined with the quantum theory, and you can get your math (and your calculation of the mass of a neutrino) back on track. Not so fast, say Albrecht and Phillips. While the probabilities assigned to each pocket universe may seem like just more of the usual thing, they are in fact a radical departure from everyday uses of probabilities because, unlike any other application of probability, these have already been shown to have no basis in the quantum theory. "If all probability is really quantum theory, then it can't be done," Albrecht said. "Pocket universes are much, much more of a departure from current theory than people had assumed." The paper is currently posted on the ArXiv.org preprint server and submitted for publication and has already stimulated considerable discussion, Albrecht said. "It forces us to think about the different kinds of probability, which often get confused, and perhaps can help draw a line between them," he said. Contacts and sources: Andy Fell, University of California - DavisDoes,  Source: Nano Patents And Innovations

Read More........→February 07, 2013

Nemesis Star: How The Planets Would Be Affected By Binary System

Credit; Wikipedia

A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. Binary stars are often detected optically, in which case they are called visual binaries. Many visual binaries have long orbital periods of several centuries or millennia and therefore have orbits which are uncertain or poorly known An international team of astrophysicists has shown that planetary systems with very distant binary stars are particularly susceptible to violent disruptions, more so than if they had stellar companions with tighter orbits around them. Unlike the Sun, many stars are members of binary star systems – where two stars orbit one another – and these stars' planetary systems can be altered by the gravity of their companion stars. The orbits of very distant or wide stellar companions often become very eccentric – ie. less circular – over time, driving the once-distant star into a plunging orbit that passes very close to the planets once per orbital period. The gravity of this close-passing companion can then wreak havoc on planetary systems, triggering planetary scatterings and even ejections. A simulated example of a binary star, where two bodies with similar mass orbit around a common barycenter in elliptic orbits This movie shows two simulations of planetary system disruption by galactic disturbances to wide binary stars. On the left is a zoomed-out view showing the orbit of a hypothetical 0.1 solar mass binary star around our own solar system with an initial orbital separation of 10,000 AU (1 AU is the distance between the Earth and the sun). On the right is a zoomed-in 

Credit: Nathan Kaib

view of the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. As the binary orbit becomes eccentric, this eventually excites the planetary orbits and Uranus and Neptune are both ejected. "The stellar orbits of wide binaries are very sensitive to disturbances from other passing stars as well as the tidal field of the Milky Way," said Nathan Kaib, lead author of a study published today in Nature describing the findings. "This causes their stellar orbits to constantly change their eccentricity – their degree of circularity. If a wide binary lasts long enough, it will eventually find itself with a very high orbital eccentricity at some point in its life." When a wide binary orbit becomes very eccentric, the two stars will pass very close together once per orbit on one side of the orbital ellipse, while being very far apart on the other side of the ellipse. This can have dire consequences for planets in these systems since the gravity of a close-passing star can radically change planetary orbits around the other star, causing planets to scatter off of one another and sometimes get ejected to interstellar space. Kaib, a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University and a National Fellow in the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, conducted computer simulations of the process with Queen's University physics professor Martin Duncan and Sean N. Raymond, a researcher at the University of Bordeaux and the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France. They added a a hypothetical wide binary companion to the Earth's solar system which eventually triggered at least one of four giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) to be ejected in almost half of the simulations. "This process takes hundreds of millions of years if not billions of years to occur in these binaries. Consequently, planets in these systems initially form and evolve as if they orbited an isolated star," said Kaib, who will present the findings this week at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California. "It is only much later that they begin to feel the effects of their companion star, which often times leads to disruption of the planetary system." "We also found that there is substantial evidence that this process occurs regularly in known extrasolar planetary systems," said Duncan. "Planets are believed to form on circular orbits, and they are only thought to attain highly eccentric orbits through powerful and/or violent perturbations. When we looked at the orbital eccentricities of planets that are known to reside in wide binaries, we found that they are statistically more eccentric than planets around isolated stars like our Sun. " The researchers believe this is a telltale signature of past planetary scattering events, and that those with eccentric orbits are often interpreted to be the survivors of system-wide instabilities. "The eccentric planetary orbits seen in these systems are essentially scars from past disruptions caused by the companion star," said Raymond. The researchers note that this observational signature could only be reproduced well when they assumed that the typical planetary system extends from its host star as much as 10 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Otherwise, the planetary system is too compact to be affected by even a stellar companion on a very eccentric orbit. "Recently, planets orbiting at wide distances around their host stars have been directly imaged. Our work predicts that such planets are common but have so far gone largely undetected," says Duncan. Contacts and sources: Sean Bettam, University of Toronto, Source: Nano Patents And Innovations

Read More........→January 09, 2013

Virtual Women Reveal More Skin, Regardless Of Body Proportions

Credit: Second Life

Unrelated to traditional measures of physical attractiveness, female avatars in Second Life expose more skin In the virtual world of Second Life, female avatars expose substantially more skin than males, independent of their virtual body proportions, according to research published December 26 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Matthieu Guitton and colleagues from Laval University, Canada. The human tendency to cover up stems from climatic, environmental, physical and cultural constraints, so measuring people's propensity to reveal skin can be difficult in the real world. To study human behavior free of at least some of these constraints, the researchers analyzed how male and female avatars in the virtual, 3- dimensional world of Second Life dressed. Second Life offers users options to choose the gender, appearance and attire of their virtual avatars, and users can select clothing from several items created in this virtual world, rather than being restricted to a predefined costume. They found that out of over 400 virtual people studied, 71% of male avatars covered between 75-100% of their skin, while only 5% of females did. In contrast, 47% of the virtual females they studied covered between 25-49% of their skin, compared to 9% of males. The amount of skin covered was independent of traditional gender-specific measures of physical attractiveness for virtual avatars, such as waist-chest ratios for females. According to the study, "These findings have implications for understanding how sex specific aspects of skin disclosure influence human social interactions in both virtual and real settings." Guitton adds, "Virtual settings provide a unique tool to study human behavior unhindered by physical and environmental constraints.This tool enabled us to find a dramatic gender difference in the propensity to disclose naked skin." Citation: Lomanowska AM, Guitton MJ (2012) Virtually Naked: Virtual Environment Reveals Sex-Dependent Nature of Skin Disclosure. PLoS ONE 7(12): e51921.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051921, Contacts and sources: Jyoti Madhusoodanan, Public Library of Science, Source: Nano Patents And Innovations

Read More........→December 30, 2012

Chasing Ice: new film dramatically documents shrinking glaciers

Chasing Ice is a new documentary that chronicles the struggles of photographer James Balog as he set out to complete the Extreme Ice Survey. The survey was designed to monitor the movement of glaciers existing today under the threat of climate changes, in particular the increase in temperatures that are resulting in glaciers melting at phenomenal rates. Filming glaciers and other ice formations in Alaska and Montana in the U.S.; Greenland, Iceland and the Alps in Europe; Canada and even Bolivia, Balog used a variety of cameras to  conduct time lapse photography, usually taking one picture per hour all through the daylight hours. When placed in sequence the work of many months and even years could be seen in a few seconds and the results were startling. With warming air, ground, and water temperatures, ice formations are being attacked from all angles. While glaciers have experienced back and forth ebbs and
flow, nothing in the historical record  compares to the rapid disappearance that they are experiencing today. What might seem gradual, even imperceptible, to most people is happening in the blink of an eye in geological terms. And Balog's work captures it most dramatically. While the underlying message of Chasing Ice is the destructive power of climate change as seen in the ice formations, the film also focuses on Balog's journey itself. And this was not an easy one. To get cameras in their optimum position was not just a case of a camera, a tripod, and a nice wide shot in a meadow miles away. Balog and his team had to often move into dangerous locations on the ice formations themselves, scaling ice walls or venturing out onto ice and snow that could give way at any second. And there was the challenge of getting the technology to cooperate. Extended cold temperatures and moisture do not mix well with digital

cameras. Balog had to devised safe, dry, insulated housings for many of the cameras used. A wide range of cameras were used including Sony, Nikon, Panasonic, and others - a total of 30 in all. Chasing Ice is the dramatic adventure of a courageous and dedicated photographer. That is the hook, the entertainment, meant to draw in the audience. But once there, they will see that what is truly dangerous is what is happening to the planet. Climate change is shifting the fundamental components that make up the life support system that animal and plant life have depended on for tens of thousands of years. And it's happening much quicker than many had anticipated. Chasing Ice premiered in November at the Toronto International Film Festival and has been in limited release in the U.S. (There was a screening this past Thanksgiving holiday weekend near my neck of the woods in Los Angeles.) Look for it in your area. The National Geographic Channel will also air it in the first half of 2013, but see it in a large screen theater if you can. Big images need a big venue. Source: RTSea Blog

Read More........→December 09, 2012