Tag: science

A Russian scientist has found large amounts of methane being released in the atmosphere in the Arctic

5:43 pm

A Russian scientist has found large amounts of methane being released into the atmosphere in the Arctic, far more than previously predicted.

It is speculated that these releases are the result of the Earth’s warming climate during the past several hundred years. And because methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, its release will feed into that warming.

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Walking through the new American Amundsen Scott South Pole station

6:01 pm

An evening pause: In honor of the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen’s arrival at the South Pole on this date, 1911, lets take a tour through the recently completed new Amundsen Scott South Pole station.

At one point right after walking through the cafeteria the cameraman points the camera out a window where you can see several flagpoles. That is where the actual South Pole is located. The camera than looks out a second window at a partly buried dome, which is the old station, no longer in use.

This video astonishes at what humans can accomplish in the most hostile environments.

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CERN announces an update on the search for the Higgs Boson

8:59 am

Not there yet: CERN announces an update on the search for the Higgs Boson.

The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.

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Higgs announcement from CERN on December 13

9:14 am

CERN will be making an announcement on the status of its search for the Higgs particle on December 13. From this interview of one of its scientists:

The thing I know for sure is that [CERN Director General] Rolf-Dieter Heuer, who must know the results of both experiments, says that on December 13 we will not have a discovery and we will not have an exclusion.

The inteview is fascinating, as he notes how the Higgs research might also have a bearing on the search for dark matter.

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LightSquared touts new tests prove its internet service will not interfere with GPS

10:10 pm

In a press event today, LightSquared announced that just-completed tests prove that its internet service will not interfere with GPS.

According to the company, the three private companies — Javad GNSS, PCTel and Partron — that make GPS equipment have been testing interference solutions and those tests have gone well. “Preliminary results show that GPS devices tested in the lab easily surpass performance standards thanks to these newly developed solutions,” Ahuja said. “We are confident that this independent testing will mirror testing being done by the federal government.”

Here’s another perspective:

Jim Kirkland, vice president of Trimble and a founding member of The Coalition to Save Our GPS, is trying to slow LightSquared’s momentum. “It is obviously extremely premature to claim at this point that these latest tests demonstrate that LightSquared’s proposed repurposing of the mobile satellite band for terrestrial operations is ‘compatible’ with high-precision GPS,” Kirkland says in a statement. “Even if new equipment solutions are fully tested and verified, these existing high-precision receivers will have to be retrofitted or replaced. LightSquared still refuses to accept the financial responsibility for addressing interference to existing devices, and so has not offered a comprehensive solution in any way, shape, or form.”

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An update on the climate treaty talks in Durban

2:17 pm

An update on the climate treaty talks in Durban.

I gather from this article that the talks appear to be going nowhere. (The reporter desperately wants a deal, and you need to read between the lines to sense how unlikely the deal is.) Not only is the U.S. reluctant to sign anything, so is India, China, and Brazil. Furthermore, even if the Obama administration agreed to something, it is highly unlikely any treaty could get through the Senate.

Also, it appears that the $100 billion Green Climate Fund is is in trouble as well.

All good news, as far as I am concerned. None of these deals have anything to do with climate or science. Instead, they are designed to redistribute power and wealth, by fiat, from one set of countries to another.

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The trial of seven Italian earthquake experts facing manslaughter charges for not correctly predicting an earthquake continued this week.

2:11 pm

The trial of seven Italian earthquake experts facing manslaughter charges for not correctly predicting a deadly earthquake continued this week.

The prosecution’s argument that the experts had underplayed the possible occurrence of a major quake was bolstered by testimony from Daniela Stati, the former civil protection officer for Abruzzo, who took an active role in the March 31 meeting. Stati confirmed what she had previously told prosecutors in 2010, that one of the indicted said during the meeting that the continuing tremors represented a “favorable signal” because there was a continuous discharge of energy that made stronger tremors less likely. In fact, scientific evidence suggests that groups of small earthquakes tend instead to increase the chances of a major earthquake nearby, even though the absolute probability of such a quake remains low. Stati said that nobody within the commission objected to this statement. She also underlined that the “reassuring message” given to the press by her, L’Aquila Mayor Massimo Cialente, and two of the indicted, Franco Barberi and Bernardo De Bernardinis, was based on comments made at the meeting.

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Recent results from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found no evidence of dark matter, a result in some conflict with data obtained from several underground research detectors.

12:16 pm

The uncertainty of science: Recent results from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found no evidence of dark matter, a result in some conflict with data obtained from several underground research detectors.

The mystery here is that there is no doubt that something causes the outer objects in galaxies to move faster than expected. Scientists have labeled this something as dark matter, guessing that some undetected and unknown mass exists in the outer reaches of galaxies, thereby increasing the gravity potential and hence the velocity in which objects move.

The problem is that they have yet to identify what that dark matter is.

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On the way to its winter haven, Opportunity found more evidence of water on Mars

4:27 pm

On the way to its winter haven, Opportunity found more evidence of liquid water that once flowed on Mars, specifically a geological vein that they think might be gypsum.

The vein examined most closely by Opportunity is about the width of a human thumb (0.4 to 0.8 inch, or 1 to 2 centimeters), 16 to 20 inches (40 to 50 centimeters) long, and protrudes slightly higher than the bedrock on either side of it. Observations by the durable rover reveal this vein and others like it within an apron surrounding a segment of the rim of Endeavour Crater. None like it were seen in the 20 miles (33 kilometers) of crater-pocked plains that Opportunity explored for 90 months before it reached Endeavour, nor in the higher ground of the rim.

According to what project scientist Steve Squyres said at a press conference today at the AGU meeting, “This is the single most significant piece of evidence that liquid water once flowed on Mars.”

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Ramping way up!

12:08 pm

The monthly update of the solar cycle graph produced by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center was released yesterday. I have posted the graph below the fold.

The fast ramp up to solar maximum is continuing. For the fifth month in a row the Sun’s sunspot activity leaped upward. Not only has the sunspot activity once again exceeded the prediction for this particular time period, the activity is shot way above the solar maximum peak predicted for several years hence. This behavior is far different then what we’ve seen during the just completed long and deep solar minimum, when the Sun consistently underperformed the predictions for sunspot activity. Now it appears to be outperforming the predictions.
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