* In Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravity arises from spacetime being curved. Today, 90 years after Einstein developed the theory’s equations, physicists are still uncovering new surprises in them.
* For example, in a curved space, a body can seemingly defy basic physics and “swim” through a vacuum without needing to push on anything or be pushed by anything.
* Curved spacetime also allows a kind of gliding, in which a body can slow its fall even in a vacuum.
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In a famous series of stories in the 1940s, physicist George Gamow related the adventures of one Mr. C.G.H. Tompkins, a humble bank clerk who had vivid dreams of worlds where strange physical phenomena intruded into everyday life. In one of these worlds, for instance, the speed of light was 15 kilometers per hour, putting the weird effects of Einstein's theory of special relativity on display if you so much as rode a bicycle.
Not long ago I figuratively encountered one of Mr. Tompkins's great grandsons, Mr. E. M. Everard, a philosopher and engineer who is carrying on his ancestor's tradition. He told me of an amazing experience he had involving some recently discovered aspects of Einstein's theory of general relativity, which I will share with you. His remarkable story is replete with curved spacetime, cats twisting in midair, an imperiled astronaut dog paddling through a vacuum to safety—and Isaac Newton perhaps spinning in his grave.
Dangerous Curves Ahead
In a far-off region of the cosmos, Mr. Everard had gone outside his spaceship to repair an errant antenna. He noticed that the beautiful lights of the distant stars looked distorted, as though he were viewing them through a thick lens. He felt, too, something gently stretching his body. Suspecting he knew what was afoot, he took a laser pointer and a can of shaving cream from his utility belt and turned on his jet pack to test his idea.
With the laser beam serving as a guide, he jetted straight out 100 meters, turned left to travel several dozen meters in that direction and finally returned to his starting point, drawing a triangle of foam like a cosmic skywriter. Then he measured his triangle’s vertex angles with a protractor and added them up. The result was more than 180 degrees.
Far from being nonplussed by this apparent violation of the rules of geometry, Mr. Everard fondly remembered a mischievous non-Euclidean incident in his childhood, when he drew triangles on the globe in his parents’ study. There, too, the angles added up to more than 180 degrees. He concluded that the space around him also must be curved much like the surface of that globe, so many years and light-years away. The curvature would account for the distorted starlight and the slightly unpleasant feeling of being stretched.
Thus, Mr. Everard understood he was experiencing textbook effects of general relativity. Experiments of a rather more refined nature than his jaunting about with shaving cream had confirmed these effects long ago: matter and energy cause space and time to curve, and the curvature of spacetime causes matter and energy (such as his laser beam and the light from the stars) to follow curved trajectories. His feet and his head “wanted” to follow slightly different curves, and the discrepancy produced the stretching sensation.
Musing on these facts, Mr. Everard pressed the button to engage his jet pack again to return to his spaceship—and nothing happened. Alarmed, he saw his fuel gauge was at zero, and he was a good (or rather, bad) 100 meters from the safety of his air lock. In fact, he and his triangle of foam were drifting away from his spacecraft at a constant velocity.
Acting quickly, he flung his protractor, laser, can of foam and all the other items on his utility belt directly away from his spacecraft. In accord with the principle of momentum conservation, with each throw he recoiled a little in the opposite direction—toward his ship. He even unharnessed his jet pack and shoved that dead weight away as forcefully as he could. Alas, when he had nothing left to hurl, he found he had done only enough to counteract his initial motion away from the ship. He was now floating motionless with respect to his ship but still far away from it. His situation may have seemed hopeless: his high school physics teacher had impressed on him that it is not possible to accelerate a body without an external force or some kind of mass ejection.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
New Chemical Element In The Periodic Table
The element 112, discovered at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (Centre for Heavy Ion Research) in Darmstadt, has been officially recognized as a new element by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). IUPAC confirmed the recognition of element 112 in an official letter to the head of the discovering team, Professor Sigurd Hofmann. The letter furthermore asks the discoverers to propose a name for the new element.
Their suggestion will be submitted within the next weeks. In about 6 months, after the proposed name has been thoroughly assessed by IUPAC, the element will receive its official name. The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table.
“We are delighted that now the sixth element – and thus all of the elements discovered at GSI during the past 30 years – has been officially recognized. During the next few weeks, the scientists of the discovering team will deliberate on a name for the new element”, says Sigurd Hofmann. 21 scientists from Germany, Finland, Russia and Slovakia were involved in the experiments around the discovery of the new element 112.
Already in 1996, Professor Sigurd Hofmann’s international team created the first atom of element 112 with the accelerator at GSI. In 2002, they were able to produce another atom. Subsequent accelerator experiments at the Japanese RIKEN accelerator facility produced more atoms of element 112, unequivocally confirming GSI’s discovery.
To produce element 112 atoms, scientists accelerate charged zinc atoms – zinc ions for short – with the help of the 120 m long particle accelerator at GSI and “fire” them onto a lead target. The zinc and lead nuclei merge in a nuclear fusion to form the nucleus of the new element. Its so-called atomic number 112, hence the provisional name “element 112”, is the sum of the atomic numbers of the two initial elements: zinc has the atomic number 30 and lead the atomic number 82. An element’s atomic number indicates the number of protons in its nucleus. The neutrons that are also located in the nucleus have no effect on the classification of the element. It is the 112 electrons, which orbit the nucleus, that determine the new element’s chemical properties.
Since 1981, GSI accelerator experiments have yielded the discovery of six chemical elements, which carry the atomic numbers 107 to 112. GSI has already named their officially recognized elements 107 to 111: element 107 is called Bohrium, element 108 Hassium, element 109 Meitnerium, element 110 Darmstadtium, and element 111 is named Roentgenium.
Their suggestion will be submitted within the next weeks. In about 6 months, after the proposed name has been thoroughly assessed by IUPAC, the element will receive its official name. The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table.
“We are delighted that now the sixth element – and thus all of the elements discovered at GSI during the past 30 years – has been officially recognized. During the next few weeks, the scientists of the discovering team will deliberate on a name for the new element”, says Sigurd Hofmann. 21 scientists from Germany, Finland, Russia and Slovakia were involved in the experiments around the discovery of the new element 112.
Already in 1996, Professor Sigurd Hofmann’s international team created the first atom of element 112 with the accelerator at GSI. In 2002, they were able to produce another atom. Subsequent accelerator experiments at the Japanese RIKEN accelerator facility produced more atoms of element 112, unequivocally confirming GSI’s discovery.
To produce element 112 atoms, scientists accelerate charged zinc atoms – zinc ions for short – with the help of the 120 m long particle accelerator at GSI and “fire” them onto a lead target. The zinc and lead nuclei merge in a nuclear fusion to form the nucleus of the new element. Its so-called atomic number 112, hence the provisional name “element 112”, is the sum of the atomic numbers of the two initial elements: zinc has the atomic number 30 and lead the atomic number 82. An element’s atomic number indicates the number of protons in its nucleus. The neutrons that are also located in the nucleus have no effect on the classification of the element. It is the 112 electrons, which orbit the nucleus, that determine the new element’s chemical properties.
Since 1981, GSI accelerator experiments have yielded the discovery of six chemical elements, which carry the atomic numbers 107 to 112. GSI has already named their officially recognized elements 107 to 111: element 107 is called Bohrium, element 108 Hassium, element 109 Meitnerium, element 110 Darmstadtium, and element 111 is named Roentgenium.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Brains of gay men show similarities to those of heterosexual women, study reports
The brains of gay men resemble those of straight women, according to research being published Tuesday that provides more evidence of the role of biology in sexual orientation.
Using brain scanning equipment, researchers said they discovered similarities in the brain circuits that deal with language, perhaps explaining why homosexual men tend to outperform straight men on verbal skills tests -- as do heterosexual women.
The area of the brain that processes emotions also looked very much the same in gay men and straight women -- and both groups have higher rates of depressive disorders than heterosexual men, researchers said.
The study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, found the brain similarities were not as close in the case of gay women and straight men.
Previous studies have found evidence that sexual orientation is hard-wired. More than a decade ago, neurobiologist Simon LeVay reported that a key area of the hypothalamus, a brain structure linked to sexual behavior, was smaller in homosexual men compared to heterosexual men.
The latest study, led by Ivanka Savic of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was significant in that it looked at areas of the brain that have nothing to do with sexual behavior, suggesting there was a basic biological link between sexual orientation and a range of brain functions.
"The question is -- how far does it go?" said Dr. Eric Vilain, who studies human sexual development at UCLA and was not involved in the study. "In gay men, the brain is feminized. Is that limited to particular areas or is the entire brain female-like?"
Vilain said his hunch was the entire brain was not feminized because "gay men have a number of masculine traits that are not present in women."
Savic and colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain volumes of two groups, each divided evenly between men and women: 50 heterosexuals and 40 homosexuals. They knew going into the study that in men the right cerebral hemisphere is largest but in women the left and right hemispheres are of equal size.
The results showed that gay men had symmetrical brains like those of straight women, and homosexual women had slightly asymmetrical brains like those of heterosexual men. Language circuits are thought to be more symmetrical in straight women than in heterosexual men, the report said.
The differences were pronounced. For example, the right cerebral hemisphere in heterosexual men was 624 cubic centimeters -- 12 greater than their left side. In homosexual men, the right hemisphere was 608 cubic centimeters -- 1 cubic centimeter smaller than the left.
In heterosexual women, there was no volume difference between right and left hemispheres. But in homosexual women, their right hemisphere was 5 cubic centimeters larger than the left.
Next, researchers used positron emission topography to measure blood flow in the amygdala, a brain area involved in processing emotions. The wiring of the amygdala in gay men more closely resembled that of straight women than straight men, researchers said. The amygdala of gay women looked more like those of straight men, according to the report.
Savic said she believed the brain differences were forged in the womb or infancy, probably as a result of genetic or hormonal factors. She said she could not explain why the differences were more pronounced in homosexual men than in homosexual women.
Marc Breedlove, a neuroscientist who studies sexual development at Michigan State University, said that in his studies with rats, changes in prenatal levels of testosterone caused the sort of brain alterations Savic observed in her study.
Using brain scanning equipment, researchers said they discovered similarities in the brain circuits that deal with language, perhaps explaining why homosexual men tend to outperform straight men on verbal skills tests -- as do heterosexual women.
The area of the brain that processes emotions also looked very much the same in gay men and straight women -- and both groups have higher rates of depressive disorders than heterosexual men, researchers said.
The study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, found the brain similarities were not as close in the case of gay women and straight men.
Previous studies have found evidence that sexual orientation is hard-wired. More than a decade ago, neurobiologist Simon LeVay reported that a key area of the hypothalamus, a brain structure linked to sexual behavior, was smaller in homosexual men compared to heterosexual men.
The latest study, led by Ivanka Savic of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was significant in that it looked at areas of the brain that have nothing to do with sexual behavior, suggesting there was a basic biological link between sexual orientation and a range of brain functions.
"The question is -- how far does it go?" said Dr. Eric Vilain, who studies human sexual development at UCLA and was not involved in the study. "In gay men, the brain is feminized. Is that limited to particular areas or is the entire brain female-like?"
Vilain said his hunch was the entire brain was not feminized because "gay men have a number of masculine traits that are not present in women."
Savic and colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain volumes of two groups, each divided evenly between men and women: 50 heterosexuals and 40 homosexuals. They knew going into the study that in men the right cerebral hemisphere is largest but in women the left and right hemispheres are of equal size.
The results showed that gay men had symmetrical brains like those of straight women, and homosexual women had slightly asymmetrical brains like those of heterosexual men. Language circuits are thought to be more symmetrical in straight women than in heterosexual men, the report said.
The differences were pronounced. For example, the right cerebral hemisphere in heterosexual men was 624 cubic centimeters -- 12 greater than their left side. In homosexual men, the right hemisphere was 608 cubic centimeters -- 1 cubic centimeter smaller than the left.
In heterosexual women, there was no volume difference between right and left hemispheres. But in homosexual women, their right hemisphere was 5 cubic centimeters larger than the left.
Next, researchers used positron emission topography to measure blood flow in the amygdala, a brain area involved in processing emotions. The wiring of the amygdala in gay men more closely resembled that of straight women than straight men, researchers said. The amygdala of gay women looked more like those of straight men, according to the report.
Savic said she believed the brain differences were forged in the womb or infancy, probably as a result of genetic or hormonal factors. She said she could not explain why the differences were more pronounced in homosexual men than in homosexual women.
Marc Breedlove, a neuroscientist who studies sexual development at Michigan State University, said that in his studies with rats, changes in prenatal levels of testosterone caused the sort of brain alterations Savic observed in her study.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Blondes don't have more fun, survey finds
They have a reputation for having the most fun, but blondes are more likely to have their romantic hopes crushed after a first date, a survey has found.
While a third of first dates in Britain end in "disaster", flaxen-haired hopefuls are a quarter more likely to have their dreams of true loved nipped in the bud than their brunette or red-headed counterparts.
Blondes are apparently the most likely of anyone to have attempted to seduce a first date with reminiscences about an ex, seen their judgement impaired by drinking too much, bed their date at the end of the night, and even forget the name of their would-be paramour.
A total of 1,300 people were surveyed by internet dating firm Parship.co.uk in an attempt to discover why so many first dates ended with both parties vowing never to cross paths again.
Of the 18 million first dates "enjoyed" by Britons every year, as many as 6 million never progress to a second date.
Penny Conway, from the online dating firm, said: "Although it's unlikely a person will behave differently simply because of their hair colour, they may act out of character if they are being treated badly, or according to a stereotype.
"In films blondes are often assumed as being clueless or as having more fun. How we are treated by other people can influence how we behave, so this may explain why blondes are more likely to behave badly compared to brunettes or red heads, or go home with their dates on the first night."
The company found that misguided ideas of alluring behaviour - including turning up late, running away from a partner, getting drunk, and telling their potential partner choice tales about their ex and previous sexual conquests - was responsible for dampening any first flames of passion.
And, according to the survey, most of the eight million people looking for love will never hear from their date again.
Nearly half (48 per cent) of women questioned admitted to turning up late to a first date, with 10 per cent of them keeping their man waiting for over half an hour.
Some 12 per cent of women said they had taken advantage of a date's momentary absence at the bar or loo to flee the scene, and 5 per cent of men and women confessed to arriving at a bar or restaurant, being horrified by what greeted them, and heading for the door.
A total of 28 per cent said they had tried to seduce their date with stories about their ex and previous sexual conquests, 14 per cent admitted getting too drunk to stay in control of themselves, and 6 per cent confessed that they had decided to bring along their mother or pet to meet their potential partner.
And 30 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women admitted to going home with their date, with one in four men (26 per cent) and one in five women (20 per cent) saying they had later bedded them.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
SCIENCE FILE / Q&A - Earth's twin is out there -- somewhere - An astronomer sees signs of parallel planets within our grasp.
For the last 20 years, UC Berkeley astronomer Geoff Marcy has been the world's leading planet finder. Of the 260-odd planets that have been discovered in other solar systems, Marcy and his team have found 150. His most recent discovery, announced last week, is a fifth planet orbiting a star called 55 Cancri, about 41 light-years from Earth. Marcy, 53, sat down in his office to talk about the friendly and not-so-friendly competition to find the first Earth-like planet that could harbor life.
Describe your latest discovery.
This is one of the nearest stars to our sun. It has nearly the same mass as our sun, the same temperature as our sun and the same age. Frankly, what's delightful about it is that we now have five major planets orbiting it. The planets around 55 Cancri have a range of masses, from around 10 Earth masses at the smallest, to the largest, which is around four times as large as Jupiter. It's certainly the largest complement of planets ever found around another star.
Are any of these planets habitable?
This newest planet, No. 5, resides in the habitable zone, about 0.8 Earth-sun distances from its star. So this new planet we've found would be warmed up -- like a face to a campfire -- to lukewarm temperatures, making the water, if any, liquid. Having said that, we suspect that this new planet is made mostly of hydrogen and helium gas. Its mass is about 55 times the mass of Earth. So it probably isn't just a solid rock, like our Earth. Such a big planet with a rocky core and a fluffy gaseous envelope probably can't support life as we know it.
How many planets have you discovered?
My team has discovered 150. The Swiss team is a strong second. In fact, I just got an e-mail from the leader of the team congratulating me on the five planets around 55 Cancri.
So the competition is friendly?
It's a touchy friendship. We laugh about it. But in the true spirit of science we appreciate the competition because we know if we snooze, we will lose the next precious planets that are the next exciting batch to find.
What's the allure of an Earth-like planet?
To find the first Earth was a dream of Aristotle. Even in the religious realm, people have wondered, and still do, whether Earth was uniquely put here. Not to delve into touchy issues, but there's still a large -- how shall I put it -- spiritual question. Is the Earth the center of creation? And we're about to find out whether there are any other Earths out there. The Vatican will be interested. It's no joke. I've gotten two calls from them.
What are the prospects for finding planets farther out?
There are three very exciting missions NASA is planning right now that would advance the search.
The first one is called Kepler. It's a space-borne telescope that will be able to measure the tiniest dimming (caused by a planet crossing in front of the host star), to one part in 100,000, allowing us to detect Earth-like planets.
The goal is to image a huge chunk of the sky around the constellation Cygnus, monitoring 150,000 stars continuously for four years . . . It's scheduled to launch in 2009.
What about the other missions?
The next one NASA is pushing is the Space Interferometry Mission, which is being designed and built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. What SIM will do is find Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around the nearest stars. SIM is going to find the nearest Earth twin a few light-years away.
And the third mission?
The Terrestrial Planet Finder. I listed it third because it's further technologically down the line. We had hopes of launching in 2016, but I think that's not likely. . . . It would take the first pictures of Earth-like planets. Look at our own solar system. Which of the planets is blue? Earth. So if you found another star with a pale-blue dot tooling around that yellow star, that blue color and chemical analysis of the planet might give us a strong suggestion of life.
When do you think we'll see the first Earth-like planet?
I would say within three years we will have the first suggestion of rocky, lukewarm planets. We won't have the spectra. We won't know if there's oxygen. But we will know there's a rocky planet warmed up by its proximity to a campfire, if you will, where water could be liquid.
Say we find an Earth twin, what do we do then?
I know exactly what we do. UC Berkeley, in conjunction with the SETI [Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence] Institute, is building a new radio telescope north of Mt. Lassen in Hat Creek designed to search for radio and television signals from an advanced technological civilization. It's called the Allen Telescope Array.
If the array picks up radio waves, then what do we do?
There is a written protocol for this. Step A is to communicate broadly and uniformly to the world what you think you have found, so that everybody can follow up and double and triple and quadruple check your work. . . .
I would recommend that Step Two be a . . . conference, where all of the nations are represented and we talk about it. The immediate question is what message, if any, to send back.
Remember, any such dialogue will not be lively repartee, because a star 50 light-years away means it takes 50 years to get back to them and 50 years to get back to you, so the jokes will not have quite the timing that they have when Seinfeld is on stage.
Describe your latest discovery.
This is one of the nearest stars to our sun. It has nearly the same mass as our sun, the same temperature as our sun and the same age. Frankly, what's delightful about it is that we now have five major planets orbiting it. The planets around 55 Cancri have a range of masses, from around 10 Earth masses at the smallest, to the largest, which is around four times as large as Jupiter. It's certainly the largest complement of planets ever found around another star.
Are any of these planets habitable?
This newest planet, No. 5, resides in the habitable zone, about 0.8 Earth-sun distances from its star. So this new planet we've found would be warmed up -- like a face to a campfire -- to lukewarm temperatures, making the water, if any, liquid. Having said that, we suspect that this new planet is made mostly of hydrogen and helium gas. Its mass is about 55 times the mass of Earth. So it probably isn't just a solid rock, like our Earth. Such a big planet with a rocky core and a fluffy gaseous envelope probably can't support life as we know it.
How many planets have you discovered?
My team has discovered 150. The Swiss team is a strong second. In fact, I just got an e-mail from the leader of the team congratulating me on the five planets around 55 Cancri.
So the competition is friendly?
It's a touchy friendship. We laugh about it. But in the true spirit of science we appreciate the competition because we know if we snooze, we will lose the next precious planets that are the next exciting batch to find.
What's the allure of an Earth-like planet?
To find the first Earth was a dream of Aristotle. Even in the religious realm, people have wondered, and still do, whether Earth was uniquely put here. Not to delve into touchy issues, but there's still a large -- how shall I put it -- spiritual question. Is the Earth the center of creation? And we're about to find out whether there are any other Earths out there. The Vatican will be interested. It's no joke. I've gotten two calls from them.
What are the prospects for finding planets farther out?
There are three very exciting missions NASA is planning right now that would advance the search.
The first one is called Kepler. It's a space-borne telescope that will be able to measure the tiniest dimming (caused by a planet crossing in front of the host star), to one part in 100,000, allowing us to detect Earth-like planets.
The goal is to image a huge chunk of the sky around the constellation Cygnus, monitoring 150,000 stars continuously for four years . . . It's scheduled to launch in 2009.
What about the other missions?
The next one NASA is pushing is the Space Interferometry Mission, which is being designed and built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. What SIM will do is find Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around the nearest stars. SIM is going to find the nearest Earth twin a few light-years away.
And the third mission?
The Terrestrial Planet Finder. I listed it third because it's further technologically down the line. We had hopes of launching in 2016, but I think that's not likely. . . . It would take the first pictures of Earth-like planets. Look at our own solar system. Which of the planets is blue? Earth. So if you found another star with a pale-blue dot tooling around that yellow star, that blue color and chemical analysis of the planet might give us a strong suggestion of life.
When do you think we'll see the first Earth-like planet?
I would say within three years we will have the first suggestion of rocky, lukewarm planets. We won't have the spectra. We won't know if there's oxygen. But we will know there's a rocky planet warmed up by its proximity to a campfire, if you will, where water could be liquid.
Say we find an Earth twin, what do we do then?
I know exactly what we do. UC Berkeley, in conjunction with the SETI [Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence] Institute, is building a new radio telescope north of Mt. Lassen in Hat Creek designed to search for radio and television signals from an advanced technological civilization. It's called the Allen Telescope Array.
If the array picks up radio waves, then what do we do?
There is a written protocol for this. Step A is to communicate broadly and uniformly to the world what you think you have found, so that everybody can follow up and double and triple and quadruple check your work. . . .
I would recommend that Step Two be a . . . conference, where all of the nations are represented and we talk about it. The immediate question is what message, if any, to send back.
Remember, any such dialogue will not be lively repartee, because a star 50 light-years away means it takes 50 years to get back to them and 50 years to get back to you, so the jokes will not have quite the timing that they have when Seinfeld is on stage.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Scientists discover 'genes that slow ageing process'
Mutations have been found to extend the lifespan of animals in the lab such as worms, fruit flies and mice, and appear to play the same role in humans.
Professor Linda Partridge, director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London, said such research could help treat or delay many diseases simultaneously with medication.
She believes these scientific advances are offering hope to improve health during ageing in humans and inspiring a new wave in ageing research.
So far, "pathways" in the human body along which nutrients pass have proved to have the most robust effect on healthy lifespan.
Prof Partridge, who will present a public lecture at the Royal Society in London on Tuesday, said tackling the very causes of ageing - rather than treating the symptoms "piecemeal" - offers the best prospects for dealing with the diseases.
She said: "Research on the diseases associated with ageing is generally done by separate communities of research workers who read different journals, attend different conferences and generally do not communicate with each other.
"But by tacking the causes of ageing itself we could treat, or at least delay, a broad spectrum of conditions simultaneously."
Prof Partridge said in mammals, insulin regulates blood sugar levels and metabolism in response to food intake, while the related insulin-like growth factor 1 (Igf1) regulates growth.
Mutations in genes that encode the protein components of the insulin and Igf1 signalling pathways have proved to extend lifespan in a nematode worm, the fruit fly and mice, and genetic variants for these genes in humans have proved to be associated with lifespan.
Dietary restriction, which is a simple environmental intervention, can also extend life in a range of animals.
Drugs which inhibit the nutrient pathways in humans could replicate the effects of dietary restriction and act not only to increase healthy lifespan but to target a broad range of ageing related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and Alzheimer's.
Prof Partridge said this research means a new approach to the treatment of age-related conditions.
She added: "The major burden of ill health is in the older section of the population.
"The new discoveries about ageing have raised the prospect of increasing the number of years that people enjoy in good health, with broad-spectrum preventive medicines for the diseases of ageing."
Professor Linda Partridge, director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London, said such research could help treat or delay many diseases simultaneously with medication.
She believes these scientific advances are offering hope to improve health during ageing in humans and inspiring a new wave in ageing research.
So far, "pathways" in the human body along which nutrients pass have proved to have the most robust effect on healthy lifespan.
Prof Partridge, who will present a public lecture at the Royal Society in London on Tuesday, said tackling the very causes of ageing - rather than treating the symptoms "piecemeal" - offers the best prospects for dealing with the diseases.
She said: "Research on the diseases associated with ageing is generally done by separate communities of research workers who read different journals, attend different conferences and generally do not communicate with each other.
"But by tacking the causes of ageing itself we could treat, or at least delay, a broad spectrum of conditions simultaneously."
Prof Partridge said in mammals, insulin regulates blood sugar levels and metabolism in response to food intake, while the related insulin-like growth factor 1 (Igf1) regulates growth.
Mutations in genes that encode the protein components of the insulin and Igf1 signalling pathways have proved to extend lifespan in a nematode worm, the fruit fly and mice, and genetic variants for these genes in humans have proved to be associated with lifespan.
Dietary restriction, which is a simple environmental intervention, can also extend life in a range of animals.
Drugs which inhibit the nutrient pathways in humans could replicate the effects of dietary restriction and act not only to increase healthy lifespan but to target a broad range of ageing related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and Alzheimer's.
Prof Partridge said this research means a new approach to the treatment of age-related conditions.
She added: "The major burden of ill health is in the older section of the population.
"The new discoveries about ageing have raised the prospect of increasing the number of years that people enjoy in good health, with broad-spectrum preventive medicines for the diseases of ageing."
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Small blood pressure monitor is your constant buddy
“She wore rings on her fingers and bells on her toes” is a fashion statement in an old song. Today, a “finger ring” devised by MIT that can be worn on the little finger is more practical, though not quite as fashionable. It functions as part of a blood pressure monitor that communicates with what looks like a mini motherboard strapped to your wrist. This small device enables a patient to wear the device 24 hours a day, collecting continuous readings.
Traditional techniques are more cumbersome and only provide a snapshot of the patient’s condition when taken in a doctor’s office or at home. Such readings can result in false numbers, because patients who are uncomfortable in a medical setting may return higher numbers than if they were relaxed. Routine, periodic self-administered readings at home can show more timely trends, but readings may be inaccurate due to the patient’s inability to perform the test appropriately.
The MIT designed device is important because blood pressure can go up and down like a see saw within minutes. High blood pressure, if you don’t already know from all the pill commercials on TV, is linked to stroke, heart attack, and aneurysm, which is an unpleasant bursting of a blood vessel.
The new continuous monitoring device is in the prototype stage, but may be applied later to other uses, including another potentially life-threatening problem called apnea, which occurs during sleep. Apnea has garnered attention lately because the sleeping person who stops breathing more than just momentarily, may wake up dead.
This project was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation and the Sharp Corporation, and grew out of the Home Automation and Healthcare Consortium, which included MIT faculty members and several companies.
A battery about the size of the one that keeps your watch ticking, keeps the monitor going as it measures how your heart is ticking. As the heart pumps blood, your blood pressure changes. The device measures the resulting pulse at two points along an artery. This method differs from the usual one-site cuff method, and is called pulse wave velocity. The calculated data is transmitted using radio signals or wireless Internet. Your new buddy will allow the doctor to keep closer tabs on your health.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Love spray being developed by scientists
It may not be the most romantic gesture but scientists are developing drugs that can boost that most human of emotions.
They are studying the brain chemistry responsible for the complex feelings that draw us to a particular member of the opposite sex and help keep us monogamous.
Animal testing is beginning to shed light on the complex neural and genetic components of love in the same way they have led to pharmaceutical therapies for anxiety, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorders.
The behavioural scientist Professor Larry Young, of Emory University, Georgia, writing in the journal Nature, said: "For one thing, drugs that manipulate brain systems at whim to enhance or diminish our love for another may not be far away."
Experiments have already shown a nasal squirt of the hormone oxytocin enhances trust and tunes people into others' emotions.
Websites are marketing products such as Enhanced Liquid Trust, a cologne-like mixture of oxytocin and chemical scents called pheromones "designed to boost the dating and relationship area of your life".
Prof Young said: "Although such products are unlikely to do anything other than boost users' confidence, studies are under way in Australia to determine whether an oxytocin spray might aid traditional marital therapy."
Prof Young said: "The hormone interacts with the reward and reinforcement system driven by the neuro-transmitter dopamine – the same circuitry that drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroine act on in humans to produce euphoria and addiction.
"Dopamine-related reward regions of the human brain are active in mothers viewing images of their child. Similar activation patterns are seen in people looking at photographs of their lovers."
They are studying the brain chemistry responsible for the complex feelings that draw us to a particular member of the opposite sex and help keep us monogamous.
Animal testing is beginning to shed light on the complex neural and genetic components of love in the same way they have led to pharmaceutical therapies for anxiety, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorders.
The behavioural scientist Professor Larry Young, of Emory University, Georgia, writing in the journal Nature, said: "For one thing, drugs that manipulate brain systems at whim to enhance or diminish our love for another may not be far away."
Experiments have already shown a nasal squirt of the hormone oxytocin enhances trust and tunes people into others' emotions.
Websites are marketing products such as Enhanced Liquid Trust, a cologne-like mixture of oxytocin and chemical scents called pheromones "designed to boost the dating and relationship area of your life".
Prof Young said: "Although such products are unlikely to do anything other than boost users' confidence, studies are under way in Australia to determine whether an oxytocin spray might aid traditional marital therapy."
Prof Young said: "The hormone interacts with the reward and reinforcement system driven by the neuro-transmitter dopamine – the same circuitry that drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroine act on in humans to produce euphoria and addiction.
"Dopamine-related reward regions of the human brain are active in mothers viewing images of their child. Similar activation patterns are seen in people looking at photographs of their lovers."
Black holes lead galaxy growth, new research shows
Peek into early universe sheds light on cosmic chicken-and-egg problem
Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg problem -- the question of which formed first in the early Universe -- galaxies or the supermassive black holes seen at their cores.
"It looks like the black holes came first. The evidence is piling up," said Chris Carilli, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Carilli outlined the conclusions from recent research done by an international team studying conditions in the first billion years of the Universe's history in a lecture presented to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Long Beach, California.
Earlier studies of galaxies and their central black holes in the nearby Universe revealed an intriguing linkage between the masses of the black holes and of the central "bulges" of stars and gas in the galaxies. The ratio of the black hole and the bulge mass is nearly the same for a wide range of galactic sizes and ages. For central black holes from a few million to many billions of times the mass of our Sun, the black hole's mass is about one one-thousandth of the mass of the surrounding galactic bulge.
"This constant ratio indicates that the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth in some sort of interactive relationship," said Dominik Riechers, of Caltech. "The big question has been whether one grows before the other or if they grow together, maintaining their mass ratio throughout the entire process."
In the past few years, scientists have used the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array radio telescope and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in France to peer far back in the 13.7 billion-year history of the Universe, to the dawn of the first galaxies.
"We finally have been able to measure black-hole and bulge masses in several galaxies seen as they were in the first billion years after the Big Bang, and the evidence suggests that the constant ratio seen nearby may not hold in the early Universe. The black holes in these young galaxies are much more massive compared to the bulges than those seen in the nearby Universe," said Fabian Walter of the Max-Planck Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in Germany.
"The implication is that the black holes started growing first."
The next challenge is to figure out how the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth. "We don't know what mechanism is at work here, and why, at some point in the process, the 'standard' ratio between the masses is established," Riechers said.
New telescopes now under construction will be key tools for unraveling this mystery, Carilli explained. "The Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will give us dramatic improvements in sensitivity and the resolving power to image the gas in these galaxies on the small scales required to make detailed studies of their dynamics," he said.
"To understand how the Universe got to be the way it is today, we must understand how the first stars and galaxies were formed when the Universe was young. With the new observatories we'll have in the next few years, we'll have the opportunity to learn important details from the era when the Universe was only a toddler compared to today's adult," Carilli said.
###
Carilli, Riechers and Walter worked with Frank Bertoldi of Bonn University; Karl Menten of MPIfR; and Pierre Cox and Roberto Neri of the Insitute for Millimeter Radio Astronomy (IRAM) in France.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg problem -- the question of which formed first in the early Universe -- galaxies or the supermassive black holes seen at their cores.
"It looks like the black holes came first. The evidence is piling up," said Chris Carilli, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Carilli outlined the conclusions from recent research done by an international team studying conditions in the first billion years of the Universe's history in a lecture presented to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Long Beach, California.
Earlier studies of galaxies and their central black holes in the nearby Universe revealed an intriguing linkage between the masses of the black holes and of the central "bulges" of stars and gas in the galaxies. The ratio of the black hole and the bulge mass is nearly the same for a wide range of galactic sizes and ages. For central black holes from a few million to many billions of times the mass of our Sun, the black hole's mass is about one one-thousandth of the mass of the surrounding galactic bulge.
"This constant ratio indicates that the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth in some sort of interactive relationship," said Dominik Riechers, of Caltech. "The big question has been whether one grows before the other or if they grow together, maintaining their mass ratio throughout the entire process."
In the past few years, scientists have used the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array radio telescope and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in France to peer far back in the 13.7 billion-year history of the Universe, to the dawn of the first galaxies.
"We finally have been able to measure black-hole and bulge masses in several galaxies seen as they were in the first billion years after the Big Bang, and the evidence suggests that the constant ratio seen nearby may not hold in the early Universe. The black holes in these young galaxies are much more massive compared to the bulges than those seen in the nearby Universe," said Fabian Walter of the Max-Planck Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in Germany.
"The implication is that the black holes started growing first."
The next challenge is to figure out how the black hole and the bulge affect each others' growth. "We don't know what mechanism is at work here, and why, at some point in the process, the 'standard' ratio between the masses is established," Riechers said.
New telescopes now under construction will be key tools for unraveling this mystery, Carilli explained. "The Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will give us dramatic improvements in sensitivity and the resolving power to image the gas in these galaxies on the small scales required to make detailed studies of their dynamics," he said.
"To understand how the Universe got to be the way it is today, we must understand how the first stars and galaxies were formed when the Universe was young. With the new observatories we'll have in the next few years, we'll have the opportunity to learn important details from the era when the Universe was only a toddler compared to today's adult," Carilli said.
###
Carilli, Riechers and Walter worked with Frank Bertoldi of Bonn University; Karl Menten of MPIfR; and Pierre Cox and Roberto Neri of the Insitute for Millimeter Radio Astronomy (IRAM) in France.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
Milky Way and Andromeda will collide sooner than expected
According to the most detailed measurements yet, scientists have discovered that our solar system, the Milky Way, is moving at 600,000mph, 100,000mph faster than originally thought.
The speedier rotation also means its mass must be similar to that of Andromeda, around 270 billion times the mass of the sun.
It means that the gravitational pull the Milky Way exerts on its neighbouring galaxies is stronger, meaning a collision would happen sooner than expected.
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are the two largest in our cosmic neighbourhood, with the former 100,000 light years across, which is still only half the width of the latter.
Our solar system is around 28,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way; Andromeda is around two million light years away.
The research, presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California, argues that the collision will happen around the same time our sun is due to burn up the last of its nuclear fuel, within the next seven billion years.
It is thought rather than planets and stars colliding, the two galaxies will merge to form a new, large galaxy.
Karl Menten, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, and Mark Reid at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Massachusetts used a radio telescope called the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA) to make precise measurements of the Milky Way as it moved through space.
"These measurements are revising our understanding of the structure and motions of our galaxy," said Dr Menten.
Gerry Gilmore, at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University, who was not involved in the study, said: "The galaxies will be dramatically stirred up, but they are very squidgy, so they will stick together and eventually all the stars will die out, and it will become one huge, dead galaxy."
Monday, January 5, 2009
The people on the bus are ... of diverse personalities
Forward-minded people tend to sit at the front of the top deck, according to Dr Tom Fawcett of Salford University, the independent-minded in the middle and those with a rebellious streak at the rear.
He came to his conclusions after watching people on hour-long bus trips between Bolton and Manchester.
His research would appear to indicate that companies which spend large amounts on psychometric tests to ensure they recruit the right people are wasting their money.
All they need to do is jump onto public transport.
Dr Fawcett, a lecturer on mental toughness who has helped train Olympic athletes, said there were definite patterns in people's behaviour depending on where they sat.
He said: "With something as habitual as getting on a bus people may find it surprising that their choice of seat can actually reveal aspects of their personality."
He concluded that bus passengers fell into seven distinct groups.
Those at the front on the top deck are generally forward thinkers and those at the back are rebellious types who do not like their personal space being invaded, he found.
Sitting in the middle are independent thinkers - usually younger to middle-aged passengers more likely to read a newspaper or listen to a personal music player.
On the bottom deck at the front tend to be gregarious meeters-and-greeters while those in the middle are "strong communicators". Travellers who automatically head for the rear downstairs are said to be risk-takers who like to sit on elevated seats because it makes them feel important.
He defined a final group as chameleons - travellers who do not care where they sit because they feel they can fit in anywhere.
He did not say what happened to forward thinkers on a single-decker bus - presumably they wait for a double-decker.
Dr Fawcett said the study was an "observational" one.
He said: "It was carried out as an observational survey - we noted people's body language and whether there was any interaction with other passengers, if they were sociable or withdrawn or even anti-social."
Buses have long been thought of as vehicles for social observation and not only a means of getting from A to B.
The 19th century journalist Walter Bagehot, who edited The Economist, coined the phrase "the bald-headed man at the back of the Clapham omnibus" to describe a normal Londoner.
The phrase was later used in legal cases to describe what a hypothetical, reasonably intelligent, middle-of-the-road person might think.
Later Loelia Ponsonby, the third wife of the Second Duke of Westminster, stigmatised those who have to use them by saying that "a man who, beyond the age of 30, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."
Political legend wrongly attributed the quotation to Lady Thatcher.
Despite the subsequent damage to their reputation, our affection for these mobile communities remains strong, to the exasperation of the likes of motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson.
Boris Johnson's nostalgic election pledge to bring back the traditional Routemaster models in a modern form, and banish Ken Livingstone's bendy-buses "to an airport in Scandivania", arguably helped him become mayor of London.
He came to his conclusions after watching people on hour-long bus trips between Bolton and Manchester.
His research would appear to indicate that companies which spend large amounts on psychometric tests to ensure they recruit the right people are wasting their money.
All they need to do is jump onto public transport.
Dr Fawcett, a lecturer on mental toughness who has helped train Olympic athletes, said there were definite patterns in people's behaviour depending on where they sat.
He said: "With something as habitual as getting on a bus people may find it surprising that their choice of seat can actually reveal aspects of their personality."
He concluded that bus passengers fell into seven distinct groups.
Those at the front on the top deck are generally forward thinkers and those at the back are rebellious types who do not like their personal space being invaded, he found.
Sitting in the middle are independent thinkers - usually younger to middle-aged passengers more likely to read a newspaper or listen to a personal music player.
On the bottom deck at the front tend to be gregarious meeters-and-greeters while those in the middle are "strong communicators". Travellers who automatically head for the rear downstairs are said to be risk-takers who like to sit on elevated seats because it makes them feel important.
He defined a final group as chameleons - travellers who do not care where they sit because they feel they can fit in anywhere.
He did not say what happened to forward thinkers on a single-decker bus - presumably they wait for a double-decker.
Dr Fawcett said the study was an "observational" one.
He said: "It was carried out as an observational survey - we noted people's body language and whether there was any interaction with other passengers, if they were sociable or withdrawn or even anti-social."
Buses have long been thought of as vehicles for social observation and not only a means of getting from A to B.
The 19th century journalist Walter Bagehot, who edited The Economist, coined the phrase "the bald-headed man at the back of the Clapham omnibus" to describe a normal Londoner.
The phrase was later used in legal cases to describe what a hypothetical, reasonably intelligent, middle-of-the-road person might think.
Later Loelia Ponsonby, the third wife of the Second Duke of Westminster, stigmatised those who have to use them by saying that "a man who, beyond the age of 30, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."
Political legend wrongly attributed the quotation to Lady Thatcher.
Despite the subsequent damage to their reputation, our affection for these mobile communities remains strong, to the exasperation of the likes of motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson.
Boris Johnson's nostalgic election pledge to bring back the traditional Routemaster models in a modern form, and banish Ken Livingstone's bendy-buses "to an airport in Scandivania", arguably helped him become mayor of London.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Scientists discover gene that explains why naughty children are popular
Researchers found that people find those who are more likely to break the rules more likeable, even after meeting them for just a short time.
They found that the people who achieve popularity by defying authority all tend to carry a specific "rebel" gene.
The findings could explain how Just William inspired the devotion of his bunch of Outlaws in the famous novels and why children labelled "teachers' pets" have traditionally attracted the attention of bullies.
"The idea is that your genes predispose you to certain behaviours and those behaviours elicit different kinds of social reactions from others," said Alexandra Burt, assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University.
"And so what's happening is, your genes are to some extent driving your social experiences.
"So the gene predisposes (people) to rule-breaking behaviour and their rule-breaking behaviour made them more popular," Burt said.
Rule breakers tended to be on the less serious side of the rebellious scale, according to the research.
Typical behaviour might include heavy drinking, lying, dangerous driving or using drugs.
However, it was not usually associated with more extreme anti-social behaviour, such as violence or intimidation.
Studies estimate that between 40 and 60 per cent of the population carry the variation of the gene linked to rebellious behaviour.
For the study, researchers gathered 100 male college students who had never met before in a laboratory and got them to interact with each other in groups.
All of the students also had their DNA tested using a saliva swab.
Asked to fill in a questionnaire about who they liked the most, those with the "rebel" gene came out top.
A second experiment involving another 100 college students found the same result, according to the study, the findings of which are published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The gene itself is a particular form of a serotonin gene, a chemical in the brain which has been linked to the control of emotions and mood.
However, the researchers are unsure whether boys react more positively than girls to rebels.
They plan to repeat the experiment with female students to test if they too prefer a maverick.
They found that the people who achieve popularity by defying authority all tend to carry a specific "rebel" gene.
The findings could explain how Just William inspired the devotion of his bunch of Outlaws in the famous novels and why children labelled "teachers' pets" have traditionally attracted the attention of bullies.
"The idea is that your genes predispose you to certain behaviours and those behaviours elicit different kinds of social reactions from others," said Alexandra Burt, assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University.
"And so what's happening is, your genes are to some extent driving your social experiences.
"So the gene predisposes (people) to rule-breaking behaviour and their rule-breaking behaviour made them more popular," Burt said.
Rule breakers tended to be on the less serious side of the rebellious scale, according to the research.
Typical behaviour might include heavy drinking, lying, dangerous driving or using drugs.
However, it was not usually associated with more extreme anti-social behaviour, such as violence or intimidation.
Studies estimate that between 40 and 60 per cent of the population carry the variation of the gene linked to rebellious behaviour.
For the study, researchers gathered 100 male college students who had never met before in a laboratory and got them to interact with each other in groups.
All of the students also had their DNA tested using a saliva swab.
Asked to fill in a questionnaire about who they liked the most, those with the "rebel" gene came out top.
A second experiment involving another 100 college students found the same result, according to the study, the findings of which are published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The gene itself is a particular form of a serotonin gene, a chemical in the brain which has been linked to the control of emotions and mood.
However, the researchers are unsure whether boys react more positively than girls to rebels.
They plan to repeat the experiment with female students to test if they too prefer a maverick.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Shocking revelation: Santa Clara University professor mirrors famous torture study
Replicating one of the most controversial behavioral experiments in history, a Santa Clara University psychologist has found that people will follow orders from an authority figure to administer what they believe are painful electric shocks.
More than two-thirds of volunteers in the research study had to be stopped from administering 150 volt shocks of electricity, despite hearing a person's cries of pain, professor Jerry M. Burger concluded in a study published in the January issue of the journal American Psychologist.
"In a dramatic way, it illustrates that under certain circumstances people will act in very surprising and disturbing ways,'' said Burger.
The study, using paid volunteers from the South Bay, is similar to the famous 1974 "obedience study'' by the late Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the wake of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann's trial, Milgram was troubled by the willingness of people to obey authorities — even if it conflicted with their own conscience.
Burger's findings are published in a special section of the journal reflecting on Milgram's work 24 years after his death on Dec. 20, 1984. The haunting images of average people administering shocks have kept memories of Milgram's research alive for decades, even as recently as the Abu Ghraib scandal.
The subjects — recruited in ads in the Mercury News, Craigslist and fliers distributed in libraries and communities centers in Santa
Clara, Cupertino and Sunnyvale — thought they were testing the effect of punishment on learning.
"They were average citizens, a typical cross-section of people that you'd see around every day,'' said Burger.
In the study, conducted two years ago, volunteers administered what they believed were increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person in a separate room. An "authority figure'' prodded the volunteer to shock another person, who was playing the role of "learner." Each time the learner gave an incorrect answer, the volunteer was urged to press a switch, seemingly increasing the electricity over time. They were told that the shocks were painful but not dangerous.
Burger designed his study to avoid several of the most controversial elements of Milgram's experiment. For instance, the "shocks'' were lower voltage. And participants were told at least three times that they could withdraw from the study at any time and still receive the $50 payment. In addition, a clinical psychologist interviewed volunteers to eliminate anyone who might be upset by the study procedure.
Like Milgram's study, Burger's shock generator machine was a fake. The cries of pain weren't real, either. Both the authority figure and the learner were actors — faculty members Brian Oliveira and Kenneth Courtney.
Burger found that 70 percent of the participants had to be stopped from escalating shocks over 150 volts, despite hearing cries of protest and pain. Decades earlier, Milgram found that 82.5 percent of participants continued administering shocks. Of those, 79 percent continued to the shock generator's end, at 450 volts.
Burger's experiment did not go that far.
"The conclusion is not: 'Gosh isn't this a horrible commentary on human nature,' or 'these people were so sadistic,'' said Burger.
"It shows the opposite — that there are situational forces that have a much greater impact on our behavior than most people recognize,'' he said.
The experiment shows that people are more likely to comply with instructions if the task starts small, then escalates, according to Burger.
"For instance, the suicides at Jonestown were just the last step of many,'' he said. "Jim Jones started small, asking people to donate time and money, then looked for more and more commitment.''
Additionally, the volunteers confronted a novel situation — having never before been in such a setting, they had no idea of how they were supposed to act, he said.
Finally, they had been told that they should not feel responsible for inflicting pain; rather, the "instructor" was accountable. "Lack of feeling responsible can lead people to act in ways that they might otherwise not,'' said Burger.
"When we see people acting out of character, the first thing we should ask is: 'What's going on in this situation?'''
More than two-thirds of volunteers in the research study had to be stopped from administering 150 volt shocks of electricity, despite hearing a person's cries of pain, professor Jerry M. Burger concluded in a study published in the January issue of the journal American Psychologist.
"In a dramatic way, it illustrates that under certain circumstances people will act in very surprising and disturbing ways,'' said Burger.
The study, using paid volunteers from the South Bay, is similar to the famous 1974 "obedience study'' by the late Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the wake of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann's trial, Milgram was troubled by the willingness of people to obey authorities — even if it conflicted with their own conscience.
Burger's findings are published in a special section of the journal reflecting on Milgram's work 24 years after his death on Dec. 20, 1984. The haunting images of average people administering shocks have kept memories of Milgram's research alive for decades, even as recently as the Abu Ghraib scandal.
The subjects — recruited in ads in the Mercury News, Craigslist and fliers distributed in libraries and communities centers in Santa
Clara, Cupertino and Sunnyvale — thought they were testing the effect of punishment on learning.
"They were average citizens, a typical cross-section of people that you'd see around every day,'' said Burger.
In the study, conducted two years ago, volunteers administered what they believed were increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person in a separate room. An "authority figure'' prodded the volunteer to shock another person, who was playing the role of "learner." Each time the learner gave an incorrect answer, the volunteer was urged to press a switch, seemingly increasing the electricity over time. They were told that the shocks were painful but not dangerous.
Burger designed his study to avoid several of the most controversial elements of Milgram's experiment. For instance, the "shocks'' were lower voltage. And participants were told at least three times that they could withdraw from the study at any time and still receive the $50 payment. In addition, a clinical psychologist interviewed volunteers to eliminate anyone who might be upset by the study procedure.
Like Milgram's study, Burger's shock generator machine was a fake. The cries of pain weren't real, either. Both the authority figure and the learner were actors — faculty members Brian Oliveira and Kenneth Courtney.
Burger found that 70 percent of the participants had to be stopped from escalating shocks over 150 volts, despite hearing cries of protest and pain. Decades earlier, Milgram found that 82.5 percent of participants continued administering shocks. Of those, 79 percent continued to the shock generator's end, at 450 volts.
Burger's experiment did not go that far.
"The conclusion is not: 'Gosh isn't this a horrible commentary on human nature,' or 'these people were so sadistic,'' said Burger.
"It shows the opposite — that there are situational forces that have a much greater impact on our behavior than most people recognize,'' he said.
The experiment shows that people are more likely to comply with instructions if the task starts small, then escalates, according to Burger.
"For instance, the suicides at Jonestown were just the last step of many,'' he said. "Jim Jones started small, asking people to donate time and money, then looked for more and more commitment.''
Additionally, the volunteers confronted a novel situation — having never before been in such a setting, they had no idea of how they were supposed to act, he said.
Finally, they had been told that they should not feel responsible for inflicting pain; rather, the "instructor" was accountable. "Lack of feeling responsible can lead people to act in ways that they might otherwise not,'' said Burger.
"When we see people acting out of character, the first thing we should ask is: 'What's going on in this situation?'''
Amino acid good for sex, helps trees too
UMEA, Sweden, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Swedish researchers have found that an amino acid that aids sexual performance in men also helps spruce trees develop stronger root systems.
A team led by Torgny Nasholm, a forestry professor at the Swedish University of the Agricultural Sciences, created a fertilizer laced with arginine, Vasterbotten-Kurrien reported. The amino acid improves sperm production and blood circulation in the genital area.
Nasholm found that trees given the fertilizer had stronger root systems. As an additional environmental benefit, the trees were able to draw nitrogen more effectively, allowing less nitrogen fertilizer to be used.
A team led by Torgny Nasholm, a forestry professor at the Swedish University of the Agricultural Sciences, created a fertilizer laced with arginine, Vasterbotten-Kurrien reported. The amino acid improves sperm production and blood circulation in the genital area.
Nasholm found that trees given the fertilizer had stronger root systems. As an additional environmental benefit, the trees were able to draw nitrogen more effectively, allowing less nitrogen fertilizer to be used.
Solstice Science: Why Winter Starts Dec. 21
While snow marks the beginning of winter for many people, the first official day of winter is Sunday, Dec. 21, known as the December solstice.
It's a point in time that marks a transition in our planet's annual trip around the sun.
The sun comes up each day because Earth rotates once on its axis every 24 hours or so. Seasons, and the arrival of the solstice, are a result of Earth being tilted 23.5 degrees on its spin axis coupled with the planet's 365-day orbit around the sun.
Imagine Earth as an apple sitting on one side of a table, with the stem being the North Pole. Tilt the apple 23.5 degrees so the stem points toward a candle (the sun) at the center of the table. That's summer for the top half of the apple.
Keep the stem pointing in the same direction but move the apple to the other side of the table: Now the stem points away from the candle, and it's winter on the top half of the fruit. The very top of the apple, representing the north polar region, is in total darkness 24 hours a day.
At winter solstice, the sun arcs low across the Northern Hemisphere sky for those of us below the Arctic Circle, and the stretch of daylight is at its shortest. At the June solstice, the sun gets as high in our sky as it can go, yielding the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
As long ago as the fourth century B.C., ancient peoples in the Americas understood enough of this that they could create giant calendars driven by sunlight. They built observatories of stone to mark the solstices and other times important for planting or harvesting crops. Shrines and even tombs were also designed with the sun in mind.
It's a point in time that marks a transition in our planet's annual trip around the sun.
The sun comes up each day because Earth rotates once on its axis every 24 hours or so. Seasons, and the arrival of the solstice, are a result of Earth being tilted 23.5 degrees on its spin axis coupled with the planet's 365-day orbit around the sun.
Imagine Earth as an apple sitting on one side of a table, with the stem being the North Pole. Tilt the apple 23.5 degrees so the stem points toward a candle (the sun) at the center of the table. That's summer for the top half of the apple.
Keep the stem pointing in the same direction but move the apple to the other side of the table: Now the stem points away from the candle, and it's winter on the top half of the fruit. The very top of the apple, representing the north polar region, is in total darkness 24 hours a day.
At winter solstice, the sun arcs low across the Northern Hemisphere sky for those of us below the Arctic Circle, and the stretch of daylight is at its shortest. At the June solstice, the sun gets as high in our sky as it can go, yielding the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
As long ago as the fourth century B.C., ancient peoples in the Americas understood enough of this that they could create giant calendars driven by sunlight. They built observatories of stone to mark the solstices and other times important for planting or harvesting crops. Shrines and even tombs were also designed with the sun in mind.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Cal Scientist: Jupiter Core 2X as Big as Thought
Jupiter has a rocky core that is more than twice as large as previously thought, according to computer calculations by UC Berkeley and University of Arizona scientists.
Burkhard Militzer, an assistant professor of astronomy and earth and planetary science at Cal, simulated conditions inside the planet on the scale of individual hydrogen and helium atoms.
The simulation predicted the properties of hydrogen and helium for temperature, density and pressure at the surface, all the way to the planet's center. The technique is often used to study semi-conductors, according to a UC Berkeley statement on the discovery.
Militzer's partner, William B. Hubbard, from the University of Arizona, used the data to build the new model for Jupiter's interior.
A comparison of the model with the planet's current known mass, radius, surface temperature, gravity and equatorial bulge implies that Jupiter's core is an Earth-like rock 14 to 18 times the mass of Earth, or about one-twentieth of Jupiter's total mass, Militzer said.
Previous models predicted a much smaller core of only 7 Earth masses, or no core at all.
Jupiter, like many planets its size already discovered throughout the galaxy, is believed to be a failed star. Most of the planet's mass is made up of gas.
The results were published Nov. 20 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The simulation suggests that the core is made of layers of metals, rocks and ices of methane, ammonia and water, while above it is an atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium.
At the center of the rocky core is probably a metallic ball of iron and nickel, just like Earth's core, scientists said.
"Our simulations show there is a big rocky object in the center surrounded by an ice layer and hardly any ice elsewhere in the planet," Militzer said. "This is a very different result for the interior structure of Jupiter than other recent models, which predict a relatively small or hardly any core and a mixture of ices throughout the atmosphere."
"Basically, Jupiter's interior resembles that of Saturn, with a Neptune or Uranus at the center," he said.
Neptune and Uranus have been called "ice giants" because they also appear to have a rocky core surrounded by icy hydrogen and helium, but without the gas envelope of Jupiter and Saturn.
"This new calculation by Burkhard removes a lot of the old uncertainties of the 19-year-old model we have had until now," Hubbard said. "The new thermodynamic model is a more precise physical description of what's going on inside Jupiter."
Scientists said the large, rocky core implies that as Jupiter and other giant gas planets formed 4.5 billion years ago, they grew through the collision of small rocks. The rocks formed cores that captured a huge atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
"According to the core accretion model, as the original planetary nebula cooled, planetesimals collided and stuck together in a runaway effect that formed planet cores," Militzer said. "If true, this implies that the planets have large cores, which is what the simulation predicts. It is more difficult to make a planet with a small core."
In order to match the observed gravity of Jupiter, Militzer's simulation also predicts that different parts of Jupiter's interior rotate at different rates.
Jupiter can be thought of as a series of concentric cylinders rotating around the planet's spin axis, with the outer cylinders - the equatorial regions - rotating faster than the inner cylinders. This is identical to the sun's rotation, Militzer said.
How They Did It …
Militzer modeled Jupiter's interior as a collection of 110 hydrogen and nine helium atoms in a tiny cube that is replicated throughout the planet, a common approximation in "density functional theory."
The ratio of hydrogen to helium atoms approximates the ratio measured on the surface of Jupiter.
Each simulation took from one to seven days on parallel computing clusters.
Based on this simulation, under the high pressure and temperature deep within the planet, hydrogen changes from a molecular to a metallic state, which provides good electrical conductivity and gives rise to Jupiter's magnetic field.
This transition happens gradually, contrary to earlier models that predict a sharp transition.
The new model of Jupiter predicts that most of the ices are concentrated in the outer layer of the core, while only a small amount is mixed in the hydrogen-helium gas envelope that contains 95 percent of the planet's mass.
The "planetary ices" in the envelope amount to about four Earth masses, or 1 percent of Jupiter's mass, Militzer said.
"The simulation was in pretty good agreement with what the Galileo probe measured" when the NASA spacecraft descended through Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995, Hubbard said.
Militzer plans to use the new model to simulate other planets' interiors, and to investigate the implications for the formation of planets outside our solar system.
Future data from NASA's Juno mission, to be launched in 2011, orbit Jupiter by 2016 and measure the planet's magnetic field and gravity, will provide a check on Militzer's predictions. Hubbard is one of the mission's co-investigators.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation supported the research.
Burkhard Militzer, an assistant professor of astronomy and earth and planetary science at Cal, simulated conditions inside the planet on the scale of individual hydrogen and helium atoms.
The simulation predicted the properties of hydrogen and helium for temperature, density and pressure at the surface, all the way to the planet's center. The technique is often used to study semi-conductors, according to a UC Berkeley statement on the discovery.
Militzer's partner, William B. Hubbard, from the University of Arizona, used the data to build the new model for Jupiter's interior.
A comparison of the model with the planet's current known mass, radius, surface temperature, gravity and equatorial bulge implies that Jupiter's core is an Earth-like rock 14 to 18 times the mass of Earth, or about one-twentieth of Jupiter's total mass, Militzer said.
Previous models predicted a much smaller core of only 7 Earth masses, or no core at all.
Jupiter, like many planets its size already discovered throughout the galaxy, is believed to be a failed star. Most of the planet's mass is made up of gas.
The results were published Nov. 20 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The simulation suggests that the core is made of layers of metals, rocks and ices of methane, ammonia and water, while above it is an atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium.
At the center of the rocky core is probably a metallic ball of iron and nickel, just like Earth's core, scientists said.
"Our simulations show there is a big rocky object in the center surrounded by an ice layer and hardly any ice elsewhere in the planet," Militzer said. "This is a very different result for the interior structure of Jupiter than other recent models, which predict a relatively small or hardly any core and a mixture of ices throughout the atmosphere."
"Basically, Jupiter's interior resembles that of Saturn, with a Neptune or Uranus at the center," he said.
Neptune and Uranus have been called "ice giants" because they also appear to have a rocky core surrounded by icy hydrogen and helium, but without the gas envelope of Jupiter and Saturn.
"This new calculation by Burkhard removes a lot of the old uncertainties of the 19-year-old model we have had until now," Hubbard said. "The new thermodynamic model is a more precise physical description of what's going on inside Jupiter."
Scientists said the large, rocky core implies that as Jupiter and other giant gas planets formed 4.5 billion years ago, they grew through the collision of small rocks. The rocks formed cores that captured a huge atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
"According to the core accretion model, as the original planetary nebula cooled, planetesimals collided and stuck together in a runaway effect that formed planet cores," Militzer said. "If true, this implies that the planets have large cores, which is what the simulation predicts. It is more difficult to make a planet with a small core."
In order to match the observed gravity of Jupiter, Militzer's simulation also predicts that different parts of Jupiter's interior rotate at different rates.
Jupiter can be thought of as a series of concentric cylinders rotating around the planet's spin axis, with the outer cylinders - the equatorial regions - rotating faster than the inner cylinders. This is identical to the sun's rotation, Militzer said.
How They Did It …
Militzer modeled Jupiter's interior as a collection of 110 hydrogen and nine helium atoms in a tiny cube that is replicated throughout the planet, a common approximation in "density functional theory."
The ratio of hydrogen to helium atoms approximates the ratio measured on the surface of Jupiter.
Each simulation took from one to seven days on parallel computing clusters.
Based on this simulation, under the high pressure and temperature deep within the planet, hydrogen changes from a molecular to a metallic state, which provides good electrical conductivity and gives rise to Jupiter's magnetic field.
This transition happens gradually, contrary to earlier models that predict a sharp transition.
The new model of Jupiter predicts that most of the ices are concentrated in the outer layer of the core, while only a small amount is mixed in the hydrogen-helium gas envelope that contains 95 percent of the planet's mass.
The "planetary ices" in the envelope amount to about four Earth masses, or 1 percent of Jupiter's mass, Militzer said.
"The simulation was in pretty good agreement with what the Galileo probe measured" when the NASA spacecraft descended through Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995, Hubbard said.
Militzer plans to use the new model to simulate other planets' interiors, and to investigate the implications for the formation of planets outside our solar system.
Future data from NASA's Juno mission, to be launched in 2011, orbit Jupiter by 2016 and measure the planet's magnetic field and gravity, will provide a check on Militzer's predictions. Hubbard is one of the mission's co-investigators.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation supported the research.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein's proven right
PARIS (AFP) – It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.
A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.
According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.
The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?
The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.
In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.
The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.
By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times, most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.
But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles -- in equations called quantum chromodynamics -- has been fiendishly difficult.
"Until now, this has been a hypothesis," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.
"It has now been corroborated for the first time."
For those keen to know more: the computations involve "envisioning space and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows."
A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.
According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.
The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?
The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.
In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.
The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.
By showing how much energy would be released if a certain amount of mass were to be converted into energy, the equation has been used many times, most famously as the inspirational basis for building atomic weapons.
But resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles -- in equations called quantum chromodynamics -- has been fiendishly difficult.
"Until now, this has been a hypothesis," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said proudly in a press release.
"It has now been corroborated for the first time."
For those keen to know more: the computations involve "envisioning space and time as part of a four-dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows."
Thursday, November 20, 2008
US teen lives 118 days without heart
MIAMI, Nov 19 (Reuters) - An American teen-ager survived for nearly four months without a heart, kept alive by a custom-built artificial blood-pumping device, until she was able to have a heart transplant, doctors in Miami said on Wednesday.
The doctors said they knew of another case in which an adult had been kept alive in Germany for nine months without a heart but said they believed this was the first time a child had survived in this manner for so long.
The patient, D'Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was "scary."
"You never knew when it would malfunction," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, at a news conference at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.
"It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here," she said of living without a heart.
Simmons, 14, suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the patient's heart becomes weakened and enlarged and does not pump blood efficiently.
She had a heart transplant on July 2 at Miami's Holtz Children's Hospital but the new heart failed to function properly and was quickly removed.
Two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp (THOR.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) of Pleasanton, California, were implanted to keep her blood flowing while she fought a host of ailments and recovered her strength. Doctors implanted another heart on Oct. 29.
"She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps," said Dr. Marco Ricci, the hospital's director of pediatric cardiac surgery. During that time, Simmons was mobile but remained hospitalized.
When an artificial heart is used to sustain a patient, the patient's own heart is usually left in the body, doctors said.
In some cases, adult patients have been kept alive that way for more than a year, they said.
"This, we believe, is the first pediatric patient who has received such a device in this configuration without the heart, and possibly one of the youngest that has ... been bridged to transplantation without her native heart," Ricci said.
Simmons also suffered renal failure and had a kidney transplant the day after the second heart transplant.
Ricci said her prognosis was good. But doctors said there is a 50 percent chance that a heart transplant patient will need a new heart 12 or 13 years after the first surgery.
The doctors said they knew of another case in which an adult had been kept alive in Germany for nine months without a heart but said they believed this was the first time a child had survived in this manner for so long.
The patient, D'Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was "scary."
"You never knew when it would malfunction," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, at a news conference at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.
"It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here," she said of living without a heart.
Simmons, 14, suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the patient's heart becomes weakened and enlarged and does not pump blood efficiently.
She had a heart transplant on July 2 at Miami's Holtz Children's Hospital but the new heart failed to function properly and was quickly removed.
Two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp (THOR.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) of Pleasanton, California, were implanted to keep her blood flowing while she fought a host of ailments and recovered her strength. Doctors implanted another heart on Oct. 29.
"She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps," said Dr. Marco Ricci, the hospital's director of pediatric cardiac surgery. During that time, Simmons was mobile but remained hospitalized.
When an artificial heart is used to sustain a patient, the patient's own heart is usually left in the body, doctors said.
In some cases, adult patients have been kept alive that way for more than a year, they said.
"This, we believe, is the first pediatric patient who has received such a device in this configuration without the heart, and possibly one of the youngest that has ... been bridged to transplantation without her native heart," Ricci said.
Simmons also suffered renal failure and had a kidney transplant the day after the second heart transplant.
Ricci said her prognosis was good. But doctors said there is a 50 percent chance that a heart transplant patient will need a new heart 12 or 13 years after the first surgery.
Monday, November 17, 2008
As Finland Builds Another Nuclear Plant, a Remote City Flourishes
RAUMA, Finland — The cafe where Paivi Alanko-Rehelma serves coffee and smoked fish stands practically in the shadow of a sprawling building site on the island of Olkiluoto where Finland is erecting a nuclear power plant, the island’s third, and Finland’s fifth in the last 30 years.
Like many of her neighbors who have grown accustomed to nuclear energy, Ms. Alanko-Rehelma picks no bones with the new reactor. “It’s now safe, it saves nature, it’s cheaper,” she said, pouring a visitor a steaming cup of coffee.
No one is certain when the plant, which has been plagued by construction delays, will be finished. But whenever it does go into operation, the reactor will be a new cog in the works of Finland’s national energy policy, which seeks to diversify the country’s sources of energy and reduce its historical reliance on Russia for cheap electricity.
The plant is also part of a global trend, as nuclear power’s prospects rise amid concerns about the warming effect of carbon dioxide emissions to generate electricity.
The Finns are going first class, building what is called a European Pressurized Reactor, the world’s latest model, which is billed as the safest and most powerful nuclear reactor ever designed. It is the product of a consortium of French and German engineering companies.
It is not as if anyone around this wooded region a three-hour drive northwest of Helsinki is marching in protest, spraying antinuclear graffiti or hampering construction work. To the contrary, the construction of the power plant is producing a modest economic boom.
Take this port city of pastel-colored wooden homes about 10 miles south of Olkiluoto. The nearly 4,000 migrant laborers from more than 30 countries, including Poland and Estonia, working at the new power plant have lifted business in stores in downtown Rauma and made possible the opening last year of two new shopping malls on the edge of town.
Local building contractors have been buoyed by orders to carry out some of the reactor work. Moreover, taxes paid by the migrant workers and French and German engineers who have come to the city bring in more than $2.5 million a year.
“A journalist called recently from Helsinki to ask how much longer we can delay completion of the reactor,” Jaakko Hirvonsalo, managing director of the local chamber of commerce, said with a laugh. “Locally, we’re doing well.”
The delays, however, were no joke; parts of the huge reactor shield, now about 90 feet high, had to be dismantled and rebuilt because of faulty welding and poor cement work. The Finns blame the delays on the French reactor builder, Areva, which subcontracted work to Polish companies to cut costs.
The French and their German partners blame the Finns for the delays, pointing to the glacial pace of construction reviews by the Finnish nuclear safety authority. Wherever the blame truly lies, the reactor’s start-up date has been pushed back by at least two years, to 2011, and the estimated cost increased to nearly $6 billion from an original $3.8 billion.
Now, the French are seeking the help of a Swedish arbitrator to settle their differences with the Finns. As for the delay, “It’s not a race,” said Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, a spokesman for Areva in Paris. “Don’t forget, it will operate for 60 years.”
Yet he acknowledged that, in some ways, Olkiluoto was a test, since it was the first attempt to build a pressurized water reactor. “It’s the first of its kind,” he said. “You cannot go into a hangar and make a model to test. And yet you have to have a test.”
Beneath the surface, people in Rauma are weighing the costs and benefits. And not all are happy with the result.
“As long as everything is O.K., it’s O.K., but there are problems and risks,” said Janne Koski, director of the city’s art museum, which sponsors regular exhibitions of art from the Baltic region. Asked whether people ignored the risks because of the benefits, he replied: “That is not exactly so. Of course, many people are working there, at the reactor site. It’s about economy and finance.”
Not that Rauma is in dire need of economic stimulus. The city has a thriving shipbuilding industry and paper mills, and several large wood processing companies, a Finnish specialty, have factories here. Large foreign investments have been attracted in recent years from South Korea and Australia.
Rauma has never had an accident like that at Chernobyl, almost 900 miles to the southeast in Northern Ukraine, but even people who are most comfortable with nuclear reactors acknowledge that they affect the environment.
Ms. Alanko-Rehelma, whose husband operates two fishing boats in the waters around the reactors, said that their cooling systems warm the water near Olkiluoto island.
“That is not good for some kinds of fish,” she said. “But good for others, like trout.”
The only large-scale resistance to nuclear energy in Finland comes from Greenpeace, which cites the hazard of radioactivity and the siphoning of money from investment in alternative carbon-free energy sources, like wind, sun and tides.
“It’s far too risky and hazardous,” Lauri Myllyvirta, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said by phone from Helsinki.
The United Nations lists Rauma as a World Heritage site because of its large stock of charming 17th- and 18th-century wooden homes. The World Heritage designation is meant to help preserve historic sites, though income from tourism remains meager, Mr. Miettinen said.
“It’s mostly Finns, and some from Germany and Italy,” he said. But he did not think it was the cluster of nuclear power plants that was keeping people away. “A great many people think nuclear energy is good for Rauma and its industry,” he said.
The first nuclear reactors at Olkiluoto are now about 30 years old, said Pasi Katajamaki, editor of the local newspaper, Lansi Suomi. “We’re very used to it,” he said. ‘’When you have something near you, you simply grow accustomed to it.”
Like many of her neighbors who have grown accustomed to nuclear energy, Ms. Alanko-Rehelma picks no bones with the new reactor. “It’s now safe, it saves nature, it’s cheaper,” she said, pouring a visitor a steaming cup of coffee.
No one is certain when the plant, which has been plagued by construction delays, will be finished. But whenever it does go into operation, the reactor will be a new cog in the works of Finland’s national energy policy, which seeks to diversify the country’s sources of energy and reduce its historical reliance on Russia for cheap electricity.
The plant is also part of a global trend, as nuclear power’s prospects rise amid concerns about the warming effect of carbon dioxide emissions to generate electricity.
The Finns are going first class, building what is called a European Pressurized Reactor, the world’s latest model, which is billed as the safest and most powerful nuclear reactor ever designed. It is the product of a consortium of French and German engineering companies.
It is not as if anyone around this wooded region a three-hour drive northwest of Helsinki is marching in protest, spraying antinuclear graffiti or hampering construction work. To the contrary, the construction of the power plant is producing a modest economic boom.
Take this port city of pastel-colored wooden homes about 10 miles south of Olkiluoto. The nearly 4,000 migrant laborers from more than 30 countries, including Poland and Estonia, working at the new power plant have lifted business in stores in downtown Rauma and made possible the opening last year of two new shopping malls on the edge of town.
Local building contractors have been buoyed by orders to carry out some of the reactor work. Moreover, taxes paid by the migrant workers and French and German engineers who have come to the city bring in more than $2.5 million a year.
“A journalist called recently from Helsinki to ask how much longer we can delay completion of the reactor,” Jaakko Hirvonsalo, managing director of the local chamber of commerce, said with a laugh. “Locally, we’re doing well.”
The delays, however, were no joke; parts of the huge reactor shield, now about 90 feet high, had to be dismantled and rebuilt because of faulty welding and poor cement work. The Finns blame the delays on the French reactor builder, Areva, which subcontracted work to Polish companies to cut costs.
The French and their German partners blame the Finns for the delays, pointing to the glacial pace of construction reviews by the Finnish nuclear safety authority. Wherever the blame truly lies, the reactor’s start-up date has been pushed back by at least two years, to 2011, and the estimated cost increased to nearly $6 billion from an original $3.8 billion.
Now, the French are seeking the help of a Swedish arbitrator to settle their differences with the Finns. As for the delay, “It’s not a race,” said Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, a spokesman for Areva in Paris. “Don’t forget, it will operate for 60 years.”
Yet he acknowledged that, in some ways, Olkiluoto was a test, since it was the first attempt to build a pressurized water reactor. “It’s the first of its kind,” he said. “You cannot go into a hangar and make a model to test. And yet you have to have a test.”
Beneath the surface, people in Rauma are weighing the costs and benefits. And not all are happy with the result.
“As long as everything is O.K., it’s O.K., but there are problems and risks,” said Janne Koski, director of the city’s art museum, which sponsors regular exhibitions of art from the Baltic region. Asked whether people ignored the risks because of the benefits, he replied: “That is not exactly so. Of course, many people are working there, at the reactor site. It’s about economy and finance.”
Not that Rauma is in dire need of economic stimulus. The city has a thriving shipbuilding industry and paper mills, and several large wood processing companies, a Finnish specialty, have factories here. Large foreign investments have been attracted in recent years from South Korea and Australia.
Rauma has never had an accident like that at Chernobyl, almost 900 miles to the southeast in Northern Ukraine, but even people who are most comfortable with nuclear reactors acknowledge that they affect the environment.
Ms. Alanko-Rehelma, whose husband operates two fishing boats in the waters around the reactors, said that their cooling systems warm the water near Olkiluoto island.
“That is not good for some kinds of fish,” she said. “But good for others, like trout.”
The only large-scale resistance to nuclear energy in Finland comes from Greenpeace, which cites the hazard of radioactivity and the siphoning of money from investment in alternative carbon-free energy sources, like wind, sun and tides.
“It’s far too risky and hazardous,” Lauri Myllyvirta, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said by phone from Helsinki.
The United Nations lists Rauma as a World Heritage site because of its large stock of charming 17th- and 18th-century wooden homes. The World Heritage designation is meant to help preserve historic sites, though income from tourism remains meager, Mr. Miettinen said.
“It’s mostly Finns, and some from Germany and Italy,” he said. But he did not think it was the cluster of nuclear power plants that was keeping people away. “A great many people think nuclear energy is good for Rauma and its industry,” he said.
The first nuclear reactors at Olkiluoto are now about 30 years old, said Pasi Katajamaki, editor of the local newspaper, Lansi Suomi. “We’re very used to it,” he said. ‘’When you have something near you, you simply grow accustomed to it.”
Sunday, November 16, 2008
FLYING CARS!
http://www.moller.com/
Passengers:
4
Top speed @ 13,200 ft:
375 mph
Cruise speed @ 20,000 ft:
275 mph
Maximum rate of climb:
6,000 fpm
Maximum range:
750 miles
Payload excluding fuel:
750 lbs
Operational ceiling:
36,000 ft
Gross weight:
2,400 lbs
Engine power (2 min. rating):
1,200 hp
Fuel consumption:
approx. 20 mpg
Fuel:
Ethanol
Dimensions (LxWxH):
19.5' x 8.5' x 7.5'
Takeoff and landing area:
35 ft dia
Noise level at 500 ft (Goal):
65 dba
Vertical takeoff and landing:
yes
Emergency parachutes:
yes
Passengers:
4
Top speed @ 13,200 ft:
375 mph
Cruise speed @ 20,000 ft:
275 mph
Maximum rate of climb:
6,000 fpm
Maximum range:
750 miles
Payload excluding fuel:
750 lbs
Operational ceiling:
36,000 ft
Gross weight:
2,400 lbs
Engine power (2 min. rating):
1,200 hp
Fuel consumption:
approx. 20 mpg
Fuel:
Ethanol
Dimensions (LxWxH):
19.5' x 8.5' x 7.5'
Takeoff and landing area:
35 ft dia
Noise level at 500 ft (Goal):
65 dba
Vertical takeoff and landing:
yes
Emergency parachutes:
yes
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