Health, Science and Technology

On Tuesday 6 March 2012, two giant flares ejected from the Sun. Set off a firestorm that reached Earth two days later. Although said to be the largest in five years, the effect is not to destroy satellites orbiting the Earth.

However, the storm is not over. Researchers of the National Space Agency (LAPAN), Thomas Djamaluddin estimates, the frequency and strength of solar storms will increase, along with the peak time of the solar active period that occurred between 2012 to 2014. A climax in 2013 the annual cycle of 11 solar storm that began in 2009.

A frog that can perch on the tip of your pinkie with room to spare has been claimed as the world’s smallest vertebrate species, out-tinying a fish that got the title in 2006. But the discoverer of another weensy fish disputes the claim.

A tempest in a thimble, some might say.

An article Wednesday in the journal PLoS One named Paedophryne amauensis (pee-doh-FRY-nee AM-OW-en-sis) as the world’s smallest animal with a spine.

The adult frogs are about three-tenths of an inch long (7.7 millimeters long), and a millimeter or so smaller than a carp found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The frogs are so small that Louisiana State University herpetologist and environmental biologist Christopher Austin had to enlarge close-up photos to describe them.

But the adult males of a species of deep-sea anglerfish are smaller by as much as a millimeter and a half, said University of Washington ichthyologist Theodore Pietsch, who described them in 2006. The males, which come in at 6.2 to 7.4 millimeters in length, don’t have stomachs and live as parasites on 1.8-inch-long (46-millimeter-long) females.

In November 2011, NASA launched its biggest, most ambitious mission to Mars. The $2.5 billion Mars Science Lab spacecraft will arrive in orbit around the Red Planet this August, releasing a lander that will use rockets to control a slow descent into the atmosphere. Equipped with a “sky crane,” the lander will gently lower the one-ton Curosity rover on the surface of Mars. Curiosity, which weighs five times more than any previous Martian rover, will perform an unprecedented battery of tests for three months as it scoops up soil from the floor of the 96-mile-wide Gale Crater. Its mission, NASA says, will be to “assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life.”

For all the spectacular engineering that’s gone into Curiosity, however, its goal is actually quite modest. When NASA says it wants to find out if Mars was ever suitable for life, they use a very circumscribed version of the word. They are looking for signs of liquid water, which all living things on Earth need. They are looking for organic carbon, which life on Earth produces and, in some cases, can feed on to survive. In other words, they’re looking on Mars for the sorts of conditions that support life on Earth.

Scientists recently discovered nitrogen that falls from the atmosphere in acid rain can influence large tracts of sugar maples in North America.

The atmospheric nitrogen in acid rain can affect forest ecosystems by acidifying soils and causing nutrient imbalances.

Sugar maples in northeastern North America are especially vulnerable. Vast maple areas have been affected by this acidification process, which depletes soil calcium in already calcium-poor soils such as those of the Eastern United States.

In the calcium-rich soils of the upper Great Lakes, however, acid rain also wreaks havoc, ecologists have found.  It slows leaf decomposition, leading to a pile-up of leaves and hindering new young maples from sprouting up.

by Rebecca Coffey

1. Get small. A nanometer is about the width of a strand of DNA; if you design, build, or use functional systems smaller than 100 of these, you’re a nanotechnologist.

2  By that definition, we have been doing nanotech for centuries. For instance, thecolors in medieval stained glass windows result from nanocrystalscreated in the heating and cooling of the glass.

3   Size matters. At the nano scale, materials take on unusual properties. Their color, transparency, and melting point often differ significantly from those of larger clumps of the same stuff.

4  Nanoscale bits of metal oxide, carbon fiber, or metal blends can detoxify hazardous waste: Their extreme solubility and chemical reactivity help them zero in on the nasty stuff.

By John Roach

Breakthroughs in energy storage technologies are on the horizon that could turn vast swathes of the world’s sun-soaked deserts and windy plains into sources of clean, renewable energy, according to experts focused on our energy future.

No one technology — ranging from storing a portion of the sun’s energy collected during the day in molten salt to run solar thermal generators at night to banks of lithium-ion batteries scattered around neighborhoods — will be the solution.

Rather, “there is going to be a portfolio of energy storage” options, Bruce Dunn, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles, told me Thursday. 

Within the framework of the skull is very soft, which is characteristic of children ayear.

The discovery of two mummified skull length in Peru that has a different size with a normal size human skull can answer the existence of aliens.

The first mummy, the head of the skull that has a larger size 50 cm (20 inches). This discovery is one of the two previous discoveries in the city of Andahuaylillas, southern Quispicanchi, Peru.

With the application ’weatherman’ is, you need not fear the rain soaked street.

About to leave for work or home on a motorbike? Make sure you have an application ’weatherman’ on this one. Because the weather is often fickle erratic.Bright flash, a flash heavy rains flushed.

Applications ’weatherman’ is called Dark Sky. Dark Sky will tell you weather the next hour. Special, Dark Sky prediction claimed to be very accurate. With this application, you only need 5 minutes to find heavy rain will fall, so you have enoughtime to prepare.

Playing video games can indeed create noticeably faster time passes. However, should you limit such activities. Sitting in the same position for too long can lead to blood clots and inflammation of the veins.

One of the victims of blood clots or deep vein thrombosis / DVT is a 20-year-old game player who died after a marathon playing games. According to the autopsy report he died of clogged arteries in the lungs.

The main danger of thrombosis in the veins in the body is to release some blood clots that come up and the bloodstream and lodge in blood vessels in the lungs called pulmonary embolism. Blood clots can be life threatening if lodged in the brain because it will trigger a stroke.

A study conducted recently succeeded in identifying the brain teenage gamers while playing to get stimulus in part related to the system of “reward” and continues to grow, no matter when it was won or lost.

The same brain condition was also found in the brains of gambling players who keep playing despite very slim chances of winning bets. The conclusion was obtained from the study of 154 healthy adolescents aged 14 who play video games an average of 12 hours in a week.

Their brains were scanned during playing video games on PC. The result, children who spend more time gaming activity was found in many parts of the brain that contain dopamine to transmit signals of pleasure and satisfaction.