Tag Archives: core

Scientists Identify Core Skin Bacterial Community in Humpback Whales

Results Could Aid Future Efforts to Monitor Health

Bacteria are invisible to the naked eye, but they reside on nearly every surface humans encounter—including the skin.  Uncovering the role these microorganisms play in human health is a major focus of research in skin microbiology, but little is known about the identity or function of skin bacteria in other mammals.

In a paper published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and colleagues identified a core skin bacterial community that humpback whales share across populations, which could point to a way to assess the overall health of these endangered marine mammals. (more…)

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A rare crash at the Milky Way’s core: U-Michigan astronomers could be the first to see it

ANN ARBOR — University of Michigan astronomers could be the first to witness a rare collision expected to happen at the center of the galaxy by spring.

With NASA’s orbiting Swift telescope, the U-M team is taking daily images of a mysterious gas cloud about three times the mass of Earth that’s spiraling toward the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s core. From our vantage point, the core lies more than 25,000 light years away in the southern summer sky near the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. (more…)

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We are sorry to see this

While U.S President Barack Obama blames House Speaker John Boehner for the Federal Government Shutdown, it already started to hit at the cores of scientific developments in America. Today we noticed that the website of USGS (U.S Geological Survey) whose logo says ‘Science for a changing World’ is unavailable.

It reads ‘Due to the Federal government shutdown, usgs.gov and most associated web sites are unavailable.’ (more…)

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Journalist Blasts Mainstream Media for Failing to Anticipate 2008 Financial Crisis

Dean Starkman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning financial journalist for the Columbia Journalism Review, shared his theories about the 2008 financial crisis with students at a Calhoun College master’s tea on Nov. 29. His talk was sponsored by the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale.

Starkman, who is currently writing a book on what he regards as the failure of the media to anticipate the financial crisis, explained that he believes the evidence was there, yet no major news sources reported it. “I don’t like the financial press and institutionalized media because they screwed up the pre-crisis coverage, and I don’t like the new media people either — so what do I like?” Starkman joked. (more…)

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Mug Handles Could Help Hot Plasma Give Lower-Cost, Controllable Fusion Energy

Researchers around the world are working on an efficient, reliable way to contain the plasma used in fusion reactors, potentially bringing down the cost of this promising but technically elusive energy source. A new finding from the University of Washington could help contain and stabilize the plasma using as little as 1 percent of the energy required by current methods.

“All of a sudden the current energy goes from being almost too much to almost negligible,” said lead author Thomas Jarboe, a UW professor of aeronautics and astronautics. He presents the findings this week at the International Atomic Energy Association’s 24th annual Fusion Energy Conference in San Diego. (more…)

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Nearby Super-Earth Likely a Diamond Planet

New research led by Yale University scientists suggests that a rocky planet twice Earth’s size orbiting a nearby star is a diamond planet.

“This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth,” said lead researcher Nikku Madhusudhan, a Yale postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy. “The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite.”

The paper reporting the findings has been accepted for publication in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters. (more…)

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Global Sea Level Likely to Rise as Much as 70 Feet in Future Generations

*Scientists looked back in time–in the geologic record–to see the future*

Even if humankind manages to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)–as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends–future generations will likely have to deal with a completely different world.

One with sea levels 40 to 70 feet higher than at present, according to research results published this week in the journal Geology. (more…)

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Earth’s Core Deprived of Oxygen

Washington, D.C. — The composition of the Earth’s core remains a mystery. Scientists know that the liquid outer core consists mainly of iron, but it is believed that small amounts of some other elements are present as well. Oxygen is the most abundant element in the planet, so it is not unreasonable to expect oxygen might be one of the dominant “light elements” in the core. However, new research from a team including Carnegie’s Yingwei Fei shows that oxygen does not have a major presence in the outer core. This has major implications for our understanding of the period when the Earth formed through the accretion of dust and clumps of matter. Their work is published Nov. 24 in Nature. (more…)

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