Science News
Iowa will form council focused on math, science
By MIKE GLOVER
Gov. Terry Branstad signed an executive order Tuesday creating a new advisory council designed to improve science and technology education in Iowa.
Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, who announced the creation of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Council, known by the acronym STEM, at an education summit earlier Tuesday, said the ultimate outcome will be to produce a better-educated workforce.
"It's not enough for Iowa to become the top-performing education state again," Reynolds said. "Our schools must be competitive with top-performing school systems around the world."
Branstad said focusing on math and science meshes with the new demands on the workforce. He also said Iowa students have been lacking in those areas.
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Fundamental Matter-Antimatter Symmetry Confirmed
Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics
ScienceDaily (July 27, 2011) — An international collaboration including Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics scientists has set a new value for the antiproton mass relative to the electron with unprecedented precision.
According to modern cosmology, matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts in the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe. Physicists are developing concepts to explain why the visible universe now seems to be made entirely out of matter. On the other hand, experimental groups are producing antimatter atoms artificially to explore the fundamental symmetries between matter and antimatter, which according to the present theories of particle physics should have exactly the same properties, except for the opposite electrical charge).
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‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ Maybe Right Here on Earth
By DENNIS OVERBYE
SAN DIEGO — Here in a laboratory perched on the edge of the continent, researchers are trying to construct Life As We Don’t Know It in a thimbleful of liquid.
Generations of scientists, children and science fiction fans have grown up presuming that humanity’s first encounter with alien life will happen in a red sand dune on Mars, or in an enigmatic radio signal from some obscure star.
But it could soon happen right here on Earth, according to a handful of chemists and biologists who are using the tools of modern genetics to try to generate the Frankensteinian spark that will jump the gap separating the inanimate and the animate. The day is coming, they say, when chemicals in a test tube will come to life.
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Evolution Right Under Our Noses
By CARL ZIMMER
To study evolution, Jason Munshi-South has tracked elephants in central Africa and proboscis monkeys in the wilds of Borneo. But for his most recent expedition, he took the A train.
Dr. Munshi-South and two graduate students, Paolo Cocco and Stephen Harris, climbed out of the 168th Street station lugging backpacks and a plastic crate full of scales, Ziploc bags, clipboards, rulers and tarps. They walked east to the entrance of Highbridge Park, where they met Ellen Pehek, a senior ecologist in the New York City Parks and Recreation Department. The four researchers entered the park, made their way past a basketball game and turned off the paved path into a ravine.
They worked their way down the steep slope, past schist boulders, bent pieces of rebar, oaks and maples, hunks of concrete and freakish poison ivy plants with leaves the size of a man’s hands. The ravine flattened out at the edge of Harlem River Drive. The scientists walked north along a guardrail contorted by years of car crashes before plunging back into the forest to reach their field site.
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Technology News
Iowa University tests high-tech escape system
By GCN Staff
Upper Iowa University and Lightstep Technologies Ltd. have formed a partnership to install technology on the campus that operates on the same principle as an aircraft’s emergency lighting that directs passengers to exit doors. However, this system thinks for itself, Brian Heaton writes in Government Technology.
The Lightstep system uses sensors that detect heat, smoke and chemicals and determines which hallways and rooms in a building are safe. It then calculates the safest route and turns on embedded light-emitting diode panels that use green arrows and red “X’s” to guide people to a safe place, according to the article.
The company plans to install the system in the school’s Fayette, Iowa, campus' student center, an academic building and a residence hall. The implementation, the Belfast, Ireland, company's first in the United States, should be fully operational there by January 2012, the article states.
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House panel approves broadened ISP snooping bill
by Declan McCullagh
Internet providers would be forced to keep logs of their customers' activities for one year--in case police want to review them in the future--under legislation that a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved today.
The 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall's elections, and the Justice Department officials who have quietly lobbied for the sweeping new requirements, a development first reported by CNET.
A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, some committee members suggested. By a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.
It represents "a data bank of every digital act by every American" that would "let us find out where every single American visited Web sites," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who led Democratic opposition to the bill.
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iPhone 5 to launch in early September, report says
by Josh Lowensohn
Hang on to your hats, because there's another rumored release date for Apple's next-generation iPhone.
The latest comes from the China Times (translation), which says that Apple plans to produce 4 million units of the device following a production run of 400,000 test units. That's all to ready the device for a release in the second week of September.
Other tidbits from the report, which was picked up this morning by Macrumors, include Apple purportedly working to ready another version of the iPad to bring to market "before Thanksgiving." That would give Apple a late-year product launch that--as the last two iPad launches have proven--would make for a tough-to-get gadget during the frenzied holiday shopping season.
The China Times report has some weight in terms of timing. Apple has made a habit of holding its annual iPod-focused music event in September, usually during that first or second week of the month. Apple has also promised to release iOS 5 in "the fall," which officially begins a few weeks later.
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Security Experts Say Police Arrested Wrong Hacker
By NICK BILTON
Did they catch the wrong guy?
The British police said Wednesday that they had arrested a 19-year-old hacker who goes by the online name Topiary, and is believed to be the spokesman for the hacker group Lulz Security. But on Thursday, the Web was abuzz with speculation about the events, with many asking if the police had been duped by hackers into arresting the wrong man.
Hackers and security experts who have been tracking LulzSec for months say that the police had in fact arrested someone who uses the name Topiary online. But a trail of evidence in the form of Internet Relay Chats, or IRC, and online videos posted on YouTube, led many to think that the real Topiary was still on the run.
A group calling themselves the Web Ninjas, who publish a blog called LulzSec Exposed, posted evidence that the real Topiary is most likely a 23-year-old man from Sweden. The Web Ninjas have said this in the past when they posted a series of documents exposing who they think is Topiary and other members of LulzSec. The Web Ninjas also cite evidence of a video interview with Topiary that was posted on YouTube when he belonged to the hacker group Anonymous.
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Environmental News
Iowa named top-20 toxic state
Posted on July 21, 2011 by mgallagher
Iowa was named among the top “toxic 20” states in the U.S. by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Physicians for Social Responsibility. They judged the states’ toxicity by their coal and oil power plant pollution. The nation’s leaders included Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Kentucky. While Iowa was the 20th and final state to make the list, the Quad-City Times reports that the emissions from coal and oil power plants only begin to indicate Iowa’s total air pollution:
Half of the industrial pollutants in the U.S. come from coal- and oil-fired power plants. Nationwide, 381.7 million tons of toxic air pollution comes from the electric sector, the report said.
In Iowa, the picture is different.
The state, while ranked 20th in the report, saw only 16 percent of its industrial pollutants come from power plants, according to data from the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory.
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World Population to Surpass 7 Billion in 2011; Explosive Population Growth Means Challenges for Developing Nations
Harvard School of Public Health
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — Global population is expected to hit 7 billion later this year, up from 6 billion in 1999. Between now and 2050, an estimated 2.3 billion more people will be added -- nearly as many as inhabited the planet as recently as 1950. New estimates from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations also project that the population will reach 10.1 billion in 2100.
These sizable increases represent an unprecedented global demographic upheaval, according to David Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography at the Harvard School of Public Health, in a review article published July 29, 2011 in Science.
Over the next forty years, nearly all (97%) of the 2.3 billion projected increase will be in the less developed regions, with nearly half (49%) in Africa. By contrast, the populations of more developed countries will remain flat, but will age, with fewer working-age adults to support retirees living on social pensions.
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Tundra Fires Could Accelerate Climate Warming
University of Florida
ScienceDaily (July 27, 2011) — After a 10,000-year absence, wildfires have returned to the Arctic tundra, and a University of Florida study shows that their impact could extend far beyond the areas blackened by flames.
In a study published in the July 28 issue of the journal Nature, UF ecologist Michelle Mack and a team of scientists including fellow UF ecologist Ted Schuur quantified the amount of soil-bound carbon released into the atmosphere in the 2007 Anaktuvuk River fire, which covered more than 400 square miles on the North Slope of Alaska's Brooks Range. The 2.1 million metric tons of carbon released in the fire -- roughly twice the amount of greenhouse gases put out by the city of Miami in a year -- is significant enough to suggest that Arctic fires could impact the global climate, said Mack, an associate professor of ecosystem ecology in UF's department of biology.
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Detailed Picture of Ice Loss Following the Collapse of Antarctic Ice Shelves
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
ScienceDaily (July 26, 2011) — An international team of researchers has combined data from multiple sources to provide the clearest account yet of how much glacial ice surges into the sea following the collapse of Antarctic ice shelves.
The work by researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), the Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at the University of Toulouse, France, and the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colo., details recent ice losses while promising to sharpen future predictions of further ice loss and sea level rise likely to result from ongoing changes along the Antarctic Peninsula.
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Medical News
Iowa Receives Federal Waiver for Medical Loss Ratio Implementation
Insurance Journal
Iowa has received a waiver allowing an adjustment to some transitional Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act in Iowa.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) granted the waiver request from the state insurance department but modified the target proposed by Iowa Insurance Commissioner Susan Voss.
Iowa’s original request had been for a 2011 standard of 60 percent MLR standard to be used, but the HHS response instead set the MLR standard to be met in 2011 as 67 percent of premium, and in 2012 as 75 percent of premium.
The final standard of 80 percent will be implemented in 2013 and beyond. The adjustment was requested and granted in recognition of the inability of some Iowa companies selling individual policies to remain in the market under the initial requirements.
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Getting 50-Year-Old Americans as Healthy as Europeans Could Save Medicare and Medicaid $632 Billion by 2050, Study Says
University of Southern California
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — Forty years ago, Americans could expect to live slightly longer than Europeans. This has since reversed: in spite of similar levels of economic development, Americans now live about a year-and-a-half less, on average, than their Western European counterparts, and also less than people in most other developed nations. How did Americans fall behind?
A study in the July 2011 issue of Social Science & Medicine is the first to calculate the fiscal consequences of the growing life expectancy gap over the next few decades. The study also pinpoints the crucial age at which U.S. life expectancy starts to deteriorate.
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Children and Adolescent Cell Phone Users at No Greater Risk of Brain Cancer Than Non-Users, Study Suggests
Journal of the National Cancer Institute
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — Children and adolescents who use mobile phones are not at a statistically significant increased risk of brain cancer compared to their peers who do not use mobile phones, according to a study published July 27 in the Journal of The National Cancer Institute.
Mobile phone usage has increased among children and adolescents in recent years. The increased usage has raised a concern about the possibility of the development of brain tumors in this population since children have a developing nervous system; also, because their head circumference is smaller, the radio frequency electromagnetic fields may penetrate regions that are deeper in their brains. However, no previous study has examined whether mobile phone usage among children and adolescents is associated with a difference in brain tumor risk.
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How Memory Is Lost: Loss of Memory Due to Aging May Be Reversible
Yale University
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — Yale University researchers can't tell you where you left your car keys -- but they can tell you why you can't find them.
A new study published July 27 in the journal Nature shows the neural networks in the brains of the middle-aged and elderly have weaker connections and fire less robustly than in youthful ones. Intriguingly, the research suggests that this condition is reversible.
"Age-related cognitive deficits can have a serious impact on our lives in the Information Age as people often need higher cognitive functions to meet even basic needs, such as paying bills or accessing medical care," said Amy Arnsten, Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology and a member of the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience. "These abilities are critical for maintaining demanding careers and being able to live independently as we grow older."
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Space News
Iowa State faculty treasure connections with NASA, comment on Friday’s space launch
By Sophie Hayek
“And so for the final time, Fergie, Doug, Sandy and Rex, good luck, Godspeed, and have a little fun up there.” These were the sure-to-be-quoted last words of Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach before space shuttle Atlantis launched into orbit.
Atlantis, of NASA’s space shuttle program STS-135, began its final flight to the International Space Station last Friday. On board were Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim.
Although the shuttle program will soon be part of America’s past, Iowa State will continue to have ties with NASA and other space exploration programs.
Iowa State had the honor of graduating its first astronaut, Clayton Anderson in 1983. Along with this, NASA has other Iowa State alumni working for it. Kate Bruns, associate director of communications with the ISU Alumni Association, said that there are about 160 ISU graduates who have worked or are currently working at NASA.
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Wave Power Can Drive Sun's Intense Heat
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — A new study sheds light on why the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, is more than 20 times hotter than its surface. The research, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), may bring scientists a step closer to understanding the solar cycle and the Sun's impacts on Earth.
The study uses satellite observations to reveal that magnetic oscillations carrying energy from the Sun's surface into its corona are far more vigorous than previously thought. These waves are energetic enough to heat the corona and drive the solar wind, a stream of charged particles ejected from the Sun that affects the entire solar system.
"We now understand how hot mass can shoot upward from the solar interior, providing enough energy to maintain the corona at a million degrees and fire off particles into the high-speed solar wind," says Scott McIntosh, the study's lead author and a scientist in NCAR's High Altitude Observatory. "This new research will help us solve essential mysteries about how energy gets out of the Sun and into the solar system."
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NASA's WISE Finds Earth's First 'Trojan' Asteroid
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2011) — Astronomers studying observations taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission have discovered the first known "Trojan" asteroid orbiting the sun along with Earth.
Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the planet. Because they constantly lead or follow in the same orbit as the planet, they never can collide with it. In our solar system, Trojans also share orbits with Neptune, Mars and Jupiter. Two of Saturn's moons share orbits with Trojans.
Scientists had predicted Earth should have Trojans, but they have been difficult to find because they are relatively small and appear near the sun from Earth's point of view.
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Unique Volcanic Complex Discovered On Moon's Far Side
Washington University in St. Louis
ScienceDaily (July 26, 2011) — Analysis of new images of a curious "hot spot" on the far side of the Moon reveal it to be a small volcanic province created by the upwelling of silicic magma. The unusual location of the province and the surprising composition of the lava that formed it offer tantalizing clues to the Moon's thermal history.
The hot spot is a concentration of a radioactive element thorium sitting between the very large and ancient impact craters Compton and Belkovich that was first detected by Lunar Prospector's gamma-ray spectrometer in 1998. The Compton-Belkovich Thorium Anomaly, as it is called, appears as a bull's-eye when the spectrometer data are projected onto a map, with the highest thorium concentration at its center.
Recent observations, made with the powerful Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) optical cameras, have allowed scientists to distinguish volcanic features in terrain at the center of the bull's-eye. High-resolution three-dimensional models of the terrain and information from the LRO Diviner instrument have revealed geological features diagnostic not just of volcanism but also of much rarer silicic volcanism.
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Odd News
Woman dies after being attacked by cow in Iowa
by Aishwarya Bhatt
Des Moines, Iowa, June 20 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A 60-year-old woman was killed after a cow turned aggressive and attacked her. Witnesses say when the cow became aggressive when Jean Fee placed herself on the line to protect her grandson.
The animal attacked Jean with its head and she became unconscious. The reports say the paramedics only got to the farm about 20 minutes later and when they airlifted Jean to the hospital, she had died. The family says Jean was taken to the Cedar Rapids hospital. Animal experts say it is very rare for a cow to turn aggressive. Rarer is deaths attributed to cows. However the scientists say when the animals have a newborn calf to protect, they can be aggressive in doing so. That may be the likely cause because the family says there were three calves on the farm when the incident happened.
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