Science talk returns to brighten your day one more time. New discoveries, new takes on old knowledge, and other bits of news are all available for the perusing in today's information world. Over the fold are selections from the past week from a few of the many excellent science news sites around the world. Today's tidbits include how plants know when to flower, gourmet butterflies speed north, new chipset for high speed data transmission, a record number of young scallops in the mid-Atlantic, ancient Bethlehem seal unearthed in Jerusalem, and public apathy over climate change unrelated to science literacy.
Pull up that comfy chair and grab a spot on the porch. There is always plenty of room for everyone. Another session of Dr. Possum's science education, entertainment, and potluck discussion is set to begin.
Featured Stories
For flowering plants to reproduce their production of flowers must occur at the right time.
At specific times of year, flowering plants produce a protein known as Flowering Locus T in their leaves that induces flowering. Once this protein is made, it travels from the leaves to the shoot apex, a part of the plant where cells are undifferentiated, meaning they can either become leaves or flowers. At the shoot apex, this protein starts the molecular changes that send cells on the path to becoming flowers.
Changes in day length tell many organisms that the seasons are changing. It has long been known that plants use an internal time-keeping mechanism known as the circadian clock to measure changes in day length. Circadian clocks synchronize biological processes during 24-hour periods in people, animals, insects, plants and other organisms.
The
Brown Argus butterfly adapted to climate change by changing its diet and moved farther north as a result.
In the 1980s the butterfly was considered scarce in Britain, with populations undergoing continued decline but it has subsequently undergone a dramatic reversal of fortune. The team put this down to the effect of climate on the ability of the butterfly to use additional food plant species.
In the 1980s, the caterpillars were mainly confined to Rockrose plants growing on the chalk hills of southern England, but the use of plant species in the Geranium family has increased as summer temperatures have increased. Wild Geraniums are suitable food plants for the caterpillars in warm years, but not in colder summers. This seems to be because the plants grow in different places, which provide different microclimates. Common Rockrose is found mainly on hot south-facing slopes, where the butterfly can complete its life cycle even in cool summers. This is not the case for the Geraniums and so they only become suitable for the butterfly when summers are warm.
As the need for ever more data transmission in low power portable devices continues to grow scientists report the development of a
new chipset many times faster than Bluetooth.
Here is a new microchip that can transfer data the size of 80 MP3 song files (or 250 megabytes) wirelessly between mobile devices, in the flick of a second.
Or how about transferring a typical 2-hour, 8-gigabyte DVD movie in just half a minute compared to 8.5 hours on Bluetooth?
Such unprecedented speeds on the wireless platform are now a reality as scientists from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R) have developed a revolutionary microchip that can transmit large volumes of data at ultra-high speeds of 2 Gigabits per second (or 1,000 times faster than Bluetooth^).
The chipset employs wireless millimetre-wave (mm-wave) technology to transmit large packets of information while consuming little power. This enables low-power applications, like smart phones and tablets, to transmit/receive data between platforms, like projectors and TVs, without the need for cables for the very first time.
And now the wait for commercial application begins...
Finding a record number of young scallops in surveys of the mid-Atlantic regions bodes well for future scallop numbers.
Because the smaller, year-old scallops are more susceptible to predation, their large numbers don’t guarantee a corresponding increase in future adult populations. But the presence of large numbers of 2-year-old scallops is encouraging, as these have a reasonable chance of growing to adult size.
Archeologists digging in Jerusalem unearthed a
2700-year-old seal bearing the name of Bethlehem.
...the seal, 1.5 centimeters (0.59 inches) in diameter, dates back to the period of the first biblical Jewish Temple, between the eighth and seventh century B.C., at a time when Jewish kings reigned over the ancient kingdom of Judah and 700 years before Jesus was born.
The seal was written in ancient Hebrew script from the same time. Pottery found nearby also dated back to the same period.
As climate change continues
public apathy stands in the way of serious moves necessary to avoid calamity.
...people who are higher in numeracy and science literacy usually make better decisions in complex technical situations, but the study clearly casts doubt on the notion that the more you understand science and math, the better decisions you'll make in complex and technical situations. "What this study shows is that people with high science and math comprehension can think their way to conclusions that are better for them as individuals but are not necessarily better for society."
According to Kahan, the study suggests the need for science communication strategies that reflect a more sophisticated understanding of cultural values.
Knucklehead's Photo of the Week
Tiny starfish, Anemone Background
©Knucklehead, all rights reserved. (Click on the image to see more in the same series.)
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Light-emitting gadgets: Where technology and luminescence collide
China to see 14 solar eclipses this century
Ammonites found mini-oases at ancient methane seeps
The 2012 transit of Venus, June 5
Nicotine and the chemistry of murder
Colliding galaxy cluster unravelled
Maya collapse: Trade patterns in a crucial substance played a key role
A new type of male contraceptive?
"Tractor beams' of light pull small objects toward them
The secret to good tomato chemistry
Ultra-sensitive test discovers diseases in the earliest stages
10 million years needed to recovery from mass extinction
More plant species responding to global warming than previously thought
Seagrasses can store as much carbon as forests
For even more science news:
General Science Collectors:
Alpha-Galileo
BBC News Science and Environment
Eureka Science News
LiveScience
New Scientist
PhysOrg.com
SciDev.net
Science/AAAS
Science Alert
Science Centric
Science Daily
Scientific American
Space Daily
Blogs:
A Few Things Ill Considered Techie and Science News
Cantauri Dreams space exploration
Coctail Party Physics Physics with a twist.
Deep Sea News marine biology
Laelaps more vertebrate paleontology
List of Geoscience Blogs
ScienceBlogs
Space Review
Techonology Review
Tetrapod Zoologyvertebrate paleontology
Science Insider
Scientific Blogging.
Space.com
Wired News
Science RSS Feed: Medworm
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe--a combination of hard science and debunking crap
At Daily Kos:
This Week in Science by DarkSyde
Overnight News Digest:Science Saturday by Neon Vincent. OND tech Thursday by rfall.
Pique the Geek by Translator Sunday evenings about 9 Eastern time
All diaries with the DK GreenRoots Tag.
All diaries with the eKos Tag
A More Ancient World by matching mole
Astro Kos
SciTech at Dkos.
Sunday Science Videos by palantir
NASA picture of the day. For more see the NASA image gallery or the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive
N44 Complex, NASA, public domain