Monday is back again right on schedule. Science talk returns to brighten your day with selections from science sites across the globe. New discoveries, new takes on old knowledge, and other bits of news are all available for the perusing in today's information world. Today's tidbits include sea otters can help fight global warming, scientists cast doubt on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, progress towards computing with water droplets, scientists set a new world drilling-depth of ocean drilling, germ-killing copper could save thousands of lives, and destroyed coastal habitats produce significant greenhouse gases.
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
Scientists suggest urchin-loving sea otters could allow kelp forests to grow if the urchin population is kept in check.
Comparing kelp density with otters and kelp density without otters, they (researchers) found that "sea otters have a positive indirect effect on kelp biomass by preying on sea urchins, a kelp grazer." When otters are around, sea urchins hide in crevices and eat kelp scraps. With no otters around, sea urchins graze voraciously on living kelp.
Kelp is particularly efficient at sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased 40 percent since the beginning of the industrial revolution, causing global temperatures to rise...
The level of ever present uncertainty in science increased a bit this week as a group cast additional doubt on the validity of
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
It is often assumed that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle applies to both the intrinsic uncertainty that a quantum system must possess, as well as to measurements. These results show that this is not the case and demonstrate the degree of precision that can be achieved with weak-measurement techniques.
Another potential advance in computer technology was announced this week with the use of
water droplets to carry digital information.
In the work, published in the journal Advanced Materials, the researchers experimentally determined the conditions for rebounding of water droplets moving on superhydrophobic surfaces. In the study, a copper surface coated with silver and chemically modified with a fluorinated compound was used. This method enables the surface to be so water-repellent that water droplets roll off when the surface is tilted slightly. Superhydrophobic tracks, developed during a previous study, were employed for guiding droplets along designed paths.
Using the tracks, the researchers demonstrated that water droplets could be turned into technology, “superhydrophobic droplet logic”. For example, a memory device was built where water droplets act as bits of digital information. Furthermore, devices for elementary Boolean logic operations were demonstrated. These simple devices are building blocks for computing.
Exploring the ocean floor and the depths beneath that floor were expanded with a new drilling-depth reached.
Samples collected from the target coalbeds have been analyzed in the laboratory aboard Chikyu and will continue to be examined after the expedition. The research will provide new insights into the deep life associated with a hydrocarbon system in the deep marine subsurface.
The expedition that started in late July continues coring operations to obtain even deeper rock samples and formation fluids using a new borehole wire-line instrument in situ.
Copper coated surfaces may help prevent a situation in hospitals where bacteria cling to nearly all surfaces allowing various infections to spread from patient to patient costing millions of healthcare dollars and thousands of lives each year.
Treatment for hospital-acquired infections costs between $35 billion and $45 billion each year in the U.S., and Medicare and Medicaid will no long reimburse hospitals for that treatment if the infections are judged to have been preventable and a hospital mistake.
But even without the new rules, the changeover makes economic sense, Estelle explained. Under today's reimbursement system, individual hospitals spend $5 million on average each year to treat infections. "Even on the low end, it's $30,000 per infection," he (researcher Estelle) said. Clinical trials at three hospitals funded by the U.S. Department of Defense have recently proved that copper surfaces can reduce infections in the intensive care unit by more than 50 percent.
Using published estimates, about 500,000 Americans will contract an infection this year in the ICU. This will cost our hospitals an additional $3.5 billion in treatment, and about 40,000 people will not survive the ordeal. The clinical trial results suggest that installing copper surfaces could cut these figures in half.
As human habitation encroaches ever more on
coastal habitat the carbon stores in those regions may be released into the atmosphere.
Destruction of coastal habitats may release as much as 1 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, 10 times higher than previously reported, according to a new Duke led study.
Published online this week in PLOS ONE, the analysis provides the most comprehensive estimate of global carbon emissions from the loss of these coastal habitats to date: 0.15 to 1.2 billion tons. It suggests there is a high value associated with keeping these coastal-marine ecosystems intact as the release of their stored carbon costs roughly $6-$42 billion annually.
Knucklehead's Photo of the Week
Blue Tang
©Knucklehead, all rights reserved, presented by permission. (Click on the image to see more in the same series.)
Other Worthy Stories of the Week
Voyager's long journey: 35 years of solar system images
The mathematics of parking cars
A surprisingly bright superbubble
World record laser pulse recorded
Feathered dinosaur feasted on flying food
Why all hurricanes look the same from space
The quantum world only partially melts
Mars's dramatic climate changes are driven by the Sun
Enough wind exists to power global energy demand
Cosmic lithium in the early universe
Treatment with fungi makes a modern violin sound like a Stradivarius
For even more science news:
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Blogs:
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Cantauri Dreams space exploration
Coctail Party Physics Physics with a twist.
Deep Sea News marine biology
Laelaps more vertebrate paleontology
List of Geoscience Blogs
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Space Review
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Scientific Blogging.
Space.com
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Tetrapod Zoologyvertebrate paleontology
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
Large Magellanic Cloud, NASA, Public Domain