A solar energy plane made the world's first international flight powered by the sun on Friday to show the potential for pollution-free air travel.
The Solar Impulse took off from an airfield at Payerne in western Switzerland and landed at Brussels airport after a 13-hour flight.
The pilot and project leaders Andre Borshberg and Bertrand Piccard said it had been a major challenge to fit a slow-flying plane into the commercial air traffic system.
With
an average flying speed of 44 mph, Solar Impulse is not an immediate
threat to commercial jets, which can easily cruise at more than 10 times
the speed. A flight from Geneva from Brussels can take little more than an hour.
But it was a huge day for the founders who wanted the whole world to see what can be achieved with existing, renewable energy.
During
the flight Borshberg said it was "symbolic to be able to go from one
place to another using solar energy" - a glimpse at a less polluting
future.
Piccard said it was also proof that Friday the 13th is a propitious day after all.
After a whole day spent drifting quietly through the air Borshberg said he was having trouble coming back down to earth.
China's Tianhe-1A takes supercomputer crown from US
Tianhe-1A capable of sustained computing of 2.507 petaflops – 1.4 times faster than Cray XT5 Jaguar
The UK's HECToR supercomputer. Photograph: Murdo Macleod
China has overtaken the US as home of the world's fastest supercomputer. Tianhe-1A, named for the Milky Way, is capable of sustained computing of 2.507 petaflops – equivalent to 2,507 trillion calculations each second.
The US scientist who maintains the international rankings visited
it last week and said he believed it was 1.4 times faster than the
former number one, the Cray XT5 Jaguar in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. That
topped the list in June with a rate of 1.75 petaflops.
The US is home to more than half of the world's top 500
supercomputers. China had 24 in the last list, but has pumped billions
of pounds into developing its computational ability in recent years.
The machines are used for everything from modelling climate change and
studying the beginnings of the universe to assisting aeroplane design.
Housed in the northern port city of Tianjin, near Beijing,
Tianhe-1A was developed by the National University of Defence
Technology. The system was built from thousands of chips made by US
firms – Intel and Nvidia – but domestic researchers developed the
networking technology that allows information to be exchanged between
servers at extraordinary speeds.
Tianjin's weather bureau and the National Offshore Oil Corporation
data centre are already using it for trial projects. "It can also serve
the animation industry and bio-medical research," Liu Guangming,
director of the National Centre for Supercomputing, told China Daily.
Tianhe-1A was in seventh place in the last rankings. Its domestic
rival Nebulae, housed in Shenzhen, was at that time ranked second,
capable of sustained computing of 1.271 petaflops.
The next set of rankings is due next week, but Jack Dongarra, the University of Tennessee computer scientist who oversees them, told the New York Times that Tianhe-1 "blows away the existing number one".
Wu-chun Feng, a supercomputing expert and professor at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University, told the NYT: "What is
scary about this is that the US dominance in high-performance computing
is at risk. One could argue that this hits the foundation of our
economic future."
Professor Arthur Trew, of Edinburgh University, who oversees the UK's HECToR supercomputer,
said the Sino-American battle to have the fastest device was not
particularly significant. "They are showing off with big machines –
fine. It's the underlying message that is important. The fact they are
pumping this kind of money into building these machines in general is
far more important … Europe is being left behind," he said.
"Having the computer is only half the battle. You have to use it,
use it sensibly, and actually produce results. That requires software
and brains and a lot of investment on top of the machine."
Trew added: "The number of software engineers that China is
turning out and putting into centres dwarfs anything we are doing in
the west. I remember going to Shanghai and being astounded by the
number of people they had – hundreds. Edinburgh is one of the largest
centres in Europe and we have got 100."
Essentially, supercomputers allow research that could not
otherwise be done because it involves calculations too complex to solve
by other means or where an experiment cannot be carried out.
"Where you have complexity and cannot experiment – because a
system is too large or small, or [the effect] happens too quickly or
slowly, or it is just too expensive – you have to simulate it … The
range of applications is growing and growing," said Trew.
The NYT calculated that Tianhe-1 could perform mathematical
operations about 29m times faster than one of the earliest
supercomputers, built in 1976. Scientists in the US are already
contemplating exascale computing – aiming to develop devices capable of performing a million trillion calculations a second.
• This article was amended on 29 October 2010. The original referred to petaflops per second. This has been corrected.
T rex was a cannibal, teeth marks on Tyrannosaurus bones suggest
Telltale marks on T rex bones were probably made by others of its own kind as they scavenged for food Ian Sample, science correspondent guardian.co.uk, 15.10. 2010.
Gouges
on the toe bone of a T. rex. Tyrannosaurus itself was the only big
carnivore capable of making such large marks. Photograph: Nicholas
Longrich/Yale University
The discovery of giant tooth marks in Tyrannosaurus rex bones has led fossil hunters to declare that the king of the dinosaurs
was a cannibal. The lumbering beast was at the top of the food chain in
North America 65 million years ago, but until now there has been little
evidence to suggest it ate its own kind.
Researchers at Yale University were searching dinosaur fossil collections in another study when they saw deep gouge marks in T rex bones. When the creatures were alive, the only large predators that occupied the region were other T rex. "These are bite marks from large carnivores and if you look at what other large carnivores were around back then, the T rex is the only one that was out there," said Nick Longrich, a postdoctoral researcher who led the study.
Longrich and his colleagues examined fossilised
bones in eight museum collections, including the American Museum of
Natural History in New York and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
in Pittsburgh. Four Tyrannosaurus bones showed the distinctive bite marks left by a hungry T rex.
The grooves, a few centimetres long, match the familiar "puncture and
pull" marks seen on the bones of other animals which fell victim to T rex. The tooth-marked remains included three bones from feet, including two toes, and one puny arm bone.
Longrich said there was a slim chance that the
bite marks were battle scars. But some of the bones had been bitten at
both ends, or in places that would be obscured by sockets in the living
animal. One adult toe bone had several small bite marks. "It seems
unlikely that a small Tyrannosaurus would be allowed to repeatedly bite a much larger individual several times on a single toe," the authors wrote in the journal PLoS ONE.
"You have to picture T rex standing still while
another one dines on its toe and that's pretty unrealistic," Longrich
told the Guardian.The tooth marks suggest T rex scavenged on
the carcasses of their own species rather than killing them for food.
That the beasts snacked on meagre foot and arm bones suggested the best
meat on the carcasses had already been picked off.
Only one other dinosaur species, the
six-metre-long Majungatholus, which lived in Madagascar between 84m and
70m year ago, is known to have been a cannibal, but Longrich believes
the practice may have been more common than previously thought. Closer
examination of fossil bones could turn up more evidence that other
species also preyed on one another, he said.
"These animals were some of the largest
terrestrial carnivores of all time, and the way they approached eating
was fundamentally different from modern species," Longrich added.
"There's a big mystery around what and how they ate, and this research
helps to uncover one piece of the puzzle."
Fox focuses on solar flare threat
Defence Secretary Liam Fox is
due to highlight the threat to Britain's essential infrastructure, amid
warnings by scientists that it could be paralysed by a
once-in-a-century solar flare.
Dr Fox is delivering the keynote
address to an international conference on the vulnerability of
electricity grids around the world to natural disaster and hostile
attack.
Earlier this year, the US space agency Nasa warned that a
peak in the sun's magnetic energy cycle and the number of sun spots or
flares around 2013 could generate huge radiation levels. The resulting solar storm could cause a geomagnetic storm on
Earth, knocking out electricity grids around the world for hours, days,
or even months, bringing much of normal life grinding to a halt.
Scientists are said to fear that a similar effect could be
achieved by a hostile power exploding a nuclear weapon in space,
producing a massive burst of electromagnetic energy known as a high
altitude electromagnetic pulse.
In his speech, Dr Fox is expected to highlight the way that modern societies' dependence on technology leaves them vulnerable to such events. "As the nature of our technology becomes more complex, so the threat becomes more widespread," he is expected to say. "While we all benefit from the products of scientific advances so
we also create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by our enemies. "However, advanced we become the chain of our security is only as strong as its weakest link."
The conference, taking place at Westminster, is being hosted by
the Electric Infrastructure Security Council and the Henry Jackson
Society think-tank.
A previously unseen collection of 150 mummified humans, animals and burial artefacts went on display in the US this month. The Mummies of the World
exhibition opened at the California Science Center, Los Angeles, and is
being billed as the largest travelling exhibition of mummies ever
assembled
A
pre-Columbian mummy from Chile. On display are exhibits culled from
more than 20 museums and seven countries, which range from the 11th
century to over 6,000 years in age. The exhibition includes 45 human
and animal mummies and an assortment of burial artefacts including
amulets, statues and fragments from the Book of the DeadPhotograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Earthrise viewed from the Apollo 11 mission's lunar orbit prior to landingPhoto: EPA/NASA
Researchers have calculated that the planet could have taken far
longer to form following the birth of the solar system 4.567 billion
years ago than scientists have previously believed.
By comparing chemical isotopes from the Earth's mantle with those
from meteorites, geologists at the University of Cambridge claim the
planet reached its current size around 4.467 billion years ago.
Scientists have in the past estimated that the Earth's
development, a process known as accretion where gas, dust and other
material clumped together to form the planet, happened over just 30
million years.
But the new research suggests this process may have taken up to 100 million years – more than three times.
Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience,
however, the researchers claim that while the Earth probably grew to
60% of its current size relatively quickly, the process may well have
then slowed, taking about 100 million years in all.
“The whole issue hinges on working out how long it took for the
core of the Earth to form, which is one of the big unknowns in this
area of science,” said Dr John Rudge, one of the authors at the
University of Cambridge.
“One of the problems has been that scientists usually presume Earth's accretion happened at an exponentially decreasing rate.
"We believe that the process may not have been that simple and
that it could well have been a much more staggered, stop-start affair.”
The accretion of the Earth involved a series of collisions between large pieces of debris, known as planetary embryos.
The huge levels of heat created by these impacts caused the
interior of the growing planet to melt, creating the molten metal core
at the centre of the Earth and the mantle above it.
Many scientists believe that the final part of the process
happened when a body roughly the size of Mars collided with the Earth
and caused part of the planet to break off, forming the Moon.
The research team used measurements of the levels of chemical
isotopes created during the accretion of the Earth, providing a form of
geological clock.
The Earth's isotope levels were then compared with samples taken from meteorites that have hit our planet in modern history.
These meteorites are a kind of time capsule that have isotope
levels similar to those present in the original material that clumped
together when the solar system formed.
Differences in the isotopic values of Earth tungsten and that
taken from the meteorites was able to provide the researchers with
information about how long accretion took.
Dr Rudge and his colleagues used computer models to calculate how
the Earth could have formed to match the levels of isotope decay found
in the planet's mantle.
They showed that the Earth almost certainly could not have formed
within 30 million years but instead grew very quickly, reaching
two-thirds of its size within about 10 to 40 million years.
The accretion process then slowed and took up to another 70 million years to complete.
“If correct, that would mean the Earth was about 100 million years in the making altogether,” said Dr Rudge said.
“We estimate that makes it about 4.467 billion years old – a mere
youngster compared with the 4.537 billion-year-old planet we had
previously imagined.”
Car fuel made from carbon dioxide and sunlight
New technology for "photosynthesising" fuel could lead to cars running on "petrol" made from carbon dioxide and sunlight.
The solar reactor at the Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico.Photo: SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES
Solar-powered reactors can take carbon dioxide and
turn it into carbon monoxide. The same reactors can also be used to
turn water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The two can then be reacted together with a
catalyst to form hydrocarbon fuels, in a technique known as the
Fischer-Tropsch process.
Fuels made in this way are sufficiently similar to
those currently used in cars that major redesigns of engines and
refuelling stations should not be necessary. If fuels can be made
entirely from atmospheric carbon, running a car on that fuel would be carbon neutral.
One such machine, the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5), created by a team of scientists at Sandia National Laboratories
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, captures carbon dioxide from power plant
exhaust fumes. In the future, however, they hope to extract it directly
from the air.
The system uses a giant parabolic mirror, which
concentrates sunlight on to two chambers separated by spinning rings of
cerium oxide. As the rings turn, the cerium oxide is heated to 1500C
and releases oxygen into one of the chambers. The oxygen is then pumped
away.
As the ring spins, the now de-oxidised cerium moves
into the other chamber. Carbon dioxide is pumped in, and the deoxidised
cerium steals one of the oxygen molecules, creating carbon monoxide and
cerium oxide.
Another team, the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology, Zurich, uses a similar system, but with calcium oxide, zinc
oxide and steam, which can create a stream of hydrogen and carbon
monoxide. Their system can already use atmospheric carbon dioxide.
At the moment the two reactors have problems. The
New Mexico team's system currently only works for a few seconds at a
time, while the Swiss model runs at a mere 10 kilowatts. But both hope
to improve reliability and yield.
Creating usable fuel from solar energy is a promising
way of keeping the world's energy demands satisfied while minimising
carbon emissions, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of
Washington at Stanford University, California told New Scientist.
"This area holds out the promise for technologies that can produce
large amounts of carbon-neutral power at affordable prices, which can
be used where and when that power is needed," he says.
"It is one of the few technology areas that could truly revolutionise our energy future."
Fossil sperm whale with huge teeth found in Peruvian desert
The ancient whale used its giant interlocking teeth to hold prey, inflict deep wounds and tear chunks off it. Fossil remains of Leviathan melvillei were found in the Pisco-Ica desert
The sperm whale Leviathan melvillei
attacking a baleen whale. Fossil fragments of its skull, jaw and teeth
were found in Peru. Artist's impression: C. Letenneur/Muséum National
d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris
Fossil hunters have recovered the remains of an ancient sperm
whale that boasted one of the largest bites of any predator that ever
lived.
The beast, named Leviathan melvillei after the author of
Moby Dick, Herman Melville, had a skull 3 metres long with teeth in its
upper and lower jaws that grew to an extraordinary 36cm long.
Remains of the whale, including large fragments of its skull, lower
jaw and teeth, were found in the sands of the Pisco-Ica desert on the
south coast of Peru in 2008, but details of the discovery have only now been released.
The extinct whale is thought to have lived between 12m and 13m
years ago and was probably a top predator alongside the 20-metre-long
giant shark, Carcharocles megalodon, using its huge jaws to capture and kill other marine creatures, such as smaller baleen whales.
"This was probably one of the most powerful predators ever found,"
said Olivier Lambert, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum
in Paris, who led the study. "I don't think such large teeth have ever
been found before."
The team, which included researchers from Utrecht University in
the Netherlands and the natural history museums of Rotterdam, Pisa,
Lima and Brussels, believe the whale was between 13.5 metres and 17.5
metres long, a similar size to modern sperm whales.
"This sperm whale could firmly hold large prey with its interlocking
teeth, inflict deep wounds and tear large pieces from the body of the
victim," the researchers write in the journal Nature (vol 466, p 105).
The remains were found in a region of the Pisco-Ica desert that
was a shallow lagoon when the whale was alive. The remains of a rich
variety of other marine species, including baleen whales, beaked
whales, dolphins, porposies, sharks, turtles, seals and sea birds, have
been found at the site. Many of the carcasses were probably washed
there after the animals died.
Several lineages of sperm whale were alive during the Miocene
epoch, from 5m to 24m years ago, but they suddenly became much less
diverse during climatic cooling at the end of the epoch.
Today, there are only three living species: the sperm whale, the pygmy
sperm whale and the dwarf sperm whale. Modern sperm whales have smaller
teeth in the lower jaw and are almost toothless in the upper jaw. They
feed on squid at depth, which they capture by sucking in water.
"This new specimen should give us additional information about the past diversity of sperm whales," said Lambert.
The fossil will join a collection at the Natural History Museum in Lima, Peru.
Why don't we trust climate scientists?
New study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals huge disparities in the 'relative scientific credibility' of the opposing sides of the climate change debate
From Stabford University - California
An iceberg melts in Greenland in 2007. A new study shows 97% of climate
scientists agree that we are changing the climate. Photograph: John
McConnico/AP
Trust is, perhaps, the most important word within the climate
debate at present. "Who do you trust?" is the question that hangs over
every discussion on the topic.
Do you trust the vast majority of climate scientists who claim
that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are causing a clear and
present climatic danger? Or do you trust the much smaller band of
sceptical climate scientists who argue that there isn't a problem?
In much of our lives, we rely on the testimony and views of
experts. We do so when we feel ill and choose to visit the doctor. We
do so when we want to reduce our tax liabilities. We do so when we wish
to be ably represented in a court of law. We do so when a strange noise
appears from the engine of our car. We will often pay good money to
benefit from the many years of training and experience offered by
experts in their field - be they doctors, accountants, lawyers or
mechanics.
Climate science is a little different, it seems. A notably large –
and growing - proportion of society appears to be rejecting the expert
view of climatologists and choosing instead to place their trust
elsewhere. Needless to say, this has confounded many who work within
the climate sciences, but the causes are myriad and much discussed.
The authors, led by Professor Steve Schneider at Stanford University,
have conducted an extensive literature review to establish the
identities, views and respective authority of 1,372 climate researchers
whose work "constitutes expertise or credibility in technical and
policy-relevant scientific research". One of the principal goals of the
study, say the authors, was to "examine a metric of climate-specific
expertise and a metric of overall scientific prominence as two
dimensions of expert credibility in two groups of researchers". In
other words, they wanted to provide a tool to those outside the climate
sciences to help them better assess which experts to trust.
A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the
distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to
agreeing researchers, and the level of agreement among top climate
experts, has not been conducted and would inform future ACC
[anthropogenic climate change]
discussions. Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate
researchers and their publication and citation data to show that 1)
97-98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field
support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;
and 2) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the
researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the
convinced researchers.
If you get the chance to read the study in full,
please do. It includes a detailed explanation of their chosen
methodology, including how they nullified the potential influence of
"possible cliques" among published scientists.
But the central idea seems to be that the more a scientist
gets their work published and cited in "climate-relevant publications",
the more credibility they should be accorded as an "expert" in that
field. Nothing revolutionary in this, of course: it's the way it works
in any academic discipline. However, it is still illuminating to see
their findings laid out so succinctly.
We provide the first large-scale quantitative assessment of the
relative level of agreement, expertise and prominence in the climate
researcher community. We show that the expertise and prominence, two
integral components of overall expert credibility, of climate
researchers convinced by the evidence of ACC vastly overshadows that of
the climate change sceptics and contrarians. This divide is even
starker when considering the top researchers in each group. Despite
media tendencies to present "both sides" in ACC debates, which can
contribute to continued public misunderstanding regarding ACC, not all
climate researchers are equal in scientific credibility and expertise
in the climate system. This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus
sceptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering
expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these
groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and
public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change.
One other interesting nugget from the study: "From the ~60% of
researchers where year of PhD. was available, mean year of receiving a
PhD. for UE [unconvinced by the evidence] researchers was 1977, versus
1987 for CE [convinced by the evidence] researchers, implying that UE
researchers should have on average more publications due to an
age-effect alone."
The study shows, however, that this is not the case. It's been noted before,
of course, that sceptical climate scientists tend to be approaching
retirement age, or are, in fact, already retired. What does this tell
us? That wisdom comes with age? Or is this evidence of "retired man
syndrome"; when scientists who have already seen the best days of their
career pass them by develop a contrarian view in an attempt to seek
validation and court attention?
Either way, I suspect this intriguing paper will court its
own attention given the distrust that permeates in this debate. As
ever, sceptics will reject it, whereas those who trust the message that
97% of climate scientists are telling us will nod their heads in
acknowledgement
under construction
Science Weekly Live: What makes a genius?
In a special podcast recorded in front of an audience at London's Science Museum, Alok Jha and the panel explore what it means to be a genius
We spoke to someone who could be considered a modern day genius, a
man estimated to be worth more than a billion pounds,
entrepreneur-inventor Sir James Dyson (inventor of a ball vacuum cleaner).
Our guest for the night, and helping us to nail the nature of genius, was psychologist Dr Kevin Dutton. Kevin is an expert on social influence. His new book Flipnosis is out now.
On our panel of Guardian genii were Nell Boase and science correspondent Ian Sample.
Earlier we sent them roaming around the museum's Lates event: Nell
tested her IQ, and Ian watched as the Babbage difference engine came to
life.
We also handed the mic over to our audience to nominate their favourite genius and ask questions of the panel.
If you came along, thanks so much. We would love to get your
feedback on the night. We hope you enjoyed it. You can add your
comments below or tweet @iansample, @alokjha or @scienceweekly. Relive the night by keying #swlive.
View our pictures and upload your own to our Flickr photostream. (You'll need to log in and join our group).
Ghostly fogbow shimmers between the mountains at sunrise By Claire Bates 11.05.010
It could be the legendary hall of the mountain king from Peer Gynt, but if you tried to enter this foggy corridor it would simply dissolve around you.
The hallway is an optical
illusion known as a fogbow. It was created by sunlight reflecting off a
cloud that had passed below the mountain where this picture was taken.
This beautiful fogbow was pictured on La Palma. Mr Tudorica's shadow can be seen at the bottom middle
The impressive archway
was captured on La Palma in the Canary Islands by 23-year-old Alex
Tudorica. The Romanian photographer captured it on a trip to the Isaac
Newton Telescope at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos.
He told the Mail Online:
'One morning after my observations I decided to watch the sunrise near
the astronomers' residence even though I was really tired.
'My patience was greatly
rewarded when the sun rose and the clouds started to ascend. As I tried
to get better shots I climbed for an hour all the way to the top of the
mountain, until I saw this wonderful fogbow below.'
A
glory can be seen in this faint fogbow. It is produced by light
backscattered towards its source by a cloud of uniformly-sized water
droplets. It can only be seen when the observer is directly between the
Sun and cloud, so they must be high up
Fogbows like rainbows,
are formed by sunlight reflecting inside water drops, creating an arch
opposite the sun. In rainbows this light is also refracted along well
defined paths.
Fogbows in contrast are
formed by much smaller water droplets, which scatter the light more
extensively through diffraction. Each bow of colour is very broad and
the colours overlap, washing out the hues. Sometimes the inner and outer edges show faint bluish and reddish tinges.
The ghostly phenomena are
most often seen on hills, mountains and in cold sea mists. You can also
see them when the Sun is near the horizon and there is a tall, clearly
defined bank of fog in the direction away from the Sun.
Asteroid 24 Themis and two small
fragments resulting from an impact more than 1bn years ago. Scientists
were surprised to find ice and organic chemicals on the asteroid's
surface. Artist's impression: Gabriel Pérez/Servicio MultiMedia
Astronomers have detected a coating of ice and organic chemicals on one of the largest asteroids in the solar system. The space
rock, called 24 Themis, is roughly the size of Sicily and orbits the
sun in the main belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, more than
300 million kilometres from Earth.
The discovery supports the idea that asteroids may have brought
plentiful supplies of water and organic material to Earth in the
distant past and so set the stage for the emergence of life.
Two independent groups confirmed the composition of the asteroid's surface after observing the 200km-wide rock using Nasa's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) which sits on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
Analysis of infrared light glinting off the surface of the
asteroid revealed that some wavelengths were being absorbed by water
molecules. Further investigation suggested complex organic molecules
were also present. The findings are reported in two papers in the
journal Nature.
The discovery of frozen water on the asteroid has surprised
some scientists because the sun warms the surface enough for ice to
melt. One possible explanation is that ice in the core of the asteroid
is heated into water vapour, which seeps through pores in the rock and
freezes temporarily when it reaches the surface.
In the second study,
a team led by Humberto Campins at the University of Central Florida
timed its observations to take account of the asteroid's rotation every
eight hours and produce a crude map of the surface. It shows that the
entire surface of the asteroid is coated with a layer of frost no more
than one ten-thousandth of a millimetre thick.
In an accompanying article,
Henry Hsieh, a planetary scientist at Queens University in Belfast,
likened the ice to a "living fossil": a remnant of the solar system
that many considered long gone. "This is a thin layer of ice. It's
not like going outside on a snowy day," he told the Guardian. "But we
didn't really think water would survive in the asteroid belt, and
certainly not on the surface of an asteroid."
The discovery is intriguing because it may finally explain how
two thirds of the Earth came to be submerged in water, turning a
parched rock into a haven for life.
The Earth formed close to the sun as a dry boulder 4.5bn years
ago, but asteroids from cooler regions of space would have slammed into
the surface for millennia, releasing any water they contained on
impact. At the time, asteroids were more numerous and may have carried
far more water than has been found on 24 Themis.
Some scientists believe asteroids may have delivered water to
every planet in the solar system, but Earth's rocky surface, size and
orbit ensured water condensed and remained on the ground, ultimately
forming vast seas and oceans. "Each asteroid might not have carried a
lot of water, but if you strike a planet with a few thousand or million
of them, it would gradually build up," Hsieh said.
The finding of frozen water as far out as the main asteroid belt
suggests water might also be spread throughout alien solar systems.
"The building blocks of life – water and organics – may be more common
near each star's habitable zone," said Emery. "The coming years will be
truly exciting as astronomers search to discover whether these building
blocks of life have worked their magic there as well."
Volcanic ash cloud: stunning Northern Lights images captured over Iceland
A series of spectacular images of the Northern Lights have been captured over the ash plume from the Iceland Volcano.
By Andrew Hough 23 Apr 2010
The Northern Lights are seen through a valley leading away from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcanoPhoto: REUTERS
The Northern Lights are seen above the ash plume of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano in the evening.Photo: REUTERS
The Northern Lights pictures were captured by New York-based photographer Lucas Jackson.Photo: REUTERS
The incredible images show in amazing detail the sky lit up in
amazing green colour above the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. In the
images, captured by New York-based photographer Lucas Jackson, red lava
can also be seen spewing from the top of the active volcano.
Related Articles ~ 'Click' on blue highlighted links
The images, from the Reuters news agency, came as Iceland said it would close two of its airportsfor
the first time later on Friday just as the rest of Europe was starting
to recover from a week of airline chaos caused by the volcanic ash
cloud.
The Icelandic aviation authority has announced that the
Keflavik International Airport and Reykjavík International Airport will
be closed from this morning. Airports within Iceland had previously
been unscathed by the giant ash cloud thanks to strong northwest winds
which blew ash from the volcano, in the south of Iceland, out to sea
and over Europe. The closures come as airports are finally reopening
across Europe after world travel was crippled for almost a week.
At its peak, the crisis affected 1.2 million passengers a day and
29 per cent of all global aviation, according to the International Air
Transport Association.
Solar-powered plane that aims to fly around the world takes off on historic 90-minute flight... at 28mph By Daily Mail Reporter 08.04.2010
A solar-powered plane
that has been built to fly around the world took to the skies yesterday
on an historic 90-minute flight using not one ounce of fuel.
Four propellers lifted
the massive 'Solar Impulse' off the ground at a maximum speed of 28mph
on the runway at a Swiss military airport.
The test flight by Swiss
adventurer Bertrand Piccard's team was to see if the plane, which has
the wingspan of a Boeing 747 and the weight of a small car, could keep
a straight path. The team plans to fly it around the world in 2012.
Test pilot Markus
Scherdel took the prototype plane to 3,280 feet before descending at a
snail's pace and touching down smoothly to cheers from spectators.
Solar Impulse slowly takes to the air after trundling along the runway at a maximum speed of 28mph
Members of the Solar Impulse team run along beside the plane as it takes of
Piccard, who in 1999
copiloted the first nonstop round-the-globe balloon flight with Sir
Richard Branson, said: 'To fly without fuel, we have to make it fly in
line. There might be things that go wrong - maybe a technical problem,
engine failure or a part breakdown.'
The £70 million project
has been conducting 'flea-hop tests' since December, taking the plane
no higher than 2ft in altitude and 1,000ft in distance. A night flight
is planned later this year, and then a new plane will be built based on
the results of those tests.
Using almost 12,000 solar
cells, rechargeable lithium batteries and four electric motors, Piccard
and co-pilot Andre Borschberg plan to take the plane around the world
with stops to allow them to switch over and stretch after long periods
in the cramped cockpit.
The plane has the wingspan of a 747 and weighs the same as a small car
With the engines
providing only 40 horsepower, the plane will fly almost like a scooter
in the sky, at an average flight speed of 44 mph. The trip will be
split up into five stages - keeping the plane in the air for up to five
days at a time.
Solar flight isn't new but Piccard's round-the-world project is the most ambitious.
In 1980, the fragile
Gossamer Penguin ultra-lightweight experimental solar plane flew short
demonstration flights with one pilot on board. A more robust project
called the Solar Challenger flew one pilot from France to England in a
five-hour trip in 1981.
Test
pilot Markus Scherdel gains altitude in his cramped cockpit, taking the
plane to 3,280ft before landing after his 90-minute flightes
Solar plane
technology recalls the early days of manned flight, and the slow ascent
of the Solar Impulse was reminiscent of the Wright brothers pioneering
experiments over a century ago.
'It's a very important moment after seven years of work,' said Borschberg.
Piccard comes from a long
line of adventurers. His late father Jacques plunged deeper beneath the
ocean than any other man, and grandfather Auguste was the first man to
take a balloon into the stratosphere.
How exotic wildlife really did jump on a raft and go with the flow to Madagascar
Mark Henderson Science Editor
The lemur is unique to Madagascar
The unique fauna of Madagascar, including its celebrated lemurs, reached the island by hitching a lift on natural rafts, scientists have confirmed.
The ancestors of present lemurs, civets, mongooses and rodents, found nowhere else, drifted in on logs carried by currents, according to research that resolves a long-standing enigma about their origin.
Madagascar has been cut off from the African mainland for about 120 million years by the Mozambique Channel, about 300 miles wide. Its isolation has produced idiosyncratic biodiversity. More than 90 per cent of its mammals, reptiles and amphibians are unique, and it has more unique species than any island apart from Australia, which is 13 times larger.
As well as 99 species and subspecies of lemur, which are found only on Madagascar and its surrounding islands, it is home to creatures such as the fossa, a cat-like civet related to mongooses, hedgehog-like tenrecs, and rodents such as the bastard big-footed mouse.
Its land mammals are all small, and belong to just four groups — lemurs, tenrecs, carnivores and rodents — which arrived on the island between 60 million and 20 million years ago.
This limited range of animal life led the palaeontologist George Gaylord Simpson to suggest 70 years ago that small founder populations from each group reached Madagascar on drifting rafts. The rarity of such events would explain why so few groups of animals populate the island, and the absence of large animals, which would have been too heavy to make such a journey. Simpson’s “sweepstakes hypothesis”, however, has been widely disputed, because African coastal currents would carry away from the island the debris on which animals could ride.
Some scientists have instead proposed that a now-submerged land bridge might intermittently have let animals cross, though there is little geological evidence to support it.
The main drawback of Simpson’s idea has now been resolved by a computer model of ancient currents published today in the journal Nature by Professor Jason Ali, of the University of Hong Kong, and Professor Matthew Huber, of Purdue University in Indiana.
During the period when Madagascar was being populated, from about 60 million years ago, both the island and mainland stood well to the south of their present positions.
That produced ocean conditions unlike those that prevail today, including a current flowing to Madagascar from what is now northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania. As the tectonic plates holding Africa and Madagascar moved north, that current was cut off, about 20 million years ago.
“All signs point to the Simpson sweepstakes model being correct,” the researchers say. “Currents could have occasionally transported rafts of animals to Madagascar from Africa.”
Anne Yoder, director of the Duke University Lemur Centre, who reviewed the paper for Nature, said the rafting hypothesis had always been most plausible, and that its major flaw had now been addressed. “I was very excited to see this paper,” she said. “Dispersal has been a hypothesis about a mechanism without any actual data. This takes it out of the realm of storytelling and makes it science.”
Hottest star in the galaxy pictured for the first time. 08.12.2009. | Source: CCTV.com
One of the hottest stars in the galaxy has been discovered by astronomers.
One of the hottest stars in the galaxy has been discovered by astronomers.
The dying star at the centre of the Bug Nebula is 35 times hotter than the sun with a surface temperature of 200,000 degrees.
This is the first time the star has been pictured despite numerous attempts by stargazers across the world.
Astronomers at The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics were amazed to find they had captured the central star using the recently refurbished Hubble Space Telescope.
The Bug Nebula is about 3500 light years away in the constellation Scorpius.
Editor: Zheng Limin |
New weapon against climate change on verge of completing first transatlantic voyage
Battery-powered underwater glider known as the Scarlet Knight tracks temperature variations in the most inhospitable locations
The Scarlet Knight glider in the water. Photograph: Public Domain
When a shiny, winged yellow tube touches land in Spain this weekend it will be completing a transatlantic trip that scientists compare to Charles Lindbergh's famous flight across the same ocean.
More crucially, this battery-powered underwater glider will have proved itself an effective weapon against climate change, according to scientists. "This is the first time an underwater glider has ever crossed the Atlantic," said oceanographer Scott Glenn from Rutgers University in New Jersey. His team are preparing to pick up the Scarlet Knight, named after the university football team, in the waters off the Spanish port of Vigo. "If we can do that now, then we can cross the ocean with 10 and then we can do it with 100."
Those gliders will, like the Scarlet Knight, be equipped with sensors to track temperature change and currents just under the sea's surface. The oceans have a profound influence on the planet's climate but data is hard to collect. "This is the start of a new generation of gliders that will help monitor climate change so the politicians can make better informed decisions," said Glenn. "Climate change is the grand challenge of this future generation. We have to do this within the lifetime of our children."
The gliders can collect data even in the inhospitable North Atlantic and near the melting polar ice caps. They can reach depths of 200 metres (650ft) and withstand seven-metre waves. "They swim like dolphins. We can put them into storms and places not safe for human beings," said Glenn. "If you lose one, then all you are losing is electronics.""The vision is of omnipresence, of being able to be all over the ocean by having lots of inexpensive robots tweeting back messages."
The Scarlet Knightis also will deliver letters written by US children but its historic trip is unlikely to herald a change in passenger traffic: it is took more than seven months to get to Spain from New Jersey, where it was launched on 29 April. With no propeller, it is moved by a small piston that alters its internal pressure, causing it to dive or rise. Wings then turn the up-down movement into forward motion.
Gliders occasionally bob to the surface to transmit data and receive instructions about what course to take. They use tiny amounts of electricity, allowing their batteries to run for up to a year. "It uses the power of about three Christmas lights," said Glenn. "This glider still retains a third of its battery power."
New battery technologies should allow a glider to "fly" around the world within in 10 years, he said.The 60kg (132lb), 2.5-metre-long Scarlet Knight has arrived at the exact spot the team was aiming for. "We would have been happy with reaching anywhere that flies a European flag," Glenn said.
The glider's success has already attracted attention, with the US navy planning to order up to 300. It has also been used by television companies making Environmental programmes in the Indian Ocean during 2007 / 8.
The world's first "Space Station of the Sea" 30.11.2009. Editor: Zheng Limin | Source: CCTV.com
Designer: Jacques Rougerie poses in Paris next to a model of the SeaOrbiter
It looks more like the Starship Enterprise sinking in the sea - but this huge vertical vessel could be the future of ocean exploration.
Called the SeaOrbiter, the huge 51m (167ft) structure is set to be the world's first vertical ship allowing man a revolutionary view of life below the surface.
Called the SeaOrbiter, the huge 51m (167ft) structure is set to be the world's first vertical ship allowing man a revolutionary view of life below the surface.
Although currently only a prototype its inventor Jacques Rougerie thinks his international oceanographic station will soon be setting sail. Mr Rougerie wants the ship to be a space station for the sea giving scientists an insight into the little-known world under the sea.
Called the SeaOrbiter, the huge 51m (167ft) structure is set to be the world's first vertical ship allowing man a revolutionary view of life below the surface.
New Super Mario Bros | LittleBigPlanet | Invizimals
Charles Darwin and his pigeons return to 50 Albemarle Street, London
The descendants of Charles Darwin, his publisher ¨C and his pigeons ¨C met this week on the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species
Leaf 324 of Charles Darwin's manuscript for On the Origin of Species. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
"That's the fireplace where Byron's memoirs were burned after his death because they were thought too salacious," my host Virginia Murray casually throws into the conversation as she shows me around the upstairs drawing room of number 50 Albemarle Street, just a few steps from Piccadilly in London's Mayfair.
I am here on something of a scientific pilgrimage: to see the place where Charles Darwin and his publisher, John Murray III, discussed drafts of arguably the most important book in scientific history ¨C On the Origin of Species. I had hoped to get a sense of the heritage of the book on the 150th anniversary of its publication, but I was not prepared for a fascinating all-round history lesson.
"This was the meeting place in England for literary and political types at the beginning of the 19th century," said Murray (the great great grandson of Darwin's publisher). At Murray III's soirees, Darwin rubbed shoulders with his great intellectual influences, the economist Thomas Malthus, the botanist Joseph Hooker and the geologist Charles Lyell.
John Murray III's file copy of the first edition of On the Origin of Species. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
And in its 234-year history, which began 21 years before the French revolution but sadly ended in 2002, the publishing house played host to the likes of Benjamin Disraeli, John Betjeman, Kenneth Clark, David Livingstone and James Watt. Busts of the latter two glower down at us from either side of a massive portrait of Lord Byron that hangs above the fireplace where the poet's diaries met their end.
Tonight's soiree is touched by a more modern twinkling of stardust, with the novelists AS Byatt and Ian McEwan, and broadcaster Andrew Marr on the guest list. We are here to see a unique collection of Darwin artefacts that have been brought together for the anniversary ¨C the climax of a year of Darwin-related events that began with the great naturalist's 200th birthday on 12 February.
On display is the publisher's original "file copy" of On the Origin of Species, one of 1,250 copies in the first print run, which earned Darwin £180. This copy, which would now probably fetch something north of £100,000 at auction, is now part of a collection held by the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. The collection includes other treasures such as Darwin's submission letter to Murray and the entry for the Origin in Murray's financial ledger.
Across the room is a collection of six live fancy pigeons ¨C the same varieties that Darwin used as examples in the first chapter of his book to demonstrate the power of selection by human hand. "This is a world first," said Randal Keynes, one of Darwin's great great grandsons, who explains that this is the first time that the six varieties have been brought together since the publication. "If you gave them to an expert ornithologist he would say that they are not only different species but also different genera."
Letter from Darwin to John Murray III, his publisher, dated 31 March 1859. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
And he's right. The tall, proud English pouter with its puffed-out chest looks nothing like the dainty Almond Tumber, while the scandaroon's massive beak and upright posture could hardly be more different from the fantail with its splayed plumage.
These varieties would have been very familiar to people in the 19th century, but it was Darwin's genius to point out that they were all closely related to the rock dove (essentially the same as the pigeons in Trafalgar Square) and had all been created in a few generations by breeders selecting the characteristics they liked. His message: if people can do this, what could nature achieve with plenty of time on her hands?
The most valuable thing in the room, at over £200,000, is a single leaf of Darwin's original manuscript owned by Keynes's father (pictured at the top of this article). The text reads:
"Finally then, the facts too briefly given in this chapter, do not seem to me opposed, but rather to support the view that there is no fundamental difference between species and varieties."
Darwin did not value the manuscript and gave it to his children to use as writing paper. It ended up forgotten in a cupboard at Down House, where Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, but some of the leaves survive today. Thank goodness they did not end up in the fireplace.
The science and magic of breadmaking
As winter sets in, warm your senses by baking your own fresh bread. Andy Connelly guides you through the magical process that turns flour and water into heavenly food
Use your loaf: Making bread was surely one of humankind's first chemistry experiments. Graham Turner/Guardian
When I think of bread my mind goes back to cold Saturday mornings with ice on the inside of the patio doors and cartoons blazing on the television. My dad would get up early and, after eating his porridge, would begin to make bread.
He would mix all the ingredients in a large ceramic bowl that was crystal-white on the inside and biscuit-brown on the outside. I would watch as the flour became dough and the dough grew and grew in the warm kitchen. I would linger near the oven to smell the earthy fresh bread as it baked, waiting for the treat of eating the crusty end slice of the loaf with a thick slab of butter.
I'm not saying my dad was an amazing baker, but warm bread for tea on a wintry Saturday afternoon with cheese and strawberry jam is something I will never forget. Few things are as tasty, satisfying and simple, and yet if we take a deeper look at bread we find the science of life, complex structures and the history of human development.
Archaeologists have correlated the development of human civilisations with the evolution of what is now regarded as the modern species of bread wheat. Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to Neolithic times when lumps of dough, unleavened, were placed on hot stones in the embers of a wood fire. Bread soon became synonymous with life itself.
In the Bible it is often compared directly to life: "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth in me shall never thirst." And in the Lord's Prayer Christians ask that God "give us this day our daily bread".
In England, bread even defined the social hierarchy. "Lord" comes from the Anglo-Saxon halford meaning "loaf ward", the master who supplies food. "Lady" comes from hlaefdige, meaning "loaf kneader", the person whose servants produce what her husband then distributed.
Making bread was surely one of the first chemistry experiments. Finding that ground grain (a dry, loose, hard and bland substance) mixed into a rough porridge with water could be transformed into a flavourful, puffy, moist mass that was crisp on the outside, simply by placing it near a fire, was an extraordinary discovery. These flat breads can still be found in the world as the Middle Eastern lavash, the Greek pita, the American tortilla and the Indian chapatti.
Better still, if this porridge mixture was left in the open air for a few days the real science of life began. Magically, this "dough" began to rise and could then be baked into the most wonderful cloud-like substance, leavened bread.
Recipe
Flour 500g Instant active dried yeast (as specified on packet) Warm water 300g A quick glug of olive oil Pinch of salt (to taste)
1. Mix flour, salt and yeast together in a large bowl. Pour in the water and start mixing with a spoon.
Look at what is happening as you mix the ingredients. The water is disappearing and the dough is forming. The shaggy mass of dough is sticking to your spoon. The mixture is slowly binding together to form a cohesive mass. If the mixture seems too wet do not add more flour, wait 10 minutes for the starch to absorb the water.
Lean over the bowl and take a good sniff. You can smell the earthy, metallic odour of flour and water with a slightly sour note from the alcohol produced by the yeast and a sweet smell from the sugars released by enzymes in the flour.
Starch (70% by weight of wheat flour) absorbs the water you have added and then enzymes digest the starch and turn some of it into sugar. These free sugars are fantastic food for yeast. In fact, you can mix the dough the day before baking, without the yeast. This releases flavours and sugars trapped in the starch, which is great for the palette and for the yeast.
Yeast metabolises sugars for energy and produces carbon dioxide gas and alcohol as by-products just as in the fermentation of beer. In fact beer can be seen as liquid bread and bread as solid beer. In case you were wondering, the alcohol burns off during baking.
C6H12O6 ¡ú 2C2H5OH + 2 CO2
In other words, one molecule of glucose sugar yields two of alcohol and two of carbon dioxide gas ¨C the burping and sweating of yeast.
Yeast spores are ubiquitous in air and on the surface of grain, and they readily infect a moist, nutritious grain paste. However, with this recipe it is much easier to add some easy-blend yeast from a packet, which is alive but dormant, waiting for us to wake it up.
It wasn't until the investigations of Louis Pasteur some 150 years ago that we began to understand the nature of the leavening process. He, like every baker of the time, was a scientist experimenting and learning how these single-cell fungi work and how to control them.
2. Work the ingredients together into a dough and knead on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic but not sticky;
As you knead your dough, turn, fold and press each time. The folding traps the air, the pressing adds mechanical energy, warming the dough slightly and aiding the formation of a network of gluten, a stretchy protein complex. The turning encourages mixing and gives a more homogeneous gluten structure. Watch the dough under your palms turn into a pliable, soft and elastic ball. Stop when the dough ceases to tear under your hands and forms a smooth, elastic surface.
Within the flour there are many long, chain-like protein molecules that are insoluble in water. When wet, and under the influence of yeast, these proteins link up end-to-end creating an extensive interconnected network of coiled proteins, the gluten. The glutinous dough is both plastic and elastic; that is, it will change its shape under pressure, yet it also resists and moves back towards its original shape when the pressure is removed. This allows the dough to expand, incorporating the carbon dioxide gas produced by the yeast, and yet resist enough to prevent the bubbles walls thinning to breaking point. Kneading the bread stretches the gluten into elastic sheets that can be filled with gas to form bubbles, giving the bread a spongy structure.
This gluten network can be stronger or weaker depending on the ingredients (such as the type of flour) and how you work the dough. Fats and oils tend to interfere with the gluten, making the gluten strands shorter, but just a little olive oil can make the dough exceptionally easy to knead, and give it a particular litheness.
The only ingredient we haven't discussed yet is the salt. If you've ever forgotten to add salt, the bread produced has a dead, rather unpleasant taste. However, it decreases yeast activity so don't add too much. The salt has been compared to the bridle, and the yeast to the whip. By judicious use of salt at the different stages you can guide and arrest fermentation.
3. Return the dough to a clean bowl and cover with an airtight plastic bag or a damp tea towel. Leave to rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours;
When I watch the dough expand I see it as a lively white cushion, growing bigger and bigger, blowing up very slowly with thousands of tiny balloons inside. As much as 80% of the volume of bread is empty space. The bubbles interrupt the network of gluten and starch granules, dividing it into millions of very thin sheets that form the bubble walls.
The carbon dioxide produced by the yeast diffuses into any tiny bubbles it encounters and enlarges them. Thus, the more bubbles produced during the preparation of a dough, the finer and more tender the resulting bread.
Yeast cannot be rushed, it must be given time. When the Israelites fled Egypt they could not tarry ¨C they could not waste the time required for yeast to work. Their bread had not risen and so was eaten, and is eaten to this day in memory, unleavened.
The end of this period (the proving period) is signalled by a doubling of dough volume. To check that the bread has finished proving you could follow the advice of an Russian cookery book published in 1860 and place the loaf in a bucket of water. When the loaf has sufficiently risen it will rise to the top of the bucket.
Or, less courageously, you could poke the dough with your finger. If it does not spring back this means that the gluten network has been stretched to the limit of its elasticity and the dough is ready.
4. Again, knead on a lightly floured surface but this time only briefly to homogenise any remaining yeast and the air pockets that have formed
5. Shape into loafs, place in buttered tins and leave to prove for 30 minutes;
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 220C for 35-40 minutes.
Baking is the process of turning all the beautiful work you have done into a delicately chambered, crisp loaf. As the dough heats up it becomes more fluid and the gas cells expand and the dough rises (called oven spring). The main cause of oven spring is the vaporisation of alcohol and water into gases. These fill holes in the gluten network and expand the dough by as much as half its initial volume.
The oven spring stops when the crust becomes stiff and firm enough to resist and when the interior of the loaf reaches 70-80C. This is the temperature at which gluten proteins form strong cross-links and water-laden starch granules swell and set. At this point the yeast has already died and the series of transformations from grain to bread are almost complete. Now the walls can no longer stretch and so the gas pressure in the holes builds, eventually popping the walls and creating the familiar open network you see when you slice a loaf.
Legend has it that you know the loaf is finished if you hear a hollow sound when you tap the base. This means the inside is light and fluffy. More scientifically you can check with a thermometer that the centre is at just less than 100C.
Personally, I like bread with a deep brown crust, as this adds some lovely warm flavours, so I tend to cook the loaf a little longer to allow the high temperatures to caramelise sugars in the crust. Supermarket bread is rarely crusty because it tends to be under-baked; this leaves more water in the loaf, allowing less flour to be used to produce a loaf of the same weight.
7. Leave on a wire rack to cool for about 20 minutes;
8. EAT!
To perform a little chemistry test in your home take a piece of bread in your mouth and chew, keep chewing, and chewing, and a bit more. Initially you should taste your beautiful homemade bread, followed by a sweet taste which is the remaining starch being turned into sugars by an enzyme in your saliva, and then, after almost everything else has gone, a chewing gum-like mass forms in your mouth. This is gluten.
But don't do this with all the bread. Take out a large pat of butter, spread it thickly on a slice, eat and enjoy.
Andy Connelly is a research scientist at the University of Sheffield
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An iceberg melts in Greenland in 2007. A new study shows 97% of climate
scientists agree that we are changing the climate. Photograph: John
McConnico/AP 
Science Weekly Live: What makes a genius?
The lemur is unique to Madagascar
John Murray III's file copy of the first edition of On the Origin of Species. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
Letter from Darwin to John Murray III, his publisher, dated 31 March 1859. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
