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A place to share questions and comments about Science at ATA. In our monthly SINS (Science In the News) Students review a piece of media (newspaper, magazine, radio, T.V., Internet). Then share and discuss. Brief Synopses of our Labs will also be posted here. Feel free to comment! :-)
6 comments:
Alden Woodard
In Houston Texas, atmospheric scientist Arthur Few has recently started answering questions about green lightning and its appearance in storms. Olive Heffernan from National Geographic online in the article “Scientist Solves Mystery of Green Lightning” discussed his interview with Arthur Few about his recent inquires involving green lightning. Few states that before scientists thought green lightning was a rare occurrence but now it is thought to happen in every thunder storm.
Now we know that it happens regularly in every thunderstorm, but why can’t we see the green bolts? Few explains that lightning occurs between positive and negatively charged areas of the clouds that are linked together by special ice crystals. Only once has green lighting been caught on camera it was during the eruption at the volcano Chaiten in Chile. It is because the electrically charged particles are on the outside of the ash clouds and are linked together by charged bits of rock. It is thought that during the aurora borealis the same process takes place.
Even with all the technology and effort from storm experts we still manage to discover new exciting things about our planet. This article was published December 10TH, 2013.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131210-volcano-green-lightning-picture-explained-science-weather/#close-modal
Noah Spoth
Recently a new theory has arisen about the fall of the dinosaurs. In a radio-lab podcast some scientist talked about the end of the dinosaurs at http://www.radiolab.org/. The conventional old theory is that the asteroid sent up a bunch of dust into the atmosphere, causing a great cooling of the temperature, as the sun was blocked out. However what may of happened is completely different. The new theory is that the asteroid would come in so fast, the resulting a explosion equivalent to 1000 megatons of Tnt, which is equal to a hundred Fat Man bombs. This, along with sending tremors through out the earths surface, would sent thousands of tons of rock gas. Some of this would hit the moon, some Mars. However the majority of of it would cool and form into trillions tiny glass balls, which would fall back into the atmosphere. 90% of them would burn up in the atmosphere, and the ones that make it would cause no damage. But the glass balls burning up in the atmosphere would cause drastic rising of temperatures. Peak temperatures that day would reach over 1000oF. At that temperature your blood would literally boil, wiping out all terrestrial dinosaurs aboveground. The kicker is though, is that this process would take only about two hours.
Kahla Reinhart
First Evidence of Primates Regularly Sleeping in Caves was posted on December, 4 2013 to www.sciencedaily.com. There is evidence that ring tailed lemurs go to sleep in limestone caves. Lemurs sleep in caves because it will protect them from predators and also it may give them access to water, or some minerals and vitamins and shelter.
The researchers studied for six years. What they found interesting is that the same family of lemurs, used the cave on a daily basis. Researchers think that this behavior from lemurs has been going on for possibly a millennia or more.
Some monkeys and lemurs live in caves, some change caves. The long tailed Asian monkey, moves from caves every few days.
www.colarado.edu
Gordon Clark
Europa
Sara Frecht gives an interesting view on the growing possibility of life on Europa, in her article “Hubble Spots Water Plumes on Europa” on National Geographic online, December 12, 2013. A deep ocean lies beneath a 12 mile layer of ice coating Europa. This ocean is caused by the pressure of the gravitational pull on Europa. Scientists believe that their might be some microorganism living in the depths of the icy moon.
Due to its vast amounts of frozen and liquid water, the possibility of life on this icy moon is very possible. Recently scientists have spotted what were thought of as camera defects to be two icy geysers at the doth pole of Europa. These geysers are 124 miles high, and probably shooting out from two fissures in the crust of ice. Scientist may be able to send a vessel through these plumes and test its contents.This new discovery will present a much cheaper way of testing whether extraterrestrial life exists upon Europa.
Tropical Methane Lakes on Titan?
A large lake of liquid methane has recently been discovered on the surface of Titan amongst its tropical dunes according to Charles Q. Choi in his article at Space.com on 6/13/2012. Titan's tropics, which are normally dry, exist around the equator of the moon, much like the tropics on Earth. The newly discovered lake is probably fed by a liquid methane vent from underground, allowing it to persist in the environment which does not normally support lakes.
The lake, which is around 2396 Km2 and about one meter deep, is about the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah at its lowest level during Earth's dry season. It is being fed by a 600 Kg flow for every kilometer of surface area, scientists say. It's possible other lakes like this existed in the past, but have since dried up due to no longer being fed from deep below.
http://www.space.com/16127-titan-tropical-lake-saturn-moon.html
Army Truck Shoots Drones Mortars Lasers?
Posted on PopSci.com. HEL MD (High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator) has been in development since 2011 for the military it is currently the most advanced in “not getting killed” technology. This new technology was designed for destroying drones, mortars, rockets and just about anything that can fly. This is a similar laser that the navy wants to in 2014 mounted on their ship the USS Ponce. Compared to previous air defense weapons HEL MD costs a lot less per use. Where HEL MD uses approximately one dollar to do the same task as a $40,000 rocket can do.
The laser only has been tested with ten kilowatts against drones and mortars and successfully destroyed them. In the future it is hoped that they will be able to use a 50 KW laser to destroy Cruise missiles, rockets and artillery and even later after that use a 100 KW laser that could possibly even destroy tanks, ships and planes. This is a great advancement because it could bring us to even better advancements in technology.
http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/army-truck-shoots-drones-mortars-lasers?dom=PSC&loc=recent&lnk=7&con=army-truck-shoots-drones-mortars-with-lasers
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