Category: Science

When sunspots were first observed almost five hundred years ago, they pointed to a hole in a theory–an article of faith for some: that the sun was a perfect orb that should be free of blemishes.

Now sunspots are pointing to a hole in another theory–also an article of faith for some: global warming.

As you’ve no doubt heard, the globe has been warming in recent times. The question is: What’s causing it? The most common explanation is that it’s the release of “greenhouse gasses” into the earth’s atmosphere by fluorocarbons, fossil fuels, etc.

However, as it turns out, sunspots have also been increasing in recent years. Further: An examination of Greenland ice cores shows that the rise and fall of sunspots correlates with the rise and fall of global temperature. In other words, as the sunspots go up or down, so does the global temperature on earth.

Scientists don’t (yet) understand the mechanism by which this happens, but it apparently does. This adds credence to critics of the “global warming”/”greenhouse gasses” hypothesis, who have argued that the recent rise in global temperatures may be completely unrelated to the discharge of certain gasses by technology (in other words, that the “global warming” advocates are committing the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy).

This is not a certainty. According to the BBC report on the finding, global warming has been increasing even after the rise in sunspots leveled off a few decades ago, but on the other hand that could be because the rise in temperature builds up if the sunspots continue at their current level (the same way putting a lightbulb next to an object takes a while to increase the object’s surface temperature, even though the lighbulb emits a constant level of heat–at least until a certain level of surface temperature is reached).

Time and research will tell if this is the case.

The key thing is: Some of the global warming phenomenon seems to be due to something other than the release of greenhouse gasses. The question now is: How much?

DAILY PLANET (METROPOLIS) — The Cassini space probe has returned to earth the clearest pictures ever taken of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, where the famed, telepathic superheroine Saturn Girl will be born a little under one thousand years from now.

Despite being a moon, Titan is large enough to have an atmosphere, and it has a doozy. Normally clouds totally obscure the surface of the moon, and in order to get a peek at it, Cassini has had to rely on unusual wavelengths of light (some infrared), allowing a false-color image of Titan’s surface (right) to be taken.

In the image, “Yellow areas correspond to hydrocarbon-rich regions; green areas are icier regions. A south polar methane cloud appears white” [Source].

Scientists are also using the Cassini images to compose a map of Titan’s surface so that the 30th century’s futuristic hi-rises can be planned well in advance.

Imra Ardeen (a.k.a. Saturn Girl) of the Legion of Super-Heroes, has not yet been born and thus was not available for comment. Nevertheless, she is one of the most powerful telepaths in the history of the galaxy and became one of the three founding members of the Legion, the 30th century’s largest and most successful superhero team.

Dr. Jenet Klyburn of S.T.A.R. Labs (Metroplis branch) did comment: “With all those frozen hydrocarbons up there, it’s clear that Titan will need a lot of terra forming before it will become a suitable home for the race of telepaths from which Saturn Girl (left) will spring. It’s amazing to think that there will be a whole race of humanoids living there a thousand years from now, but this is what our contacts with the future via the superhero community have revealed.”

Read more about the new images of Titan’s surface.

DAILY PLANET (METROPOLIS) — The Cassini space probe has returned to earth the clearest pictures ever taken of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, where the famed, telepathic superheroine Saturn Girl will be born a little under one thousand years from now.

Despite being a moon, Titan is large enough to have an atmosphere, and it has a doozy. Normally clouds totally obscure the surface of the moon, and in order to get a peek at it, Cassini has had to rely on unusual wavelengths of light (some infrared), allowing a false-color image of Titan’s surface (right) to be taken.

In the image, “Yellow areas correspond to hydrocarbon-rich regions; green areas are icier regions. A south polar methane cloud appears white” [Source].

Scientists are also using the Cassini images to compose a map of Titan’s surface so that the 30th century’s futuristic hi-rises can be planned well in advance.

Imra Ardeen (a.k.a. Saturn Girl) of the Legion of Super-Heroes, has not yet been born and thus was not available for comment. Nevertheless, she is one of the most powerful telepaths in the history of the galaxy and became one of the three founding members of the Legion, the 30th century’s largest and most successful superhero team.

Dr. Jenet Klyburn of S.T.A.R. Labs (Metroplis branch) did comment: “With all those frozen hydrocarbons up there, it’s clear that Titan will need a lot of terra forming before it will become a suitable home for the race of telepaths from which Saturn Girl (left) will spring. It’s amazing to think that there will be a whole race of humanoids living there a thousand years from now, but this is what our contacts with the future via the superhero community have revealed.”

Read more about the new images of Titan’s surface.

QUESTION 1: How cool is this? In gravity-breaking around Saturn, the Cassini space probe plunged through the ring plane around the planet (even though it was through a gap).

ANSWER 1: Wicked awesome!

QUESTION 2: How do you top a stunt like that?

ANSWER 2: Drop the Huygens probe to Titan on Christmas!

Read this article to find out what I’m talking about.

In our age in which people are marrying later and delaying having children, many women find themselves in the painful situation of feeling that their reproductive years are slipping away from them without having the children they want to have. Part of the problem is that how many reproductive years a woman has is uncertain. It varies from woman to woman.

Now a new method offers the possibility of assessing how many years a woman has before her “biological clock” runs out.

The method involves measuring the size of the ovaries by ultrasound (they shrink as a woman approaches menopause).

The method does not work on women who are on the Pill, which prematurely shrinks the ovaries.

Unfortunately, if the method works, it will be used to push some women toward using illicit reproductive techniques, but for other women it will have the opposite effect. Those with more (rather than fewer) reproductive years will know that it is still worth trying to conceive naturally, and even those women who are committed to using moral means to conceive but have fewer reproductive years left will know to try to conceive sooner and more earnesly.

In our age in which people are marrying later and delaying having children, many women find themselves in the painful situation of feeling that their reproductive years are slipping away from them without having the children they want to have. Part of the problem is that how many reproductive years a woman has is uncertain. It varies from woman to woman.

Now a new method offers the possibility of assessing how many years a woman has before her “biological clock” runs out.

The method involves measuring the size of the ovaries by ultrasound (they shrink as a woman approaches menopause).

The method does not work on women who are on the Pill, which prematurely shrinks the ovaries.

Unfortunately, if the method works, it will be used to push some women toward using illicit reproductive techniques, but for other women it will have the opposite effect. Those with more (rather than fewer) reproductive years will know that it is still worth trying to conceive naturally, and even those women who are committed to using moral means to conceive but have fewer reproductive years left will know to try to conceive sooner and more earnesly.

(Slightly rearranged) Excerpts from article:

Geologists have added a new period to their official calendar of Earth’s history – the first in 120 years.

The Ediacaran Period covers some 50 million years of ancient time on our planet from 600 million years ago to about 542 million years ago.

It officially becomes part of the Neoproterozoic, when multi-celled life forms started to take hold on Earth.

Professor Ogg said many of the new life forms that appeared in the Ediacaran seem to be simple organisms, probably related to present-day sponges.

“They appear to be lying flat on the seafloor and people think they may have had photosynthetic symbiosis much like corals do today,” he explained.

“These organisms were probably ripped to shreds when the first predators came along. That probably happened in the Cambrian Period.”

However, Russian geologists are unhappy their own title – the Vendian – which was coined in 1952, was not chosen.

The Russians added that geological time was invented just outside Moscow, near the location of the Garden of Eden. “In the twenty-third century, everybody knows that,” said visiting scientist Pavel Chekhov.

Meanwhile representatives of the Institute for Creation Research of El Cajon, California decried the creation of the new era and refused to research it.

Others are keen to research and commercially develop the new period. Billionnaire developer John Hammond immediately announced plans to extract DNA from fossilized cells of the invertibrate life forms that thrived in the Edicaran Period, clone them, and build a multi-million dollar theme amusement center known as Edicaran Park, which he described as a wading-pool petting zoo filled with soft, harmless sponges for children to enjoy touching.

Hammond’s plans were immediately denounced by Dr. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician and disgruntled ex-employee of Hammond, who said his former boss was “Making all new mistakes” that were sure to lead to mayhem and destruction. “His last three parks have all ended in disaster,” Malcolm said.

But Hammond was unperturbed. “Dr. Malcolm is a reactionary,” he stated. “He expects the genetic resequencing in the cloning process to lead the sponges to grow hundreds of feet tall and become mobile, capable of menacing entire cities, and as sponges be immune to all forms of modern weapons, only to reproduce when cut in pieces. That’s crazy,” Hammond assured nervous reporters. “That will never happen.”

(Slightly rearranged) Excerpts from article:

Geologists have added a new period to their official calendar of Earth’s history – the first in 120 years.

The Ediacaran Period covers some 50 million years of ancient time on our planet from 600 million years ago to about 542 million years ago.

It officially becomes part of the Neoproterozoic, when multi-celled life forms started to take hold on Earth.

Professor Ogg said many of the new life forms that appeared in the Ediacaran seem to be simple organisms, probably related to present-day sponges.

“They appear to be lying flat on the seafloor and people think they may have had photosynthetic symbiosis much like corals do today,” he explained.

“These organisms were probably ripped to shreds when the first predators came along. That probably happened in the Cambrian Period.”

However, Russian geologists are unhappy their own title – the Vendian – which was coined in 1952, was not chosen.

The Russians added that geological time was invented just outside Moscow, near the location of the Garden of Eden. “In the twenty-third century, everybody knows that,” said visiting scientist Pavel Chekhov.

Meanwhile representatives of the Institute for Creation Research of El Cajon, California decried the creation of the new era and refused to research it.

Others are keen to research and commercially develop the new period. Billionnaire developer John Hammond immediately announced plans to extract DNA from fossilized cells of the invertibrate life forms that thrived in the Edicaran Period, clone them, and build a multi-million dollar theme amusement center known as Edicaran Park, which he described as a wading-pool petting zoo filled with soft, harmless sponges for children to enjoy touching.

Hammond’s plans were immediately denounced by Dr. Ian Malcolm, a mathematician and disgruntled ex-employee of Hammond, who said his former boss was “Making all new mistakes” that were sure to lead to mayhem and destruction. “His last three parks have all ended in disaster,” Malcolm said.

But Hammond was unperturbed. “Dr. Malcolm is a reactionary,” he stated. “He expects the genetic resequencing in the cloning process to lead the sponges to grow hundreds of feet tall and become mobile, capable of menacing entire cities, and as sponges be immune to all forms of modern weapons, only to reproduce when cut in pieces. That’s crazy,” Hammond assured nervous reporters. “That will never happen.”

You may know that Pink Floyd had an album called The Dark Side Of The Moon, but did you know that it’s possible to get a look at the far side of the sun?

It is! In fact, that’s what’s in the center of the picture to the left. There is a technique astronomers have developed called helioseismic holography that allows us to map what is happening on the far side of the sun. Here’s the story on the image you’re looking at:

The false colors represent condensations of magnetic flux — that is, sunspots. This holographic map captured April 12, 2001, shows the giant sunspot AR9393 on the back side of the Sun a full week before it emerged into direct view over the Sun’s eastern limb. MDI holographic images reveal the Earth-facing side of the Sun 70 degrees from the disk center, and the far side of the Sun 50 degrees from disk center.

You may be wondering how all this works, well . . .

The Sun is a hummimg ball of sound waves launched by turbulent convective motions in our star’s outer layers. “The waves we monitor [using MDI] have a period of about 5 minutes,” says Phil Scherrer of Stanford University, principal investigator for the MDI instrument. “That’s roughly the turn-over time of the California-sized bubbles that appear as granulation of the photosphere.” Solar granulation is what excites the Sun’s internal sound waves.

Solar sound waves are mostly trapped inside our star — they refract away from the Sun’s hot core and reflect back and forth between different parts of the photosphere. . . . By monitoring the Sun’s vibrating surface, helioseismologists can probe the stellar interior in much the same way that geologists use seismic waves from earthquakes to probe the inside of our planet.

Intense magnetic fields around sunspots affect the transit times of sound waves bouncing from one side of the Sun to the other, variations that the MDI can detect and transform to reveal magnetic condensations (i.e, sunspots) on the hidden side of the Sun. Called “helioseismic holography,” this technique can produce actual images of the far side of our star.

For more info on how all this works, including QuickTime movies of the process, see here and here.

Another way one could argue that the universe has no beginning is if it is shaped in a funny, non-Euclidian way so that the matter and energy loops back on itself due to the curvature of space. Not all non-Euclidian shapes for space would allow it to do this, but some might.

Fortunately, scientists now have evidence that the universe is not curved. It is Euclidian or “flat” in the argot of astronomy. This was shown a few years ago by examining gigantic structures in the night sky that are too faint for the human eye to see.

That’s what the picture on the left is. It’s a section of the southern sky (think: Australia, not Dixie) showing enormous structures that we could see if our eyes were sensitive to the right frequency. To give a sense of how big these structures are, the dot that is inset in the picture is the relative size of the moon. Since the structures themselves are ultra-far away, though, they’re FREAKING HUGE.

They also contain clues about the geometry of the universe, and they reveal it to be Euclidian. So all that stuff Carl Sagan told you in Cosmos about the universe maybe being a weird shape appears to be simply wrong.

This also means that you couldn’t stand up on a high hill, use a pair of superpowerful binoculars, look out across the universe, and see the back of your own head. They may have done that in a way cool Land of the Lost episode, but that was their universe, not ours.