Gizmorama - July 1, 2013

Good Morning,

According to new data, discovered by European and U.S. astronomers, a well-studied star suggests it has at least six planets around it. Here's the most interesting part - three of them are possible candidates for life. What? That's amazing! When are we going there to check this out?

Learn about this and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Genetic diversity could be key to survival of honeybee colonies --*
RALEIGH, N.C. - Genetic diversity, based on how many times a queen bee mates, could be key to the survival of honeybee colonies, U.S. researchers suggest. A study from North Carolina State University, the University of Maryland and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found a colony is less likely to survive if its queen has had a limited number of mates. "We wanted to determine whether a colony's genetic diversity has an impact on its survival, and what that impact may be," North Carolina entomology Professor David Tarpy said in a university release Monday. "We knew genetic diversity affected survival under controlled conditions, but wanted to see if it held true in the real world. And, if so, how much diversity is needed to significantly improve a colony's odds of surviving." Genetic samples taken from 80 commercial colonies of honeybees in the eastern United States showed colonies where the queen had mated at least seven times were 2.86 times more likely to survive the 10-month "working season" season of a colony. Forty-eight percent of colonies with queens who had mated at least seven times were still alive at the end of the season while only 17 percent of the less genetically diverse colonies survived, the study found. "Forty-eight percent survival is still an alarmingly low survival rate, but it's far better than 17 percent," Tarpy said. "This study confirms that genetic diversity is enormously important in honey bee populations. And it also offers some guidance to beekeepers about breeding strategies that will help their colonies survive."


*-- Laser can identify substances, could be military tool --*
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A new laser that can see what substances are made of could help military aircraft identify dangers such as weapons arsenals far below them, U.S. scientists say. The laser system emits a broadband beam of infrared light covering a range of frequencies, the echoes of which can be used to detect the vibrations of the molecules that make up a solid substance and illuminate deep information, said Mohammed Islam, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan. "For the defense and intelligence communities, this could add a new set of eyes," he said. The infrared laser emits what scientists refer to as the "spectral fingerprinting range" of frequencies that show a substance's makeup based on which wavelengths of light are absorbed and which are reflected, the researchers said. By analyzing the reflected infrared light they can tell the chemical composition of the target, they said. "A grey structure looks grey in visible light, but in the infrared, you can see not only the shape, but also what's inside it," Islam said in a university release Tuesday. The laser could give an aircraft flying at high altitudes the capacity to illuminate and record images of a large region. Many chemical sensors currently in use work at close range, the researchers said, but few if any can do the job from a long distance.


*-- Study finds planets in habitable zone around a distant star --*
GARCHING, Germany - European and U.S. astronomers say new data on a well-studied star suggests it has at least six planets, three of them possible candidates for life. New observations of the star Gliese 667C show three of its planets are super-Earths lying in the zone around the star where liquid water could exist, the European Southern Observatory reported Tuesday from its headquarters in Germany. "We knew that the star had three planets from previous studies, so we wanted to see whether there were any more," Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire in England said. "By adding some new observations and revisiting existing data we were able to confirm these three and confidently reveal several more. Finding three low-mass planets in the star's habitable zone is very exciting!" This is the first time that three such planets have been spotted orbiting in this zone in the same system, astronomers said. "The number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy is much greater if we can expect to find several of them around each low-mass star -- instead of looking at 10 stars to look for a single potentially habitable planet, we now know we can look at just one star and find several of them," study co-author Rory Barnes of the University of Washington said.

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