Gizmorama
October 18, 2010
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Good Morning,
The first article explores a really neat scientific method
used to map ocean floors. Oceanographers are using seals
equipped with sensors to get pressure readings among other
measurements.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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Seals help map ocean floor
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - Seals diving deep in the ocean for food
near Antarctica are helping provide extremely accurate data
for use in mapping the sea floor, oceanographers say. Seals,
walruses, whales and other large marine creatures have helped
oceanographers before, as scientists have glued sensors to
the animals' bodies that measures factors like temperature
and salinity, ScienceNews.org reported. The new work with
elephant seals is the first to extract information on the
shape of the seafloor -- known as bathymetry -- from new sen-
sors, glued to the animals' heads, which can measure pressure
and hence depth. "You can actually map the ocean floor,"
Daniel Costa, a marine biologist at the University of Cali-
fornia, Santa Cruz, says. The data came from 57 elephant
seals tagged by Costa's group during five summers at the U.S.
Antarctic Marine Living Resources camp in the South Shetland
Islands. As the animals swim, the tags record information
every few seconds, then relay it via satellite once the seals
surface. About 30 percent of the time seals dive all the way
to the bottom to forage for food, so by studying enough dives
for each animal -- about 200,000 dives in all -- researchers
can create a map of the sea floor. And the seals do it all
for a fraction of the cost of traditional seafloor mapping
done from ships, scientists say. "It gives you a much denser
picture of what the water depth is than anything you can con-
ceivably do with ship tracks," says oceanographer Laurence
Padman, a coauthor of an upcoming paper in Geophysical Re-
search Letters describing the technique.
Study: CO2 is 'thermostat' for Earth
NEW YORK - Water vapor and clouds are major factors in
Earth's greenhouse effect but carbon dioxide will always be
the ultimate culprit, a U.S. study found. The study, cond-
ucted by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies in New York, examined the nature of Earth's green-
house effect, which traps and holds outgoing infrared radi-
ation, a NASA release said Thursday. The researchers say
non-condensing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane,
nitrous oxide, ozone and chlorofluorocarbons are the core
actors in the terrestrial greenhouse effect. Without them,
scientists say, water vapor and clouds alone would be not
create the feedback mechanisms that amplify the greenhouse
effect. The study, lead author Andrew Lacis says, demon-
strates "the direct relationship that exists between rising
atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising global temperature."
"The bottom line is that atmospheric carbon dioxide acts as
a thermostat in regulating the temperature of Earth," Lacis
said. "It is not surprising then that global warming can be
linked directly to the observed increase in atmospheric
carbon dioxide and to human industrial activity in general."
Robot punches humans -- for science
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia - Volunteers in Slovenia are allowing
themselves to be repeatedly punched -- by a robot -- in an
effort to assess human-robot pain thresholds, a researcher
says. The late science fiction author Isaac Asimov's famous
First Law of Robotics -- "A robot may not injure a human
being" -- appears to be taking a hammering, but the scientist
behind it says it's all in a good cause, NewScientist.com
reported Wednesday. Borut Povse, who has ethical approval
for the work from the University of Ljubljana where he's
conducting the research, says the experiment is to help
future robots adhere to the rule. "Even robots designed to
Asimov's laws can collide with people. We are trying to make
sure that when they do, the collision is not too powerful,"
Povse says. "We are taking the first steps to defining the
limits of the speed and acceleration of robots, and the ideal
size and shape of the tools they use, so they can safely
interact with humans," he says. Using a borrowed industrial
robot, Povse and his colleagues programmed the robot arm to
move towards a volunteer's outstretched forearm. Each volun-
teer was punched 18 times at different impact energies by
the robot arm fitted with one of two tools, one blunt and
round and one sharper. Volunteers were asked whether each
collision was painless, or engendered mild, moderate, hor-
rible or unbearable pain. Povse, who tried the system before
asking for volunteers, says most felt the pain was in the
mild to moderate range. The aim of the research, Povse says,
is to limit the speed a robot should move at when it senses
a nearby human, to avoid hurting them.
Paper by Harvard scientist retracted
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A scientific journal says it has retracted
a study on stem cells co-authored by a Harvard scientist be-
cause of doubts about the reliability of the research. The
retraction of the paper on the aging of blood stem cells,
published by Nature in January, was signed by stem cell bio-
logist Amy Wagers of the Joslin Diabetes Center and two of
her co-authors but was not signed by Shane R. Mayack, the
lead author of the article who was a postdoctoral researcher
in Wagers's laboratory, The Boston Globe reported Thursday.
In a statement, Wagers said she received information that
undermined her confidence in the conclusions and immediately
notified Joslin, Harvard Medical School and Nature. "Three
of the authors ? wish to retract this article after a re-
examination of the publication raised serious concerns with
some of the reported data," the retraction states. "These
concerns have undermined the authors' confidence in the sup-
port for the scientific conclusions reported." "Although
this matter is under further review, these authors wish to
retract the paper in its entirety," the retraction said.
Mayack, who maintains that the results are valid, did not
sign the retraction. The retraction did not say whether it
was an innocent mistake, possible research misconduct, or
some other issue. This is the second retraction of a journal
article involving a Harvard researcher. Two months ago, the
school found a high-profile psychology professor, Marc
Hauser, had engaged in scientific misconduct resulting in
the retraction of one paper he co-authored and raising con-
cerns about two others.
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