November 21, 2011

Good Morning,

The physical ability that frogs have to jump the distances they do actually baffles scientists; until now. Brown University has recently conducted some revealing X-ray tests on this particular ability. Check out the results in the first article.

Until Next Time,
Erin

Questions? Comments? Email me at: mailto:gizmo@gophercentral.com
Email your comments

P.S. You can discuss this issue or any other topic in the new Gizmorama forum. Check it out here...
http://gizmorama.gophercentral.com
------------------------------------------------------------

Secret of frogs' jumping prowess revealed

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The ability of frogs to leap several times farther than their physiology would seem to allow lies in their tendons, not in their muscles, U.S. researchers say. Using high-speed X-ray photography, animal scientists at Brown University discovered frogs' tendons stretch as they ready their leaps and then recoil much like a spring. "Muscles alone couldn't produce jumps that good," Henry Astley, who studies the biomechanics of frog jumping, said in a Brown release Wednesday. Even though as much as a quarter of a frog's mass is in its legs, it would be physically incapable of jumping as far without the tendons' services, he said. "In order to get truly exceptional jumping performance, you need some sort of elastic structure," Astley said. As the frog readies itself to leap, he said, its calf muscles shorten and load energy into the stretched tendons. At the moment the frog jumps, the tendons, which wrap around the ankle bones, release their energy, much like a catapult or archer's bow, causing a very rapid extension of the ankle joints that propel the frog forward. "Frogs are interesting in their own right, but we are also confident that this study gives us insight into how muscles and tendons work together in animal movement," said biology Professor Thomas Roberts, who supervised Astley's work.


New data reveals black hole's secrets

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed new details about the birth of a famous black hole millions of years ago, U.S. astronomers say. More than 30 years ago, Stephen Hawking famously placed -- and eventually lost -- a bet against the existence of a black hole in Cygnus X-1. He was eventually proved wrong, and astronomers say the new data has now given them remarkably precise values of the black hole's mass, spin and distance from Earth. "This new information gives us strong clues about how the black hole was born, what it weighed and how fast it was spinning," study author Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said in a release Thursday. "This is exciting because not much is known about the birth of black holes." Cygnus X-1 is a so-called stellar-mass black hole that comes from the collapse of a massive star. The black hole is in close orbit with a massive, blue companion star. "It is amazing to me that we have a complete description of this asteroid-sized object that is thousands of light years away," Harvard-Smithsonian researcher Lijun Gou said. "This means astronomers have a more complete understanding of this black hole than any other in our Galaxy."


Ozone levels could be earthquake warning

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Ozone from rock breaking under pressure, if detected early enough, could serve as an earthquake early warning sign, U.S. scientists say. Ozone, a natural gas, is a byproduct of electrical discharges into the air from several sources, such as from lightning or, the new research suggests, from rocks fracturing as stress builds up in earthquake faults under pressure, scientists say. Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science conducted experiments to measure ozone produced by crushing or drilling into different igneous and metamorphic rocks, including granite, basalt, gneiss, rhyolite and quartz. Different rocks produced different amounts of ozone, they said, with rhyolite producing the strongest ozone emission. "If future research shows a positive correlation between ground-level ozone near geological faults and earthquakes, an array of interconnected ozone detectors could monitor anomalous patterns when rock fracture induces the release of ozone from underground and surface cracks," said Raul A. Baragiola, professor of engineering physics. "Such an array ... could be useful for giving early warning to earthquakes."


Satellites help track endangered species

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Researchers say they've used satellite images to assess the conservation status of endangered reptiles and amphibians in the Western Indian Ocean. European scientists said the images allowed them to assess the extent of suitable habitat available for threatened species on the small Comoro Islands archipelago. "The analysis of satellite images allows us to precisely estimate the remaining extent of rainforest and other natural habitats," Oliver Hawlitschek from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology said in a study published in the journal ZooKeys. The approach has rarely been used in species conservation and this is the first time it has been applied to all species of a group in an entire country, he said. They combined their satellite imagery analyses with intensive field surveys in order to detect the habitat preferences of the reptiles. "We found that only 9 percent of the island area is still covered by natural forest, but many native species have adapted to habitats under human influence like orchards, plantations, and gardens", Hawlitschek says. "Those species which are dependent on the remaining natural habitats are the ones most threatened by extinction."

------------------------------------------------------------
Check out Viral Videos on the Net at EVTV1.com
http://www.evtv1.com/
EVTV1.com