Gizmorama
July 14, 2010
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Good Morning,
You will notice that ads have been removed not only from
this newsletter, but all Gopher Central publications; leaving
the upper tag line as the only source of advertisement. We
hope this makes for a better, more enjoyable read.
The second article contains details on an exciting, suc-
cessful test flight of a spaceship that uses a 'solar sail'.
Be sure to check out said article and see how the sun is
powering this revolutionary spacecraft.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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Study: Gobal warming by humans not new
WASHINGTON - Global warming caused by human activity may not
be a modern phenomenon because even prehistoric man may have
affected his environment, researchers say. Early hunters
contributing to the extinction of wooly mammoths around
15,000 years ago may have contributed to a side effect of
heating up the planet, an American Geophysical Union release
said Wednesday. In a study published in the AGU journal,
researchers propose a scenario to explain how the ancient
hunters could have triggered global warming. In northern
regions, mammoths would have grazed down birch trees, leaving
only grasslands. As mammoth populations dropped because of
human hunting, birch trees spread, dominating the grasses.
The trees would change the color of the landscape making it
much darker, the study says, and absorbing more of the sun's
heat, in turn heating up the atmosphere. Researchers examined
ancient pollens preserved in Alaska, Siberia and the Yukon
Territory. Around 15,000 years ago, they say, the amount of
birch pollen started to rise quickly. "With the extinction
of this (wooly mammoth) keystone species, it would have some
impact on the ecology and vegetation -- and vegetation has a
large impact on climate," says lead study author Chris
Doughty of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford,
Calif. "A lot of people still think that people are unable
to affect the climate even now, even when there are more
than 6 billion people," says Doughty. The new results, how-
ever, "show that even when we had populations ... of magni-
tude smaller than we do now, we still had a big impact."
Successful test of 'solar sail' spacecraft
TOKYO - The first test in space of a "solar sail" propulsion
system for spacecraft has been a success, researchers in
Japan say. Measurements gathered from the Ikaros solar sail,
built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, confirmed
the spacecraft is gaining speed from light radiated by the
sun, SPACE.com reported Tuesday. "The small solar power
sail demonstrator 'Ikaros,' which successfully deployed its
solar sail, was confirmed to accelerate by [the] solar sail
receiving solar pressure," JAXA officials said. A solar
sail provides propulsion from the cumulative push of light
photons striking the sail, a small continuous thrust that
does not require fuel use by the spacecraft. JAXA engineers
measured sunlight pressing on the probe's solar sail with a
force of about 1.12 millinewtons (0.0002 pounds of force),
SPACE.com reported. The square-shaped Ikaros sail measures
46 feet wide and 66 feet diagonally. It is the first solar
sail to actual fly on an interstellar mission. The Ikaros,
short for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation
Of the Sun, was launched in May.
Solar storm created 'zombie' satellite
WASHINGTON - U.S. scientists say they've identified a massive
solar storm that reached Earth and caused a satellite to
malfunction, turning it into a "zombie satellite." A NASA
sun-watching spacecraft observed the explosion of plasma and
magnetic energy, called a coronal mass ejection, on April 3,
SPACE.com reported Tuesday. Charged particles in the solar
storm disabled the Galaxy 15 communications satellite,
causing it to lose contact with ground controllers on April -
5, officials said. While the satellite has stopped communi-
cating with its ground control center, its telecommunications
payload providing broadcast services to customers is stuck
on, earning it the "zombie satellite" nickname, SPACE.com
said. The now-uncontrolled electronic signal from Galaxy 15
has forced other communications satellites to conduct occas-
ional evasive maneuvers to avoid signal interference, offic-
ials say.
Large-mammal decline seen in African parks
LONDON - African national parks, favorites of tourists hoping
to see the continent's wildlife, have seen steep declines in
large-mammal populations, researchers say. Scientists from
the Zoological Society of London and Cambridge University de-
scribe a decline of almost 60 percent in the populations of
69 key species including lion, wildebeest, giraffe, buffalo
and zebra between 1970 and 2005, ScienceDaily.com reported
Monday. The worst declines were found in East and West Afri-
can parks, the researchers said, with particular problems in
West Africa due to a lack of financial and personnel re-
sources, increasing rates of habitat degradation and a
growing trade in illegal bush meat. The one bright spot in
the study was an increase in mammal populations in some nat-
ional parks in southern Africa compared with the declines
elsewhere, the zoological society's Conservation Programs
Director Jonathan Baillie said. "The results are far worse
than we imagined," he said, "but the increasing population
trends in southern Africa provide hope and demonstrate that
protected areas can be very effective for conserving large
mammals if properly resourced."
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