Sunday, April 29, 2012

What happened in science in 2011?

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--------- #1466 - A Lifetime of Science. 4 decades 1930 to 2011
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- #1464 3 decades 1960 to 1990
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- #1465 Science in 2 decades 1990 to 2010
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- #1466 Science last year in 2011.
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- 2011 - 9.0 earthquake and tsunami kills 15,000 people and creates worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
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- Sediment cores in North Carolina reveal sea levels began rising in the late 19 century.
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- Rising temperatures result in 3.8 % less corn and 5.5% less wheat produced.
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- Data stored digitally rose from 0.8% in 1986 to 94% in 2007. 25% of world’s computing power is in video games. 6% of the world’s computing is in cell phones.
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- Amoebas contaminate drinking water systems around the world.
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- Some of the Universe’s first stars may still be shining in the Milky Way. They are 13.4 billion years old.
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- Life related chemicals are found in a dozen meteorites. Building blocks for DNA may have been delivered to Earth.
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- The last NASA Space shuttle is launched.
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- The sunspot cycle that began in 2008 will be the weakest in 200 years..
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- Over 1,000 exoplanets have been found orbiting other stars.
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- The Fermi National Accelerator Lab Tevatron shuts down.
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- Jupiter’s moon Europa has pockets of liquid water locked in the rock hard ice.
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- Astronomers studying the Cosmic Microwave Background data confirm the existence of Dark Energy.
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- Neutrinos travel 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. The experiment results are heavily disputed.
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- The Earth is enriched in two types of oxygen and one of nitrogen not present in the Sun.
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- Supernova emits ultraviolet light with no trace of hydrogen.
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- Gravity Prove B satellite experiment confirms “ frame dragging” as predicted by the Theory of Relativity.
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- Chemist have synthesized a pain-relieving extract called conolidine from the bark of a tropical shrub.
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- Antibiotics and vaccines helped shape the evolution of a nasty strain of pneumonia causing bacteria.
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- Studies suggest the ecologically valuable predatory fish re rapidly disappearing.
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- Research uncovers a rapid rise in weeds immune to multiple herbicides.
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- Antarctic ozone hole recovers more than a decade earlier than expected.
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- The bacteria that causes ulcers and stomach cancer, Helicobacter pylori , may trigger Parkinson’s disease.
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- Cells in a tadpole’s gut manipulated to take on specific electrical properties develop into an eye.
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- The quantum particle’s wave function is directly measured in the lab.
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- The hydrogen atom is directly imaged
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- Cell phone on the ear for 50 minutes causes brain activity that is detected.
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- Blood vessels grown using human cells prove to work as natural tissue vessels in baboons and dogs. Could be used for kidney dialysis or heart bypass surgery.
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- DNA analysis on polar bears traces ancestry to a female brown bear in Ireland. Separation occurred 20,000 to 50,000 years ago.
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- Orangutans in Borneo dine on stranded fish jabbing them with sticks.
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- Brown bats get white-nose-syndrome with exposed to fungus Geomyces destructans.
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- The left and right halves of the brain store information separately which is why you can only remember a handful of objects at one time.
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- The high pitched ringing that drives tinnitus sufferers crazy is a by-product of the brain turning up the volume to cope with subtle hearing loss.
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- A cougar took a 2,000 mile journey from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the green lawns of southern New England.
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- Swaths of aspens wiped out across the western United States is cause by disease carrying deer mice.
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- The last common ancestor of all living animals arose 800,000,000 years ago.
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- Sensors can produce enough electrical charge when flexed mechanically to transmit a wireless signal. Sensors could get power form trucks rumbling over a bridge.
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- A new way to send radio waves into spirals could let multiple radio stations broadcast at the same frequency.
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- Researchers spin hi-tech material into superfine nanowire 1,000 meters long.
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- Precious metals mined today were delivered via a bombardment of stony meteorites.
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- Ice melting off Greenland and Antarctica has made the Earth’s equator bulge.
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- The occasional swapping of the north and south magnetic poles tied to Earth’s plate tectonics.
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- Fossils dating to 530,000,000 years ago suggest the Earth’s first animals colonized fresh water earlier than thought.
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- Geologist find evidence of the biggest volcanic eruptions ever in southern Java that date back 21,000,000 years ago.
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- Skeletal traits in the proposed hominid species Astralopithecus sediba suggest that the species served as an evolutionary bridge from apelike ancestors to homo genus.
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- Higher test scores are achieved by high school and college students that write down test-related worries before the exam. This seems to dislodge some concerns so they can perform better.
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- Studying chimps prove that human ability to discern personality traits via facial structure may have evolved more than 7,000,000 years ago.
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707-536-3272, Sunday, April 29, 2012

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