--------- #1374 - Microbes - Dominant Life on Earth
- Microbes are everywhere and they could be doing more work for us, if we understood them. Here are some examples:
- Attachments : picture
- 2012, the year of the microbiologist. Microbes are everywhere and doing many things that we are just learning about. Microbes are the dominant life form on Earth. For every cell in your body there are 10,000 microbes living in you and on you. They digest your food and they protect you from disease. We can benefit greatly by learning more of how these critters operate.
- Our world’s peak oil and peak minerals has passed. All the low hanging fruit in oil and minerals has been harvested. Future resources will be harder to get and cost more. Unless we find better ways to get our energy. Microbes might be a good solution to mining lower and lower metal/oil concentrations.
- The right bacteria can extract low grade ores cheaply and at ambient temperatures. A metal concentration of less than 1% would normally be uneconomical to mine. However, seeding a waste heap with the right bacteria, irrigating it with diluted acid, and these simple bacteria can extract 85% of this remaining metal. The bacteria feed on the waste, their waste generates reactive ferric iron and sulfuric acid, this waste decomposes the rock and frees up the valuable metals for easy mining.
- Acidithiobacillus is a bacteria that lives in pyrite deposits, metabolizing iron and sulfur and producing sulfuric acid. “Acidi” has a genome of 2,800,000 base pairs, 65% G-C content. It has a single flagellum. Its metabolic energy is derived aerobically by oxidation of inorganic sulfur compounds or ferrous ions.
- Leptospirillum is another iron-oxidizing bacteria. It too is used in industrial bioleaching converting metals to soluble form that can be easily extracted from the ore. The bacteria cells are spiral shaped, 500 nanometers wide and 3,000 nanometers log. The cells affix to carbon using ferrous iron as the electron donor and oxygen as the electron acceptor. “ Leptos” are found deep underground in the mines, enveloped in a pink biofilm gel, floating on the surface of water in the mine pits.
- These are two of the bacteria that oxidize iron and sulfur to gain energy. You and I oxidize carbon to get energy.
- Desulfovibrio and Desulfotomaculum are bacteria cultivated to neutralize acid and create sulfides that bind to copper, nickel, and other metals pulling them out of solution. ”Desulfs” can be used to clean up pollution and acid run-off common in old abandoned mines.
- “Desulfs” cause food spoilage in poorly processed canned food. It is that rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide gas when the can is first opened. “Desulfs” bacteria get energy from hydrogen sulfide (H2S) instead of from photosynthesis. It is a life form that does not depend on the Sun’s energy. It may be the life form we find on other planets and moons.
- “Desulfs” are straight or curved rods, highly heat resistant. They are common inhabitants in soil, water, geothermal run-off, and insect intestines. They are best identified as sulfide “ stinkers”.
- Since the 1950’s biomining has been in use. Today 20% of the world’s copper comes from biomining. Old slag and scrap heaps are now called “ore” again. There are still a lot of old mines that need to be cleaned up.
- Another use found for microbes is in air filters. Pig farms, slaughter houses, sulfur plants, and many other industries create a cabbage-like stench for their neighborhoods. Passing their exhaust air through corrugated cardboard filters filled with bacteria can remove this stench. Plants in Denmark that have installed these bacteria filled filters do not get complaints from their neighbors anymore.
- We need to learn more about microbes. They could be our best business partners in the future. We could be getting our resources and a clean environment at the same time and in the natural way. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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707-536-3272, Wednesday, January 11, 2012
--------- #1360 - Triton - Neptune’s moon
- Attachment: Neptune picture A1
- Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun in our Solar System. It is cold out there. Neptune’s diameter is 3.8 times larger than Earth’s. Its mass is 17 times larger. It has almost the same tilt on its axis as Earth does, 29.6 degrees versus 23.45 degrees. Neptune takes a long time to circle the Sun, 164.8 years.
- There are 166 moons in the Solar System and Neptune has 13 of them. Our Moon is the one closest to the Sun and Neptune’s moons are the ones farthest from the Sun. 5 of its moons are smaller, less than 100 miles diameter. 5 of the moons are irregular, outer moons that are smaller still, less than 34 miles diameter. The 3 larger moons are in the middle:
-------------------- Proteus ------------- 260 miles diameter
-------------------- Triton -------------- 1,680 miles in diameter
------------------- Nereid --------------- 212 miles in diameter.
- Triton is nearly as large as our Moon , about 80%. It has a near circular orbit around Neptune except it is orbiting backwards to Neptune’s rotation. It is obviously a captured moon about the size of the Dwarf Planet Pluto. It is the only large moon in our Solar System the flies around backwards.
- Triton orbits Neptune is just 5.88 Earth days. It is in a synchronous orbit like our Moon always facing the planet.
- Triton has active eruptions and geysers on its surface. The cold venting gas appears to be nitrogen mixed with a little dust that freezes when it falls back to the surface. The source of the heat to produce these gases is unsolved. But, there are volcanoes and vents being created somehow below the surface.
- Triton is the coldest place any spacecraft has visited. Nitrogen geysers and water ammonia volcanoes and the moon’s high density may indicate a large rocky core with enough radioactivity to keep it warm. Neptune has an axis tilt but no seasonal changes because the internal warmth keeps the surface the same temperature, cold.
- Neptune is so cold the same cloud layers we see on Jupiter and Saturn would be buried too deep inside the atmosphere for us to see on Neptune. What we do see is clouds made of flakes of methane snow. Methane can condense in the very cold upper atmosphere. It is what causes the blue colors. Methane gas absorbs the red light allowing only the shorter wavelength, blue light to penetrate to the level where the clouds exist.
- The highest hill on Triton is only 3,000 feet. There is no evidence of any type tectonic activity. The terrain rises from oozing water-ammonia mix. Over large areas the depressions and fissures repeat themselves, each some 20 miles across, making the surface look like the surface of a cantaloupe.
- Triton’s backward orbit is mathematically explained as the Conservation of Angular Momentum. It starts with a binary system, Triton and some companion, orbiting each other, coming close enough to Neptune for Triton to be captured in its backward orbit. The orbiting companion with Triton would get slung out in the equal and opposite direction to preserve the system’s angular momentum.
- Inside the inner moons Neptune has rings but they have dusty regions that make them appear as partial rings when viewed from Earth. The blue color certainly suggests how cold it is. You would turn blue too if you lived there.
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707-536-3272, Saturday, January 7, 2012
--------- #1364 - Pluto and Charon
- Attachment: Pluto atmosphere A1
- Pluto was announced as the 9th planet to the world on March 17,1930. Pluto was named after the Roman god of the underworld as it was condemned to orbit so far from the Sun. It takes Pluto 248 years to orbit the Sun. It varies in its elliptical orbit from 30 AU to 50 AU ( AU = the Earth - Sun distance of 93 million miles ). Pluto’s orbit is also inclined by 17 degrees with the plane of the rest of the planets.
- Pluto is in orbital resonance with its neighbor Neptune. When Pluto makes 2 orbits around the Sun Neptune makes exactly 3 orbits. Pluto actually passes closer to Uranus than to Neptune in its strange orbit around the Sun.
- Pluto is small, only 1/50th the mass of the Earth. It is only 2/3rds the width of the Moon.
- In 1978 Pluto’s moon Charon was discovered. Charon is ½ the width of Pluto. The two revolve around a common center of gravity completing one revolution in 6.4 days. They are synchronously locked in their orbits always facing each other.
- The Hubble Space Telescope has since discovered 2 other tiny moons orbiting Pluto, Nix and Hydra.
- Another discovery the same year, 2005, was a celestial body more distant than Pluto and bigger than Pluto. Another “planet” named Eris. Since then many other large bodies have been found in the Kuiper Belt of Comets making Pluto less and less unique.
- In 2006 a decision was made to ouster Pluto and Eris from the list of planets. Pluto and Charon were thrown in the same mix of distant, icy, minuscule bodies with wildly eccentric orbits and large inclinations to the plane of the Solar System. Now our Solar System only has 8 planets.
- In 2015 a spacecraft named New Horizons, that blasted off on January 19, 2006, will arrive to visit Pluto and Charon. Their new classification is “ Dwarf Planets” and part of the Kuiper Belt of celestial objects. New discoveries are certain. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned
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707-536-3272, Friday, January 6, 2012
--------- #1363 - Titan - Saturn’s moon
- Attachment: Titan Dione Saturn - 3 image
- Saturn’s moon Titan is the only moon with a significant atmosphere. The atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, similar to Earth’s, but it is 150% thicker.
- Titan is 1,600 miles in diameter and larger than the planet Mercury. It orbits Saturn in 16 days. The surface temperature is - 270 degrees Fahrenheit. The stones on its surface are solid water ice. The liquid lakes on the surface are liquid methane.
- On Earth we breath oxygen, internally it reacts with glucose to gives us energy and then we breath out carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
- On Titan life would breath hydrogen which would react with acetylene and the life would breath out methane into the atmosphere. So, could methane be the medium of new life forms on the moon Titan?
- Outside of Earth , Titan is the only place with an atmosphere and a liquid weather cycle. Evaporation, rain, liquid lakes. But, it’s methane instead of water.
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See Review #1144 to learn more about Titan.
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707-536-3272, Friday, January 6, 2012
--------- #1368 - Venus - Our Sister Planet
- Attachment: Venus image
- Venus is our nearest planet. Next to the Moon it is the brightest object in the night sky. Its reflective clouds make it the brightest in reflecting sunlight. A property called “albedo” , or, reflectivity. The Reflectivity of Earth is 29%. The reflectivity of the Moon is 12%. The reflectivity of Venus is 75%.
- 3/4th of the sunlight that hits the Venus atmosphere bounces back before ever reaching the surface. Only 1/4th of the sunlight warms the surface. If a calculation is made of what the surface temperature should be with that amount of sunlight it would be -40 C. However, Venus has carbon dioxide greenhouse gas that captures the heat that reaches the surface re-reflecting light back to the surface again. The effect is a runaway temperature rise that increases surface temperatures by 500 degrees. The average temperature on the surface is 460 C. Venus has the highest surface temperature and the highest atmospheric pressure of any of the planets.
- Venus is also the slowest spinning planet, taking 243 days to make one rotation. And, the rotation direction is reversed so the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east. In fact, a Venus year (225 days) is shorter than a Venus day ( 243 days) when measured against the distant stars. The time for one sunrise on Venus to the next sunrise is 116.75 days. Exactly 5 solar days on Venus, 584 days , is when Venus points to the same direction relative to the stars.
-. A person could walk faster around the planet than the planet is turning. By comparison Earth circumference is 24,900 miles, it rotates in 24 hours, so the speed at the equator is 1,000 miles per hour traveling east.
- The atmosphere is thick and 60 miles deep. The lower atmosphere is carbon dioxide and the upper atmosphere is concentrated sulfuric acid. The atmospheric pressure at the surface is 90 times greater than on Earth.
- There are no tectonic movements on Venus. It’s surface has remained unchanged for at least 500,000,000 years. The lightning strikes are believed to be at 100 flashes a second. Surprisingly, this is about the same global average for the Earth.
- The Earth releases its internal heat through volcanic action and tectonic movements of the surface plates. Venus does not have this method of releasing core heat. It appears to be insulated by one large, solid lid. It could mean that the lid blows once every 500,000,000 years and completely resurfaces the planet. Spacecraft have detected 9 hot spots, or subsurface mantle plumes, but, there is no associated lava flows.
- At the poles the thick atmosphere shrinks from 60 miles to 40 miles and swirling clouds create mysterious vortexes at the poles. The vortexes swirl around a 2 mile wide hole in the atmosphere. The clouds resemble an Earth hurricane except they are much larger, about the size of Europe. And, the vortex stays fixed year around. The clouds circling the planet are moving at 336 miles per hour. They will completely circle the planet in 4 Earth days. Remember the Venus day is 243 Earth days long. The wind is much faster than the rotation? Why is that? An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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(1) to learn more visit: www.esa.int/esaMI/Venus-Express
(2) I have 4 more reviews written on Venus, #587, #817, #945, and # 1176
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RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com/ Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
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707-536-3272, Thursday, January 5, 2012
--------- #1373 - How Computers Will Get Faster?
- Computers can gain more power using multi-core processors. But, computers use more power to run more processors. Computers need a system that communicates available power and computing needs between its parts so it can work more efficiently. Only run what is needed at any one time.
- We need a “ self-aware” computer.
- “Application Heartbeats” has invented software to monitor different applications to know which ones are being used, and which ones need resources to operate at peak efficiency.
- A computer operating system that is well designed will learn from experience and continually optimize its performance.
- Someday computers will not just have two or four multi-cores, they will have thousands. Optimizing performance between this many multi-cores will require a self-aware system.
- Computers are being designed for “cognitive computing”. Already microchips are being built with 256 artificial neurons. This is enough neuron brain power to beat you at Pong, or, to navigate a simple maze. The next step is to build chips with 10,000,000 artificial neuron processors with 100 trillion synapses. This accomplishment would be about ½ a brain’s worth of computing power. The design has this computer about the size of a quart of milk and consuming 1,000 watts. In contrast, the human brain consumes 20 watts and fits nicely inside the head.
- Ordinary microprocessors pass instructions and data through a single, narrow channel which significantly limits computing speed.
- Artificial neurons have their own channel that is massive parallel processing. IBM has this working in their lab, “Neuromorphic Processing”.
- These neuro-processors are excellent in pattern recognition applications. This computer could quickly pick a face out of a crowd ( and, run a police records check on that individual). However, neuro-processors are not as good at math as traditional computers. So, the two architectures will have to complement each other. Neuro-processors do not do addition and subtraction well. I know the ones in my head struggle with it. IBM will be making an announcement soon, stay tuned.
- The fastest computer resides in Japan. It computes 4 times faster and holds 10 times more data than the human brain. It also uses enough electricity to power 10,000 homes. By comparison the human brain is but a dim light bulb. Here are some computer comparisons to get you grounded on the subject:
STARTING WITH MEMORY: ( a byte is 7 bits and one computer word )
------- Super Computer ------------ 30,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
------- Internet ---------------------- 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes
------- Brain ------------------------ 3,500,000,000,000,000 bytes
------ I Pad ------------------------- 64,000,000,000 bytes
------ Human genome ----------------- 750,000,000 bytes
------ Cat’s brain -----------------------93,000,000,000,000 bytes
NEXT WITH SPEED: ( a mega flop is 1 million operations per second)
------- Super Computer ------------ 8,200,000,000 megaflops
------- Internet --------------------
------- Brain ------------------------ 2,200,000,000 megaflops
------ I Pad ------------------------- 170 megaflops
------ Human genome ------------
------ Cat’s brain -----------------------61,000,000 megaflops
THEN TO POWER CONSUMPTION: ( an LED consumes 1 watt )
------- Super Computer ------------ 9,900,000 watts
------- Internet --------------------
------- Brain ------------------------ 20 watts
------ I Pad ------------------------- 2.5 watts
------ Human genome ------------
------ Cat’s brain -------------------
Computers beat us on memory storage and speed of operations but we beat computers on efficiency. So there. So does the cat.
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RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com/ Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
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707-536-3272, Wednesday, January 4, 2012
--------- #1369 - Mercury - Planet Closest to the Sun
- Attachment: Mercury image
- Being closet to the Sun Mercury should be the hottest planet. Being closest causes it to feel 10 times the gravity that we feel on Earth. Mercury orbit’s the Sun in 88 days. But, it takes 58.6 days for Mercury to complete one rotation. The planet has a 3:2 resonance with 3 Mercury days = 58.6 * 3 = 176 days to 2 Mercury years = 88 * 2 = 176 days. Eventually Mercury will be locked in to a 1:1 resonance with one year equal to one day. Much as our Moon is locked in to 1:1 resonance as it orbit’s the Earth.
- Mercury’s orbit is very elliptical varying form 25.5 million miles to 43 million miles (Earth’s orbit is 93 million miles). This significant difference throughout the year varies its Solar Intensity from 6 times to 14 times what we experience on Earth.
- Watching Mercury form Earth its separation from the Sun varies from 18 degrees away to 27 degrees away. This is how much you can find Mercury above the western horizon when the Sun is setting.
- Mercury’s brightness magnitude varies from 5.1 Magnitude to -2.4 Magnitude. -2.4 Magnitude is twice as bright as the Dog Star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Mercury is brightest when it is furthest away, because that is when we see its full face in the sunlight.
- The average temperature on Mercury is 163 C ( 325 F). It is much closer to the Sun than Venus yet Venus average temperature is 460 C ( 860 F). The difference is that Mercury has almost no atmosphere and Venus has a thick, greenhouse atmosphere of carbon dioxide. (See Review #1368 for more on Venus)
- If you ignore the effects of atmosphere the temperature of a body can be calculated by how close it is to the Sun and its reflectivity ( also called albedo).
--------- Mercury is 0.387 Astronomical Units from the Sun
-------- Mercury’s reflectivity is the same as the Moon, 12 %.
------- The formula for calculating the temperature is:
------------ T = 280K * [ ( 1 - reflectivity) / (distance)^2 ) ] ^ ¼
------------ T = 280K * [ ( 1 - 0.12) / (0.387)^2 ) ] ^ ¼
------------ T = 280K * [ ( 0.88) / (0.1497) ] ^ ¼
------------ T = 280K * [ ( 5.876) ] ^ ¼
------------ T = 280K * [ ( 0.88) / (0.1497) ) ] ^ ¼
------------ T = 280K * [ 1.557 ] ^ ¼
------------ T = 436 Kelvin ( 163 C )
- The average temperature on the surface of Mercury is 436 K - 273 C = 163 C.
- You can do the same calculation for Venus and you get -40 C for the average temperature. But, that is not what it is because of its greenhouse atmosphere which adds 500 C temperature rise to the surface. The average temperature on Venus is 460 C (860 F). (See Review # 1368 for more about Venus ).
- Earth, Mars, Saturn are planets with about 20 degree tilts in rotation compared to the plane of orbit. Mercury has no tilt. Its poles rotate straight up and down with the plane of orbit.
- Because Mercury’s poles never tilt toward the Sun there are places in the polar regions that never see the Sun. There could be frozen water ice patches in the depressions and craters near the poles on this planet closest to the Sun. Amazing!
- Like the Moon, Mercury has be geologically “ dead” for most of its history. Mercury has so little atmosphere there is no wind or weather of any kind. The surface pressure and reflectivity of sunlight are the same for both Mercury and the Moon.
- There is direct evidence that Mercury suffered a major asteroid impact at one point in its evolution. There is an enormous impact crater on one side of the planet ( Caloris Basin) and a shockwave basin on the opposite side of the planet ( Weird Terrain). The Caloris Basin spans more than half Mercury’s radius. It s multiple rings are evidence of an extremely violent impact. A direct hit. There are few craters inside the basin indicating the impact occurred after the Solar System’s heavies asteroid and comet bombardments.
- Mercury has a small , but strange Magnetic field. Its magnetic equator does not match up with its geographical equator. It lies 300 miles north. With Mercury’s small size and slow rotation, 59 days, we would not expect it to have a molten core or any metal convection to create a magnetic field. The explanation is that Mercury has an unusually large metal core that is still partly molten and convection is still occurring. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email and with requested reviews at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com/ Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net.
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707-536-3272, Sunday, January 1, 2012
