Lightning detected on planet Venus

Lightning crackles in the atmosphere of Earth's "evil twin" Venus, while the meager remnants of suspected bygone oceans continue to be whipped off the planet and lost to space, scientists said on Wednesday.

For nearly three decades, astronomers have said Venus probably had lightning - ever since a 1978 NASA probe showed signs of electrical activity in its atmosphere. But experts weren't sure because of signal interference. Now a magnetic antenna on the European Space Agency's Venus Express probe proved that the lightning was real.

They unveiled the planet closest to Earth not just in distance, but also in size. Venus, the second planet from the Sun, and Earth as the third, started out as virtual twins, according to scientists. The finding is significant because lightning affects atmospheric chemistry, so scientists will have to take it into account as they try to understand the atmosphere and climate of Venus.

The lightning is cloud-to-cloud and about 35 miles above the surface, said University of California, Los Angeles geophysics professor C.T. Russell, lead author of a paper on the Venusian fireworks. It is being published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

But at some point in their 4.5-billion-year histories, something went horribly wrong on Venus. The greenhouse effect ran amok, making Venus a hellish kiln - its surface hot and dry, its crushing atmosphere made up of carbon dioxide permeated by clouds of sulfuric acid that cloak the planet.

"The findings show, of course, that the planet as it stands now is different from the Earth - the high temperatures, the high pressures and the composition. But the processes, we now understand, are much more Earth-like," Hakan Svedhem, Venus Express team project scientist, said in a telephone interview.

"The two planets were, in fact, very similar in the earlier days of the solar system. And they have then evolved in different directions, but according to the same rules and explanations," Svedhem said.


OCEANS BOILED OFF

A previous mission to Venus had detected hints that lightning was flashing through the planet's atmosphere. The instruments aboard Venus Express were able to unambiguously confirm the presence of lightning, the scientists said.

"They look like lightning bursts, very short discharges of electrical energy," said Christopher Russell of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Long ago, Svedhem said, Venus was a much wetter place, probably with liquid water oceans like those on Earth and like those that scientists think once existed on Mars.

"Eventually the oceans boiled off, and all the water ended up as water vapor in the atmosphere," Svedhem said.

Equipment aboard the spacecraft allowed scientists to observe how particles are escaping from the atmosphere. The dominant escaping ions, the scientists found, include oxygen and hydrogen in the ratio that corresponds to water, which may help to explain how Venus lost its original water to space.

Venus, unlike Earth, lacks a magnetic field to protect its atmosphere from the solar wind, the stream of electrically charged particles emitted by the Sun. Thus, the solar wind interacts directly with the upper atmosphere of Venus, causing Venus's atmosphere to lose its gases in the form of ionized particles, the scientists said.

Liquid water oceans may have been present on Venus as recently as 1 billion to 3 billion years ago, Svedhem said.

The scientists also gathered three-dimensional images of a vast rotating vortex of clouds at the south pole and compiled the best global map of atmospheric temperatures to date.

Some scientists dub Venus Earth's "evil twin." Its surface temperatures top 750 degrees F (400 degrees Celsius) and its surface pressure is a hundred times that of Earth.

"How did it all go wrong?" asked Andrew Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology in a commentary accompanying the findings.

Venus Express was launched from Kazakhstan in November 2005 and reached orbit around Venus in April 2006.


Adapted from Reuters , 28 Nov 2007

Google wants to store all your files

The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is preparing a service that would let users store on its computers essentially all of the files they might keep on their personal computers, such as word processing documents, digital music, video clips and images.

Users could access their files via the Internet from different computers and mobile devices when they sign on with a password, and share them online with friends.

“A document Google inadvertently released on the Web in March 2006 said it was moving toward being able to “store 100% of user data,” citing “emails, Web history, pictures, bookmarks” as a few examples. The document referred to what appeared to be unannounced Google initiatives, including one dubbed “ GDrive ” and said they could help compete with Microsoft.”

Some of the storage space would be free, with additional storage allotments available for a fee. It could be released as early as a few months from now, according to some leaky people who declined to share their names.

Google already does some of this through its existing Web applications, but this service would tie everything together with a single search box. Other companies offer various Internet-based file storage services, but most have been slow to catch on. Some, like Yahoo's Briefcase, require users to go to a Web page and click through a few screens to upload a new file and set various limits.

Google's grand vision faces many bumps, most alarmingly of the privacy variety. No word yet on whether the search giant plans to display ads as part of the storage service, as it does with Gmail, which would likely raise red flags for privacy groups.

Even if it doesn't, consumers receive a lesser level of legal protection for the privacy of their data when it is on an Internet-based file storage system as opposed to just on their own computers, according to Kevin Bankston, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.


More on CBS News

First robot with much system integration

Reuters - A pearly white robot that looks a little like E.T. boosted a man out of bed, chatted and helped prepare his breakfast with its deft hands in Tokyo on Tuesday, in a further sign robots are becoming more like their human inventors.

Twendy-One, named as a 21st century edition of a previous robot, Wendy, has soft hands and fingers that gently grip, enough strength to support humans as they sit up and stand, and supple movements that respond to human touch.

It can pick up a loaf of bread without crushing it, serve toast and help lift people out of bed.

"It's the first robot in the world with this much system integration," said Shigeki Sugano, professor of mechanical engineering at Waseda University, who led the Twendy-One project (http://twendyone.com) and demonstrated the result on Tuesday.

"It's difficult to balance strength with flexibility."

The robot is a little shorter than an average Japanese woman at 1.5 m (5 ft), but heavy-set at 111 kg (245 lb). Its long arms and a face shaped like a giant squashed bean mean it resembles the alien movie character E.T.

Twendy-One has taken nearly seven years and a budget of several million dollars to pull together all the high-tech features, including the ability to speak and 241 pressure-sensors in each silicon-wrapped hand, into the soft and flexible robot.

The robot put toast on a plate and fetched ketchup from a fridge when asked, after greeting its patient for the demonstration with a robotic "good morning" and "bon appetit."

Sugano said he hoped to develop a commercially viable robot that could help the elderly and maybe work in offices by 2015 with a price tag of around $200,000.

But for now, it is still a work in progress. Twendy-One has just 15 minutes of battery life and its computer-laden back has a tendency to overheat after each use.

"The robot is so complicated that even for us, it's difficult to get it to move," Sugano said.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Jerry Norton)

A news from Reuters, 27 November 2007

A bionic future to imagine

MSNBC News - When Paul Selmer lost his right leg below the knee in a hunting accident, a doctor fitted him with a standard prosthesis that required a waist belt to swing the wooden foot with each step. Selmer remembers it feeling like a “sandbag.”

That was 28 years ago. The gallery owner and small-aircraft pilot is now a devotee of a high-tech device called a PROPRIO foot, which utilizes sensors, artificial intelligence and microprocessors.

“I marvel at how far we’ve come and how far we can go,” said Selmer, who was unable to fly newer planes until discovering the PROPRIO. According to the Amputee Coalition of America, Selmer is one of 1.9 million people living with limb loss in the country, many of whom have benefited from breakthrough technological advancements in the past few years.

Recent government, private industry and academic prosthetic research has yielded, among other innovations, a thought-controlled mechanical arm, an artificially intelligent knee, and a hand with articulated fingers that can pinch and grasp objects. As researchers and engineers test the limits of science to build better prostheses, they imagine a bionic future in which prosthetic devices look and function like the original limb.

“Over 10 years the technology will only improve in terms of the size, weight and cost of the devices,” said Ian Fothergill, a prosthetic fitter and clinical manager for Ossur Americas, which designed Selmer’s PROPRIO foot.

Fothergill’s aluminum prosthesis, for example, features sensors that quickly measure real-time motion and gather information about gait and surface angles. Bluetooth technology enables wireless transfer of the data to a software-empowered microprocessor which then directs the components to mimic and anticipate Selmer’s natural movements.

“The next big leap will be in terms of the control system,” Fathergill says. “People will be able to integrate their thoughts into how the device moves.”

This promise of seamless control, as well as cheaper but sturdier materials and technological innovation, is what’s driving the prosthetic market. The American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association estimates that businesses provide $3.5 billion worth of services to orthotic and prosthetic patients annually.

Increased government spending and research, triggered by the number of amputee soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, has played a significant role in helping to allocate resources for bold new projects.

State-of-the-art innovations for soldiers may also produce encouraging results for those with diabetes-related amputations; the disease accounts for more than half of all lower limb amputations each year. According to the Center for Disease Control, the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes is expected to increase from 20.8 million to 48.3 million by 2050. The nation’s climbing obesity rate, which is linked to Type 2 diabetes, has already required prosthetics makers to adjust the weight limit of a lower-limb extremity prosthesis from around 225 pounds to 300 to 350 pounds. What began as an experiment in restoring mobility to soldiers may be a boon for long-term public health.

In February 2006 the Defense Research Advancement Projects Agency, or DARPA, committed close to $50 million to the improvement of prosthetic limbs. At the time, 387 soldiers had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan as amputees. As of October 2007, that number reached 751.

The Revolutionizing Prosthetics program set an ambitious deadline of utilizing previous power system, robotics, neuroscience, sensor and actuation technology and research to create a prosthetic arm controlled by neural signals by 2009. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, along with 30 different private, government and university collaborators, was awarded $30.4 million to evaluate the research and develop potential designs. Their efforts yielded two prototypes that have been tested by amputees and in virtual environments.

Proto 2, the second of their designs, was unveiled in August. It is a mechanical arm made of high-strength aluminum alloys, carbon fiber components, and molded devices. The limb, which includes a life-like hand and articulated fingers, is thought-controlled and can perform more than 25 degrees of freedom. The device allows the wearer to lift upwards of 40 to 50 pounds, open and close its fingers and bend at the elbow and wrist. Powered by a rechargeable battery and 25 different microprocessors and motors, it receives commands from electrodes attached to the residual limb which read electrical signals in the user’s muscles.

“Our philosophy is to try to get access to much wider signals and interpret from signals what the person is trying to do with their limb,” said APL project manager Stuart Harshbarger, referring to how the limb system’s electrodes pick up muscle signals which then trigger movement in the prosthetic. Previous myoelectric models have required the user to “map” muscle movements to prosthetic functions like bending the wrist or elbow.

Reading nerves

Researchers have enabled communication between the prosthetic device and the wearer through a technology known as Targeted Muscle Reinnervation, or TMR, which involves taking remaining nerves from the amputated limb and placing them, in this case, in the pectoral area of the chest where electrode sensors read signals for movement. Proto 2 also incorporated injectable myoelectric sensors which serve a similar function as electrodes but can be implanted or injected into the body.

“We look at these signals with pattern recognition software and then we’re able to allow the limb system to interpret these patterns,” said Harshbarger. “The limb learns what the patterns are and the person has to think only about the movement.” The team hopes a future model, which will incorporate sensory feedback, will be tested by the Food and Drug Administration and be publicly available by 2009.

Harshbarger believes the technological advancements of the project will benefit not only amputees, but also people affected with mobility-limiting diseases like Parkinson’s or spinal cord injuries.

“An [amputee] who is healthy and given the right tools can live a healthy and productive life,” he said. “Without those tools, it really changes your outcome.”

Since upper extremity limb loss accounts for a majority of all amputations each year, and thus draws fewer research dollars, the government hopes its investment will improve technology for arm and hand prostheses.

In addition to the Proto 1 and 2, an array of groundbreaking prosthetic devices have been developed by private companies and academic researchers in the past year, including a myoelectric prosthetic device with motors in each finger joint, a motor-powered ankle-foot, and an artificially intelligent knee. Creators of the devices have puzzled over how to provide power to a prosthetic limb without adding weight, how to most efficiently enable neural or nerve communication between the device and the wearer, and how to provide the functionality and appearance of a native arm.

More projects are underway; in late September, the Department of Defense awarded Idaho State University with an $842,000 grant to build a “smart” prosthetic hand capable of grasping, lifting and twisting as well as responding to sensory and visual feedback.

Yoky Matsuoka, a recently appointed MacArthur Fellow and an associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, is aiming beyond DARPA’s four-year deadline with visions of an anatomically correct and life-like robotic hand that could be transplanted on an amputee. Made of composites and metals with a polymer exterior, the hand would connect directly to the nervous system and allow an amputee to use it instinctively.

Paul Selmer, the small airplane enthusiast, is eager to see what new technologies are developed next, but said the most revolutionary innovation in his life switching from a wool sock liner to a custom-made silicone gel liner. For years, Selmer followed his fitter’s instructions and placed wool socks between his prosthesis and his stump to provide cushioning, but often developed painful sores. The new liner not only cushions the bone protrusion but it also draws sweat away from his body, helping to prevent chafing.

“I used to spend two or three days waiting for sores to heal up, but with this technology, I can just keep going,” he said.

Jeff Brandt, CEO of Ability Prosthetics & Orthotics and Selmer’s prosthetist, pointed to another low-key revolution in the field: customization. Brandt, who studied with the prosthetics researcher responsible for developing TMR technology, expects a permanent shift towards bionic technology. When treating amputees daily, however, Brandt said that the ability to customize their prostheses through the use of scanner technology has fundamentally changed his ability to provide precise-fitting and comfortable prostheses to his patients. Scanner technology allows Brandt to take digital images of a patient’s residual limb for the mold, which he can then modify with software.

“Our field has never been standardized,” said Brandt. “But now you can be very accurate about where you want modifications. Fifty years ago you had guys that were true craftsmen and could take a block of willow wood and carve a leg out of it. With technology, you can actually help the patient heal now.”


© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

Unraveling the Silky Spider Web

American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology - Web-making spiders employ a host of silk glands to synthesize a variety of silk filaments with different mechanical properties. However it is widely believed that the aciniform glands are one such silk factory, there has been no hard evidence linking aciniform-derived proteins and silk –until now. Craig Vierra and colleagues found that the aciniform gland in the Black Widow manufactures and extrudes a previously unidentified protein that is a component of multiple types of silk.

Vierra and colleagues used mass spectroscopy to analyze the protein content of two types of silk: the variety used for egg cases and the one used to wrap up prey. In both types they uncovered a thin protein fiber with a similar structure to another known silk protein called AcSp1. When they examined the expression of this new protein, termed AcSp1-like protein, in different silk glands, they found that mRNA levels were present at 1000-fold higher concentration in the aciniform gland compared to other glands.

The researchers note this finding is intriguing since it shows that aciniform silk fibers are not made for one specific task but rather get integrated into multiple silk types. They plan to further characterize the mechanics of aciniform silk, but they propose that this thin fiber acts like twine to hold thicker silk fibers together.

ARTICLE: “Aciniform spidroin: A constituent of egg case sacs and wrapping silk fibers from the black widow spider, Latrodectus Hesperus” by Keshav Vasanthavada, Xiaoyi Hu, Arnold M. Falick, Coby LaMattina, Anne M.F. Moore, Patrick R. Jones, Russell Yee, Ryan Reza, Tiffany Tuton, and Craig A. Vierra

Scientists discovered type of dying star

A rare new kind of star may have been discovered. It is much like the white dwarf our own sun should eventually become—save for a mysterious shroud of carbon ash.

The findings could shed light on the life and death of stars, astronomers said.

After they exhaust all their nuclear fuel, more than 97 percent of the stars in our galaxy—virtually all with eight to 10 times the mass of our sun or less—are expected to end up as white dwarfs, remnant stars roughly the size of Earth and very dense. Our sun is predicted to become a white dwarf more than five billion years from now.

Surprise

Until now, all known white dwarfs had atmospheres rich in either hydrogen or helium. Unexpectedly, scientists now find what seems to be a new class of white dwarf, with skies made primarily of carbon and with little or no trace of hydrogen or helium.

"Nobody ever thought this could exist," astrophysicist Patrick Dufour at University of Arizona at Tucson told SPACE.com. "It will be a challenge to explain how they form."

Roughly 80 percent of all white dwarfs had until now been thought to possess hydrogen-rich atmospheres, with the rest having helium-rich atmospheres. These new carbon-rich white dwarfs seem to be quite rare in comparison, making up at most less than one-thousandth of all white dwarfs.

So far, based off observations at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, the researchers have found eight such white dwarfs. "There are certainly more," Dufour said.

The scientists detailed their findings in the Nov. 22 issue of the journal Nature.

Dying embers

All white dwarfs form after stars lose up to 85 percent of their mass in their death throes. Perhaps during this phase, a few white dwarfs might lose "practically all of their hydrogen and helium," Dufour said.

"As a result, we see the underlying core of the star where there used to be nuclear reactions," he explained. "The carbon we are seeing are thus the 'ashes' of the burning of helium that once took place in the core of the star."

White dwarfs evolve from stars not massive enough to explode as supernovas upon their deaths. The researchers suggest the carbon-rich white dwarfs are born from stars near this limit, eight to 10 solar masses large.

To learn more about these mysterious new white dwarfs, Dufour and his colleagues plan to focus on the eight they have found so far with bigger telescopes.

"The most important implication here is in regard to stellar evolution," Dufour said. "If they are the result of the evolution of massive stars near the mass limit before exploding as supernova, they could eventually teach us a lot about how massive stars evolve and die."


Source : Space.com

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