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Wednesday, October 17, 2012

An extremely brief reversal of the geomagnetic field, climate variability and a super volcano

Public release date: 16-Oct-2012
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Contact: F. Ossing
ossing@gfz-potsdam.de
49-331-288-1040
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occured. Magnetic studies of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences on sediment cores from the Black Sea show that during this period, during the last ice age, a compass at the Black Sea would have pointed to the south instead of north. Moreover, data obtained by the research team formed around GFZ researchers Dr. Norbert Nowaczyk and Prof. Helge Arz, together with additional data from other studies in the North Atlantic, the South Pacific and Hawaii, prove that this polarity reversal was a global event. Their results are published in the latest issue of the scientific journal "Earth and Planetary Science Letters".
What is remarkable is the speed of the reversal: "The field geometry of reversed polarity, with field lines pointing into the opposite direction when compared to today's configuration, lasted for only about 440 years, and it was associated with a field strength that was only one quarter of today's field," explains Norbert Nowaczyk. "The actual polarity changes lasted only 250 years. In terms of geological time scales, that is very fast." During this period, the field was even weaker, with only 5% of today's field strength. As a consequence, the Earth nearly completely lost its protection shield against hard cosmic rays, leading to a significantly increased radiation exposure.
This is documented by peaks of radioactive beryllium (10Be) in ice cores from this time, recovered from the Greenland ice sheet. 10Be as well as radioactive carbon (14C) is caused by the collision of high-energy protons from space with atoms of the atmosphere.

The Laschamp event
The polarity reversal now found with the magnetisation of Black Sea sediments has already been known for 45 years. It was first discovered after the analysis of the magnetisation of several lava flows near the village Laschamp near Clermont-Ferrand in the Massif Central, which differed significantly from today's direction of the geomagnetic field. Since then, this geomagnetic feature is known as the 'Laschamp event'. However, the data of the Massif Central represent only some point readings of the geomagnetic field during the last ice age, whereas the new data from the Black Sea give a complete image of geomagnetic field variability at a high temporal resolution.

Abrupt climate changes and a super volcano
Besides giving evidence for a geomagnetic field reversal 41,000 years ago, the geoscientists from Potsdam discovered numerous abrupt climate changes during the last ice age in the analysed cores from the Black Sea, as it was already known from the Greenland ice cores. This ultimately allowed a high precision synchronisation of the two data records from the Black Sea and Greenland. The largest volcanic eruption on the Northern hemisphere in the past 100 000 years, namely the eruption of the super volcano 39400 years ago in the area of today's Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy, is also documented within the studied sediments from the Black Sea. The ashes of this eruption, during which about 350 cubic kilometers of rock and lava were ejected, were distributed over the entire eastern Mediterranean and up to central Russia. These three extreme scenarios, a short and fast reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, short-term climate variability of the last ice age and the volcanic eruption in Italy, have been investigated for the first time in a single geological archive and placed in precise chronological order.
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Nowaczyk, N. R.; Arz, H. W.; Frank, U.; Kind, J.; Plessen, B. (2012): "Dynamics of the Laschamp geomagnetic excursion from Black Sea sediments" Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 351-352, 54-69. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2012.06.050.
Images in printable resolution:
www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/gfz/Public+Relations/M40-Bildarchiv/Bildergalerie_Laschamp

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An extremely brief reversal of the geomagnetic field, climate variability and a super volcano Public release date: 16-Oct-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: F. Ossing
ossing@gfz-potsdam.de
49-331-288-1040
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occured. Magnetic studies of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences on sediment cores from the Black Sea show that during this period, during the last ice age, a compass at the Black Sea would have pointed to the south instead of north. Moreover, data obtained by the research team formed around GFZ researchers Dr. Norbert Nowaczyk and Prof. Helge Arz, together with additional data from other studies in the North Atlantic, the South Pacific and Hawaii, prove that this polarity reversal was a global event. Their results are published in the latest issue of the scientific journal "Earth and Planetary Science Letters".
What is remarkable is the speed of the reversal: "The field geometry of reversed polarity, with field lines pointing into the opposite direction when compared to today's configuration, lasted for only about 440 years, and it was associated with a field strength that was only one quarter of today's field," explains Norbert Nowaczyk. "The actual polarity changes lasted only 250 years. In terms of geological time scales, that is very fast." During this period, the field was even weaker, with only 5% of today's field strength. As a consequence, the Earth nearly completely lost its protection shield against hard cosmic rays, leading to a significantly increased radiation exposure.
This is documented by peaks of radioactive beryllium (10Be) in ice cores from this time, recovered from the Greenland ice sheet. 10Be as well as radioactive carbon (14C) is caused by the collision of high-energy protons from space with atoms of the atmosphere.

The Laschamp event
The polarity reversal now found with the magnetisation of Black Sea sediments has already been known for 45 years. It was first discovered after the analysis of the magnetisation of several lava flows near the village Laschamp near Clermont-Ferrand in the Massif Central, which differed significantly from today's direction of the geomagnetic field. Since then, this geomagnetic feature is known as the 'Laschamp event'. However, the data of the Massif Central represent only some point readings of the geomagnetic field during the last ice age, whereas the new data from the Black Sea give a complete image of geomagnetic field variability at a high temporal resolution.

Abrupt climate changes and a super volcano
Besides giving evidence for a geomagnetic field reversal 41,000 years ago, the geoscientists from Potsdam discovered numerous abrupt climate changes during the last ice age in the analysed cores from the Black Sea, as it was already known from the Greenland ice cores. This ultimately allowed a high precision synchronisation of the two data records from the Black Sea and Greenland. The largest volcanic eruption on the Northern hemisphere in the past 100 000 years, namely the eruption of the super volcano 39400 years ago in the area of today's Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy, is also documented within the studied sediments from the Black Sea. The ashes of this eruption, during which about 350 cubic kilometers of rock and lava were ejected, were distributed over the entire eastern Mediterranean and up to central Russia. These three extreme scenarios, a short and fast reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, short-term climate variability of the last ice age and the volcanic eruption in Italy, have been investigated for the first time in a single geological archive and placed in precise chronological order.
###

Nowaczyk, N. R.; Arz, H. W.; Frank, U.; Kind, J.; Plessen, B. (2012): "Dynamics of the Laschamp geomagnetic excursion from Black Sea sediments" Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 351-352, 54-69. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2012.06.050.
Images in printable resolution:
www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/gfz/Public+Relations/M40-Bildarchiv/Bildergalerie_Laschamp

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/haog-aeb101612.php
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Ben Affleck will write and direct a film adaptation of Dennis Lehane's new book

Lehane's 'Live By Night' will be one of Affleck's next projects and will be his second Lehane adaptation after 'Gone Baby Gone.'

By Pamela Cyran / October 15, 2012

Ben Affleck's adaptation of 'Live By Night' will be his second adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel after Affleck's 2007 film 'Gone Baby Gone.'

Cliff Owen/AP

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Dennis Lehane?s new novel, ?Live By Night,? has only been on shelves for a week, but Ben Affleck has already signed on to bring it to the big screen.

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Bin Laden driver's conviction reversed by U.S. court

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of Osama bin Laden's former driver and bodyguard, Salim Hamdan, on charges of supporting terrorism, in a long-running case emerging from the American military trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that providing support for terrorism was not a war crime at the time of Hamdan's alleged conduct from 1996 to 2001 and therefore could not support a conviction.

Human rights activists hailed the ruling as a blow to the legitimacy of the military commission system.

Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001, not long after the U.S. invasion of that country following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

In the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two, Hamdan was convicted in August 2008 of providing personal services in support of terrorism by driving and guarding bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader who was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan last year.

Hamdan was sentenced to 66 months in prison but given credit for time served at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. He was returned to Yemen in November 2008 and set free in January 2009 to live with his family in Sanaa.

The appeals court found that even though Hamdan already had been released from U.S. custody, the appeal of his conviction was not moot.

At the trial, prosecutors said Hamdan was close to al Qaeda's inner circle while his lawyers asserted that Hamdan was simply a driver and mechanic in the motor pool who needed the $200 monthly salary.

SET GUANTANAMO PRECEDENT

Hamdan won a prior victory in 2006 when the U.S. Supreme Court scrapped the first version of the Guantanamo court system.

After that Supreme Court decision, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which listed a number of specific new war crimes that could be prosecuted by a military commission, including providing support for terrorism. The government refiled charges against Hamdan under that new law.

He was eventually convicted on five counts of providing material support for terrorism.

On appeal, Hamdan argued that Congress lacked the power to make providing support for terrorism a war crime.

The appeals court refused to rule on that question, but it concluded that the military commissions act did not authorize prosecutions for conduct that occurred before the law was passed and that was not prohibited at the time it occurred.

"Because we read the Military Commissions Act not to sanction retroactive punishment for new crimes, and because material support for terrorism was not a pre-existing war crime... Hamdan's conviction for material support for terrorism cannot stand," Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the three-judge panel.

A Justice Department spokesman said the government was reviewing the ruling.

The decision strikes a blow to the legitimacy of the military commission system and calls into question prosecutions of offenses that are not internationally recognized war crimes, said Raha Wala, a lawyer with Human Rights First. To date, most of the military commission cases have been based on charges of material support or conspiracy that were added by the 2006 statute, he said.

"All of these prosecutions are now in jeopardy," Wala said, including the ongoing prosecution of Saudi prisoner Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri set to resume at Guantanamo next week.

The decision should encourage the federal government to prosecute Guantanamo prisoners in federal court, said Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. In federal court, "the law is clear and prisoners have the legal rights necessary to ensure trials are fair, transparent, and viewed as legitimate," he said.

The case is Hamdan v. USA, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, No. 11-1257.

(Editing by Howard Goller and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bin-laden-drivers-conviction-reversed-appeals-court-151411942.html

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Cell growth protein Ras forms a 'pair' on the cell membrane

Monday, October 15, 2012

Bochum biophysicists in collaboration with the MPI Dortmund have for the first time measured the orientation of the Ras protein bound to the cell membrane. The RUB team combined the use of three biophysical methods - infrared spectroscopy, computer simulations and fluorescence measurements - and came to the surprising conclusion that two Ras molecules form a pair to take an upright position on the membrane. It was previously assumed, based on computer simulations, that the protein is located horizontally on the membrane as single molecule. Ras is the central "switch" for cell growth, and malfunction of this protein is an important factor in the development of cancer. "These results put a completely new light on the nano-cluster formation of Ras at the membrane," said Professor Dr. Klaus Gerwert from the RUB Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology. The study was chosen as the cover story for the Biophysical Journal.

Orientation affects protein interactions

The orientation of a protein affects its possible interactions with other proteins. "This is similar to comparing the situations of a guest being welcomed with open arms and the host lying on the couch during the greeting," illustrates Dr. J?rn G?ldenhaupt, who conducted the orientation measurements. Few biophysical methods allow the protein orientation to be determined. ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, which has been established by the Chair for Biophysics, is one of them.

Ras molecules are mutually supportive

The false assumption that Ras lies on the membrane was based on earlier computer simulations. Till Rudack from the Bochum research team also took a virtual look at Ras. The result: A single upright Ras molecule very quickly falls over and seems to lie on the membrane. "Something must have supported the Ras in our measurements," said Till Rudack. "And that could only be another Ras molecule that was not present in the simulation." In fact, further computer simulations of two mutually supportive Ras molecules yielded a stable upright orientation ? which would fit the experimental results.

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer: a molecular yardstick

The team confirmed the results with another piece of experimental evidence using "FRET" (fluorescence resonance energy transfer). This is currently the best method for detecting interactions between two proteins. Here, researchers mark the Ras proteins with two different dyes. If the proteins interact, they are very close together so that energy is transferred from the one dye to the other. As with a yardstick, the distance between the proteins can be measured from the ratio of the transferred energy. For the Ras-Ras interaction, the biophysicists determined a distance of 4.6 nanometres, or millionths of a millimetre. This corresponded exactly to the distance they had predicted with their computer simulations for a "double-Ras".

Stronger in the group

Earlier studies had shown that Ras molecules are often concentrated in small groups. These so-called nano-clusters consist of four to ten Ras proteins. Up until now, it was assumed that other proteins have to mediate the formation of clusters. "We were able to demonstrate for the first time that Ras itself is actively involved," said Dr. Carsten K?tting, an Assistant Professor. The clustering is a great advantage for Ras. The proteins are able to pass on a signal more clearly in the group, i.e. with fewer errors. The SOS protein, for example, always transmits one signal simultaneously to two Ras molecules. If Ras is present in a double form (as a dimer), this step is much easier. An understanding of the stereo structure of Ras will allow us to adopt novel approaches in drug development. "So far, no drugs have been discovered which act directly on Ras," said Klaus Gerwert. "Ras is to be considered undruggable. The Ras-Ras interface could be a new starting point, however, in the development of Ras drugs."

###

J. G?ldenhaupt, T. Rudack, P. Bachler, D. Mann, G. Triola, H. Waldmann, C. K?tting, K. Gerwert (2012): N-Ras forms dimers at POPC membranes, Biophysical Journal, doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2012.08.043

Ruhr-University Bochum: http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Thanks to Ruhr-University Bochum for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124465/Cell_growth_protein_Ras_forms_a__pair__on_the_cell_membrane

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Monday, October 15, 2012

"Indiana Faces Dilemma Regulating Huge, Industrial CAFO Animal Farms"

"While backers hail their benefits, the state struggles to regulate operations that put thousands of animals under the same roof."

"Soon after graduating from Purdue University, Aaron Chalfant decided the best way for him to keep the Randolph County farm his family had tended for decades was to start raising hogs.

Lots of hogs. Four thousand of them, in fact.

'Livestock was kind of my ticket back to the farm,' said Chalfant, 29. 'It's really been a good chance for me to put food on the table for my family.'

But two summers ago, dead fish surfaced along miles of the Mississinewa River. A state environmental inspector followed the trail of carcasses to a field Chalfant had recently fertilized with hog manure piped in from his barn.

The inspector found liquefied hog feces pooled in a drainage ditch leading to Bear Creek, a tributary of the river. He photographed dead vegetation near a leaking manure hose. He smelled the unmistakable stench of hog manure wafting up from a drainage pipe."

Ryan Sabalow and Alex Campbell report for the Indianapolis Star October 13, 2012.
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Source: Indianapolis Star, 10/15/2012

Source: http://www.sej.org/headlines/indiana-faces-dilemma-regulating-huge-industrial-cafo-animal-farms

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EU set for new sanctions on Iran

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-set-sanctions-iran-064524529.htmlcujo karen handel hangout todd haley kareem abdul jabbar karl rove miramonte elementary school

Too much helpful algae can be bad for corals

ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2012) ? A new study by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science shows that corals may be more severely impacted by climate warming when they contain too many symbiotic algae. The single-celled algae living inside corals are usually the key to coral success, providing the energy needed to build massive reef frameworks. However, when temperatures become too warm, these algae are expelled from corals during episodes of coral 'bleaching' that can lead to widespread death of corals. Until now, it was thought that corals with more algal symbionts would be more tolerant of bleaching because they had 'more symbionts to lose.' The new study shows that the opposite is true.

"We discovered that the more symbiotic algae a coral has, the more severely it bleaches, showing that too much of a good thing can actually be bad," said Ross Cunning, Ph.D. student and lead author of the study. "We also learned that the number of algae in corals varies over time, which helps us better understand coral bleaching risk."

His research was conducted using cauliflower coral (Pocillopora damicornis) collected from the Pacific coast of Panama. The corals were monitored for six months at the UM's Experimental Hatchery, where they slowly warmed up and ultimately bleached. The number of symbiotic algae in the corals was studied by analyzing DNA samples with new highly sensitive genetic techniques that determine the ratio of algal cells to coral cells. This improved technique made the discovery possible by showing that corals with more algae bleached more severely than those with fewer algae.

"Corals regulate their symbionts to match the environment in which they are found, and this study shows there is a real cost to having too many," said co-author Andrew Baker, associate professor at UM's Rosenstiel School. "There are real-world implications of this. Corals will be more vulnerable to bleaching if they are found in environments which increase the number of symbionts, such as coastal reefs polluted by wastewater and runoff. If we can improve water quality, we might be able to buy some time to help these reefs avoid the worst effects of climate change.

"Other environmental changes, including ocean acidification as a result of increasing carbon dioxide emissions, might also influence bleaching vulnerability in ways we haven't thought of before," Baker added.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Ross Cunning, Andrew C. Baker. Excess algal symbionts increase the susceptibility of reef corals to bleaching. Nature Climate Change, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1711

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/xkVI1U8g4d4/121014162914.htm

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