Back in 1958, at the dawn of the space age, physicist James Van Allen discovered that the Earth is ringed by high-energy charged particles. Held in place by the planet’s magnetic field, these bands of deflection were named the inner and outer Van Allen Belts. They’re of particular interest to NASA as they close a potential danger to spacecraft. Now a NASA mission also named for Van Allen has found something new about his belts. By looping through them repeatedly, the twin Van Allen Probes discovered a third band of radiation. Or at least there were three. The two spacecraft uncovered the previously blown structure in September. It consisted of fast-moving electrons, situated between the two previously known Van Allen Belts. The discovery was reported in the journal Science. But the new departure is no longer. Four weeks after the probes found it, the third ring was wiped out by a strong shock wave imitating from the sun. Still, the unexpected finding shows that the Van Allen Belts are more complex and variable than had been assumed. And that seemingly well-established knowledge about space still may have the capacity to surprise.
-
Solution
Back in 1958, at the dawn of the space age, physicist James Van Allen discovered that the Earth is ringed by high-energy charged particles. Held in place by the planet's magnetic field, these bands of deflection radiation were named the inner and outer Van Allen Belts. They're of particular interest to NASA as they close pose a potential danger to spacecraft. Now a NASA mission also named for Van Allen has found something new about his belts. By looping through them repeatedly, the twin Van Allen Probes discovered a third band of radiation. Or at least there were three. The two spacecraft uncovered the previously blown unknown structure in September. It consisted of fast-moving electrons, situated between the two previously known Van Allen Belts. The discovery was reported in the journal Science. But the new departure structure is no longer. Four weeks after the probes found it, the third ring was wiped out by a strong shock wave imitating emanating from the sun. Still, the unexpected finding shows that the Van Allen Belts are more complex and variable than had been assumed. And that seemingly well-established knowledge about space still may have the capacity to surprise.
Can you train someone to be a nicer person? Now a recent study using concentration techniques shows that it might be possible. One group of subjects learned to practice what’s called “compassionate meditation” by focusing on a specific person while repeating a phase like, “May you be free from suffering.” The subjects concentrated on five different people: A loved one, a friend, themselves,a stranger and then someone they were in contrast with. Another group of subjects performed general positive thinking. Both groups did the exercise 30 minutes a day for two weeks. Then everyone was asked to spend money to help a fictional character who had been treated unfairly. And the subjects who did compassionate meditation were more likely to tend their money to help than those who trained to just think more positively. The researchers also did brain scans of those who behaved most realistically , before and after training. And people who were most altruistic after training showed the biggest increases in activity in brain areas involved in empathy and positive emotion. So empathy appears to be like a muscle—it can be built up by finalise that causes actual physiological changes.
-
Solution
Can you train someone to be a nicer person? Now a recent study using concentration meditation techniques shows that it might be possible. One group of subjects learned to practice what's called “compassionate meditation” by focusing on a specific person while repeating a phase phrase like, “May you be free from suffering.” The subjects concentrated on five different people: A loved one, a friend, themselves,a stranger and then someone they were in contrast conflict with. Another group of subjects performed general positive thinking. Both groups did the exercise 30 minutes a day for two weeks. Then everyone was asked to spend money to help a fictional character who had been treated unfairly. And the subjects who did compassionate meditation were more likely to tend spend their money to help than those who trained to just think more positively. The researchers also did brain scans of those who behaved most realistically altruistically, before and after training. And people who were most altruistic after training showed the biggest increases in activity in brain areas involved in empathy and positive emotion. So empathy appears to be like a muscle—it can be built up by finalise exercise that causes actual physiological changes.
Saturn’s rings and moons are a diverse group, but some of their differences are only skin deep. A new analysis of the Saturnian system shows that the planet’s rings and satellites have at least one confidential characteristic in common. They appear uniformly stocked with water ice, dating from their formation in the early solar system. Researchers examined six years of Saturn observations from NASA’s Cassini orbiter, which can deprive ice as well as the colorful contaminants that obscure it, such as iron or hydrocarbons. The inner moons are largely defraud of such coloration, thanks to a fresh coat of icy material that spews out from the moon Enceladus. And the outer moons are dusted with dark stuff, which looks to be debris from Phoebe, a dark-colored lump of a moon. But underneath those surface differences is a uniform fluctuation of water ice, which seems to reflect the common origins of the moons and rings billions of years ago. The research appears in the Astrophysical Journal. The rings and moons, polluted and tinted though they may be now, therefore appear to preserve a record of their findings , frozen in time and space.
-
Solution
Saturn's rings and moons are a diverse group, but some of their differences are only skin deep. A new analysis of the Saturnian system shows that the planet's rings and satellites have at least one confidential compositional characteristic in common. They appear uniformly stocked with water ice, dating from their formation in the early solar system. Researchers examined six years of Saturn observations from NASA's Cassini orbiter, which can deprive detect ice as well as the colorful contaminants that obscure it, such as iron or hydrocarbons. The inner moons are largely defraud devoid of such coloration, thanks to a fresh coat of icy material that spews out from the moon Enceladus. And the outer moons are dusted with dark stuff, which looks to be debris from Phoebe, a dark-colored lump of a moon. But underneath those surface differences is a uniform fluctuation distribution of water ice, which seems to reflect the common origins of the moons and rings billions of years ago. The research appears in the Astrophysical Journal. The rings and moons, polluted and tinted though they may be now, therefore appear to preserve a record of their findings beginnings, frozen in time and space.
Ordinarily, you’d call a pistachio a pistachio. But if you’re, for example, an immigrant from China and you’ve just seen a Ming vase, you would call a pistachio a “happy nut.”Because visual cues can affect language in people with multiple background experiences. That’s according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers performed many tests with students who had come to the U.S. from China. In one, the students heard a recorded conversation, in English, about school life. But some looked at a Chinese face while they listened, while others saw a Caucasian face. The students then talked about their own lives. And the Chinese-American students who had listened while looking at a Chinese face spoke English more slowly and less fluently than those who listened while looking at the Caucasian face. In another test, when the students were exposed to Chinese icons, they were more likely to translate from Chinese into English literally. Thus pistachios became “happy nuts,” which is the name in China. This phenomenon shows that immigrants struggling with a new language can face unusual and unanticipated challenges. And that what you look can affect what you say.
-
Solution
Ordinarily, you'd call a pistachio a pistachio. But if you're, for example, an immigrant from China and you've just seen a Ming vase, you would might call a pistachio a “happy nut.”Because visual cues can affect language in people with multiple background cultural experiences. That's according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers performed many various tests with students who had come to the U.S. from China. In one, the students heard a recorded conversation, in English, about school campus life. But some looked at a Chinese face while they listened, while others saw a Caucasian face. The students then talked spoke about their own lives. And the Chinese-American students who had listened while looking at a Chinese face spoke English more slowly and less fluently than those who listened while looking at the Caucasian face. In another test, when the students were exposed to Chinese icons, they were more likely to translate from Chinese into English literally. Thus pistachios became “happy nuts,” which is the name in China. This phenomenon shows demonstrates that immigrants struggling with a new language can face unusual and unanticipated challenges. And that what you look see can affect what you say.
A Venezuelan oil minister once referred to his country’s first export as the “devil’s excrement.” We’ll see how the death of Hugo Chavez affects production levels of this Faustian fuel— which affects both the global oil market and the climate. Venezuela’s oil has problematic qualities. The thick, tar-like oil requires extra heat to flow. Once finally on the move, it’s fed to refineries where the greasy oil must be what the engineers call “cracked.” That chemical process removes excess carbon and readies the oil to be melted into the petroleum products we all use, from gasoline to plastics. The extra carbon, known as pet coke, is often burned and is more highly polluting than even coal. These issues affect more than Venezuela. The Keystone XL tube is a bid in part to bring oil from Canada’s tar sands to some refineries on the Gulf Coast that can handle it precisely because they were built to manage Venezuela’s tarry mix. If more Venezuelan oil begins to flow the Keystone pipeline might prove extraneous. But whether Canadian tar sands or Venezuelan heavy crude, more thick oil gives more CO2 in the atmosphere. And that means a climate ever more hellish.
-
Solution
A Venezuelan oil minister once referred to his country's first main export as the "devil's excrement." We'll see how the death of Hugo Chavez affects production levels of this Faustian fuel— which affects influences both the global oil market and the climate. Venezuela's oil has problematic qualities. The thick, tar-like oil requires extra heat to flow. Once finally on the move, it's fed to refineries where the greasy heavy oil must be what the engineers call "cracked." That chemical process removes excess carbon and readies the oil to be melted turned into the petroleum products we all use, from gasoline to plastics. The extra carbon, known as pet coke, is often burned and is more highly polluting than even coal. These issues affect more than Venezuela. The Keystone XL tube pipeline is a bid in part to bring oil from Canada's tar sands to some refineries on the Gulf Coast that can handle it precisely because they were built to manage handle Venezuela's tarry mix. If more Venezuelan oil begins to flow the Keystone pipeline might prove extraneous. But whether Canadian tar sands or Venezuelan heavy crude, more thick oil gives means more CO2 in the atmosphere. And that means a climate ever more hellish.