Fastest Camera Ever Built Uses Lasers

It can take 6.1 million pictures in a single second, at a shutter speed of 440 trillionths of a second.  Light itself moves just a fraction of a centimeter in that time.  (Click on the link below to see the video)

The camera works by illuminating objects with a laser that emits a different infrared frequency for every single pixel, allowing them to custom-amplify a signal that would otherwise be too dim to see.

“We have invented a new type of imaging technology that overcomes the fundamental limitation between sensitivity and speed,” said Keisuke Goda, an optoelectronic specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s the world’s fastest camera.”

….The technology is dubbed STEAM, short for serial time-encoded amplified microscopy. It illuminates objects with an infrared laser that cycles through a series of different wavelengths, one for each pixel on the sensor.

When reflected light hits the camera’s sensor, each pixel picks up its dedicated wavelength, and is given an electronic boost of a matching wavelength. That amplifies the original dim signal, composed of just a few photons, until it becomes visible. This can’t be done in a conventional digital camera, because the sensor doesn’t know what the original wavelengths were.

For now, STEAM can only produce images composed of just 3,000 pixels, a far cry from the multi-million-pixel cameras used by consumers. But Goda’s team , led by UCLA engineer Bahram Jali, intends to develop a multi-megapixel camera that can take 100 million pictures per second, with a frame rate of they’re hoping to up this to mega-multipixel mode competitive with standard digital cameras, taking 100 million pictures per second, with a shutter speed of just one-trillionth of a second.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/fastestcamera/

Darwin’s Radio: Prehistoric Gene Reawakens to Battle HIV

 ’The next great war will start inside us. ‘In the next stage of evolution, mankind is history’.

Greg Bear, Darwin’s Radio

About 95% of the human genome has once been designated as “junk” DNA. While much of this sequence may be an evolutionary artifact that serves no present-day purpose, some junk DNA may function in ways that are not currently understood. The conservation of some junk DNA over many millions of years of evolution may imply an essential function that has been “turned off.” Now scientists say there’s a junk gene that fights HIV. And they’ve discovered how to turn it back on.

What these scientists have done could give us the first bulletproof HIV vaccine. They have re-awakened the human genome’s latent potential to make us all into HIV-resistant creatures, and hey’ve published their ground-breaking research  in PLoS Biology.

A group of scientists led by Nitya Venkataraman and Alexander Colewhether wanted to try a new approach to fighting HIV – one that worked with the body’s own immune system. They knew Old World monkeys had a built-in immunity to HIV: a protein called retrocyclin, which can prevent HIV from entering cell walls and starting an infection. So they began poring over the human genome, looking to see if humans had a latent gene that could manufacture retrocyclin too. It turned out that we did, but a “nonsense mutation” in the gene had turned it off at some point in our evolutionary history.

Nonsense mutations are caused when random DNA code shows up in the middle of a gene, preventing it from beginning the process of manufacturing proteins in the cell. Venkataraman and her team decided to investigate this gene further, doing a series of tests to see if the retrocyclin it produced would keep HIV out of human cells. It did.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/04/by-annalee-newitz-500-pm-on-mon-apr-27-2009-10350-views-edit-post-set-to-draft-slurpcopy-this-whole-post-to-another-s.html

Is a “Hyper-hurricane” Mega-Katrina Possible? MIT Scientist Says “Yes”

MIT’s Kerry Emanuel describes the worst nightmare hurricane that could ever happen -a “hypercane” with  winds raging around its center at 500 miles an hour. Water vapor; sea spray and storm debris are spewed into the atmosphere, punching a hole in the stratosphere 20 miles above the Earth’s surface; at landfall, its super-gale-force winds would flatten forests and toss boulders with a  60-foot tsunami-like storm surge flooding nearby shores. The water vapor and debris could remain suspended high in the atmosphere for years, disrupting the climate and the ozone layer.

Could this happen? Possibly. But this hypercane scenario is one of Emanuels’ computer models. A professor at MIT’s atmosphere, oceans and climate program, Emanuel studies the physics of hurricanes, deconstructing their behavior, and digs into their geological past — all to understand what makes these monster storms tick.

No one knows for sure how hurricanes get started. The ingredients for cooking one up still remain a mystery. A basic recipe: ocean water 80 degrees or warmer, super humid air, and a bunch of storms with thunderheads. Some assembly still require”Hurricanes are accidents of nature,” Emanuel says. Hurricanes don’t happen by themselves,” he continues. “They literally need to be triggered.”

To create such a monster storm, parts of the ocean would have to warm up to at least 100 degrees, and only the impact of a large asteroid hitting the tropical ocean or a massive undersea volcano could generate such intense heating.  Emanuel and his colleagues theorize that asteroid-triggered hypercanes may have contributed to massive global extinctions millions of years ago.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/04/is-a-mega-katri.html

Native Americans Descended From A Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms

A distinct DNA signature was found among all but one of the populations shown as points 32 to 53 on this map. (The Fox tribe, point 48, was the exception. But DNA samples of only 2 people were tested, too few to provide a valid result.) The signature was absent in all Asian groups sampled, points 1-32. (Credit: Kari Britt Schroeder/UC Davis)

For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations.

Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: virtually without exception, the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.

“Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait,” said Kari Britt Schroeder, a lecturer at the University of California, Davis, and the first author on the paper describing the study.

“While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations,” said Schroeder, who was a Ph.D. student in anthropology at the university when she did the research.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090428223836.htm

Swine Flu Outbreak Illuminated By Avian Flu Research

This graphic shows why the Type A virus can’t be eradicated. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Maryland)

A new study by University of Maryland researchers suggests that the potential for an avian influenza virus to cause a human flu pandemic is greater than previously thought.  Results also illustrate how the current swine flu outbreak likely came about.  

As of now, avian flu viruses can infect humans who have contact with birds, but these viruses tend not to transmit easily between humans.  However, in research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor Daniel Perez from the University of Maryland showed that after reassortment with a human influenza virus, a process that usually takes place in intermediary species like pigs, an avian flu virus requires relatively few mutations to spread rapidly between mammals by respiratory droplets.

“This is similar to the method by which the current swine influenza strain likely formed,” said Perez, program director of the University of Maryland-based Prevention and Control of Avian Influenza Coordinated Agricultural Project, AICAP.  “The virus formed when avian, swine, and human-like viruses combined in a pig to make a new virus.  After mutating to be able to spread by respiratory droplets and infect humans, it is now spreading between humans by sneezing and coughing.” 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429132238.htm

Evolution In A Test Tube

Researchers have set up an artificial ecosystem inside a test tube where molecules evolve to exploit distinct ecological niches. (Credit: iStockphoto)

A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has set up the microscopic equivalent of the Galapagos Islands—an artificial ecosystem inside a test tube where molecules evolve to exploit distinct ecological niches, similar to the finches that Charles Darwin famously described in “The Origin of Species” 150 years ago.

As described in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the work demonstrates some of the classic principles of evolution. For instance, research shows that when different species directly compete for the same finite resource, only the fittest will survive.

The work also demonstrates how, when given a variety of resources, the different species will evolve to become increasingly specialized, each filling different niches within their common ecosystem.

Conducted by Sarah Voytek, Ph.D., a recent graduate of the Scripps Research Kellogg School of Science and Technology, the work is intended to advance understanding of Darwinian evolution. Using molecules rather than living species offers a robust way to do this because it allows the forces of evolution to work over the course of mere days, with a trillion molecules in a test tube replicating every few minutes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429140849.htm

Alaskan Eskimo Village Votes to Move Upstream to Avoid Climate Change Flooding

To prevent flooding which is already occurring (and increasing with climate change being blamed) the Yup’ik Eskimo village of Newtok has voted to move all of its 340 residents 9 miles upstream, CNN reports:

Due to warming temperatures, coastal ice shelves and frozen soils are already melting, reducing natural barriers to summer storm surge flooding. According to the US Army Corps of Engineers it will cost about $130 million to move the entire village. The village is working with federal and state representatives to assist with the relocation, but Newtok does not yet have all the money to move.

The Corps says that currently there are 26 Alaskan villages in danger of being flooded out, with an additional 60 at risk over the coming decade.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/alaskan-eskimo-village-votes-to-move-avoid-climate-change.php

Pushing Plastic Solar Cells

Powerful polymers: This illustration shows the different layers that make up a new plastic solar cell with nearly perfect internal efficiency. From bottom to top, the layers are glass, a transparent electrode, two polymer layers, a titanium oxide layer that redistributes light, and an aluminum electrode.  Credit: Nature Photonics

Plastic solar cells are lightweight, flexible, and, most important, cheap to make. But so far, these devices have been too inefficient to compete with silicon solar cells for most applications. Now researchers from a few institutions claim to have made polymer solar cells with record-breaking efficiencies. These cells still aren’t good enough to compete with silicon, but polymer efficiencies have been increasing at a rate of about 1 percent a year. If they can keep this up, say researchers, plastic solar cells will be competing with silicon within a few years.

This week, in the online edition of Nature Photonics, researchers reported on polymer solar cells that convert about 6.1 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity–inching a bit closer to the 10 percent that they say will be needed to gain a significant foothold in the market. (Conventional silicon cells are about 15 percent efficient.) The new efficiency numbers “show that we’re in the game,” says Alan Heeger, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who led the research. Heeger shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 for his role in the development of the first conducting polymers, and he’s cofounder and chief scientist at Konarka, a plastic solar cell company headquartered in Lowell, MA.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22563/

New missions target Mars moon Phobos

On 23 July 2008, the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board the ESA’s Mars Express took the highest-resolution full-disc image yet of the surface of the moon Phobos.

Efforts to reach the Martian moon Phobos have long been outshined by missions to the red planet itself. Now, scientists in Russia, Canada and the U.S. are preparing their own missions to the largest moon of Mars.

Mars actually has two moons: Phobos and Deimos. They might more properly be called satellites, however, because they are extremely small, only a few kilometers in diameter. 

In fact, some scientists think Phobos and Deimos could be asteroids that somehow ended up orbiting Mars instead of crashing into the planet, or they could be leftovers from the time of planetary formation. Another option is that the moons are fragments of Mars, blasted off the planet’s surface by a large asteroid or comet impact.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30498759/

Metal Roof Saves Money for Grandma

Write talks about this Grandma replacing her old roof with a metal one.

Why would someone do this, you might ask? Well, my grandmother, like many people in the Texas hill-country, has huge oak trees all around her house. Which are great for shade, but don’t lend to a nice roof for solar. What’s an independent grandmother to do? Well, the next best thing. Find some other way to cool her house, save money on her electric bills as well as help the planet by not running her A/C quite so high. After recent hail damage that left her roof looking more like swiss cheese, she took her insurance payments and put them towards the metal roof. The new system was still $4-5,000 USD above what she made from the insurance payment, but despite the cost she still knew that’s what she wanted to do.

“You can definitely tell a difference,” my grandmother said when I asked her further. “The house is just much cooler and the electric bill has gone down by $30-40 USD per month on average.” In an area where you almost run the air conditioning year-round, this makes a big difference. “The last several years we’ve been in a severe drought so we’ve had very warm weather and we have not had our typical winter either. The temp is warmer in the winter than it used to be so I was motivated partly by that; the fact that our weather is warmer and the climate seemed to be changing.”

Now I hate to say it, but she is older and more than likely won’t see this roof through its lifetime. So I asked her why she would bother to pay the extra $12,000 for the roof. She said, “I ma not see it paid back to me, but the house will still be there and it will be a good selling point when I do decide to sell it. So somebody else will benefit from the metal roof.”

For those of you in hot, sunny climates but burdened by un-solar-friendly roofs, why not try installing a white or metal roof to help keep your house cool and reflect some of the heat off your property.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/metal-roof-saves-money-for-grandma.php