Show Notes:

‘Oceans’ of Water Around Distant Star

• The low down
• Eta Corvi, approximately 60 light-years away in the northern sky, and found signs that comets could be pelting the alien system
• Astronomers used Spitzer’s infrared detectors to analyze the light coming from the dust around Eta Corvi.
• Certain chemical fingerprints were observed, including water ice, organics and rock, which indicate a giant comet source
• Water molecules come in two “spin” forms, called ortho and para, in which the two spins of the hydrogen nuclei have different orientations. By comparing the relative amounts of ortho and para water, astronomers can determine the temperatures under which the water formed.
• The ratio of ortho to para water observed in TW Hydrae’s protoplanetary disc is low enough to point to the presence of cold water vapour.
• Significance
• Our current planetary formation models have recently included what is called Late Heavy Bombardment. Where we believe that comets disrupted by a change in orbit of Jupiter and Saturn caused Kuiper belt objects to swing to the inner solar system depositing the water in our oceans
• Eta Corvi system is approximately 1 billion years old, which would place it in the right time period for such a comet storm
• There’s enough water in the planet-forming disk around Eta Corvi to fill several thousand Earth oceans
• Multimedia
• VIDEO: Comets Donate Elements of life @ space.com
• Artist’s conception illustrates a storm of comets around a star near our own @ space.com
• Artist’s impression illustrates an icy protoplanetary disc @ esa.int
• Social Media
• Twitter account for Spitzer Telescope @NASASpitzer
• Twitter account for Herschel Telescope @ESAHerschel
• Further Reading / In the News
• Spitzer Space Telecope
• Signposts of Planets Conference
• Herschel Observatory Detects ‘Oceans’ of Water Around Distant Star @ UniverseToday.com
• Herschel detects abundant water in planet-forming disc @ esa.int
• NASA’s Spitzer Detects Comet Storm in Nearby Solar System @ spitzer.caltech.edu

Baby pictures of a Planet

• The low down
• The first direct image of a planet in the process of forming around its star has been captured by astronomers
• If this is a planet, it’s at a temperature of about 440–1340 F / 226–726C, and has a mass roughly six times that of Jupiter, or about 2000 times the Earth’s mass.
• Images have revealed that the forming planet sits inside a wide gap between the young parent star and an outer disk of dust.
• At two million years old LkCa 15 b is the youngest planet ever found, about 5 times younger than the previous record holder
• Astronomers were able to combine the power of Keck’s Adaptive Optics with a technique called aperture mask interferometry, so that the mirrors canceled out the starlight
• Significance
• Planatary formation models have two ways for a gas giant to form, core accretion and the gravitational instability model. The observations of this proto-planet favor the 2nd.
• Gravitational instability model: A large mass of gas and dust in the outer part of the disk suddenly forms into clumps as big as a modest-size planet, drawing in neighbouring gas and dust to form a giant planet in just a few hundred years.
• Multimedia
• Artist’s conception of the view near the planet LkCa 15 b. Credit: Karen L. Teramura, UH IfA
• The transitional disk around the star LkCa 15
• The location of LkCa 15
• Social Media
• Twitter account for AstronomyNow @astronomynow
• Facebook account for W.M. Keck Observatory
• Further Reading / In the News
• Keck Observatory
• Youngest Planet Seen As It’s Forming @ KeckObservatory.org
• Youngest planet imaged as it forms @ AstronomyNow.com
• LkCa 15: A Young Exoplanet Caught at Formation? @ cornell University Library
• The first direct image of a baby planet being born! (maybe!)(but probably!) @DiscoverMagazine.com

Teen brains’ growing pains

• The low down
• Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a standardized measure of human intellectual capacity that takes into account a wide range of cognitive skills
• IQ is generally considered to be stable across the lifespan, with scores at one time point used to predict educational achievement and employment prospects in later years
• Researchers tested 33 normal children, first between the ages of 12 and 16, and then again four years later, using both IQ tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which measures blood flow in the brain.
• Verbal IQ, measured by language, arithmetic, general knowledge and memory tests
• Nonverbal IQ, measured by solving visual puzzles.
• While the teens were in the lab, structural MRI brain scans measured particular brain regions.
• Four years later, the team invited the teenagers back for a redo
• Significance
• Overall, IQ scores held steady: Average IQs were 112 in 2004 and 113 four years later.
• About a third of the teenagers had meaningful changes in IQ, and a handful showed dizzying climbs or plunges.
• One such plunge was 18 IQ points — which would be enough to demote a person from genius status to merely above average.
• The retest also turned up an IQ gain of 21 points — which would elevate a below-average person to above average.
• Some people who scored high the first time around scored even higher later, and some low scorers scored even lower.
• The team suspected mundane explanations such as differences in the teens’ levels of concentration at the time of each test. But the brain scan data argued otherwise.
• The IQ changes were accompanied by changes in the brains’ gray matter, which is made up of nerve cells.
• This would be encouraging to those whose intellectual potential may improve, and would be a warning that early achievers may not maintain their potential.
• Multimedia
• Location of brain regions where grey matter changed @ LiveScience
• Activations in the regions identified @ LiveScience
• Social Media
• Twitter account for Education Week @educationweek
• Twitter account for Nature News&Comment @NatureNews
• Further Reading / In the News
• Verbal and non-verbal intelligence changes in the teenage brain @ Nature.com
• Study: Adolescents Can See Dramatic IQ Changes @EducationWeek
• Study: Teens’ IQ may fluctuate over time @ USA Today
• Teens’ IQs Can Fluctuate, Study Suggests @ LiveScience.com

*— NEWS BYTE — *

First Wide-Scale Malaria vaccine shows promise

• The low down
• The first vaccine against malaria to undergo wide-scale testing shows that youngsters who got it were about half as likely to come down with the disease over a 14-month follow-up period as were those who didn’t receive the vaccine
• The malaria vaccine also reduced cases of severe malaria — the kind that can result in hospitalization.
• Severe malaria in the two age groups combined, among those getting the experimental vaccine, was reduced by about one-third, slightly less than the researchers anticipated.
• Random thing to note
• Measles continues to show up sporadically as unvaccinated people traveling to other countries unwittingly bring back infections
• Pre-vaccination days in the 1960s, the United States could expect hundreds of thousands of infections and thousands of people hospitalized
• Social Media
• Twitter account for New England Journal of Medicine @NEJM
• Further Reading / In the News
• Malaria vaccine yields protection @ ScienceNews.org
• First Results of Phase 3 Trial of RTS,S/AS01 Malaria Vaccine in African Children @ New England Journal of Medicine
• Measles cases up in U.S. and Canada @ ScienceNews.com

The War of the Worlds

Stream the entire radio broadcast:

• The low down
• Performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938
• The program starts with an introduction from the novel, describing the intentions of the aliens and noting that the adaptation is set in 1939, a year ahead of the actual broadcast date
• Only notices that the broadcast was fictional came at the start of the broadcast and about 40 and 55 minutes into it
• Many missed the repeated notices that the broadcast was fictional, dialing in about 15 min into the program (after the notices) when a more popular program ended it’s first comic sketch and the 1st musical number began
• Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a “sustaining show” (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program’s realism
• After the play, Welles informally breaks character to remind listeners that the broadcast was a Halloween concoction
• Significance
• Within one month, newspapers had published 12,500 articles about the broadcast and its impact
• During this period, many newspaper publishers were concerned that radio, a new medium, would render them obsolete. They may have taked the oppotunity to embellish the story suggest that radio was dangerous.
• Contemporary news articles indicate that police were swamped with hundreds of calls in numerous locations, but stories of people doing anything more than calling authorities mostly involve only small groups.
• In Concrete, Washington, phone lines and electricity went out due to a short-circuit at the Superior Portland Cement Company’s substation. Residents were unable to call neighbors, family or friends to calm their fears. Reporters who heard of the coincidental blackout sent the story over the newswire, and soon Concrete was known worldwide
• Many listeners sued the network for “mental anguish” and “personal injury.” All suits were dismissed, except for a claim for a pair of black mens shoes (size 9B) by a Massachusetts man who spent his shoe money to escape the Martians. Welles insisted the man be paid
• In February 1949 a Spanish-language version The broadcast set off panic in Equador. Police and fire brigades rushed out of town to engage the supposed alien invasion force. After it was revealed that the broadcast was fiction, the panic transformed into a riot.
• National Public Radio aired a remake on the 50th anniversary of the Mercury Theatre play in 1988. It starred Jason Robards, Steve Allen (who as a youth listened to the 1938 broadcast), Douglas Edwards, Scott Simon and Terry Gross. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for “Best Spoken Word or Nonmusical Recording”.
• Multimedia
• The War of the Worlds (Original 1938 Radio Adaptation) [Audio CD]
• The War of the Worlds (Special Collector’s Edition) (1953)
• Further Reading / In the News
• @ Wikipedia
• Voice of Reason: ‘War of the Worlds’ Truths and Myths @ LiveScience.com
• Radio Beat: Oct. 30, 1938 – The broadcast that scared a nation
• The War of the Worlds Download – Internet Archive

UPDATE

ROSAT Sattelite

• The low down
• The 2.7-ton ROSAT Satellite, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday (Oct. 22) at 9:50 p.m. EDT (0150 GMT Sunday, Oct. 23)
• Most likely met a watery grave during its weekend plunge to Earth, a fall from space that ended over the Bay of Bengal in the northeast Indian Ocean
• Officials estimated that up to 30 pieces totaling 1.9 tons (1.7 metric tons), consisting mostly of the observatory’s heat-resistant mirrors and ceramic parts, could survive the fiery trip and reach the surface of the planet
• Based on ROSAT’s orbital path, these fragments could be scattered along a swath of the planet about 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide
• Multimedia
• Initial reports said ROSAT fell sometime during this track
• Social Media
• @ROSAT_Reentry Twitter feed
• Further Reading / In the News
• ROSAT re-entry page
• ROSAT Satellite has Re-Entered; No Reports of Debris @UniverseToday
• Defunct German Satellite Hits Earth in Fiery Death Dive @ Space.com
• German Satellite Fell to Earth Over Indian Ocean’s Bay of Bengal @ Space.com

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back this week

• Oct 27, 1780 : 231 years ago – First U.S. astronomy expedition: Four professors and six students left on a three week expedition to record a solar eclipse from Penobscot Bay in Main. Although the U.S. was at war with Britain, the British officer in charge of Penobscot Bay permitted the expedition to land and set up equipment to observe the predicted total eclipse of the sun. Unfortunately saw a thin arc of the sun instead of its complete obscuration by the moon.
• Oct 28 1868 : 143 years ago – A patent was registered for a machine that let legislators vote with a turn of the switch and a patent era was born then Thomas Edison applied for his first patent the “Electrographic Vote Recorder.” U.S. Patent No. 90,646 He would eventually hold over 1,500 patents
• Nov 1 1879 : 132 years ago – There was light! Edison signed the patent application for his electric lamp U.S. Patent 223,898. In the next few weeks, he also filed for patents in Britain, Belgium, Italy and France, as referred to in a Correction dated 18 Dec 1883, in which Edison requested that the U.S. patent be limited so as to expire at the same time with whichever of the foreign patents had the shortest time to run.
• Nov 1 1884 – 127 years ago : Greenwich Mean Time : In 1884, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted universally at a meeting of the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC, USA. From then the International Date Line was drawn up and 24 time zones created.
• Oct 28 1894 : 117 years ago – A patent was issued for inserting paper into a machine that recorded the time when a lever was pressed recording the time employees started and ended thier work day and Daniel M. Cooper of Rochester, N.Y. received the first U.S. patent for a time clock (No. 528,223).
• Oct 29, 1998 – 13 years ago : John Glen returned to space at the age of 77, 36 years after his first orbit round the Earth.

Looking up this week

• You might have seen …

• Spectacular Northern Lights Display Leaves Skywatchers Spellbound

• A dazzling aurora light show amazed skywatchers across North America, from Canada to Arkansas, and other northern regions Monday night (Oct. 24), painting the sky with striking green and even rare red hues

• Auroras are caused when charged solar particles hit Earth’s atmosphere, causing a glow as the particles collide.

• Unfortunately for sky watchers, the geomagnetic storm appears to be in decline and no further significant space weather is expected at this time

• Keep an eye out for …
• The constellation Andromeda’s main figure is two streamers of stars that form a long, skinny V. It is high in the east and northeast at nightfall, and climbs directly overhead by midnight.
• Wednesday, Oct. 26 – New Moon (exact at 3:56 p.m. EDT).
• Thursday, Oct. 27- Jupiter rises around sunset and is in the sky all night, ’s brightest for the year, too, far outshining all the true stars in the night sky. Look for it low in the east as night falls and arcing high across the south later on.
• Friday, Oct. 28 – look for the thin waxing crescent Moon very low in the southwest; Venus will be to its lower right (separated by roughly a fist-width at arm’s length )
• Dusk Oct 28–29 ~30 min after sunset looking to the SW You will see the cresent moon, the red star of Antares and you might even get a peek at Mercury and Venus low on the horizon

• More on whats in the sky this week

• Sky and Telescope
• AstronomyNow
• SpaceWeather.com
• HeavensAbove
• StarDate.org