The Bering Strait and climate

_{Credits: NASA}

• The low down
• There have been debates on whether variations in solar activity on a larger scale then normal or unstable climate processes have driven large climate swings in the past
• New climate simulations show that the cause could actually be the presence or absence of the land bridge between Asia and North America
• Significance
• Core ice samples from Greenland show that temperatures there varied as much as 10*C over just a few years during part of the last ice age
• The researchers theorized that a disturbance in the oceans flow might have caused the large temperature swings, to determine the validity of their theory they went to a global computer simulation
• They started at the start of the last ice age, approximately 100,000 years ago Earth climate was somewhat stable
• After 20,000 years ice sheets in northern Eurasia and North America held more and more of the Earth’s oceans
• So much of the ocean was held in ice that sea levels dropped about 160 ft [50 m]
• When the ocean receded that much it exposed the broad strip of last connecting modern day Alaska and Siberia, the Bering Strait
• Should the Bering Strait be blocked then the Glacial freshwater meltoff would instead back up and flow into the Atlantic
• If that happened then all that fresh water would instead be introduced to the North Atlantic, where cold water generally sinks and flows south
• Salt water is heavier than cold water and therefore sinks, however, should the water drop in salinity enough it could never get dense enough to sink below the salt water below
• The process would also stop warmer equatorial waters from flowing up to the North Atlantic
• * Of Note*
• The two climate simulations analyzed what would happen if the oceans currents stop and they showed that surface temperatures would drop over the land around the North Atlantic
• Core ice samples from Greenland have actually shown that during the last ice age, when the bering strait was closed, temperatures dropped by about the same magnitude that the simulations predict
• The simulations also showed that ocean currents generally took less that 400 years to recuperate should the Bering Strait be open, while closing the straight caused them to take as long as 1,400 years.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Bering Strait may be global temperature stabilizer | phys.org
• Land Bridge Caused Wild Temperature Swings | sciencemag.org

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Dinosaur eggs

_{Credit: Gabriel Lio | Credit: Fernando Novas}

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Higgs Bosons & Tough Materials | SciByte 25 (December 13, 2011) – The North American “terrible (large) lizard”
• Feedback & Space Lego’s | SciByte 31 (January 31, 2012) – Dinosaur feather colors
• Baby Mammoths & Feathered Dinosaurs | SciByte 41 ( April 10, 2012) – More Fine Feathered Dinosaurs
• Solar Storms & Higgs Boson | SciByte 37 (March 13, 2012) – More Dinosaur feathers get color
• The low down
• The Alvarezsauridae family of small bird-like, long-legged running dinosaurs with stubby arms with a large claw, is the latest survivor of the southern landmass in the Mesozoic Era, Dondwana
• Now the journal Cretaceous Research have reported a 70 million years old pocket of fossilized bones and unique eggs near the articulated bones of a hindlimb
• This 8.5ft [2.6m] specimen is one of the largest of the mysterious groups of dinosaurs, the Alvarezsauridae found
• This is the first time eggs have been found so close in proximity to this type of dinosaur
• Analysis of eggshell fragments found at the site show an abundance of resorption of calcite in the inner layers of the eggshells
• This causes scientists to think that at least some of the eggs had incubated enough to contain late stage embryos
• Though it appears that the eggs were in a latter stage it is unclear whether or not the eggs might have been inside the female when it died
• * Of Note*
• When a electron scanning microscope looked inside the pneumatic canal of the eggshells the first evidence of fungal contamination of a dinosaur egg was seen
• In addition the eggshells found do not belong to any known category of the eggshell microstructure-based taxonomy
• They now belong to a new egg-family, the Arraigadoolithidae
• Further Reading / In the News
• Dinosaur Mom Died with Eggs Still Inside Her | news.discovery.com
• Eggs of enigmatic dinosaur discovered | phys.org
• Clawed Dinosaur Most Primitive of its Kind | LiveScience.com

A busy planetary system

_{Credit: ESO/L. Calcada}

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Habitable Planets & Plant Power | SciByte 32 (February 7, 2012) – Habitable planet?
• Exoplanets & Social Media | SciByte 29 (January 17, 2012) – The exoplanets never stop coming
• Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 (January 10, 2012) – The Exoplanet and Exomoon News keeps coming
• Planets & Brains | Jupiter Broadcasting (October 25, 2011) – Baby pictures of a Planet
• The low down
• HD 10180 was first noted in 2010 and is about 130 light years away
• After studying the slight wobble of the star it was discovered there were planets around the star
• The wobble of a star can tell astronomers the orbit and size of a planet
• At first astronomers thought the system consisted of five planets, and another two were speculated
• Further studies brought the count to six, five about the mass of Neptune, and one closer to the mass of Saturn
• Significance
• Going back and studying old observations and different statistical analysis techniques one astronomer has found evidence for an additional three planets on top of the six already accounted for
• At a total of nine planets it would be the most populated solar system known to man, since Pluto got moved back to the minor leagues
• The new potential planets are all much smaller at a mere, 1.3, 1.9, and 5.1 times the size of Earth
• These planets orbit very close to the star, they could all fit inside the orbit of Mercury with orbits of 1.2, 10, and 68 days long
• Since the planets are so close to the star no water or life as we know it could survive
• * Of Note*
• The data and the analysis offer strong evidence but do not prove that any of the possible planets actually exist
• Analysis shows that if the planets are there that they would all have stable orbits
• Social Media
• Twitter Results for [#]()
• Further Reading / In the News
• New look at HD 10180 shows it might have nine planets

*— TWO-BYTE NEWS — *

Alzheimer’s test approved by FDA

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Habitable Planets & Chimps | SciByte 24 (December 7, 2011) – Alzheimer’s Research
• Sub Glacial Lakes & Updates | SciByte 33 (February 14, 2012) – Sub Glacial Lakes
• The low down
• Amyloid plaques, are the calling card of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain
• Now the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a radioactive compound for evaluating people for Alzheimer’s disease
• The test will allow doctors to see whether they have built up
• Although there can be false negatives and positives, a negative test does reduce the likelihood
• There is a fear that this test could be overused, it is expected however that the medical community will develop certain standards for testing
• Further Reading / In the News
• U.S. FDA Approves Possible Alzheimer’s Test | news.sciencemag.org

Light Pollution

_{Credit: GLOBE at Night/NOAO}

• The low down
• Light pollution is defined as Any adverse effect of artificial light including sky glow, glare, light trespass, light clutter, decreased visibility at night, and energy waste
• GLOBE at Night is a science project to raise awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to make naked-eye observations
• The observations can be made where ever you are and requires only five steps
• Find your latitude and longitude
• Find Orion, Leo or Crux by going outside more than an hour after sunset (about 8–10pm local time).
• Match your nighttime sky to one of the provided magnitude charts.
• Report your observation.
• Compare your observation to thousands around the world
• You can also use the new web application data submission process
• * Of Note*
• In the last six years, people in 115 different countries have already contributed 75,000 measurements
• Social Media
• GLOBE at Night @GLOBEatNight
• Further Reading / In the News
• Help Track the Effects of Light Pollution with GLOBE at Night | UniverseToday.com
• GLOBEatNight
• GLOBEatNight WebApp

*— VIEWER FEEDBACK — *

Launching my own satellite

_{Credit: Bjorn Pedersen, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway | Credit: Svobodat}

• Drayloc
• Is there anyway to build and launch your own satellite.
• CubeSat
• CubeSat is a type of small satellite for space, generally with a 1 L volume. [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat
• 3.9 in [10cm] cube, that weight less than 2.9lb [1.3 kg]
• The program started in 1999, and was developed to help universities from across the globe to perform space science
• Some have been built by companies, and with amateur radio satellite builders
• Multimedia
• MEDIA GALLERY: @CubeSat.org
• Social Media
• Cube Sat @cubesat
• Further Reading / In the News
• CubeSat

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• April 20, 1964 : 48 years ago : Picturephone : In 1964, the first picturephone transcontinental call was made between New York City and Anaheim, California. The device consisted of a telephone handset and a small, matching TV. It allowed telephone users to see each other in fuzzy video images as they carried on a conversation.When Picturephone debuted in 1964, at the World’s Fair, prices ranged from $16 to $27 for a three-minute call between special booths AT&T set up in New York, Washington and Chicago. It never became popular after it was briefly offered commercially in Chicago. AT&T Picturephone
• April 21, 1962 : 50 years ago : Revolving restaurant : In 1962, the Seattle World’s Fair on a 74-acre site, Seattle, Washington, was opened by remote control by President John F. Kennedy from Palm Beach, Florida. The Space Needle – a 600-ft steel and glass tower – was erected as its dominant central structure. When built in 1962, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. The first revolving restaurant in the mainland U.S., the “Eye of the Needle,” was located at the 500-ft level. A 14-foot ring next to the windows carrying 260 seats rotates 360 degrees in one hour on a track and wheel system driven by a 1 horsepower motor. The restaurant is now named SkyCity.

Looking up this week

+ You may have seen …
+ On the NE limb of the sun Magnetic fields erupted producing one of the most visually-spectacular explosions in years
+ The CME that erupted was not Earth-directed, it is however on a trajectory that will hit STEREO-B, the Spitzer space telescope and Curiosity rover
+ Venus and Mars will likely be hit by the edge of the CME

+ Keep an eye out for …
+ Thurs, April 19 : Four planets will arc through the sky starting at twilight. Venus and Jupiter will be in the West, with Venus higher in the West. Mars will be in the SE with Saturn climbing in the E
+ Sat, April 21 : New Moon. The weak Lyrid meteor shower will have the best visibility in the hours before dawn on Sunday with up to a dozen meteors an hours.
+ Sun, April 22 : Jupiter is low in the West at sunset, it’s starting to disappear.
+ The southern hemisphere should, Keep an eye out for …
+ April 19 : Thin crescent Moon will be to the east just before sunrise, above and to its right is Mercury
+ Further Reading and Resources

• More on whats in the sky this week
• Sky&Telescope
• SpaceWeather.com
• StarDate.org
• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
• AstronomyNow
• HeavensAbove