Geophysicist: A Katrina hurricane will strike every two years

Increases in Earth’s average temperature will result in far more hurricanes in the future, new study reveals.

Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes in US history. The hurricane and the subsequent flooding killed 1,836 people.

The UN climate panel estimates that Earth’s average temperature may rise by 3.4 degrees Celsius over the next hundred years. This, scientists say, will increase the frequency of extreme weather events.

”If this trend continues, it is realistic to expect a ten-fold increase in hurricanes like Katrina. That amounts to once every two years,” says geophysicist Aslak Grinsted, of Copenhagen University’s Niels Bohr Institute.

Reasoning Training Increases Brain Connectivity Associated with High-Level Cognition

A number of studies across various domains– from juggling to taxi navigation to meditation to music to motor learning to processing speed– demonstrate the importance of experience on patterns of neural connectivity. Finally, the cognitive ability domain is catching up.

In recent years, neuroscientists have discovered a large-scale brain network critical for novel and complex goal-directed problem solving. According to Aron Barbey and colleagues, a major function of this network is the manipulation, integration, and control of distributed patterns of neural activity throughout the brain, including lower-level sensory and motor modules. This neural integrative architecture– sometimes referred to as the prefrontal parietal network– involves efficient and reliable communication between specific areas of the lateral prefrontal cortex (critical for high-level abstract integration) and posterior parietal lobe (critical for sensory integration). Here’s an illustration of the key regions of this neural architecture, along with the critical white matter tract binding these regions together into a coordinated network:

Dr. David Livingstone, a Bicentenary

Two hundred years ago the remarkable Dr. David Livingstone was born in the small village of Blantyre, Scotland.

His family was poor, and he started work in a cotton mill at the age of 10. His life as a laborer did not prevent him from the Herculean task (for a poor man) of pursuing the study of medicine, and at the age of 23 he entered Anderson College in Glasgow.

Livingstone was from a deeply religious family, but he rejected the antagonism growing between Science and Religion. He believed in a Christian theology that was dedicated to a scientific understanding of nature.

Starting in 1840 he worked in and explored Africa as a missionary and a scientist. His contributions to medicine, geography, and natural history were, and still are, significant. His experiences led him to become a leading anti-slavery crusader. His phrase describing the East African slave trade, “this open sore of the world,” still condemns the slave trade of today.

Ученые в Новосибирске сфотографировали пролетающую комету

Новосибирцы смогут наблюдать за кометой C/2011 L4 до апреля. Она будет удаляться, но условия для наблюдений улучшатся: увеличится высота ее полета над горизонтом.

НОВОСИБИРСК, 18 мар – РИА Новости, Ирина Ткач. Сотрудники обсерватории Новосибирского госуниверситета (НГУ) сфотографировали комету Pan-STARRS, за полетом которой новосибирцы наблюдают со второй половины марта 2013 года, сообщила РИА Новости в понедельник заведующая астрономическим комплексом и лабораторией атомной физики и спектроскопии НГУ Альфия Нестеренко.

Кислород для подводного царства

О заморных явлениях на водоемах Новосибирской области и мероприятиях по их предотвращению

Новосибирская область располагает одним из самых крупных в России рыбохозяйственных водных фондов. Его площадь составляет около 650 тыс. га. Имеются достаточно крупные водоемы: оз. Чаны — 150 — 200 тыс. га (в зависимости от уровня воды), Новосибирское водохранилище — 107 тыс. га, оз. Убинское — 43 тыс. га, оз. Сартлан — 23 тыс. га. Кроме того, в области более 4 000 небольших озер площадью до 1 000 га.

Sunset Comet

March 15, 2013: For a comet, visiting the sun is risky business. Fierce solar heat vaporizes gases long frozen in the fragile nucleus, breaking up some comets and completely destroying others.

That's why astronomers weren't sure what would happen in early March when Comet Pan-STARRS, a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, dipped inside the orbit of Mercury. On March 10th, NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft watched as the comet made its closest approach to the sun only 28 million miles away. At that distance, the sun loomed 3 times wider and felt more than 10 times hotter than it does on Earth.

Creierul uman

Care ar putea fi modul prin care am putea spera vreodată ca o ecuaţie sau formulă să descrie ceva la fel de complex şi de frumos ca mintea umană? Într-un anumit sens noi descriem de mult timp creierul, folosind numere: 86 mld. neuroni, 1200 cm cubi, 1400 grame.

Dar te-ai putea aştepta ca încercări mai ambiţioase de a explica creierul, folosind matematica, să fie sortite eşecului.

Ne poate ajuta matematica să descoperim ordinea elegantă din spatele aparentei încâlceli din minţile noastre? Asta e întrebarea la care încearcă să răspundă Colin Barras în seria de articole ce urmează, intitulată Matematica mintii: 5 legi care conduc creierul.

Gobekli Tepe - Temples Communicating Ancient Cosmic Geography

Figure 1: Floor plans of three
sub-circular buildings at Gobekli Tepe
(Line drawing by Paul D. Burley)

During the 1960s archeologists from the University of Chicago surveyed a prominent ridge in southern Turkey. They found little of interest. In 1994 archeologist Klaus Schmidt visited the same ridge after reading notes the University of Chicago prepared of their survey. What Schmidt is unearthing on a rounded crest – Gobekli Tepe (Potbelly Hill) - of the ridge is stunning.

Since the early 1900s the human transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer was understood to have occurred over several thousand years, culminating in development of cities by about 6000 BCE in Sumer, the area located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in south-central Iraq. However the architecture of Gobekli Tepe is evidence of social organization and monumental construction that are far earlier than expected. Five-ton megalithic (mega: large, lithic: of rock) limestone pillars stand 18 feet above the floor of sub-circular structures, completed with stone and clay mortar walls and founded on bedrock below the surrounding ground surface. Floor plans of three of these buildings are shown in Figure 1. The pillars include bas relief of various animals – mostly predatory – such as wild boars, lions, foxes, scorpions, frogs, vultures, and other birds. The purpose of the structures remains unknown, but Schmidt interprets them as temples associated with an early organized religion in which animals were deified.

Iowa meteorite crater confirmed

Recent airborne geophysical surveys near Decorah, Iowa are providing an unprecedented look at a 470-million-year-old meteorite crater concealed beneath bedrock and sediments.

The aerial surveys, a collaboration of the U.S. Geological Survey with the Iowa and Minnesota Geological Surveys, were conducted in the last 60 days to map geologic structures and assess the mineral and water resources of the region.

“Capturing images of an ancient meteorite impact was a huge bonus,” said Paul Bedrosian, a USGS geophysicist who is leading the effort to model the recently acquired geophysical data. “These findings highlight the range of applications that these geophysical methods can address.”

Archaeological crusade: US tries to save ancient treasures

TORONTO — The fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones has long enthralled movie audiences, taking on assorted villains in quests to find mythical treasures, with some limited help from the government.

Minus any bullwhips, the real-life U.S. State Department works with other federal departments in a journey to protect important archaeological sites and ancient treasures in the face of conflict, according to professional archaeologists Morag Kersel and Christina Luke in their new book "U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage" (Routledge, 2012).