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Did you know that there's been a few additions to the familiar peridioc chart of elements?

The first 92 elements on the table exist naturally. The rest -- which now extend to element 118 -- were created by scientists in atomic nuclei collision with the aid of particle accelerators. Aptly named, these machines accelerate atoms to nearly 1/10 the speed of light and smash them into other so-called "target" atoms. Sometimes the nuclei of two colliding atoms fuse and a new element is formed.

Its basically modern alchemy. Now the newest addition to the official pantheon is Ununbiam (latin for 112 -- its temporary anyway.)

To produce element 112..., scientists accelerate charged zinc atoms - zinc ions for short - with the help of the 120 m long particle accelerator at GSI and "fire" them onto a lead target. The zinc and lead nuclei merge in a nuclear fusion to form the nucleus of the new element. Its so-called atomic number 112, hence the provisional name "element 112", is the sum of the atomic numbers of the two initial elements: zinc has the atomic number 30 and lead the atomic number 82.

The atomic number indicates the number of protons the atom has in the nucleus.  So, whats it do?

Recent experiments strongly suggest that element 112 behaves as a typical member of group 12, demonstrating properties consistent with a volatile metal 

These new atoms don't last long though.

The most stable isotope discovered to date is ²⁸⁵112 with a half-life of ~30 s. In total, about 60 atoms of ununbium have been detected using various nuclear reactions (see below). An unconfirmed isotope, ^285b112, has a possible half-life of ~9 minutes, and would be one of the longest-lived superheavy isotopes known to date.

The search continues too.  As noted above, elements up to 118 have been discovered, and they're currently trying for heavier elements.  The idea is that above the stable natural elements there are pockets of "special combinations" of unknown elements that will be artifical but stable.  Called "islands of stability" (see image below), these regions are slowly emerging from theory as new elements are formed in the lab.

Image Credit 

The discovery of superheavy elements at the beginning of this century by Oganessian's group also confirmed the existence of the Island of Stability, a theoretical region of the periodic table, which distinguished chemist and Nobel laureate Glenn Seaborg considered as one of the keystones of fundamental science. The "sea-and-island" analogy arose because these superheavy elements lie in an area of the periodic table where other elements are unstable, disappearing in much less than the blink of an eye. The superheavies, in contrast, are somewhat more stable than their shorter-lived cousins.

"The decay properties of all the isotopes that we have made so far paint the picture of a large, sort of flat 'Island of Stability' and indicate that we may have luck if we try to go even heavier," said Ken Moody, Livermore's team leader.

So, is there any practical side to this?

It is difficult to anticipate what practical uses might come out of the search for new superheavy elements. For now, the focus is on discovery, not application. However, some previously synthesized elements have yielded tremendous benefits for people. One example, element 95 -- Americium -- discovered in 1944, is used in smoke detectors and in medical and industrial radiography.

We'll just have to wait and see what develops but some people are already rewriting the perioic table in anticipation of pushing atomic formation as far as it can go (theorized to go as far as Element 210) 

Stay Tuned...

Superconductors are materials that exhibit superconductivity. 

Superconductivity is a phenomenon occurring in certain materials generally at very low temperatures, characterized by exactly zero electrical resistance and the exclusion of the interior magnetic field (the Meissner effect).

The electrical resistivity of a metallic conductor decreases gradually as the temperature is lowered. However, in ordinary conductors such as copper and silver, impurities and other defects impose a lower limit...The resistance of a superconductor, despite these imperfections, drops abruptly to zero when the material is cooled below its "critical temperature". An electric current flowing in a loop of superconducting wire can persist indefinitely with no power source.

So what?  Big fracking deal!  Right?  Well, it is a big deal.

Superconducting magnets are some of the most powerful electromagnets known. They are used in MRI and NMR machines, mass spectrometers, and the beam-steering magnets used in particle accelerators.

Promising future applications include high-performance transformers, power storage devices, electric power transmission, electric motors (e.g. for vehicle propulsion, as in vactrains or maglev trains), magnetic levitation devices, and Fault Current Limiters.

Maglev trains alone would be a good realization of this technology.

Magnetic-levitation is an application where superconductors perform extremely well. Transport vehicles such as trains can be made to "float" on strong superconducting magnets, virtually eliminating friction between the train and its tracks. Not only would conventional electromagnets waste much of the electrical energy as heat, they would have to be physically much larger than superconducting magnets. A landmark for the commercial use of MAGLEV technology occurred in 1990 when it gained the status of a nationally-funded project in Japan. The Minister of Transport authorized construction of the Yamanashi Maglev Test Linewhich opened on April 3, 1997. In December 2003, the MLX01 test vehicle (shown above) attained an incredible speed of 361 mph (581 kph).

The problem used to be that materials superconducted only at extremely low temperatures, but in 1986 so called high temperature superconductors were discovered.  These new materials needed to be chilled to "only" 92K (-293.8F).  This was significant because liquid nitrogen is colder at 77K (-320.8F) and cheap enough and easy enough to work with commercially.  If you lived through the mid-eighties maybe you remember as I do the frenzy over the levitating magnets (pictured above.)

But the ultimate goal is a room temperature superconductor.

A room-temperature superconductor is a material yet to be discovered which would be capable of exhibiting superconducting properties at temperatures above 0° C (273.15 K). This is of course not strictly speaking "room temperature" (20-25°C); however, it can be reached very cheaply.

If superconductors could be made to work at temperatures as high as room temperature, they could have potentially limitless applications.

Such as? 

One exciting applications is using superconducting wire to provide lossless power transmission from power stations to cities. Superconducting wire can hold a much higher current density than existing copper wire and is lossless and therefore energy saving.

So, how is the search going?  Pretty good, in fact.  In the last few years there have been a slew of new materials and new theories.  The highest temperature yet achieved your humble bloggist could find was 242K or -24F.  

At any rate, if we keep the pace up, we may just yet acheive room temperature superconductors within the near-term future.

Stay Tuned.

We have a serious water supply problem. 

• Inadequate access to safe drinking water for about 884 million people^[7]
• Inadequate access to water for sanitation and waste disposal for 2.5 billion people^[8]

...According to the World Bank, 88 percent of all diseases are caused by unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.^[11]

Water itself is literally everywhere.

...where there are no lakes, rivers or groundwater, considerable quantities of water are stored in the air. In the Negev desert in Israel, for example, annual average relative air humidity is 64 percent - in every cubic meter of air there are 11.5 milliliters of water.

The problem is merely one of usuable water.  But there's a lot of progress being made on this front...lets check in with a few.  First up, a new technology - removing water literally from thin air.

"The process we have developed is based exclusively on renewable energy sources such as thermal solar collectors and photovoltaic cells, which makes this method completely energy-autonomous. It will therefore function in regions where there is no electrical infrastructure," says Siegfried Egner, head of department at the IGB. The principle of the process is as follows: hygroscopic brine - saline solution which absorbs moisture - runs down a tower-shaped unit and absorbs water from the air. It is then sucked into a tank a few meters off the ground in which a vacuum prevails. Energy from solar collectors heats up the brine, which is diluted by the water it has absorbed.

Because of the vacuum, the boiling point of the liquid is lower than it would be under normal atmospheric pressure. This effect is known from the mountains: as the atmospheric pressure there is lower than in the valley, water boils at temperatures distinctly below 100 degrees Celsius. The evaporated, non-saline water is condensed and runs down through a completely filled tube in a controlled manner. The gravity of this water column continuously produces the vacuum and so a vacuum pump is not needed. The reconcentrated brine runs down the tower surface again to absorb moisture from the air.

I wonder if its cost effective.  How about water from Sewage?  I like recycling. 

Earlier in January, for instance, California approved operation of the Advanced Water Purification Facility (AWPF), the largest water reclamation plant in the nation. It will yield 70 million gallons per day of drinkable water from sewage. That's about 10 percent of the district's daily water demand for its 2.3 million residents. Although AWPF's purification process is complex, it produces clean, pure water that meets or exceeds all drinking water standards, the article notes.

Of course theres plenty of water in the Sea, right?

"Desalinating the sea is an expensive, energy-intensive and greenhouse gas emitting way to get water," says Jamie Pittock, Director of WWF's Global Freshwater Programme.

"It may have a place in the world's future freshwater supplies but regions still have cheaper, better and complementary ways to supply water that are less risky to the environment."

Ok, we'll keep working on that one.  How about giving the salt water to the plants?

"We are looking at ways to grow plants on very salty water without damaging soil," Professor Leslie said.  "We're incorporating a reverse osmosis membrane into a sub-surface drip irrigation system."

Lets not forget about making water safe to drink:

Bacteria often get bad press, with those found in water often linked to illness and disease. But researchers at The University of Nottingham are using these tiny organisms alongside the very latest membrane filtration techniques to improve and refine water cleaning technology.

 

These one-celled organisms eat the contaminants present in water -- whether it is being treated prior to industrial use or even for drinking -- in a process called bioremediation.

 

The water is then filtered through porous membranes, which function like a sieve. However, the holes in these sieves are microscopic, and some are so small they can only be seen at the nanoscale. Pore size in these filters can range from ten microns -- ten thousandths of a millimetre -- to one nanometre -- a millionth of a millimetre.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is like our energy problems, our water problems are solvable.  Water and energy are everywhere.  It will take time, technology, effort and missteps but the water crisis is solvable.  We are in fact making progress:

2 billion people have gained access to a safe water source since 1990. [4] The proportion of people in developing countries with access to safe water is calculated to have improved from 30 percent in 1970^[5] to 71 percent in 1990, 79 percent in 2000 and 84 percent in 2004, parallel with rising population. This trend is projected to continue. [5]

Of course, those advances mean that existing water supplies will get more and more stressed.  Now, we just need to remember not to piss in our pot.

Stay Tuned...

Photo by Ginny Stibolt

As discussed in this post, Honey Bees have been having some trouble lately. 

They're suffering from something called colony collapse disorder (CCD) and they're dying off in droves, and we dont really know why. 

In 2006, CCD began devastating commercial beekeeping operations, with some beekeepers reporting losses of up to 90 percent, according to the USDA. Researchers believe CCD may be the result of a combination of pathogens, parasites and stress factors, but the cause remains elusive.

Now mind you, these are 'domesticated' or commercial honey bees were talking about, not native bees species.  

Now there is some good news; the epidemic may have peaked.  Still, just take a look at the numbers:

Honey bee colony losses nationwide were approximately 29 percent from all causes from September 2008 to April 2009, according to a survey conducted by the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This is less than the overall losses of about 36 percent from 2007 to 2008, and about 32 percent from 2006 to 2007, that have been reported in similar surveys.

"While the drop in losses is encouraging, losses of this magnitude are economically unsustainable for commercial beekeeping," said Jeff Pettis, research leader of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.

The genisis of the last post was the discovery of a parasite Nosema ceranae that appears to at least be partly responsible for the disorder.  It didnt take long, but now the parasite's genome has been decoded.

The microsporidian Nosema is a fungus-related microbe that produces spores that bees consume when they forage. Infection spreads from their digestive tract to other tissues. Within weeks, colonies are either wiped out or lose much of their strength.

Sequencing the genome should help scientists trace the parasite's migration patterns, determine how it became dominant, and help resolve the spread of infection by enabling the development of diagnostic tests and treatments.

Genome sequencing is just standard procedure these days if you want to study something.  But there's much we have to learn, including what happens to the native bee population when the domesticated bee colonies collapse and what happens to pollination levels. 

Fear not, in steps more modern technology.  Something called the interwebs, or something?  Actually, more like crowd sourcing, its called the Great Sunflower Project, and it might not be too late for you to participate.  From their website:

By watching and recording the bees at sunflowers in your garden, you can help us understand the challenges that bees are facing. While we are no longer sending out annual Lemon Queen sunflower seeds for 2009...The instructions are here. Do join us!

• It takes less than 30 minutes.
• It's easy.
• Free Sunflower seeds for planting - will be sent for 2010.
• No knowledge of bees required!

Its a great marraige of low cost, remote data gathering and technology. 

"What you do is you stand out there and you time how long it takes for five bees to visit," LeBeun said, up to thirty minutes.

Then watchers report their results on the website or by mail. Soon participants will be able to upload time-stamped digital photographs to vouch for their observations.

New York City has a similar local project called the Great Pollinator Project.

Here's your bee guide!  Now off you go...save the bees!

Stay Tuned...

I mean they are putting computer chips in brains, people are THINKING INTO THEIR COMPUTERS. Like this is nuts.

It is nuts, DickDay.  It is.  Did you want?

Brain Gate?

BrainGate's mission is to further the advancement of this life-changing technology to promote wider adoption to help impaired individuals communicate and interact with society. For instance, the Cyberkenetics BrainGate Neural Interface is currently the subject of a pilot clinical trial being conducted under an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) from the FDA. The system is designed to restore functionality for a limited, immobile group of severely motor-impaired individuals. It is expected that people using the BrainGate System will employ a personal computer as the gateway to a range of self-directed activities. These activities may extend beyond typical computer functions (e.g., communication) to include the control of objects in the environment such as a telephone, a television and lights.

Brain Chips?

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

Chips in the Brain?

Scientists at the University of Florida aren't just creating a neural implant that can translate human brain signals, but one that can act independently to increase its efficiency and synergy with the brain as it learns new things.

"In the grand scheme of brain-machine interfaces, this is a complete paradigm change," said Justin C. Sanchez, Ph.D., a UF assistant professor of pediatric neurology and the study's lead author. "This idea opens up all kinds of possibilities for how we interact with devices. It's not just about giving instructions but about those devices assisting us in a common goal. You know the goal, the computer knows the goal and you work together to solve the task."

The Implications are grand:

However, there is a whole slew of other fantastic sci-fi inspired applications that are theoretically possible with this type of computer "symbiote" implants. For example, how would you like to be able to calculate enormous equations in your own head? You'd just think about what you wanted calculated and your neural implant would do the work for you instantaneously. Or how would you like the entire library of congress stored neatly in your brain where you can access any kind of information you'd ever want instantly just by thinking about. You wonder to yourself, "When was Abraham Lincoln born?" Your symbiote could then theoretically feed the correct answer back to you in what felt as natural as your own thoughts.

Or maybe not so grand?

One day soon were all going to be seriously fucked up!

Stay Tuned...

Oh and you have to check out the EYEBORG!

Part Two tomorrow - Machines into Life.

Image Credit

DNA as building blocks?

The field of DNA nanotechnology has literally gained another dimension.

Using pieces of DNA like so many Legos, researchers made a series of complex, three-dimensional structures. The technique could eventually be used to design custom-shaped, nano-scale drug-delivery systems and diagnostic devices.

"Imagine that you could encode different charge patterns on your Lego bricks, so that they only fit together in a very specific manner," said molecular biologist William Shih of Harvard Medical School, co-author of a study Wednesday in Nature. "We make linear sequences of DNA, throw them into a pot, and let them find each other."

"We'd like to build larger and larger structures," he said. "It's like the evolution of integrated circuit microprocessors. We've been able, over time, to increase the number of transistors on each circuit. We'd like to follow the same trajectory with molecularly engineered objects."

Programming a cell?

In an essential step toward programming cells as precisely as computers, synthetic biologists have finally learned to count.

By linking a series of protein switches, researchers made prototype cell-level counters that could eventually be used to coordinate complex sets of genetic instructions running on biomolecular machines, from disease-hunting cells to intracellular computing networks. In the electronic world, basic counting functions underlie even the most powerful supercomputers.

"What we've done is to impose some of the controls we've imposed in electrical engineering onto the biological cell," said synthetic biologist Timothy Lu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "We hope to be able to control the cell more reliably, and have it perform more defined functions. This forms the fundamental basis for building more complicated circuits."

Creating artifical Life?

A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.

It's not as Frankensteinian as it sounds. Instead, a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life.

Szostak's protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn't anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe. 

One wonders if our hubris will destroy us someday soon.

Stay Tuned...

Most Popular

DARK ENERGY.  74% of the universe is Dark Energy.  Read about the mysterious force that some say is the greatest mystery science has yet to solve.  This got linked off site somewhere and got a lot of hits for some reason.  Read it if ya missed it! (Here's the link to DARK MATTER if you want it - its another 22%.)

BATTERIES - This article featured the latest in rechargable batteries.  This one was the favorite of the regulars.

MULTIVERSES - Adjust your tinfoil hats and get ready for the idea that there may be more than one universe. 

PHILOSPHY - In this post we discussed that with science everything is broken down into its components, but are we greater than the sum of the parts?

BLACK HOLES- We haven't seen one yet but we soon might see the one at the center of our galaxay.  Its called Saggitarius A (tenatatively, since we haven't seen it yet).

And since I didnt keep good statistics for the first part of the month I nominate for honorable mention these two, both proof that we are going to have to radically change our views of how our bodies work.

H. PYLORI - Friend or foe.  This is a good post on how we need to recognize that we dont live in the same space as bacteria...we live with them.  We cannot just affect them and expect no consequences.  (also follow on with the MICROBIOME if you want more)

ARTIFICIAL LIFE.  Scientists are getting closer to recreating the chemical reactions that make life.  Its a good read and I sketch out a few big picture questions.

This is the end of my first full month and I want to thank everyone who reads this blog for your time.  I write for me and what interests me, but many have expressed kind words and that encourages me to try to do it better.  Oh and the discussions are fun too.  Come out lurkers.  Say Hi. 

Thanks.

Yug.

Stay Tuned...

 The Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole, as seen by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Nobody has yet seen the black hole directly (Image: NASA)

Supposedly theres a black hole at the center of the milkyway galaxy.  In fact its theorized that many, if not most or all galaxies have one at the center.  Now, this topic is too much to cover on one post, but lets take a first whack at it.

In general relativity, a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, including light, can escape its pull. The black hole has a one-way surface, called an event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing can come. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits it, reflecting nothing.

Despite its invisible interior, a black hole can reveal its presence through interaction with other matter. A black hole can be inferred by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit a region in space which looks empty. Alternatively, one can see gas falling into a relatively small black hole, from a companion star. This gas spirals inward, heating up to very high temperature and emitting large amounts of radiation that can be detected from earthbound and earth-orbiting telescopes. Such observations have resulted in the general scientific consensus that, barring a breakdown in our understanding of nature, black holes do exist in our universe.^[2]

In case you didnt know, and for simplicity's sake, general relativity is Einstein's theory that describes gravity.  Its a great theory, answers a lot of questions about how the heavens work; definitely have to do a post about that.  Now, back to Black Holes.  There are a couple of problems with them.  For one they're only theoretical.  No one has ever seen one.  You could say duh, but dont; Ill get to that in a minute.  Another problem is that according to the theory of general relativity, what happens at the center of the black hole is quite mind boggling, and probably impossible.  Its called the singularity.

At the center of a black hole lies the singularity, where matter is crushed to infinite density, the pull of gravity is infinitely strong, and spacetime has infinite curvature.  This means that a black hole's mass becomes entirely compressed into a region with zero volume. This zero-volume, infinitely dense region at the center of a black hole is called a gravitational singularity.

The singularity of a non-rotating black hole has zero length, width, and height; a rotating black hole's is smeared out to form a ring shape lying in the plane of rotation.  The ring still has no thickness and hence no volume.

The appearance of singularities in general relativity is commonly perceived as signaling the breakdown of the theory.

Anytime you have something that indicates that our basic understanding of the universe is not complete or even wrong, it should make you stand up and take notice.  Thus, black holes are not just interesting, but crucial to understand if we are to make any sense of things.  Since no one has ever seen one, it makes the whole proposition a little more difficult to figure out.  Now we have detected the shape of them (we think), and we believe they are very important to regulating the development of galaxies but we've never seen them.  Yet...

Astronomers are working to tie together a network of microwave telescopes across the planet to make a single instrument with the most acute vision yet. They will turn this giant eye towards what they believe is a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, code name Sagittarius A* (see image).

Soon, Doeleman and his team hope to see the hole's dark silhouette. Then they want to watch matter falling into it in order to trace out the twisted space-time around the black hole. That could tell us how it formed and grew.

These observations will also be the sternest test yet of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which predicts the existence of black holes. If relativity breaks down, Doeleman and his team might not see a black hole at all, but something even stranger.

What we do know for sure is that something big lurks at the centre of our galaxy - because its powerful gravity affects the motion of nearby stars and gas. That something is about 4.5 million times the mass of the sun and crammed into an area the size of the inner solar system. There are few obvious ways to pack stuff in so tightly. Four million suns would be a dead giveaway, for instance. A swarm of neutron stars or small black holes would be highly unstable. So our best bet is one massive black hole.

But, we still cant see it right?

Of course, the black hole itself does not shine since it actually swallows light. That is how we hope to be able to see it: light from gas swirling round the hole will be devoured, so the hole should show up as a shadow or silhouette against the background of hot, shining gas.

Seeing this shadow is not easy. It won't have sharp edges because we will still see light and other radiation from gas in front of the hole. It will also look very small. According to relativity, a black hole of 4.5 million solar masses should be 27 million kilometres across, and even though its gravity warps nearby light rays, making it appear about twice that size (see diagram) it will still seem very small. From our distant viewpoint halfway across the galaxy, that would cover an angle of only about 50 micro-arcseconds - the size a football would appear on the moon, or a small bacterium held at arm's length.

So what happens if we find something unexpected?

It could mean the relativity is radically wrong when it comes to super-strong gravity. And the monster at the centre of the galaxy will be even more shadowy than we thought.

Stay Tuned...

Epigenetics, as I mentioned in this previous post, is the science of gene expression (turning them on and off) from outside the actual DNA.  As we learn about the mechanics of gene expression our understanding of 'what is life?' is going to change, since we are learning that it takes more than just DNA to make, or even understand, a being.  There's fertile ground for a number of posts on this subject but today lets tackle chromosomal topography.  Once again Wired has the story:

By linking changes in gene activation to changes in their physical arrangement, researchers provided the clearest evidence yet that the genome's three-dimensional architecture, not just its sequence, determines cell fate and function.

"Genes are not randomly placed in the genome, but they're often next to each other on adjacent chromosomes," said Northwestern University cell biologist Steven Kosak. "You can only understand the genome by knowing what it looks like."

In the last few years, scientists noticed that certain genes only seem to be activated when arranged in a certain configuration. Though unable to explain exactly why this happens, they're convinced that understanding chromosomal topography is absolutely essential to understanding the genome.

"Pick a random person of the street, say 'genome,' and they'll think 'sequence.' But what's becoming clear from the sequencing efforts is that if you want to understand how a genome functions, the sequence won't tell you," said Tom Misteli, a National Cancer Institute cell biologist. "How a genome is organized inside a cell is important. It's a fundamental property of the genome and of cells, but it's been a little forgotten in the focus on sequence."

This is going to take a while, but 20 years from now, we won't even recognize medicine by today's standards.

Stay Tuned...