coal 3.coa.00020 midbrain Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . By the age of 14 months, infants are masters of imitation. They mimic all sorts of behaviors, including laboratory antics such as touching one's forehead to a box that then lights up.

Babies on the brink of toddlerhood are not indiscriminate copycats, however. They sometimes opt for simpler ways to do what an adult shows them, signaling a budding capacity for evaluating the sensibility of others' behavior, according to a study in the Feb. 14 Nature.

Gy�rgy Gergely of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest and his colleagues studied 14 infants, all 14 months old, who watched a female experimenter perform the forehead-to-light-box trick under two conditions. In an initial series of trials, the woman pretended to be cold and executed the head action while her hands held a blanket around her. In a second set of trials, she performed the same head maneuver with no blanket, her hands resting next to the light box.http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire2.wordpress.com

When the woman's hands were occupied, only three infants reenacted her head action. When her hands were free, that number rose to 10. In both sets of trials, most of the infants who did not mimic the forehead-to-box action lit the box instead by touching it with their hands.

Infants opted for this simpler technique when they figured that the adult had a good reason�holding the blanket�for not using her hands on the box, the researchers theorize.http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire2.wordpress.com

This finding coincides with positron emission tomography data, published in the February NeuroReport, indicating that separate brain networks orchestrate the imitation of specific actions for achieving a goal versus the accomplishment of a goal by means of one's own choosing. As 10 men duplicated a series of actions by an experimenter arranging toy blocks, increased activity occurred uniquely in a frontal-brain area already implicated in making preparations for forthcoming actions. When the men built the same structure in their own way, however, activity increased primarily in a midbrain section involved in coordinating movements.

"Just as we distinguish between a person's goals and his or her technique for trying to reach those goals, the brain also separates means from goals," says study coauthor Andrew N. Meltzoff of the University of Washington in Seattle.

avrocar 4.avr.00200 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Project Silverbug was a code name given to an experimental saucer-shaped aircraft in the 1950s built by Avro Aircraft Ltd. in Malton, Ontario, Canada for the US military. The high security surounding the project led to conjecture that the Americans were using the cover of Project Silverbug to test alien craft that they had captured.
Contents
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* 1 Avro's Special Project Group
* 2 Project Y
* 3 US Military involvement
* 4 Project Y-2
* 5 Summary
* 6 External Links
* 7 Relevant Discussion Threads

Avro's Special Project Group

One of the key engineers at Avro Aircraft was John Carver Meadows "Jack" Frost who had joined Avro Canada (the commonly used name for the aircraft company) in June 1947 after working for several British firms. He had been with de Havilland since 1942 and had worked on the de Havilland Vampire jet fighter and the D.H.108 Swallow experimental supersonic aircraft. At Avro Canada, he had worked on the Avro CF-100 before starting on a flying disc design in a research team known as the "Special Projects Group."

Shortly after its formation, the Special Projects Group started researching vertical take-off and landing capability (VTOL) with emphasis on a paper study Frost had labelled the "pancake" engine, a jet turbine that had its main componets arranged in a circular design. From the outset, the Special Projects Group had a cloak-and-dagger feel to it. Housed in a Second World War-era structure, across from the company headquarters, the group had all the accoutrements of a top-secret operation, including security guards, locked doors and special pass cards. Within the confines of this technical fortress, Frost surrounded himself with a collection of like-minded dreamers and maverick engineers. There he encouraged close cooperation and, while ostensibly the boss, he was collegial and very much one of the boys.
Project Y

In 1952, the Avro Special Projects team began research and development work on a series of VTOL designs, known initially as "Project Y." The first of these proposed aircraft was a "spade-shaped" fighter intended to be powered by Frost’s revolutionary pancake engine. Named Project Y, this craft was designed to sit on its tail, and promised, in theory, at least, VTOL capabilities, climb rates to the tune of 100,000 feet per minute and speeds up to 1,500 mph. Project Y, funded by the company and the Canadian government, proceeded to the mock-up stage. By 1953, with the company having little more than a wooden mockup, paper drawings and promises to show for a $4-million (Cdn) outlay, a more critical eye was cast on the project. Not surprisingly, the plug got pulled when government funding from the Defence Research Board dried up.
US Military involvement

Frost wouldn't accept defeat; in addition to being a gifted designer, he was also a talented promoter and salesman. In late 1953, a group of U.S. defence experts visited Avro Canada to view the new CF-100 fighter jet. Somewhere along the way, Frost co-opted the tour and rerouted it to the Special Projects area where he proceeded to show off his mockup, models and drawings (some never before seen by senior company officials) for a completely circular disk-shaped aircraft known as "Project Y-2."

The USAF agreeing to take over funding for Frost's Special Projects Group and with American dollars rolling in, Project Y-2 received a new moniker -"Project 1794"- and a new lease on life. Frost and his team began pursuing a real flying saucer, one that would have advanced weapon systems and produce speeds in excess of Mach 2.
Project Y-2

Project Silver Bug was the American "Black" project version of the Avro Aircraft Canada Y-2 undertaken by the United States Air Force in 1953. Project Y-2 was begun by the Canadian John Frost, who was apparently in the loop on Nazi Saucer programs and was quite fascinated by them.{fact} It involved a "radial flow jet" engine design which was simply radical for the time. As late as 1976 people were copyrighting ideas essentially identical to this 1955 design (see US Patent # 4,193,568). This aircraft was listed as being capable of over 80,000 feet and Mach 3 and able to hover at up to 18,000 ft. without using afterburners. Due to newspaper leaks in the mid-'50s a cover story for the an earlier "Omega" program was leaked to "Look" magazine which, while broadly similar, disinformed the public as to the radical engine (substituting many small conventional jets for the single radial flow) and the control systems to be used.

Later in 1958 Avro Aircraft Ltd. was contracted to build a somewhat similar, small ground-cushion vehicle reminiscent of the "Look" magazine item for the USAF and US Army. I too am convinced that this "Avrocar" was constructed only for disinformation purposes while Y-2 went "Black" as a means of providing the US Gov't with "plausible deniability" and also the possibility of telling those who saw "flying saucers" that it was only that Avro vehicle.

At any rate, the Y-2 later Silver Bug item was an entirely other matter. It clearly DID go Black and the incredible performance projected by educated engineers for it really prove WHY it has been such a secret. The saucer shape give natural "all aspect" stealth, the radial flow engine was capable of producing incredible thrust in an aerodynamically appealing shape, and the vertical take off and landing abilities gave the US the possibility of underground basing. All of these features provided the possibility of "Cold War" winning technology in the 1950's! Clearly they didn't want the Soviets possessing any or suspecting their existence until they developed technology that could reasonably be expected to counter "stealth."

The strongest evidence that Avro built something to resemble Y-2 comes from 5.4 million dollars spent on Avro's own "Private Venture 704" including about 2 million dollars from the USA up to 1957. The Avrocar project was commenced after this time and used only 4 million or so to completion. Avro stated themselves that the first step in responding challenge of developing the Y-2 was to build the engine and the control duct system. Clearly this is where the first 5.4 million dollars went. http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com With all that money came rumors and the Avrocar would be a great way to dispel them.

Meanwhile with the Avrocar, the project used a much less sophisticated arrangement in a much slower and lower flying design. http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com It did prove the control system devised for the Y-2/PV 704/Silver Bug and provided publicly acceptable "proof" of the flying saucer design. It was also used to proved "proof" that the concept was UNFEASABLE!

The initial test flights revealed it was underpowered, unstable and could not transition to proper forward flight. Interestingly, recent films show the solved the instability problem. There is testimony on the record that they also finished doing modifications required to allow the craft to transition to forward flight (after which it was expected to be capable of 300 mph). http://34819louis0j0sheehan0esquire.wordpress.com This is the date the US money disappeared and the project was terminated with all drawings, tooling, and flying examples taken to the USA. The examples at Wright Patterson and in the Smithsonian are NOT the final Avrocar version but early development models that were far from successful. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Atelopus ebenoides marinkellei 2.ate.9 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire. Missing for more than a decade and feared to be extinct, a painted frog has resurfaced. At least one population of the subspecies Atelopus ebenoides marinkellei remains in a remote desert highland of Colombia, researchers discovered last month. http://louissheehan.bravejournal.com

In an amphibian-biodiversity survey, team leader Carlos A. Rocha of the Pedagogical and Technological University of Colombia in Boyacá found the 3-to-9-centimeter-long frogs in the same locale where they were last spotted in 1995. Like many amphibians worldwide, the species has been devastated in recent decades by the fungal skin disease chytridiomycosis. http://louissheehan.bravejournal.com "The finding must motivate us to adopt urgent measures toward saving the last of these amphibians," says Fabio Arjona, executive director of Conservation International in Colombia, which supported Rocha's research. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

waters 993.wa.99901 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

By analyzing drinking-water samples from U.S. treatment plants, a multi-institute research team has identified some unexpected by-products of disinfection processes. The data indicate compounds that toxicologists should target for further study, the researchers say.

Reactions between disinfection chemicals, such as chlorine and ozone, and natural organic matter in water create a wide variety of by-products. Primarily through laboratory studies, researchers have identified more than 500 of these disinfection by-products.

The Environmental Protection Agency regulates a handful of the by-products, including trihalomethanes (THMs), that have been shown to be toxic to animals and are prevalent in U.S. water systems.

For the new study, the team tested water from 12 treatment plants for the 50 unregulated by-products that EPA scientists ranked as most likely to cause cancer. To increase the likelihood of finding these by-products, Stuart W. Krasner of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in La Verne, Susan D. Richardson of EPA's National Exposure Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga., and their colleagues chose plants that had large amounts of natural organic matter, bromide, and iodide in their incoming water.

"We wanted to get an idea of the worst-case scenario," says Richardson.

For comparison, the researchers measured the concentrations of regulated disinfection by-products.

Among the unregulated compounds that the researchers found in the water were iodine-containing versions of THMs. The median amount of these by-products was 400 parts per trillion, which was lower than the 31 parts per billion (ppb) of regulated THMs. The researchers noted that the plant with the highest concentration of iodinated THMs, 19 ppb, used only chloramines to treat the water.

Some plants are switching from chlorine to chloramines because they reduce the production of the regulated THMs.

In an upcoming Environmental Science & Technology, the researchers also report finding 28 disinfection byproducts not previously detected. These include iodine-containing acids such as iodoacetic acid. Other work has linked iodoacetic acid to birth defects in mice.

Toxicity studies are now under way for the iodoacids, iodinated THMs, and other compounds that the researchers found. The results of those tests and further measurements of the chemicals' concentrations in drinking water will indicate whether attempts to decrease effects of regulated by-products may have introduced problems caused by emerging ones, says Krasner. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

"If you disinfect water, you are going to have by-products," he notes. "The more we understand, the more we can get efficient disinfection and minimize as many by-products as we can."

"It's a milestone paper," comments Paul Westerhoff, an environmental engineer at Arizona State University in Tempe. "It's the most up-to-date view of the occurrence of emerging disinfection by-products." http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

Says environmental engineer David A. Reckhow of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, "They found a number of interesting compounds that surprised many of us." What's needed, he says, is a better understanding of the human-health impacts of these compounds and their prevalence in U.S. drinking waters. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

coral 33.cor.1 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Chemicals used to disperse marine oil slicks may harm corals more than the oil itself does, according to a new study. The finding suggests that chemical dispersants should be used near reefs only as a last resort, when oil approaches a shoreline where it might devastate wildlife and plants for decades.http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.NET

In many cases, authorities first try to clean up oil spills mechanically (SN: 11/18/06, p. 325). If weather conditions are too rough or a slick threatens to wash up on shore, dispersants are usually the next option. Made up of surfactants and solvents, dispersants act as detergents, breaking up oil into droplets that mix into water, scatter with currents, and eventually degrade. However, the dispersed oil droplets readily sink and can lethally contaminate coral.http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.NET

Baruch Rinkevich of the National Institute of Oceanography in Haifa, Israel, and his colleagues tested whether chemical dispersants, as well as oil droplets, do harm to corals. They report that dispersants kill branching corals or retard their growth. The team also confirms previous research indicating that corals do better when exposed to oil that hasn't been dispersed.

"Dispersants are very toxic for corals," Rinkevich says. "It's a no-win situation, but more knowledge [will add to officials'] evaluation and decisions about what to do in unpredictable situations."

To test the effects of the dispersants, the researchers pruned 2-inch segments from the branches of two common hard coral species found in the Red Sea and grew them into several large colonies in laboratory tanks. The team then added to the tanks various concentrations of crude oil, one of six commercial dispersants mixed with oil, or one of the six dispersants alone. After allowing 24-hour exposure to the substances, researchers washed the corals, simulating what would happen in the real environment when oil and dispersants wash away. The team then measured coral survival and growth weekly for 50 days.

After 1 week, more than 90 percent of one coral species and about 75 percent of the other survived in the oil-only tanks, whereas virtually all coral died in the tanks containing either the dispersant-oil mix or the dispersant alone. After 50 days, more than 90 percent of the surviving corals from the oil-only tanks continued to grow. Almost all coral from the dispersed-oil and the dispersant-only tanks experienced retarded growth.http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.NET

The study appears in the Aug. 1 Environmental Science & Technology.

Amy Merten, codirector of the Coastal Response Research Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, says that the results contradict the rule of thumb that dispersants are less toxic than oil droplets. It's important for authorities in charge of spill cleanups to note that coral reacts to the dispersant itself, she says. "There needs to be more consideration of dispersants." However, Merten adds that under real conditions, coral may not be exposed to dispersants in the same amount, and for the same duration, that it was in the laboratory tests.

dogs and horses

From around 5,700 to 5,100 years ago, a group known as the Botai populated the harsh Asian terrain of what is now northern Kazakhstan. Researchers know little about daily life or spiritual beliefs among the Botai. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

Ongoing excavations at a Botai settlement indicate that these hardy people embraced certain mythological themes and ritual practices that became widespread in later Eurasian cultures as far away as India.

For example, the Botai people probably used dogs to guard their homes—large, covered cavities in the ground known as pit houses—and treated deceased dogs as spiritual guardians of their households, says project director Sandra L. Olsen of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.

Among the remains of 60 pit houses at a Botai site, her team has uncovered more than a dozen Samoyed-size dog skeletons buried separately on the west side of structures.

Historical texts from Bronze Age and Iron Age groups in Eurasia that came after the Botai culture often tell of deceased dogs protecting their masters from evil spirits emanating from portals to the netherworld located in the west.

Other Botai finds with links to later cultures in the region include a clay death mask and evidence of sacrificed horses in human burial sites, Olsen says. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

Microscopic study of pottery fragments from the site has uncovered impressions of a wide variety of woven fabrics, reports the Carnegie Museum's Deborah Harding. Botai potters used rope- and cloth-covered tools to press designs into wet clay. Harding plans to characterize Botai weaving styles for comparison with fabric remains at later Eurasian sites. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

Researchers disagree about whether the Botai people, who hunted wild horses, also domesticated them. Cheek teeth from 12 of 42 horse skulls examined so far at Olsen's Botai site exhibit enamel wear usually produced by regularly biting down on a harness' rope bit, report Dorcas R. Brown and David W. Anthony, both of Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

"It's not clear if these horses had been tamed, but we have good evidence that they were ridden," Brown says.

car 883.car.1 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire. With Uncle Sam pushing the production of ethanol for fuel, U.S. corn producers are experiencing an economic bonanza. Not only are they planting more of the grain than at any time since World War II, but the price they receive per harvested bushel has also been skyrocketing. These benefits to growers are proving a juggernaut, however, for meat producers. http://louis3j3sheehan3esquire.wordpress.com/

Indeed, many livestock operations are getting hit with a double whammy. First, they’re paying more for each ton of corn-derived feed. At least as importantly, a new study finds, the corn product that’s they're feeding to their animals can be anticipated to carry triple the normal load of fungal toxins.

Because those fungal poisons — or mycotoxins — threaten the health of animals, farmers can look for reduced livestock growth, especially in swine.

The new analysis conservatively estimates the current cost to U.S. hog producers from just one of those toxins, fumonisin, at about $9 million a year. But with wider penetration of this feed additive across species and an accounting for the effects of the other four toxins, that annual loss could easily and quickly swell into the “hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars,” according to Felicia Wu of the University of Pittsburgh and Gary P. Munkvold of Iowa State University. They authored the new study.

Fungal toxins have become ubiquitous in grains. Corn tends to harbor five major ones: fumonisin, aflatoxin, vomitoxin, zearalenone, and ochratoxin A. Animals can safely dine on corn tainted with low concentrations of these. However, with the price of corn booming, livestock producers can seldom afford to feed their animals corn. Instead, they’re turning to blends of distillery wastes – a dried mix of high-protein solids and liquids. Toxins in corn don’t end up in the ethanol, but instead concentrate in the distillery wastes, and at roughly three times the value in the starting kernels, Wu and Munkvold report.

Their new study, due to be published soon in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, bills itself as the “first review of the potential impact to animal health of mycotoxins in dried distillers’ [wastes].” http://louis3j3sheehan3esquire.wordpress.com/

This economic analysis, based on published toxicity data for livestock, would appear to portend financial adjustments in the corn and ethanol markets. First, it’s likely that greater attention will be paid to fungal-toxin concentrations in grain, Wu and Munkvold argue, with routine testing needed to verify that levels in distillers’ wastes don’t prove lethal to animals.

Corn prices might fall if some share of harvests can’t go for ethanol use owing to high starting toxin concentrations in the kernels. In addition, “Ethanol facilities may lose through not being able to sell [distillery wastes] with excessively high mycotoxin levels, and/or they may need to pay higher prices for maize that is relatively clean,” the authors point out. Finally, livestock producers, “aside from suffering economic losses due to potential animal health effects, may need to pay higher prices for both high-quality maize and high-quality [distillery wastes] for animal feed.”

If some distillery wastes end up linked to animal disease or deaths, the ethanol industry might even encounter a costly “shock event,” Wu and Munkvold suggest. Lawsuits and “media frenzy” from such an event could even lead to new regulations.

Ethanol production is relatively expensive – at least for fuel markets – and most distillers were hoping to recoup big bucks by selling their wastes, meaning they wouldn’t actually prove to be wastes at all. But ethanol producers can’t recycle those byproducts if they’re poisonous. So, here’s another pin threatening to burst the ethanol bubble.

Wu and Munkvold note that there are genetically modified strains of corn under development that appear especially resistant to fungal growth. But GM crops aren’t popular, for a host of reasons.

What I take home: There’s no easy solution to quenching our growing thirst for liquid fuels. My preference: Engineer cars to sip their fuels, not guzzle them. There have been technologies available for years that would allow Detroit – and Japan and Korea and now China – to produce vehicles that get 80 or more miles per gallon.

I'd advocate increasing the tax on liquid fuels – a strategy I admit is at odds with at least two of the presidential frontrunners. As the price of fuel increases, people will suddenly swarm to dealerships offering high-mileage models. Me among them.

Indeed, I was at Argonne National Laboratory, a year ago, touring their plug-in-hybrid-vehicle research facility. (As a Prius owner, I was anxious to see the next-generation technology.) Cars under development could easily get 200 miles per gallon, I learned. And depending on how they’re driven (ie no more than 30 miles a day between charges), it might even be possible to fill a car up at purchase and then never need to visit a gas station again – ever.

Now that’s the car for me.

5544332

Emergency room physicians can deliver clot-busting treatments to a wider range of stroke patients than previously thought, European researchers report in the Sept. 25 New England Journal of Medicine.

The finding could change the way stroke is treated and increase ER doctors’ ability to prevent some cases of disability caused by strokes, scientists say.

Most strokes result when a blood clot lodges in the brain, blocking blood flow to other parts of the organ. A powerful drug called tPA, or tissue plasminogen activator, can dissolve these clots. But medical dogma holds that it must be given within three hours of a stroke’s onset. Beyond that, the thinking goes, the bulk of the brain damage is done and adding the risk of internal bleeding that accompanies clot-busters seems unwise. The new study extends that window of effective tPA treatment by 90 minutes, to 4 ½ hours.

This precious extra time to dissolve a clot and restore blood flow to a starving portion of brain could benefit tens of thousands of stroke patients in the United States each year, says study coauthor Werner Hacke, a neurologist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

“I think this is big news because suddenly they have substantially extended the number of patients who get intravenous tPA,” says Scott Kasner, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

However, many emergency room physicians are hesitant to give stroke patients clot-busting drugs at all. A landmark 1995 study found that giving the drugs within three hours of stroke onset provided benefits that outweighed the bleeding risk in most patients. But only about 4 percent of stroke patients who arrive at U.S. hospitals get tPA, says neurologist Patrick Lyden of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Medical Center and University of California, San Diego, who coauthored the 1995 report. Most stroke patients don’t receive tPA because the time of onset might be hazy, or doctors may be hesitant to risk incurring bleeding or are untrained in delivering tPA. The new data should clarify the time frame and allay some doubts about the treatment’s effectiveness, he says.

In the new study, Hacke and his colleagues identified patients who arrived at hospitals with a stroke that had begun more than three hours but less than 4 ½ hours earlier. The researchers used CT scans of the brain to rule out people with brain bleeding. The doctors also excluded those with severe strokes as indicated by the scans.

That left 730 patients, half of whom were then randomly assigned to get infusions of the tPA drug called alteplase. The others received a placebo.

After three months, roughly 52 percent of study patients treated with tPA within the extra 90 minute time window had normal daily function and were living independently, compared with 45 percent of those getting a placebo infusion. The death rate over three months was about 8 percent in both groups.

Doctors detected brain bleeding among treated patients about as often as seen in previous studies in which tPA was limited to a three hour window.

Time matters in stroke treatment, and delay is dangerous. As minutes or hours pass with a clot lodged in place, more brain tissue is starved of blood and damaged. Thus, busting a clot later into the stroke might rescue less tissue. “The [beneficial] effect of tPA decreases over time,” Hacke says.

Even so, treated patients in this study — who received tPA an average of four hours after the onset of stroke — still showed clear benefits over the placebo group.

“I think this will eventually be incorporated into clinical practice, slowly at first, and then become the standard of care,” Kasner says.

Stroke disables more adults than any other condition, yet every stroke is different. People who have a severe stroke are often rushed to a hospital with obvious problems, Hacke says. But those with milder strokes sometimes show up longer after a stroke’s onset, in part because they aren’t sure whether their symptoms are serious enough for a hospital visit, he says. These are the kinds of people most likely to benefit from the new study’s findings on delayed tPA treatment, he says.

Meanwhile, Lyden says, more hospitals need to grasp the value of tPA and have doctors on site or on call who can deliver it. “Every hospital needs to have a stroke plan,” he says. “Either have a way to give tPA, or set up a way to tell the EMS people to divert [an ambulance] to a place that can do it.”http://louis6j6sheehan.blogspot.com

factor

NASA has announced that in 2014 a new spacecraft called MAVEN will settle into orbit around Mars, and will get to work trying to solve the mystery inherent in the thin atmosphere of the Red Planet. Mars once had a much denser atmosphere which allowed liquid water to swill across its surface, but much of the former went awol “as part of a dramatic climate change.” Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program, said: “The loss of Mars’ atmosphere has been an ongoing mystery. MAVEN will help us solve it” [The Register].

The $485 million mission will be led by a team from the University of Colorado. MAVEN (which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission), will be the second mission of the space agency’s Mars Scout program, a recent push by the agency for smaller, lower-cost spacecraft. The first, the Phoenix, was launched in 2007 and is operating on the surface of Mars [Denver Post].

Scientists are eager to study why Mars is such a dry and barren planet today, when geological evidence shows that it had a dense atmosphere billions of years ago that allowed for liquid water on its surface. Many planetary scientists believe the disappearance of Mars’ ancient magnetic field has been a significant factor in this. Maven will study current atmospheric “leakage”, looking closely at the role played by the charged particles streaming away from the Sun. Without the deflecting presence of a strong magnetic field, this “solar wind” will collide with atmospheric gases and slowly erode them into space [BBC News].

The planning process for the atmospheric mission has suffered through delays; NASA announced last December that a conflict of interest on the committee responsible for picking the winning team forced the agency to disband the committee and start over. That snag slowed down the entire project. The Mars Scout program had originally been scheduled for 2011 launch. But since Mars only comes close enough to Earth to launch probes every 26 months, NASA had to postpone the mission to 2013 [AP]. The science mission will also be shortened, from two years to one, because the probe will reach Mars later in the planet’s solar cycle, and after one year in orbit conditions will be less favorable for study। http://louis-j-sheehan.com

http://louis-j-sheehan.biz

http://louis-j-sheehan.biz

Some people are inept at all things musical, whether it's playing an instrument or just recognizing a melody. Preliminary data suggest that these individuals' brains are, literally, out of tune.

Neuroscientists Krista L. Hyde and Isabelle Peretz, both of the University of Montreal, subjected 10 volunteers with these musical deficits to pitch shifts comparable to those that occur when someone plays one key and then the next key on a piano. None of the volunteers noticed a difference between the tones.

However, the same people—all of whom had great difficulty telling different melodies apart and remembering simple tunes—accurately tracked timed sequences of musical tones and noted slight changes in timing. Ten other volunteers with normal tone perception and musical aptitude also scored well on the timing test. This result indicates that it's pitch, not timing, that lies at the heart of severe musical ineptitude, sometimes referred to as amusia.

To Hyde and Peretz, the results suggest that the brain's capacity to perceive modest pitch changes may be impaired from birth in persons with amusia. As a result, such individuals never grasp the overall structure of musical passages.

बुइल्ड्स ००००३२१ लुईस जे. Sheehan

A new brain-imaging study indicates that a specially designed program for second and third graders deficient in reading boosts their reading skills while prodding their brains to respond to written material in the same way that the brains of good readers do. The same investigation found that the remedial instruction typically offered to poor readers in the nation's schools doesn't improve their skills and fails to ignite activity in brain areas that have been linked to effective reading.

"Good teaching can change the brain in a way that has the potential to benefit struggling readers," says pediatrician Sally Shaywitz of Yale University School of Medicine.

At least one in five U.S. grade-schoolers with average or above-average intelligence encounters severe difficulties in learning to read, researchers estimate. In 2000, a panel of educators and scientists convened by Congress concluded that reading disability stems primarily from difficulties in recognizing the correspondence between speech sounds and letters.http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.us

Panel member Sally Shaywitz, along with Bennett A. Shaywitz, a neurologist also at Yale medical school, and their colleagues used that finding to design a brain-imaging investigation.

At the beginning and end of the school year, the investigators administered reading tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging scans to three groups of children, ages 6 to 9, attending school in New York or Connecticut. The brain scans were taken as each volunteer tried to identify written letters that matched spoken letters.

In one of the groups, 37 underachieving readers were given experimental tutoring that consisted of 50 minutes of daily, individual instruction in letters and combinations of letters that represent speech sounds called phonemes. The lessons also focused on development of fluency in reading words, oral reading of stories, and spelling.

Another 12 deficient readers received standard remedial reading and special education programs in their schools. These students didn't receive explicit instruction in learning to recognize how letters correspond to phonemes.

A third group, this one consisting of 28 good readers, received regular classroom instruction.

At the end of the school year, only poor readers in the experimental program showed marked gains in reading accuracy, speed, and comprehension, the researchers report in the May 1 Biological Psychiatry. Good readers still exhibited the strongest literacy, but the poor readers who received phonetically based instruction had closed the gap considerably.http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.us

After poor readers completed the experimental program, their brains displayed pronounced activity in several of the same left-brain areas that are active when good readers do reading-related tasks. In an earlier study of poor readers, Sally Shaywitz and Bennett Shaywitz found that one of those neural regions remains inactive as these kids grow up. Preliminary evidence from other researchers indicates that this structure, located near the back of the brain, fosters immediate recognition of familiar written words and is thus crucial for fluent reading, Sally Shaywitz says.

Students who had completed the experimental tutoring program still displayed improved reading scores and associated left-brain activation when measured 1 year later.

Bruce D. McCandliss, a neuroscientist at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, calls the new report a "landmark study." It builds upon similar findings by other research teams that tracked much smaller numbers of poor readers given phonological instruction, he notes.

The Yale group now plans to study children who will be randomly assigned to different types of reading programs.

rats

Archaeologists regard members of the ancient, seafaring Lapita culture as the ancestors of Polynesians, who now live on a large group of western Pacific islands collectively known as Oceania. Where the Lapita originally came from and the way in which they occupied a string of islands that spans more than 2,000 miles remains a topic of hot debate.http://louis-j-sheehan.net

A new genetic analysis of Pacific rats, which canoe-traveling Lapita colonists brought with them for food and introduced to Oceania, adds weight to an earlier theory that Lapita mariners based in Southeast Asia moved across the region in a series of migrations, from 6,000 to 3,000 years ago.

Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and Judith H. Robins, both of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, obtained mitochondrial DNA from more than 100 Pacific rats. These genetic samples had been extracted either from bones found at Lapita archaeological sites or from the remains of recently deceased animals throughout Oceania.http://louis-j-sheehan.net

A mutation-rich stretch of the rats' mitochondrial DNA exhibits three geographically distinct nucleotide-sequence patterns, the investigators report in the June 15 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. One pattern appears only on islands just off the Asian coast, reflecting interaction among people who probably didn't migrate elsewhere, Matisoo-Smith and Robins propose. A second pattern extends from the same islands into Oceania's western half, apparently mirroring human migration along that path. A third pattern appears on one western island, Halmahera, and on several of Oceania's easternmost islands, possibly marking a separate Lapita dispersal.

stem

Stem cells’ unassuming, bloblike appearance makes them hard to identify, but new research offers a way to blow their cover.

The technique can distinguish embryonic stem cells — which are pluripotent, meaning they can become any kind of cell in the body — from “adult” stem cells that reside in people’s organs and have a much more limited repertoire.

Using the new test, Jeanne Loring of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and her colleagues provide fresh evidence that stem cells made by “reprogramming” a person’s skin without ever making or destroying an embryo are truly pluripotent, just like embryonic stem cells.http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com

The findings, reported online August 24 in Nature, suggest that these reprogrammed, embryonic-like stem cells could be used for future stem cell therapies in place of embryonic cells, which are more controversial because they are extracted from embryos.

Scientists have debated whether reprogrammed cells truly have all the abilities of cells taken from embryos.

“You can do a pretty simple test now and discover if it’s pluripotent, and you couldn’t do that before,” Loring says.

To distinguish adult stem cells from pluripotent cells, Loring’s team compared the gene activity of about 150 stem cell samples of various types, including reprogrammed cells, embryonic stem cells and neural stem cells. Out of this comparison popped 299 interacting genes that form what the researchers call a pluripotency network, or PluriNet. Measuring the activity of these genes could reliably distinguish the different kinds of stem cells, the team reports.

“This is an exhaustive documentation of the essential gene expression features of pluripotency and will be a helpful roadmap for scientists working in this hot new area of biomedical research,” says George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

The way scientists have been testing the pluripotency of reprogrammed mouse cells is to add reprogrammed cells to mouse embryos and see whether the cells give rise to every type of body cell in the newborn pups. Such tests are difficult to perform with human cells for ethical reasons.

“People are always arguing about the differentiation potential and therapeutic potential of each of the various stem cells,” says Robb MacLellan, a cardiologist at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. The new test is “going to help and speed up the development of this whole field.”

In 2006, Japanese researchers discovered a set of four genes that when injected into skin cells reprogram those cells into an embryonic-like state। Many of the 299 PluriNet genes encode proteins that are activated by this process, Loring says. http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com

The test also found distinctions among neural stem cells that scientists had thought were the same, MacLellan notes. “There was a lot of divergence in terms of what other people were calling neural stem cells,” he says. Identifying these previously unrecognized subtypes could help scientists better understand the various roles that the cells play in creating new nerve cells for the brain. “This test will help to clarify some of that.”Louis J. Sheehan

Louis J. Sheehan

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glassmaking

लुईस जे। शीहन

When pharaohs ruled Egypt, high-status groups around the Mediterranean exchanged fancy glass items to cement political alliances। New archaeological finds indicate that by about 3,250 years ago, Egypt had become a major glass producer and was shipping the valuable material throughout the region for reworking by local artisans. http://louis-j-sheehan.biz

This discovery settles a more-than-century-old debate over whether ancient Egyptians manufactured raw glass themselves or imported it from Mesopotamia, say Thilo Rehren of University College London and Edgar B. Pusch of the Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim in Germany in the June 17 Science.

The oldest-known glass remains come from a 3,500-year-old Mesopotamian site, which some researchers took as an indicator that ancient Egypt's glass depot was located there. However, excavations at Qantir, a village on the eastern Nile Delta, have yielded remnants of a glassmaking factory in operation just after that time, the two archaeologists report.

"Rehren and Pusch convincingly show that the Egyptians were making their own glass in large, specialized facilities that were under royal control," remarks archaeologist Caroline M. Jackson of the University of Sheffield in England, in a commentary published with the new report.

Workers at Qantir have so far uncovered pieces of hundreds of pottery containers, some with glass chunks attached to them. Other finds include waste products from glass production. Chemical analyses of these materials provided data about glass-making ingredients used at the site.

This evidence reflects a two-stage glassmaking process, the scientists assert. In the first stage, Egyptians crushed quartz pebbles into an alkali-rich plant ash and heated the mixture at relatively low temperatures in small clay vessels that were probably recycled beer jars. Next, they removed the resulting glassy material from the jars and ground it into powder, then cleaned and colored it red or blue with metal oxides.

In the second stage, workers poured this powder through clay funnels into ceramic crucibles and melted it at high temperatures। After cooling, they broke the crucibles to remove puck-shaped glass ingots. लुईस जे। Sheehan

Rehren and Pusch propose that Egyptians exported these ingots to workshops throughout the Mediterranean, where artisans reheated the glass and fashioned it into decorative items। The chemical composition of glass vessels and other artifacts found at various elite Mediterranean sites dating to around the time of Rameses II matches that of the Egyptian ingots, Jackson points out. http://louis-j-sheehan.biz

Indirect evidence of ancient Egyptian glassmaking also exists. For example, at the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna, archaeologists found ceramic vessels from more than 3,300 years ago that may have served as ingot molds. Also, a Bronze Age shipwreck discovered off Turkey's coast in 1987 contained glass ingots fitting the dimensions of the Amarna containers.

middle

लुईस जे। शीहन। A new analysis of modern and ancient human skulls supports the idea that early farmers in the Middle East spread into Europe between 11,000 and 6,500 years ago, intermarried with people there, and passed on their agricultural way of life to the native Europeans.

C। Loring Brace of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and his colleagues compared 24 measurements for each of 1,282 skulls from current and prehistoric populations in Europe, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa। The sample included 201 skulls from early farmers and 219 skulls from Bronze Age people, who lived between 4,300 and 2,700 years ago. http://Louissheehan.BraveDiary.com

Modern populations from Scandinavia to the Middle East display close genetic links, reflected in skull similarities, Brace's team reports in the Jan. 3 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ancient farmers and their Bronze Age successors share many skull features but display a considerably weaker anatomical link to modern Europeans, especially in northern regions, the researchers say.

These results fit a scenario in which farming spread into Europe via population mixing rather than by natives simply adopting agriculture (SN: 12/3/05, p। 358: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051203/fob5.asp), the investigators propose. They say that facial traits of early immigrants have become diluted through intermarriage. लुईस जे। Sheehan

अदोलेस्संस ३३५५४४ Sheehan

Although hyperactive behavior often abates during the teen years for girls with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, many struggle with serious academic, emotional, and social problems related to that condition, a 5-year study finds। लुईस जे। Sheehan

Compared with teenage girls who had no psychiatric disorder, those with ADHD had difficulties that included delinquency, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, poor mathematics and reading achievement, rejection by peers, and lack of planning skills, reports a team led by psychologist Stephen P. Hinshaw of the University of California, Berkeley.

"ADHD in girls is likely to yield continuing problems in adolescence, even though hyperactive symptoms may recede," Hinshaw says। http://louis1j1sheehan1esquire.wordpress.com

The new findings appear in the June Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

In 1997, Hinshaw's team organized the first of three yearly summer camps for 6- to 12-year-old girls, including individuals already diagnosed with ADHD. The project focused on 140 girls with ADHD and 88 girls with no psychiatric disorder, all of whom completed one of the 5-week programs. Staff monitored each girl's daily behavior and administered a battery of tests without knowing who had an ADHD diagnosis.

Girls with ADHD showed marked problems in academic subjects, in peer relationships, and in planning and time management. Girls' ADHD symptoms involved disorganized and unfocused behavior more than the disruptive, impulsive acts often observed in boys with this condition.

The latest findings, collected from those same girls 5 years later, come from interviews and questionnaires administered at home to 126 girls with ADHD and 81 girls with no disorder. The researchers also obtained reports on each girl's behavior from her parents and teachers.

Of girls diagnosed with ADHD as 6-to-12-year-olds, 39, or nearly a third, no longer displayed the condition as teens. The 87 adolescent girls who continued to deal with ADHD grappled with learning problems, psychiatric symptoms, and social difficulties far beyond any observed in teen girls never diagnosed with ADHD, the researchers say. Only about half of the girls who originally displayed symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsiveness did so as teenagers.

The new data mirror earlier reports that hyperactivity in boys with ADHD often recedes during adolescence as problems with inattention grow worse, remarks psychiatrist Benedetto Vitiello of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md. "ADHD is a developmental condition that changes over time in similar ways in boys and girls," Vitiello says.

In the new study, no specific form of treatment was associated with shedding ADHD between childhood and adolescence.

Treatment effects are difficult to tease out in samples such as this, Hinshaw says. Girls with severe, hard-to-treat ADHD symptoms tend to seek treatment, as do those with mild symptoms who are highly motivated to get help or whose parents are treatment savvy.

As many as 7 million children and teenagers in the United States have been diagnosed at some time in their lives with ADHD. The condition occurs about three times as often in boys as in girls.

flowers

Out boozing for several hours every night — that would be drinking like a tree shrew. Except the tree shrews can scurry a straight line afterward.

The pentailed tree shrews (Ptilocercus lowii) of Malaysia average more than two hours each night sipping palm nectar that has naturally fermented, report Frank Wiens of the University of Bayreuth in Germany and his colleagues in the July 29 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences।

“This is the first recorded case of chronic alcohol consumption by a wild mammal,” Wiens says.

If tree shrews’ metabolism worked like humans’, they would reach or exceed the legal European driving limit of 0।05 percent blood alcohol content every third night,” Wiens says। Licking this much fermented nectar would put them in about the same condition as a European woman drinking nine small glasses of wine over the course of 12 hours. http://louisbjbsheehan.blogspot.com

But tree shrews may not have the same metabolism as humans when it comes to detoxifying alcohol। Tree shrews and the palms both belong to ancient lineages, so the animals could have evolved an efficient detoxifying pathway, Wiens suggests। http://louisbjbsheehan.blogspot.com

Telling whether another animal is feeling slap-happy has its challenges. But in the wild, the tippling tree shrews didn’t wobble, lose their grip or show other obvious signs of inebriation, the researchers report.

The study grew out of fieldwork tracking the tree shrews in the dense growth of spiny palms. Starting in 1996, Wiens and his colleagues followed the tree shrews on their nightly palm crawls and tested hair samples for alcohol metabolites typical of chronic drinking. The researchers also measured palm fermentation and combined the results in a mathematical model to predict the shrews’ probable alcohol intake.

Bertam palms (Eugeissona tristis) don’t observe a strict season, so at any given time plants will be flowering somewhere in the forest। The stemless palms send up a tall spike with more than 1,000 flowers, some with just male sexual organs and the others hermaphroditic। For weeks before a particular sexual phase, the flower buds dribble nectar. Yeasts inside the buds typically raise the nectar’s alcohol content mildly, to around 0.06 percent, but can punch it up to as high as 3.8 percent. http://louisbjbsheehan.blogspot.com

“This is an astonishing story,” says John Dransfield, a palm specialist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in Richmond, England। He says he doesn’t know of another palm offering such a beer bash, but perhaps the other species secreting abundant nectar just haven’t been studied yet। http://louisbjbsheehan.blogspot.कॉम

Tree shrews, not ground-burrowing shrews but pointy-nosed tree-climbers with tails, are close cousins to primates. The tree shrew lineage could be the second-closest living relatives to primates (after a group called flying lemurs or colugos).

radioactive

Heat from the decay of radioactive elements deep within the planet could meet Earth’s energy needs almost three times over। The problem, though, is how to take advantage of that immense source of energy। http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

Witness the explosive power of a volcano or the eruptions of geysers and hydrothermal vents, and it’s clear that Earth has a prodigious source of internal heat. Most of that heat is generated by the radioactive decay of elements such as uranium, thorium and potassium, says David S. Chapman, a geophysicist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City। http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US

Only in a few places, such as Iceland, is the heat flow through Earth’s surface concentrated enough to efficiently provide geothermal power. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.USData gathered at more than 20,000 sites worldwide show that typical heat flow from the ground is relatively feeble: At sites on land, heat flow is about 65 milliwatts per square meter, Chapman says. Put another way, the heat flowing up through an area the size of a football field, if it could be harnessed, would power only three 100-watt light bulbs.

At and near mid-ocean ridges, where molten material flows to the surface from deep inside Earth, average heat flow is about 140 milliwatts per square meter, the data suggest. Through ancient ocean crust, heat flow typically measures around 100 milliwatts per square meter.

Overall, the average heat flow through a square meter of Earth’s surface is about 87 milliwatts per square meter, Chapman reported May 27 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. That average, however, when added up across Earth’s entire surface, totals 44 terawatts, he notes (one terawatt is 1 trillion watts). For comparison, one recent study placed global energy consumption in 2005 at 15 terawatts.

study

Everyone knows by the second grade that boys have germs and girls have cooties। But at least for boys, new research says cooties might actually be good for you। http://louis2j1sheehan2esquire.blogspot.com

According to a new study, preschool boys perform better on tests that measure learning and other important skills when they are in classes that have more girls than boys. The pattern doesn't seem to hold for girls, though. For preschool girls, the presence or absence of boys did not affect learning.

The study raises questions about having all-boy or all-girl classes for preschool , says psychologist Arlen Moller, of Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, who led the study. Other studies have shown that high-school girls may perform better in all-girl schools. In middle school, however, the effects of same-sex schooling are unclear, and even less is known for very young kids.

To find out, researchers studied 70 preschool classes including a total of 806 children who were between 31/2 and 6 years old. For each class, teachers recorded student progress over a 6.5-month school year.

Their data included teacher scores of motor skills, social skills and thinking skills. The researchers found that boys developed each of these skills more quickly when there were more girls in the class than boys.

In majority-girl classrooms, boys developed at the same rate as girls। But in classes where boys were the majority, boys developed more slowly than girls। Girls tended to advance in classrooms with any combination of boys and girls. http://louis2j1sheehan2esquire.blogspot.com

The study is one of the first to look at how the proportion of boys and girls in a class affects learning. Because it's a new finding, though, researchers can't say why this difference exists.

"This is an exciting topic, but it is too early to draw any conclusions because this area is so underexplored," says psychologist Lena Malofeeva of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, Mich.

captured

Volcanic rocks deep beneath the sea off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington State might prove one of the best places to store the carbon dioxide emissions that are causing global warming, a new study finds. In fact, the very instability that causes earthquakes and eruptions adds an extra layer of protection to keep the CO₂ from ever escaping.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other experts, including the G8 (Group of Eight) leaders of the world's richest nations, have called carbon capture and storage a critical tool in the fight against climate change. http://louiskjksheehan.blogspot.com

In essence, such technology catches the CO₂ and other pollutants emitted when coal or other fossil fuels are burned. It is then compressed into a liquid and, theoretically, pumped deep beneath the surface to be permanently trapped.

Such technologies have been demonstrated on a small scale to enhance the recovery of oil from tapped out fields; pumping down the CO₂ pushes up more of the black gold. But geophysicist David Goldberg of Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., and his colleagues found that pumping such CO₂ into basalt rock beneath the ocean floor might be a better solution.

Specifically, liquid CO₂ is heavier than the water above it at 8,850 feet (2,700 meters) or more under the surface, meaning any leaks would never bubble back into the atmosphere. Further, the CO₂ mixes with the volcanically warmed water below the surface and undergoes chemical reactions within the basalt (the black rock created from rapidly cooling lava) to form carbonate compounds—otherwise known as chalk—effectively locking up the greenhouse gas in mineral form. The 650-foot (200-meter) layer of marine sediment on top of the basalt rock acts as yet another barrier. "You have three superimposed trapping mechanisms to keep your CO₂ below the sea bottom and out of the atmosphere," Goldberg says. "It's insurance on insurance on insurance."

The researchers estimate, conservatively, that at least 229 billion tons (208 billion metric tons) of carbon could be stored in the basalt formations of the Juan de Fuca Plate 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the U.S. west coast in this way—or the equivalent of 122 years of all U.S. emissions of 1.9 billion tons (1.7 billion metric tons) annually.

It is unlikely that all of the CO₂ emitted in the U।S। could ever be captured and transported—whether by pipeline or tanker—to the west coast for injection, but local coal-fired power plants might be able to take advantage of the formation. http://louiskjksheehan.blogspot.com



"On the one hand you wouldn't want to bet the future of U.S. climate policy on it until one has done more work, but on the other hand it looks quite promising," says engineer M. Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University, a carbon sequestration expert. "In contrast to CO₂ injected in the ground, which is buoyant, in this case it won't be buoyant।" http://louiskjksheehan.blogspot.com



Such formations are also potentially accessible in many parts of the world, according to Goldberg, who is currently researching the global resource. The next step will be a small pilot project during which researchers plan to inject some CO₂ into the undersea formation and see what happens—a process that will take at least three years. Also, colleagues in Iceland will begin pumping CO₂ from a power plant into similar basalt formation later this year, but on land. "The volumes [of storage] we're talking about are huge and the problem is huge," Goldberg says. "The prize is very large here with this option. It's worth a serious look."

rainbow

Rainbows can be observed whenever there are water drops in the air and sunlight shining from behind a person at a low altitude angle (on the ground). The most spectacular rainbow displays happen when half of the sky is still dark with draining clouds and the observer is at a spot with clear sky in the direction of the Sun। The result is a luminous rainbow that contrasts with the darkened background। http://www.soulcast.com/Louis_J_Sheehan_Esquire_1

The rainbow effect is also commonly seen near waterfalls or fountains. Rainbow fringes can sometimes be seen at the edges of backlit clouds[1] and as vertical bands in distant rain or virga. The effect can also be artificially created by dispersing water droplets into the air during a sunny day. Rarely, a moonbow, lunar rainbow or night-time rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human visual perception for colour is poor in low light, moonbows are often perceived to be white. http://www.soulcast.com/Louis_J_Sheehan_Esquire_1

It is difficult to photograph the complete arc of a rainbow, as this would require an angle of view of 84°. For a 35 mm camera, a lens with a focal length of 19 mm or less wide-angle lens would be required। http://www.soulcast.com/Louis_J_Sheehan_Esquire_1 From an aeroplane, one has the opportunity to see the whole circle of the rainbow, with the plane's shadow in the centre. This phenomenon can be confused with the glory, but a glory is usually much smaller, covering only 5°–20°.

The rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it goes through raindrops. The light is first refracted as it enters the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most intense light at an angle of 40°–42°. The angle is independent of the size of the drop, but does depend on its refractive index. Seawater has a higher refractive index than rain water, so the radius of a 'rain'bow in sea spray is smaller than a true rainbow. This is visible to the naked eye by a misalignment of these bows.^[2]

The amount by which light is refracted depends upon its wavelength, and hence its colour. Blue light (shorter wavelength) is refracted at a greater angle than red light, but because the area of the back of the droplet has a focal point inside the droplet, the spectrum crosses itself, and therefore the red light appears higher in the sky, and forms the outer colour of the rainbow. Contrary to popular belief, the light at the back of the raindrop does not undergo total internal reflection and some light does emerge from the back. However, light coming out the back of the raindrop does not create a rainbow between the observer and the sun because spectra emitted from the back of the raindrop do not have a maximum of intensity, as the other visible rainbows do, and thus the colours blend together rather than forming a rainbow.

Light rays enter a raindrop from one direction (typically a straight line from the Sun), reflect off the back of the raindrop, and fan out as they leave the raindrop. The light leaving the rainbow is spread over a wide angle, with a maximum intensity of 40.6°–42°.

White light separates into different colours (wavelengths) on entering the raindrop because red light is refracted by a lesser angle than blue light. On leaving the raindrop, the red rays have turned through a smaller angle than the blue rays, producing a rainbow.

A rainbow does not actually exist at a particular location in the sky. It is an optical illusion whose apparent position depends on the observer's location and the position of the sun. All raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer's eye. This light is what constitutes the rainbow for that observer. The position of a rainbow in the sky is always in the opposite direction of the Sun with respect to the observer, and the interior is always slightly brighter than the exterior. The bow is centred on the shadow of the observer's head, or more exactly at the antisolar point (which is below the horizon during the daytime), appearing at an angle of 40°–42° to the line between the observer's head and its shadow. As a result, if the Sun is higher than 42°, then the rainbow is below the horizon and cannot be seen as there are not usually sufficient raindrops between the horizon (that is: eye height) and the ground, to contribute. Exceptions occur when the observer is high above the ground, for example in an aeroplane (see above), on top of a mountain, or above a waterfall.

Occasionally, a second, dimmer, and thicker secondary rainbow is seen outside the primary bow. Secondary rainbows are caused by a double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops, and appear at an angle of 50°–53°. As a result of the second reflection, the colours of a secondary rainbow are inverted compared to the primary bow, with blue on the outside and red on the inside. The dark area of unlit sky lying between the primary and secondary bows is called Alexander's band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it.

A third, or tertiary, rainbow can be seen on rare occasions, and a few observers have reported seeing quadruple rainbows in which a dim outermost arc had a rippling and pulsating appearance. These rainbows would appear on the same side of the sky as the Sun, making them hard to spot. One type of tertiary rainbow carries with it the appearance of a secondary rainbow immediately outside the primary bow. The closely spaced outer bow has been observed to form dynamically at the same time that the outermost (tertiary) rainbow disappears. During this change, the two remaining rainbows have been observed to merge into a band of white light with a blue inner and red outer band. This particular form of doubled rainbow is not like the classic double rainbow due to both spacing of the two bows and that the two bows share identical normal colour positioning before merging. With both bows, the inner colour is blue and the outer colour is red.

Higher-order rainbows were described by Felix Billet (1808-1882) who depicted angular positions up to the 19^th-order rainbow. A pattern he called “rose” [2]. In the laboratory, it is possible to observe higher-order rainbows by using extremely bright and well collimated light produced by lasers. A sixth-order rainbow was first observed by K. Sassan in 1979 using a HeNe laser beam and a pendant water drop^[3]. Up to the 200^th-order rainbow was reported by Ng et al. in 1998 using a similar method but an argon ion laser beam ^[4].

A supernumerary rainbow is an infrequent phenomenon, consisting of several faint rainbows on the inner side of the primary rainbow, and very rarely also outside the secondary rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are slightly detached and have pastel colour bands that do not fit the usual pattern.

It is not possible to explain their existence using classical geometric optics. The alternating faint rainbows are caused by interference between rays of light following slightly different paths with slightly varying lengths within the raindrops. Some rays are in phase, reinforcing each other through constructive interference, creating a bright band; others are out of phase by up to half a wavelength, cancelling each other out through destructive interference, and creating a gap. Given the different angles of refraction for rays of different colours, the patterns of interference are slightly different for rays of different colours, so each bright band is differentiated in colour, creating a miniature rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are clearest when raindrops are small and of similar size. The very existence of supernumerary rainbows was historically a first indication of the wave nature of light, and the first explanation was provided by Thomas Young in 1804.

[edit] Reflection rainbows, reflected rainbows, fire rainbows

Primary and reflection rainbow at sunset

Other rainbow variants are produced when sunlight reflects off a body of water. Where sunlight reflects off water before reaching the raindrops, it produces a reflection rainbow. Such a rainbow shares the same endpoints as a normal rainbow but encompasses a far greater arc when all of it is visible. Both primary and secondary reflection rainbows can be observed.

A reflected rainbow is produced when light that has first been reflected off a larger body of water then reflects inside raindrops before reaching the observer. [See http://www.eo.ucar.edu/rainbows/rnbw8.gif]

Another rainbow-like variant is produced when sunlight is reflected off clouds. The fire rainbow or circumhorizontal arc can sometimes be seen in cirrus clouds with ice crystals (normally at least 6 km above sea level) and with the sun at least 58° above the horizon.

In Song Dynasty China (960–1279), a polymathic scholar-official named Shen Kuo (1031–1095) hypothesized—as a certain Sun Sikong (1015–1076) did before him—that rainbows were formed by a phenomenon of sunlight encountering droplets of rain in the air.^[5] Paul Dong writes that Shen's explanation of the rainbow as a phenomenon of atmospheric refraction "is basically in accord with modern scientific principles."^[6]

The Persian astronomer, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236–1311) gave a fairly accurate explanation for the rainbow phenomenon. This was elaborated on by his student, Kamal al-Din al-Farisi (1260–1320), who gave a more mathematically satisfactory explanation of the rainbow.^[7]

In Europe, the work of Robert Grosseteste on light was continued by Roger Bacon, who wrote in his Opus Majus of 1268 about experiments with light shining through crystals and water droplets showing the colours of the rainbow.^[8] Theodoric of Freiberg is also known to have given an accurate theoretical explanation of both the primary and secondary rainbows in 1307. He explained the primary rainbow, noting that "when sunlight falls on individual drops of moisture, the rays undergo two refractions (upon ingress and egress) and one reflection (at the back of the drop) before transmission into the eye of the observer".^[9] He explained the secondary rainbow through a similar analysis involving two refractions and two reflections.

Descartes 1637 treatise, Discourse on Method, further advanced this explanation. Knowing that the size of raindrops did not appear to affect the observed rainbow, he experimented with passing rays of light through a large glass sphere filled with water. By measuring the angles that the rays emerged, he concluded that the primary bow was caused by a single internal reflection inside the raindrop and that a secondary bow could be caused by two internal reflections. He supported this conclusion with a derivation of the law of refraction (subsequently, but independently of, Snell) and correctly calculated the angles for both bows. His explanation of the colours, however, was based on a mechanical version of the traditional theory that colours were produced by a modification of white light.^[10][11]

Isaac Newton was the first to demonstrate that white light was composed of the light of all the colours of the rainbow, which a glass prism could separate into the full spectrum of colours, rejecting the theory that the colours were produced by a modification of white light. He also showed that red light gets refracted less than blue light, which led to the first scientific explanation of the major features of the rainbow.^[12] Newton's corpuscular theory of light was unable to explain supernumary rainbows, and a satisfactory explanation was not found until Thomas Young realised that light behaves as a wave under certain conditions, and can interfere with itself.

Young's work was refined in the 1820s by George Biddell Airy, who explained the dependence of the strength of the colours of the rainbow on the size of the water droplets. Modern physical descriptions of the rainbow are based on Mie scattering, work published by Gustav Mie in 1908. Advances in computational methods and optical theory continue to lead to a fuller understanding of rainbows. For example, Nussenzveig provides a modern overview.^[13]

The rainbow has a place in legend owing to its beauty and the historical difficulty in explaining the phenomenon.

In Greek mythology, the rainbow was considered to be a path made by a messenger (Iris) between Earth and Heaven. In Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by Goddess Nüwa using stones of five different colours. In Hindu mythology, the rainbow is called Indradhanush, meaning the bow of Indra, the God of lightning and thunder. In Norse Mythology, a rainbow called the Bifröst Bridge connects the realms of Ásgard and Midgard, homes of the gods and humans, respectively. The Irish leprechaun's secret hiding place for his pot of gold is usually said to be at the end of the rainbow. This place is impossible to reach, because the rainbow is an optical effect which depends on the location of the viewer. When walking towards the end of a rainbow, it will move further away.

After Noah's Deluge, the Bible relates that the rainbow gained meaning as the sign of God's promise that terrestrial life would never again be destroyed by flood (Genesis 9.13-15^[14]):

I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Another ancient portrayal of the rainbow is given in the Epic of Gilgamesh: the rainbow is the "jewelled necklace of the Great Mother Ishtar" that she lifts into the sky as a promise that she "will never forget these days of the great flood" that destroyed her children. (The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet Eleven)

Then Ishtar arrived. She lifted up the necklace of great jewels that her father, Anu, had created to please her and said, "Heavenly gods, as surely as this jewelled necklace hangs upon my neck, I will never forget these days of the great flood. Let all of the gods except Enlil come to the offering. Enlil may not come, for without reason he brought forth the flood that destroyed my people."

The rainbow occurs often in paintings. Frequently these have a symbolic or programmatic significance (for example, Albrecht Dürer's Melancholia I). In particular, the rainbow appears regularly in religious art (for example, Joseph Anton Koch's Noah's Thanksoffering). Romantic landscape painters such as Turner and Constable were more concerned with recording fleeting effects of light (for example, Constable's Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows). Other notable examples appear in work by Hans Memling, Caspar David Friedrich, and Peter Paul Rubens.

rebellion

June 1, Wednesday। http://louis8j8sheehan8esquire.blogspot.com Called on the President relative to the appointment of midshipmen। After looking over the list with some care, he finally designated two sons of officers [and] one apprentice, and desired me to complete the nominations।

When I called on the President, Major-General Schenck was with him, and, as I went in, was giving the President a list of names of persons to be selected to fill the board about to be appointed on the question of retired officers, his brother, Commodore Schenck, being one। It was a cool proposition, but characteristic of General Schenck, and I think of the Schencks generally। http://louis8j8sheehan8esquire.blogspot.com

We have to-day the results of a meeting of strange odds and ends of parties, and factions, and disappointed and aspiring individuals at Cleveland. Frémont is nominated as their candidate for President and John Cochrane for Vice-President. The gathering had the nomination of Frémont in view, though other objects were professed.

I very earnestly supported Frémont in 1856. He was then put forward as the representative of the principles for which we were contending, and I have no reason to give that he was not faithful to the cause. He was, however, as soon as nominated, surrounded, to a great extent, by bad men, in whom no good man had confidence. His bearing was very well so far as he appeared before the public. I saw that he was anxious to be elected but not offensively so; he was not obtrusive, but, on the contrary, reserved and retiring. In nothing did he show extraordinary ability or character, but my conclusions were that his real traits were undeveloped. He did not grow upon me as reserved men usually do. Colonel Benton had in former years extolled him, though opposed to his candidacy. Governor Marcy, no friend of Benton, and not partial to Frémont, had, when Secretary of War, given him name and fame by a most remarkable indorsement in his able report in (I think) 1848.

I have since learned that that part of Marcy’s report was written by Colonel Benton himself, and that President Polk compelled Marcy to incorporate it in the annual report of the War Department. The affair seems incredible almost to me, who knew the several parties, but I learn it in a way that leaves no doubt of its truth. Marcy had ability but was timid and subservient. Frémont has gained no reputation during the War. In power his surroundings have been awful. Reckless, improvident, wasteful, pompous, purposeless, vain, and incompetent. In his explorations, however, he showed perseverance and endurance, and he had the reputation of attaching his men to him. His journals were readable, but I have been told they were prepared and mostly written by Colonel Benton. On all occasions he puts on airs, is ambitious, and would not serve under men of superior military capacity and experience. Frémont first and country after. For a long time he has been in foolish intrigues for the Presidency, and the Cleveland meeting is a Frémont meeting, though others have been concerned.

I am surprised that General Cochrane should have embarked in the scheme। But he has been wayward and erratic। A Democrat, a Barnburner, a conservative, an Abolitionist, an Anti-abolitionist, a Democratic Republican, and now a radical Republican। He has some, but not eminent, ability; can never make a mark as a stateman। It will not surprise me if he should change his position before the close of the political campaign, and support the nominees of the Baltimore Convention. There is not a coincidence of views and policy between him and Frémont, and the convention which has nominated them is a heterogeneous mixture of weak and wicked men. They would jeopard and hazard the Republican and Union cause, and many of them would defeat it and give success to the Copperheads to gratify their causeless spite against the President. He is blamed for not being more energetic and because he is despotic in the same breath. He is censured for being too mild and gentle towards the Rebels and for being tyrannical and intolerant. There is no doubt he has a difficult part to perform in order to satisfy all and do right. http://louis8j8sheehan8esquire.blogspot.com

This war is extraordinary in all its aspects and phases, and no man was prepared to meet them. It is much easier for the censorious and factious to complain than to do right. I have often thought that greater severity might well be exercised, and yet it would tend to barbarism.

No traitor has been hung. I doubt if there will be, but an example should be made of some of the leaders, for present and for future good. They may, if taken, be imprisoned or driven into exile, but neither would be lasting. Parties would form for their relief, and ultimately succeed in restoring the worst of them to their homes and the privileges they originally enjoyed. Death is the proper penalty and atonement, and will be enduringly beneficent in its influence.

There was, moreover, an aristocratic purpose in this Rebellion. An aristocracy of blood and wealth was to have been established. Consequently a contrary effect would work benignantly. Were a few of the leaders to be stripped of their possessions, and their property confiscated, their families impoverished, the result would be salutary in the future. But I apprehend there will be very gentle measures in closing up the Rebellion. The authors of the enormous evils that have been inflicted will go unpunished, or will be but slightly punished.