Hell Is On Venus

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Thanks to ESA’s Venus Express data, scientists obtained the first large-area temperature maps of the southern hemisphere of the inhospitable, lead-melting surface of Venus.

Temperature maps of Venus’ surface

The new data may help with searching and identifying ‘hot spots’ on the surface, considered to be possible signs of active volcanism on the planet.

Surface areas mapped by VIRTIS

To obtain this fundamental information about the surface temperature, VIRTIS made use of the so-called infrared spectral 'windows’ present in the Venusian atmosphere. Through these ‘windows’ thermal radiation at specific wavelengths can leak from the deepest atmospheric layers, pass through the dense cloud curtain situated at about 60 kilometres altitude, and then escape to space, where it can be detected by instruments like VIRTIS. In this way VIRTIS succeeded in looking through the thick carbon dioxide curtain surrounding Venus and detected the heat directly emitted by the hot rocks on the ground.

GCD

On Venus there are no day and night variations of the surface temperature. The heat is globally 'trapped' under the carbon-dioxide atmosphere, with pressure 90 times higher than on Earth. Instead, the main temperature variation is due to topography. On Venus 'cold' means 447º C, while 'warm' means 477º C. Such high temperatures are caused by the strongest greenhouse effect found in the Solar System. link

Where is Robot Hell?

Frank Cho's Monkey Man

Frank's old syndicate reran this old Liberty Meadows strip this weekend. It's always nice to see a drop of real art on the comic pages again, even if it is digital format.

New Carnivorous Sponges Discovered

COTU © DC Comics

Nine new species of carnivorous sponges (Cladorhiza segonzaci, Chondrocladia koltuni, C. lampadiglobus, Asbestopluma agglutinans, A. (Helophloeina) formosa, Abyssocladia huitzilopochtli, A. inflata, A. dominalba and A. naudur) are described.

Eight of the sponges were collected from the French IFREMER manned submersible Nautile near active hydrothermal sites of the East Pacific Rise and of the North Fiji and Lau Basins, one from the Russian submersible Mir 2 in the Northwest Pacific near Bering Island, and one from the US submersible Alvin south of Easter Island. Their life conditions are described from direct observations from the submersibles. Some remarks are presented on the taxonomy of Cladorhizidae and more generally of carnivorous Poecilosclerida. The study suggests a very high degree of diversity in the deep Pacific carnivorous sponges.

New carnivorous sponges (Porifera, Poecilosclerida) collected from manned submersibles in the deep Pacific. 2006. J. Vacelet. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 148: 553–584.

DNA Nanobots Unleashed!

Scientists have developed a DNA cassette through which a nanomechanical device can be inserted and function within a DNA array, allowing for the motion of a nanorobotic arm. The results mark the first time scientists have been able to employ a functional nanotechnology device within a DNA array.

He added that the results pave the way for creating nanoscale “assembly lines” in which more complex maneuvers could be executed.

The Zeroids!

The results are based upon a previously developed device that eables the translation of DNA sequences, thereby potentially serving as a factory for assembling the building blocks of new materials. The invention has the potential to develop new synthetic fibers, advance the encryption of information, and improve DNA-based computation.

The new cassette-like device can control sequences or insertion sequences that would allow the researchers to manipulate the array or insert it at different locations. They visualized their results by atomic force microscopy (AFM), which permits features that are a few billionths of a meter to be visualized. Link

Operation of a DNA Robot Arm Inserted into a 2D DNA Crystalline Substrate. 2006. B. Ding and N. C. Seeman. Science 314: 1583 – 1585.

Warning! Robotic Bjork ahead…:

Flowing Water On Mars

The discovery of bright deposits on Mars could indicate that liquid water has recently flowed on a few locations on the planet.


Art © Frazetta

It has been an established fact for several years now that water exists on Mars. However, the big question is how much of it – if any – is in liquid form. The newly discovered deposits were identified by comparing different images of the same area taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MOC camera), over a period of few years. The images suggest that water may have flowed there sometime within the past seven years.


Photo: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

ESA’s Mars Express has found large reservoirs of water underground using its radar experiment MARSIS. All are frozen, with the largest in Mars's polar regions. Such frozen underground lakes might be driven to temporarily thaw and flow across the surface by changes in temperature, caused by changes in illumination from the Sun or, possibly, by local variations in the underground pressure.


Art © Frank Cho

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100 Million Year Old Bee Found In Amber

The discovery of a 100-million-year old bee embedded in amber, perhaps the oldest bee ever found, pushes the bee fossil record back about 35 million years.



Scientists have long believed that bees first appeared about 120 million years ago -- but previous bee fossil records dated back only about 65 million years. Danforth and Poinar's fossil provides strong evidence for a more remote ancestry. The fact that the bee fossil also has some wasp traits suggests an evolutionary link between wasps and bees.

In a related study, published in the Oct. 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Danforth and colleagues examined early bees' structures in combination with bee DNA, producing the largest molecular and morphological study to date on bee family-level phylogeny -- the evolutionary development and diversification of a species. Their goal was to examine the early evolutionary pattern of bees and how their evolution relates to the evolution of flowering plants.



Until now, many researchers believed the most primitive bees stemmed from the family Colletidae, which implies that bees originated in the Southern Hemisphere (either South America or Australia). However, the work of Danforth and his group suggests that the earliest branches of the bee's evolutionary tree originate from the family Melittidae. That would mean that bees have an African origin and are almost as old as flowering plants, which would help explain a lot about the evolutionary diversification of these plants. link


Invisible Kid and Chameleon Boy © DC Comics

A Fossil Bee from Early Cretaceous Burmese Amber. 2006. G. O. Poinar. Science 314: 614.

When Dinosaurs Bikinis Ruled The Earth

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Watch the Trailer for “When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth”.