Solved: The Mystery of The Walking Martian Rocks

Rocks on Mars are on the move, rolling into the wind and forming organized patterns, according to new research.

Images taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit show small rocks regularly spaced about 5 to 7 cm apart on the intercrater plains between Lahontan Crater and the Columbia Hills.

The new finding counters the previous explanation of the evenly spaced arrangement of small rocks on Mars. That explanation suggested the rocks were picked up and carried downwind by extreme high-speed winds thought to occur on Mars in the past.

Pelletier and his colleagues suggest that wind blows sand away from the front of the rock, creating a pit, and then deposits that sand behind the rock, creating a hill. The rock then rolls forward into the pit, moving into the wind, he said. As long as the wind continues to blow, the process is repeated and the rocks move forward.

These Spirit Rover camera images of the intercrater plain between Mars' Lahontan Crater show uniformly-spaced small rocks, known as clasts. Credit: GSA

The process is nearly the same with a cluster of rocks. However, with a cluster of rocks, those in the front of the group shield those in the middle or on the edges from the wind. Because the middle and outer rocks are not directly hit by the wind, the wind creates pits to the sides of those rocks. Therefore, they roll to the side, not directly into the wind, and the cluster begins to spread out.

Pelletier plans to apply the same models to larger features on Mars such as sand dunes and wind-sculpted valleys and ridges called "yardangs." press release

Ref.: Wind-Driven Reorganization of Coarse Clasts on the Surface of Mars. 2008. Geology

NASA Mars Exploration Rover Mission

Aquaman, Microbe Hunter!

Adventure Comics #200 (May 1954). Aquaman © DC Comics

Announced This Day: Discovery of X-Rays

image

In 1896, German scientist, Wilhelm Röntgen announced his discovery of x-rays. He sent copies of his manuscript and some of his x-ray photographs to several renowned physicists and friends, including Lord Kelvin in Glasgow and Henre Poincare in Paris. Four days later, on 5 Jan 1896, Die Presse published the news in a front-page article which described the discovery and suggested new methods of medical diagnoses might be made with this new kind of radiation. link

'X'-The Man With X-Ray Eyes

Seeing The Quantum World

RBCC #149 (1977) Art by Mike Zeck. Captain Action © DC Comics

The Quantum Information Science center at the U of Calgary has produced a four-minute animated intended to help people see how a quantum computer would work and its underlying science.

"The animation incorporates state-of-the-art techniques to show the science and the technology in the most accurate and exciting way possible while being true to the underlying principles of quantum computing," says Sanders.

"There is a history of simple visualization over the last century to convey quantum concepts," says Sanders. He notes that Erwin Schrödinger introduced his eponymous cat, which is left in a tragic state of being in a superposition of life and death, an illustration of the strangeness of quantum theory. And the uncertainty principle associated with Werner Heisenberg and his fictional gamma ray microscope, has found its way into common English parlance.

"The imagery of the early days of quantum mechanics played a crucial role in understanding and accepting quantum theory. Our work takes this imagery a quantum leap forward by using the state-of-the-art animation techniques to explain clearly and quickly the nature of quantum computing which is, by its very nature, counterintuitive." link

Watch the spin-up scene: the quantum information encoded on the electron spin transforms smoothly between zero and one poles—the quantum analogue of a NOT gate.

Watch more clips HERE.

Ref: Visualizing a silicon quantum computer. 2008. B.C. Sanders, et al. New J. Phys. 10 125005 (20pp).

Bees On Cocaine

JLA © DC Comics

Abstract: The role of cocaine as an addictive drug of abuse in human society is hard to reconcile with its ecological role as a natural insecticide and plant-protective compound, preventing herbivory of coca plants (Erythroxylum spp.). This paradox is often explained by proposing a fundamental difference in mammalian and invertebrate responses to cocaine, but here we show effects of cocaine on honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) that parallel human responses.

Forager honey bees perform symbolic dances to advertise the location and value of floral resources to their nest mates. Treatment with a low dose of cocaine increased the likelihood and rate of bees dancing after foraging but did not otherwise increase locomotor activity. This is consistent with cocaine causing forager bees to overestimate the value of the floral resources they collected. Further, cessation of chronic cocaine treatment caused a withdrawal-like response.

JLA © DC Comics

These similarities likely occur because in both insects and mammals the biogenic amine neuromodulator systems disrupted by cocaine perform similar roles as modulators of reward and motor systems.

Given these analogous responses to cocaine in insects and mammals, we propose an alternative solution to the paradox of cocaine reinforcement. Ecologically, cocaine is an effective plant defence compound via disruption of herbivore motor control but, because the neurochemical systems targeted by cocaine also modulate reward processing, the reinforcing properties of cocaine occur as a `side effect'.

Ref: Effects of cocaine on honey bee dance behaviour. 2008. Andrew B. Barron, et al. Journal of Experimental Biology 212: 163-168 (2009)

A Tale of Sword & Sorcery

© Walt Simonson

From Star*Reach #1 (1974) comes this tale by Ed Hick and Walt Simonson. The ending appears to have been lifted by Ralph Bakski for the ending of the film of his rip-off of Vaughn Bodé's "Cobalt 60", "Wizards". Looks like Ralph stole from the best!

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Read Simonson's, "The Hyborion Age", HERE.

Aquaman in The Ocean of 1,000,000 B.C.

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From Adventure Comics #253 (October 1958). Aquaman © DC Comics