Thursday 3 February 2011

License to kill.

octopussy picture]






























This post is really just my ramblings from the previous 10 days, it's not really about me getting any big job's, it's sort of about the obstacle's that will be waiting for me in future because of previous rank's of people operating in my field of profession, their entrance to our field of profession and the standard of education they used at work inside a field that obviously follows us into space because of previous standard's of practice, inheritor's of license's and outdated practice's and knowledge.



I octane - work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeD4ndaAYvk&feature=related/


NASA: Too soon to say if chemical would inhibit life on Mars Scientists take on rampant rumors about toxin found at Martian north pole

August 5, 2008

Computerworld - NASA scientists, hoping to quell a growing number of rumors, said it's way too early to say exactly what they've found in the Martian soil.
In June, researchers at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that they were finding more familiar than alien elements in the soil on Mars from initial test results sent back by the analysis equipment onboard the Mars Lander. Then this past weekend, rumors and posts started to appear on the Internet claiming that scientists had found a toxic chemical that would make the Red Planet uninhabitable. Noting that they were stepping outside their normal scientific process, NASA assembled a team of Mars mission scientists Tuesday afternoon for a press conference aimed at tackling the rumors. NASA spokesman Duane Brown said they wanted to address rumors that NASA had been withholding information from the public about a major finding. Peter Smith, Phoenix's principal investigator, said there has been some evidence of the presence of perchlorate, which is described as a highly oxidizing substance. "This is an important piece in the puzzle as we strive to determine if a habitable environment exists on Mars," said Smith. "It is neither good nor bad for life. ... It does not preclude life on Mars. In fact, it's a potential energy source." Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said he does not regret the summer's earlier announcement that they had found Earth-like elements in the Martian soil and that their initial analysis found that Martian soil could support life. "Some kinds of Earth life would be happy to live in these soils," Samuel Kounaves, a Tufts University professor and a research affiliate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in June. "Asparagus, green beans and turnips love alkaline soils." The presence of perchlorate, however, raises new questions. Perchlorate can be found on Earth as both a natural and a man-made contaminant. According to the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, the compound is used as an ingredient in solid fuel for rockets and missiles. Perchlorate-based chemicals are also used to build fireworks, pyrotechnics and explosives. "Perchlorate is becoming a serious threat to human health and water resources," the department says on its Web site. NASA scientists are working to figure out if the Mars Lander could have contaminated the testing area when it landed, or if Phoenix's testing instruments could have contained biological contaminants. Smith said they are investigating, but he doesn't think that contamination is much of a possibility. "We must be sure we have not introduced the material," he added. "I must say it seems rather remote, since our fuel is hydrazine and contains no chlorine. It could have migrated in the spacecraft before leaving Earth, but that's a low possibility. Richard Quinn, a research scientist at NASA, said perchlorate is not a life-killer. He noted that some microbes coexist with it quite easily and others actually use it as a life source. So where did the confusion about the presence of perchlorate come from? Well, scientists got different findings from different testing instruments. Scientists explained today that the first oven analysis showed signs of oxygen, which would be consistent with perchlorate, but it did not show any signs of chlorine, which would be another indicator of perchlorate. However, the wet chemistry test did find evidence of perchlorate. One reason for the different findings could be that the oven analysis simply wasn't looking for chlorine or perchlorate. "During the [oven] analysis, they didn't look for chlorine, since they were not expecting it," said Bill Boynton, a co-investigator on the Mars mission. Boynton, though, also said a second oven analysis also showed no signs of perchlorate. That could have been because the perchlorate wasn't in the sample area or because some perchlorates simply don't give off chlorine when heated. At this point, researchers will be running more wet chemistry and oven analyses and then will be sorting through their findings. With a recent extension to the mission, they're only halfway through their research on the Martian north pole. "We don't want to come to the media and say we found chocolate on Mars and then two weeks later say we were wrong, it's strawberry," Michael Hecht, a co-investigator on the Mars mission, said at the press conference. "That makes us look bad and it makes you look bad."


dinosaur sizes picture]





dinosaur calendar picture]








I octane / No conscience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmgsStfSXdM&feature=related/


Location Determines Social Network Influence, Study Finds; Number of Connections Less Important Than Proximity to Core


(Sep. 1, 2010) — A team of researchers led by Dr. Hernán Makse, professor of physics at The City College of New York (CCNY), has shed new light on the way that information and infectious diseases proliferate across complex networks. Writing in Nature Physics, they report that, contrary to conventional wisdom, persons with the most connections are not necessarily the best spreaders.
"The important thing is where someone is located in a network," said Professor Makse in an interview. "If someone is in the core, they can spread information more efficiently. The challenge is finding the core."That kind of information could help marketers and public relations practitioners conduct more effective of social media and social marketing campaigns. It could also help epidemiologists target resources to reduce the spread of infectious diseases.To identify the core, Professor Makse and colleagues used a technique call k-shell decomposition. In this process, network nodes with just one link are removed until no single-link nodes remain. The remaining nodes are assigned a k-shell value of one. The process is repeated with higher k-shell values assigned to remaining nodes after each round of cuts. Those nodes that cannot be reduced to a single link are identified as the core of the network and have the highest k-shell values.In the study, the researchers examined four networks representing archetypical examples of social structures: members of LiveJournal.com; email contacts in the computer science department at University College London; inpatients of Swedish hospitals, and adult film actors. The latter group was studied because it is a distinct subgroup of the acting profession whose members rarely appear in other genres, Professor Makse explained.Each network member's position in that network was plotted on a graph with the number of connections along one axis and the k-shell value along the other, e.g. (100, 5), (50, 25). The team found that nodes with many connection hubs located at the periphery of a network, i.e. low k-shell values, were poor spreaders.However, nodes with fewer connections but locations near the core, i.e. high k-shell values, were just as likely to spread information or infections as similarly situated nodes with more connections. Hence, they conclude the most efficient spreaders are located in a network's inner core."In the case of LiveJournal, someone with a thousand friends but a low k-shell level will have less impact than someone with a hundred friends but a high k-shell level," Professor Makse said. "Small players and big players spread just as well if they are at the core of the network.For the spread of disease, nodes located in high k-shell layers are more likely to be infected and they will be infected sooner than other nodes, the researchers found. "The neighborhood of these nodes makes them more efficient in sustaining an infection in early stages, thus enabling the epidemic to reach a critical mass such that it can fully develop."This knowledge could greatly help public health officials trying to head off an epidemic in situations where limited quantities of vaccines are available, Professor Makse said. "You try to identify the most likely spreaders and vaccinate them first."The researchers explained the existence of hubs at the periphery of real networks as a consequence of their "rich topological structure. In a fully random network, all hubs would exist near or at the core and they would contribute equally well to spreading.While high k-shell value nodes were found to be the best single spreaders, regardless of their connectivity, this did not necessarily hold up for situations involving multiple spreaders. In those cases, connectivity between hubs did not accelerate the spreading because of the overlap of infected areas created by the different spreaders."The better spreading strategy using (multiple) spreaders is to choose either the highest k or k-shell nodes with the requirement that no two spreaders are directly linked to each other," the researchers wrote.



I octane / This real

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRxiA8pCJug&feature=related/





Extreme Conditions Deep in Earth's Interior Recreated

(Sep. 23, 2010) — University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University scientists have recreated the tremendous pressures and high temperatures deep in the Earth to resolve a long-standing puzzle: why some seismic waves travel faster than others through the boundary between the solid mantle and fluid outer core.
Below the earth's crust stretches an approximately 1,800-mile-thick mantle composed mostly of a mineral called magnesium silicate perovskite (MgSiO3). Below this depth, the pressures are so high that perovskite is compressed into a phase known as post-perovskite, which comprises a layer 125 miles thick at the core-mantle boundary. Below that lies the earth's iron-nickel core.Understanding the physics of post-perovskite, and therefore the physics of the core-mantle boundary, has proven tough because of the difficulty of recreating the extreme pressure and temperature at such depths.The researchers, led by Yale post-doctoral fellow Lowell Miyagi, a former UC Berkeley graduate student, used a diamond-anvil cell to compress an MgSiO3 glass to nearly 1.4 million times atmospheric pressure and heated it to 3,500 Kelvin (more than 3,000 degrees Celsius, or nearly 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit) to create a tiny rock of post-perovskite. They then further compressed this to 2 million times atmospheric pressure and zapped the substance with an intense X-ray beam from the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to obtain a diffraction picture that reveals the deformation behavior of post-perovskite.They found that the orientation of post-perovskite's crystals in the deformed rock allowed some seismic waves -- those polarized parallel to the core-mantle boundary -- to travel faster than those polarized perpendicular to it. This anisotropic structure may explain the observations of seismologists using seismic waves to probe the earth's interior."For the first time, we can use mineral physics with diamond-anvil cells at the ALS to get information about how this mineral, post-perovskite, performs under intense pressure," said co-author Hans-Rudolf Wenk, a Professor of the Graduate School in UC Berkeley's Department of Earth and Planetary Science and Miyagi's Ph.D. thesis advisor. "People had suggested this as an explanation for the anisotropy, but now we have experimental evidence.""Understanding how post-perovskite behaves is a good start to understanding what's happening near the mantle's lower reaches," Miyagi said. "We can now begin to interpret flow patterns in this deep layer in the earth."The study, which appears in the Sept. 24 issue of the journal Science, has important implications for understanding how the earth's internal heating and cooling processes work."This will give seismologists confidence in their models by matching what these observations predict with the seismic data they get," said coauthor Waruntorn "Jane" Kanitpanyacharoen, a UC Berkeley graduate student.Post-perovskite was first recognized as a high-pressure phase in the mantle in 2004, and subsequent experiments in diamond-anvil cells have produced the mineral. Wenk and his colleagues in 2007 conducted experiments that they thought had determined the deformation behavior of post-perovskite, but which now appear to have been related to the phase transformation to post-perovskite. This transition takes place at about 1,300,000 times atmospheric pressure (127 gigaPascals) and 2,500 Kelvin (4,000 degrees Fahrenheit).The current experiment showed that post-perovskite's crystal structure is deformed by pressure into a more elongated shape. Because seismic waves travel faster in the stretched direction, this matches the observed difference in velocity between seismic waves polarized horizontally and vertically traveling through the post-perovskite zone above the earth's core.If scientists can gain a better understanding of the core-mantle boundary's behavior, it will give them clues as to how Earth's internal convection works there, where cool tectonic plates descend from the ocean floor through the mantle eventually nearing the dense, liquid-iron outer core, heat up, and begin moving upward again in a repeated cycle that mixes material and heat through the mantle."Understanding how post-perovskite behaves is a good start to understanding what's happening near the mantle's lower reaches," Miyagi said. "We can now begin to interpret flow patterns in this deep layer in the Earth."The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, with support for the ALS from the U.S. Department of Energy.



I octane / Why u searching trouble


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeFc9LkmxVg&feature=related/




Cars of the future - how will they change?

Rapid change is one of the defining features of the car industry we know and love. For more than one hundred years, manufacturers have been battling tooth and nail to build bigger, better, cleverer and faster cars that will out-class rivals and part the motorists from their cash. There's no suggestion that this lightening pace of change is going to change anytime soon.Over the 15 years that MSN has been covering the car industry, the speed at which our cars have developed has been clear for all to see. Drive any model hailing from 1995 and it will feel decidedly dated next to a modern equivalent. That's virtually certain, but what about the differences between the cars we drive now and the ones we will be driving in another 15 years' time?Without a functioning crystal ball, or a DeLorean with the time machine option fitted, seeing into the future is an inexact science. That's not to say we can't have a stab at it though. Here are some of the areas where the car of 2025 is likely to be rather different. They'll be greener
MicrosoftThe motoring agenda has been dominated by all things green over the last few years and there's little sign of the environmental focus abating as we stride forward. The motor industry was rather unfairly cast in the role of eco-enemy a few years back but it's reacted in fine style, slashing vehicle emissions in the short term and investing heavily in alternative fuel technologies for the future. As government legislation controlling pollution from cars tightens and we all fall under growing financial and social pressure to shrink our carbon footprints, the attraction of green cars looks certain to grow. In the first instance, we can expect continuing improvement in the internal combustion engine technology that's powered motorcars since the beginning. Advanced fuel injection systems, variable geometry turbochargers and clever engine management software have boosted the efficiency of petrol and diesel engines and should continue to do so. The alternatives to fossil fuels are also expected to experience a period of growth in the next 15 years or so. We already have hybrid cars but they look like becoming more common and better. Hybrids that can run solely on electric power for long periods are in the pipeline as are 'range-extender' models that use a petrol engine to charge batteries, which then power the electric motors that drive the wheels.Fully electric cars are also on the rise. You can buy models like the Nissan LEAF now but they're sure to become cheaper in the future, even if limited range is likely to restrict their use to urban areas. If improvements in battery technology extend the range of electric cars and the power storage capacity of hybrids, sales could really take off.Hydrogen fuel cell cars have often been touted as a magic bullet for the car's environmental problems but affordable production cars are still some way off. Many manufacturers are conducting trials of working prototypes out on the roads and some are predicting production versions within the next 10 years but major infrastructure investment will be needed for the hydrogen economy to take off. They'll be lighter
MicrosoftLess weight is very desirable in cars. It means less energy is needed to move them around and brings advantages in terms of performance, efficiency and manoeuvrability. For most of the last 15 years, cars have been getting larger and heavier but more recently, we've seen manufacturers starting to put a check on this weight gain.The majority of modern cars are still made of steel but the lightweight properties of aluminium are being employed more regularly on premium models. Plastics, carbonfibre and composite materials are also likely to play a bigger role in the future. Lightweight technologies are a beacon of hope for anyone afraid that the drive to produce greener cars is going to spell the end for thrilling high-performance models. Sports car manufacturers like Ferrari, Lotus and McLaren are at the forefront of developing techniques to minimise weight. It's a way for them to use smaller, greener engines while improving performance and handling. In short, everybody wins. They'll be safer
VolvoNew cars today are safer than they've ever been. You can't by a modern car that isn't loaded with active safety systems to help prevent a crash and passive safety technologies to minimise the danger should one occur. In the future, it seems likely that our cars will continue to push the boundaries but drivers may need to get used to handing over some elements of control.Autonomous vehicle technology is big news in the car industry at the moment. We already have radar-guided cruise control, self-parking systems and technology like Volvo's City Safety that can detect an imminent collision and apply the brakes to avoid it. Much more is possible too but there's concern amongst the major manufacturers over how much control motorists will be willing to hand over to their cars.Would you feel comfortable reading the paper in the back seat while your car drove you to work?They'll be cleverer
AudiIt sometimes seems as though the internet has quietly crept its way into all areas of modern life and it'll be playing an increasingly important role inside our cars in the future.The latest Audi A8 luxury saloon can be specified as a mobile wireless internet hot spot that provides internet access for its occupants and even people who happen to be walking by. More interesting though, are the advantages that the online cars of the future will be able to bring.By connecting with the web, vehicle satellite navigation systems will be able to direct us to free parking spaces or charging points for electric vehicles. There are also systems in development that will let cars communicate with each other, warning of accidents or congestion on our routes.By connecting to our vehicles manufacturers may be able to detect mechanical problems before they materialise or recommend personalised driving tips to enhance fuel economy. We'll also be able to download music and video content direct to our cars from our home computers or third party websites. They'll be monitored
Trafficmaster
The changes that affect drivers in the UK over the next 15 years look like materialising outside the car as much as inside it. The number of cars on the road looks set to carry on rising and we can expect to be more closely monitored than ever before when we drive them.It's a safe bet that some form of road charging will extend beyond the current enclaves of the London Congestion Charge zone and the M6 Toll road. That means more cameras or other means of surveillance. Black boxes inside cars that relay information about when, where and how fast you're driving are nothing new. Car security companies like Cobra and Tracker use the technology to monitor their customers' vehicles and it's been trialled by insurance firms who offer reduced premiums to motorists who agree only to drive limited distances or at less risky times. Tracking systems could also be an alternative to cameras when enforcing variable or average speed limits. There is, however, likely to be a groundswell of public opinion against increased surveillance on the roads.


I octane / Different page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6afFMNHKSk&feature=related/



My recovery from my recent surface reconaiscence and collection has shown me that work in outer space habitats requires serious concentration when reassimulation back to the estimated home environment, largely because lung capacity is subject of an alignment seriously testing the preparation techniques used before the job to survive the process of the linear zenith crux phasing assertion.


I octane / Think a little time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w19h4o5Yfo&feature=related/




I am still struggling with the effects of serious real time phase distortion, much more worrying than I thought it would be. The usual power to weight ratio's I usually gauge with newton observation and perimeter pascal observation. This standard of my training has shown me that corricular phase locations do not represent surface linear equasions, orbital physics now steer linear phase.



I octane / Everytime you touch me


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiaqOPhwcHs&feature=related/




atmosphere chart picture]








Earth atmosphere collapse puzzles scientists
A recent contraction of the thermosphere was the most intense in 43 years





updated 7/15/2010 8:09:05 PM

An upper layer of Earth's atmosphere recently collapsed in an unexpectedly large contraction, the sheer size of which has scientists scratching their heads, NASA announced Thursday.
The layer of gas called the thermosphere is now rebounding again. This type of collapse is not rare, but its magnitude shocked scientists.
"This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," said John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "It's a Space Age record."
The collapse occurred during a period of relative solar inactivity called a solar minimum from 2008 to 2009. These minimums are known to cool and contract the thermosphere, however, the recent collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.
"Something is going on that we do not understand," Emmert said.
The thermosphere lies high above the Earth's surface, close to where our planet meets the edge of space. It ranges in altitude from 55 miles (90 km) to 370 miles (600 km) above the ground. At this height, satellites and meteors fly and auroras shine.
The thermosphere interacts strongly with the sun, so is very affected by periods of high or low solar activity. This layer intercepts extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) from the sun before it can reach the ground.



When solar activity is high, solar EUV warms the thermosphere, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a camp fire. When solar activity is low, the opposite occurs.
Recently, solar activity has been at an extreme low. In 2008 and 2009, sunspots were scarce, solar flares almost non-existent, and solar EUV radiation was at a low ebb.
Still, the thermospheric collapse of 2008-2009 was not only bigger than any previous collapse, it was also bigger than the sun's activity alone could explain.
To calculate the collapse, Emmert analyzed the decay rates of more than 5,000 satellites orbiting above Earth between 1967 and 2010. This provided a space-time sampling of thermospheric density, temperature, and pressure covering almost the entire Space Age.
Emmert suggests carbon dioxide (CO2) in the thermosphere might play a role in explaining the atmospheric collapse.
This gas acts as a coolant, shedding heat via infrared radiation. It is widely-known that CO2 levels have been increasing in Earth's atmosphere. Extra CO2 in the thermosphere could have magnified the cooling action of solar minimum.
"But the numbers don't quite add up," Emmert said. "Even when we take CO2 into account using our best understanding of how it operates as a coolant, we cannot fully explain the thermosphere's collapse."
The researchers hope further monitoring of the upper atmosphere will help them get to the bottom of the situation.



I octane / Nuh love inna dem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zSomcNETFE&feature=related/


Basing our planet core on a 64 billion year space length, the hell, it's potential plane cover's a space from to monocerus provisionally utilising it's core height weight of kryptonite as it's ceiling potiosphere [I just used that word from my imaginary schematic], with the sum's showing an 8 billion year platiosphere of water above the rim [I just used that word from my imaginary schematic]. The building process is something that the astronaught's would want to do there sum's with probably started with a calcium base foot. My own sum's have seen me go further to the epidermis of the equasion.



I octane / Study yuh friend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0OOnY63NBA&feature=related/




Ultrashort Laser Ablation Enables Novel Metal Films


(Sep. 22, 2010) — Laser ablation is well known in medical applications like dermatology and dentistry, and for more than a decade it has been used to vaporize materials that are difficult to evaporate for high-tech applications like deposition of superconductors. Now researchers in the Journal of Applied Physics, which is published by the American Institute of Physics have studied the properties of femtosecond laser ablation plumes to better understand how to apply them to specialized films.

Salvatore Amoruso at University of Naples, Italy and colleagues examined the expansion dynamics of various ultrashort laser ablation plumes and the basic properties of the complicated ablation process in which some material is vaporized in the form of plasma and some in the form of nanoparticles. The team studied the shapes of both the plasma and nanoparticle plumes, which are important for pulsed laser deposition of nanoparticle films.Nanoparticle silver and gold films made by pulsed laser deposition are useful for optical applications such as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Nanoparticle films of transition metals such as iron, nickel, or cobalt may be used to catalyse the growth of carbon nanotubes."We can understand our results in terms of some existing models of plume expansion," says co-author James Lunney at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. "We also see evidence that the pressure in the plasma plume has an influence on the expansion of the nanoparticle plume. Analysis of these expansion dynamics may also improve our physical understanding of the overall ablation process."



I octane / Mine who u a diss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gMfC8JytHM&feature=related/



Estimating a local population of 3.6 trillion stars from the base of 64 billion years ago in the now visible spectrum, the complete sextulation to the octive represents a quantity that certainly would not represent the octives local arc mass significantly questioning the order necessary for trigonometry mathmatics to the circumference of the element atomic mass. Thus, an early body composition of gallium = cadmium = chloride = chlorine = krypton = silver = platinum = paladium = rhodium = rutherfodium would need a golden mean of an equalateral acute obtruse obviously showing the tetrahedron compatability to a 12 family constellation at the obtuse acute.




CSI: X-Ray Fingerprints
Micro-X-Ray Fluorescence Also Provides Spectroscopic Information


December 1, 2006 — Ordinary invasive fingerprinting techniques, such as dusting, are prone to damaging evidence. Micro-X-ray fluorescence images fingerprints without touching them. By stimulating atoms to emit signature wavelengths of light, MXRF also provides chemical information -- such as traces of soil or saliva left in the fingerprints -- in addition to the print pattern itself.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Popular television crime shows solve cases in an hour. But in real life, cracking a case isn't a quick, easy game -- especially when it comes to finding fingerprints.
...And it was no game when thieves robbed Tatiana Bonilla's home, stealing pricey jewelry. "The police didn't find anything ... It was never solved, and it's been a year," she says.
Police dusted for fingerprints in Bonilla's home, but some fingerprinting techniques can alter a print, erasing valuable clues. Now, chemists have a new, non-invasive way to detect prints -- using X-rays to find chemicals within print patterns.
"You can also get chemical information in addition to the print pattern itself, so you can tell, for instance, that there's some unusual element that's located in that fingerprint," Chris Worley, an analytical chemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, tells DBIS.
The process, called micro X-ray fluorescence (MXRF), zaps a print with a tiny X-ray beam that mixes with atoms left behind from sweat or evidence. Next, the atoms give off information, revealing what chemicals are present. Chemicals, like potassium, then form an image of a fingerprint.
"This is a new way of visualizing fingerprints in cases where perhaps we couldn't detect a fingerprint with the traditional methods," Worley says.
Scientists say the MXRF technique could be used to better track down missing children. Children's fingerprints are more difficult to detect -- the new method could better detect prints based on chemicals left behind in a child's fingerprints due to food, soil or saliva.

BACKGROUND: Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a new fingerprint visualization technique using X-rays that leaves prints intact and reveals chemical markers that could give investigators new clues for tracking criminals and missing persons. Traditional fingerprinting methods involve treating samples with powders, liquids, or vapors to add color to the print, so it can easily be photographed. This process is known as contrast enhancement. However, dusting for fingerprints can sometimes alter the prints, erasing valuable forensic clues. Children’s fingerprints are especially difficult to detect.

HOW MXRF WORKS: The new technique uses a process called micro-X-ray fluorescence (MXRF), which rapidly reveals the elemental composition of a sample by shining a thin beam of X-rays onto it without disturbing the sample. All chemical elements emit and absorb radiation at a "signature" frequency of light. For instance, sodium emits primarily orange light, while oxygen (used in neon lights) emits green light. Scientists can pass collected light through an instrument called a spectrograph to spread it into a spectrum, much like visible light spreads into a rainbow of colors by a prism. By carefully studying how the spectrum becomes brighter or darker at each wavelength, scientists can tell what chemical elements are present in a given sample.

WHAT THEY FOUND: The researchers used MXRF to detect the sodium, potassium and chlorine from salts excreted in human sweat – which is sometimes present in detectable quantities in fingerprints. Since those salts are deposited along the ridge patterns in a fingerprint, it is possible to use the elemental analysis to produce a visual image of that fingerprint for analysis. It is especially useful for tracking down lost or missing children: the new method can detect prints based on chemical markers left behind in the child’s fingerprints due to the presence of food, soil or saliva, and this information can be used to track down evidence of the child’s movements.

ABOUT X-RAYS: Like visible light, X-rays are wavelike forms of electromagnetic energy (light) carried by tiny particles called photons. The only difference is the higher energy level of the individual photons, and the corresponding shorter wavelength of the rays, which make them undetectable by the human eye. X-ray photons have energies that range from hundreds to thousands of times higher than those of visible photons. X-ray machines image the outline of bones and organs, while a CT scan machine forms a full three-dimensional computer model of the inside of a patient's body. Doctors can even examine the body one narrow slice at a time. The X-ray beam moves all around the patient, scanning from hundreds of different angles, and the computer takes all that information to compile a 3D image of the body.



world's largest oil companies graph chart]








microsoft picture]






Current Decisions Shape Your Future Preferences

(Sep. 23, 2010) — Psychologists have known for a long time that after you make a choice, you adjust your opinion to think better of the thing you chose. Now a new study has found that this is true even if you don't know the options that you're choosing between.
People change their minds about a choice after they make it. If you ask someone how he feels about Athens and Paris, he might rate them the same. But after you make him choose one as a vacation destination, he'll rate that city higher. This is thought to be a way to reduce the psychological tension that is created by rejecting one perfectly reasonable alternative and picking another one.But recently critics have pointed out a flaw in this experimental design: the person might actually have already liked Paris more than Athens, but for some reason this preexisting preference didn't show up when he was asked to rate them.Tali Sharot and Raymond J. Dolan of University College London and Cristina M. Velasquez of Lake Forest College set out to improve on the experimental design. They asked people to rate a list of vacation destinations, and then choose between pairs of places. Next, the participants were told they were taking part in a test of subliminal decision making: they would have to choose between the names of two vacation destinations shown on a screen, side by side, for two milliseconds. However, what actually flashed on the screen was nonsense strings (such as "%^!x *&()%), so the participants were making a completely blind choice. After the test was finished, they were told which place they'd chosen and were asked to rate the destinations again.Indeed, people's evaluations of the destinations they chose improved; if they blindly chose Thailand, they rated it higher after the test than they did before. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science."It's a relief to know that psychologists are right about this basic principle," says Tali Sharot. But "The effect is much smaller than what we usually see when we do non-blind choice." This means that the critics were right to point out the flaw in the usual experimental design; people do have a preexisting preference, even if it's not strong enough to show up in ratings. Her team has also found this to be true using functional MRI studies, a kind of imaging that shows activity in the brain.




Pleiadian arians]




So...As my post descriptive say's... The future is being managed now, and really worryingly is that given the opportunity to create safe and realiable economies based upon safe and reliable principles the people who are paid to get the job working properly are as my opinion say's ''throwing away precious breathing space'', significantly important defence strengthening and weakening feild science for future research and man management.




First Study of Dispersants in Gulf Spill Suggests a Prolonged Deepwater Fate

(Jan. 26, 2011) — To combat last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill, nearly 800,000 gallons of chemical dispersant were injected directly into the oil and gas flow coming out of the wellhead nearly one mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, as scientists begin to assess how well the strategy worked at breaking up oil droplets, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) chemist Elizabeth B. Kujawinski and her colleagues report that a major component of the dispersant itself was contained within an oil-gas-laden plume in the deep ocean and had still not degraded some three months after it was applied.
While the results suggest the dispersant did mingle with the oil and gas flowing from the mile-deep wellhead, they also raise questions about what impact the deep-water residue of oil and dispersant -- which some say has its own toxic effects -- might have had on environment and marine life in the Gulf.
"This study gives our colleagues the first environmental data on the fate of dispersants in the spill," said Kujawinski, who led a team that also included scientists from UC Santa Barbara. "These data will form the basis of toxicity studies and modeling studies that can assess the efficacy and impact of the dispersants.
"We don't know if the dispersant broke up the oil," she added. "We found that it didn't go away, and that was somewhat surprising."
The study, which appears online Jan. 26 in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal Environmental Science &Technology, is the first peer-reviewed research to be published on the dispersant applied to the Gulf spill and the first data in general on deep application of a dispersant, according to ACS and Kujawinski. Some previous studies had indicated that dispersants applied to surface oil spills can help prevent surface slicks from endangering marshes and coastlines.
Kujawinski and her colleagues found one of the dispersant's key components, called DOSS (dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate), was present in May and June -- in parts-per-million concentrations--in the plume from the spill more than 3,000 feet deep. The plume carried its mixture of oil, natural gas and dispersant in a southwest direction, and DOSS was detected there at lower (parts-per-billion) concentrations in September.
Using a new, highly sensitive chromatographic technique that she and WHOI colleague Melissa C. Kido Soule developed, Kujawinski reports those concentrations of DOSS indicate that little or no biodegradation of the dispersant substance had occurred. The deep-water levels suggested any decrease in the compound could be attributed to normal, predictable dilution. They found further evidence that the substance did not mix with the 1.4 million gallons of dispersant applied at the ocean surface and appeared to have become trapped in deepwater plumes of oil and natural gas reported previously by other WHOI scientists and members of this research team. The team also found a striking relationship between DOSS levels and levels of methane, which further supports their assertion that DOSS became trapped in the subsurface.
Though the study was not aimed at assessing the possible toxicity of the lingering mixture -- Kujawinski said she would "be hard pressed to say it was toxic" -- it nevertheless warrants toxicity studies into possible effects on corals and deep-water fish such as tuna, she said. The EPA and others have already begun or are planning such research, she added.
David Valentine of UC Santa Barbara and a co-investigator in the study, said, "This work provides a first glimpse at the fate and reactivity of chemical dispersants applied in the deep ocean. By knowing how the dispersant was distributed in the deep ocean, we can begin to assess the subsurface biological exposure, and ultimately what effects the dispersant might have had."
"The results indicate that an important component of the chemical dispersant injected into the oil in the deep ocean remained there, and resisted rapid biodegradation," said Valentine, whose team collected the samples for Kujawinski's laboratory analysis. "This knowledge will ultimately help us to understand the efficacy of the dispersant application, as well as the biological effects."
Kujawinski and Valentine were joined in the study by Soule and Krista Longnecker of WHOI, Angela K. Boysen a summer student at WHOI, and Molly C. Redmond of UC Santa Barbara. The work was funded by WHOI and the National Science Foundation. The instrumentation was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
In Kujawinski's technique, the target molecule was extracted from Gulf water samples with a cartridge that isolates the DOSS molecule. She and her colleagues then observed the molecule through a mass spectrometer, ultimately calculating its concentration levels in the oil and gas plume. This method is 1,000 times more sensitive than that used by the EPA and could be used to monitor this molecule for longer time periods over longer distances from the wellhead, she said.
"With this method, we were able to tell how much [dispersant] was there and where it went," Kujawinski said. She and her colleagues detected DOSS up to around 200 miles from the wellhead two to three months after the deep-water injection took place, indicating the mixture was not biodegrading rapidly.
"Over 290,000 kg, or 640,000 pounds, of DOSS was injected into the deep ocean from April to July," she said. "That's a staggering amount, especially when you consider that this compound comprises only 10% of the total dispersant that was added."
Kujawinski cautioned that "we can't be alarmist" about the possible implications of the lingering dispersant. Concentrations considered "toxic" are at least 1,000 times greater than those observed by Kujawinski and her colleagues, she said. But because relatively little is known about the potential effects of this type of dispersant/hydrocarbon combination in the deep ocean, she added, "We need toxicity studies."
"The decision to use chemical dispersants at the sea floor was a classic choice between bad and worse," Valentine said. "And while we have provided needed insight into the fate and transport of the dispersant we still don't know just how serious the threat is; the deep ocean is a sensitive ecosystem unaccustomed to chemical irruptions like this, and there is a lot we don't understand about this cold, dark world."
"The good news is that the dispersant stayed in the deep ocean after it was first applied," Kujawinski says. "The bad news is that it stayed in the deep ocean and did not degrade."






Marilyn Monroe picture]