First X-class solar flares of 2013

First X-class solar flares of 2013

May 14, 2013 — On May 13, 2013, the sun emitted an X2.8-class flare, peaking at 12:05 p.m. EDT. This is the the strongest X-class flare of 2013 so far, surpassing in strength the X1.7-class flare that occurred 14 hours earlier. It is the 16th X-class flare of the current solar cycle and the third-largest flare of that cycle. The second-strongest was an X5.4 event on March 7, 2012. The strongest was an X6.9 on Aug. 9, 2011.

The X2.8-class flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection, or CME, another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space, which can potentially affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. The CME was not Earth-directed, but could pass NASA's STEREO-B, Messenger and Spitzer spacecraft. Their mission operators have been notified. Experimental NASA research models show that the CME left the sun at 1,200 miles per second beginning at 12:18 p.m. EDT. If warranted, operators can put spacecraft into safe mode to protect the instruments from solar material.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. This disrupts the radio signals for as long as the flare is ongoing -- the radio blackout associated with this flare has since subsided.

The Impacts of Solar Flares

Some people worry that a gigantic "killer solar flare" could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth, but this is not actually possible.

"X-class" denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.

This flare erupted from an active region just out of sight over the left side of the sun, a region that will soon rotate into view. This region has produced two smaller M-class flares as well.

The May 12 flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection, another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space, which can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models show that the CME left the sun at 745 miles per second and is not Earth-directed, however its flank may pass by the STEREO-B and Spitzer spacecraft, and their mission operators have been notified. If warranted, operators can put spacecraft into safe mode to protect the instruments from solar material. There is some particle radiation associated with this event, which is what can concern operators of interplanetary spacecraft since the particles can trip computer electronics on board.

Increased numbers of flares are quite common at the moment because the sun's normal 11-year activity cycle is ramping up toward solar maximum, which is expected in 2013. Humans have tracked the solar cycle continuously since it was discovered in 1843, and it is normal for there to be many flares a day during the sun's peak activity. The first X-class flare of the current solar cycle occurred on Feb. 15, 2011, and there have been another 15 X-class flares since, including this one. The largest X-class flare in this cycle was an X6.9 on Aug. 9, 2011.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (http://swpc.noaa.gov) is the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, alerts, watches and warnings.

What is a solar flare?

For answers to these and other space weather questions, please visit the Space Weather Frequently Asked Questions page (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/spaceweather/index.html).

TAG:Solar Flare Sun Northern Lights Geomagnetic Storms Atmosphere Weather

玉器新流行：小型精品走俏市场

玉器新流行：小型精品走俏市场

嘉德2013春拍拍品 清乾隆 白玉螭龙乾隆年制铭扳指

　　纵览最近几年拍场上成绩不俗的玉器,无论是皇帝玺印、扳指,还是插屏、如意,我们都能看出它们具有两个共同特点,那就是与以前流行的大型玉器相比,它们显得小巧玲珑但制作精美.

　　近年来的玉器拍卖市场上,以扳指、印章、插屏为代表的小型精品玉器开始受到投资者的关注,扳指,原是古人射箭时戴在大拇指上拉弓用的工具,由于满族尚骑射,清代男子喜欢以扳指作为装饰品,从清乾隆、嘉庆朝开始,扳指的实用性逐渐丧失,人们用各种美玉材料制作扳指,还在上面雕刻了龙马、花草、山水、人物、诗词等纹饰和图案.

　　近年来,样式小巧、工艺精湛的扳指受到市场青睐,价格一路攀升,一些雕工精细、严整,体积较小的插屏也有不错的市场表现.玉插屏是用玉雕琢成长方形或其他形状的薄片状,插于木座或玉石器座上用以装饰.清代玉插屏非常盛行,乾隆时常会以精雕紫檀插屏镶嵌珍罕玉石.除了扳指和插屏,造型小巧的如意也是很受藏家欢迎的一类小型精品玉器.由于寓意吉祥,古时许多皇室贵族、文人雅客都对收藏玉如意情有独钟.亮相拍场的各类玉如意无论是古物还是新工,都价值不菲,动辄以百万论身价,帝王玉玺和名人印章在拍场中一直成绩不俗.

　　然而玉器价格主要受雕工、玉料、时代等因素的影响,玉质、玉色、光泽、致密度、绺裂、玷污等等都是玉器鉴别玉材等级的重要因素,在不少收藏家看好小型精品玉市场发展前景的同时,也有业内人士提醒到,评价一件玉器的优良,“大小”并非决定性因素.

来源:新浪收藏


TAG:玉器新流行：小型精品走俏市场 翡翠 翡翠手镯 中国翡翠网 翡翠新闻

玩家两万买块毛料赌石转手卖10万

玩家两万买块毛料赌石转手卖10万

　　13日,文博会三联水晶玉石分会场出现“赌石”、“开门红”,该分会场的翡翠毛料成品公盘大会上,前来淘宝的莫先生当场从2万元的毛料中开出价值10万的墨翠宝料！

　　来自广州的莫先生是浸淫玉石行业20多年的“老手”,他在会场逛了一圈后,一块其貌不扬却标价2万的翡翠毛料引起他的注意.他熟练地打灯照皮,泼水看色,最后掂量几下便毫不犹豫地掏钱付账.随后,毛料被当场切开,经鉴定,竟是一块好水好种的墨翠宝料,很快就被人以10万元的高价买下.

　　据介绍,未经加工的毛料上面会有一层风化形成的“蒙皮”,让人看不到玉石本质,赌石就是隔着蒙皮,通过经验和运气判断玉石价值的一种高风险玉石交易.家住宝安的王先生,抱着“玩玩”的心态花800元买了3块毛料,竟幸运地从一块不到一千克的小玉石中开出了好料.他告诉记者,这块好料是运气的象征,他要摆在办公桌上给自己带来好运.据悉,三联水晶玉石文化村的翡翠毛料公盘将从即日持续到18日,市民们还可来尝试一下“赌石”的味道.(记者 易芬 见习记者 郭斌)

来源:新浪收藏


TAG:玩家两万买块毛料赌石转手卖10万 翡翠 翡翠手镯 中国翡翠网 翡翠新闻

奇妙色彩稀缺产量帕拉伊巴碧玺

奇妙色彩稀缺产量帕拉伊巴碧玺

　　还没有哪次新宝石种的发现能教人如此身心激荡。太过奇妙的色彩，太过奇缺的产量，如果矿源就此打住，那它就永远只能是少数地质学家的标本，它的高价将不再有任何商业意义。一场大规模的寻宝就此展开，随着相同颜色、成分的宝石陆续发现，于是便引发起一场珠宝界关于帕拉伊巴定义的巨大争端！

ENZO 高级珠宝系列帕拉伊巴碧玺项链

　　专门为全球宝石实验室提供广泛而专业的宝石和宝石优化鉴定，以及钻石分级等服务的机构LMHC，致力于修订并提供全球化、标准化的宝石鉴定报告。目前LMHC发布的12份信息表中，有一份便是专为帕拉伊巴碧玺而设。在这份最后更新于2011年12月的第六版报告中，对帕拉伊巴碧玺进行了如下定义：帕拉伊巴碧玺是蓝色 ( 电光蓝、霓虹蓝、紫蓝色)、蓝绿色到绿蓝色或绿色的、呈现中等到高饱和色调(相对于其他各种电气石)的电气石，不论产自何处都主要含有铜 (Cu) 和锰 (Mn)。因这种宝石最初开采于巴西的帕拉伊巴，所以帕拉伊巴就是这种电气石的品种名。

　　换言之，帕拉伊巴只是这种宝石最初的产地和得名原因，而只要含有铜和锰且呈现上述色彩外观就能这样冠名。在报告的补充说明部分也进一步明确了这一点——帕拉伊巴碧玺是一种含铜和锰的电气石。该宝石种名称源于最初的开采地巴西帕拉伊巴，但如今可能开采自很多其他地方。

　　至此，尘埃落定——只要DNA 和长相同时达标，就可冠上“帕拉伊巴”的大名。实际上，在报告的注释里对颜色和产地的描述都留了一定的空间，所以说，到底是不是帕拉伊巴，关键的关键还是恒量元素。这样的结果既能最大限度地满足市场需求， 又能保持宝石种的品质， 可谓皆大欢喜。

Boucheron 宝诗龙Cameleon 系列手镯

　　LMHC究竟是何方神圣？

　　LMHC 是Laboratory Manua lHarmonisation Committee 的缩写，也就是“实验室指南协调委员会”，是专门为全球宝石实验室提供广泛而专业的宝石和宝石优化鉴定以及钻石分级等服务的机构。他们最主要的一项工作是对来自世界各地珠宝界的说法进行研究，综合之后专门修订并提供全球化的、标准化的宝石鉴定报告说辞。来自全球的5 家顶级宝石实验室成员每年会聚在一起讨论并对信息表做出调整，它们分别是意大利米兰的CISGEM、美国的卡尔斯巴德、纽约和泰国曼谷的GIA、泰国曼谷的GIT-Gem、瑞士卢塞恩的Gübelin 和瑞士巴塞尔的SSEF。

　　LMHC有多少可信度？

　　LMHC 最初是应GILC(GemstoneIndustry and Laboratory Committee宝石工业和实验室委员会)的需求而设立的，所以不会与任何商贸组织建立正式联系，这也在相当程度上保证了其公信力。为了促进全球珠宝界能使用更加客观适合的以及更准确的实验室成果，LMHC 会不断更新相关鉴定内容并制成标准信息表发布在其官网上，以期全球各地的人们都能及时获取当下最新的和实用的宝石信息。

TAG:帕拉伊巴 宝石 碧玺 珠宝 奇妙色彩稀缺产量帕拉伊巴碧玺

Oldest fossil hominin ear bones ever recovered: Discovery could yield important clues on human origins

Oldest fossil hominin ear bones ever recovered: Discovery could yield important clues on human origins

May 13, 2013 — A new study, led by a Binghamton University anthropologist and published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could shed new light on the earliest existence of humans. The study analyzed the tiny ear bones, the malleus, incus and stapes, from two species of early human ancestor in South Africa. The ear ossicles are the smallest bones in the human body and are among the rarest of human fossils recovered.

Unlike other bones of the skeleton, the ossicles are already fully formed and adult-sized at birth. This indicates that their size and shape is under very strong genetic control and, despite their small size, they hold a wealth of evolutionary information.

The study, led by Binghamton University anthropologist Rolf Quam, was carried out by an international team of researchers from institutions in the US, Italy and Spain. They analyzed several auditory ossicles representing the early hominin species Paranthropus robustus and Australopithecus africanus. The new study includes the oldest complete ossicular chain (i.e. all three ear bones) of a fossil hominin ever recovered. The bones date to around two million years ago and come from the well-known South African cave sites of Swartkrans and Sterkfontein, which have yielded abundant fossils of these early human ancestors.

The researchers report several significant findings from the study. The malleus is clearly human-like, and its size and shape can be easily distinguished from our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. Many aspects of the skull, teeth and skeleton in these early human ancestors remain quite primitive and ape-like, but the malleus is one of the very few features of these early hominins that is similar to our own species, Homo sapiens. Since both the early hominin species share this human-like malleus, the anatomical changes in this bone must have occurred very early in our evolutionary history. Says Quam, "Bipedalism (walking on two feet) and a reduction in the size of the canine teeth have long been held up as the "hallmark of humanity" since they seem to be present in the earliest human fossils recovered to date.

Our study suggests that the list may need to be updated to include changes in the malleus as well." More fossils from even earlier time periods are needed to corroborate this assertion, says Quam. In contrast to the malleus, the two other ear ossicles, the incus and stapes, appear more similar to chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The ossicles, then, show an interesting mixture of ape-like and human-like features.

The anatomical differences from humans found in the ossicles, along with other differences in the outer, middle and inner ear, are consistent with different hearing capacities in these early hominin taxa compared to modern humans. Although the current study does not demonstrate this conclusively, the team plans on studying the functional aspects of the ear in these early hominins relying on 3D virtual reconstructions based on high resolution CT scans. The team has already applied this approach previously to the 500,000 year-old human fossils from the Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain. The fossils from this site represent the ancestors of the Neandertals, but the results suggested their hearing pattern already resembled Homo sapiens. Extending this type of analysis to Australopithecus and Paranthropus should provide new insight into when our modern human pattern of hearing may have evolved.

TAG:Early Humans Human Evolution Anthropology Fossils Cultures Evolution

腕间的那枚魔力手环

腕间的那枚魔力手环

　　在珠宝中，手环是一个女人的第二双手臂，它能散发魔力，把不同女人的性格特质修饰得更加完美，也让越来越多的女人达成了一种共识，手环的光芒并非仅仅来自它的体积或是钻石数目的多寡。每个创意都让它像一滴晶莹光亮的水滴，或是热烈的爱情那样，引人入胜。

TANGO GOLD系列手链POMELLATO
STARRYNIGHT系列手链 MIKIMOTO

　　金色的爱情密码

　　在所有爱情故事中，男女主人公历尽千辛万苦最终修成正果时，都喜欢用金色的背影来表达，或许，金色就是让人充满希望与圆满的代名词。

　　Mikimoto StarryNight系列手链的设计灵感来自蒲公英，名字源自法语 dent-de-lion。被风吹散的白色蒲公英化身为许多带着种子的小白伞在高空飞扬，为所到之处散发崭新的生机，也象征着佩戴者的乐观情怀。粉红金和日本Akoya珍珠的搭配，充满精致高雅的气息。Pomellato哑光宽手链以18K玫瑰金打造。品牌一直秉承严谨、扎实的信念，在制作时，每个链环的内部也填满玫瑰金，为了达到轻巧的特点，在工艺中必须将链环压到很扁很薄，来充分体现出轻盈的质感，展示出大尺寸珠宝的别样风情。

黑丝手链 WELLENDORFF
ENCHANTED LOTUS系列手镯 DE BEERS

　　银色的承诺

　　承诺，往往都是银色的，纯净的几乎不含任何杂质，让人忍不住去眺望、触碰。

　　Wellendorff黑丝手链如品牌每条金丝编花手链一样，白金线以直径仅为0.3毫米的手工缠绕，饰以细小的螺旋纹，最终达到丝绸般柔软而坚韧的触感。优雅质朴的白金及黑色冷珐琅诉说着经典与神秘。制作中将纤细的雕刻花纹刻画在纯洁的黑色冷珐琅上，以钻石镶边作为装饰，素净中增添了几分高贵。De Beers Enchanted Lotus系列手镯纯净优雅的莲花造型，代表着母爱的圣洁。品牌将母爱化作传世的珍宝，用唯美的钻石珠宝倾诉对母亲的深深祝福。密镶钻石的莲花造型别具匠心，完美展现De Beers珠宝精湛细腻的镶嵌工艺。钻石莲花与钻石水珠相连也象征着自然界的万物重生。

ANIMAL WORLD系列手镯 CHOPARD
ENCHANT系列手镯 TIFFANY&CO

　　彩色的幻想梦

　　梦，注定终身与女人相伴。不真实，但却美好。企图清醒，却无法自拔。

　　Tiffany&Co. Enchant系列手镯从19世纪传统花园大门上精雕细琢的对称图案中汲取灵感，令人宛若置身于曼妙迷人的自然仙境。设计师以白色和彩色钻石打造出飘逸卷曲的华美线条，轻盈灵动的自然气息跃然呈现，展现出大自然的蓬勃生机与斑斓之美。Chopard Animal World系列手镯，以8克拉黑钻、紫水晶、祖母绿、蓝宝石、石榴石、天蓝石呈现的甲虫，栩栩如生。旁边的气泡以18k白金镶满白钻和黑钻打造，中间是表盘，一举多得。多种颜色搭配，仿佛夏夜里深蓝色天宇下闪耀着的繁星，多彩多姿。

TAG:手环 钻石 手链 珠宝 腕间的那枚魔力手环

Seabird bones reveal changes in open-ocean food chain

Seabird bones reveal changes in open-ocean food chain

A research team, led by Michigan State University and Smithsonian Institution scientists, analyzed the bones of Hawaiian petrels -- birds that spend the majority of their lives foraging the open waters of the Pacific. They found that the substantial change in petrels' eating habits, eating prey that are lower rather than higher in the food chain, coincides with the growth of industrialized fishing.

The birds' dramatic shift in diet, shown in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, leaves scientists pondering the fate of petrels as well as wondering how many other species face similar challenges.

"Our bone record is alarming because it suggests that open-ocean food webs are changing on a large scale due to human influence," said Peggy Ostrom, co-author and MSU zoologist. "Our study is among the first to address one of the great mysteries of biological oceanography -- whether fishing has gone beyond an influence on targeted species to affect nontarget species and potentially, entire food webs in the open ocean."

Hawaiian petrels' diet is recorded in the chemistry of their bones. By studying the bones' ratio of nitrogen-15 and nitrogen-14 isotopes, researchers can tell at what level in the food chain the birds are feasting; generally, the larger the isotope ratio, the bigger the prey (fish, squid and crustaceans).

Between 4,000 and 100 years ago, petrels had high isotope ratios, indicating they ate bigger prey. After the onset of industrial fishing, which began extending past the continental shelves around 1950, the isotope ratios declined, indicating a species-wide shift to a diet of smaller fish and other prey.

Much research has focused on the impact of fishing near the coasts. In contrast, the open ocean covers nearly half of Earth's surface. But due to a lack of historical records, fishing's impact on most open-ocean animal populations is completely unknown, said lead author Anne Wiley, formerly an MSU doctoral student and now a Smithsonian postdoctoral researcher.

"Hawaiian petrels spend the majority of their lives foraging over vast expanses of open ocean," she said. "In their search for food, they've done what scientists can only dream of. For thousands of years, they've captured a variety of fish, squid and crustaceans from a large portion of the North Pacific Ocean, and a record of their diet is preserved in their bones."

Addressing fishery impact through a chronology of bones is remarkable. Most marine animals die at sea, where their bones are buried on the ocean bottom. But after three decades of fossil collection in the Hawaiian Islands -- the breeding grounds of the Hawaiian petrel -- co-author Helen James of the Smithsonian Institution and her colleagues have amassed a collection of more than 17,000 ancient Hawaiian petrel bones.

"The petrels breed in burrows and caves where, if they die, their bones are likely to be preserved for a long time," James said. "It's fortuitous to find such a rich bone record for a rare oceanic predator."

Further studies are needed to explore how the shift down the food chain is affecting Hawaiian petrels. For a coastal seabird, however, a similar shift in diet has been associated with decreases in population -- bad news for a federally protected bird.

Since petrels exploit fishing grounds from the equator to near the Aleutian Islands -- an area larger than the continental United States -- their foraging habits are quite telling. If petrels, signal flares for open-ocean food webs, have had a species-wide change in feeding habits, how many other predators around the world has fishing impacted? And what role do consumers play?

"What you choose to put on your dinner plate -- that's your connection with the endangered Hawaiian petrel, and with many other marine species," Wiley said.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, MSU and the Smithsonian Institution.

TAG:Fish Marine Biology Fisheries Oceanography Ecology Geography

Scientists find extensive glacial retreat in Mount Everest region

Scientists find extensive glacial retreat in Mount Everest region

Members of the team conducting these studies will present their findings on May 14 at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico -- a scientific conference organized and co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union.

Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 180 meters (590 feet), according to Sudeep Thakuri, who is leading the research as part of his PhD graduate studies at the University of Milan in Italy.

Glaciers smaller than one square kilometer are disappearing the fastest and have experienced a 43 percent decrease in surface area since the 1960s. Because the glaciers are melting faster than they are replenished by ice and snow, they are revealing rocks and debris that were previously hidden deep under the ice. These debris-covered sections of the glaciers have increased by about 17 percent since the 1960s, according to Thakuri. The ends of the glaciers have also retreated by an average of 400 meters since 1962, his team found.

The researchers suspect that the decline of snow and ice in the Everest region is from human-generated greenhouse gases altering global climate. However, they have not yet established a firm connection between the mountains' changes and climate change, Thakuri said.

He and his team determined the extent of glacial change on Everest and the surrounding 1,148 square kilometer (713 square mile) Sagarmatha National Park by compiling satellite imagery and topographic maps and reconstructing the glacial history. Their statistical analysis shows that the majority of the glaciers in the national park are retreating at an increasing rate, Thakuri said.

To evaluate the temperature and precipitation patterns in the area, Thakuri and his colleagues have been analyzing hydro-meteorological data from the Nepal Climate Observatory stations and Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. The researchers found that the Everest region has undergone a 0.6 degree Celsius (1.08 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature and 100 millimeter (3.9 inches) decrease in precipitation during the pre-monsoon and winter months since 1992.

In subsequent research, Thakuri plans on exploring the climate-glacier relationship further with the aim of integrating the glaciological, hydrological and climatic data to understand the behavior of the hydrological cycle and future water availability.

"The Himalayan glaciers and ice caps are considered a water tower for Asia since they store and supply water downstream during the dry season," said Thakuri. "Downstream populations are dependent on the melt water for agriculture, drinking, and power production."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Water Research Institute-Italian National Research Council are funding this research.

TAG:Global Warming Ice Ages Climate Snow and Avalanches Water Environmental Issues

Out of sync: Body clocks altered at cell level in depression

Out of sync: Body clocks altered at cell level in depression

May 13, 2013 — Every cell in our bodies runs on a 24-hour clock, tuned to the night-day, light-dark cycles that have ruled us since the dawn of humanity. The brain acts as timekeeper, keeping the cellular clock in sync with the outside world so that it can govern our appetites, sleep, moods and much more.

But new research shows that the clock may be broken in the brains of people with depression -- even at the level of the gene activity inside their brain cells.

It's the first direct evidence of altered circadian rhythms in the brain of people with depression, and shows that they operate out of sync with the usual ingrained daily cycle. The findings, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, come from scientists from the University of Michigan Medical School and other institutions.

The discovery was made by sifting through massive amounts of data gleaned from donated brains of depressed and non-depressed people. With further research, the findings could lead to more precise diagnosis and treatment for a condition that affects more than 350 million people worldwide.

What's more, the research also reveals a previously unknown daily rhythm to the activity of many genes across many areas of the brain -- expanding the sense of how crucial our master clock is.

In a normal brain, the pattern of gene activity at a given time of the day is so distinctive that the authors could use it to accurately estimate the hour of death of the brain donor, suggesting that studying this "stopped clock" could conceivably be useful in forensics. By contrast, in severely depressed patients, the circadian clock was so disrupted that a patient's "day" pattern of gene activity could look like a "night" pattern -- and vice versa.

The team uses material from donated brains obtained shortly after death, along with extensive clinical information about the individual. Numerous regions of each brain are dissected by hand or even with lasers that can capture more specialized cell types, then analyzed to measure gene activity. The resulting flood of information is picked apart with advanced data-mining tools.

Lead author Jun Li, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the U-M Department of Human Genetics, describes how this approach allowed the team to accurately back-predict the hour of the day when each non-depressed individual died -- literally plotting them out on a 24-hour clock by noting which genes were active at the time they died. They looked at 12,000 gene transcripts isolated from six regions of 55 brains from people who did not have depression.

This provided a detailed understanding of how gene activity varied throughout the day in the brain regions studied. But when the team tried to do the same in the brains of 34 depressed individuals, the gene activity was off by hours. The cells looked as if it were an entirely different time of day.

"There really was a moment of discovery," says Li, who led the analysis of the massive amount of data generated by the rest of the team and is a research assistant professor in U-M's Department of Computational Medicine at Bioinformatics. "It was when we realized that many of the genes that show 24-hour cycles in the normal individuals were well-known circadian rhythm genes -- and when we saw that the people with depression were not synchronized to the usual solar day in terms of this gene activity. It's as if they were living in a different time zone than the one they died in."

Huda Akil, Ph.D., the co-director of the U-M Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute and co-director of the U-M site of the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium, notes that the findings go beyond previous research on circadian rhythms, using animals or human skin cells, which were more easily accessible than human brain tissues.

"Hundreds of new genes that are very sensitive to circadian rhythms emerged from this research -- not just the primary clock genes that have been studied in animals or cell cultures, but other genes whose activity rises and falls throughout the day," she says. "We were truly able to watch the daily rhythm play out in a symphony of biological activity, by studying where the clock had stopped at the time of death. And then, in depressed people, we could see how this was disrupted."

Now, she adds, scientists must use this information to help find new ways to predict depression, fine-tune treatment for each depressed patient, and even find new medications or other types of treatment to develop and test. One possibility, she notes, could be to identify biomarkers for depression -- telltale molecules that can be detected in blood, skin or hair.

And, the challenge of determining why the circadian clock is altered in depression still remains. "We can only glimpse the possibility that the disruption seen in depression may have more than one cause. We need to learn more about whether something in the nature of the clock itself is affected, because if you could fix the clock you might be able to help people get better," Akil notes.

The team continues to mine their data for new findings, and to probe additional brains as they are donated and dissected. The high quality of the brains, and the data gathered about how their donors lived and died, is essential to the project, Akil says. Even the pH level of the tissue, which can be affected by the dying process and the time between death and freezing tissue for research, can affect the results. The team also will have access to blood and hair samples from new donors.

The researchers note that the Pritzker funding in combination with federal research funding made it possible for the scientists to study this issue in an exploratory way. The research was historically funded by a Conte Center grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, and partly funded by the William Lion Penzner Foundation, the Della Martin Foundation, the Office of Naval Research (N00014-09-1-059 and N00014-12-1-0366), the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression's Abramson Family Foundation Investigator Award, and an International Mental Health Research Organization -- Johnson & Johnson Rising Star Translational Research Award.

The work was funded in large part by the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Fund, and involved researchers from the University of Michigan, University of California's Irvine and Davis campuses, Weill Cornell Medical College, the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, and Stanford University.

In addition to Li and Akil, the study's authors are Blynn G. Bunney, Fan Meng, Megan H. Hagenauer, David M. Walsh, Marquis P. Vawter, Simon J. Evans, Prabakhara V. Choudary, Preston Cartagena, Jack D. Barchas, Alan F. Schatzberg, the late Edward G. Jones, Richard M. Myers, U-M MBNI co-director Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and William E. Bunney.

TAG:Mental Health Research Brain Tumor Genes Depression Mental Health Intelligence

Brain frontal lobes not sole center of human intelligence, comparative research suggests

Brain frontal lobes not sole center of human intelligence, comparative research suggests

Research into the comparative size of the frontal lobes in humans and other species has determined that they are not -- as previously thought -- disproportionately enlarged relative to other areas of the brain, according to the most accurate and conclusive study of this area of the brain.

It concludes that the size of our frontal lobes cannot solely account for humans' superior cognitive abilities.

The study by Durham and Reading universities suggests that supposedly more 'primitive' areas, such as the cerebellum, were equally important in the expansion of the human brain. These areas may therefore play unexpectedly important roles in human cognition and its disorders, such as autism and dyslexia, say the researchers.

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today.

The frontal lobes are an area in the brain of mammals located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere, and are thought to be critical for advanced intelligence.

Lead author Professor Robert Barton from the Department of Anthropology at Durham University, said: "Probably the most widespread assumption about how the human brain evolved is that size increase was concentrated in the frontal lobes.

"It has been thought that frontal lobe expansion was particularly crucial to the development of modern human behaviour, thought and language, and that it is our bulging frontal lobes that truly make us human. We show that this is untrue: human frontal lobes are exactly the size expected for a non-human brain scaled up to human size.

"This means that areas traditionally considered to be more primitive were just as important during our evolution. These other areas should now get more attention. In fact there is already some evidence that damage to the cerebellum, for example, is a factor in disorders such as autism and dyslexia."

The scientists argue that many of our high-level abilities are carried out by more extensive brain networks linking many different areas of the brain. They suggest it may be the structure of these extended networks more than the size of any isolated brain region that is critical for cognitive functioning.

Previously, various studies have been conducted to try and establish whether humans' frontal lobes are disproportionately enlarged compared to their size in other primates such as apes and monkeys. They have resulted in a confused picture with use of different methods and measurements leading to inconsistent findings.

TAG:Neuroscience Intelligence Language Acquisition Mice Behavioral Science Nature

Grammar errors? The brain detects them even when you are unaware

Grammar errors? The brain detects them even when you are unaware

Participants in the study -- native-English speaking people, ages 18-30 -- had their brain activity recorded using electroencephalography, from which researchers focused on a signal known as the Event-Related Potential (ERP). This non-invasive technique allows for the capture of changes in brain electrical activity during an event. In this case, events were short sentences presented visually one word at a time.

Subjects were given 280 experimental sentences, including some that were syntactically (grammatically) correct and others containing grammatical errors, such as "We drank Lisa's brandy by the fire in the lobby," or "We drank Lisa's by brandy the fire in the lobby." A 50 millisecond audio tone was also played at some point in each sentence. A tone appeared before or after a grammatical faux pas was presented. The auditory distraction also appeared in grammatically correct sentences.

This approach, said lead author Laura Batterink, a postdoctoral researcher, provided a signature of whether awareness was at work during processing of the errors. "Participants had to respond to the tone as quickly as they could, indicating if its pitch was low, medium or high," she said. "The grammatical violations were fully visible to participants, but because they had to complete this extra task, they were often not consciously aware of the violations. They would read the sentence and have to indicate if it was correct or incorrect. If the tone was played immediately before the grammatical violation, they were more likely to say the sentence was correct even it wasn't."

When tones appeared after grammatical errors, subjects detected 89 percent of the errors. In cases where subjects correctly declared errors in sentences, the researchers found a P600 effect, an ERP response in which the error is recognized and corrected on the fly to make sense of the sentence.

When the tones appear before the grammatical errors, subjects detected only 51 percent of them. The tone before the event, said co-author Helen J. Neville, who holds the UO's Robert and Beverly Lewis Endowed Chair in psychology, created a blink in their attention. The key to conscious awareness, she said, is based on whether or not a person can declare an error, and the tones disrupted participants' ability to declare the errors. But, even when the participants did not notice these errors, their brains responded to them, generating an early negative ERP response. These undetected errors also delayed participants' reaction times to the tones.

"Even when you don't pick up on a syntactic error your brain is still picking up on it," Batterink said. "There is a brain mechanism recognizing it and reacting to it, processing it unconsciously so you understand it properly."

The study was published in the May 8 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

The brain processes syntactic information implicitly, in the absence of awareness, the authors concluded. "While other aspects of language, such as semantics and phonology, can also be processed implicitly, the present data represent the first direct evidence that implicit mechanisms also play a role in the processing of syntax, the core computational component of language."

It may be time to reconsider some teaching strategies, especially how adults are taught a second language, said Neville, a member of the UO's Institute of Neuroscience and director of the UO's Brain Development Lab.

Children, she noted, often pick up grammar rules implicitly through routine daily interactions with parents or peers, simply hearing and processing new words and their usage before any formal instruction. She likened such learning to "Jabberwocky," the nonsense poem introduced by writer Lewis Carroll in 1871 in "Through the Looking Glass," where Alice discovers a book in an unrecognizable language that turns out to be written inversely and readable in a mirror.

For a second language, she said, "Teach grammatical rules implicitly, without any semantics at all, like with jabberwocky. Get them to listen to jabberwocky, like a child does."

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health supported the research (grant 5R01DC000128).

TAG:Language Acquisition Perception Intelligence Child Development Neuroscience Brain Injury

Reversing paralysis with a restorative gel

Reversing paralysis with a restorative gel

Now a team of Tel Aviv University researchers, including Dr. Shimon Rochkind of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Prof. Zvi Nevo of TAU's Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, has invented a method for repairing damaged peripheral nerves. Through a biodegradable implant in combination with a newly-developed Guiding Regeneration Gel (GRG) that increases nerve growth and healing, the functionality of a torn or damaged nerve could ultimately be restored.

This innovative project is now gaining international recognition. Its initial successes were reported at several recent scientific congresses, including the World Federation of Neurological Societies and the European Neurological Society. And the therapy, already tested in animal models, is only a few years away from clinical use, says Dr. Rochkind.

Like healing in the womb

A nerve is like an electrical cable. When severed or otherwise damaged, power can no longer be transferred and the cable loses its functionality. Similarly, a damaged nerve loses the ability to transfer signals for movement and feeling through the nervous system.

But Dr. Rochkind and Prof. Nevo found a way to breach the gap. In their method, two severed ends of a damaged nerve are reconnected by implanting a soft, biodegradable tube, which serves as a bridge to help the nerve ends connect. The innovative gel which lines the inside of the tube nurtures nerve fibers' growth, encouraging the nerve to reconnect the severed ends through the tube, even in cases with massive nerve damage, Dr. Rochkind says.

The key lies in the composition of the gel, the researchers say, which has three main components: anti-oxidants, which exhibit high anti-inflammatory activities; synthetic laminin peptides, which act as a railway or track for the nerve fibers to grow along; and hyaluronic acid, commonly found in the human fetus, which serves as a buffer against drying, a major danger for most implants. These components allow the nerve to heal the way a fetus does in the womb -- quickly and smoothly.

Keeping cells safe for transplant

The implant has already been tested in animal models, and the gel by itself can be used as a stand-alone product, acting as an aid to cell therapy. GRG is not only able to preserve cells, it can support their survival while being used for therapy and transplantation, says Dr. Rochkind. When grown in the gel, cells show excellent development, as well as intensive fiber growth. This could have implications for the treatment of diseases such as Parkinson's, for which researchers are actively exploring cell therapy as a potential solution.

TAG:Neuropathy Nervous System Disability Brain Injury Dementia Depression

‘Sentrollers’ taking over from ‘People’ as the majority population on the Internet, says GreenPeak Technologies

‘Sentrollers’ taking over from ‘People’ as the majority population on the Internet, says GreenPeak Technologies

GreenPeak Technologies has released a white paper called “Sentrollers and the Internet of Things” where it defines Sentrollers as a new, all-encompassing term for sensors, actuators and controllers – the various devices that make up the new Internet of Things.

The white paper also describes the important role of ZigBee, the technology of choice for the Smart Home, as the crucial enabler for the development of the Internet of Things.

Most of the end-nodes on the internet today are people using PCs, laptops and smart phones. However this is rapidly changing as more devices in the home are connecting to the internet, building the Smart Home, and starting to shift the balance away from people towards connected things.

These devices are usually sensors, controllers, actuators or combinations that together, can be considered as “Sentrollers”. For instance: a thermostat senses the temperature, compares this with a desired temperature and activates a heater or air conditioner, controlling, essentially “sentrolling”, the temperature. The Smart Home will also accelerate the use of sentrollers beyond the home: in building automation, for the smart grid, and from there in logistical, industrial and agricultural applications.

Multi-Service Operators (MSOs) are driving the Smart Home applications already through their service offerings, like security, energy management and home care. The number of devices connecting to the internet is steadily growing by several millions per week – a quiet revolution going on. The wireless access technology for the Smart Home is ZigBee, the open worldwide IEEE standard, equivalent to WiFi.

WiFi guarantees reliable high data rate connectivity for content sharing and distribution. ZigBee, with its low power and meshing capabilities is ideally suited as access technology for “sentrollers” processing low data rate communication packets from these wireless devices on life-long batteries. Just like WiFi was a real milestone starting the use of internet at home, the Internet of Things with ZigBee has started at home as well, enabling the next wave in the technology revolution.

“The number of things connected to the internet will soon surpass the number of people and in the future sentrollers will dominate the Internet of Things.” says Cees Links, Founder and CEO of GreenPeak Technologies. “Industry analysts predict factors of 100 things for 1 person when the Internet of People transforms into the Internet of Things. In the same way as WiFi today is synonymous for wireless internet (of People), ZigBee is becoming synonymous for the wireless Internet of Things, making it possible for “any-Thing” to seamlessly connect to the Internet without worries about power or battery life.”

The white paper on “Sentrollers and the Internet of Things” is available for download from the GreenPeak website and explains how ZigBee wireless technology plays a crucial role in the foundation and establishment of the Internet of Things.

Visit GreenPeak Technologies at www.greenpeak.com

This article originally appeared on EE Times Europe.

TAG:Sentrollers Internet of Things sensors controllers white paper ZigBee smart home Greenpeak

Micromachining: Inclinations sounded out

Micromachining: Inclinations sounded out

Echolocation is a powerful technique that uses sound or ultrasound waves to locate objects and surfaces. Ships and submarines, for example, use it to avoid collisions, and dolphins and microbats use it to locate prey (see image). Hongbin Yu and co-workers from the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics, Singapore, have now used echolocation to measure the inclination of millimeter-sized ultrasonic sensors. In this new setting, their technique should extend the capabilities of devices that already use ultrasonic components, whether for locating defects in materials, visualizing anatomical structures or determining range.

Yu and his co-workers built on the success that so-called 'capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers' (CMUTs) have achieved over the past decade in generating and detecting ultrasound signals. These devices are fabricated using silicon micromachining technology, so the components are very compact and can be conveniently integrated with standard electronics components, which are also based on silicon.

"Our main goal was to explore a new application of the CMUT device," says Yu. Consequently, the researchers harnessed these ultrasonic components for measuring tilt angles. They used three micromachined CMUTs -- two senders and a common receiver -- each measuring less than a tenth of a millimeter across. To test this array, they immersed it in a bath filled with oil. As they tilted the device, the oil surface stayed level -- in the same manner that the water surface in a tilted glass would remain horizontal. However, the distances between the surface and the sensors at the bottom changed such that one sensor became closer to the surface than the other.

By measuring how long it took the ultrasound waves to travel from each of the senders to the receiver, via the oil surface where the waves were reflected, Yu and his co-workers could accurately determine the distances between the sensors and the surface. They could then calculate the tilt angle that the CMUT array had relative to the oil surface.

As many devices already contain ultrasonic components, the new sensor should be useful in a number of applications, according to Yu. "As one example, in an automotive robotic arm equipped with ultrasound transducers for fault detection, a tilt-sensing function should help improve the arm-control accuracy without greatly increasing the complexity of the device," he explains.

Other areas where tilt-angle measurements are important include level determination for instrumentation and motion-state monitoring. With the team's innovation, such functionality may now be added to ultrasonic medical-imaging and non-destructive materials-testing devices.

TAG:Detectors Electronics Ultrasound Medical Technology Nature of Water Technology

Terahertz technology: Seeing more with less

Terahertz technology: Seeing more with less

May 13, 2013 — Single-chip integration of the components needed for sending and receiving terahertz radiation should help applications in imaging and communication

Terahertz technology is an emerging field that promises to improve a host of useful applications, ranging from passenger scanning at airports to huge digital data transfers. Terahertz radiation sits between the frequency bands of microwaves and infrared radiation, and it can easily penetrate many materials, including biological tissue. The energy carried by terahertz radiation is low enough to pose no risk to the subject or object under investigation.

Before terahertz technology can take off on a large scale, however, developers need new kinds of devices that can send and receive radiation in this frequency range. Worldwide, electronic engineers are developing such devices. Now, Sanming Hu and co-workers from the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics (IME), Singapore, have designed novel circuits and antennas for terahertz radiation and efficiently integrated these components into a transmitter-receiver unit on a single chip. Measuring just a few millimeters across, this area is substantially smaller than the size of current commercial devices. As such, it represents an important step towards the development of practical terahertz technologies.

Hu and his co-workers based their terahertz design on a fabrication technology known as BiCMOS, which enables full integration of devices on a single chip of only a few cubic millimeters in size. "Currently, commercial products for terahertz technologies use discrete modules that are assembled into a device," explains Hu. These module-based devices tend to be considerably more bulky than fully integrated systems.

"In a commercial terahertz transmitter-receiver unit, the central module alone measures typically around 190 by 80 by 65 millimeters, which is roughly 1 million cubic millimeters," says Hu. The novel design of Hu's team unites the essential components of a terahertz device in a smaller two-dimensional area of just a few millimeters along each side. According to Hu and his co-workers, this compact device paves the way towards the mass production of a fully integrated terahertz system.

As the next step, the team will use the IME's cutting-edge technologies to build more complex structures composed of several two-dimensional layers, which will be based on their new designs. Although the team is not pursuing any specific applications, their devices potentially open up a wide range of possibilities. These include wireless short-range transfers of data sets -- the content of a Blu-ray disc could be sent in as little as a few seconds, for example -- high-resolution biosensing, risk-free screening of patients and passengers, and see-through-envelope imaging (see image).

TAG:Technology Electronics Medical Technology Aviation Biometric Batteries