Official "Science News" Thread

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by only_human

Peaceful spiral galaxy hosts violent events

At the risk of being accused of piling-on the LAT's astronomy competence, I wish to note that in the body of the article is:

It was notable mostly for lying face-on to the Earth, which provides an excellent view of its spiral arms.

but the caption of the photo at top says (my boldface):

is notable mostly for lying edge-on to the Earth, which provides an excellent view of its spiral arms.

It looks to me like the galaxy is at perhaps a 50-degree angle to us, rather than 90-degree fully face-on. (Measure the disk ellipse's shortest and longest widths, then find the arcsine of the ratio.) This _might_ provide a basis for the conflicting descriptions ... but, nahh.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

At the risk of being accused of piling-on the LAT's astronomy competence, I wish to note that in the body of the article is:
but the caption of the photo at top says (my boldface):
It looks to me like the galaxy is at perhaps a 50-degree angle to us, rather than 90-degree fully face-on. (Measure the disk ellipse's shortest and longest widths, then find the arcsine of the ratio.) This _might_ provide a basis for the conflicting descriptions ... but, nahh.

The article is vague. First he implies that there are only two types of supernovae (NOT!) Then he states that the larger star in a binary system is also the more massive star.

Alternatively, they [Supernovae] can also occur in a binary star system when a carbon-oxygen white dwarf pulls so much matter from a higher-mass companion star that the larger star collapses on itself.

The white dwarf may have lost mass along the way to becoming a white dwarf but as he describes it, it is now taking mass from the companion star. I think he chose the term higher-mass to avoid repeating the word larger. I have no idea what the mass distribution statistics for binary star systems are but I do not like the implicit assumption the companion star is the more massive. Maybe it is the more massive for type Ib supernovae. I don't like that at least two other types of binary system supernovae are breezed past.

I just looked at the comments:

10:12 AM August 01, 2012
In the article entitled "Peaceful spiral galaxy hosts violent events", you wrote that it is the larger star that explodes but it thought that this type of supernova occurs when the smaller white dwarf accrete enough matter from the companion star to exceed the Chandrasekhar limit so that the white dwarf explodes.
Alan S. Ziegler

There is that way; but carbon ignition might happen first. Wikipedia says that the Chandrasekhar limit might not be exceeded:

However, the current view is that this limit is not normally attained; increasing temperature and density inside the core ignite carbon fusion as the star approaches the limit (to within about 1%[49]), before collapse is initiated.[46] Within a few seconds, a substantial fraction of the matter in the white dwarf undergoes nuclear fusion, releasing enough energy (1–2 × 1044 joules)[50] to unbind the star in a supernova explosion.

But here is another binary star method:

Non-standard Type Ia
Another model for the formation of a Type Ia explosion involves the merger of two white dwarf stars, with the combined mass momentarily exceeding the Chandrasekhar limit.

[only_human]

I couldn't resist peeking at an LA Times Science article today. The title was cool:
Can Bruce Willis save us from asteroid 'Armageddon'? Not likely
I only glanced; I wasn't looking for trouble. Honest.

Ben Hall, Gregory Brown, Ashley Back and Stuart Turner devised a formula to calculate how much energy would be needed to split an asteroid of the size depicted in the film. They reported in two related papers in the University of Leicester Journal of Special Physical Topics that it would require 800 trillion terajoules of energy to split the asteroid in two with both pieces clearing the planet. Unfortunately, the largest nuclear bomb known, a Russian monster known as Big Ivan, yields only 418,000 joules. Hence, they said, the project would require a bomb a billion times as powerful to save the Earth.

"418,000 joules." Now, even I know that a joule is a small amount of energy. So I looked at the first of the two mentioned original papers: Journal of Physics Special Topics: P1_1 Could Bruce Willis Save the World?

The bomb in question is known as Big Ivan or the Tsar Bomba, effectively King of Bombs, made by the Soviet military and tested on October 30th 1961. It had an overall yield of 50 megatons [3], though it was designed to allow for 100 megatons. A simple conversion may be made between yield and the energy of the explosion, namely 1 megaton = 4.18 petajoules [4]. Thus the total energy output of the bomb at maximum yield is approximately 4.18 x 10¹⁷J .

WOW! Instead of the number 4.18 x 10¹⁷J the newspaper uses 4.18 x 10⁵J. I'm just saying. I imagine this will be fixed ultra posthaste.

[axn]

A small typo in the unit used -- joule instead of terajoule. Meh.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by axn

A small typo in the unit used -- joule instead of terajoule. Meh.

Maybe so. In addition to the omitted word, if they truly want a reader to be able to compare numbers they shouldn't mix trailing zeros and number words.

Instead of "800 trillion terajoules ... [versus] 418,000 [tera]joules," A better direct comparison would be: 800 Billion petajoules versus 418 petajoules.

edit:
I now agree you are right. "meh." It really is mostly semantics after fixing the omitted word.

edit 2: I even more completely agree (pardon my execrable phrasing) after deciding that completely reversing my earlier opinion about trailing zeroes might actually be better:
800,000,000,000 petajoules versus 418 petajoules

[only_human]

Originally Posted by axn

A small typo in the unit used -- joule instead of terajoule. Meh.

I emailed him about the typo last night and it is fixed now.

[ewmayer]

Diabetes May Be Reversed by Long-Used Vaccine for TB

A tuberculosis vaccine that has been in use for 90 years may help reverse Type 1 diabetes and eliminate the life-long need for insulin injections, results from an early study by Harvard University researchers suggest.

The kicker? Big Pharma is not interested in cures - little money in that:

Faustman and her colleagues at Massachusetts General inBoston are working to get the vaccine to market. After their early findings in studies with mice, she said they tried to interest every major drugmaker in developing the vaccine as a possible cure for diabetes. All told her there wasn’t enough money to be made in a cure that used an inexpensive, generically available vaccine, Faustman said.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Diabetes May Be Reversed by Long-Used Vaccine for TB

The kicker? Big Pharma is not interested in cures - little money in that:

Hard to say how helpful this will be. Linda had type I diabetes so I've been in the habit of reading news in this area and spotted this article earlier today. My thoughts are that messing with TNF might not be a simple solution. Maybe stimulating extra TNF with people who are already are in this problem group will be a net gain but I know for a fact that too much TNF is a problem too: One ulcerative colitis treatment (Resveratrol) specifically targets (suppresses) TNF with monoclonal antibodies.

This needs funding and pharma isn't stepping in, as you say. But because they want funding they are saying all the positive things. I think in the 90 years that this vaccine has been in use, there would have been anecdotal improvements of Type I diabetics who had gotten the vaccine for T.B. One thing that these diabetics are told, as the article mentions, is that their insulin producing cells have been destroyed; that may be disputable but I have to think that it is close to the truth. I've never heard of any Type I patients improving (out of all the different things what happen to peoples immune systems over life). I think it might be like brain cells. For years the received wisdom was there were no new cells generated. Now we know that is not strictly true, but it is substantially true. I think the medical industry could see a path to investing in this if they tied this treatment to implanting new insulin producing cells too. So time will tell.

I take your point about big pharma and money interests. Medical use of honey for wound treatment is another one that only saw actual use because of the Iraq war. Now there is Medihoney so they found a way to make money from it.

[Dubslow]

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2...ring-test?lite

To anybody who thinks we should stop funding, let me remind you this is precisely what testing is for.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2...ring-test?lite

To anybody who thinks we should stop funding, let me remind you this is precisely what testing is for.

Link title:NASA lander blows up during test. OMG. Save me from a heart attack. It is not the rover that just landed on Mars. That one is doing tests too at the moment prior to getting down and dirty.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

...nasa-lander-blows-up-during-test...[/url]

Originally Posted by only_human

Link title:NASA lander blows up during test.

It is not a NASA lander. It is Armadillo Aerospace's lander. It was being tested at KSC. Most of the press coverage calls it a "NASA lander".