Milky Way's black hole pulling in gas cloud

July 19, 2013, An ill-fated gas cloud has begun a close encounter with the monstrous black hole at the center of the Milky Way, a fresh set of observations reveals. Astronomers don’t expect the cloud to emerge intact, resulting in an unprecedented view of our galaxy’s largest black hole feasting on its prey.

In December 2011, astronomers identified the gas cloud, called G2, and found that its orbit would bring it perilously close to the Milky Way’s central black hole by mid-2013. Nineteen months ago, the immense gravity of the black hole, which weighs in at about 4.3 million times the mass of the sun, was already squeezing and stretching the gas cloud as if it were pasta dough.
Now images captured in April with the Very Large Telescope in Chile show that the leading edge of G2 has whipped around the black hole’s far side. “The line of sight is such that the gas cloud is falling away from us toward the black hole,” says Stefan Gillessen of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. “Some material swung by the back side of the black hole and is now flying toward us.”
“If you think of the cloud as a roller coaster train, the first carriage has already swung by the black hole,” Gillessen says. “The main part of the train is still in approach.”
The gas cloud is whizzing through space at up to 3,000 kilometers per second, 100 times the speed at which Earth orbits the sun and a whopping 1 percent of the speed of light. In just a few months, the black hole has not only accelerated the cloud to those speeds, but reversed the motion of the front side a full 180 degrees. The findings will appear in an upcoming Astrophysical Journal.
Gillessen and his team also found that the black hole has stretched G2 to twice its length last year. As a result, the researchers predict that the bulk of the cloud won’t make its closest approach to the black hole until early next year. When that happens, telescopes around the world will point at the galactic center to capture the drama.
Dimitrios Giannios, an astrophysicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., does not expect G2 to survive its encounter with the galaxy’s central black hole.  The cloud will probably fade from view in coming months as it continues to stretch out, he says. But its remnants might gradually get funneled into the black hole within a few decades, culminating in a rare bright display as they approach the point of no return. “It would be a last echo of the death of this cloud,” he says.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/351747/description/Milky_Ways_black_hole_pulling_in_gas_cloud

Microchips That Mimic the Brain

 

July 22, 2013 — Novel microchips imitate the brain's information processing in real time. Neuroinformatics researchers from the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich together with colleagues from the EU and US demonstrate how complex cognitive abilities can be incorporated into electronic systems made with so-called neuromorphic chips: They show how to assemble and configure these electronic systems to function in a way similar to an actual brain.

No computer works as efficiently as the human brain -- so much so that building an artificial brain is the goal of many scientists. Neuroinformatics researchers from the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich have now made a breakthrough in this direction by understanding how to configure so-called neuromorphic chips to imitate the brain's information processing abilities in real-time. They demonstrated this by building an artificial sensory processing system that exhibits cognitive abilities.

New approach: simulating biological neurons
Most approaches in neuroinformatics are limited to the development of neural network models on conventional computers or aim to simulate complex nerve networks on supercomputers. Few pursue the Zurich researchers' approach to develop electronic circuits that are comparable to a real brain in terms of size, speed, and energy consumption. "Our goal is to emulate the properties of biological neurons and synapses directly on microchips," explains Giacomo Indiveri, a professor at the Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI), of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich.
The major challenge was to configure networks made of artificial, i.e. neuromorphic, neurons in such a way that they can perform particular tasks, which the researchers have now succeeded in doing: They developed a neuromorphic system that can carry out complex sensorimotor tasks in real time. They demonstrate a task that requires a short-term memory and context-dependent decision-making -- typical traits that are necessary for cognitive tests. In doing so, the INI team combined neuromorphic neurons into networks that implemented neural processing modules equivalent to so-called "finite-state machines" -- a mathematical concept to describe logical processes or computer programs. Behavior can be formulated as a "finite-state machine" and thus transferred to the neuromorphic hardware in an automated manner. "The network connectivity patterns closely resemble structures that are also found in mammalian brains," says Indiveri.
Chips can be configured for any behavior modes
The scientists thus demonstrate for the first time how a real-time hardware neural-processing system where the user dictates the behavior can be constructed. "Thanks to our method, neuromorphic chips can be configured for a large class of behavior modes. Our results are pivotal for the development of new brain-inspired technologies," Indiveri sums up. One application, for instance, might be to combine the chips with sensory neuromorphic components, such as an artificial cochlea or retina, to create complex cognitive systems that interact with their surroundings in real time.

Source:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130722152705.htm  

Facebook for Molecules

Social media has expanded to reach an unlikely new target: molecules. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created networks of molecular data similar to Facebook's recently debuted graph search feature. While graph search would allow Facebook users to find all their New York-living, beer-drinking buddies in one quick search, the NIST-designed networks could help scientists rapidly sift through enormous chemical and biological data sets to find substances with specific properties, for example all 5-ring chemicals with an affinity for enzyme A. The search approach could help speed up the development of new drugs and designer materials.

The NIST team will present their research at the upcoming American Crystallographic Association Meeting, held July 20-24 in Honolulu.
Choosing the Right Words
Molecules don't maintain their own online profiles, so a key challenge for the NIST research team was to develop a standard language for scientists to describe their research subjects. For example, one research group may describe a material's properties as glassy while another team might use the word vitreous, even though the two words have the same meaning, explained Ursula Kattner, a researcher in the Materials Science and Engineering Division at NIST.
One approach to the problem could be to define a standard set of words, but NIST scientists opted for a more flexible approach that could evolve with time. The search language they developed is similar to Indo-European languages like Sanskrit and Latin, which use short roots to build words based on a set of rules, said Talapady Bhat, a research chemist at NIST who has been leading the effort to develop a shared vocabulary for NIST's scientific databases. He gives the example of the Sanskrit word "yoga," which is based on the roots "Y(uj)," which means to join, "O," which means creator, God, or brain, and "Ga," which means motion or initiation. Similarly, scientists could take the three simple root words "red," "laser," and "light," and combine them into a single compound word "red-laser-light" that conveys a new concept. Using the root and rule-based approach will mean that scientists who know the roots can figure out the meaning of unfamiliar terms, and it also gives scientists flexibility to develop easily understandable new terms in the future.
The NIST team has already applied their root-based vocabulary rules to the chemical structures in PubChem, a "monstrous database" of millions of compounds and chemical substances, to the world wide protein data bank (PDB), and to specific NIST-based databases, said John Elliot, a biophysicist and another member of the team. While the scientific databases haven't reached a Facebook-like level of more than a billion users, they are actively used by many scientists in the NIST community and beyond.
Graphing Relationships
Once the preliminary vocabulary was established, the NIST team also worked to categorize the descriptions of molecules and scientific experiments in a hierarchical fashion that would allow a search to return comprehensive, yet precise results. A common problem with many search approaches is that they get too many results, said Elliot. Elliot described his team's approach as similar to the problem of locating the Doritos in a large Walmart store. "First you find the grocery market section, then the next level of hierarchy is snacks, after which you go to the chips section, and then you'll quickly know if they have Doritos or not," said Elliot. "So even if a store has a million products, you can find out if they have your product really quickly." The team said the hierarchical approach could also guide scientists who need to pick out key words to index in their research papers.
Organizing the huge amounts of data generated by science is a big challenge, the team said, but it has potentially huge payoffs. Effective graph searches could allow scientists to rapidly identify chemical structures and properties that are needed for the development of new drug agents or advanced materials (such as high efficiency jet turbines or flexible solar cells), results more than worthy of a Facebook like.

More Information: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130718161358.htm

Leaf Tailed Gecko

The Satanic Leaf Tailed Gecko, is a species of gecko indigenous to the island of Madagascar. First described in 1888 by George Albert Boulenger, It is the smallest in body of the Uroplatus geckos, though there is an ongoing debate as to whether one of its cousins, It is smaller because of its shorter tail. It may also be known as the eyelash leaf tailed gecko or the fantastic leaf tailed gecko.

The species is endemic to Madagascar, meaning it is found nowhere else. It is an arboreal species that relies on its natural camouflage in the northern and central tropical forests of Madagascar.
Its adult size is 2.5 to 6 inches in total length, including the tail. As with all Uroplatus geckos the tail is flattened, but the leaf-like appearance is only seen in the ebenaui complex (U. phantasticus, U. ebenaui, and U. malama; although the tail size is much reduced in U. ebenaui). It has often been debated whether U. phantasticus is in fact the same species as U. ebenaui (the Nosy Bé flat-tailed gecko). However U. phantasticus possesses more, and longer, spines on the head, body and trunk.Other members of the genus Uroplatus have flattened tails that serve more to diminish the profile of the gecko while it is inactive. Some U. phantasticus geckos even have notches in their tails to further mimic a decaying leaf.This is also thought to be a form of sexual dimorphism, as the trait seems more common in the males of the species. In addition, U. phantasticus has an eyelash-like projection above each eye. During daylight hours, these adaptations help the gecko blend into its surroundings. At night it helps the gecko hunt for prey by providing camouflage.
Geckos possess no eyelids, just a transparent covering over their eyes, and so they use their long, mobile tongues to wipe away any dust or debris that gets into the eye.
The gecko occurs in a variety of colors, including hues of purple, orange, tan and yellow, but is often mottled brown, with small black dots on the underside that help to distinguish it from similar species.

Cat Poop Spread Parasites

Be careful next time you change the kitty litter — cat poop can carry a nefarious parasite that may be much more widespread than thought, researchers say.
Cats in the United States release about 2.6 billion pounds (1.2 million metric tons) of feces into the environment every year. Cat dung carries the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, a single-celled organism that creates infectious agents called oocysts. These oocysts can infect pregnant women, causing congenital problems in the baby such as deafness, seizures, eye damage and mental retardation. The parasite also infects people with compromised immune systems, such as those with HIV/AIDS.
After reviewing past studies on the parasite, a team of researchers believes the Toxoplasma parasite may be a significant public health problem, infecting people who are otherwise healthy. Other studies have even linked the parasite to schizophrenia, depression, suicidal behavior and lower school achievement in children.
In the last five years, researchers have studied how long the Toxoplasmaoocysts remain viable. "What happens to these oocysts in children's play areas?" said study researcher E. Fuller Torrey, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Chevy Chase, Md. "I put together the data we have and found it disturbing."
Troubling trend
Torrey and his colleagues reviewed studies of the parasite. The number of cats in the United States is growing — pet cats increased from 55 million to 80 million from 1989 to 2006, and the number of feral cats is estimated at between 25 million and 60 million. Studies show that approximately 1 percent of cats shed the infectious oocysts at any given time. These oocysts can survive for at least 18 months, and only a single one is needed to cause an infection, according to past research.
Other animals, like sheep and cattle, can also acquire the parasite by ingesting the infected cat feces. Humans can acquire it by eating raw or undercooked animals that are infected. In countries like France or Ethiopia, where raw food is common, the incidence of infections is much higher, Torrey told LiveScience. People also become infected through contaminated water supplies. It has long been known that the parasite can survive in cat litter, where the oocysts become aerosolized after 24 to 48 hours, Torrey said. Similarly, children could acquire the infection from playing in sandboxes, and gardeners could acquire it from vegetable patches, because cats often relieve themselves in these areas.
"It's a remarkably complex parasite. It's much more complicated than a virus, and has many more genes," Torrey said. The microbe is famously known to infect rats and change their behavior, causing them to be less afraid of the smell of cat urine. This makes it easier for the rats to be eaten by cats, returning the parasite to its host.
Parasite prevention
Treatments do exist, but none are very effective, Torrey said. Most people don't have long-term effects, but it's not clear why some do. Genetic predisposition or age at the time of infection could play a role, Torrey said.
More research is needed to understand the risks posed by the Toxoplasma parasite.  In the meantime, Torrey advocated controlling cat populations, especially feral ones. Children's sandboxes should be covered. Gardeners should wear gloves and wash their vegetables. And cat owners should dispose of cat litter properly — in the trash, not down a toilet (and pregnant women shouldn't change it at all).
"None of us are saying cats shouldn't be pets," Torrey said, but "there are some downsides to all pets, and some downsides to cats we should be aware of."