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| 3D Picture of Subhaditya Science News This Week |
Science News This Week:
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| This photo mosaic shows the scour mark, dubbed Goulburn, left by the thrusters on the sky crane that helped lower NASA's Curiosity rover to the Red Plane.It is located 16 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters) to the left of the rover's landing position. The sky crane appears to have uncovered an outcrop of loosely consolidated rocks during the rover's landing. The mosaic consists of six images from the remote micro-imager (RMI) on the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument, shown around an image from the Mast Camera for context. Each RMI image has a field of view of 4 to 5 inches (10 to 12 centimeters) across and shows details as small as 0.02 to 0.03 inches (0.5 to 0.6 millimeters). ChemCam's laser was used to analyze material at the centers of panels 2, 3 and 4. |
1) Mars
Surface Data: ChemCam Laser First Analyses Yield Beautiful Results:
Members
of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover ChemCam team, including Los
Alamos National Laboratory scientists, squeezed in a little extra target
practice after zapping the first fist-sized rock that was placed in the laser's
crosshairs last weekend.
Much to
the delight of the scientific team, the laser instrument has fired nearly 500
shots so far that have produced strong, clear data about the composition of the
Martian surface.
"The
spectrum we have received back from Curiosity is as good as anything we looked
at on Earth," said Los Alamos National Laboratory planetary scientist
Roger Wiens, Principal Investigator of the ChemCam Team. "The entire MSL
team was very excited about this and we popped a little champagne."
When
ChemCam fires its extremely powerful laser pulse, it briefly focuses the energy
of a million light bulbs onto an area the size of a pinhead. The laser blast
vaporizes a small amount of its target up to seven meters (23 feet) away. The
resultant flash of glowing plasma is viewed by the system's 4.3-inch aperture
telescope, which sends the light down an optical fiber to a spectrometer
located in the body of the rover. There, the colors of light from the flash are
recorded and then sent to Earth, enabling scientists to determine the elemental
composition of the vaporized material.
Scientists
tested the system on Earth in a chamber that simulated the Martian atmosphere.
Some of the initial spectral data from Mars look similar to some of the
terrestrial standards at first glance. In the coming weeks, ChemCam researchers
will pore over the data to look for tiny variations among the peaks and valleys
within spectral data captured on Earth and on Mars. These comparisons will
allow the team to fine tune and calibrate the instrument, ensuring that every
spectral signature gathered by the rover is accurate.
Each
element on the Periodic Table has a unique spectral signature. ChemCam
scientists will be able to use these spectral fingerprints to decipher the
composition of Martian geology, including information about whether Mars rocks
ever existed in a watery environment or underwent changes due to interactions
with biological organisms.
With
regard to Coronation rock (the rock formerly known as N-165), ChemCam's
inaugural target, "at first glance it appears consistent with a basaltic
composition," Wiens said.
"What's
more interesting, however, is whether the rock had dust on it or some other
kind of surface coating," he said. "ChemCam saw peaks of hydrogen and
magnesium during the first shots that we didn't see in subsequent firings. This
could mean the rock surface was coated with dust or some other material."
With
Coronation's analyses complete, the science team had a chance to pick new
targets. "After Coronation, we got to shoot at a group of ugly-looking
rocks in the area named 'Goulburn,'" Wiens said. "That is one of the
areas near the rover that was blasted by the thrusters of the landing vehicle,
but these rocks were much farther away from the rover than Coronation,
providing a bit more of a test for the ChemCam's laser."
The
ChemCam system is one of 10 instruments mounted on the MSL mission's Curiosity
rover -- a six-wheeled mobile laboratory that will roam more than 12 miles of
the planet's surface during the course of one Martian year (98 Earth weeks).
The system is designed to capture as many as 14,000 observations throughout the
mission.
"We
are just jubilant," Wiens said. "This mission is absolutely amazing.
Everything is working so well. The same applies to our instrument."
ChemCam's
laser, telescope, and camera were provided by the French space agency, CNES,
while the spectrometers, electronics, and software were built at Los Alamos
National Laboratory, which leads the investigation. The spectrometers were
developed with the aid of Ocean Optics, Incorporated, and Jet Propulsion
Laboratory assisted with various aspects of development.
The
Curiosity science team plans next to take the rover out for a short spin to
test out other systems. As the mission progresses, researchers will study the
Martian environment in the vicinity of Mount Sharp, a towering peak with a
summit nearly three miles above the rover. Mount Sharp appears to contain
layers of sedimentary history dating back several billion years. These layers
are like pages of a book that could teach researchers much about the geological
history of the planet, including whether the Martian environment ever was, or
ever may be, suitable for life as we know it.
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| Humans inherit more than three times as many mutations from their fathers as from their mothers, and mutation rates increase with the father's age but not the mother's, researchers have found in the largest study of human genetic mutations to date. |
2) Most
Mutations Come from Dad: New Insights Into Age, Height and Sex Reshape Views of
Human Evolution:
Humans
inherit more than three times as many mutations from their fathers as from their
mothers, and mutation rates increase with the father's age but not the
mother's, researchers have found in the largest study of human genetic
mutations to date.
The
study, based on the DNA of around 85,000 Icelanders, also calculates the rate
of human mutation at high resolution, providing estimates of when human
ancestors diverged from nonhuman primates. It is one of two papers published
this week by the journal Nature Genetics as well as one published at Nature
that shed dramatic new light on human evolution.
"Most
mutations come from dad," said David Reich, professor of genetics at
Harvard Medical School and a co-leader of the study. In addition to finding 3.3
paternal germline mutations for each maternal mutation, the study also found
that the mutation rate in fathers doubles from age 20 to 58 but that there is
no association with age in mothers -- a finding that may shed light on
conditions, such as autism, that correlate with the father's age.
The
study's first author is James Sun, a graduate student in Reich's lab who worked
with researchers from deCODE Genetics, a biopharma company based in Reykjavik,
Iceland, to analyze about 2,500 short sequences of DNA taken from 85,289
Icelanders in 24,832 father-mother-child trios. The sequences, called microsatellites,
vary in the number of times that they repeat, and are known to mutate at a
higher rate than average places in the genome.
Reich's
team identified 2,058 mutational changes, yielding a rate of mutation that
suggests human and chimpanzee ancestral populations diverged between 3.7
million and 6.6 million years ago.
A second
team, also based at deCODE Genetics (but not involving HMS researchers),
published a paper this week in Nature on a large-scale direct estimate of the
rate of single nucleotide substitutions in human genomes (a different type of
mutation process), and came to largely consistent findings.
The
finding complicates theories drawn from the fossil evidence. The upper bound,
6.6 million years, is less than the published date of Sahelanthropus
tchadensis, a fossil that has been interpreted to be a human ancestor since the
separation of chimpanzees, but is dated to around 7 million years old. The new
study suggests that this fossil may be incorrectly interpreted.
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| A runny nose and a wet cough caused by a cold or an allergy may not feel very good. But human airways rely on sticky mucus to expel foreign matter, including toxic and infectious agents from the body. |
3) Human
Lungs Brush out Intruders:
A runny
nose and a wet cough caused by a cold or an allergy may not feel very good. But
human airways rely on sticky mucus to expel foreign matter, including toxic and
infectious agents, from the body.
Now, a
study by Brian Button and colleagues from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, NC, helps to explain how human airways clear such mucus out of the
lungs. The findings may give researchers a better understanding of what goes
wrong in many human lung diseases, such as cystic fibrosis (CF), chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.
The
researchers' report appears in the 24 August issue of the journal Science.
"The
air we breathe isn't exactly clean, and we take in many dangerous elements with
every breath," explains Michael Rubinstein, a co-author of the Science
report. "We need a mechanism to remove all the junk we breathe in, and the
way it's done is with a very sticky gel called mucus that catches these
particles and removes them with the help of tiny cilia."
"The
cilia are constantly beating, even while we sleep," he says. "In a
coordinated fashion, they push mucus containing foreign objects out of the
lungs, and we either swallow it or spit it out. These cilia even beat for a few
hours after we die. If they stopped, we'd be flooded with mucus that provides a
fertile breeding ground for bacteria."
Until
now, most researchers have subscribed to a "gel-on-liquid" model of
mucus clearance, in which a watery "periciliary" layer acts as a
lubricant and separates mucus from epithelial cells that line human airways.
But this old explanation fails to explain how mucus remains in its own distinct
layer.
"We
can't have a watery layer separating sticky mucus from our cells because there
is an osmotic pressure in the mucus that causes it to expand in water,"
Rubinstein says. "So what is really keeping the mucus from sticking to our
cells?"
The
researchers used a combination of imaging techniques to observe a dense
meshwork in the periciliary layer of human bronchial epithelial cell cultures.
The brush-like layer consists of protective molecules that keep sticky mucus
from reaching the cilia and epithelial cells, thus ensuring the normal flow of
mucus.
Based on
their findings, Button and the other researchers propose a
"gel-on-brush" form of mucus clearance in which mucus moves atop a
brush-like periciliary layer instead of a watery one. They suggest that this
mechanism captures the physics of human mucus clearance more accurately.
"This
layer -- this brush -- seems to be very important for the healthy functioning
of human airways," according to Rubinstein. "It protects cells from
sticky mucus, and it creates a second barrier of defense in case viruses or
bacteria penetrate through the mucus. They would not penetrate through the
brush layer because the brush is denser."
"We
found that there is a specific condition, below which the brush is healthy and
cells are happy," Rubinstein explains. "But above this ideal
condition, in diseases like CF or COPD, the brush becomes compressed and
actually prevents the normal cilia beating and healthy flow of mucus."
The
researchers explain that, whenever the mucus layer gets too dense, it can crash
through the periciliary brush, collapse the cilia and stick to the cell
surface.
"The
collapse of this brush is what can lead to immobile mucus and result in
infection, inflammation and eventually the destruction of lung tissue and the
loss of lung function," says Rubinstein. "But our new model should
guide researchers to develop novel therapies to treat lung diseases and provide
them with biomarkers to track the effectiveness of those therapies."
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| Chimpanzee |
4)
Human-Chimp Genetic Differences: New Insights Into Why Humans Are More
Susceptible to Cancer and Other Diseases:
Ninety-six
percent of a chimpanzee's genome is the same as a human's. It's the other 4
percent, and the vast differences, that pique the interest of Georgia Tech's
Soojin Yi. For instance, why do humans have a high risk of cancer, even though
chimps rarely develop the disease?
In
research published in September's American Journal of Human Genetics, Yi looked
at brain samples of each species. She found that differences in certain DNA
modifications, called methylation, may contribute to phenotypic changes. The
results also hint that DNA methylation plays an important role for some
disease-related phenotypes in humans, including cancer and autism.
"Our
study indicates that certain human diseases may have evolutionary epigenetic
origins," says Yi, a faculty member in the School of Biology. "Such
findings, in the long term, may help to develop better therapeutic targets or
means for some human diseases. "
DNA
methylation modifies gene expression but doesn't change a cell's genetic
information. To understand how it differs between the two species, Yi and her
research team generated genome-wide methylation maps of the prefrontal cortex
of multiple humans and chimps. They found hundreds of genes that exhibit
significantly lower levels of methylation in the human brain than in the chimpanzee
brain. Most of them were promoters involved with protein binding and cellular
metabolic processes.
"This
list of genes includes disproportionately high numbers of those related to
diseases," said Yi. "They are linked to autism, neural-tube defects
and alcohol and other chemical dependencies. This suggests that methylation
differences between the species might have significant functional consequences.
They also might be linked to the evolution of our vulnerability to certain
diseases, including cancer."
Yi,
graduate student Jia Zeng and postdoctoral researcher Brendan Hunt worked with
a team of researchers from Emory University and UCLA. The Yerkes National
Primate Research Center provided the animal samples used in the study. It was
also funded by the Georgia Tech Fund for Innovation in Research and Education
(GT-FIRE) and National Science Foundation grants (MCB-0950896 and BCS-0751481).
The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigators and
does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.
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| The diagram shows the newly submitted transiting planets in green along with the unconfirmed planet candidates in the same system in violet. The systems are ordered horizontally by increasing Kepler number and KOI designation and vertically by orbital period |
5) More
Exoplanets Discovered: 41 New Transiting Planets in Kepler Field of View:
Two newly
submitted studies verify 41 new transiting planets in 20 star systems. These
results may increase the number of Kepler's confirmed planets by more than 50
percent: to 116 planets hosted in 67 systems, over half of which contain more
than one planet.
The
papers are currently under scientific peer-review.
Nineteen
of the newly validated planetary systems have two closely spaced transiting
planets and one system has three. Five of the systems are common to both of
these independent studies.
The
planets range from Earth-size to more than seven times the radius of Earth, but
generally orbit so close to their parent stars that they are hot, inhospitable
worlds.
The
planets were confirmed by analyzing Transit Timing Variations (TTVs). In
closely packed systems, the gravitational pull of the planets causes the
acceleration or deceleration of a planet along its orbit. These
"tugs" cause the orbital period of each planet to change from one
orbit to the next. TTV demonstrates that two transiting planet candidates are
in the same system and that their masses are planetary in nature.
"These
systems, with their large gravitational interactions, give us important clues
about how planetary systems form and evolve," said lead researcher Jason
Steffen, the Brinson postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle
Astrophysics in Batavia, Ill. "This information helps us understand how
our own solar system fits into the population of all planetary systems."
The two
research teams used data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, which measures
dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, to search for transiting
planets.
"The
sheer volume of planet candidates being identified by Kepler is inspiring teams
to look at the planet confirmation and characterization process differently.
This TTV confirmation technique can be applied to large numbers of systems
relatively quickly and with little or no follow-up observations from the
ground," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler mission scientist at NASA's Ames
Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "Perhaps the bottleneck between
identifying planet candidates and confirming them just got a little
wider."
Ames
Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler's ground system
development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission's
development.
Ball
Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight
system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and
Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
The Space
Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler
science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's
Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.
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| Astrocytes are small, star-shaped cells in the brain that act like the neuron's bodyguards, and because of that they play an important role in diseases of the central nervous system, including dementia. |
6)
Astrocytes Control the Generation of New Neurons from Neural Stem Cells:
Researchers
from the Laboratory of astrocyte biology and CNS regeneration headed by Prof.
Milos Pekny just published a research article in a journal Stem Cells on the
molecular mechanism that controls generation of new neurons in the brain.
Astrocytes
are cells that have many functions in the central nervous system, such as the
control of neuronal synapses, blood flow, or the brain's response to
neurotrauma or stroke.
 |
| This micrograph is of a section of brain stained using a Holzer stain. Although this stain is not routinely used in diagnostic pathology now, it demonstrates well the astrocytes with their many processes, giving them a star-shaped appearance |
Reduces
brain tissue damage
Prof.
Pekny's laboratory together with collaborators have earlier demonstrated that
astrocytes reduce the brain tissue damage after stroke and that the integration
of transplanted neural stem cells can be largely improved by modulating the
activity of astrocytes.
Generation
of new neurons
In their
current study, the Sahlgrenska Academy researchers show how astrocytes control
the generation of new neurons in the brain. An important contribution to this
project came from Åbo Academy, one of Sahlgrenska's traditional collaborative
partners.
"In
the brain, astrocytes control how many new neurons are formed from neural stem
cells and survive to integrate into the existing neuronal networks. Astrocytes
do this by secreting specific molecules but also by much less understood direct
cell-cell interactions with stem cells," says Prof. Milos Pekny.
Important
regulator
"Astrocytes
are in physical contact with neural stem cells and we have shown that they
signal through the Notch pathway to stem cells to keep the birth rate of new
neurons low. We have also shown that the intermediate filament system of
astrocytes is an important regulator of this process. It seems that astrocyte
intermediate filaments can be used as a target to increase the birthrate of new
neurons."
Target
for future therapies
"We
are starting to understand some of the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind
the control of neurogenesis. Neurogenesis is one of the components of brain
plasticity, which plays a role in the learning process as well as in the
recovery after brain injury or stroke. This work helps us to understand how
plasticity and regenerative response can be therapeutically promoted in the
future," says Prof. Milos Pekny.
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| 3D Picture of Subhaditya Sport News This Week |
Sports News
This Week:
 |
| R Ashwin scalped six wickets in the first innings |
1)
Cricket: Indian spinners strike in New Zealand Test:
Off-spinner
Ravichandran Ashwin grabbed a career-best 6-31 to help India gain a big lead on
the third day of the opening Test against New Zealand in Hyderabad on Saturday.
Left-arm
spinner Pragyan Ojha (3-44) was the other main wicket-taker as New Zealand were
bowled out for 159 in their first innings at the stroke of lunch in reply to
India's 438.
India,
who enforced the follow-on after taking a 279-run lead, reduced New Zealand to
41-1 in the second innings when tea was taken early due to bad light and rain
in the afternoon session.
Opener
Brendon McCullum was unbeaten on 16 and Kane Williamson was three not out at
the break.
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| Nehru Cup 2012 ,India beat Syria 2-1 in opener |
2)
Spirited Maldives await India in Nehru Cup:
Syria
were taken care of rather easily in the tournament opener, but a sterner test
awaits the Indian football team as it gets ready to face Maldives in the Nehru
Cup on Saturday.
The last
time the two teams met, in the semifinal of the SAFF Cup in December, India
eked out a comfortable 3-1 win, but going by their dominating display over
Nepal last night, Maldives seem to have made improvements in their game.
 |
| Prashant Chopra has been the most consistent batsman during the tournament with three fifties from five games. |
3) Under
19 Cricket World Cup 2012: India have potential to beat Australia in the final:
Unmukt
Chand and his boys are a step away from bagging the biggest prize there is for
young and upcoming cricketers. Following in the footsteps of his fellow Delhi
player Virat Kohli, Chand has led India into the final of the ICC Under-19
World Cup 2012 in Australia. While India’s senior players battle it out in a
Test match at Hyderabad, India’s under-19 stars lock horns with their
Australian counterparts for the trophy on Sunday. Indian fans have always taken
keen interest in the development of their young players at the tournament –
particularly since Mohammad Kaif and company lifted the trophy in the year
2000.
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| US doping agency erases Lance Armstrong's titles. |
4) US
doping agency erases Lance Armstrong's titles:
A day
after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency punished Armstrong with a lifetime ban from
professional cycling and erased 14 years of his career after concluding he used
performance-enhancing druugs, Armstrong is scheduled to ride in a mountain bike
race in Aspen, Colo., on Saturday and follow it up by running a marathon there
Sunday.
 |
| 3D Picture of Subhaditya Political News This Week |
Political
News This Week:
 |
| Coal Minister Shriprakash Jaiswal, left, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, center, and Law Minister Salman Khurshid, held a press conference in New Delhi on Aug. 24, 2012. |
1) BJP
sticks to demand for PM's resignation on 'coalgate' scam:
BJP stuck
to its demand for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's resignation on the 'coalgate'
scam and said it would not let Parliament function till he demits office owning
up responsibility.
"There
is no (no) question of the opposition letting off pressure on the Prime
Minister to quit his office as he has been squarely responsible for the Rs 1.86
lakh crore coal scam which has taken place right under his nose as he held the
coal portfolio for five years between 2005-09 in UPA I government," BJP
national spokesman Ravishankar Prasad today reporters here.
"The
Prime Minister's resignation was all the more warranted to give CBI - probing
the irregularities in coal blocks allotment - a free hand to carry out the
investigation as the agency directly functions under his command," he
said.
The CBI
will not be able to freely discharge its duties so long as Singh remained in
office as the agency will also probe his role in the capacity as the coal
minister, Prasad said.
Prasad
said that it was for the first time Singh has been implicated in a scam as he
headed the coal ministry during which the allotment of 145 coal blocks took
place.
He also
tore into Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram's defence of the UPA government
and the Prime Minister on the coal scam and said that the latter had committed
a mistake similar to his colleague Kapil Sibal in the 2G scam that later turned
out to be false.
On
Chidambaram's argument that there was no loss incurred in the coal block
allotment as mining did not place except in one block, Prasad said the
government had "cheated" the country and its people yet against as it
could not fulfill its promises of development in infrastructure sectors for
which coal blocks were allotted.
"He
(Chidambaram) is not the true in-charge of the treasury of the country if he
says that zero loss was incurred in the coal blocks allotment," the senior
BJP leader slamming Chidambaram for defending the government on the coal scam.
"Chidambaram is trying to mislead the country and its people."
There was
indeed huge loss incurred by the country in the coal scam as pointed out by the
CAG as the beneficiaries' companies' stocks skyrocketed after receiving coal
blocks meant for economic infrastructure like electricity, cement and steel, he
claimed.
"The
country could have earned huge revenues if these coal blocks were auctioned
after bidding instead of allotted without auction," Prasad said.
On the
UPA government's claims the coal blocks were allotted after approval by the
screening committee and the states owning them had vehemently opposed the
auction, Prasad said the Centre had rejected various recommendations made by
the state governments and the screening committee and went ahead with its own
decision to allot coal blocks to the private players without auction.
On UPA
government's yet another contention that Parliament was the appropriate forum
for debate in public matters and the Parliament's PAC constitutional body to
vet CAG reports, Prasad said that in the coal allotment scam there was nothing
to discuss as it has been established beyond doubt that the scam did take place
and that too when the Prime Minister himself was heading the ministry.
 |
| Indian-FM-P-Chidambaram. |
2) Clean
chit boost to Cong morale:
With
finance minister P. Chidambaram finally off the hook in the 2G case, the
Congress leadership was buoyant today.
"The
fact that the government could mount a major offensive on the BJP on the coal
controversy today was possible because the Supreme Court let off Chidambaram.
In the face of an adverse judgment, we would have been running for cover and
the people would not have believed a word said by us," a senior minister
told The Telegraph.
Although
senior leaders had said the case against Chidambaram didn't have any legal
merit and they were not worried, the brave public posturing could not hide the
trepidation in the party and the government over the past few months.
An
adverse verdict would have debilitated the government, which has been battling
corruption charges, and cemented the negative perception about it.
Many
leaders agreed privately that the mega shuffle being planned by Sonia Gandhi
before the next general election, and now put off till September, was linked to
Chidambaram's fate.
His exit
would have been a blow to the government, which last month lost its most
experienced minister, Pranab Mukherjee, to Rashtrapati Bhavan.
3) SC
extends Singur stay, CM gloats:
The Supreme Court today issued notices to Tata
Motors on an appeal by the Bengal government against Calcutta High Court's June
22 judgment striking down the Singur act.
The top
court said interim orders in the case would continue which, legal experts said,
means the high court order will stay suspended till further orders but the
state cannot return any part of the land to farmers in the interim.
The bench
of Justices H.L. Dattu and C.K. Prasad issued the notices asking Tata Motors to
reply within four weeks, after which the case will come up for hearing.
"Issue notice, interim orders to continue," the bench said in its
short order.
The
Mamata Banerjee government had passed the Singur Land Rehabilitation and
Development Act, 2011, to take back the land, handed over to the Tatas by the
erstwhile Left government, after the Nano plant was moved to Gujarat.
The act
sought to return at least a part of the land to farmers who had been unwilling
to give up their plots and had not accepted compensation.
Tata
Motors had challenged the act in the high court. A single-judge bench had
initially upheld it but a division bench struck it down.
 |
| Arctic ice is melting at a record pace, suggesting the region may be ice-free during summer within 30 years. |
4) Arctic
sea ice shrinks to record low, by some estimates :
The area
of ice in the Arctic Ocean has thawed to a record low, surpassing the previous
2007 minimum in a sign of climate change transforming the region, according to
some scientific estimates.
"We
reached the minimum ice area today (Thursday). It has never been measured less
than right now," Ola Johannessen, founding director of the Nansen
Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway, told Reuters.
"It
is just below the 2007 minimum."
The U.S.
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), widely viewed as the main authority
on sea ice, has projected that the 2007 minimum extent is set to be breached
next week. The summer thaw usually continues well into September.
Other
scientists monitoring the ice interpret satellite data in slightly differing
ways.
An ice
chart compiled by the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) showed the ice
extent had also just shrunk a fraction past the 2007 minimum. The DMI said it
would defer to the NSIDC to judge when a record had been set.
Ice has
been shrinking steadily in recent decades in the Arctic, threatening the
livelihoods of indigenous peoples and wildlife. It is also helping to open an
area rich in oil and gas and bringing the promise of new, shorter shipping
routes.
"This
is due to climate change," Nicolai Kliem, head of the ice service at DMI,
said of the long-term decline in summer ice. Scientists project that summer sea
ice could vanish completely in coming decades.
RUNAWAY
THAW
The
retreat of the ice may be self-reinforcing. Ice reflects sunlight back into
space and as it shrinks it exposes dark water that absorbs more heat,
accelerating thawing.
Johannessen
stressed his measurement was of the "area" of ice, now less than 4.0
million sq km (1.5 million sq miles), omitting the open water between ice
floes.
The NSIDC
prefers a bigger "extent", including such gaps, on the grounds that
pools of meltwater that form on sea ice are hard to distinguish from open
ocean.
Kliem
said the ice was becoming more prone to melt because there was less of the
hard, resilient ice that endures more than one year. The ice usually reaches a
minimum in September before forming again as winter approaches and reaching a
maximum in March.
"We
had quite a big ice cover in March 2012, above average. But because there is
little long-term ice it melts more quickly in summer," he said.
In a sign
of widening interest in the polar region as a short-cut shipping route between
the Pacific and the Atlantic, Beijing sent an icebreaker across the Arctic this
summer to Iceland - the first Chinese vessel to cross the Arctic Ocean.
 |
| 3D Picture of Subhaditya Movie News This Week |
Movie
Release of This Week:
 |
| The Apparition: |
1) The
Apparition:
Starring:
Ashley Greene Ashley Greene
Sebastian Stan Sebastian Stan
Tom Felton Tom Felton
Julianna Guill Julianna Guill
Luke Pasqualino Luke Pasqualino
When
frightening events start to occur in their home, young couple Kelly (Ashley
Greene) and Ben (Sebastian Stan) discover they are being haunted by a presence
that was accidentally conjured during a university parapsychology experiment.
The horrifying apparition feeds on their fear and torments them no matter where
they try to run. Their last hope is an expert in the supernatural (Tom Felton),
but even with his help they may already be too late to save themselves from
this terrifying force...
 |
| Premium Rush |
2) Premium
Rush:
Starring:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Dania Ramirez Dania Ramirez
Sean Kennedy
Kimberley Perfetto Kimberley Perfetto
Anthony Chisholm Anthony Chisholm
In
Manhattan, a bike messenger picks up an envelope that attracts the interest of
a dirty cop, who pursues the cyclist throughout the city.
 |
| The Revenant |
3) The
Revenant:
Starring:
Annie Abbott Annie Abbott
Senyo Amoaku Senyo Amoaku
David Anders David Anders
Zana Zefi Zana Zefi
Suzan Averitt Suzan Averitt
When Bart
mysteriously rises from the grave, he and his slacker best friend become
vigilante crime fighters with hilariously mixed results as their adventures
become more complicated and bloody than expected.
 |
| Kon-Tiki |
4)
Kon-Tiki:
Starring:
Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen
Anders Baasmo Christiansen
Gustaf Skarsgård
Odd Magnus Williamson
Tobias Santelmann
The true
story about legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his epic crossing of the
Pacific on a balsa wood raft in 1947.
 |
| A Lonely Place for Dying |
5) A
Lonely Place for Dying:
Starring:
Michael Scovotti Michael Scovotti
Ross Marquand Ross Marquand
Michael Wincott Michael Wincott
James Cromwell James Cromwell
Luis Robledo Luis Robledo
In 1972,
the conflict in Vietnam continues. The creeping threat of communism grips the
nation in fear. In an abandoned prison on the US/Mexican border, KGB mole
Nikolai Dzerzhinsky waits for his contact from the Washington Post. He holds
explosive evidence against the CIA, information he will trade for asylum in the
United States. Special Agent Robert Harper's orders are clear: take the
documents from Dzerzhinsky and kill him.
 |
| General Education |
6) General
Education:
Starring:
Chris Sheffield Chris Sheffield
Maiara Walsh Maiara Walsh
Sam Ayers Sam Ayers
Skylan Brooks Skylan Brooks
Bobby Campo Bobby Campo
An
"American Pie-esque" comedy about growing up and discovering what
really matters. Acting veterans Janeane Garofalo and Larry Miller join a
talented cast of young performers in fresh, funny college-age romp.
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