After a weekend filled with great auroral activity in Northern Canada and Scandinavia thanks to a strong gust of solar wind coming off the Sun Jan. 19th, the Earth is about to get hit again -by the biggest blast of solar radiation in 7 years. Talk about a one-two punch on the cosmic scale!
    A solar flare erupted off the face of the Sun, sending a giant Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) – cloud of plasma and charged particles – squarely towards the Earth.  Detected by NASA’s sun-monitoring satellites SOHO and STEREO, the solar blast was determined to be an M9 on the Richter scale of solar flares – just shy of an X- class flare which is ranked as the most powerful. Space weather forecasters at NOAA – who keep watch for any hazardous, incoming solar storms – are expecting the brunt of the CME to slam into Earth’s magnetic field Jan.24 around 9 am EST ( 2 pm UT)   +/- 7 hours. And Earth is not the only planet in its cross-hairs. Mars will get walloped too when the CME arrives there on Jan.25th.
    What does this mean for chances of seeing Northern Lights? If the geomagnetic storm becomes moderate to strong then auroras may creep down to southern latitudes like Texas and Georgia -but that’s pretty rare. Exactly how intense and widespread the sky show will be depends on how our planet’s magnetic field is oriented at the time when the storm arrives.
    Best time to go outside will be between local midnight and pre-dawn hours. Face the northern sky and look for green or red glows to start near the horizon.
    As usual there are still too many unknowns to forecast reliably who, where, and when exactly will get a sky show when it comes to aurora, but one thing is for sure – you have to go outside and look up to even have a chance.

     Birds of a feather usually flock together—but not in the case of a rare "white" mutant penguin, spotted Monday in a chinstrap penguin colony in Antarctica. The "blonde" penguin, seen at the edge of one of the South Shetland Islands, "astonished" tourists on a National Geographic Journey to Antarctica cruise.
    The condition is called isabellinism, a genetic mutation that dilutes pigment in penguins' feathers, and actually not albino. This results in a "uniform lightening" of a bird's dark colors, turning the animal a grayish yellow or pale brown.
    Scientists have observed the most cases of isabellinism in gentoo penguins, which are found throughout the Antarctic Peninsula. Magellanic penguins, which live on South American coasts, seem to have the lowest incidences of the condition.
    In the ocean, penguins' black backs camouflage the birds from both predator and prey swimming above, so Boersma suspect’s isabellinism would affect the South Shetland bird's survival, although there are no studies on the subject, she said.
    On the bright side, "while odd coloration may make fishing a bit more difficult," he said, such "birds are regularly found breeding normally."
Posted: 2/2/12

    In a recent experiment, scientists asked a group of prescreened people to look at a set of gray patterns and try to visualize color. Eleven members of the group had been identified as highly susceptible to hypnosis while seven of the subjects were not susceptible. Hypnosis is a trance-like state characterized by heightened focus, concentration, and inner absorption, according to the Mayo Clinic.
     About 10 percent of people worldwide are highly susceptible to hypnosis while 10 percent are not influenced at all. The new study found that all the subjects who were easily hypnotized reported seeing a range of colors even while not under hypnosis, McGeown said.
    The scientists didn't just take their word for it—MRI scans showed that the parts of the subjects' brains linked to color perception lit up when they saw the imaginary hues. The new study also found that being under hypnosis enhanced color hallucination in susceptible subjects. But those who were not susceptible to hypnosis could not hallucinate color with or without hypnosis.
    Ultimately, the hallucination research may help medical professionals who use hypnosis to treat a range of conditions, from phobias to pain, McGeown noted.
Posted: 12/12/11

 
InSpace

Kaitlyn Robotham
National/Community News Editor
krow94@hotmail.com
    Did you ever dream that you could launch your own rocket into outer space? Well two Canadian teens have done it—successfully sending a Lego man into space using a homemade parachute and equipment found on Craigslist.
    Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both 17 years old, attached the Lego man to a helium-filled weather balloon and launched it, along with four cameras. The balloon went 80,000 feet into the air—three times higher the height at which commercial planes fly.
    The teens were inspired by a video that Ho saw two years ago of students in Massachusetts Institute of Technology launching a similar experiment. "The blueness of the earth contrasted against the blackness of space was pretty incredible," he said. "I just really wanted to do it and I knew I could do this."
    They spent 4 months’ worth of Saturdays on the project and only about $400. They put together a light-weight Styrofoam box to protect the wide-angle video camera and three Canon-point-and shoot cameras they bought on Craigslist. The Canon cameras could be programmed to take pictures every 20 seconds without stopping.
    After sewing the parachute and testing it by throwing it off Ho’s father’s 40 story condominium, they put the four cameras, hand warmers, and a cellphone with a GPS application  in the box and attached the parachute and weather balloon. The Lego figure was super-glued to a gangplank outside the box.
    The round trip took less than two hours which isn’t enough time to take the balloon too far off course. And finally after two weeks of searching they found it—1500 beautiful photos included.
    The two have found themselves in the limelight as the video of Lego man in space, as they call the project, has gone viral. "It's been amazing since we launched it," Ho said. "It's a really great feeling knowing that we're sharing our photos and video with the world. Knowing that we can evoke inspiration, creativity and provoke joy through a four- centimeter-tall LEGO man, that's pretty incredible."
    “I guess the sky is not really the limit, anymore. We never knew we'd get this far. It's been a lesson for us that hard work pays off,” said Ho.
Posted: 2/8/12

Madeline Elliott
Science/Softball Editor
madelineelliott@comcast.net 
     "Imagine that you could divert light in time- slow it down, speed it up- so that you create a gap in the light beam in time," said study co-author and Cornell physicist Alex Gaeta. Cornell University scientists research demonstrations that can make objects seem to disappear by bending waves of visible light.
    The idea is that if light is being moved to go around an object, the object won't be reflected back to its observer; making the object essentially invisible. The effect lasts around 40 trillionths of a second. The scientists have used this to essentially create a hole in time. "Any event that occurs at that instant of time won't lead to scattering of light. It appears as if the event never occurred."    
    This is the first experimental realization of how you can actually create a time gap and hide something both in space and in time. The scientists are working very hard to improve their experiment. Their goal is to make the hole much bigger. So far the outcomes of the experiment have made the scientist very happy and they have ideas of using their knowledge to understand the space and time we are living in.
Posted: 1/9/12

Madeline Elliott
Science/ Softball Editor
madelineelliott@comcast.net    
    Japan's latest landmark (Tokyo Sky Tree) was this month certified the world's tallest tower by Guiness World Records. Standing at 2,080 feet the structure is already gaining a reputation. The tower has been in construction since 2008 but won't officially open until May of 2012.
    What about Dubai's about Dubai's Burj Khalifa? Completed in 2010 it still stands at 2,723 feet. Yes, say the records, but the Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest building. Tokyo's Sky Tree is a tower, the difference being "that less than 50 percent of the construction is usable floor space," explained Guinness World Records spokesperson Anne-Lise Rouse. 
    By that definition, the Tokyo Sky Tree beats the record of the 1,969 foot Canton Tower in China. And according the Guinness World Records the new record-holder presently has no known challengers.
Posted: 12/2/11