Rare giraffe born on Boxing Day

A rare giraffe was born at Chester Zoo on Boxing Day – found by staff when they arrived in the morning.

The Rothschild giraffe is said to be one of the most endangered species of the animal, because of poaching and loss of habitat.

Einstein’s Theory Just Put the Brakes on the Sun’s Spin

Space.com

Although the sun is our nearest star, it still hides many secrets. But it seems that one solar conundrum may have been solved and a theory originally proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein could be at the root of it all.

Twenty years ago, solar astronomers realized that the uppermost layer of the sun rotates slower than the rest of the sun’s interior. This is odd. It is well known the sun rotates faster at its equator than at its poles — a phenomenon known as “differential rotation” that drives the sun’s 11-year solar cycle — but the fact that the sun has a sluggish upper layer has been hard to understand. It’s as if there’s some kind of force trying to hold it in place while the lower layers churn below it.

Now, researchers from University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (IfA), Brazil, and Stanford University may have stumbled on an answer and it could all be down to fundamental physics. It seems that the light our sun generates has a braking effect on the sun’s surface layers.

RELATED: Visualizing Our Sun’s Messy Magnetic Mystery “The sun won’t stop spinning anytime soon, but we’ve discovered that the same solar radiation that heats the Earth is ‘braking’ the sun because of Einstein’s Special Relativity, causing it to gradually slow down, starting from its surface,” said Jeff Kuhn, of IfA Maui, in a statement.

Special relativity predicts that photons, which carry the electromagnetic force (i.e. light), also carry a tiny amount of momentum. If you have enough photons travelling away from an object, they will carry away a large amount of momentum. In the case of the sun’s 4 billion year lifetime, the surface has lost a lot of momentum to photons, causing a slowdown of the uppermost 5 percent of the sun. This mechanism, called the Poynting-Robertson effect, has been observed in interplanetary dust, which feels the drag of the sun’s radiation, causing it to fall from the asteroid belt into the inner solar system.

What affects dust inevitably affects the soup of super-heated gas in the sun’s upper layers and, over its 5 billion year lifetime, the drag caused by photons being emitted from the sun has created a measurable and, until now, mysterious effect.

Using several years of data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), the researchers were able to measure waves traveling through the sun to precisely measure the size of the layer that is experiencing this slowdown. The technique, known as “helioseismology,” is very similar to measuring the seismic waves travelling through the Earth to measure the strength of an earthquake. The material these seismic waves travel through changes the waves so seismologists can “see” underground.

RELATED: Our Planet’s Magnetism Saved It From Solar Sterilization Though the sun isn’t a solid planet made from rock and metal, its dense plasma interior also allows waves to travel, creating oscillations on the surface that can be measured. Helioseismology therefore allows astronomers to “see” into our nearest star, revealing many details about its interior that may not be obvious on the surface. And in this case, by using helioseismology and studying the sun’s magnetic field passing from space into the sun’s interior, we can gauge how much of a drag Einstein’s special relativity has had on the sun’s surface.

“This is a gentle torque that is slowing it down, but over the Sun’s 5 billion year lifetime it has had a very noticeable influence on its outer 35,000 kilometers [22,000 miles],” said Kuhn. These findings have accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters and can be previewed on the arXiv pre-print service.

Using our sun as a laboratory for other stars, Kuhn’s team believe that a similar effect likely happens for all stars and could have a strong influence on stellar evolution. Now solar astronomers are very interested to understand how this solar slowdown impacts the sun’s magnetic field that threads through the entire solar system. As the sun’s magnetism is the root cause of space weather that can trigger solar flares and coronal mass ejections that could interfere with satellites and power grids, this research could have a key role to play in our understanding of solar impacts on Earth.

Originally published on Seeker.

Dwarf planet Ceres is flush with ice, Nasa studies show

NASA ASTRONOMY

ASTEROIDS SPACE

The Dwarf planet Ceres is flush with ice, Nasa studies show

The hydrogen content of Ceres’ regolith, right, compared with that of the giant asteroid Vesta. Blue indicates where hydrogen content is higher, near the poles, while red indicates lower content at lower latitudes 

he dwarf planet Ceres, an enigmatic rocky body inhabiting the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is rich with ice just beneath its dark surface, scientists said on Thursday in research that may shed light on the early history of the solar system.

The discovery, reported in a pair of studies published in the journals Science and Nature Astronomy, could bolster fledgling commercial endeavors to mine asteroids for water and other resources for robotic and eventual human expeditions beyond the moon.

Nasa’s Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting Ceres, the largest of thousands of rocky bodies located in the main asteroid belt, since March 2015 following 14-month study of Vesta, the second-largest object in the asteroid belt.

The studies show that Ceres is about 10 per cent water, now frozen into ice, according to physicist Thomas Prettyman of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, one of the researchers.

Examining the makeup of solar system objects like Ceres provides insight into how the solar system formed. Compared to dry Vesta, Ceres is more like Enceladus and Europa , icy moons of the giant gas planets Saturn and Jupiter respectively, than Earth and the other terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus and Mars, Prettyman added.

Scientists are debating if Ceres hides a briny liquid ocean, a prospect that may put the dwarf planet on the growing list of worlds beyond the solar system that may be suitable for life, said Dawn deputy lead scientist Carol Raymond of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“By finding bodies that were water-rich in the distant past, we can discover clues as to where life may have existed in the early solar system,” Raymond said in a statement.

The finding strengthens the case for the presence of near-surface water ice on other bodies in the main asteroid belt, Prettyman said.

Information collected by Dawn showed that Ceres, unlike Vesta, has been using water to create minerals. Scientists combine mineralogical data with computer models to learn about its interior.

“Liquid water had to be in the interior of Ceres in order for us to see what’s on the surface,” Prettyman told a news conference at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.

‘Earth not prepared for surprise asteroid strike’

While the possibility of a catastrophic asteroid slamming into Earth is extremely rare, it may only be a matter of time before this threat becomes a reality.

But experts have warned that humans are not prepared for an asteroid impact, and should one head for Earth, there are not much we can do about it.

A United States Aeronautic Space Agency (NASA) scientist has said that our best hope is building an interceptor rocket to keep in storage that could be used in deflection missions.

NASA is planning an ambitious mission that will see a robotic spaceship visit an asteroid to create an orbiting base for astronauts.

The robot ship will pluck a large boulder off the space rock and sling it around the moon, becoming a destination to prepare for future human missions to Mars.

NASA plans to study the asteroid for about a year and test deflection techniques that one-day may be necessary to save Earth from a potentially catastrophic collision.

Dr. Joseph Nuth, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union earlier this week.

He said: “The biggest problem, basically, is there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment.”

While dangerous asteroids and comets rarely hit Earth, Nuth warned that the threat was always there.

He said: “They are the extinction-level events, things like dinosaur killers, they’re 50 to 60 million years apart, essentially. You could say, of course, we’re due, but it’s a random course at that point.”

In the past, comets have come very close to hitting Earth.

In 1996, a comet narrowly missed our planet, instead flying into Jupiter, and again in 2014, a comet passed “within cosmic spitting distance of Mars,” according to Nuth. And comets are often only discovered when it’s too late to launch a deflection mission.

Nuth said: “If you look at the schedule for high-reliability spacecraft and launching them, it takes five years to launch a spacecraft. We had 22 months of total warning.”

Nuth advises that NASA should build an interceptor rocket alongside an observer spacecraft, which he says could cut the five-year delay to launch in half.

And if a rocket could be devised that could launch within a year, Nuth says it ‘could mitigate the possibility of a sneaky asteroid coming in from a place that’s hard to observe, like from the sun.’

Various techniques for deflecting a potentially hazardous asteroid could be tested on Arm to enable planetary defense capabilities.

These techniques include Ion Beam Deflection, Enhanced Gravity Tractor, and kinetic impactors.

In Ion Beam Deflection, the plumes from the thrusters would be directed towards the asteroid to gently push on its surface over a wide area. A thruster firing in the opposite direction would be needed to keep the spacecraft at a constant distance from the asteroid.

The Ion Beam Deflection approach is independent of the size of the asteroid, and it could be demonstrated on either mission option. In the Enhanced Gravity Tractor approach, the spacecraft would first pick up a boulder from the asteroid’s surface as in mission Option B.

The spacecraft with the collected boulder would then orbit in a circular halo around the asteroid’s velocity vector.

The mass of the boulder coupled with the mass of the spacecraft would increase the gravitational attraction between the spacecraft and the asteroid.

By flying the spacecraft in close formation with the asteroid for several months the very small gravitational forces would produce a measurable change in the asteroid’s trajectory. A kinetic impactor could also be launched as a secondary payload with the spacecraft or on a separate launch vehicle, and it would collide with the target asteroid at high velocity while the spacecraft observed the impact.

Giving science toys to boys is not the worst of it – we all secretly try to control our kids with gifts

What most mums and dads overlook is the fact children are most keenly influenced by their parents’ demonstrable obsessions and desires. In other words, it’s no good telling your kids they should love reading if you’re never seen deep in a book, ignoring all other stimulations in pursuit of the written word. Similarly, if a child becomes keen on science, there’s a good chance one of her begetters is mustard keen on making that spider robot too. In fact, they’re probably the sort of person who mends their own radio, tinkers about in a shed, and discusses Archimedes’ displacement experiment as they lob a cube of ice into your G&T. If, however, you spend half your life glued to your iPhone and the other portion watching The Crown, why would you expect your sprog to be ecstatic when they unwrap the Chem C3000 “ultimate chemistry set” from Fat Brain toys?

So I feel the Institute of Engineering and Technology are missing the point when they fret about gendered presents. It’s the giver they need to focus on, not the gift. If a girl or boy has an influential adult in their life who presents dead beetles for a spot of light dissection, there’s a chance they’ll start longing for a microscope of their own. Passion is hugely contagious, while the ersatz variety leaves everyone switched off. It also leaves many a lad with a potato clock he doesn’t want and can’t palm off on his sister for love nor money.

In fact, it’s probably time to fret about the unfair way we treat boys: why should they be lumbered with dreary educational toys, while the girls run off laughing with the Barbie Rainbow Cove Castle?

Least Developed Countries group launches energy initiative, REEEI

The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Group on Thursday, November 17 2016 at the UN climate change talks in Marrakech, Morocco announced the launch of its new Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Initiative (REEEI) for Sustainable Development. The initiative appears to have emerged as one of the key, concrete outcomes of the Marrakech climate conference.

Mr. Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group and Head of delegation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at COP22

According to the LDCs Group, the REEEI will scale up the provision of renewable energy to LDCs while promoting energy efficiency; recognising the crucial role that energy plays in rural development, industrialisation and the provision of services. REEEI was welcomed by LDC ministers and heads of delegation, representing the world’s 48 poorest countries, at a meeting of LDC negotiators in Kinshasa in September. REEEI, will be a key element of the Global Partnership on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, has now been launched in Marrakech.

Representatives of the LDC group promoting the initiative include: Mr. Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group and Head of delegation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Mr. Gebru Jember Endalew, Incoming Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group and head of delegation of Ethiopia; and Mr. Ram Prasad Dhital, Executive Director of Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, Ministry of Population and Environment, Nepal.

Mr. Mpanu-Mpanu said: “The LDC REEEI demonstrates the continued commitment of the LDC Group to real solutions that benefit real people on the ground. The initiative will enable LDCs to leapfrog fossil fuel based energy and light up the lives of millions of energy-starved people through modern, clean and resilient energy systems.

“The adoption of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals are flicking the switch on a new phase of global action and implementation. The LDC REEEI is an important part of this process emerging from the Marrakech climate conference, providing concrete action to address climate change while empowering the world’s most vulnerable communities to build a path to sustainable development.”

Mr. Jember said: “The LDC REEEI is a key success for the LDC Group here in Marrakech. Going forward the initiative will empower our poorest communities and put the LDCs ahead of the curve in taking ambitious mitigation action.

“The initiative will ensure no LDC is left behind by strengthening the capacity of LDCs to tap into existing initiatives, including the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative, and providing support to those who fall within the cracks between current frameworks.”

Mr. Dhital said: “Most of the world’s 1.3bn people who lack adequate access to energy live in LDCs. Yet we face many economic, social and institutional obstacles on the path to energy growth, and grapple with a lack of capacity to overcome them.

“Just 8% of climate finance committed to date has been disbursed. And of the largest flow – energy finance – low income countries have received only 5%. This initiative would support LDCs to develop the capacity to put in place the policies, regulations and project pipelines needed for greater flows of energy finance.”

Mr. Mpanu-Mpanu added: “The LDC REEEI will stimulate decentralised energy, which can have the fastest impacts in rural communities and deliver local-ownership over energy supply, putting power into the hands of the people.”

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How economy, environment will benefit from emissions reduction, by Buhari at COP22

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria on Tuesday, November 15 2016 in Marrakech declared the resolve of the government to ensure that policies put in place to address climate change will make the country emerge as one of the world’s best examples of how reducing emissions can benefit the environment and the economy.

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria In his statement at the 22nd Session of the Conference of Parties (COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) taking place the Moroccan city, President Buhari outlined the plan of the administration towards aligning with the global objectives on climate change and ensuring inclusive growth and environmental sustainability.

He said: “In Nigeria, we are launching a strategic plan for the implementation of our Intended Nationally Determined Contributions and we have equally embraced the issuance of green bonds as an innovative means and alternative way of raising climate finance both locally and internationally. We cannot afford to wait until 2020. We are already making far reaching changes to all sectors of our economy including through:

Substantially increasing the use of climate smart agriculture Diversification of our energy mix through renewable and efficient gas power Creating a more efficient, cleaner and lower-carbon oil and gas sector especially through a gas to energy programme Initiating the implementation of the clean-up of the Ogoni-Land in the Niger-Delta region.

President Buhari also stated Nigeria’s ambitious but achievable commitment to ‘green growth’.

“We have reflected our determination for green growth in my country’s ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contribution. We have also announced our plans to reduce emissions by 20% by the year 2030, with the intention of raising this target to 45%, with the support of the international community. This is one of Africa’s most ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contributions – covering all emissions from all parts of the economy.”

President Buhari also affirmed that Nigeria has no choice but to key into the global action on climate change.

“In Nigeria for instance, the impact is being felt by the more than 2.1 million people displaced by devastating floods that the country has continued to suffer since 2012. If not addressed by 2050, the human and financial cost would be colossal. For us in Nigeria, the larger dimension of the challenge goes beyond emission rights. Survival rights are also at stake.”

He reminded the gathering of the agreement at the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA71) that climate threats and security threats go hand in hand and called for concerted efforts on them.

His words: “The Lake Chad Basin for example, has shrunk to a mere 10% of its original size, and this has seriously affected the livelihood of over 5 million people and contributed to the growth of insecurity in the region, including the emergence of Boko Haram as a terrorist group. Hence the urgent need to resuscitate Lake Chad. In this regard, I seize this opportunity to express gratitude and appreciation to those who have responded to our call and to encourage other well-meaning partners to join in our efforts to revive the Lake Chad Basin,” President Buhari said. He expressed the readiness of Nigeria to join hands for the change that the whole world is working towards.

“We, therefore, stand ready to engage in meaningful partnerships to tackle the menace, and call on our neighbors and developing partners to fulfill their financial obligations in support of efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change,” the President declared. He also called on world leaders, “to recommit ourselves to the achievement of the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement that we collectively signed in 2015 for the benefit of this and future generations. Nigeria has submitted its instrument of ratification for the new global agenda on climate change. We urge others to do the same in order to make the world a safe place.”

Climate change puts Moroccan sugar industry in dire straits

For a country that was an exporter of sugar as far back as the 16th century, Morocco should by now be among the world’s leading producers and exporters of the produce.

A sugar production plant But there are no traces of that early achievement as the Moroccan sugar industry is said to be totally in shambles, no thanks to unsavoury weather conditions brought about by the changing global climate.

Today, the cultivation of the crop is said to be restricted to a few locations in northern and southern parts of the country, while no trace of the crop is found in its earliest stronghold, the Agadir province, where the pioneer sugar factory was operating in the 16th century.

“In the 16th century, this place (Agadir province) used to have the sugar factory, and Morocco was exporting sugar. It created jobs for the people while the country earned foreign exchange from its importation. It has folded up due to climate change causing excessive evaporation and leaving the soil with insufficient water for the crop to survive,” Professor Ahmed Oghammou told a team of media executives who are Fellows of the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) to 22nd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) holding in Marrakech, Morocco.

The Fellows were on a field trip. Prof. Oghmmou is of the Department of Biology, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakech.

It was discovered that Agadir and locations around it, bordering Marrakech and Casablanca, were completely taken over by the desert, turning the place into a barren land.

Local farmers are struggling to bring back life to lands with agriculture supports from government to encourage irrigation farming, which however will not be for sugar cane.

Morocco’s fortune from sugar kept plummeting such that the nation could not even meet local demand, let alone for export.

It was gathered that, in a recent move, the government announced plans to withdraw subsidy from sugar cane cultivation and channel the money to other more profitable areas, including health.

“Not sugar cane alone, so many indigenous crops are affected,” adds Prof. Oghmmou. “We have very big problem of lack of rains. And we have very high evaporation. So, only crops that are adapted to little precipitation can survive. We have dry season in summer. For example, between May, June, July, August, may be September, no rain in these places. We used to have snow which checked evaporation. But, that, too, is rare – and all because of climate change.”

Reports show that the country produced 470,000 metric tons of sugar at the end of the 2014/2015 planting season, which was considered not even enough to meet local consumption, thus prompting the Kingdom to resort to imports to make up for its sugar deficit.

In 2014, the country could only cover 40% of its consumption.

But Mounir Hassan, an official from the Morocco’s Inter-Professional Federation of Sugar (FIMASUCRE), announced during the International Sugar conference in Marrakech last year that “the Moroccan government has invested more than MAD 5.5 billion for the upgrade and modernisation of the manufacturing base”. The Morocco based sugar producer will continue its efforts in order to increase the domestic production of sugar to exceed the national needs by 56% by 2020”.

Experts have said that a lot of investment may be required to bring the Moroccan sugar industry back to the good, old days, but it is going to be a lot of hard work, involving recovery of degraded lands and increase in water availability.

Natural disasters force 26m people into poverty, cost $520bn yearly losses

The impact of extreme natural disasters is equivalent to a global $520 billion loss in annual consumption, and forces some 26 million people into poverty each year, a new report from the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) reveals.

Myanmar’s 2008 Cyclone Nargis forced up to half of the country’s poor farmers to sell off assets including land, to relieve the debt burden following the natural disaster

“Severe climate shocks threaten to roll back decades of progress against poverty,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “Storms, floods, and droughts have dire human and economic consequences, with poor people often paying the heaviest price. Building resilience to disasters not only makes economic sense, it is a moral imperative.”

The report, titled: “Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters,” warns that the combined human and economic impacts of extreme weather on poverty are far more devastating than previously understood.

In all of the 117 countries studied, the effect on well-being, measured in terms of lost consumption, is found to be larger than asset losses. Because disaster losses disproportionately affect poor people, who have a limited ability to cope with them, the report estimates that impact on well-being in these countries is equivalent to consumption losses of about $520 billion a year. This outstrips all other estimates by as much as 60 per cent.

With the climate summit, COP22, underway in Marrakech, the report’s findings underscore the urgency for climate-smart policies that better protect the most vulnerable. Poor people are typically more exposed to natural hazards, losing more as a share of their wealth and are often unable to draw on support from family, friends, financial systems, or governments.

“Unbreakable” uses a new method of measuring disaster damages, factoring in the unequal burden of natural disasters on the poor. Myanmar’s 2008 Cyclone Nargis, for example, forced up to half of the country’s poor farmers to sell off assets including land, to relieve the debt burden following the cyclone. Economic and social repercussions of Nargis will be felt for generations.

The report assesses, for the first time, the benefits of resilience-building interventions in the countries studied. These include early warning systems, improved access to personal banking, insurance policies, and social protection systems (like cash transfers and public works programs) that could help people better respond to and recover from shocks. It finds that these measures combined would help countries and communities save $100 billion a year and reduce the overall impact of disasters on well-being by 20 percent.

“Countries are enduring a growing number of unexpected shocks as a result of climate change,” said Stephane Hallegatte, a GFDRR lead economist, who led preparation of the report. “Poor people need social and financial protection from disasters that cannot be avoided. With risk policies in place that we know to be effective, we have the opportunity to prevent millions of people from falling into poverty.”

Efforts to build poor people’s resilience are already gaining ground, the report shows. For example, Kenya’s social protection system provided additional resources to vulnerable farmers well before the 2015 drought, helping them prepare for and mitigate its impacts. And in Pakistan, after record-breaking floods in 2010, the government created a rapid-response cash grant programme that supported recovery efforts of an estimated eight million people, lifting many from near-certain poverty.

Building resilience is key to meeting the World Bank Group’s twin goals of ending global poverty and boosting shared prosperity.

Mystery of Bermuda Triangle solved?

Hexagonal clouds creating terrifying air bombs with winds of 170mph could be behind the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.

Scientists have claimed the stormy blasts can flip ships into the sea and bring planes crashing down into the sea.

The mystifying 500,000km square patch in the North Atlantic Ocean has been blamed for the disappearance of at least 75 planes and hundreds of ships, but the oddly-shaped clouds may hold the secret to the vanishing acts.

The winds created by the so-called air bombs are so powerful they generate 45ft high winds.

Meteorologist Randy Cerveny told the Mirror: “These types of hexagonal shapes over the ocean are in essence air bombs.

“They are formed by what are called microbursts and they’re blasts of air that come down out of the bottom of a cloud and then hit the ocean and then create waves that can sometimes be massive in size as they start to interact with each other.”

Researchers added massive clouds were appearing over the western tip of Bermuda Island – ranging from 20 to 55 miles across – and Dr. Steve Miller, satellite meteorologist at Colorado State University told Science Channel’s What on Earth said: “You don’t typically see straight edges with clouds.

“Most of the time, clouds are random in their distribution.”

Scientists believe these weather phenomenons are behind the Bermuda Triangle mystery, according to the Mirror.