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Weird World Latest
Great Galloping Crinoids: Lilylike sea animal takes a brisk walkSusan Milius
A video has caught an underwater animal, which looks like a flower, practically jogging along the ocean bottom. The stalked crinoid spends most of its time sitting and catching food with the flowerlike wheel of feathery arms that have earned it and its relatives the nickname sea lilies. Scientists had known for decades that stalked crinoids sometimes move—but barely. They had been clocked at speeds no greater than 0.6 meter per hour. Now, however, a video from a submersible dive off Grand Bahama Island reveals a speed demon, says Tomasz Baumiller of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. A stalked crinoid pulled itself along the bottom briskly enough for a viewer to notice. Baumiller and Charles Messing of Nova Southeastern University's Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, Fla., measured its pace at 140 m per hour. Baumiller presented the video in Salt Lake City on Oct. 16 at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. (To view the video, click here.) "People were speechless," says William I. Ausich of Ohio State University in Columbus. "It adds a whole new dynamic to understanding a very important group of animals." Crinoids, which are relatives of starfish and sea urchins, once had achieved such abundance and diversity that paleontologists refer to the period 350 million years ago as the age of crinoids. Today, only two main forms remain. Two decades ago, Baumiller and Messing independently documented movement by some stalked crinoids. Baumiller observed creeping stalks in a lab. Messing, among other observations, dove in a submersible to plot positions of individual crinoids in an ocean-bottom garden and returned months later to find that they had shifted. "The movement was so slow that no one got terribly excited," says Baumiller. The researchers suspected that crinoids flee from hungry sea urchins. So, Baumiller and Messing joined forces with an urchin specialist, Richard Mooi of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Looking through hundreds of hours of archived video documentation of submersible dives from the 1990s, the researchers found the sprinting crinoid at a depth of about 400 m. In the video, it lies on the bottom and pulls itself along with its arms, "like a soldier's elbow crawl," says Baumiller. Carlton Brett of the University of Cincinnati describes the locomotion as "knuckle walking." He says that the speed was indeed a surprise, but that it fits into emerging scenarios suggesting that competition between crinoids and their predators influences each creature's evolution. References: 2005. Creeping crinoids! Sea lilies crawl to escape predators, new video shows. GSA/University of Michigan press release. Oct. 16. Available at http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2005/prUmich2.htm. Baumiller, T.K., and C.G. Messing. 2005. Crawling in stalked crinoids: <I<>observations, functional morphology, and implications for Paleozoic taxa (Paper No. 25-11). Annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. Oct. 16–19. Salt Lake City. Abstract available at http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_96883.htm. Further Readings: To see the video mentioned in this story, click here. For pictures of both stalked and stalkless crinoids, go to http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/echinodermata/crinoidea.html and http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Crinoidea&contgroup=Echinodermata. For further information about stalkless crinoids, go to http://www.nova.edu/ocean/messing/crinoids/w1title.html. A version of this article written for younger readers is available at Science News for Kids. Sources:
William I. Ausich
Tomasz K. Baumiller
Carlton E. Brett
Charles G. Messing
Richard J. Mooi
From Science News, Vol. 168, No. 17, Oct. 22, 2005, p. 261. **
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=P11751_0_5_0_C
Hey Joe, where going with that EVO in your hand? EVOs exotic weapons and the race to master dark energy [jch] [[ddff-ltd] | Global Broadband Strategies] | POSTED: 08.27.05 @15:31
1. Ken Shoulders bottles some exotic vacuum energy.
(PRWEB) September 1, 2004 -- Experimentalist Ken Shoulders claims that electrons are behaving in ways thought to be impossible. A new and previously unknown force appears to be binding the electrons at short range into clusters of electron charge. Shoulders calls these clusters Exotic Vacuum Objects, or EVO's.
Shoulders describes this as "a short-range force resembling a positive charge negating the effect of repulsive electronic charge"
One of Ken Shoulder's latest papers suggests nefarious uses for charged cluster technology based on EVO's:
"The author can easily imagine a scenario where instructions are generated with enough clarity for about 1 person in 1,000 to perform the necessary operations to refine and store a gallon jug of electrons in the form of Exotic Vacuum Objects (EVO's) ... there is no doubt that this jug would be light enough to carry and be highly sensitive to destabilization of a catastrophic nature..."
Ken Shoulders has recently collaborated on several papers with independent theoretical physicist Dr. Jack Sarfatti, in San Francisco. Sarfatti suggests that his theory of exotic vacuum dark energy/dark matter can explain Shoulders' experimental data.
Although Sarfatti hopes for carefully controlled release of energy from the EVO's, both Sarfatti and Shoulders warn that rapid release of a large EVO would be explosive, perhaps more powerful than a thermonuclear device.
2. Who Is Ken Shoulders?
a. Long-time associate of Hal Puthoff. Both worked in US Intelligence Community for years. b. Brilliant gadgeteer with small microwave devices, holds several important patents. c. Ken's opinions are taken seriously in the USG Defense Intelligence Community. d. Pressure is mounting for Shoulders, Sarfatti and Puthoff to write a joint paper together showing conflicting models of the phenomenon.
3. Puthoff Model: Positive pressure outside, zero pressure inside, w = 1/3
Puthoff uses a model of Casimir's "Type II" in which there is a positive zero point energy pressure outside the thin shell of electrons and vanishing zero point pressure inside it. Sarfatti says Casimir made an error by assuming that the well known "dubya factor" (i.e. w = (pressure)/(energy density)) is +1/3, which it is for real photons propagating energy to infinity as electromagnetic radiation.
4. Sarfatti Model: Zero pressure outside, negative pressure inside, w = -1
Sarfatti objects that w = -1 for the virtual photons of the zero point vacuum fluctuations. That w = -1 for this case is well known to cosmologists working on the "dark energy" (e.g. Mike Turner's Op/Ed in April 2003 Physics Today).
"w = -1 follows from Einstein's equivalence principle together with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Furthermore, boson statistics require a positive virtual photon energy density, therefore an equal and opposite negative virtual photon pressure. Virtual quanta are directly observable in their warping of spacetime. You cannot subtract them out. The pressure warps space-time three times more than the energy density. The negative pressure makes repulsive anti-gravity that is the 'Right Stuff' for weightless warp drives, wide wormholes and, unfortunately 'universe destroying' weird weapons." said Sarfatti. Sarfatti cited Sir Martin Rees's book Our Final Hour on this subject.
5. Break the bottle to create Cold Fusion.
Sarfatti's model is the mirror opposite of Puthoff's. "The zero point pressure is negative inside the thin shell of typically a trillion to ten thousand trillion electrons in the observed EVOs 10-5 cm to 10-5 meters across and is zero outside. Negative zero point pressure makes the vacuum like a spring and the electric repulsion does work against the vacuum to create a metastable EVO. The electrons make a bottle or container for the anti-gravity dark energy vacuum core of the EVO. Break the bottle to release the Dark Energy Genie as 'Cold Fusion'. Mike Turner wrote that it couldn't be done, apparently Ken Shoulders has done what was thought to be an impossible dream." says Sarfatti.
6. Further Reading
* August 2004 Popular Mechanics: http://popularmechanics.com/science/research/2004/8/dangerous_science/index5.phtml The above article mentions the recent unsolved murder of Cold Fusion advocate Gene Mallove.
* Moscow's Pravda: http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/12737_weapons.html American military is pursuing new types of exotic weapons
** http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/scientists_build_single-molecule_car_9135
Scientists build single-molecule car
Rice University scientists have constructed the world's smallest car -- a single molecule "nanocar" that contains a chassis, axles and four buckyball wheels. The "nanocar" is described in a research paper that is available online and due to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters. The "nanocar" is described in a research paper that is available online and due to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters. "The synthesis and testing of nanocars and other molecular machines is providing critical insight in our investigations of bottom-up molecular manufacturing," said one of the two lead researchers, James M. Tour, the Chao Professor of Chemistry, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and professor of computer science. "We'd eventually like to move objects and do work in a controlled fashion on the molecular scale, and these vehicles are great test beds for that. They're helping us learn the ground rules."
The nanocar
consists of a chassis and axles made of well-defined organic groups
with pivoting suspension and freely rotating axles. The wheels are
buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece. The
entire car measures just 3-4 nanometers across, making it slightly
wider than a strand of DNA. A human hair, by comparison, is about
80,000 nanometers in diameter. Other research groups have created nanoscale objects that are shaped like automobiles, but study co-author Kevin F. Kelly, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, said Rice's vehicle is the first that actually functions like a car, rolling on four wheels in a direction perpendicular to its axles. Kelly and his group, experts in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), provided the measurements and experimental evidence that verified the rolling movement. "It's fairly easy to build nanoscale objects that slide around on a surface," Kelly said. "Proving that we were rolling - not slipping and sliding - was one of the most difficult parts of this project." To do that, Kelly and graduate student Andrew Osgood measured the movement of the nanocars across a gold surface. At room temperature, strong electrical bonds hold the buckyball wheels tightly against the gold, but heating to about 200 degrees Celsius frees them to roll. To prove that the cars were rolling rather than sliding, Kelly and Osgood took STM images every minute and watched the cars progress. Because nanocars' axles are slightly longer than the wheelbase - the distance between axles - they could determine the way the cars were oriented and whether they moved perpendicular to the axles. In addition, Kelly's team found a way to grab the cars with an STM probe tip and pull them. Tests showed it was easier to drag the cars in the direction of wheel rotation than it was to pull them sideways. Synthesis of the nanocars also produced major challenges. Tour's research group spent almost eight years perfecting the techniques used to make them. Much of the delay involved finding a way to attach the buckyball wheels without destroying the rest of the car. Palladium was used as a catalyst in the formation of the axle and chassis, and buckyballs had a tendency to shut down the palladium reactions, so finding the right method to attach the wheels involved a good bit of trial and error. The Rice team has already followed up the nanocar work by designing a light-driven nanocar and a nanotruck that's capable of carrying a payload. Other members of the research team include chemistry graduate student Yasuhiro Shirai and post doctoral associate Yuming Zhao. The research was funded by the Welch Foundation, Zyvex Corporation and the National Science Foundation. From Rice University nanotech & materials login or register to post comments | printer friendly page Submitted by BJS on Fri, 2005-10-21 09:09.
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Reflecting on strange science
Case physicist goes where no scientist has gone before Friday, October 21, 2005 John Mangels Plain Dealer Reporter As a boy in the early 1960s, Lawrence Krauss saw an episode of "The Twilight Zone" in which a little girl accidentally wandered into another dimension. Her rescuer was a neighbor who happened to be a physicist and who figured out what had happened to the child. The show helped nudge Krauss toward his future profession. Today, Krauss is a famous physicist and author who teaches at Case Western Reserve University. Though he's never saved anyone from an extra dimension, he's been thinking a lot lately about the scientific basis for their possible existence as well as popular culture's fascination with the idea. The result is Krauss' newest book, "Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, From Plato to String Theory and Beyond," to be published Monday by Viking. Plain Dealer science writer John Mangels interviewed Krauss recently about the book and his other activities. For an audio clip, a transcript of the full interview and a book excerpt, go to www.cleveland.com/books. Q: Your previous books have dealt with the physics of "Star Trek," dark matter and the evolution of the universe. Your latest one is about extra dimensions. Why did you choose that topic? A: There is a theme in some sense in my writing . . . which is somehow trying to connect what's happening in science to things people are in terested in in cultural aspects of life. What got me interested was this notion that people have been fascinated for a long time in the thought that there might be something else out there beyond what we can see. It's a central part not just of people's imaginations and in literature, but in a sense it's also the basis of religion -- the notion that there's a spiritual world beyond what we can experience. What fascinates me is that scientists have continued to think about this notion and reinvent it one way or another for some time. And it's really hot right now in physics. I thought [the book] would give me a way to put that in perspective. Q: You did a pretty extensive historical review of the ways people have looked at the spiritual world or heaven or however else people think about what's out there. You found that writers and artists got to the idea ahead of physicists. A: I think they still may be ahead of physicists. I was amazed, going back to the 15th century, to see the appeals not just to a metaphorical spiritual world but to an extra-dimensional spiritual world. Some physicists are trying to get people to believe in 26 dimensions or 11 dimensions, and all of these notions sound so esoteric. What's amazing is that, step by step, by a series of experimental results either done in weird chemistry labs, right through to the experiments that are done with computers and high-energy accelerators . . . physicists extrapolate to predict these exotic possibilities. The point is that gravity in one way or another is quite different than the other forces in nature. After all, gravity is the theory of space and time. And it's had a hard time fitting in with the other forces, which are not theories of space and time. There are four forces in nature: the electromagnetic force, which is responsible for most of the things we experience, like the light we see; the strong force and the weak force, which are responsible for most of the processes that hold the nuclei of atoms together and the processes that power the sun; and then gravity, which, by the way, is far weaker than all the rest, by orders of magnitude. Q: That's hard for people to imagine. A: Yeah, because when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you feel is gravity, right? The reason we feel gravity is that every atom in our body feels the gravitational effect of all the atoms in the earth. But the [individual] gravitational attraction of each atom with every other atom is so small, we could never possibly measure it. [Physicist] Richard Feynman gave a very good example. He said if you take a friend to the top of a tall building and push him off -- well, maybe not a friend -- if you're 200 feet up, it takes gravity all that way to accelerate the body, but it's electromagnetism that stops it.
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