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Modern science brews an ancient beer

12/11/2016

Reporting contributed by Nick Mott

A tour of the Avery Brewing Company in Boulder, Colorado reveals industrial-scale steel fermentation tanks, a laboratory capable of genetic testing and even a hop cannon to add hops without exposing the beer to oxygen.

Yet, the brewery’s latest project is decidedly low tech: making beer as it might have been brewed thousands of years ago in ancient Greece, Egypt and Peru. Using ingredients available to ancient peoples and brewing techniques drawn from archaeological evidence and historical texts, Avery’s brewers hope to offer a new taste from the ancient world.

Holes in Antarctic glaciers could be a key to understanding ecological systems across the globe

12/4/2016

This story was originally written as an assigment for a graduate-level science journalism class at CU Boulder.

In late 2016, a team of microbiologists and ecologists will spend weeks camped in one of driest, coldest places on Earth. Their goal is to study aquatic microbes in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, a landscape that rarely warms above freezing, even in the summer. What could they hope to discover? “Some ecological general principles people have been trying to untangle for decades…,” according to Dorota Porazinska, a research associate on the team from the University of Colorado Boulder.

The focus of their research are small pits in the ice–called cryocronite holes–about the diameter of a hamburger and a foot deep (though sizes can vary). The holes are filled with meltwater or ice, depending on the season, and at the bottom is a “patty” of microbes–bacteria and microscopic animals.

A direct image of planets around a distant star

11/12/2016

The three white dots, circled in red in the image above, are three giant gas planets orbiting the star HR 8799, 129 light years from Earth.

Most exoplanets--planets around other stars--that we have discovered have only been detected by measuring the wobble they exert on their star or by detecting a dip in stellar brightness as they pass between Earth of their star. This image is one of a growing number of direct images of exoplanets.

While these three planets have been previously directly imaged by another telescope in 2008, this image is one of the first images released from a new instrument on the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. This instrument, called a chronograph, blocks out the light of the host star, allowing astronomers to not only observe the orbiting planets, but also dissect their light to detect the elements that make up their atmospheres.

This new chronograph on the Subaru telescope, dubbed CHARIS, is one of several new chronographs now being used to observe exoplanets, yielding more and more insights about planets around distant stars. CHARIS is capable of detecting and analyzing gas giants larger than Jupiter around other stars (no chronographs can yet directly detect Earth-sized exoplanets) and will be open for full scientific use in February 2017.

A Conversation with Chris Clack: Why the Electric Grid Needs to Get Bigger

10/30/2016

Chris Clack is a mathematician who builds models to study our electrical system. In January 2016, while working as NOAA researcher, he co-authored a paper that used various models to show that the United States could reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation by 80 percent by 2030, using only existing technologies (and at slightly lower cost). Clack, who lives in Boulder, Colorado, has since founded his own company, which builds models for various clients in the energy sector, including governments, utilities and grid operators.

This is an edited version of a conversation with Clack on Oct. 25, 2016.

Harrison Dreves: Could you summarize the findings the paper you co-authored in Nature Climate Change?

Chris Clack: In really simple terms, the lowest cost electricity option for the U.S., with today's technology, is 80 percent carbon free generation. A lot of people that read the paper assume we wanted 80 percent renewables. We actually asked 'what is the lowest cost system?' and then what falls out from that is a national transmission system with lower cost electricity.

IN BRIEF: "The Great Dying" may not have been as bad as we think

10/7/2016

(But still pretty bad!)

The Permian-Triassic extinction event (a.k.a. "The Great Dying") occurred 252 million years ago and is generally considered the largest mass extinction event in Earth's history. By comparing the diversity of fossilized life from before and after the extinction event, the geologic research community has estimated that 90-96% of all species went extinct during a 60,000 year period (plus or minus 50,000 years). The Permian extinction is believed to have been especially severe in the planet's oceans.

However, a new paper, published by Steven Stanley from the University of Hawaii in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, challenges this traditional understanding. Stanley, using no new data but instead a different mathematical method to calculate extinction rates, argues that the Permian extinction may have only wiped out about 81% of all species on Earth.

His new argument centers on background extinction rates–the amount of species going extinct on a regular basis, even when no major extinction event is underway. Stanley calculates the background extinction rate for the middle and late Permian geologic era and then subtracts that from the extinction rates of the Permian extinction event. He also makes several other mathematical adjustments, but, essentially, he's discounting species that likely went extinct before the Permian extinction or that would have gone extinct during that time period, even if not major extinction event were happening.

With these calculations, the new rate of extinction during the Permian-Triassic extinction event is approximately 81% of all species. This is still a drastic reduction in biodiversity on Earth, but not as severe as previously thought.

Stanley's idea is certainly new and controversial within the geologic community. It will take time to see how the scientific consensus on "The Great Dying" evolves.

IN BRIEF: Greenland is losing 7% more ice than we thought, thanks to an ancient hotspot

9/22/2016

Researchers have lots of fancy ways of measuring ice loss on Greenland, from precise laser mapping to gravity-measuring satellites. These techniques have yielded a fairly reliable measurement of ice loss from Greenland: 2,500 gigatons per year, since 2003.

A figure from the study showing the measured rates of uplift (rebounding from the weight of larger ice sheets) and possible models for uplift across the island.

However, the models these measurements fed all assumed the ground under Greenland was rising, as it rebounds from the great mass of the ice sheets of the Last Glacial Maximum, at a similar global average.

It's not, according to a new study published Science Advances. The crust in an area on the southeast side of Greenland is rebouding up at 12 millimeters per year (compared to a handful of millimeters per year elsewhere on the island). This is probably because this part of Greenland's crust passed over a volcanic hotspot 40 million years ago (the same one now forming Iceland), which made that section of crust more pliable and prone to deformation by the weight of ice sheets.

This means that, if the land is rising faster than expected, more ice must be melting off than previously thought, or the Greenland ice cap would be bulging up in this spot, which it is not doing. Calculations by the study's authors estimate 200 more gigatons (10^7) of ice have been melting off Greenland each year, unaccounted for until now. That is 7% of Greenland's total ice loss.

VIDEO: MEGA Plate Paints Evolution with Bacteria

9/15/2016

An 11-day timelapse of breeding bacteria artfully visualizes evolution and antibiotic resistance.

This timelapse of bacteria spreading across a large table of nutrients--laced in increasingly potent strips with an antibiotic--is a clear and beautiful demonstration of evolution. On a stark black background, white bacteria creep across the table, pausing as they encounter a more deadly stripe of antibiotic. When mutant strains emerge that are capable of living in the harsher environment, they surge on to the next boundary.

In only 11 days, bacteria are thriving in antibiotic concentrations 1000 times greater than concentrations that killed their ancestors.

The 2-by-4-foot table was created and filmed for a Harvard Medical School graduate class and proved an effective educational tool. "When shown the video, evolutionary biologists immediately recognize concepts they’ve thought about in the abstract, while non-specialists immediately begin to ask really good questions,” said Tami Lieberman, who is a co-investigator on the project, in the Harvard press release.

The table also revealed a new insight in bacterial evolution. The first mutant strains to reach the highest concentration of antibacterial are not necessarily the strongest. The fittest, most reproductively successful strains might develop resistance to antibiotics later.

(The demonstration was also inspired by a Hollywood marketing ploy for the film Contagion, that spelled out the movie’s title with spreading bacteria.)

IN BRIEF: 'Failed' Milky Way is almost 100% dark matter

8/27/2016

The portion of the sky containing Dragonfly 44 (Image from van Dokkum et al.)

A recently discovered galaxy is about 99.99% dark matter, hinting at new insights into galaxy formation and dark matter’s mysteries.

At first glance, Dragonfly 44—the galaxy in the center of the two images above—seems insignificant, even difficult to notice. (It was only discovered in 2015.) It lacks the iconic, central bulge of fully-formed galaxies, like our own Milky Way. Yet, stars are swirling around Dragonfly 44 at speeds similar to stars within the Milky Way, meaning that is has a mass similar to the Milky Way, but only one percent as many stars.

Writing in Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of astronomers suggest that the rest of the galaxy's mass is dark matter, making Dragonfly 44 a failed galaxy. Dragonfly 44 is a type of galaxy known as ultra diffuse galaxies. Recent astronomical studies have suggested that such galaxies, which often have masses far greater than the combined mass of their stars, are “failed” galaxies, never producing the number of stars their mass would suggest possible.

Dragonfly 44 is unusual among known ultra diffuse galaxies, because it is similar to mass to our own Milky Way. Galaxies like the Milky Way are usually very efficient at forming stars in a well understood process, yet Dragonfly 44 challenges that understanding.

Additionally, astronomers may find Dragonfly 44 to be a promising target for further study of dark matter. This large mass of dark matter is located only 300 million light-years from Earth, within the Local Cluster—our universal backyard.

Sources:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.06291v2.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/dim-nearby-galaxy-nearly-100-dark-matter

REPORT: Why do we band birds?

10/15/2013

In this video, I explain the purpose and significance of bird banding research. By placing metal bands on birds, researchers are able to track individual birds over great distance and time, learning much about bird behavior and health.

If you've found a bird band, you can help by reporting it to Bird Banding Laboratory.

Big thanks to the volunteers and staff at Warner Park Nature Center, who helped me film and research this video.

REPORT: The shuttered webpages of the shutdown

10/8/2013

My first interaction with the U.S. government shutdown of 2013 came in the form of a website, or rather, in the form of an absent website.
While researching a video about bird banding (coming soon!), I attempted to access the U.S. Bird Banding Laboratory's website in the early hours of September 30th. Instead, I was directed to this page:

Unites States Geologic Survey – 99.51% of 8,632 employees furloughed.

As a science writer and video producer, I rely upon many online government resources to conduct research. Curious to see how the shutdown had affected other technical and scientific government websites, I found some sites to be almost completely offline and some almost fully functional.

Here is a summary of my search: a collection of homepages for various technical and scientific government agencies during the shutdown. Using data from the Office of Management and Budget and the Washington Post, I've indicated the percentage of each agency's workforce on furlough.