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    Thank the Moon for Earth’s Lengthening Day

    June 7, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    During its flight to Jupiter in 1992, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Earth and Moon. Separate images were combined to generate this view. NASA/JPL/USGS

    During its flight to Jupiter in 1992, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Earth and Moon. Separate images were combined to generate this view. NASA/JPL/USGS

    For anyone who has ever wished there were more hours in the day, geoscientists have some good news: Days on Earth are getting longer. A new study that reconstructs the deep history of our planet’s relationship to the moon shows that 1.4 billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted just over 18 hours. This is at least in part because the moon was closer and changed the way Earth spun around its axis.

    “As the moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out,” explains Stephen Meyers, professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of the stud...

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    Findings could spur Energy-Saving Electronics, Quantum Computing

    June 5, 2018, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    An exotic magnetic insulator conducts electricity along its edges without energy loss. The M stands for magnetization of the magnet, and this GIF shows the magnetization reversal process (red to blue and vice versa). Image: Wenbo Wang/Rutgers University-New Brunswick

    An exotic magnetic insulator conducts electricity along its edges without energy loss. The M stands for magnetization of the magnet, and this GIF shows the magnetization reversal process (red to blue and vice versa). Image: Wenbo Wang/Rutgers University-New Brunswick

     
    A Rutgers-led team of physicists has demonstrated a way to conduct electricity between transistors without energy loss, opening the door to low-power electronics and, potentially, quantum computing that would be far faster than today’s computers. Their findings, which involved using a special mix of materials with magnetic and insulator properties, are published online in Nature Physics.
     
    “This material, although it’s much diluted in terms of magnetic properties, can still behave like a magnet and conducts elec...
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    Light Exposure during Sleep may Increase Insulin Resistance

    June 5, 2018, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Image result for Light Exposure during Sleep may Increase Insulin Resistance
     
    Chronic overnight light exposure could have long-term effects on metabolic function. According to preliminary results from a new study, nighttime light exposure during sleep may affect metabolic function. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that light exposure at night during sleep adversely impacts metabolic outcomes.
     
    “Our preliminary findings show that a single night of light exposure during sleep acutely impacts measures of insulin resistance,” said lead author Ivy Cheung Mason, PhD, who was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine when this study was conducted. “Light exposure overnight during sleep has been shown to disrupt sleep, but these data indicate that it may also have the potential to influence metabolism.”
     
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    Collective Gravity, not Planet Nine, may explain the Orbits of ‘detached objects’

    June 5, 2018, Categories  Uncategorized

    An artist's rendering of Sedna, which looks reddish in color in telescope images. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

    An artist’s rendering of Sedna, which looks reddish in color in telescope images. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

     
    Bumper car-like interactions at the edges of our solar system – and not a mysterious ninth planet – may explain the dynamics of strange bodies called “detached objects,” according to a new study. CU Boulder Assistant Professor Ann-Marie Madigan and a team of researchers have offered up a new theory for the existence of planetary oddities like Sedna. This minor planet orbits Earth’s sun at a distance of 8 billion miles but appears separated from the rest of the solar system.
     
    One theory for its unusual dynamics is that an as-of-yet-unseen ninth planet beyond Neptune may have disturbed the orbits of Sedna and other detached objects...
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