Here is a short video of recent solar eruptions captured by NASA’s Solar and Heliosheric Observatory ( SOHO ). Captured in infrared by the orbiter, it demonstrates the power of solar flares.

Storms on the Sun’s surface are directly responsible for the increase in spectacular auroras that have been experienced lately in the night sky from the northern to the southern hemispheres on Earth.



Sun’s Explosive Whiplash in Infrared





(credit: NASA)

WHB

...

This month, NASA researchers launched a rocket into an aurora in northern Alaska in an attempt to understand these amazing atmospheric displays better. According to the lead scientist from Cornell: "We're investigating ‘space weather’ that is caused by charged particles from the sun interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field.”

Whatever it is called, a fish-eye image taken during the launch is certainly impressive.



...

Silene is a genus of wildflowers typical of cold regions of Europe, North America, and elsewhere. Silene species are  common high Arctic and Alpine mountain environments. They hybridize easily to produce plants with pale pink flowers, thus are often called pinks. Hybrid Silenes are grown as favorite garden plants.

Russian scientists have now announced the propagation of a Silene species kept dormant for over than 30,000 years in Siberian permafrost. Their horticultural feat was just published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). With assistance from laboratory micro-propagation techniques, preserved seeds and leaves were revived and brought into flower. The original material may have been collected by Siberian squirrels and buried in their burrows for winter munching. The plants was likely frozen quickly, survived...

Mobee, or Monolithic Bees, is a tiny drone crafted by engineers at Harvard's Microrobotics Laboratory. Like an origami folded puzzle, the micro-device uses intricate layering and uses a folding process that allows fabrication of multiple pop-up robots. It can fly.

The first prototypes consist of layers consisting of carbon fibers, brass, plastic, sturdy titanium, light weight ceramics, and adhesives laminated in a complex, laser-cut, design. The structure incorporates flexible hinges allowing the bug to assemble itself in a single movement. The Harvard engineers worked for years to build the bio-mimicry inspired, insect sized, robots that can fly and behave autonomously. Suitable materials, software, and fabrication methods were lacking prior to Mobee’s design so they were all invented by the Harvard researchers. The fabrication methods have the potential to be...

Climate Deniers are having a hard time.

First, information was leaked to the magnifying glass of the media, including the Los Angeles Times, that efforts to create dis-information and confusion about the science of climate change was actually supported by large supporters of a climate denial think tank and now two scientific reports actually bring clear focus to the actual facts of the situation facing everyone:

Researchers find unprecedented, man-made trends in oceans acidity  and  NASA study confirms man-made influence over global warming 

The...

John Muir once called the glacial carved Hetch Hetchy Valley next to Yosemite as “one of nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples”. In the early 1920’s, that wild temple was flooded and turned into a placid reservoir. The City of San Francisco succeeded in its campaign to dam the valley.

However, a desire to reverse the 19th-20th Century decisions, breach the dam, and restore the valley has never died. This recovery effort has now received the endorsement in a strong opinion regarding:

Hetch Hetchy's Past and Future.



              ...

You probably never thought the sun could look green but in this new extreme image taken by NASA’s STEREO spacecraft it does. Photographs captured using ultra-violet and infrared filters, provide additional details to the Sun’s surface and corona that advance understanding of solar processes.

Green is also the color of chlorophyll in plants that sustains terrestrial life on Earth.



Green Ultra-violet Sun

(credit:...

When John Steinbeck and his friend the wildlife biologist, Ed Ricketts, travelled through Baja California in the early 1940’s, the Colorado River still flowed to Sea of Cortez. For millennia, the waters of the river had  fed a vast marshy ecosystem of over 2 million acres that spread from the river’s mouth in Mexico back into the United States. Thousands of species of birds, small mammals, and other wildlife flourished in this estuary as an exquisite example of the life-sustaining capacity of water in a desert environment. The estuary was not unlike the famous Garden of Eden of the biblical stories. Steinbeck took notes on his Baja travels that served as the basis for a wonderful piece of non-fiction, The Log from the Sea of Cortez. Along with Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Steinbeck’s stories on the Sea of Cortez represent an essential piece of environmental literature and required...

If you were told that something was worth $1000 per gram--$28000 per ounce or $450000 per pound--you would be right to assume that is was an illicit substance likely bad to consume. If you heard that was the value placed on a rock consisting of basic metals and trace elements, you would again be right in thinking someone was crazy to spend the money. However, that is the market price if you wanted to purchase a gram of space rock that was blasted off the surface of Mars several million years ago and landed in Morocco in North Africa.

The meteorite was recently purchased with help of a donor by the Natural History Museum in London.





...

We reflected on the history of humans and whales in the 18th-20th Centuries and a new book about interactions between humans and whales by D. Graham Burnett. Now in the 21st Century, a more positive approach is being pursued as this video by the Great Whale Conservancy demonstrates from the Sea of Cortez off Baja California:





Humpback Whale Rescue (credit: Great Whale Conservancy)





Riled Up...