Giant shockwaves around a distant cluster of galaxies could be generating some of the mysterious cosmic rays that strike Earth. They could also give us a clue as to why the universe is threaded with magnetic fields.
According to NaturalScience, the cluster, called Abell 3376, is a swarm of galaxies about 600 million light years away. On either side of this swarm are two huge arc-like structures, each about 3 million light years across, that are sending out radio waves.
An international team of astronomers led by Joydeep Bagchi of the University of Pune in India used the Very Large Array of radio telescopes in New Mexico, US, to spot these structures.
They are probably shockwaves, regions where the ionized gas around the cluster is decelerating from supersonic to subsonic speeds. Such shocks would accelerate electrons and other charged particles up to very high speeds, and these energetic particles should then spiral around local magnetic fields and emit the radio waves.
Then what created the shocks in the first place? There are two possibilities. It may be that roughly a billion years ago, two clusters crashed into one another to form Abell 3376. The collision could have sparked a shockwave that traveled out through the cluster gas, whose remnants we are now seeing.
But there is a more intriguing possibility. Primordial gas, untouched since the big bang, should be constantly pouring into all galaxy clusters. Computer simulations of the cosmos show that gravity tends to pull the gas into stringy structures called filaments.
Abell 3376 could be threaded on one such filament, and the two shockwaves could mark where this cool ancient gas smacks into the super-hot gas of the cluster. “If so, it’s the first detection of an ’accretion shockwave’,“ says cluster expert Torsten Ensslin of the Max Planck institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany.
Shocks in such cold gas are especially good at accelerating charged particles. Calculations show that protons could get bounced back and forth across the shockwave, pinging off magnetic waves, and eventually be boosted to kinetic energies of as much as 1019 electron volts.
That is millions of times as high as the particles in any earthbound atom-smasher and matches the strength of mysterious charged particles called ultra-high-energy cosmic rays that occasionally hit Earth’s atmosphere.
It would also be the first evidence for magnetic fields outside galaxy clusters, within the primordial gas. “We don’t understand the origin of magnetic fields in the cosmos very well,“ says Ensslin.
Measuring the field outside Abell 3376 might help astrophysicists work out what generated the first cosmic fields--whether they were created in some exotic process in the early big bang, or were squirted out by radio galaxies much later on.
The shockwaves might still be the result of colliding clusters, however, rather than the accretion of ancient gas. To decide between the two will require making very sensitive X-ray observations to take the temperature of the local gas.

The most popular explanation is that a brief but enormous episode of volcanism blanketed most of the planet in a layer of lava 1 to 3 kilometers deep.(NASA Photo)

The colossal outpouring of lava thought to have almost totally resurfaced Venus 500 million years ago never happened, a new study says. If correct, it means that a much longer record of Venus’s history is preserved on the planet’s surface, NewScientist wrote.
Planetary scientists estimated the age of Venus’s surface after studying radar mapping data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, which operated in the early 1990s.
Assuming Venus was exposed to the same rain of asteroids and comets that the other planets experienced, they expected Magellan would spot about 5000 craters on the planet’s surface.
But they found only about 1000, suggesting that the planet’s surface is actually very young--perhaps 500 million to 1 billion years old. And those craters appear remarkably well preserved, unaltered by erosion or other geological processes. That suggests that whatever erased the 4000 or so missing craters was an all-or-nothing process.
The most popular explanation is that a brief but enormous episode of volcanism blanketed most of the planet in a layer of lava 1 to 3 kilometers deep--thick enough to bury all of the craters made before that time.
Now, a new analysis of Magellan data suggests that such a deep layer of solidified lava cannot be present on the surface, casting doubt on the ’catastrophic resurfacing’ hypothesis.
Study leader Vicki Hansen of the University of Minnesota in Duluth, US, and colleagues analyzed areas where islands of terrain poke up through flat ’plains’.
They looked at the slopes that lead down from these islands and disappear below the plains. By studying neighboring islands, they were able to extrapolate where the slopes would reach a common base--the floor of a valley between them.
They found that this base was buried less than 1 kilometer below the surface of the plains. The researchers say this is at odds with the catastrophic volcanism idea, which calls for a global blanket of lava 1 to 3 kilometers deep.
They believe the islands are ancient terrain and the plains were laid down more recently--evidence that bits and pieces of the planet have been resurfaced at different times, leaving much of the planet’s older surface intact.
That meshes well with a study presented at a conference in March by Timothy Bond and Michael Warner of Imperial College London, UK, which found a gradual decline in volcanic activity over as long as 2 billion years better fit Venus crater statistics than a single violent episode.
Ellen Stofan of University College London in the UK agrees that the resurfacing process on Venus was probably more drawn out than in the catastrophic volcanism scenario.

The experiment is another step in the drive to release enough energy from fused atoms to create unlimited electrical power for humanity.(Google Photo)

Sandia’s Z machine, by creating pressures more than 10 million times that of the atmosphere at sea level, has turned a diamond sheet into a pool of liquid.
The object of the experiment was to better understand the characteristics of diamond under the extreme pressure it would face when used as a capsule for a BB-sized pellet intended to fuel a nuclear fusion reaction, EureKalert reported.
The experiment is another step in the drive to release enough energy from fused atoms to create unlimited electrical power for humanity. Control of this process has been sought for 50 years.
Half a bathtub full of seawater in a fusion reaction could produce as much energy as 40 train cars of coal.
Results of the fusion reaction also will be used to validate physics models in computer simulations used to certify the safety and reliability of the US nuclear weapons stockpile.
Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration facility.
The problem for two giant machines that would use this method--the National Ignition Facility in Lawrence Livermore National Lab, which asked for the experiment, and Sandia’s Z machine--is that the outer shell of the pellet must transmit pressure evenly into its interior. Diamond as a solid will do that. Diamond as a liquid will do that. But diamond that is partially both and exists between 6.9 million atmospheres and 10.4 million atmospheres provides uneven pressures. This in-between phase would create instabilities that would ruin the implosion, like a hand squeezing a water balloon that allows portions of the balloon to exit through spaces between the fingers.
So, if diamond is used as a capsule, the energies involved must be tailored to avoid landing in this zone.
Why use diamond at all? It was hoped that diamond would help smooth out the applied pressure loads and keep the capsule implosion symmetric.
Wouldn’t a more flexible material like vinyl be better?
“At the pressures we’re interested in, everything is compressible,“ said capsule designer Mark Herrmann, a Sandia researcher.
Because of limited time to run the experiments, due to the shutdown of Z for renovations that should increase its power by 30 percent, Sandia lead experimenter Marcus Knudson found a predictive use of a quantum-molecular simulation program developed at Sandia by Mike Desjarlais very helpful in pinpointing the pressures at which diamond would begin and finish liquefying.
In the experiments, the applied pressure came from shock waves passing through the diamond. The waves were created by impacting the diamond with tiny plates hurled using Z’s huge magnetic fields at about 20 times the speed of a rifle bullet.

A fossil-hunting trip to celebrate a son’s homecoming resulted in the recent discovery of an ancient sea monster in central Montana.
Believed to be approximately 70 million years old, its skull and lower jaw represent the first complete skull of a long-necked plesiosaur found in Montana, according to Montana State University experts. The skull is said to be one of the best specimens of its kind in North America, Montana.edu wrote.
“It’s a very important specimen,“ MSU paleontologist Jack Horner said at the Museum of the Rockies where the fossil rests in boxes. “We have been looking for it for a long, long time.“
Ken Olson of Lewistown said he and his son, Garrett, found the fossils in mid-August about 75 miles northeast of Lewistown. Since Horner was in Mongolia, Olson said he prepared the fossils himself and delivered them to Horner about three weeks later. Olson, a retired Lutheran pastor, has long collected fossils for the museum. Two of his best finds are the large Torosaurus skulls displayed there.
Horner said the head of a short-necked plesiosaur was found previously in Montana, but he had been waiting for the discovery of a complete long-necked plesiosaur skull. Both were ancient sea reptiles that lived during the time of the dinosaurs.
“This critter is one of the long, ridiculously long-necked plesiosaurs,“ said Pat Druckenmiller, an MSU expert in marine reptile fossils. Druckenmiller, who described a new plesiosaur called Edgarosaurus from southern Montana in 2002, was part of a Norwegian expedition in August that mapped the location of several giant fossils in the Arctic. He is now an adjunct instructor in the Department of Earth Sciences at MSU.
Based on other fossils of this type in the world, the new Montana fossil could have had as many as 50 to 70 vertebrae in its neck, Druckenmiller said.
“If the skull is 40 centimeters long (about 15.75 inches), the neck could be seven to 10 times that length,“ he said.
Druckenmiller will be in charge of examining the plesiosaurs’ skull and lower jaw. One of his first steps will involve looking at them Monday, Nov. 6, in a CT scanner at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital, Druckenmiller said. Among other things, he wants to see if the skull is a new type of plesiosaur that hasn’t been scientifically described. He also wants to better understand why it needed the enormously long neck. He hopes, too, that the teeth will give clues to its diet.
“This is basically the first good elasmosaur (long-necked plesiosaur) skull found in Montana,“ Druckenmiller said. “That, of course, is really neat. In fact, I would say this is one of the top five skulls of an elasmosaur in North America.“
The skulls of long-necked plesiosaurs are not often found with the rest of the skeleton because they are one of the first parts of the body to fall off after death, and because they are relatively small and fragile compared to the rest of the animal, Druckenmiller said.

Rheumatoid arthritis arises when the immune system mistakenly attacks tissue in the joints, leading to inflammation, pain and progressive joint damage. (Google Photo)

Turmeric, the spice that gives curry its yellow hue, may hold promise as a therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), animal research suggests, Reuters reported.
In experiments with rats, scientists at the University of Arizona in Tucson found that an experimental turmeric extract was able to prevent RA-like joint inflammation and destruction in the animals.
The findings are the first to show that a turmeric extract like those currently sold as dietary supplements has anti-arthritis powers.
Rheumatoid arthritis arises when the immune system mistakenly attacks tissue in the joints, leading to inflammation, pain and progressive joint damage. In the current study, the researchers found that turmeric inhibited a key protein called NF-kappa B, which controls the activity of a number of inflammatory substances harmful to the joints in RA.
In fact, NF-kappa B is the target of certain drugs now under development for RA.
Though the turmeric benefits were seen in an animal model of RA, the findings are promising and should spur clinical trials, lead study author Dr. Janet L. Funk told Reuters Health.
“We think there’s an excellent chance this could work in patients,“ she said.
Funk and her colleagues did not use a turmeric preparation currently sold on the market, but instead created several of their own extracts using the root of the plant. The extract that ultimately proved effective was, however, similar in chemical composition to a turmeric supplement the researchers analyzed for comparison.
Still, it’s too soon for RA sufferers to head to the health food store for turmeric supplements, according to Funk.
“It’s premature to recommend these to people,“ she said, noting that one issue is the fact that dietary supplements are not regulated as drugs are, and consumers have no guarantee that a product contains what’s listed on the label.
Even if the product is good-quality, there have yet to be clinical trials of the safety and efficacy of turmeric supplements in people with RA.