Law human

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Earthquakes paint a picture of the inside of the Earth

(Image: Ebru Bozdağ, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, and David Pugmire, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Eavesdropping on earthquakes is painting a picture of the Earth's interior that looks like the swirling colours inside a marble. This view beneath the Pacific Ocean, based on simulations run by Jeroen Tromp from Princeton University and his team, uses different colours to represent the speed of seismic tremors, giving an insight into the planet's inner structure.

Seismic data allows us to build up a picture of the mantle – the layer between the crust and outer core of the Earth – by following the fate of vibrations created by earthquakes. Since they travel more slowly through viscous materials, such as molten magma, than through solid rock, analysing the seismic fallout from hundreds of earthquakes worldwide reveals inner features like mineral deposits, subterranean lakes and the movement and shape of tectonic plates.

In the image above, slower waves are in red and orange. Faster vibrations, in green and blue, probably correlate with subduction zones, where one tectonic plate burrows under another.

Although this picture focuses on a single region, the researchers are aiming to create a 3D map of the entire mantle, down to a depth of almost 3000 kilometres, by the end of the year.

What makes this kind of analysis possible is the huge number-crunching power of the Titan computer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which can handle 20 quadrillion calculations per second.

So far, Tromp and his colleagues have used their techniques to analyse structures in the mantle beneath California and Europe. Their most recent analysis crunches data from the seismic waves that fanned around the world from a magnitude 7.9 magnitude in China's Sichuan province in 2008.

Journal reference: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, DOI: 10.1002/2014JB011638

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Ice makes unlikely rocket fuel for CubeSats

Ice would make a fine rocket fuel, if you're a CubeSat.

These lightweight, low-cost satellites are made up of 1 litre modules, making them popular for student projects. Once they have hitched a ride into Earth orbit, they can do real science, such as monitoring the atmosphere or searching for extrasolar planets.

But they are limited by the lack of a good propulsion system to keep them aloft longer and under control, says Angelo Cervone at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. "We have reached the maximum level of what you can do with small satellites without one."

So Cervone and his colleagues designed an ice-propelled rocket. The CubeSat would contain 100 grams of water ice. Once in space the ice would sublimate and release vapour molecules. These would then bounce against a hot plate to gain speed before escaping, causing a propulsion force. A prototype may fly in a few years.

Challenges ahead

Ice-powered propulsion could work well, says Paulo Lozano, director of the Space Propulsion Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is developing a CubeSat propulsion system based on accelerating charged particles.

"It's based on solid propellant, and that is always a good idea," he says. "If you have something that can explode, it would pose a threat to the main payload. The challenge will be to keep the ice as ice all the time."

Cervone and his team are still working on how to keep the ice frozen while the satellite is waiting for lift-off, which could mean days on the launch pad. Freezing it after arrival in orbit is an option, but would complicate the design.

The CubeSat propulsion field is becoming crowded – in addition to ice rockets and Lozano's "Electrospray Thruster", a group at the University of Michigan is developing a third rocket using charged particles.

But different types of CubeSat propulsion may coexist, says Cervone, because the demands made on rockets are diverse. For instance, fuel efficiency is most important for travelling long distances, such as reaching asteroids and the outer planets. Charged particle propulsion might be best for this. But for orbital corrections and orientation control, you need more powerful propulsion, and your fuel only needs to last as long as the expected working life of the satellite – ice rockets might be best for that.

Journal reference: Acta Astronautica, DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2014.12.003

Monday, March 16, 2015

45 Baby Names that Mean Music

For some parents, the definition of a name is just as important as the sound. Music is universal and names with musical definitions make great choices for your little ones. Musical names come from many countries and heritages. They have simple and creative spellings and various sound options. Let's take a look at the great name options that have musical definitions.

(1) Shira: (female) Shira is Hebrew for song. I love the sound of Shira!

(2) Apollo: (male) Meaning God of music and poetry, this Greek name is a strong choice for a baby boy.

(3) Ranit: (male or female) Hebrew for song, Ranit is a great choice for a little boy or girl.

(4) Nazim: (male) Nazim is Indian for song and has a great sound. Naz is a great nickname as well.

(5) Alahya: (female) This Indian name means musical tone or color. It's so beautiful and I love the spelling.

(6) Lirit: (female) This Hebrew name means lyrical and has a great simple sound. It's like a better Merrit.

(7) Dewon: (male) Dewon is Irish for song and fits right into the popular sound for boys names today.

(8) Melody: (female) Melody is of Greek origin and is a wonderful choice. The melody is the most important part of a song!

(9) Roni: (male or female) Hebrew for song, Roni could work on a little boy or girl.

(10) Saron: (male or female) Meaning his song in Hebrew, Saron has a wonderful sound to it.

(11) Aria: (female) This English name means gentle music. It's more of an obvious choice musically speaking, but still beautiful.

(12) Philomela: (female) This Greek name means lover of music. It is a bit of a mouthful, but fits right in with Gabriella or Isabella.

(13) Leron: (male) The Arabic meaning of Leron means the song is mine. It's a wonderful definition for your child and has a great, modern sound.

(14) Sora: (female) Sora is Native American for chirping songbird. It's a softer Zora and has such a pretty sound.

(15) Brage: (male) This is the Norwegian name for the god of music. It has a really cool sound.

(16) Rina: (female) Rina is Hebrew for joyous song. It's beautiful and is a great choice for parents who don't like nicknames.

(17) Alima: (female) Alima is an Arabic name that means learned in dance or music. It has a simple spelling and a pretty sound to it.

(18) Lark: (male or female) The American meaning of Lark is songbird. I think it could work on a boy or girl.

(19) Ranim: (male or female) Arabic for reciting in a sing song voice, Ranim is a wonderful choice for your baby boy or girl.

(20) Cadence: (female) This American name means musical beat. It another choice that is a bit more obvious, but has such a great sound and energy to it.

(21) Philyra: (female) Like Philomela, Philyra means lover of music. It is a simpler spelling, so much more relate-able for modern parents.

(22) Chantal: (female) From the French verb to sing, Chantal is a beautiful name with many alternate spelling choices.

(23) Binali: (female) With the cute nickname Nali, the Hindi name Binali is a beautiful choice. It means musical instrument.

(24) Piper: (male or female) Piper literally means a flute player. It's gender bending, so you can consider it for your baby boy or girl.

(25) Lyric: (female) Lyric is Greek for melodic word. While it is obvious, I love this name!

(26) Aika: (male or female) Aika means love song in Japanese. It has such a great definition and a very unique sound.

(27) Ruana: (female) This Hindi name means musical instrument and the nickname Ru is absolutely adorable.

(28) Musetta: (female) Musetta is French for a song. It is a really pretty name and frilly as well. I like Muse and Etta as nicknames.

(29) Bethany: (female) This is a recognizable name that means house of music in Hebrew. It's a great way to honor music and your daughter, without the name being that out there.

(30) Charmaine: (female) In Latin, Charmaine means to sing. It has a pretty sound and is definitely a bold choice.

(31) Harper: (male or female) This name literally means harp player. It's gaining popularity and can be used on a little boy or girl.

(32) Carol: (female) The French meaning of Carol is melody and song. You could also do Carolyn, Caroline, or Carollie.

(33) Daina: (female) Daina means song in Lithuania. It's a cooler spelling then Dana, and is easy to say.

(34) Jaron: (male) Meaning to shout and sing in Hebrew, Jaron is a really cool choice for your baby boy. It is much cooler than Jayden!

(35) Gita: (female) Gita is Hindi for song and has such a cute energy and sound.

(36) Kotone: (male) Kotone means harp sound in Japanese. I really like the cool sound to this name. It's very strong.

(37) Mavis: (female) This name has a very unique sound, but is super easy to spell. It is the name of a bird that means song thrush.

(38) Carmen: (female) The Latin and Spanish definition of Carmen is song. It's also the name of a beautiful opera.

(39) Riya: (female) Riya means singer in Hindi. It can also be spelled Ria, but I really love it with the "y."

(40) Zamir: (male) Hebrew for songbird, Zamir is an awesome choice for your baby boy. I love Z names, and this is a great way to take a departure from Zachary.

(41) Chyna: (female) Chyna means musical instrument. If you are a music lover who loves place names, this could be your top choice.

(42) Harmony: (female) Another obvious choice, Harmony is a great option for parents who want a recognizable musical choice.

(43) Kousan: (male) In Armenian, Kousan means singer. I really love the sound of this name, and think it should be on any music lovers list of possiblities.

(44) Zimri: (male) Zimri means my music in Hebrew. It has a really cool, unique sound and would make a great choice!

(45) Calliope: (female) Meaning beautiful voice in Greek, Calliope has such a cool sound and a great nickname in Calli.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Barry Whites of horse world get all the mares

Would Black Beauty have made the cut? It turns out mares prefer stallions with deep whinnies. Female horses look for the strongest stallions, but when their view is obscured, they depend on voices to size up potential mates.

In the wild, horses live in harems of adults and juveniles led by a stallion. When the young reach sexual maturity, they usually move to another group to mate. Alban Lemasson and his team from the University of Rennes 1 in France have shown that, when given the choice, mares go for groups led by stallions with deeper voices – a factor linked with size and fertility.

"Female choice of harem often occurs from afar, where sound is the most effective form of communication for a first encounter," says Lemasson. So females get a first impression of the stallion based on his concert.

The same authors had previously shown that stallions with deeper voices were larger on average. They have now found that such horses also have a slower heart rate and sire more offspring. By listening to calls, mares might be finding the toughest, calmest and most fertile males – the ones with the potential to be good fathers and protective mates.

How low can you go

The finding could help horse breeders select the best stallions, too. "Breeders will be able to choose the most fertile stallions that excite mares the most so that reproduction happens in an optimal manner," says Lemasson. "And now all might be able to make that decision based on sound, rather than costly sperm tests."

Preferring a deep voice is not confined to horses, humans too Speaker are subject to the "Barry white" effect. And a similar preference has been recorded in a variety of animals, from deer and bison to giant pandas and koalas Movie Camera .

"In humans, men with lower, more attractive voices also seem to have more attractive faces, and possibly movements and body odours," says Tamsin Saxton, from Northumbria University, UK. "The cues seem to work together to advertise one's suitability as a partner."

But, in humans, there can be too much of a good thing. "Women like deeper voices, but not too low. Too much masculinity might be good for short term relationships but not to build a family," says Saxton. "And if you try to fake a deeper voice, it might well make you sound more dominant and confident, but probably won't necessarily lead to people perceiving you as more attractive."

Journal reference: PLOS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118468

Can we save history from ISIS vandals?

THE Islamic State's latest propaganda video shows fighters smashing statues and artefacts that are thousands of years old in the Mosul Museum, Iraq. The destruction is shocking, but maybe it is not random.

Archaeologist Katharyn Hanson of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has examined the video and points out that valuable objects are missing. She says that despite what the IS fighters say, they are not destroying everything.

The missing objects will likely be sold for a healthy profit on the black market, using international crime networks. Just how much money ISIS generates for its military campaign from looted art is still debated. Some believe the sale of ancient art is a key revenue stream for the terrorist group. Others, including Hanson, argue that ISIS makes far more money from oil stolen from pipelines and ransoms paid for hostages. Either way, treasures are being lost forever.

Following the Mosul Museum rampage, ISIS bulldozed the nearby ancient city of Nimrud in Iraq. Last month, ISIS reportedly also burned thousands of rare manuscripts and documents from Mosul libraries. Looting and the destruction of cultural artefacts and archaeological sites has been rife for years in Iraq and more recently in Syria.

Now ISIS is attempting to wipe out ethnic and religious minorities that do not adhere to its own world view. "They [ISIS] are literally going to annihilate anything that does not fit their framework," Hanson says. "I think the intent is to terrorise communities and demonstrate power."

"Looting is happening everywhere and anyone with a shovel is doing it," says Michael Danti, an archaeologist at the University of Boston. "All the jihadi groups are doing it, factions within the Syrian regime are doing it, and there are stories of factions within the Syrian opposition doing it. It's very tempting, and lucrative. Some people are trying to feed their families, others are buying weapons."

Danti says most of the looted artefacts coming out of Iraq and Syria end up in Lebanon and Turkey. Then they are exported to Europe through countries with more porous borders, like Portugal and Cyprus. "Once it's in the EU it's a little easier to get false accreditation, so it can be imported 'legally', and moved on to the major centres like London and New York," he says.

The objects range from sculptures and mosaics to inscriptions and coins, and can fetch up to $60,000 at legal auctions. "You name it, I've seen it all," says Danti. "The stuff we're seeing is the tip of an iceberg. The really, really valuable stuff goes to high-end criminals and gets sold directly to the buyers."

So what can be done to prevent further looting? Several research groups are using technology and local contacts to try and document and save some of the treasures. For example, Hanson is leading the Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria Initiative (SHOSHI) to monitor the extent of the damage, train people on the ground to document and preserve remaining archaeological sites, and to get them more equipment.

Nimrud was the second of four ancient Assyrian capitals to be destroyed by ISIS, alongside Nineveh, with reports that a third, Khorsabad, has been attacked, too. But Hanson acknowledges that there's only so much SHOSHI can do. "We knew Nimrud was going to come eventually," she says. "I cannot believe that we never sent a 3D scanner to any of these sites."

Meanwhile, Danti heads a programme funded by the US State Department, which is using satellite imagery and contacts in Syria and Iraq to monitor the destruction of cultural artefacts.

Danti is adamant that the illegal art market is fuelling the looting, in a vicious cycle of positive reinforcement. He is heartened by a recent UN resolution that will push member states to improve their ability to stem the illegal trade in antiquities from conflict zones in Iraq and Syria and punish the criminals.

Hanson agrees it's important to tackle the international markets, and encourage museums and private collectors to refrain from buying anything that looks like it's from Iraq or Syria at the minute. But unless the UN uses force to protect historical sites, Hanson is not sure what else the international community can do from a distance. "The region," she says, "is in a many ways losing its ancestors, its history."

This article appeared in print under the headline "Can we save history from ISIS vandals?"

Leader: "ISIS is waging war on history. It's time to intervene"

Conifer seed fossils caught learning helicopter flight

Leonardo da Vinci is often credited with producing an early helicopter design – but trees came up with rotating flying machines at least 270 million years before him. The strategy wasn't an instant evolutionary success, though.

We think of plants as spending their lives rooted to the ground, yet they were actually one of the earliest life forms to develop wings. Seeds with pairs of wings, allowing them to glide, date back at least 370 million years.

About 100 million years later, conifer trees evolved a new way to fly: the helicopter spin. Their seeds began to feature a single wing, which sends them into a tailspin as they fall. This slows the seeds' flight and increases their chances of catching a breeze and travelling some way from the parent tree, meaning the seedlings are more likely to develop without having to compete with the parent for light and nutrients.

Poor start

But the ploy got off to an unpromising start. Last year, Cindy Looy and Robert Stevenson at the University of California in Berkeley noticed that the seeds of the earliest known helicoptering conifer – an extinct species called Manifera talaris – typically didn't carry just one wing. Like some other early conifer seeds, they had two.

In nearly 80 per cent of the 120 seeds they studied, the second wing was small and stunted, but in 13 per cent both wings were essentially the same length, forming a symmetrical pair. Fewer than 10 per cent had the familiar single wing.

Now, Looy and Stevenson, and their colleague Dennis Evangelista, have discovered that those second wings were bad news for the first helicopters. The researchers made models of the seeds using materials chosen to match the properties of modern conifer seeds. Then they dropped them in a special breezeless chamber originally designed to study small winged animals, and recorded what happened using high-speed cameras.

The results suggest that the double-winged seeds were all poor flyers – particularly those with symmetrical wings. In fact, almost half them simply plummeted to the ground when the models had a mass of 6.5 milligrams – similar to that of modern helicoptering conifer seeds. All of the single-winged seed models of that mass helicoptered gracefully downwards instead.

What's more, the few symmetrical double-winged seed that did rotate during their descent still fell roughly twice as fast as single-winged seeds. The seeds with one large and one small wing were in between – they descended more slowly than the symmetrical double-winged seeds, but more quickly than the single-winged seeds.

Honing the art

Based on this, Looy thinks Manifera offers a snapshot of conifers perfecting the art of helicopter flying. Clearly, seeds with a single well-developed wing "fly" better, but early in their evolution, conifers produced a large number of poor flyers too. Why was that the case, and what changed later on?

Looy thinks it comes down to the conifer cones on which the seeds form. A few dozen of the individual scales – the individual seed-bearing structures – from Manifera cones survive as fossils – some, remarkably, with seeds still intact. "It's sheer luck that we found those specimens," says Looy.

These are not your typical simple pine cone scales, though: each looks rather like a hand with five or more finger-like projections. Three of these, the seed-bearing ones, are called sporophylls.

The researchers found that the single-winged seeds, and the seeds with one large and one small wing, seemed to develop only on the outermost sporophylls – equivalent to the thumb and little finger. The central sporophylls – equivalent to the middle finger – were developmentally programmed to produce seeds that were more symmetrical, with two well-developed wings.

Debugging

Looy suspects that it was the cone rather than the seeds themselves that changed. Younger relatives of Manifera that evolved to produce only single-winged seeds lost the central sporophyll – probably to avoid investing resources in the poorly performing double-winged seeds. "It's a slightly speculative idea because the number of fossils we have to work on is small," says Looy. "But it's logical."

"I think it's a great paper," says David Lentink, a flight mechanics researcher at Stanford University in California. "It's really nice to see a functional study of how these different seeds perform."

William DiMichele, an authority on early plant fossils at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, says that the work provides a great example of evolution in action. "In effect we get to see Nature working the bugs out."

Journal reference: Paleobiology, DOI: 10.1017/pab.2014.18

Pre-crime software recruited to track gang of thieves

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Predictive policing is on the rise in the US, UK and Europe. The technique now faces one of its toughest challenges: the Felony Lane Gang

THEY always choose the line at the bank farthest from CCTV – that's how the Felony Lane Gang got its name. With crimes committed in 34 states, they've withdrawn millions of dollars from banks using cheques and credit cards stolen from cars. A handful of individuals connected to the group have been arrested, but the ringleaders have remained at large for years. Can crime-predicting software finally stop them in their tracks?

That's the hope of police in the US, who have begun using advanced software to analyse crime data in conjunction with emails, text messages, chat files and CCTV recordings acquired by law enforcement. The system, developed by Wynyard, a firm based in Auckland, New Zealand, could even look at social media in real time in an attempt to predict where the gang might strike next.

"We're trying to get to the source of the mastermind behind the criminal activity, that's why we're setting up a database so everybody can provide the necessary information and help us get higher up the chain," says Craig Blanton of the Marion County Sheriff's Office in Indiana. Because Felony Lane Gang members move from state to state to stay one step ahead, the centralised database is primed to aggregate historical information on the group and search for patterns in their movements, Blanton says.

"We know where they've been, where they are currently and where they may go in the future," he says. "I think had we not taken on this challenge, we along with the other 110 impacted agencies would be doing our own thing without better knowledge of how this group operates."

It's not the only system that police forces have at their disposal. PredPol, which was developed by mathematician George Mohler at Santa Clara University in California, has been widely adopted in the US and the UK. The software analyses recorded crimes based on date, place and category of offence. It then generates daily suggestions for locations that should be patrolled by officers, depending on where it calculates criminal activity is most likely to occur.

Kent Police in the UK have been using PredPol for two years. A few months ago, officers were given a patrol location by the system and initially thought it strange – it wasn't in one of the areas most commonly affected by street crime. They visited the location anyway and discovered a distressed woman and a child in public. The woman had been beaten up and the child sexually assaulted.

"The officers managed to take care of them and also managed to apprehend the offender, who was a known and wanted suspect," says Mark Johnson, head of analysis at Kent police.

He says that when the statistical data for the area in question was analysed, officers realised that although it was not as prone to crime as other areas, similar offences had been recorded there in the past. The software did not predict a specific crime, but it predicted that something violent was likely to take place – and it was right.

Targeting which areas to patrol has had a significant effect. Johnson says that PredPol is one of the reasons why the annual number of recorded crimes in Kent has fallen from 140,000 to 100,000 since its implementation.

Part of the enthusiasm for this technology has come from officers burdened by tightening budgets, especially in the US, says David Roberts at the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "There's been real pressure on law enforcement agencies to work smarter, to do more with less and be much more proactive in targeting their scarce resources," he says.

Burglary here

David Wall, professor of criminology at the University of Durham, UK, thinks statistical technology can be highly beneficial but he warns that not all crimes can be predicted – yet.

"Anomalies can happen anywhere and these are not necessarily related to social circumstances, they tend to be related to circumstances that are unveiled at a particular moment in time," he says. "The classic one is a domestic argument that gets out of hand and turns violent. It's very hard to predict that."

Predictive policing software packages are being adopted across mainland Europe, too. In Germany, researchers at the Institute for Pattern-based Prediction Techniques (IfmPt) in Oberhausen have developed a system for tackling burglaries. Precobs works by analysing data on the location, approximate date, modus operandi and stolen items from robberies going back up to 10 years.

Based on this information, Precobs then predicts where burglaries are likely to happen next. This is tightly defined, within a radius of about 250 metres, and a predicted time window for the crime of between 24 hours and 7 days. Officers are then advised to focus their resources in a flagged area.

Precobs has been trialled in the Swiss cantons of Basel-Landschaft, Zurich and Aargau as well as in a number of German cities including Munich and Nuremberg. Michael Schweer, head of analysis at IfmPt, says that the accuracy of predictions so far is about 80 to 85 per cent – meaning that burglaries happened in most of the areas the software predicted.

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