Science

Astronomers have discovered the lowest-mass exoplanet around a sun-like star. The planet, called GJ 504b, is several times the mass of Jupiter.

The planet orbits around its star- GJ 504- at nearly nine times the distance between Sun and Jupiter and was imaged using data from Subaru Telescope in Hawaii.

GJ 504b orbits around a G0-type star GJ 504, which is slightly hotter than the Sun and can be seen with the naked eye in the Virgo constellation. GJ 504b is four times the mass of Jupiter and has a temperature of about 460 degrees Fahrenheit (237 Celsius)."If we could travel to this giant planet, we would see a world still glowing from the heat of its formation with a color reminiscent of a dark cherry blossom, a dull magenta. Our near-infrared camera reveals that its color is much more blue than other imaged planets, which may indicate that its atmosphere has fewer clouds," said Michael McElwain, a member of the discovery team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The discovery shows that models describing giant-planet formation need to be revaluated.

The core accretion model is most widely accepted to understand the formation of huge Jupiter-like planets. The model claims that massive planets are formed from the gas-rich debris disk of young stars. The rocks form asteroid collisions provide the seed for the planet. When this seed gathers sufficient mass, it attracts gas from the disk. There are many drawbacks in this model.

One issue with the model is that it only explains the formation of planets present at a certain distance from their stars. Neptune, for example, has an orbit of about 30 times the average distance between earth and sun (30 astronomical units, or AU). However, the new planet GJ 504b orbits at an estimated 43.5 AU from its star, NASA said.

"This is among the hardest planets to explain in a traditional planet-formation framework," said team member Markus Janson, a Hubble postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University in New Jersey, according to a news release from NASA "Its discovery implies that we need to seriously consider alternative formation theories, or perhaps to reassess some of the basic assumptions in the core-accretion theory."

The research is a part of Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru (SEEDS) and a paper describing the research is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

"Our sun is about halfway through its energy-producing life, but GJ504 is only one-thirtieth its age," added McElwain. "Studying these systems is a little like seeing our own planetary system in its youth."

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One Earth year ago, the Curiosity rover completed a dramatic descent and landed safely on the surface of Mars. Cheers went up from space watchers around the world. On the back of a successful year of scientific exploration, it's time to celebrate once again.

NASA thinks of August 5, touch-down day, as the rover's birthday. Since nobody is willing to deliver a cake to Mars, the rover team had to settle for the traditional singing of "Happy Birthday." This was accomplished using Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. It "sang" the song by vibrating at different frequencies.The song was tested in an identical SAM unit here on Earth before the instructions were sent to Curiosity. Since the song was played on Mars, it should be challenging for licensing agency ASCAP to shake down the rover for royalties.

"This is a first for NASA and for the world and music brings us all together, so this is fun," said Florence Tan, the SAM electrical lead engineer. Since one Mars year takes about 687 Earth days, perhaps Curiosity can look forward to another birthday party before its next Earth-years anniversary comes around.

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US scientists found that even small changes in temperature or rainfall correlated with a rise in assaults, rapes and murders, as well as group conflicts and war.

The team says with the current projected levels of climate change, the world is likely to become a more violent place.

The study is published in Science.

Marshall Burke, from the University of California, Berkeley, said: "This is a relationship we observe across time and across all major continents around the world. The relationship we find between these climate variables and conflict outcomes are often very large."

The researchers looked at 60 studies from around the world, with data spanning hundreds of years.

They report a "substantial" correlation between climate and conflict.

Their examples include an increase in domestic violence in India during recent droughts, and a spike in assaults, rapes and murders during heatwaves in the US.

The report also suggests rising temperatures correlated with larger conflicts, including ethnic clashes in Europe and civil wars in Africa.

Mr Burke said: "We want to be careful, you don't want to attribute any single event to climate in particular, but there are some really interesting results."The researchers say they are now trying to understand why this causal relationship exists.

"The literature offers a couple of different hints," explained Mr Burke.

"One of the main mechanisms that seems to be at play is changes in economic conditions. We know that climate affects economic conditions around the world, particularly agrarian parts of the world.

"There is lots of evidence that changes in economic conditions affect people's decisions about whether or not to join a rebellion, for example."

But he said there could also be a physiological basis, because some studies suggest that heat causes people to be prone to aggression.

"It is a major priority for future research to distinguish between what is going on in each particular situation."

The scientists say that with the current projected levels of climate change the world is likely to become a more violent place.

They estimate that a 2C (3.6F) rise in global temperature could see personal crimes increase by about 15%, and group conflicts rise by more than 50% in some regions.

Commenting on the research, Dr Stephan Harrison from the University of Exeter said it was a "timely study".

"What they have found is entirely plausible... For example, we already know that hotter and drier weather causes an increase in urban violence. Likewise, during cooler and wetter weather people tend to stay indoors, and the threat diminishes."

However, other researchers have questioned whether climate breeds conflict.

Work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that this environmental factor was not to blame for civil war in Africa.

Instead, Dr Halvard Buhaug, from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway, concluded that the conflict was linked to other factors such as high infant mortality, proximity to international borders and high local population density.

Commenting on the latest research, he said: "I disagree with the sweeping conclusion (the authors) draw and believe that their strong statement about a general causal link between climate and conflict is unwarranted by the empirical analysis that they provide.

"I was surprised to see not a single reference to a real-world conflict that plausibly would not have occurred in the absence of observed climatic extremes. If the authors wish to claim a strong causal link, providing some form of case validation is critical."

NEWS SOURCE:http://www.bbc.co.uk/

The annual Perseid meteor shower — peaking Aug. 11-12 — could produce pretty, poignant and plentiful points of light. Let’s hope for clear skies.

At its heaviest, about 90 meteors an hour are predicted, according to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Observer’s Handbook. But even if you diligently watch the sky, you’ll see only a fraction of peak meteors. Certainly, you’re bound to catch a few shooting stars on the evening of Aug. 11, but you’ll likely see more in the wee morning hours of Aug. 12, after the constellation Perseus ascends the eastern heavens.To hunt for them, step away from the light. Find yourself a dark location away from lighted playgrounds, parking lots and streets. Armed with your coffee, amble your way into a lawn chair and look up. Although the meteors appear to emanate from the Perseus constellation, many meteors will leave trails through many parts of the sky.

On Aug. 11, a fattening new moon will be in the western sky in the evening, but it will set around 10:30 p.m., leaving behind dark heavens.

The Perseid meteors are not a one-night show. For several days before and after the Aug. 11-12 peak, you can likely catch these fun shooting stars.

How are falling stars born? On Earth’s annual run around the sun, our planet’s atmosphere strikes the dusty trail of comets gone by, and these dirty, leftover specks light up in our sky. In this case, the Perseid meteors are the debris from Swift-Tuttle— a comet discovered separately by Lewis Swift and Horace P. Tuttle in July 1862.

Beyond meteors, enjoy a few planets: Find the effervescent Venus and ringed Saturnin the west-southwestern sky at dusk. Of the two planets, Venus is brighter at negative 3.9 magnitude, and it appears very similar to an airliner with luminous landing lights. A very young, skinny crescent moon loiters with Venus on Aug. 9.

Saturn, in the southwest at dusk, hangs out at zero magnitude. You should be able to discern the planet in the urban and suburban light pollution of greater Washington. On the evening of Aug. 12, the growing moon will be to Saturn’s lower right. The next night, at first quarter, to Saturn’s lower left.

For early rising joggers and beachgoers, your morning eyes can feast on Jupiter, Marsand Mercury. At negative 2 magnitude, Jupiter is the easiest to find, rising around 3 a.m. and high in the eastern heavens before dawn. Not far behind, our neighboring planet — the reddish Mars (first magnitude) — follows Jupiter. It’s a little harder to see.

For the week’s subsequent mornings, you can catch Mercury before dawn. This fleeting planet follows Jupiter and Mars — and it brightens to negative first magnitude at week’s end, but it also appears to move closer to the sun.

Down to Earth events:

●Aug. 5: “The Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey, Gravitationally Lensed Universe,” a terrifically timely talk by astronomer Alice Olmstead, at the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. See the heavens through telescopes afterward. 9 p.m.www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse.

●Aug. 10: “Exploring the Sky,” hosted by the National Capital Astronomers and the National Park Service. At Rock Creek Park, near the Nature Center south of Military and Glover roads NW. 8:30 p.m. ­capitalastronomers.org.

●Aug. 10: An array of astronomers from the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club join Sean O’Brien of the National Air and Space Museum to telescopically guide you through the heavens. At Sky Meadows State Park near Paris, Va. A program for children precedes sky exploration. Parking $5. Arrive before dark. 7:30-10:30 p.m. Park phone: 540-592-3556.www.nasm.si.edu/events/
skywatching.

●Aug. 11: Astronomer Jason Lee describes the sun’s coronal mass ejections. At the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club. Room 163, Research Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com.

●Aug. 20: “Prepping for Comet ISON,” a lecture by astronomer Elizabeth Warner. She’ll describe what possibly may be the brightest comet in a generation. At the University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Telescopic viewing afterward, weather permitting. 

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WASHINGTON –  Feeling hot under the collar? It may not be all in your head.

A new study connects rising world temperatures with aggressive acts of violence and even war -- but experts in the causes of war gave the report a chilly reception.

For the paper, researchers analyzed 60 studies on historic empire collapses, recent wars, violent crime rates in the United States, lab simulations that tested police decisions on when to shoot and even cases where pitchers threw deliberately at batters in baseball. They found a common thread over centuries: Extreme weather — very hot or dry — means more violence.

The authors say the results show strong evidence that climate can promote conflict.

"When the weather gets bad we tend to be more willing to hurt other people," said economist Solomon Hsiang of the University of California, Berkeley.

He is the lead author of the study, published online Thursday by the journal Science. Experts in the causes of war gave it a mixed reception.

Joshua Goldstein, a professor of international relations at American University and author of "Winning the War on War," found faults with the way the study measured conflicts. He said the idea of connecting hotter tempers with hotter temperatures is only one factor in conflict, and that it runs counter to a long and large trend to less violence.

"To read this you get the impression, if climate change unfolds as we all fear it will, that the world will be beset by violent conflict and that's probably not true," Goldstein said.

In the paper, the team of economists came up with a formula that predicts how much the risk of different types of violence should increase with extreme weather. In war-torn parts of equatorial Africa, it says, every added degree Fahrenheit or so increases the chance of conflict between groups — rebellion, war, civil unrest — by 11 percent to 14 percent. For the United States, the formula says that for every increase of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the likelihood of violent crime goes up 2 percent to 4 percent.

Temperatures in much of North America and Eurasia are likely to go up by that 5.4 degrees by about 2065 because of increases in carbon dioxide pollution, according to a separate paper published in Science on Thursday -- although many scientists take issue with that conclusion as well.

The same paper sees global averages increasing by about 3.6 degrees in the next half-century. So that implies essentially about 40 percent to 50 percent more chance for African wars than it would be without global warming, said Edward Miguel, another Berkeley economist and study co-author.

When the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) updates its report next year on the impacts of global warming, it will address the issue of impacts on war for the first time, said Carnegie Institution scientist Chris Field, who heads that worldwide study group. The new study is likely to play a big role, he said.

Hsiang said that whenever the analyzed studies looked at temperature and conflict, the link was clear, no matter where or when. His analysis examines about a dozen studies on collapses of empires or dynasties, about 15 studies on crime and aggression and more than 30 studies on wars, civil strife or intergroup conflicts.

Goldstein noted a wide array of factors beyond climate that lead to the growth of war -- or cause hot heads to cool down.

"Because of positive changes in technology, economics, politics and health" conflict is likely to continue to drop, he said, although maybe not as much as it would without climate change.

There's a good reason why people get more aggressive in warmer weather, said Ohio State University psychology professor Brad Bushman, who wasn't part of the study but whose work on crime and heat was analyzed by Hsiang. Although people say they feel sluggish when they are hot, their heart rate and other physical responses are aroused and elevated. They think they are not agitated, when in fact they are, and "that's a recipe for disaster," Bushman said.

Miguel acknowledges that many other factors play a role in conflict and said it's too soon to see whether conflict from warming will outweigh peace from prosperity: "It's a race against time."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Almost every man alive can trace his origins to one man who lived about 135,000 years ago, new research suggests. And that ancient man likely shared the planet with the mother of all women.

The findings, detailed Thursday, Aug. 1, in the journal Science, come from the most complete analysis of the male sex chromosome, or the Y chromosome, to date. The results overturn earlier research, which suggested that men's most recent common ancestor lived just 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

Despite their overlap in time, ancient "Adam" and ancient "Eve" probably didn't even live near each other, let alone mate. [The 10 Biggest Mysteries of the First Humans]

"Those two people didn't know each other," said Melissa Wilson Sayres, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study.

Tracing historyResearchers believe that modern humans left Africa between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago, and that the mother of all women likely emerged from East Africa. But beyond that, the details get fuzzy.

The Y chromosome is passed down identically from father to son, so mutations, or point changes, in the male sex chromosome can trace the male line back to the father of all humans. By contrast, DNA from the mitochondria, the energy powerhouse of the cell, is carried inside the egg, so only women pass it on to their children. The DNA hidden inside mitochondria, therefore, can reveal the maternal lineage to an ancient Eve.

But over time, the male chromosome gets bloated with duplicated, jumbled-up stretches of DNA, said study co-author Carlos Bustamante, a geneticist at Stanford University in California. As a result, piecing together fragments of DNA from gene sequencing was like trying to assemble a puzzle without the image on the box top, making thorough analysis difficult.

Y chromosomeBustamante and his colleagues assembled a much bigger piece of the puzzle by sequencing the entire genome of the Y chromosome for 69 men from seven global populations, from African San Bushmen to the Yakut of Siberia.

By assuming a mutation rate anchored to archaeological events (such as the migration of people across the Bering Strait), the team concluded that all males in their global sample shared a single male ancestor in Africa roughly 125,000 to 156,000 years ago.

In addition, mitochondrial DNA from the men, as well as similar samples from 24 women, revealed that all women on the planet trace back to a mitochondrial Eve, who lived in Africa between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago almost the same time period during which the Y-chromosome Adam lived.

More ancient AdamBut the results, though fascinating, are just part of the story, said Michael Hammer, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study.

A separate study in the same issue of the journal Science found that men shared a common ancestor between 180,000 and 200,000 years ago.

And in a study detailed in March in the American Journal of Human Genetics, Hammer's group showed that several men in Africa have unique, divergent Y chromosomes that trace back to an even more ancient man who lived between 237,000 and 581,000 years ago. [Unraveling the Human Genome: 6 Molecular Milestones]

"It doesn't even fit on the family tree that the Bustamante lab has constructed. It's older," Hammer told LiveScience.

Gene studies always rely on a sample of DNA and, therefore, provide an incomplete picture of human history. For instance, Hammer's group sampled a different group of men than Bustamante's lab did, leading to different estimates of how old common ancestors really are.

Adam and Eve?These primeval people aren't parallel to the biblical Adam and Eve. They weren't the first modern humans on the planet, but instead just the two out of thousands of people alive at the time with unbroken male or female lineages that continue on today.

The rest of the human genome contains tiny snippets of DNA from many other ancestors they just don't show up in mitochondrial or Y-chromosome DNA, Hammer said. (For instance, if an ancient woman had only sons, then her mitochondrial DNA would disappear, even though the son would pass on a quarter of her DNA via the rest of his genome.)

As a follow-up, Bustamante's lab is sequencing Y chromosomes from nearly 2,000 other men. Those data could help pinpoint precisely where in Africa these ancient humans lived.

"It's very exciting," Wilson Sayres told LiveScience. "As we get more populations across the world, we can start to understand exactly where we came from physically."

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