Did volcanoes in India kill dinosaurs?

PTI | Dec 10, 2012, 05.45 AM IST
READ MORE global warming|volcanoes|dinosaurs|Deccan Traps
NEW YORK: Volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps near modernday Mumbai, and not an asteroid, may have killed the dinosaurs about 65-million-years ago, according to a new study.

Research suggests that tens of thousands of years of lava flow from the Deccan Traps may have spewed poisonous levels of sulphur and carbon dioxide and caused the mass extinction through the resulting global warming and ocean acidification.

The findings are the latest volley in an ongoing debate over whether an asteroid or volcanism killed off the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago in the mass dieoff known as the K-T extinction.

Proponents of the Alvarez hypothesis argue that a giant meteorite impact at Chicxulub, Mexico, around 65 million years ago released toxic amounts of dust and gas, blocking out the Sun to cause widespread cooling, choking the dinosaurs and poisoning sea life. The meteorite impact may also have set off volcanic activity, earthquakes and tsunamis.

The new research "really demonstrates that we have Deccan Traps just before the mass extinction, and that may contribute partially or totally to the mass extinction," said Eric Font, a geologist at the University of Lisbon.
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Soon, people can have their personal DNA code sequenced for £100

ANI | Dec 10, 2012, 05.21 PM IST
READ MORE Personalized medicine|individualized treatments|DNA code sequence
LONDON: Personalized medicine and individualized treatments could be a possibility in the "very near future" as everybody will soon be able to have their entire DNA make-up mapped for as little as 100 pounds, a leading professor has revealed.

Sir John Bell, professor of medical sciences at Oxford University, adviser on genetics to the government and chair of its human genomics strategy group, made his comments as David Cameron launched a national DNA database of up to 100,000 patients with cancer or rare diseases.

"The price of genome sequencing has been falling off a clliff. It has fallen by 100,000-fold in 10 years. We are headed for 100-pound a genome. That will happen in the very near future," the Telegraph quoted Sir John as saying.

He told Radio 4's Today programme that that means everybody's genetic make up would therefore be available if they wish it to be.

"Genetics is a key component of all common diseases. There is a possibility that this will help in a whole variety of ways including the use of new drugs," he said.

The UK will be the first country to introduce hi-tech DNA mapping within a mainstream health system in a move designed to help it lead the world in tackling cancer and rare diseases, Downing Street said.

"By unlocking the power of DNA data, the NHS will lead the global race for better tests, better drugs and above all better care," Cameron said.

"We are turning an important scientific breakthrough into a potentially life-saving reality for NHS patients across the country.

"If we get this right, we could transform how we diagnose and treat our most complex diseases not only here but across the world, while enabling our best scientists to discover the next wonder drug or breakthrough technology," he added.

But campaigners warned the project, in which patients will have to opt out of having their personal DNA code sequenced if they do not wish to be involved, comes with "very real privacy concerns".

If extended to the whole population, individuals and their relatives could be identified and tracked by matching their DNA to their genome stored in health care records in a move which could "wipe out privacy", GeneWatch UK said.

Campaigners Big Brother Watch added the opt-out system for research was "wholly wrong", warning that marketing firms could try to use the data to sell medication to people at risk of becoming ill.
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Scientists discover new type of chemical bonding

PTI | Dec 9, 2012, 06.45 PM IST
READ MORE stars|scientists|chemical compound formation|chemical bonding
WASHINGTON: Researchers claim to have discovered a new type of chemical bonding in distant Universe which may help explain how stars form, evolve, and eventually die.

The new molecular-level interaction may redefine how science views chemical compound formation.

"We discovered a new type of chemical bonding. It's a brand new type of chemical bonding, not previously known to science," said Mark Hoffmann, from University of North Dakota.

It also answers questions about what goes on in places like white dwarfs, the super dense cores of stars nearing the end of their life cycles, researchers believe.

"Our discovery addresses one of the mysteries in astrophysics about the spectrum of white dwarf stars," Hoffmann said.

"White dwarfs have an unusual spectrum that has been thought to result from polymerised hydrogen and helium which, of course, do not occur on Earth," Hoffmann said.

"It's possible out there because the magnetic fields on white dwarfs are several orders of magnitude larger than anything that can be generated on Earth," Hoffmann added.

The closest white dwarf, Sirius B, is a faint twin to the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius A. It's about the same size as our Sun, but much denser; its average density is 1.7 metric tons per cubic centimetre, or about 3,000 pounds compressed into a box the size of a sugar cube.

Hoffmann and his team described a magnetically induced bonding process between materials.

"There was speculation that this phenomenon should exist, but no one had the proof, and no one - until the team I'm on described the process - had the theoretical structure and the computational tools to address this," he said.

On Earth, even the boldest military experiments generate a peak of maybe 1,000 Tesla - a measure of magnetic force (refrigerator magnets generate a thousandth of one Tesla).

But on Sirius B, for example, magnetic fields are on the order of 200,000 to 400,000 Tesla, enough to challenge the electronic interactions that dominate the chemistry and material science we know on Earth.

Such vast magnetic fields directly alter the way atoms come together, and can alter the chemical reality we know on Earth.

"What we had before we discovered this was basically a paper-and-pencil model of what goes on in the universe. Compared to what's out there in places such as white dwarf stars, the magnetic fields we can generate here - even with the strongest magnets - are pathetic," Hoffmann said.

"We computationally modeled the behaviour that we theorised, based on universally applicable physical principles," Hoffmann said in a statement.

The discovery was published in the journal Science. 
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