On the Origins of Species Anniversary

 Today, November 24th, marks the 150th anniversary of the first publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. It was met with significant resistance at the time, especially from the church, but remains a seminal work of literature. If you are wondering what all the fuss is about, why not check the book out in the library. It is well worth a read and is easy to follow. Since then, there has been enormous debate as to whether Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection is without flaw. National Geographic today publish a series of six articles looking at some difficult to explain phenomena in the story of evolution. They then outline the evolutionist argument. A great article and worth checking out.

Add comment November 24th, 2009

Date for your diary

The inaugral Catherine Mc Cauley Lecture will take place in St Leo’s College on the 16th of December at 7.15.  The lecture will be delivered by journalist and broadcaster Oliva O’Leary.  All are welcome to attend.

Add comment November 20th, 2009

Water on the moon, is it a big deal?

There’s water on the moon.  Yes, you heard me right. Water on the moon was found by scientists. What does water on the moon mean? Will water on the moon really make a difference in our lives? These are the questions I sat out to answer.

First off, up until now our lives have functioned perfectly well without having to go in to outer space to see if we can find other water sources. With all of the other things that taxpayer euros could have been spent on, one has to wonder if water on the moon is significant.

Believe me, it is.

According to Time magazine, water on the moon is necessary if humans ever plan on living on the moon.  There would have to be some form of water source, as shuttling water from Earth to the moon would be costly and time-consuming.

Further more, ice on the moon could give scientists insight in to the creation of our solar system.  Polar ice has given scientists many indications of how the Earth was formed, and ice on the moon could give even more information.

While water on the moon may not sound like that big of a deal, it really is something that could be the biggest breakthrough we will ever see in our lives.

Tonight, as you are looking up at the starry skies of Carlow  take a good look at the moon and remember – there’s water up there.

Add comment November 14th, 2009

Splash! NASA moon crash struck lots of water

Splash! NASA moon crash struck lots of water By ALICIA CHANG (AP) – 44 minutes ago LOS ANGELES — The lunar dud for space enthusiasts has become a watershed event for NASA. Spacecraft that crashed into the moon last month kicked up a relatively small plume. But scientists have confirmed the debris contained water — 25 gallons of it — making lunar exploration exciting again. Experts have long suspected there was water on the moon. So the thrilling discovery announced Friday sent a ripple of hope for a future astronaut outpost in a place that has always seemed barren and inhospitable. “We found water. And we didn’t find just a little bit. We found a significant amount,” Anthony Colaprete, lead scientist for the mission, told reporters as he held up a white water bucket for emphasis. He said the 25 gallons of water the lunar crash kicked up was only what scientists could see from the plumes of the impact. Some space policy experts say that makes the moon attractive for exploration again. Having an abundance of water would make it easier to set up a base camp for astronauts, supplying drinking water and a key ingredient for rocket fuel. “Having definitive evidence that there is substantial water is a significant step forward in making the moon an interesting place to go,” said George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon. The October mission involved two strikes into a permanently shadowed crater near the south pole. First, an empty rocket hull slammed into the Cabeus crater. Then, a trailing spacecraft recorded the drama live before it also crashed into the same spot four minutes later. Though scientists were overjoyed with the plethora of data beamed back to Earth, the mission was a public relations dud. Space enthusiasts who stayed up all night to watch the spectacle did not see the promised giant plume of debris. NASA scientists had predicted the twin impacts would spew six miles of dust into the sunlight. Instead, images revealed only a mile-high plume, and it was not visible to many amateur astronomers peering through telescopes. Members of the blue-ribbon panel reviewing NASA’s future plans said the discovery doesn’t change their conclusion that the program needs more money to get beyond near-Earth orbit. The panel wants NASA to look at other potential destinations like asteroids and Mars. “This new and terrific result reassures us about lunar resources, but … the challenges currently facing the human spaceflight program remain,” Chris Chyba, a Princeton astrophysicist who is on the panel, said in an e-mail. President George W. Bush had proposed a more than $100 billion plan to return astronauts to the moon, then go on to Mars; a test flight of an early version of a new rocket was a success last month. President Barack Obama appointed the special panel to look at the entire moon exploration program. The decision is now up to the White House, and NASA’s lunar plans are somewhat on hold until then. As for unmanned exploration, previous missions had detected the presence of hydrogen in lunar craters near the moon’s poles, possible evidence of ice. In September, scientists reported finding tiny amounts of water in the lunar soil all over the moon’s surface. But it was NASA’s Oct. 9 mission involving the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, LCROSS, that provided the stunning confirmation announced Friday — water, in the forms of ice and vapor. “Rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could in fact be a very dynamic and interesting one,” said Greg Delory of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the mission, led by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. The LCROSS spacecraft only hit one spot on the moon and it’s unclear how much water there is across the entire moon. Scientists spent a month analyzing data from the spacecraft’s spectrometers, instruments that can detect strong signals of water molecules in the plume. “We’ve had hints that there is water. This was almost like tasting it,” said Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator on the LCROSS mission. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who in 1969 made his historic Apollo 11 moonwalk with Neil Armstrong, was pleased to hear the latest discovery, but still believes the U.S. should focus on colonizing Mars. “People will overreact to this news and say, `Let’s have a water rush to the moon,’” Aldrin said. “It doesn’t justify that.” Mission scientists said it would take more time to tease out what else was kicked up in the moon dust. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.

Add comment November 14th, 2009

Thousands of star fish washed up on Lissadell beach

Thousands of star fish washed up on Lissadell beach

Add comment November 5th, 2009

Crazy Foam Experiment

<div id="

November 5th, 2009

Crisis for the world’s amphibians

Crisis for the world’s amphibians

VIEWPOINT Helen Meredith It is a time of crisis for the world’s amphibians, says Helen Meredith. In this week’s Green Room she says we may be facing our last chance to save this important group of animals.   They consume huge quantities of invertebrates, including humanity’s most vilified pests and their crucial role in global ecosystems helps maintain healthy functioning environments A third of all species of amphibian are threatened with extinction; nearly half are in decline, and they are the most threatened of all the vertebrate groups. If allowed to continue, the projected losses would constitute the largest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. But first things first; what are amphibians and why should we care about their decline? Amphibians are one of nature’s less familiar groups – an issue that presents major challenges to establishing the conservation action they so urgently require. They have been around on the planet for about 360 million years, arising over 100 million years before the first mammal and 200 million years before the first bird. Great survivors Modern amphibians comprise frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians (limbless amphibians), and number in excess of 6,000 species to date. More than 20% are not understood well enough to be assigned any conservation status and it is estimated that up to 10,000 species may exist in total. WHAT ARE AMPHIBIANS? First true amphibians evolved about 250m years ago There are three orders: frogs (including toads), salamanders (including newts) and caecilians, which are limbless Adapted to many different aquatic and terrestrial habitats Present today on every continent except Antarctica Many undergo metamorphosis, from larvae to adults They are found on every continent except Antarctica, ranging from the Arctic Circle to the tropical deserts. Of all the vertebrates, amphibians lead some of the strangest lives. Various species can survive partial freezing, 10 years without food, long droughts and temperatures of up to 40C (104F). They are among life’s great survivors, enduring mass extinction events that have wiped out the dinosaurs and whole swathes of mammals and birds. In this light, their current extinction crisis seems all the more troubling. Although they may not seem to have an impact upon the daily lives of many cultures, they provide numerous essential services to mankind. They consume huge quantities of invertebrates, including humanity’s most vilified pests. Their crucial role in global ecosystems, both as predator and prey, helps maintain healthy functioning environments. Frogs are an important protein source in many subsistence cultures and are traded in their millions as food and pets. The skin secretions that protect amphibians against predation and infection have been found to contain important pharmaceutical compounds that show potential in treating a variety of illnesses from HIV to cancer. The most famous case is that of the phantasmal poison frog (Epipedobates tricolor). Skin secretions from this frog yielded the compound epibatidine, which is a painkiller 200 times more effective than morphine. The fight to save the world’s amphibians shouts into a howling gale of climate change, war, overpopulation, economic crises, and countless other global disasters Amphibians are repositories of potentially life-saving chemicals and are key model organisms in scientific research. Witnessing the precipitous decline of the amphibians is sobering. Why now, after hundreds of millions of years of survival, are they bowing out? As always, the reasons are diverse and complex. The usual suspects of habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species, environmental contaminants and overexploitation represent key interrelated factors. Additionally, a disease called chytridiomycosis or “chytrid” (caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) infects a wide range of amphibians globally and is capable of driving species to extinction. Exacerbated by the other issues impacting amphibians, chytrid has emerged as one of the major threats to their survival. This disease can kill amphibians in otherwise pristine habitats or provide the final nail in the coffin for species already pushed to the brink of extinction. The fight to save the world’s amphibians shouts into a howling gale of climate change, war, overpopulation, economic crises, and countless other global disasters, rendering their plight (just like many other aspects of biodiversity) somewhat low on the agenda of global priorities; they are slipping away almost unnoticed.

Add comment November 3rd, 2009