[Unmuseum_newsletter] UnMuseum Newsletter for March 2007

[A Monthly Update on the World of Science]

The UnMuseum Newsletter for March 2007

Science Over the Edge

A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month

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In the News:

*Most Colossal of Colossal Squids is Caught - New Zealand fishermen have 
pulled in what may well be the largest colossal squid ever snagged. The 
fishermen were catching Patagonian toothfish when a squid that was eating 
one was pulled from the deep, according to a member of the crew. The 
creature is estimated to be 39 feet in length and weighs around 1,000 
pounds. Little is known about Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the Colossal 
squid, but they are thought to be able to descend as deep as 6,500 feet 
where they act as aggressive hunters. They are also believed to be slightly 
larger and heavier than the more well-known Giant squid. This specimen was 
frozen and transported to New Zealand's national museum to be preserved for 
scientific study.

*"Hobbit" was Human - Scientists at Florida State University studying the 
"Hobbit" skeleton found on in Indonesia have declared it a new species 
closely related to Homo sapiens, but not itself human. A three-dimensional 
computer reconstruction of the brain showed that the skull was not of an 
abnormal man but that of a human-like species whose growth was on a smaller 
scale. Scientists skeptical about the existence of a group of hobbit-sized 
humans have argued that the skeleton represented a man ill with 
microcephaly, a virus which stunts the development of the brain. The new 
species -- Homo Floresiensis -- measured 3.6 feet in height.

*Tornados Could Strike Cities - Scientists are concerned that a major 
tornado striking an urban area could cause death and destruction on a 
"Hurricane Katrina scale." A new study shows that there is no reason that 
tornados shouldn't touch down in big cities. "Fortunately 99.9 percent of 
tornadoes are happening in open areas," said tornado researcher Joshua 
Wurman of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colo. in a 
quote from Discovery News. Wurman and his colleagues who have studied the 
potential for disaster in the Chicago area have published an article in the 
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society with their concerns. 
Although the group looked at Chicago in detail, their observations probably 
also extend to other major cities in the Midwest including Dallas, Oklahoma 
City, St. Louis, Atlanta and Houston. Areas particularly in danger include 
the very densely populated older neighborhoods of wood frame houses in these 
cities. "We actually think that new apartment buildings are probably 
modestly resistant to these things," noted Wurman, "but who knows what will 
happen if it's hit by a 300 mph wind?"

*Italian Police Find Looted Art Treasures - Italian police foiled an attempt 
to sell looted marble reliefs showing gladiators and other ancient art work 
to collectors in Switzerland. The objects were found buried in the garden of 
a house by a special squad of police designated to deal with illegal art 
transactions. The reliefs are 2,000 years old and were looted from a nearby 
tomb. "Under Italian law, those who found the panels would have earned a 
quarter of their commercial value had they delivered them to the 
archaeological superintendency. Now they will have to be happy with a 
trial," noted prosecutor Paolo Giorgio Ferri of the Italian police.

*Chimps use Spears for Hunting - A group of scientists observed a female 
chimps using spear-like devices to kill a small animals so they could eat 
them. Researchers are surprised by this as they have been aware that 
chimpanzes have used tools in the past, but never in the context of hunting. 
The scientists, led by Iowa State University anthropology professor Jill 
Pruetz, saw chimps spears several bushbabies in Fongoli, Senegal, during 
observations made from March 2005 to July 2006. Scientists noted that the 
practice seemed most common among adolescent females who might be finding it 
difficult to compete for food against physically superior males. "In a 
million years I never would've predicted that I would've seen [hunting]," 
said Pruetz "I'm going to plug along and see what unfolds."


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What's New at the Museum:

*Did the Nazis Build an Atomic Bomb? - In some secret, hidden laboratory did 
scientsts succeed in building an nuclear weapon for Hitler? 
 >(http://www.unmuseum.org/nbomb.htm)


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Ask the Curator:

*End of Magnetism? - If the earth's magnetic field collapsed would there 
still be magnets? - Anonymous

Magnetism is one of those funny things we see everyday - use everyday - but 
never know how it works. As it turns out, it is the result of moving 
electric charges. Almost everybody has done the experiment of wrapping a 
wire around an iron nail in a spiral pattern, then connecting the wires to a 
battery to product a crude electromagnet. The current flowing though the 
wire (in the form of electrons) creates the magnetic field. This field then 
influences the iron nail to become a magnet also, adding to the strength of 
the effect, though it would work even without the nail.

If you need a moving electric charge to make a magnetic field, how do 
permanent magnets work? After all there is no battery involved and no 
apparent electric charge. Well there actually is, however, a moving electric 
charge at the atomic level. The electrons orbit around the nucleus of each 
atom in the material. The electrons also have a quantum-mechanical property 
called "spin" which looks like a moving electrical charge. These two effects 
produce a tiny magnetic field for each atom.

In most materials the magnetic fields of each atom are aligned in no 
particular order so they cancel each other out. In some special materials, 
however, the fields line up (or can be made to line up) in a particular 
pattern so that their strength adds up. That's why the nail in the 
electromagnet experiment above becomes a magnet when exposed to a magnetic 
field. The field created by the moving electric charges in the wire lines up 
the nail's fields properly and then those fields can add their own strength 
to the overall effect.

If you want to see this at home take a paper clip and hang it from a 
permanent magnet. The paper clip isn't a magnet in itself, but will become a 
temporary magnet in the presence of a magnetic field. You can then hang a 
second paper clip from the first one and it will also become a magnet 
because of the field of the one before it. It is easy to construct a whole 
chain of paper clips this way. Detach the first one from the permanent 
magnet, however, and the whole chain falls apart as each of the magnetic 
fields fall apart one after another.

For centuries scientists have puzzled about why Earth has a strong magnetic 
field. (The magnetic field of Venus is barely detectable.) They still don't 
understand the details, but they do know that the outer core of the Earth is 
mostly molten iron that moves in a convection pattern due to heat at the 
core. This movement, along with the Earth's spin seems to make the Earth 
into a big electromagnet. The magnetic field of our planet isn't as stable 
as we might think, however. There is evidence that the poles of this 
gigantic magnet have moved, changed intensity, and even reversed many times 
in past.

If the magnetic field of the Earth went away would we still have magnets? 
Yes, because each magnet generates its own magnetic field independently. The 
Earth is just a big version of our experiment with the wire and the nail. A 
collapse in the Earth's magnetic field, however, would mean that compasses 
(which are just little magnets in the form of pointers that align with the 
Earth's magnetic field) would not point the right direction. This would 
cause problem not only for humans who depend on compasses for navigation, 
but also for animals that have developed internal compasses in their bodies 
for use in migration.

Fortunately, though the Earth's magnetic field has weakened in the past 150 
years, it looks like it will many centuries before a full collapse and 
reversal. In fact it may be just as likely that nothing will happen at all 
in the near future and the original orientation will regain its strength.


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In History:

*Hairy Colorado Bipeds - On the evening of March 28, 1987, a resident of 
Green Mountain Fall, Colorado, looked out his window to observe several 
hairy, two footed creatures "running down the road in front of my house…" 
After the story hit the newspapers in the area, other residents claimed they 
had also seen the beings. People who found tracks of these creatures and 
followed them, often through snow, claimed they disappeared into thin air. 
No explanation for these reports has ever been found.


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In the Sky:

*Lunar Eclipse - On Saturday March 3rd observers in the Eastern United 
States will have a chance to see the end of a Lunar Eclipse as the moon 
passes through the shadow of the Earth. The moon will rise in a total 
eclipse which begins at 5:44PM EST. The total eclipse will end at 6:58 PM 
EST, but the moon will continue to glow a ruddy color for sometime as 
longer, redder wavelengths of light bend around the earth more sharply to 
illuminate the lunar surface.


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Observed:

*ESP Lab Closed - After 28 years of operation the extrasensory perception 
lab at Princeton University will be closing down. The lab, officially 
referred to as the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory has 
studied ESP and telekinesis. The research has embarrassed university 
officials and gotten little support from the scientific community. The lab's 
founder, Robert G. Jahn, said the lab was closing because of aging equipment 
and dwindling finances. "If people don't believe us after all the results 
we've produced, then they never will," Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton's 
engineering school and an emeritus professor, told The New York Times. 
Princeton University had no official comment on the lab's closure.


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On the Tube:

Currently we are only able to give accurate times and dates for these 
programs in the United States. Check local listings in other locations.

*Nova: Mystery of the Megaflood - What unleashed a catastrophic flood that 
scarred thousands of square miles in the American Northwest? On PBS: March 
20 at 8 pm; ET/PT.

*Deep Space One - Deep Space One was a groundbreaking NASA mission that 
tested new technologies, including ion propulsion engines and automated 
pilot systems. Venture on a technological journey as scientists explain how 
the new systems will propel future missions. On The Science Channel: MAR 03 
2007 @ 09:00 PM MAR 04 2007 @ 12:00 AM MAR 04 2007 @ 04:00 AM MAR 04 2007 @ 
05:00 PM; ET/PT.

*Mammals Vs. Dinos: The Age of Gigantism - Mammals vs Dinos begins with a 
look the first dinosaurs and mammals nearly 200 million years ago and the 
long evolutionary competition between the two groups. Through 
computer-generated animations, we see dinosaurs evolving into giant 
creatures. On The Science Channel: MAR 11 2007 @ 09:00 PM MAR 12 2007 @ 
12:00 AM MAR 12 2007 @ 04:00 AM MAR 12 2007 @ 10:00 AM MAR 17 2007 @ 06:00 
PM, ET/PT.

King Tut's Mystery Tomb Opened - In the first tomb found in Egypt's Valley 
of the Kings in 84 years, scientists find seven coffins, plus a golden 
infant-size coffin. One coffin remains sealed and the race is on to read the 
markings and lift the lid. On The Science Channel: MAR 12 2007 @ 06:00 PM 
MAR 19 2007 @ 09:00 PM MAR 20 2007 @ 12:00 AM MAR 20 2007 @ 04:00 AM MAR 20 
2007 @ 10:00 AM MAR 24 2007 @ 04:00 PM, ET/PT.

*Pre-Human: Riddle of the Skull - In 2002, a team of scientists uncovered a 
hominid skull seven million years old, possibly the remains of the earliest 
known human ancestor. Follow each step of the quest to unveil the truth 
about this skull and the origins of mankind. On The Science Channel: MAR 05 
2007 @ 07:00 PM MAR 26 2007 @ 08:00 PM MAR 26 2007 @ 11:00 PM MAR 27 2007 @ 
03:00 AM MAR 27 2007 @ 09:00 AM MAR 31 2007 @ 03:00 PM; ET/PT.

*Noah's Ark: The True Story - Search for the truth behind the story of Noah 
and his ark. Find out how Noah could have built such a structure and whether 
or not a great flood took place on the earth. The search for remains of the 
ark continues today. On the Discovery Channel: MAR 04 2007 @ 08:00 PM MAR 05 
2007 @ 12:00 AM MAR 08 2007 @ 08:00 PM MAR 09 2007 @ 12:00 AM; ET/PT.

*Secret History of the Freemasons - An unprecedented inside look into one of 
the world's most mysterious organizations- the Freemasons. Their inner 
workings, history, and secrets will be uncovered and centuries old rituals 
are filmed for the first time ever. On the Discovery Channel: MAR 04 2007 @ 
06:00 PM MAR 22 2007 @ 09:00 PM MAR 23 2007 @ 01:00 AM; ET/PT.

*Decoding The Past: The Real Sorcerer's Stone. - Today, the sorcerer's stone 
is seen as fiction off the pages of Harry Potter, but in the Middle Ages the 
quest for the sorcerer's stone was second only to that of the Holy Grail. 
The stone was actually said to have the power to transform base metals into 
gold and grant long life--even immortality. The ingredients were hidden in 
bizarrely coded manuscripts by alchemists who lived within their own secret 
society. The processes needed to combine them could be dangerous--even 
deadly. Today, we owe most of our modern lab equipment and experimental 
techniques to the efforts of these alchemists. Was their search for 
immortality really on sound scientific ground and did some, as is still 
rumored, actually succeed?On History Channel: Thursday, March 12 11:00 PM, 
March 13 03:00 AM ET/PT.



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*LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying 
saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm)

Copyright Lee Krystek, 2007.