What Shape is a Hard-boiled Egg?

Hard-boiling and dyeing eggs is a Spring tradition in many households. This year, give your hard-boiled eggs a twist and turn ordinary ovoid hard-boiled eggs into fun shapes! The trick to the transformation is understanding the science behind the process of hardboiling.

Raw eggs are oval in shape. Hard-boiled eggs are made from raw eggs. Therefore hard-boiled eggs must be oval in shape, right? Your basic logic primer might suggest this syllogism is true, but a fun new science activity from Science Buddies lets families experiment with molding hard-boiled eggs into different shapes!

Once the hard-boiling process is done, many recipes for perfect hard-boiled eggs instruct you to immediately transfer the eggs to an ice bath. This can help stop the process so that the eggs stay beautifully yellow inside (rather than turning a more sickly green, a shade that also happens if you boil them too long).

As this new family science activity explains, if you remove the freshly hard-boiled (still very hot) egg from its shell and stuff it into a mold (like a box made from a milk carton), the egg will take on the new shape as it cools—and stay in that shape once you remove the cooled egg from the mold.

Sounds fun, right? Hard-boiled egg rockets (think cylinders and triangles), robots (stack those cubes), or whimsical animals (combine shapes) are just a scientific step away with this hands-on family friendly kitchen science activity.

You can find directions for this exploration here at Science Buddies in the Science Activities for All Ages! area or at Scientific American:

• Shaping Hard-boiled Eggs (at Science Buddies)


• Shape-Shifting Science: Molding Hard-Boiled Eggs (at Scientific American)

If you try this family science activity at home, we would love to see what shapes you make with hard-boiled eggs this year!

Plating (Or Boxing) and Presentation

In the food industry, it is often said that presentation makes a big difference in how people perceive the food they eat. The same meal presented (or "plated") two different ways can strike people very differently.

Even at home, you can see the idea that "presentation" matters play out in the preparation of school lunches. If you or your kids have ever spotted someone at school with a Bento-box style lunch, you may have seen foods cleverly cut, styled, and arranged into fun shapes or characters that turn everyday lunch materials into something creative, artistic, or unexpected. (Unfamiliar with Bento lunches beyond the idea of a Bento "box" container? Check this collection of Bento box lunch images for an inspiring glimpse of what is possible.)

While we can't guarantee this science activity will singlehandedly help transform your lunch into cute pandas, Totoros, rabbits, or a Hello Kitty character, you can use molded hard-boiled eggs as a way to add more creativity and whimsy to your food presentation (or lunchbox packing)!

Students interested in the idea of food presentation may also be interested in the Perfect Plating: Which Food Presentation Technique is Best? * abbreviated project idea.

Fun with Eggs

For other experiments and family science activities that involve eggs (egg dyeing, egg boiling, egg launching), see this roundup: Family Egg Science. You (and your kids) won't want to miss the fun Ping Pong Catapult launching adaptation of the Bombs Away! project!

from Science Buddies Blog http://ift.tt/1Hn5TLE

Hard-boiling and dyeing eggs is a Spring tradition in many households. This year, give your hard-boiled eggs a twist and turn ordinary ovoid hard-boiled eggs into fun shapes! The trick to the transformation is understanding the science behind the process of hardboiling.

Raw eggs are oval in shape. Hard-boiled eggs are made from raw eggs. Therefore hard-boiled eggs must be oval in shape, right? Your basic logic primer might suggest this syllogism is true, but a fun new science activity from Science Buddies lets families experiment with molding hard-boiled eggs into different shapes!

Once the hard-boiling process is done, many recipes for perfect hard-boiled eggs instruct you to immediately transfer the eggs to an ice bath. This can help stop the process so that the eggs stay beautifully yellow inside (rather than turning a more sickly green, a shade that also happens if you boil them too long).

As this new family science activity explains, if you remove the freshly hard-boiled (still very hot) egg from its shell and stuff it into a mold (like a box made from a milk carton), the egg will take on the new shape as it cools—and stay in that shape once you remove the cooled egg from the mold.

Sounds fun, right? Hard-boiled egg rockets (think cylinders and triangles), robots (stack those cubes), or whimsical animals (combine shapes) are just a scientific step away with this hands-on family friendly kitchen science activity.

You can find directions for this exploration here at Science Buddies in the Science Activities for All Ages! area or at Scientific American:

• Shaping Hard-boiled Eggs (at Science Buddies)


• Shape-Shifting Science: Molding Hard-Boiled Eggs (at Scientific American)

If you try this family science activity at home, we would love to see what shapes you make with hard-boiled eggs this year!

Plating (Or Boxing) and Presentation

In the food industry, it is often said that presentation makes a big difference in how people perceive the food they eat. The same meal presented (or "plated") two different ways can strike people very differently.

Even at home, you can see the idea that "presentation" matters play out in the preparation of school lunches. If you or your kids have ever spotted someone at school with a Bento-box style lunch, you may have seen foods cleverly cut, styled, and arranged into fun shapes or characters that turn everyday lunch materials into something creative, artistic, or unexpected. (Unfamiliar with Bento lunches beyond the idea of a Bento "box" container? Check this collection of Bento box lunch images for an inspiring glimpse of what is possible.)

While we can't guarantee this science activity will singlehandedly help transform your lunch into cute pandas, Totoros, rabbits, or a Hello Kitty character, you can use molded hard-boiled eggs as a way to add more creativity and whimsy to your food presentation (or lunchbox packing)!

Students interested in the idea of food presentation may also be interested in the Perfect Plating: Which Food Presentation Technique is Best? * abbreviated project idea.

Fun with Eggs

For other experiments and family science activities that involve eggs (egg dyeing, egg boiling, egg launching), see this roundup: Family Egg Science. You (and your kids) won't want to miss the fun Ping Pong Catapult launching adaptation of the Bombs Away! project!

from Science Buddies Blog http://ift.tt/1Hn5TLE

Diagnosing cancer earlier – the latest research from the 2015 NAEDI conference

The third National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative (NAEDI) conference took place in central London last week. Experts from around the globe shared their research findings, talked about the impact on policy and looked towards the future to ensure that more cancers are diagnosed earlier.

Read the discussion here – or take a look at how the conference unfolded below.

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1DzA1o7

The third National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative (NAEDI) conference took place in central London last week. Experts from around the globe shared their research findings, talked about the impact on policy and looked towards the future to ensure that more cancers are diagnosed earlier.

Read the discussion here – or take a look at how the conference unfolded below.

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1DzA1o7

Are solar eclipses more common than lunar eclipses?

There are several lunar and solar eclipses in the course of every year. Which are more common? That depends on what types of lunar eclipses you decide to include in the final tally.

Let’s define terms. A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes in front of the sun, blotting it from view. During a total lunar eclipse – like the one coming up on April 4, 2015 – the moon totally passes through Earth’s dark umbral shadow and often exhibits a coppery red color. The image at top shows a total lunar eclipse.

The image at left shows a penumbral eclipse. The image at right shows a full moon with no eclipse. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

EarthSky’s annual fund-raising campaign is coming into the home stretch. Help EarthSky keep going!

But there’s more than one type of solar eclipse, and lunar eclipse. There are the partial phases of each, of course. And there’s also a penumbral lunar eclipse, like the one shown at right. The left-side image shows a moon in penumbral eclipse. The right-side image shows a full moon with no eclipse. See the difference?

A penumbral lunar eclipse is a very subtle kind of eclipse. Here’s how it happens. There are two parts to Earth’s shadow: a dark inner umbra and a lighter outer penumbra. And so there are two kinds of lunar eclipse: umbral and penumbral. A penumbral eclipse happens when Earth’s lighter outer shadow brushes the moon’s face. Some people say they can’t perceive a penumbral eclipse even as it’s happening. From the moon, the eclipse would be much more obvious, for you would see the Earth partially eclipsing or blocking out the sun. In fact, when you’re watching a partial solar eclipse from Earth, you’re standing in the moon’s penumbral shadow.

So which is more common, a solar eclipse or a lunar eclipse? It’s sometimes said that on a worldwide scale solar eclipses outnumber lunar eclipses by about a three to two margin. But that figure completely ignores penumbral lunar eclipses. When you include penumbral lunar eclipses, the number of solar and lunar eclipses is almost the same.

When is the next total solar eclipse in the U.S.?

In fact, once you include penumbral eclipses, lunar eclipses slightly outnumber solar eclipses. In his classic book More Mathematical Astronomical Morsels, the famous Belgium astronomer Jean Meeus reported that there were 228 solar eclipses and 229 lunar eclipses in the 20th century, from the years 1901 to 2000. For the years 1 to 3000, Jean Meeus figures there are 7,124 solar eclipses and 7,245 lunar eclipses.

And for the 5,000-year period from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 3000, NASA’s Fred Espenak – sometimes known as Mr. Eclipse – finds 11,847 solar and 12,186 lunar eclipses.

By the way, solar eclipses always happen at new moon, when the moon passes more or less between the Earth and sun. During a total solar eclipse, a rim of twilight encircles your entire horizon, the sky turns dark and stars pop into view. Meanwhile, in the sky, the sun’s fiery corona can be seen surrounding the dark orb – the moon – that is completely covering the sun.

Lunar eclipses always happen at full moon, when Earth’s dark shadow totally or partially covers the moon. They are less dramatic than solar eclipses, but no less wonderful. You see Earth’s shadow on the moon’s face as a dark ‘bite’ taken out of the moon. This darkness creeps across the moon’s face during the several hours of the eclipse.

Both solar eclipses and lunar eclipses are beautiful, in their own way!

Image by Joshua Valcarcel via Wikimedia Commons

Bottom line: It’s sometimes said that, on a worldwide scale, solar eclipses outnumber lunar eclipses by about a three to two margin. But that doesn’t count penumbral eclipses. When you include penumbral lunar eclipses, the number of solar and lunar eclipses is almost the same, with lunar eclipses slightly outnumbering solar eclipses.

Shortest total lunar eclipse of century on April 4, 2015

Why isn’t there an eclipse at every full moon?

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1tUoJ7V

There are several lunar and solar eclipses in the course of every year. Which are more common? That depends on what types of lunar eclipses you decide to include in the final tally.

Let’s define terms. A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes in front of the sun, blotting it from view. During a total lunar eclipse – like the one coming up on April 4, 2015 – the moon totally passes through Earth’s dark umbral shadow and often exhibits a coppery red color. The image at top shows a total lunar eclipse.

The image at left shows a penumbral eclipse. The image at right shows a full moon with no eclipse. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

EarthSky’s annual fund-raising campaign is coming into the home stretch. Help EarthSky keep going!

But there’s more than one type of solar eclipse, and lunar eclipse. There are the partial phases of each, of course. And there’s also a penumbral lunar eclipse, like the one shown at right. The left-side image shows a moon in penumbral eclipse. The right-side image shows a full moon with no eclipse. See the difference?

A penumbral lunar eclipse is a very subtle kind of eclipse. Here’s how it happens. There are two parts to Earth’s shadow: a dark inner umbra and a lighter outer penumbra. And so there are two kinds of lunar eclipse: umbral and penumbral. A penumbral eclipse happens when Earth’s lighter outer shadow brushes the moon’s face. Some people say they can’t perceive a penumbral eclipse even as it’s happening. From the moon, the eclipse would be much more obvious, for you would see the Earth partially eclipsing or blocking out the sun. In fact, when you’re watching a partial solar eclipse from Earth, you’re standing in the moon’s penumbral shadow.

So which is more common, a solar eclipse or a lunar eclipse? It’s sometimes said that on a worldwide scale solar eclipses outnumber lunar eclipses by about a three to two margin. But that figure completely ignores penumbral lunar eclipses. When you include penumbral lunar eclipses, the number of solar and lunar eclipses is almost the same.

When is the next total solar eclipse in the U.S.?

In fact, once you include penumbral eclipses, lunar eclipses slightly outnumber solar eclipses. In his classic book More Mathematical Astronomical Morsels, the famous Belgium astronomer Jean Meeus reported that there were 228 solar eclipses and 229 lunar eclipses in the 20th century, from the years 1901 to 2000. For the years 1 to 3000, Jean Meeus figures there are 7,124 solar eclipses and 7,245 lunar eclipses.

And for the 5,000-year period from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 3000, NASA’s Fred Espenak – sometimes known as Mr. Eclipse – finds 11,847 solar and 12,186 lunar eclipses.

By the way, solar eclipses always happen at new moon, when the moon passes more or less between the Earth and sun. During a total solar eclipse, a rim of twilight encircles your entire horizon, the sky turns dark and stars pop into view. Meanwhile, in the sky, the sun’s fiery corona can be seen surrounding the dark orb – the moon – that is completely covering the sun.

Lunar eclipses always happen at full moon, when Earth’s dark shadow totally or partially covers the moon. They are less dramatic than solar eclipses, but no less wonderful. You see Earth’s shadow on the moon’s face as a dark ‘bite’ taken out of the moon. This darkness creeps across the moon’s face during the several hours of the eclipse.

Both solar eclipses and lunar eclipses are beautiful, in their own way!

Image by Joshua Valcarcel via Wikimedia Commons

Bottom line: It’s sometimes said that, on a worldwide scale, solar eclipses outnumber lunar eclipses by about a three to two margin. But that doesn’t count penumbral eclipses. When you include penumbral lunar eclipses, the number of solar and lunar eclipses is almost the same, with lunar eclipses slightly outnumbering solar eclipses.

Shortest total lunar eclipse of century on April 4, 2015

Why isn’t there an eclipse at every full moon?

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1tUoJ7V

Ethel Stevens, 1915-2015 [Uncertain Principles]

A couple of years ago, we got a nasty shock when my 98-year-old great-aunt died unexpectedly. It’s happened again, with her sister Ethel (known to a lot of the family as “Auntie Sis,” because she had the same first name as her mother, my great-grandmother), who died in her sleep last Sunday night. She would’ve celebrated her hundredth birthday this fall.

You might not think the peaceful death of a 99-year-old would count as a nasty shock, but again, she was a remarkable woman. She still lived by herself in a great big house, and still took care of the place herself, and drove herself everywhere. She wasn’t in any kind of ill health (beyond the general issues that come from being very old), and we assumed she would outlive all of us.

I didn’t spend as much time with her as with her sister, because she had her own family– three kids, nine grandkids, and six great-grandkids, the newest addition born just a week or two ago. She was always around, though, and no summer visit to Long Island was complete without at least one visit to Auntie Sis’s house. For many years she, my grandmother, and their sister Dorothy (who died back in 2003) were kind of a package deal, showing up together at all manner of family events, including regular visits up to my parents’.

It’s a pretty rough period for the family, as you might guess, especially since two of my grandmother’s three remaining brothers are ailing (for values of “ailing” that include “was a contestant on ‘The Price Is Right’ a month ago”– this is a pretty robust family). I’ll be heading down to Long Island tonight for the funeral tomorrow, and while SteelyKid offered her services as a mood-lifter (“Couldn’t we go down there and do fun things and make everybody happy again?”), it’ll be a solo trip, and I’ll be coming back tomorrow. But that’s pretty much going to wipe me out for the rest of the weekend, so don’t expect much online activity from me until next week (with the possible exception of using Twitter for stress relief…).

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Hm9Tfu

A couple of years ago, we got a nasty shock when my 98-year-old great-aunt died unexpectedly. It’s happened again, with her sister Ethel (known to a lot of the family as “Auntie Sis,” because she had the same first name as her mother, my great-grandmother), who died in her sleep last Sunday night. She would’ve celebrated her hundredth birthday this fall.

You might not think the peaceful death of a 99-year-old would count as a nasty shock, but again, she was a remarkable woman. She still lived by herself in a great big house, and still took care of the place herself, and drove herself everywhere. She wasn’t in any kind of ill health (beyond the general issues that come from being very old), and we assumed she would outlive all of us.

I didn’t spend as much time with her as with her sister, because she had her own family– three kids, nine grandkids, and six great-grandkids, the newest addition born just a week or two ago. She was always around, though, and no summer visit to Long Island was complete without at least one visit to Auntie Sis’s house. For many years she, my grandmother, and their sister Dorothy (who died back in 2003) were kind of a package deal, showing up together at all manner of family events, including regular visits up to my parents’.

It’s a pretty rough period for the family, as you might guess, especially since two of my grandmother’s three remaining brothers are ailing (for values of “ailing” that include “was a contestant on ‘The Price Is Right’ a month ago”– this is a pretty robust family). I’ll be heading down to Long Island tonight for the funeral tomorrow, and while SteelyKid offered her services as a mood-lifter (“Couldn’t we go down there and do fun things and make everybody happy again?”), it’ll be a solo trip, and I’ll be coming back tomorrow. But that’s pretty much going to wipe me out for the rest of the weekend, so don’t expect much online activity from me until next week (with the possible exception of using Twitter for stress relief…).

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Hm9Tfu

Tackling Online Piracy with Technology

DARPA has announced its plan to research and develop tools for online privacy, one of the most vexing problems facing the connected world as devices and data proliferate beyond a capacity to be managed responsibly.

Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939.

Named for former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who –while a student at Harvard law school– co-developed the concept of a “right to privacy” in a seminal article under that title, the new program seeks to explore how users can understand, interact with and control data in their systems and in cyberspace through the expression of simple intentions that reflect purpose, acceptable risk and intended benefits such as “only share photos with approved family and friends.”

The right to privacy, as Brandeis argued in 1890, is a consequence of understanding that harm comes in more ways than just the physical. Brandeis was reacting to the ability of the “instantaneous camera” to record personal information in new ways. Since then, the ability of technology to collect and share information has far exceeded judicial and social expectations. The goal of DARPA’s newly launched Brandeis program is to enable information systems that would allow individuals, enterprises and U.S. government agencies to keep personal and/or proprietary information private.

“Democracy and innovation depend on creativity and the open exchange of diverse ideas, but fear of a loss of privacy can stifle those processes,” said Dr. John Launchbury, DARPA program manager. “We aim to develop methods that can help protect private information without having to impose cumbersome protective mechanisms that ultimately deplete the larger value of the information at hand.”

Existing methods for protecting private information fall broadly into two categories: filtering the release of data at the source, or trusting the user of the data to provide diligent protection. Filtering data at the source, such as by removing a person’s name or identity from a data set or record, is increasingly inadequate because of improvements in algorithms that can cross-correlate redacted data with public information to re-identify the individual. According to research conducted by Dr. Latanya Sweeney at Carnegie Mellon University, birthdate, zip code and gender are sufficient to identify 87% of Americans by name.

On the other side of the equation, trusting an aggregator and other data recipients to diligently protect their store of data is also difficult. In the past few months alone, as many as 80 million social security numbers were stolen from a health insurer, terabytes of sensitive corporate data (including personnel records) were exfiltrated from a major movie studio and many personal images were illegitimately downloaded from cloud services.

“Currently, most consumers do not have effective mechanisms to protect their own data, and the people with whom we share data are often not effective at providing adequate protection,” said Launchbury. “The goal of the Brandeis program is to break the tension between maintaining privacy and being able to tap into the huge value of data. Rather than having to balance these public goods, Brandeis aims to build a third option, enabling safe and predictable sharing of data while reliably preserving privacy.”

The potential impact of the Brandeis program is significant. Assured data privacy can open the doors to personalized medicine by discovering, for example, hidden correlations between genetic information and the relative effectiveness of different therapies; smarter and more efficient cities where buildings, energy consumption and traffic controls are all optimized minute by minute; crowdsourced collections of publicly useful data about the environment, weather and emergency situations; and fine-grained Internet awareness and protection where every company and device instantly shares network and cyber-attack data. Without strong privacy controls, none of these possibilities could come to full fruition.

The Brandeis program is structured as a four-and-a-half year effort, split into three 18-month phases. Each phase will result in the demonstration of experimental systems that show privacy technologies at work. For more information about Brandeis, please refer to this Broad Agency Announcement.

Story and information provided by DARPA

Follow Armed with Science on Facebook and Twitter!

———-

Disclaimer: The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense of this website or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities such as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DOD website.

from Armed with Science http://ift.tt/1EK5fdC

DARPA has announced its plan to research and develop tools for online privacy, one of the most vexing problems facing the connected world as devices and data proliferate beyond a capacity to be managed responsibly.

Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939.

Named for former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who –while a student at Harvard law school– co-developed the concept of a “right to privacy” in a seminal article under that title, the new program seeks to explore how users can understand, interact with and control data in their systems and in cyberspace through the expression of simple intentions that reflect purpose, acceptable risk and intended benefits such as “only share photos with approved family and friends.”

The right to privacy, as Brandeis argued in 1890, is a consequence of understanding that harm comes in more ways than just the physical. Brandeis was reacting to the ability of the “instantaneous camera” to record personal information in new ways. Since then, the ability of technology to collect and share information has far exceeded judicial and social expectations. The goal of DARPA’s newly launched Brandeis program is to enable information systems that would allow individuals, enterprises and U.S. government agencies to keep personal and/or proprietary information private.

“Democracy and innovation depend on creativity and the open exchange of diverse ideas, but fear of a loss of privacy can stifle those processes,” said Dr. John Launchbury, DARPA program manager. “We aim to develop methods that can help protect private information without having to impose cumbersome protective mechanisms that ultimately deplete the larger value of the information at hand.”

Existing methods for protecting private information fall broadly into two categories: filtering the release of data at the source, or trusting the user of the data to provide diligent protection. Filtering data at the source, such as by removing a person’s name or identity from a data set or record, is increasingly inadequate because of improvements in algorithms that can cross-correlate redacted data with public information to re-identify the individual. According to research conducted by Dr. Latanya Sweeney at Carnegie Mellon University, birthdate, zip code and gender are sufficient to identify 87% of Americans by name.

On the other side of the equation, trusting an aggregator and other data recipients to diligently protect their store of data is also difficult. In the past few months alone, as many as 80 million social security numbers were stolen from a health insurer, terabytes of sensitive corporate data (including personnel records) were exfiltrated from a major movie studio and many personal images were illegitimately downloaded from cloud services.

“Currently, most consumers do not have effective mechanisms to protect their own data, and the people with whom we share data are often not effective at providing adequate protection,” said Launchbury. “The goal of the Brandeis program is to break the tension between maintaining privacy and being able to tap into the huge value of data. Rather than having to balance these public goods, Brandeis aims to build a third option, enabling safe and predictable sharing of data while reliably preserving privacy.”

The potential impact of the Brandeis program is significant. Assured data privacy can open the doors to personalized medicine by discovering, for example, hidden correlations between genetic information and the relative effectiveness of different therapies; smarter and more efficient cities where buildings, energy consumption and traffic controls are all optimized minute by minute; crowdsourced collections of publicly useful data about the environment, weather and emergency situations; and fine-grained Internet awareness and protection where every company and device instantly shares network and cyber-attack data. Without strong privacy controls, none of these possibilities could come to full fruition.

The Brandeis program is structured as a four-and-a-half year effort, split into three 18-month phases. Each phase will result in the demonstration of experimental systems that show privacy technologies at work. For more information about Brandeis, please refer to this Broad Agency Announcement.

Story and information provided by DARPA

Follow Armed with Science on Facebook and Twitter!

———-

Disclaimer: The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense of this website or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities such as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DOD website.

from Armed with Science http://ift.tt/1EK5fdC

This songbird migrates 1,500 miles non-stop

Photo credit: Greg Lasley

A little songbird known as the blackpoll warbler departs each fall from New England and eastern Canada to migrate nonstop in a direct line over the Atlantic Ocean toward South America. To track the birds’ migration route, scientists used miniaturized light-sensing geolocators attached to the birds like tiny backpacks.

According to the study, which appears in the March issue of Biology Letters, the birds complete a nonstop flight ranging from about 1,410 to 1,721 miles (2,270 to 2,770 km) in just two to three days, making landfall somewhere in Puerto Rico, Cuba and the islands known as the Greater Antilles, from there going on to northern Venezuela and Columbia.

Blackpoll warbler fitted with a miniaturized light-sensing geolocator on its back that enabled researchers to track their exact migration routes from eastern Canada and New England south toward wintering grounds. Photo credit: Vermont Center for Ecostudies

First author Bill DeLuca is an environmental conservation research fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He said:

We’re really excited to report that this is one of the longest nonstop overwater flights ever recorded for a songbird, and finally confirms what has long been believed to be one of the most extraordinary migratory feats on the planet.

While other birds, such as albatrosses, sandpipers and gulls are known for trans-oceanic flights, most migratory songbirds that winter in South America take a less risky, continental route south through Mexico and Central America, the authors note. A water landing would be fatal to a warbler.

In the recent past, DeLuca explains, geolocators have been too large and heavy for use in studying songbird migration. The tiny blackpoll warbler, at around half an ounce (12 grams), was too small to carry even the smallest of traditional tracking instruments. Scientists had only ground observations and radar as tools.

But with recent advances have made geolocators lighter and smaller. For this work, the researchers harnessed miniaturized geolocators about the size of a dime and weighing only 0.5g to the birds’ lower backs like a tiny backpack. By retrieving these when the warblers returned to Canada and Vermont the following spring, then analyzing the data, DeLuca and colleagues could trace their migration routes.

So-called light-level geolocators use solar geolocation, a method used for centuries by mariners and explorers. It is based on the fact that day length varies with latitude while time of solar noon varies with longitude. So all the instrument needs to do is record the date and length of daylight, from which daily locations can then be inferred once the geolocator is recaptured.

DeLuca said:

When we accessed the locators, we saw the blackpolls’ journey was indeed directly over the Atlantic. The distances travelled ranged from 2,270 to 2,770 kilometers.

Ryan Norris of the University of Guelph was the Canadian team leader. He said that to prepare for the flight, the birds build up their fat stores.

They eat as much as possible, in some cases doubling their body mass in fat so they can fly without needing food or water. For blackpolls, they don’t have the option of failing or coming up a bit short. It’s a fly-or-die journey that requires so much energy.

These birds come back every spring very close to the same place they used in the previous breeding season, so with any luck you can catch them again. Of course there is high mortality among migrating songbirds on such a long journey, we believe only about half return.

DeLuca added:

It was pretty thrilling to get the return birds back, because their migratory feat in itself is on the brink of impossibility. We worried that stacking one more tiny card against their success might result in them being unable to complete the migration. Many migratory songbirds, blackpolls included, are experiencing alarming population declines for a variety of reasons, if we can learn more about where these birds spend their time, particularly during the nonbreeding season, we can begin to examine and address what might be causing the declines.

Have you donated yet in EarthSky’s annual fund-raising campaign? Help EarthSky keep going. We need you!

As for why the blackpoll undertakes such a perilous journey while other species follow a longer but safer coastal route, the authors say that because migration is the most perilous part of a songbird’s year, it may make sense to get it over with as quickly as possible. However, this and other questions remain to be studied.

Bottom line: According to a study in the March issue of Biology Letters, the blackpoll warbler completes a nonstop migration over the Atlantic ocean, ranging from about 1,410 to 1,721 miles (2,270 to 2,770 km), in just two to three days.

Read more from the University of Massachusetts Amherst

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1GjoQQU

Photo credit: Greg Lasley

A little songbird known as the blackpoll warbler departs each fall from New England and eastern Canada to migrate nonstop in a direct line over the Atlantic Ocean toward South America. To track the birds’ migration route, scientists used miniaturized light-sensing geolocators attached to the birds like tiny backpacks.

According to the study, which appears in the March issue of Biology Letters, the birds complete a nonstop flight ranging from about 1,410 to 1,721 miles (2,270 to 2,770 km) in just two to three days, making landfall somewhere in Puerto Rico, Cuba and the islands known as the Greater Antilles, from there going on to northern Venezuela and Columbia.

Blackpoll warbler fitted with a miniaturized light-sensing geolocator on its back that enabled researchers to track their exact migration routes from eastern Canada and New England south toward wintering grounds. Photo credit: Vermont Center for Ecostudies

First author Bill DeLuca is an environmental conservation research fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He said:

We’re really excited to report that this is one of the longest nonstop overwater flights ever recorded for a songbird, and finally confirms what has long been believed to be one of the most extraordinary migratory feats on the planet.

While other birds, such as albatrosses, sandpipers and gulls are known for trans-oceanic flights, most migratory songbirds that winter in South America take a less risky, continental route south through Mexico and Central America, the authors note. A water landing would be fatal to a warbler.

In the recent past, DeLuca explains, geolocators have been too large and heavy for use in studying songbird migration. The tiny blackpoll warbler, at around half an ounce (12 grams), was too small to carry even the smallest of traditional tracking instruments. Scientists had only ground observations and radar as tools.

But with recent advances have made geolocators lighter and smaller. For this work, the researchers harnessed miniaturized geolocators about the size of a dime and weighing only 0.5g to the birds’ lower backs like a tiny backpack. By retrieving these when the warblers returned to Canada and Vermont the following spring, then analyzing the data, DeLuca and colleagues could trace their migration routes.

So-called light-level geolocators use solar geolocation, a method used for centuries by mariners and explorers. It is based on the fact that day length varies with latitude while time of solar noon varies with longitude. So all the instrument needs to do is record the date and length of daylight, from which daily locations can then be inferred once the geolocator is recaptured.

DeLuca said:

When we accessed the locators, we saw the blackpolls’ journey was indeed directly over the Atlantic. The distances travelled ranged from 2,270 to 2,770 kilometers.

Ryan Norris of the University of Guelph was the Canadian team leader. He said that to prepare for the flight, the birds build up their fat stores.

They eat as much as possible, in some cases doubling their body mass in fat so they can fly without needing food or water. For blackpolls, they don’t have the option of failing or coming up a bit short. It’s a fly-or-die journey that requires so much energy.

These birds come back every spring very close to the same place they used in the previous breeding season, so with any luck you can catch them again. Of course there is high mortality among migrating songbirds on such a long journey, we believe only about half return.

DeLuca added:

It was pretty thrilling to get the return birds back, because their migratory feat in itself is on the brink of impossibility. We worried that stacking one more tiny card against their success might result in them being unable to complete the migration. Many migratory songbirds, blackpolls included, are experiencing alarming population declines for a variety of reasons, if we can learn more about where these birds spend their time, particularly during the nonbreeding season, we can begin to examine and address what might be causing the declines.

Have you donated yet in EarthSky’s annual fund-raising campaign? Help EarthSky keep going. We need you!

As for why the blackpoll undertakes such a perilous journey while other species follow a longer but safer coastal route, the authors say that because migration is the most perilous part of a songbird’s year, it may make sense to get it over with as quickly as possible. However, this and other questions remain to be studied.

Bottom line: According to a study in the March issue of Biology Letters, the blackpoll warbler completes a nonstop migration over the Atlantic ocean, ranging from about 1,410 to 1,721 miles (2,270 to 2,770 km), in just two to three days.

Read more from the University of Massachusetts Amherst

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1GjoQQU

Around the Apocalyptic Web: Why thinkpieces on STEM education are dangerous and more [Confessions of a Science Librarian]

• Why America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerous


• Science Is Essentially Human; Or Why Better STEM Education Isn’t A Threat


• Why thinkpieces on STEM education are dangerous


• STEM and the “Liberal Education”


• STEM Education Promotes Critical Thinking and Creativity: A Response to Fareed Zakaria


• Pearson admits to monitoring students’ social media use during its online tests


• The church of TED


• Learning My Lesson: Marina Warner on the disfiguring of higher education


• The College Amenities Arms Race


• The customer isn’t right when it comes to higher education


• Marketing Lessons From Sweet Briar


• Academia is not a meritocracy


• Journalism Curricula? Get Me Rewrite


• The End of Ownership: Netflix, Spotify, and The Streaming Generation


• A Survey of College Students Reminds Us Why eBooks Haven’t Taken Over


• The Pomplamoose Problem: Artists Can’t Survive as Saints and Martyrs


• The Taming of Tech Criticism


• Silicon Valley is cool and powerful. But where are the women?

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1y2byHn

• Why America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerous


• Science Is Essentially Human; Or Why Better STEM Education Isn’t A Threat


• Why thinkpieces on STEM education are dangerous


• STEM and the “Liberal Education”


• STEM Education Promotes Critical Thinking and Creativity: A Response to Fareed Zakaria


• Pearson admits to monitoring students’ social media use during its online tests


• The church of TED


• Learning My Lesson: Marina Warner on the disfiguring of higher education


• The College Amenities Arms Race


• The customer isn’t right when it comes to higher education


• Marketing Lessons From Sweet Briar


• Academia is not a meritocracy


• Journalism Curricula? Get Me Rewrite


• The End of Ownership: Netflix, Spotify, and The Streaming Generation


• A Survey of College Students Reminds Us Why eBooks Haven’t Taken Over


• The Pomplamoose Problem: Artists Can’t Survive as Saints and Martyrs


• The Taming of Tech Criticism


• Silicon Valley is cool and powerful. But where are the women?

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1y2byHn