Posts Tagged ‘Science’
As millions of skywatchers gazed up at a dazzling solar eclipse on Sunday, one astronaut was amazed by looking down at the eclipse’s shadow moving across the Earth.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit captured spectacular photos of the moon’s shadow cast by an annular solar eclipse on Sunday (May 20). The images show a huge, black blemish on otherwise pristine white clouds over the Western Pacific Ocean.
“It is amazing to see an eclipse from orbit,” Pettit told Mission Control while describing the event Monday. “The shadow on Earth looks just like what you see in the physics books and the astronomy book where those folks figured all that out without ever having seen what that shadow looks like.”
NASA posted three of Pettit’s photos of the annular solar eclipse shadow to his Expedition 31 mission’s gallery, and the astronaut unveiled them online in his blog “Letters to Earth.” Pettit used a 28-mm lens on a digital still camera to snap the photos at about 7:36 p.m. EDT (2336 GMT) on Sunday. [See Solar Eclipse Pictures from Space Earth]
Sunday’s solar eclipse was a rare celestial sight in which the moon lined up between the Earth and sun, but did not completely block out the star. Because the moon was at apogee, its farthest point from Earth in its orbit, it was too far from Earth to completely cover the sun’s disk, leaving a dazzling “ring of fire” that amazed millions of skywatchers in the eclipse’s path between southern China and Texas.
For Pettit and the rest of the space station crew, however, the most eye-popping site was the moon’s shadow, which is split into two parts; the umbra, or darker central part, and the penumbra, the paler outer part of the lunar shadow.
Astronauts have seen solar eclipse shadows from space several times in the past from the International Space Station, as well as from other spacecraft like Russia’s Mir space station.
On Sunday, the station astronauts were not the only ones with a view of the eclipse from space.
NASA’s Terra satellite spotted an amazing view of the moon’s shadow crossing the Pacific Ocean. Two other satellites —the European Proba-2 and Japan’s Hinode solar observatory — captured spectacular video of the moon crossing the sun during the eclipse.
The next solar eclipse will be the total solar eclipse of Nov. 13. That eclipse, however, will only be visible from the South Pacific Ocean and parts of northern Australia.
You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
- Eclipse Shadow Cast On Earth Seen From Space | Video
- Annular Solar Eclipse of May 20: Complete Coverage
- Solar Eclipses: An Observer’s Guide (Infographic)
Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/astronaut-photographs-solar-eclipses-moon-shadow-space-192837354.html
As millions of skywatchers gazed up at a dazzling solar eclipse on Sunday, one astronaut was amazed by looking down at the eclipse’s shadow moving across the Earth.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit captured spectacular photos of the moon’s shadow cast by an annular solar eclipse on Sunday (May 20). The images show a huge, black blemish on otherwise pristine white clouds over the Western Pacific Ocean.
“It is amazing to see an eclipse from orbit,” Pettit told Mission Control while describing the event Monday. “The shadow on Earth looks just like what you see in the physics books and the astronomy book where those folks figured all that out without ever having seen what that shadow looks like.”
NASA posted three of Pettit’s photos of the annular solar eclipse shadow to his Expedition 31 mission’s gallery, and the astronaut unveiled them online in his blog “Letters to Earth.” Pettit used a 28-mm lens on a digital still camera to snap the photos at about 7:36 p.m. EDT (2336 GMT) on Sunday. [See Solar Eclipse Pictures from Space Earth]
Sunday’s solar eclipse was a rare celestial sight in which the moon lined up between the Earth and sun, but did not completely block out the star. Because the moon was at apogee, its farthest point from Earth in its orbit, it was too far from Earth to completely cover the sun’s disk, leaving a dazzling “ring of fire” that amazed millions of skywatchers in the eclipse’s path between southern China and Texas.
For Pettit and the rest of the space station crew, however, the most eye-popping site was the moon’s shadow, which is split into two parts; the umbra, or darker central part, and the penumbra, the paler outer part of the lunar shadow.
Astronauts have seen solar eclipse shadows from space several times in the past from the International Space Station, as well as from other spacecraft like Russia’s Mir space station.
On Sunday, the station astronauts were not the only ones with a view of the eclipse from space.
NASA’s Terra satellite spotted an amazing view of the moon’s shadow crossing the Pacific Ocean. Two other satellites —the European Proba-2 and Japan’s Hinode solar observatory — captured spectacular video of the moon crossing the sun during the eclipse.
The next solar eclipse will be the total solar eclipse of Nov. 13. That eclipse, however, will only be visible from the South Pacific Ocean and parts of northern Australia.
You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
- Eclipse Shadow Cast On Earth Seen From Space | Video
- Annular Solar Eclipse of May 20: Complete Coverage
- Solar Eclipses: An Observer’s Guide (Infographic)
Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/astronaut-photographs-solar-eclipses-moon-shadow-space-192837354.html
NASA and commercial spaceflight pioneers are hailing Tuesday’s historic launch of a private spaceship toward the International Space Station, but the successful liftoff is just the first step in a challenging 10-day test flight.
The unmanned Dragon capsule, built by the California-based firm SpaceX, roared off the pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station early Tuesday (May 22) atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, becoming the first private spacecraft ever to launch toward the orbiting lab.
This in itself is a big milestone, ushering in a new era of American public-private space partnership that NASA has been encouraging for several years. But Dragon still has quite a few boxes to check off before this demonstration mission — a test to see if the capsule is ready to begin contracted cargo flights for NASA — can be declared a complete success, officials said.
“There’s still a lot of work in front of them,” Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration Operations Directorate, told reporters Tuesday. [Launch Photos: SpaceX's Dragon Blasts Off for Space Station]
“Things are moving in the right direction, but there’s still lots of activities that’ll occur over the next days that will really stretch the SpaceX team, and also stretch the NASA team a little bit, as we work together to get, finally, to space station and deliver some demonstration cargo to ISS,” Gerstenmaier added.
Docking yet to come
For example, Dragon still has to chase down the station, which is zipping around Earth at 17,000 mph (27,360 kph). And the SpaceX team must prove the capsule can sidle up next to the huge orbiting lab without posing a danger to the $100 billion structure or the six astronauts currently living there.
This checkout of Dragon’s navigational prowess and maneuverability will occur in stages. On Thursday (May 24), the spacecraft will come within 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) of the space station. Then, a day later, it will get much closer, approaching at the command of the crewmembers aboard the outpost.
If the Dragon capsule passes a set of “go-no go” checks performed by Mission Control in Houston, NASA will approve the vehicle to come within about 33 feet (10 meters) of the station on Friday (May 25). From inside, astronauts Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers will then use the lab’s robotic arm to snag Dragon and berth it to the Harmony node.
The hatches between the two spacecraft are scheduled to open on Saturday (May 26). At that point, station crewmembers will begin offloading the 1,014 pounds (460 kilograms) of cargo that Dragon carried up. When that’s done, they’ll load the capsule up for its trip back to Earth.
Dragon will stay attached to the station until May 31, when it will depart for a fiery return journey through our planet’s atmosphere that ends with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX plans to recover the spacecraft by ship off the California coast.
Taking nothing for granted
That’s a long list of complicated steps, and neither NASA nor SpaceX is taking complete success for granted.
“There are still a thousand things that have to go right, but we are certainly looking forward to the rest of this amazing mission,” said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s commercial crew and cargo program.
Still, the SpaceX team is thrilled with the mission’s progress so far. Dragon has already made it to orbit and deployed its solar panels on schedule, and it now has the space station in its sights.
“I would really count today as a success, no matter what happens with the rest of the mission,” SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk said.
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
- Gallery: SpaceX’s 1st Mission to Space Station – How It Works
- SpaceX Dragon Launch: Complete Coverage
- Lift-Off! SpaceX Dragon Heads to Space Station | Video
Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/spacexs-private-rocket-launch-just-step-1-tough-192838729.html
NASA and commercial spaceflight pioneers are hailing Tuesday’s historic launch of a private spaceship toward the International Space Station, but the successful liftoff is just the first step in a challenging 10-day test flight.
The unmanned Dragon capsule, built by the California-based firm SpaceX, roared off the pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station early Tuesday (May 22) atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, becoming the first private spacecraft ever to launch toward the orbiting lab.
This in itself is a big milestone, ushering in a new era of American public-private space partnership that NASA has been encouraging for several years. But Dragon still has quite a few boxes to check off before this demonstration mission — a test to see if the capsule is ready to begin contracted cargo flights for NASA — can be declared a complete success, officials said.
“There’s still a lot of work in front of them,” Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration Operations Directorate, told reporters Tuesday. [Launch Photos: SpaceX's Dragon Blasts Off for Space Station]
“Things are moving in the right direction, but there’s still lots of activities that’ll occur over the next days that will really stretch the SpaceX team, and also stretch the NASA team a little bit, as we work together to get, finally, to space station and deliver some demonstration cargo to ISS,” Gerstenmaier added.
Docking yet to come
For example, Dragon still has to chase down the station, which is zipping around Earth at 17,000 mph (27,360 kph). And the SpaceX team must prove the capsule can sidle up next to the huge orbiting lab without posing a danger to the $100 billion structure or the six astronauts currently living there.
This checkout of Dragon’s navigational prowess and maneuverability will occur in stages. On Thursday (May 24), the spacecraft will come within 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) of the space station. Then, a day later, it will get much closer, approaching at the command of the crewmembers aboard the outpost.
If the Dragon capsule passes a set of “go-no go” checks performed by Mission Control in Houston, NASA will approve the vehicle to come within about 33 feet (10 meters) of the station on Friday (May 25). From inside, astronauts Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers will then use the lab’s robotic arm to snag Dragon and berth it to the Harmony node.
The hatches between the two spacecraft are scheduled to open on Saturday (May 26). At that point, station crewmembers will begin offloading the 1,014 pounds (460 kilograms) of cargo that Dragon carried up. When that’s done, they’ll load the capsule up for its trip back to Earth.
Dragon will stay attached to the station until May 31, when it will depart for a fiery return journey through our planet’s atmosphere that ends with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX plans to recover the spacecraft by ship off the California coast.
Taking nothing for granted
That’s a long list of complicated steps, and neither NASA nor SpaceX is taking complete success for granted.
“There are still a thousand things that have to go right, but we are certainly looking forward to the rest of this amazing mission,” said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s commercial crew and cargo program.
Still, the SpaceX team is thrilled with the mission’s progress so far. Dragon has already made it to orbit and deployed its solar panels on schedule, and it now has the space station in its sights.
“I would really count today as a success, no matter what happens with the rest of the mission,” SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk said.
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
- Gallery: SpaceX’s 1st Mission to Space Station – How It Works
- SpaceX Dragon Launch: Complete Coverage
- Lift-Off! SpaceX Dragon Heads to Space Station | Video
Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/spacexs-private-rocket-launch-just-step-1-tough-192838729.html
A newfound giant predatory dinosaur with even stubbier arms than Tyrannosaurus rex may now hint that a vast desert once existed in the heart of a lost supercontinent, potentially barring this carnivore and its kin from spreading across the entire ancient world, researchers say.
When T. rex and its tyrannosaurid relatives dominated as predators in the Northern Hemisphere in what is now North America and Asia, carnivores known as abelisaurids were the top killers in the Southern Hemisphere on the lost supercontinent of Gondwana, which once was made up of what is now Antarctica, Australia, South America and Africa.
The newfound abelisaurid species, discovered in Patagonia in Argentina, is named Eoabelisaurus mefi, or “dawn Abelisaurus of the Museo Palentológico Egidio Feruglio.” Based on the nearly complete skeleton, the carnivore was about 21 feet (6.5 meters) long and lived about 170 million to 175 million years ago, back when the area was hot and ranged between pronounced dry seasons and extensive rain.
The finding, detailed online May 23 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests the abelisaurids, whose origins have remained enigmatic, originated at least 40 million years than before thought. This meant that abelisaurids existed back when all the continents were united in the supercontinent Pangaea. [See Photos of the New Dinosaur]
Little arms
Abelisaurids generally resembled tyrannosaurids in appearance, stalking the land on two legs, although their skulls were relatively shorter in length and taller in height, with a shape that hinted they had extremely powerful bites. As squat as the arms of tyrannosaurids were, abelisaurids had even squatter limbs that appeared even less useful — for instance, they typically lacked wrist bones.
“Why these animals had such tiny arms is a good question,” said researcher Oliver Rauhut, a paleontologist at the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in Germany. “One part of the answer might be that both had skulls that were adapted for very powerful bites, so these animals obviously relied on ‘head hunting’ for acquiring prey and didn’t need the arms for that.”
Rauhut added that tyrannosaurids and abelisaurids had specialized arms, with abelisaurids having an enlarged shoulder girdle, indicating muscle strength, as well as more flexibility of the upper arm. “What they did with these arms is anybody’s guess,” Rauhut said.
Dinosaur barrier
The fossil was first discovered in 2009 during a large-scale prospecting campaign by researcher Diego Pol at the Egidio Feruglio Paleontological Museum in Argentina in a dry, savannahlike landscape. “Basically everything that grows there has thorns,” Rauhut said. Native animals include the lowland llama, a small flightless bird known as the nandu, and armadillos, “but what you see most is actually sheep,” Rauhut added.
The arms of Eoabelisaurus are not as tiny as those of later abelisaurids, but they are still unusually small, revealingthat shortening of abelisaurid arms began very early in their evolution. This reduction apparently started with the lower arm — in Eoabelisaurus, the upper forelimb is of normal size, but the lower arm is much shorter in comparison, with a very stunted hand and tiny fingers and claws.
The fact that Eoabelisaurus lived about 175 million years ago suggests abelisaurids could have spread across the whole of Pangaea before it fragmented about 10 million to 15 million years later into Gondwana and Laurasia, the supercontinent once made up of what is now Europe, Asia and North America. Since abelisaurids were apparently exceedingly rare in the Northern Hemisphere, a natural barrier may have prevented their advance northward, researchers suggested.
Growing evidence from climate models and geological data suggests a huge desert in the center of Gondwana might have kept abelisaurids from dispersing to the north. Such a barrier could also explain why other groups of animals were restricted to Gondwana, such as certain mammals and giant plant-eating sauropods, the researchers explained.
The scientists hope to continue investigating the dinosaurs of Patagonia. “Dinosaurs from the Southern Hemisphere are still extremely poorly known, so we can expect to find more surprises,” Rauhut told LiveScience.
- 25 Amazing Ancient Beasts
- Album: The World’s Biggest Beasts
- Dinosaur Detective: Find Out What You Really Know
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/stubby-armed-dinosaur-t-rex-southern-hemisphere-225349416.html
A newfound giant predatory dinosaur with even stubbier arms than Tyrannosaurus rex may now hint that a vast desert once existed in the heart of a lost supercontinent, potentially barring this carnivore and its kin from spreading across the entire ancient world, researchers say.
When T. rex and its tyrannosaurid relatives dominated as predators in the Northern Hemisphere in what is now North America and Asia, carnivores known as abelisaurids were the top killers in the Southern Hemisphere on the lost supercontinent of Gondwana, which once was made up of what is now Antarctica, Australia, South America and Africa.
The newfound abelisaurid species, discovered in Patagonia in Argentina, is named Eoabelisaurus mefi, or “dawn Abelisaurus of the Museo Palentológico Egidio Feruglio.” Based on the nearly complete skeleton, the carnivore was about 21 feet (6.5 meters) long and lived about 170 million to 175 million years ago, back when the area was hot and ranged between pronounced dry seasons and extensive rain.
The finding, detailed online May 23 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests the abelisaurids, whose origins have remained enigmatic, originated at least 40 million years than before thought. This meant that abelisaurids existed back when all the continents were united in the supercontinent Pangaea. [See Photos of the New Dinosaur]
Little arms
Abelisaurids generally resembled tyrannosaurids in appearance, stalking the land on two legs, although their skulls were relatively shorter in length and taller in height, with a shape that hinted they had extremely powerful bites. As squat as the arms of tyrannosaurids were, abelisaurids had even squatter limbs that appeared even less useful — for instance, they typically lacked wrist bones.
“Why these animals had such tiny arms is a good question,” said researcher Oliver Rauhut, a paleontologist at the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in Germany. “One part of the answer might be that both had skulls that were adapted for very powerful bites, so these animals obviously relied on ‘head hunting’ for acquiring prey and didn’t need the arms for that.”
Rauhut added that tyrannosaurids and abelisaurids had specialized arms, with abelisaurids having an enlarged shoulder girdle, indicating muscle strength, as well as more flexibility of the upper arm. “What they did with these arms is anybody’s guess,” Rauhut said.
Dinosaur barrier
The fossil was first discovered in 2009 during a large-scale prospecting campaign by researcher Diego Pol at the Egidio Feruglio Paleontological Museum in Argentina in a dry, savannahlike landscape. “Basically everything that grows there has thorns,” Rauhut said. Native animals include the lowland llama, a small flightless bird known as the nandu, and armadillos, “but what you see most is actually sheep,” Rauhut added.
The arms of Eoabelisaurus are not as tiny as those of later abelisaurids, but they are still unusually small, revealingthat shortening of abelisaurid arms began very early in their evolution. This reduction apparently started with the lower arm — in Eoabelisaurus, the upper forelimb is of normal size, but the lower arm is much shorter in comparison, with a very stunted hand and tiny fingers and claws.
The fact that Eoabelisaurus lived about 175 million years ago suggests abelisaurids could have spread across the whole of Pangaea before it fragmented about 10 million to 15 million years later into Gondwana and Laurasia, the supercontinent once made up of what is now Europe, Asia and North America. Since abelisaurids were apparently exceedingly rare in the Northern Hemisphere, a natural barrier may have prevented their advance northward, researchers suggested.
Growing evidence from climate models and geological data suggests a huge desert in the center of Gondwana might have kept abelisaurids from dispersing to the north. Such a barrier could also explain why other groups of animals were restricted to Gondwana, such as certain mammals and giant plant-eating sauropods, the researchers explained.
The scientists hope to continue investigating the dinosaurs of Patagonia. “Dinosaurs from the Southern Hemisphere are still extremely poorly known, so we can expect to find more surprises,” Rauhut told LiveScience.
- 25 Amazing Ancient Beasts
- Album: The World’s Biggest Beasts
- Dinosaur Detective: Find Out What You Really Know
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/stubby-armed-dinosaur-t-rex-southern-hemisphere-225349416.html
Beware streetlights: A new study finds that well-lit areas of cities and towns are more likely to be home to predators and scavengers.
Luckily for humans, these predators and scavengers are of the invertebrate variety, including predator beetles and other insects. The study is the first to find that light pollution is changing ecosystems as a whole, not just individual organism behavior.
“Despite artificial lighting being commonplace for many decades now, we really haven’t got to grips with how it may be affecting the environment,” said study researcher Thomas Davies, a community ecologist at the University of Exeter in the U.K.
Researchers have previously found that light pollution can attract some invertebrates, making them more vulnerable to predators, Davies said. Light pollution can also mess with certain insects’ daily routines. Fireflies, for example, have trouble finding mates when it’s too bright.
Davies and his colleagues wanted to take a broad look at the tiny ecosystems living around well-lit streets. They placed invertebrate traps in bright and unlit areas in the city of Helston in the U.K. for three days and three nights in August 2011. These traps collected 1,194 creepy-crawlies. [Gallery: World's Cutest Bugs]
A count of these buggy specimens revealed that more predators and scavengers gathered in well-lit spots under streetlights. This was true both day and night, meaning that it wasn’t just the lights attracting these invertebrates at night — they had moved in around the clock.
Specifically, well-lit areas harbored more ants, more harvestmen (sometimes called “daddy longlegs”), more woodlice (or roly-polies), which are mostly detritivores that devour dead stuff, and more amphipods, an order of scavenging crustaceans that look much like fleas. (Various species of ants and harvestmen can be either scavengers or predators.)
The plants in dim and bright areas were similar, meaning that the light was having a direct effect on these invertebrates rather than changing the environment in general.
The results of the study are preliminary, Davies told LiveScience, and researchers aren’t sure why predators and scavengers would be drawn toward the light. It’s possible that some species find well-lit areas to be better hunting grounds, he said.
Nor is it clear whether humans should be switching off or dimming our streetlights, Davies said. Currently, artificial lighting is growing at a rate of about 6 percent annually worldwide.
“Further research is required to ascertain whether we should be concerned,” he said. But invertebrates are crucial for both pollination and decomposition, he added.
“We need to get a better idea of how street lighting is affecting these ecosystem services,” Davies said.
The researchers reported their findings today (May 22) in the journal Biology Letters.
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
- Gallery: Dazzling Photos of Dew-Covered Insects
- Amazing Photos: The Little Things in Life
- Gallery of Colorful Wings
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/streetlights-lure-beasts-tiny-kind-230727825.html
Beware streetlights: A new study finds that well-lit areas of cities and towns are more likely to be home to predators and scavengers.
Luckily for humans, these predators and scavengers are of the invertebrate variety, including predator beetles and other insects. The study is the first to find that light pollution is changing ecosystems as a whole, not just individual organism behavior.
“Despite artificial lighting being commonplace for many decades now, we really haven’t got to grips with how it may be affecting the environment,” said study researcher Thomas Davies, a community ecologist at the University of Exeter in the U.K.
Researchers have previously found that light pollution can attract some invertebrates, making them more vulnerable to predators, Davies said. Light pollution can also mess with certain insects’ daily routines. Fireflies, for example, have trouble finding mates when it’s too bright.
Davies and his colleagues wanted to take a broad look at the tiny ecosystems living around well-lit streets. They placed invertebrate traps in bright and unlit areas in the city of Helston in the U.K. for three days and three nights in August 2011. These traps collected 1,194 creepy-crawlies. [Gallery: World's Cutest Bugs]
A count of these buggy specimens revealed that more predators and scavengers gathered in well-lit spots under streetlights. This was true both day and night, meaning that it wasn’t just the lights attracting these invertebrates at night — they had moved in around the clock.
Specifically, well-lit areas harbored more ants, more harvestmen (sometimes called “daddy longlegs”), more woodlice (or roly-polies), which are mostly detritivores that devour dead stuff, and more amphipods, an order of scavenging crustaceans that look much like fleas. (Various species of ants and harvestmen can be either scavengers or predators.)
The plants in dim and bright areas were similar, meaning that the light was having a direct effect on these invertebrates rather than changing the environment in general.
The results of the study are preliminary, Davies told LiveScience, and researchers aren’t sure why predators and scavengers would be drawn toward the light. It’s possible that some species find well-lit areas to be better hunting grounds, he said.
Nor is it clear whether humans should be switching off or dimming our streetlights, Davies said. Currently, artificial lighting is growing at a rate of about 6 percent annually worldwide.
“Further research is required to ascertain whether we should be concerned,” he said. But invertebrates are crucial for both pollination and decomposition, he added.
“We need to get a better idea of how street lighting is affecting these ecosystem services,” Davies said.
The researchers reported their findings today (May 22) in the journal Biology Letters.
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
- Gallery: Dazzling Photos of Dew-Covered Insects
- Amazing Photos: The Little Things in Life
- Gallery of Colorful Wings
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/streetlights-lure-beasts-tiny-kind-230727825.html
Believing in an involved, morally active God makes people less likely to punish others for rule-breaking, new research finds.
However, the researchers also find that religious belief in general makes people more likely to punish wrongdoers – probably because such punishment is a way to strengthen the community as a whole.
In other words, religion may introduce two conflicting impulses: Punish others for their transgressions, or leave it to the Lord.
Punishment is good for the community as a deterrent to criminals, cheats and liars. And research suggests that a desire for punishment is ingrained, with babies as young as 8 months preferring to see a wrongdoer punished.
But actually punishing someone is costly. Imagine a friend of yours says something nasty to another of your friends. As a bystander, you could punish Friend A by shunning her or telling her off — but it might cost you your friendship.
Punishment’s costs add up on a societal level as well. Consumers looking to punish a company for bad business practices might have to buy a more expensive alternative or do without a product altogether. And the justice and prison systems aren’t cheap, either. A report released in January by the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice examined the corrections budgets of 40 states and found that in those states, the average annual cost of housing an inmate for a year was $31,166. The total cost of corrections for the 40 states combined came to almost $39 billion. [10 Contested Death Penalty Cases]
God and punishment
To figure out what motivates people to shoulder these costs, doctoral candidate Kristin Laurin at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and her colleagues carried out a series of five studies with Canadian and American participants.
In one of these studies, participants played a game designed to measure how willing they were to give up cash for the chance to punish a wrongdoer. The participant thinks he or she is playing against two players. Player A gives a certain amount of money to Player B. If the participant thinks Player A’s offer is unfair, he or she can pay real cash to take away Player A’s stash.
The participants, 55 undergraduate students, filled out surveys about their religious beliefs either before or after playing this game. The ones who filled out the surveys first were more likely than the others to have religion on their minds when they went into the game.
The findings, published Tuesday (May 22) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggested that when people believed in a powerful, involved God and when they were reminded of that belief, they were less likely to punish Player A.
“It seems to be something about the idea that it’s the responsibility of that powerful God to punish people who do things wrong, and it’s not your responsibility as a human being,” Laurin told LiveScience. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]
In a similar study, participants reminded of their belief in a powerful God were less willing to support state-sponsored punishment for a white-collar criminal.
Religious conflict
When researchers looked at religious beliefs alone, however, they found that people with stronger beliefs were more likely to punish others after being reminded of those beliefs.
It may be that the communal aspects of religion encourage people to support punishing wrongdoers, Laurin said, but then belief in God might be a way for people to drop the responsibility of punishment when they’d rather not take on the cost.
It’s also possible that people who believe in a strong and powerful god might not want to step on the deity’s toes by taking over the role of punisher, Laurin said.
How this push-and-pull between punishment and mercy plays out on a daily basis is still unknown. There are many reminders of religion in daily life, Laurin said, especially in courts of law, where witnesses swear on Bibles and promise to tell the truth “so help me God.”
“It would be really interesting to look at a courtroom that does that and a courtroom that doesn’t do that in terms of how punitive the outcomes end up being for people who are on trial,” Laurin said.
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas.Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
- Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus
- Saint or Spiritual Slacker? Test Your Religious Knowledge
- Understanding the 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/believers-leave-punishment-powerful-god-231456530.html
Believing in an involved, morally active God makes people less likely to punish others for rule-breaking, new research finds.
However, the researchers also find that religious belief in general makes people more likely to punish wrongdoers – probably because such punishment is a way to strengthen the community as a whole.
In other words, religion may introduce two conflicting impulses: Punish others for their transgressions, or leave it to the Lord.
Punishment is good for the community as a deterrent to criminals, cheats and liars. And research suggests that a desire for punishment is ingrained, with babies as young as 8 months preferring to see a wrongdoer punished.
But actually punishing someone is costly. Imagine a friend of yours says something nasty to another of your friends. As a bystander, you could punish Friend A by shunning her or telling her off — but it might cost you your friendship.
Punishment’s costs add up on a societal level as well. Consumers looking to punish a company for bad business practices might have to buy a more expensive alternative or do without a product altogether. And the justice and prison systems aren’t cheap, either. A report released in January by the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice examined the corrections budgets of 40 states and found that in those states, the average annual cost of housing an inmate for a year was $31,166. The total cost of corrections for the 40 states combined came to almost $39 billion. [10 Contested Death Penalty Cases]
God and punishment
To figure out what motivates people to shoulder these costs, doctoral candidate Kristin Laurin at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and her colleagues carried out a series of five studies with Canadian and American participants.
In one of these studies, participants played a game designed to measure how willing they were to give up cash for the chance to punish a wrongdoer. The participant thinks he or she is playing against two players. Player A gives a certain amount of money to Player B. If the participant thinks Player A’s offer is unfair, he or she can pay real cash to take away Player A’s stash.
The participants, 55 undergraduate students, filled out surveys about their religious beliefs either before or after playing this game. The ones who filled out the surveys first were more likely than the others to have religion on their minds when they went into the game.
The findings, published Tuesday (May 22) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggested that when people believed in a powerful, involved God and when they were reminded of that belief, they were less likely to punish Player A.
“It seems to be something about the idea that it’s the responsibility of that powerful God to punish people who do things wrong, and it’s not your responsibility as a human being,” Laurin told LiveScience. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]
In a similar study, participants reminded of their belief in a powerful God were less willing to support state-sponsored punishment for a white-collar criminal.
Religious conflict
When researchers looked at religious beliefs alone, however, they found that people with stronger beliefs were more likely to punish others after being reminded of those beliefs.
It may be that the communal aspects of religion encourage people to support punishing wrongdoers, Laurin said, but then belief in God might be a way for people to drop the responsibility of punishment when they’d rather not take on the cost.
It’s also possible that people who believe in a strong and powerful god might not want to step on the deity’s toes by taking over the role of punisher, Laurin said.
How this push-and-pull between punishment and mercy plays out on a daily basis is still unknown. There are many reminders of religion in daily life, Laurin said, especially in courts of law, where witnesses swear on Bibles and promise to tell the truth “so help me God.”
“It would be really interesting to look at a courtroom that does that and a courtroom that doesn’t do that in terms of how punitive the outcomes end up being for people who are on trial,” Laurin said.
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas.Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
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Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/believers-leave-punishment-powerful-god-231456530.html