The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) is mounted on Mars Express, ESA's deep-space probe now orbiting the Red Planet. It originally provided simple, low-tech images of Beagle lander separation, and is now back in action as the 'Mars Webcam'. It's not a scientific instrument, but it does provide fantastic views of Mars - including crescent views of the planet not obtainable from Earth.
The semiconductor silicon and the ferromagnet iron are the basis for much of mankind's technology, used in everything from computers to electric motors. In this week's issue of the journal Nature (August 21st) an international group of scientists, including academic and industrial researchers from the UK, USA and Lesotho, report that they have combined these elements with a small amount of another common metal, manganese, to create a new material which is neither a magnet nor an ordinary semiconductor. The paper goes on to show how a small magnetic field can be used to switch ordinary semiconducting behaviour (such as that seen in the electronic-grade silicon which is used to make transistors) back on.
The new material exists in a quantum halfway house between magnet and semiconductor - in the same way that much more complex materials such as ceramics which exhibit high temperature superconductivity exist in quantum halfway houses between metals and magnetic insulators. The research is of fundamental importance because it demonstrates, for the first time, a simple recipe for reaching this halfway house, whilst also suggesting new mechanisms for controlling electrical currents and magnetism in semiconductor devices.
Professor J.F. DiTusa of Louisiana State University and a co-author of the paper said: "It's amazing that something which was thought to exist theoretically in mathematical physics could actually be found in an alloy which was simply formed by melting together a few common elements."
Professor Gabriel Aeppli of UCL (University College London), another member of the research team and Director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology, added: "It might be possible to see similar effects in devices made using materials and methods found in laser pointers. This would put what we've seen firmly in the realm of that which can easily be achieved using current technologies."
The first author of the paper, Dr. N. Manyala of the National University of Lesotho, said: "We are looking forward to investigating whether we can see these effects using thin layers of the same materials deposited directly on the silicon wafers. These wafers are the same as those used by mass market electronics manufacturers as the basis for integrated circuits." Dr. Ramirez, who is now with LGS-Bell Labs Innovations echoed this thought, noting that, "with the end of Moore's law in sight, mechanisms for controlling and understanding possible new information bits such as spins in solids are actively being sought after."
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers monitoring daily satellite images here of Greenland’s glaciers have discovered break-ups at two of the largest glaciers in the last month.
They expect that part of the Northern hemisphere’s longest floating glacier will continue to disintegrate within the next year.
A massive 11-square-mile (29-square-kilometer) piece of the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland broke away between July 10th and by July 24th. The loss to that glacier is equal to half the size of Manhattan Island. The last major ice loss to Petermann occurred when the glacier lost 33 square miles (86 square kilometers) of floating ice between 2000 and 2001.
Petermann has a floating section of ice 10 miles (16 kilometers) wide and 50 miles (80.4 kilometers) long which covers 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers).
What worries Jason Box, an associate professor of geography at Ohio State, and his colleagues, graduate students Russell Benson and David Decker, all with the Byrd Polar Research Center, even more about the latest images is what appears to be a massive crack further back from the margin of the Petermann Glacier.
That crack may signal an imminent and much larger breakup.
“If the Petermann glacier breaks up back to the upstream rift, the loss would be as much as 60 square miles (160 square kilometers),” Box said, representing a loss of one-third of the massive ice field.
Meanwhile, the margin of the massive Jakobshavn glacier has retreated inland further than it has at any time in the past 150 years it has been observed. Researchers believe that the glacier has not retreated to where it is now in at least the last 4,000 to 6,000 years.
“If the Petermann glacier breaks up back to the upstream rift, the loss would be as much as 60 square miles (160 square kilometers),” Box said, representing a loss of one-third of the massive ice field.
The Northern branch of the Jakobshavn broke up in the past several weeks and the glacier has lost at least three square miles (10 square kilometers) since the end of the last melt season.
The Jakobshavn Glacier dominates the approximately 130 glaciers flowing out of Greenland’s inland into the sea. It alone is responsible for producing at least one-tenth of the icebergs calving off into the sea from the entire island of Greenland, making it the island’s most productive glacier.
Between 2001 and 2005, a massive breakup of the Jakobshavn glacier erased 36 square miles (94 square kilometers) from the ice field and raised the awareness of worldwide of glacial response to global climate change.
The researchers are using images updated daily from National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellites and from time-lapse photography from cameras monitoring the margin of these and other Greenland glaciers. Additional support for this project came from NASA.
British mining company Vedanta is under intense pressure over its plans to mine the Dongria Kondh tribe’s land in India, as a Scottish investment group sells its shares and Amnesty International joins the campaign in support of the tribe.
Martin Currie – an Edinburgh-based investment management company – has sold its £2.3million stake in Vedanta following pressure from Survival International. The company’s director of corporate communications, Scott White, said, ‘It is fundamental that we expect companies to behave both within the law and morally… The doubts over the issues with the bauxite project … led to exiting the stock.’
Last year the Norwegian government’s Council of Ethics recommended that Norway sold its shares in Vedanta due to an ‘unacceptable risk of complicity in current and future severe environmental damage and systematic human rights violations.’
Since the Supreme Court of India gave its clearance for Vedanta’s mine at Niyamgiri in the Indian state of Orissa earlier this month, Amnesty International has added its voice to those calling for the mine to be stopped because of the devastating impact it would have on the Dongria Kondh. Local politicians also met this week to discuss ways of halting the mine, and a gathering of 15,000 local Kondh people is planned.
The Dongria Kondh have vowed to resist the mine. On hearing the Supreme Court’s decision, 40 Dongria Kondh from several villages blockaded the road to the proposed mine site. They held banners across the road with the slogan, ‘We are Dongria Kondh. Vedanta cannot take our mountain.’ Dongria activists swore not to leave Niyamgiri and stated, ‘Niyamgiri is Dongria land. Vedanta cannot come here without our permission. We say no.’
The Dongria Kondh also recently claimed they were ‘tricked’ into praising Vedanta on a video posted on YouTube. Sahadev Kadraka, one of the Dongria men filmed ‘praising’ the company, has said, ‘There were three people from Vedanta. They said, ‘We have brought some clothes for your village and we will give them to you.’ They asked us ‘Do you support Vedanta and do you want to mine bauxite?’ We said no, we don’t want to give our mountain. Then they said, ‘Everyone from the other side of the mountain has agreed to mine. If you refuse, we will not give anything to you. If you complain then we won’t provide anything to you again.’’
Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Bribery and intimidation are weapons of the bully and have no place in a reputable mining company. They work against the legal principle of consent which Vedanta must obtain if it is to work within the international law on tribal peoples. Vedanta has agreed this and must stick to its word. 'Development' which destroys local tribes has no place in 21st century India. If the mine goes ahead, the Dongria Kondh will be destroyed and Vedanta's balance sheet will be stained forever.’
