Vernadsky's Biosphere, Teilhard's Noosphere, and Lovelock's Gaia: Perspectives on Human Intervention in Global Biogeochemical Cycles

Advances in analytical understanding of the biogeochemical cycles of the Biosphere have spawned the concepts of Gaia and Noosphere. Though seldom acknowledged today. it was the natural scientist Vladimir Vernadsky who first drew attention to the increasing scale of human intervention into planetary biogeochemical cycles. He did so in his book "Biosfera", published in 1926. In concert with the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Vernadsky developed the notion of Noosphere -- an evolving collective human consciousness on Earth which was exerting an increasing influence on biogeochemical processes. More recently, the atmospheric chemist James Lovelock has introduced the notion of the Earth as Gaia. In an attempt to explain chemical disequilibria in the Earth's atmosphere, Lovelock has postulated the Earth to be a self-regulating system made up of biota and their environment with the capacity to maintain the Earth's environment in a steady state favorable to life. Gaia and Noosphere have come to represent contrasting interpretations of humanity's relation to planetary ecology, thereby providing potent symbols for human action. With rapid advances in instruments of measurement coupled with increased international scientific cooperation, an analytical science of the Biosphere is emerging. The contradictions of the nature-centered view of Gaia and the human-centered view of Noosphere could become irrelevant as a result

Applications of airborne remote sensing in atmospheric sciences research

This paper explores the potential for airborne remote sensing for atmospheric sciences research. Passive and active techniques from the microwave to visible bands are discussed. It is concluded that technology has progressed sufficiently in several areas that the time is right to develop and operate new remote sensing instruments for use by the community of atmospheric scientists as general purpose tools. Promising candidates include Doppler radar and lidar, infrared short range radiometry, and microwave radiometry

Mechanical loading of the gymnast’s motor system during swings on rings

The aim of this work was to identify the mechanical loading of the gymnast’s motor system during forward and backward swings on gymnastic rings. A junior gymnast of the First Class, aged 14, with body mass 53.1 kg and body length 1.61 m, participated in the study. He executed a series of ten cyclic swing movements on rings with his maximum amplitude. Kinematic variables of the gymnast’s centre of mass (COM) as well as reaction forces in the cables were measured and synchronized using the SIMI MOTION movement analysis system. Two separate phases of mechanical loading of the motor system have been identified: resistance phase and non resistance phase. In the non resistance phase the gymnast attains similar values of the COM’s momentum but different angular displacements. In the resistance phase the forces acting on the motor system have their maximum. They amount to 5.5 BW for the forward swing and 6.5 BW for the backward swing movement. The maximum rate of change of the force for forward and backward swing is 42.6 BWs-1 and 67.4 BWs-1, respectively. These two variables differentiate the mechanical loading of the gymnast’s motor system between forward and backward swings. The reaction force produced by the gymnast is significantly greater during the execution of forward swings. It seems probable that horizontal displacements of COM may be the factor responsible for reduction of the mechanical loading experienced by the gymnast

MYC is a metastasis gene for non-small-cell lung cancer.

Metastasis is a process by which cancer cells learn to form satellite tumors in distant organs and represents the principle cause of death of patients with solid tumors. NSCLC is the most lethal human cancer due to its high rate of metastasis. Lack of a suitable animal model has so far hampered analysis of metastatic progression. We have examined c-MYC for its ability to induce metastasis in a C-RAF-driven mouse model for non-small-cell lung cancer. c-MYC alone induced frank tumor growth only after long latency at which time secondary mutations in K-Ras or LKB1 were detected reminiscent of human NSCLC. Combination with C-RAF led to immediate acceleration of tumor growth, conversion to papillary epithelial cells and angiogenic switch induction. Moreover, addition of c-MYC was sufficient to induce macrometastasis in liver and lymph nodes with short latency associated with lineage switch events. Thus we have generated the first conditional model for metastasis of NSCLC and identified a gene, c-MYC that is able to orchestrate all steps of this process. Potential markers for detection of metastasis were identified and validated for diagnosis of human biopsies. These markers may represent targets for future therapeutic intervention as they include genes such as Gata4 that are exclusively expressed during lung development

Evidence for nodal superconductivity in LaFePO

In several iron-arsenide superconductors there is strong evidence for a fully gapped superconducting state consistent with either a conventional s-wave symmetry or an unusual $s_\pm$ state where there the gap changes sign between the electron and hole Fermi surface sheets. Here we report measurements of the penetration depth $\lambda(T)$ in very clean samples of the related iron-phosphide superconductor, LaFePO, at temperatures down to $\sim$ 100 mK. We find that $\lambda(T)$ varies almost perfectly linearly with $T$ strongly suggesting the presence of gap nodes in this compound. Taken together with other data, this suggests the gap function may not be generic to all pnictide superconductors

Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase for the Solar Dynamics Observatory and Beyond

The immense volume of data generated by the suite of instruments on SDO requires new tools for efficient identifying and accessing data that is most relevant to research investigations. We have developed the Heliophysics Events Knowledgebase (HEK) to fill this need. The HEK system combines automated data mining using feature-detection methods and high-performance visualization systems for data markup. In addition, web services and clients are provided for searching the resulting metadata, reviewing results, and efficiently accessing the data. We review these components and present examples of their use with SDO data.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Qualité de la Connaissance dans un Processus Délibératif

Les évaluations scientifiques des risques complexes tels que le changement de climat, la perte de biodiversité, l'épuisement des ressources naturelles, les nanotechnologies ou les perturbateurs endocriniens, par exemple, sont confrontées à un certain nombre d¿incertitudes qui revêtent des formes diverses, dicilement appréhendables, de manière ecace, dans la pratique (Ambrosi et Courtois,2004). Pourtant, des décisions doivent être prises et ce, avant que des preuves concluantes ne soient disponibles, tout en sachant que les impacts potentiels de fausses décisions peuvent être tout aussi importants. Selon la conception classique du conseil scientifique aux décideurs, la certitude est nécessaire à la gestion des problèmes complexes. Cependant, l¿incertitude fait partie de la vie. C¿est dans cette perspective que cet article se situe, en posant la question de la validité et de la pertinence de la connaissance scientifique pour traiter de problèmes complexes.JRC.G.9-Econometrics and statistical support to antifrau

Evidence for superconducting gap nodes in the zone-centered hole bands of KFe2As2 from magnetic penetration-depth measurements

Among the iron-based pnictide superconductors the material KFe$_2$As$_2$ is unusual in that its Fermi surface does not consist of quasi-nested electron and hole pockets. Here we report measurements of the temperature dependent London penetration depth of very clean crystals of this compound with residual resistivity ratio $>1200$. We show that the superfluid density at low temperatures exhibits a strong linear-in-temperature dependence which implies that there are line nodes in the energy gap on the large zone-centered hole sheets. The results indicate that KFe$_2$As$_2$ is an unconventional superconductor with strong electron correlations.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. Extended version to be published in Phys. Rev.