NASA sees Cyclone Chapala approaching landfall in Yemen

NASA's Aqua satellite and the GPM satellite passed over Cyclone Chapala as it was approaching landfall in central Yemen on November 2. The Global Precipitation Measurement Mission or GPM core satellite analyzed the heavy rain falling in the major hurricane.

On Nov. 2, 2015 at 09:40 UTC (4:40 p.m. EDT) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of Tropical Cyclone Chapala as the eye of the storm was approaching the Yemen coast. Chapala maintained an eye, although it appeared cloud-covered. Animated multispectral satellite imagery shows the system has maintained a 15-nautical-mile-wide eye and structure. The image was created by the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

Chapala weakened from category four intensity a couple days ago while maintaining a course that steers it toward Yemen.

On Nov. 2 at 0311 UTC (Nov. 1 at 10:11 p.m. EST) the GPM core satellite saw the heaviest rainfall on the western and southern quadrants of the storm, falling at more than 50 mm (1.90 inches) per hour. The most intense rainfall was occurring just southwest of the eye, where rain was falling up to 65 mm (2.5 inches) per hour. GPM is a satellite that is jointly managed by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

A couple of days before, the GPM core observatory satellite had another good look at tropical cyclone Chapala. On October 31, 2015 at 0331 UTC (Oct. 30 at 11:31 p.m. EDT) Chapala was a very powerful tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of about 117 knots (135 mph). GPM's Microwave Imager (GMI) instrument measured rain dropping at a rate of over 88 mm (3.5 inches) per hour northwest of Chapala's eye.

GPM's Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) swath of coverage passed to the east of Chapala's eye. Feeder bands on that side of the tropical cyclone were found by DPR to be dropping rain at a rate of about 44 mm (1.7 inches) per hour. A 3-D view was created at NASA Goddard looking toward the east. It was derived from GPM's Ka and Ku band radar data. It shows that storm tops on Chapala's eastern side were reaching heights of over 13.4 km (8.3 miles).

At 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST), Tropical Cyclone Chapala's maximum sustained winds were still near 105 knots (120.4 mph/194.5 kph). That makes Chapala a major hurricane, Category three on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale. Chapala was centered near 13.5 degrees north latitude and 50.3 degrees east longitude, about 110 nautical miles east-southeast of Mukalla, Yemen. Chapala has moved to the west at 10 knots (11.5 mph/18.5 kph).

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) expects landfall to occur early on November 3, southwest of Mukalla. JTWC forecasters noted that dry air that is emanating from the Arabian Peninsula will continue to weaken the storm in addition to increasing vertical wind shear. The cyclone is expected to decay rapidly after landfall and dissipate by November 4.

New study suggests fair division of chores leads to better sex life

Looking for more and better sex? If you're a man, you might consider doing the dishes once in a while.

A new study out of the University of Alberta reveals that couples enjoyed more frequent and satisfying sex for both partners when men made a fair contribution to housework. The same study also found there's no relationship between the amount of housework male partners completed and the sexual functioning of a couple.

The new study contradicts a widely reported 2012 US study entitled Egalitarianism, Housework, and Sexual Frequency in Marriage (Kornrich et al. 2012) that stated that when men perform what is regarded traditionally as female housework, things like doing the dishes, cooking and laundry, the couple had less sex.

"(That study) didn't ring true," said Dr. Matt Johnson, a family ecology professor in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta. "It didn't fit with my intuition and background experiences as a couple's therapist."

Johnson pored over data from a five-year study of 1,338 German couples to see if the amount of housework the male partner did was a predictor of a couple's sex life. He didn't find any connection. He also looked men's perception of whether they made a fair contribution to housework, and how that was related to their sex life.

"In any relationship, the amount of housework is going to mean something different based on the couple's context, based on their own expectations for what each partner should be doing, and their comparison levels of what happens with other couples they know," Johnson explained.

He found that when men perceived their contributions to the division of labour as fair, the couple engaged in more frequent sex and both male and female partners were more satisfied with their sex life.

Johnson acknowledged there are cultural differences between Germany and the US and explained that Germany tends to have more traditional gender roles than the US. And men, on average, tend to do less housework there, based on some studies, than in North America.

"There are cultural differences but if the logic held from the prior studies, we would have expected to have a more pronounced negative impact of housework on sexuality in Germany because it's a bit more traditional. But that wasn't the case at all," said Johnson.

He added that the findings are important for couples seeking to maintain sexual intimacy while balancing the demands of daily life.

"Rather than avoiding chores in the hopes of having more sex, as prior research would imply, men are likely to experience more frequent and satisfying passion for both partners between the sheets when they simply do their fair share."

Source : Skip the Dishes? Not so Fast! Sex and Housework Revisited, has been published in online first format and will appear in print in a future issue of the Journal of Family Psychology. Link to: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2015-46448-001/

Anti-smoking messages can backfire, research suggests

Public health policies targeted at smokers may actually have the opposite effect for some people trying to quit, according to new evidence released today (Nov. 2).

Research indicates that stigmatizing smoking can, in some cases, make it harder for people to quit because they become angry and defensive and the negative messages lead to a drop in self-esteem.

The findings, published in Social Science & Medicine, highlight the potential for negative stereotypes to backfire, especially when it comes to public health campaigns.

"Consequences of stigmatizing stereotypes ranged from increased intentions to quit smoking to increased stress to greater resistance to quitting smoking," said Rebecca Evans-Polce, postdoctoral fellow, The Methodology Center and the Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, Penn State.

Evans-Polce and colleagues from the U.K., Brazil and Germany conducted a review of almost 600 articles relating to smoking self-stigma. While the evidence shows that stigmatizing smoking may prompt some individuals to quit, the authors say that health policies could instead focus on more positive strategies, reinforcing the benefits of giving up smoking rather than reiterating negative stereotypes.

"The stereotypes that smokers deal with are almost universally negative," said Sara Evans-Lacko, research fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science.

One study found that 30 to 40 percent of smokers felt high levels of family disapproval and social unacceptability and 27 percent felt they were treated differently due to their smoking status. Another study found that 39 percent of smokers believed that people thought less of them.

"The stigma for parents who smoke is particularly strong," added Evans-Lacko.

In multiple studies, smokers used words such as "leper," "outcast," "bad person," "low-life" and "pathetic" to describe their own behavior.

The stigma surrounding smokers leads to a number of different outcomes, including relapses, increased resistance to quitting, self-induced social isolation and higher stress levels.

Other studies examined gender biases in relation to smokers, revealing that Pakistani and Bangladeshi women who smoked were seen as "shameful" and "tainted" whereas male smokers from the same culture were viewed as "macho." Another study showed that women in general regret taking up smoking more than men do.

Evans-Lacko said the evidence shows that vulnerable groups with few coping resources would benefit from anti-smoking programs that do not stigmatize smoking but focus instead on the benefits of giving up.

"Future research is needed to understand what factors are related to how individuals respond to smoking stigma," said Evans-Polce.

Uncovering the secrets of ice that burns

Methane hydrates are a kind of ice that contains methane, and that form at certain depths under the sea or buried in permafrost. They can also form in pipelines that transport oil and gas, leading to clogging. Yet methane hydrates are nearly impossible to study because it is very hard to get samples, and the samples themselves are highly unstable in the laboratory.

A team of scientists from Norway, China and the Netherlands has now shown how the size of grains of the molecules that make up the natural structure of methane hydrates determines how they behave if they are loaded with weight or disturbed.

That could have important implications for everything from climate science to their use as a future energy source, said Zhiliang Zhang, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and founder of the university's Nanomechanical Lab.

"If we have basic knowledge about the mechanical properties of methane hydrates, we can use this information so that we manage them properly," Zhang said. "How methane hydrates behave can have a big impact on safety, environmental issues and climate change."

Poorly understood and unstable

Methane hydrates have been known since the 1930s, when natural gas companies found that their pipelines were sometimes clogged by a kind of ice composed of water and methane. Methane hydrates were later found in permafrost in the 1960s, and in the oceans, commonly on the edges of the continental shelves, but only at certain ocean pressures and temperatures. They are also thought to be found on other planets, including Mars.

When methane hydrates "melt", they release the methane trapped inside the ice, but because the methane was first trapped under pressure when the hydrate was formed, one cubic metre of solid methane hydrate will release 160 cubic metres of methane gas. That makes them either a potent energy source, or if they melt as the permafrost melts, a potent source of methane, which will act as a greenhouse gas.

But mining methane hydrates as an energy source, an option that is being explored by Japan among others, is technically difficult. Their location on the soft, sediment-loaded edges of the continental shelves makes them difficult to mine, and when they are disturbed, their crystal structure may suddenly dissociate and release the methane trapped inside.

This mechanism has been suggested as one reason why the largest landslide known to humankind, the Storegga Slide, was so destructive. The Storegga Slide took place about 8000 years ago, from an underwater location off the west coast of southern Norway.

The slides - there were three in total¬- sent a wall of water roaring out across the North Sea and Norwegian Sea. The evidence of the passage of the tsunami wave in Scotland that shows the wave reached heights of 3-6 metres in that region. One hypothesis for the slide was that an earthquake caused the methane hydrates in the region to become unstable and to explosively release their gas.

Computer simulations show surprising behaviour

Researchers at NTNU's Nanomechanical Lab and from the university's Department of Chemistry and their collaborators in China and the Netherlands are interested in understanding the relation between molecular structures and the mechanical stability of materials. Methane hydrates, with their ice lattice structure containing trapped molecules of methane, pose an intriguing three-dimensional and practical problem from this perspective.

In a paper published in the 2 November edition of Nature Communications, corresponding author Zhang and his colleagues describe how they used a computer simulation of two types of methane hydrates, monocrystalline hydrates and polycrystalline hydrates, to see what would happen if they were compressed or if pressures on the hydrates were suddenly released.

The researchers built their computer models using common molecular models for ice/water and methane, arranged as either monocrystalline or polycrystalline grains, and simulated the effect of applying forces to the collection of grains.

Maximum capacity found

The simulated hydrate structures were subjected to two different kinds of stress: tensile stress, or the forces they would experience as they were pulled apart, and compressive stress, or the forces they would experience if they were squashed by weight.

The simulations showed that the size of the crystals--what researchers call the grain size--that made up the hydrate structure had a great deal to say in terms of how the structure reacted to both kinds of stresses.

In both tensile and compression stress simulations, the surprising finding was that as the grain size got smaller, the hydrates first got stronger, able to tolerate both compression and tensile stress--but only until they reached a certain grain size. If the researchers conducted simulations on grain sizes smaller than those identified as the turning point, the hydrate actually got weaker.

The maximum capacity of the hydrates appears when the grain size is around 15 to 20 nm. This resembles the behaviour of polycrystalline metals, such as copper. However, this is the first time that researchers have seen this type of behaviour in methane hydrates as a material. The grain size-dependent strength and maximum capacity that the researchers found can be used in predicting and preventing the failure of hydrates in the future.

Instability can be triggered

This unexpected rapid weakening of the crystal structure as the grain size gets smaller has important implications for any work in areas where hydrates are found.

The researchers reported that the dissociation of methane hydrates can be triggered by the ground deformation caused by "earthquakes, storms, sea-level fluctuations or man-made disturbances (including well drilling and gas production from hydrate reservoirs)."

"This has an impact on these big issues," Zhang said. "Here we have taken one step forward, but of course there is a lot more work to be done."

Source : Key properties of methane hydrates found in permafrost and on the continental shelf illuminated Nature Communications. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCOMMS9743

Selective media coverage may cause us to forget certain health facts

The health facts presented by mass media in the midst of a disease outbreak are likely to influence what we remember about the disease -- new research suggests that the same mass media coverage may also influence the facts that we forget.

The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, indicate that personal anxiety and mass media coverage interact to determine what people remember about a disease.

"The starting point for our study was the exaggerated coverage of Ebola in 2014 despite the absence of any serious consequences in the United States," says psychological scientist Alin Coman of Princeton University. "The common sense intuition is that in situations like these, in which health risks are exaggerated by the media, the audience pays more attention to the information presented."

An unintended outcome of selective media coverage, says Coman, is that it also shapes how people remember information that isn't presented. For example, a newscast that highlights only some disease symptoms may induce people to forget other symptoms they had learned previously, but it probably won't affect their ability to recall disease characteristics that aren't symptoms.

Coman and co-author Jessica Berry decided to investigate this forgetting phenomenon in the context of meningococcal disease, a real disease that most people don't know much about.

The researchers conducted an online study with 460 adult participants in the US. The participants learned about specific symptoms, risk factors, diagnostic tools, and aftereffects associated with meningococcal disease and then read a message about the disease. Some participants read a "low-risk" message that highlighted the low likelihood of contracting the disease in the US, with about one recorded case for every 100,000 individuals in a given year. Other participants read a "high-risk" message that focused instead on the consequences of the disease, including the fact that the mortality rate is as high as 40% in some age groups. These messages differentially affected how anxious participants felt about meningococcal disease.

The participants then listened to a radio show clip that supposedly featured an expert from the CDC talking about meningococcal disease. The clip included some, but not all, of the facts the participants had just learned -- for example, the clip might only highlight two of the four symptoms participants had learned about.

After the clip was over, the participants completed a surprise recall test, in which they had to remember as many of the previously learned characteristics -- symptoms, risk factors, diagnostic tools, and aftereffects -- as they could.

As expected, participants in both the low- and high-risk groups were better at remembering the disease facts that were repeated in the radio show compared to those that weren't.

But they also showed a particular pattern of forgetting. Participants were worse at remembering disease characteristics that weren't mentioned when they came from the same category as characteristics that were mentioned. If the radio show only highlighted two symptoms and two aftereffects, for example, participants were more likely to forget the other symptoms and aftereffects they had learned than they were to forget about risk factors and diagnostic tools.

Importantly, the anxiety that participants felt in the high-risk group seemed to cause this forgetting effect.

"The audience experiences a paradoxical effect by which the more attention they pay to the expert, due to increased anxiety, the more likely they are to forget information that is related to what the expert mentions," explains Coman. "Media outlets may not know whether a public health risk will have serious consequences down the line, but I believe that they have to be better calibrated to the events on the ground and properly evaluate public health risks. The exaggeration of these risks causes people to forget potentially relevant information."

Coman plans to conduct further research to illuminate some of the behavioral strategies that could be used by both those in media and in medicine to ensure that information is disseminated to the public in efficient, and accurate, ways.

Source : http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/24/0956797615609438.abstract

Britain to unveil new online spying laws

Britain's government gave the first details Sunday of contested plans to update Internet spying laws to keep pace with the digital age.

The proposed law comes as intelligence agencies and police grapple with monitoring terrorist activity online amid a debate sparked by Edward Snowden over government access to personal data online.
Home Secretary Theresa May told the BBC that the measures would not ban encryption and "will not be giving powers to go through people's browsing history".

However, the authorities will be able to look at Internet and social media activity if they get a special warrant.

Such warrants are currently issued by May but this authority could be handed to judges under the new measures.

Technology companies will reportedly have to keep records of emails and people's use of social media sites like WhatsApp and Facebook for 12 months and authorities will be able to access this with a second warrant.

The disclosures came ahead of Wednesday's release of the draft Investigatory Powers Bill.
It will be scrutinised by a committee of lawmakers, allowing changes to be made before it is formally debated by parliament.

Britain's intelligence chiefs have issued a string of warnings in recent months about the dangers posed by terrorist organisations recruiting and planning attacks online.

In a rare public speech last week, the head of domestic spying agency MI5 Andrew Parker said Britain was under threat "on a scale and at a tempo that I have not seen before".

He highlighted the Islamic State (IS) group's "sophisticated exploitation of technology" through "the full range of modern communications tools to spread its message of hate and to inspire extremists".
The previous coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron wanted to pass a law covering similar issues, dubbed a "snoopers' charter" by critics, but was blocked by junior coalition partners the Liberal Democrats as too intrusive.

Since winning May's general election outright though with a small majority, Cameron has more room for manoeuvre but is still likely to face opposition from some in his Conservative party over the measures.

First evaluation of new fingerprinting methods for ivory

Scientists from King's College London and University College London have collaborated with imaging and fingerprint experts from the Metropolitan Police to validate the use of new techniques for retrieving fingerprints from ivory for the first time.

The findings, published in the journal Science and Justice, could lead to wider use of fingerprinting methods in the field to more easily identify poachers in regions with high levels of ivory-related crime.

Ivory has previously been considered a difficult material to obtain fingerprints from and such techniques have not been commonly used when illegally sourced ivory has been seized despite fingerprinting being one of the oldest, simplest and most cost-effective forensic tools.

Ivory itself is a highly porous, ridged material and fingerprints enhanced with conventional powders have been largely ineffective as a result. This presents a significant challenge for police and forensic experts to develop the level of fingerprint detail required for an accurate identification.

However in recent years, newer powder materials have emerged for fingerprinting. These are composed of smaller particles, which allow for more detail to be observed as they adhere better to smaller amounts of fingermark residue left behind.

The latest study tested three types of powders on three seized elephant tusks loaned by the Metropolitan Police Service's Wildlife Unit. Those involved in the study compared two of the new powders to a more traditional powder using a variety of tests.

The team found that the newer reduced-size powders were able to provide clearer, useable fingerprint detail that is vital for identifying the donor. Reduced size powders stuck more easily to remaining fingermark residues than the more traditional powders, despite the ridged and porous nature of the ivory surface.

The clarity of ridge detail was found to be at its highest within seven days after the print was deposited, suggesting the method would work best in regions of the world that are closest to the sources of ivory.

However, imaging and fingerprint experts were also able to lift some useable prints up to 28 days after they were deposited using the new powder. The researchers also showed its applicability to rhino ivory, hippo teeth and sperm whale teeth.

Study author, Dr Leon Barron, a Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science in the Division of Analytical and Environmental Sciences at King's College London, said: 'This is the first time that fingerprinting on ivory has been thoroughly investigated and a practical solution offered. The only other study carried out over a decade ago simply showed that fingerprints were unstable and that the clarity of ridge detail was low making it difficult to make reliable identifications. Our study has shown for the first time that these newer powders could potentially be used for identifying poachers, and are especially suited to rangers working in the field.'

Director of Forensic Services at the Metropolitan Police, Mr Gary Pugh OBE, said 'The concept for this work was originally devised by an imaging expert based on his experience at crime scenes. The application has been developed into a viable front line evidence recovery technique through our Strategic Alliance with King's College London. The equipment required to put this form of fingerprinting into practice is inexpensive and relatively easy to procure, making it a simple, cost-effective forensic tool to combat wildlife crime.'

Source : 

The retrieval of fingerprint friction ridge detail from elephant ivory using reduced-scale magnetic and non-magnetic powdering materials' by Weston-Ford et al will be published in the journal Science and Justice. DOI number: 10.1016/j.scijus.2015.10.003