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A "supermoon" has graced the skies, appearing bigger and brighter than usual, as it comes closer to the Earth – and is likely to bring higher tides.

The phenomenon, known as a perigee full moon, means the Moon appears up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than when it is furthest from the planet.

The optimum effect was seen – cloud permitting – at 04:30 BST (03:30 GMT).

The Royal Astronomical Society's Dr Robert Massey said the Moon's size may be more obvious than its brightness.

"The eye is so good at compensating for changes in brightness that you simply don't notice (that element) so much," he said.

When the Moon appears at its biggest it will be just 356,400km (221,457 miles) away, compared to its usual distance from Earth of 384,000km (238,606 miles).

Dr Massey said: "When the Moon is closest to the Earth and full or new, you get an increase in the tidal pull in the ocean because the gravity of the moon and the sun line up."

He added: "The Moon is always beautiful and a full moon is always dramatic."

Scientists have dismissed the idea the perigee could cause strange behaviour – like lycanthropy – or natural disasters.

The Moon's distance from Earth varies because it follows an elliptical orbit instead of a circular one.

Honey bees that dance to give directions to flowers make more errors when performing horizontally due to gravity, say researchers.

By studying the video footage, Dr Couvillon found that bees dancing vertically on the honeycomb made few "errors", repeating identical runs throughout the dance.

But bees dancing on the horizontal had more scattered runs.

"They have a hard time when they're dancing horizontally – the angles that they dance repeatedly are very different," Dr Couvillon told BBC Nature.

She explained that due to these errors a more holistic approach was needed to understand the message contained in horizontal dances.

Although the individual runs contained errors, an average calculated from all of the runs still provided accurate directions.

Dr Couvillon suggested that the inconsistencies could be attributed to gravity; when the bees are vertical on the comb they are aligned with the downward force but dancing horizontally requires more effort.

"If you were a rock climber and I asked you to get something to your right, at 90 degrees, it would be more difficult than getting something straight ahead of you," she explained.

The results feed into an ongoing debate in the scientific community over whether the variation in waggle dances happens because bees are communicating a general area, not a specific flower, or simply because they are trying their best in difficult circumstances.

"There's no reason why a bee would need to introduce scatter into a dance," said Dr Couvillon.

"I do think the bees are challenged but I still think they're pretty good at what they're doing."

A banana and plantain fungus which has spread across the world originated in South East Asia, new research has found.

Black leaf streak disease (Mycosphaerella fijiensis) affects leaf photosynthesis, and causes premature ripening.

It also delays harvests and can affect banana quality, size and numbers.

A Molecular Ecology Journal study found "an original and unprecedented global scenario of invasion".

It is the most important and destructive banana disease in the world, says one of the authors, Stephanie Robert.

"It starts with small flecks and spreads to the whole banana leaves – the disease can totally destroy the whole banana plant," she says.

Using genetic markers, the team were able to map the streaks on 735 banana leaves from 37 different countries and identify genetic similarities.

"The historical hypothesis was that it came from South East Asia," Ms Robert says.

While the fungus was first recorded in Fiji in 1963, it was initially thought that the centre of origin could have been Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands.

However, the study found the whole of South East Asia could be the centre of diversity – encompassing at least Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

It says the area is home to a diverse array of wild banana and plantain species and defines "the area of banana and plantain domestication that began several thousand years ago".

But the exact point of origin of the host plant could not be pinpointed without further comparison between wild and domesticated banana plants.

Ms Robert says fungal spores cannot travel more than a few metres and are very sensitive to UV rays, but when travelling on the wind spores can be dispersed up to several hundred kilometres.

So this does not explain how the disease has travelled so far around the world, she says.

"I don't think the disease would have spread so far without human contribution.

"It's very difficult to understand exactly how the disease is dispersed – it's currently proceeding through the Caribbean and has just invaded Martinique," she says.

Originally it was thought that the fungus travelled through Africa after just a few introductions, but the research suggests it was spread through a single source near the South China Sea.

In the Americas, the fungus is thought to have been derived from mingling between genetically different sources in South East Asia and Oceania, through multiple introductions in the same place, or at different times and places.

The pathogen was first identified in Honduras in 1972 but would have been present in the 60s, it is thought.

Ms Robert says she hopes the study will help the banana industry reduce fungicide use and develop better control strategies.

"It's very important for the creation of pathogen-resistant varieties in a sustainable way because the pathogen does adapt," she says.

The study calls for more precise investigation into the disease.

Chris Huhne's departure from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) sees the exit of a minister who is generally regarded as having fought tenaciously for "green" policies within the Cabinet.

The big picture is that the government's "greenest ever" pledge has been undermined by the row over selling off public forests, badger culling, and above all by changes to planning regulations that appeared, as one critic said, "to blame the recession on too much protection for dormice".

Another long-time observer, speaking anonymously, said that climate change was now the only area in which the government could be said to be "green" at all – though others would point to developments such as Defra's Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) work as proof that a green heart still beats somewhere in Whitehall.

On the international side, Chris Huhne played significant roles in the last two UN climate meetings in Cancun, Mexico and Durban, South Africa.

Despite having had only seven months in the job, he was one of 10 ministers chosen by the Mexican host government to pull the Cancun talks around when they appeared to be heading for the rocks.

And in Durban, he was in the vanguard of EU moves to build a novel and powerful coalition between Europe and scores of the world's poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries, which ultimately secured agreement to negotiate a new global agreement with legal force by 2015.

His replacement, Ed Davey, therefore steps into a role that is more significant than it might first appear and he makes the short walk from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis).

Whether he can fill the relatively large and rumbustious shoes of Chris Huhne is a subject of speculation and some anguish among the environmentally concerned.

But Matt Spencer, director of Green Alliance, suggests there may be a different but equally effective way for Mr Davey to do business.

"It's useful that he's coming from Bis, because Decc and Bis really need to work together to ensure policies that deliver, and are more joined up across the two departments," he said.

"Chris Huhne excelled at tough negotiation, but Ed Davey has the opportunity to build a broader alliance across government.

"Chris's departure also offers an opportunity for the PM and Deputy PM to re-assert their support for a low-carbon agenda."

Mr Davey's voting record in Parliament suggests he is fully signed-up to a clean energy agenda – though that is hardly surprising as it has long been a Lib Dem priority.

In the last few years, he has also signed Early-Day Motions endorsing the reality of man-made global warming, opposing mega-dairies and calling for more protection for UK nature.

Ones he has signed that might come back to haunt him are those opposing hidden subsidies for nuclear power and requesting more financial support for the solar energy industry.

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By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation

Humans and other creatures that live in the Light World thrive in an abundance of sun and oxygen. In the Dark World, however, microbes flourish on something else entirely, although scientists don’t know for sure yet exactly what it is.

The Light World, of course, is the Earth and the few hundred meters of ocean where sunlight still penetrates. The Dark World, on the other hand, is the mysterious deep biosphere beneath the oceans where life does not entirely depend on solar energy and photosynthesis.

“In the Light World, we use oxygen, either making or consuming it, but in the Dark World, what you breathe might be very different,” says Katrina J. Edwards, professor of biological and earth sciences at the University of Southern California. “You might have organisms that eat sulfur and respire oxygen. They might breathe iron. Microbes can do all these complicated things, but they are very difficult to study in the dark.”

Researchers at the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, which Edwards directs, are trying to change this.

Nearly half of the total biomass on earth resides in sub-surface habitats that include mines, aquifers, soils on the continents and sediments and rocks below the ocean floor. This massive area is what Edwards and her team will study at three sites under the ocean, North Pond in the mid- Atlantic, Juan de Fuca in the eastern Pacific, and South Pacific Gyre. The expedition will drill holes, seeking to discover how life exists in sediment and rock below the ocean’s bottom.

“We want to learn several things, primarily what is the extent of life on Earth?” she says.  “We haven’t yet found the bottom of our biosphere on Earth. We probably all would agree that life doesn’t penetrate to the Earth’s core, but how far does it go? What are the extremes that life can handle in temperature and pressure? What kind of microbes are where, and why? Microbial life in the dark ocean is very different than here in the Light World. Who knows what kinds of products they are producing?”

One of the team’s major objectives is to understand the influence of the biosphere on the rest of the planet.  “What does it mean to have this rich microbial world in the dark biosphere?” she says. “What impact does it have on Earth’s system as a whole? We won’t know until we examine it.”

The center is a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center, which NSF supports with $5 million annually over five years. Its research partners include the University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Rhode Island, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science Technology, Harvard University, the University of Bremen, among other universities and research centers. In addition to conducting basic research, the schools are developing a number of programs and activities geared to students and the public.

“We have a huge education and outreach program getting the word out to school groups and the general public, trying to make them aware of the dark parts of the ocean,” Edwards says.  “For example, we have a program that uses robotics for children—miniature robots you can use in a pool or the shower, or the ocean, with the same kind of cool technology we use for the robots in the bottom of the ocean.”

The center relies heavily on new technology—tools, instruments and other equipment—with important potential applications outside the study of the biosphere, Edwards says.

“We’ve just created a microbial ‘logger,’ which you can send into a hole where it will scan and find hotspots of microbial activity,” she says. “Ultimately, it could have incredible use in the pharmaceutical industry, in plant inspections, for example, to ensure the facility’s cleanliness, or in the food industry, for example, restaurant inspections. Think about the recent e coli outbreak, and imagine using this scanner.  This is the type of tool that could help nail down the hotspot.”

By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation

Humans and other creatures that live in the Light World thrive in an abundance of sun and oxygen. In the Dark World, however, microbes flourish on something else entirely, although scientists don’t know for sure yet exactly what it is.

The Light World, of course, is the Earth and the few hundred meters of ocean where sunlight still penetrates. The Dark World, on the other hand, is the mysterious deep biosphere beneath the oceans where life does not entirely depend on solar energy and photosynthesis.

“In the Light World, we use oxygen, either making or consuming it, but in the Dark World, what you breathe might be very different,” says Katrina J. Edwards, professor of biological and earth sciences at the University of Southern California. “You might have organisms that eat sulfur and respire oxygen. They might breathe iron. Microbes can do all these complicated things, but they are very difficult to study in the dark.”

Researchers at the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, which Edwards directs, are trying to change this.

Nearly half of the total biomass on earth resides in sub-surface habitats that include mines, aquifers, soils on the continents and sediments and rocks below the ocean floor. This massive area is what Edwards and her team will study at three sites under the ocean, North Pond in the mid- Atlantic, Juan de Fuca in the eastern Pacific, and South Pacific Gyre. The expedition will drill holes, seeking to discover how life exists in sediment and rock below the ocean’s bottom.

“We want to learn several things, primarily what is the extent of life on Earth?” she says.  “We haven’t yet found the bottom of our biosphere on Earth. We probably all would agree that life doesn’t penetrate to the Earth’s core, but how far does it go? What are the extremes that life can handle in temperature and pressure? What kind of microbes are where, and why? Microbial life in the dark ocean is very different than here in the Light World. Who knows what kinds of products they are producing?”

One of the team’s major objectives is to understand the influence of the biosphere on the rest of the planet.  “What does it mean to have this rich microbial world in the dark biosphere?” she says. “What impact does it have on Earth’s system as a whole? We won’t know until we examine it.”

The center is a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center, which NSF supports with $5 million annually over five years. Its research partners include the University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Rhode Island, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science Technology, Harvard University, the University of Bremen, among other universities and research centers. In addition to conducting basic research, the schools are developing a number of programs and activities geared to students and the public.

“We have a huge education and outreach program getting the word out to school groups and the general public, trying to make them aware of the dark parts of the ocean,” Edwards says.  “For example, we have a program that uses robotics for children—miniature robots you can use in a pool or the shower, or the ocean, with the same kind of cool technology we use for the robots in the bottom of the ocean.”

The center relies heavily on new technology—tools, instruments and other equipment—with important potential applications outside the study of the biosphere, Edwards says.

“We’ve just created a microbial ‘logger,’ which you can send into a hole where it will scan and find hotspots of microbial activity,” she says. “Ultimately, it could have incredible use in the pharmaceutical industry, in plant inspections, for example, to ensure the facility’s cleanliness, or in the food industry, for example, restaurant inspections. Think about the recent e coli outbreak, and imagine using this scanner.  This is the type of tool that could help nail down the hotspot.”

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA unveiled plans on Wednesday for a mammoth deep-space rocket to carry astronauts to the moon, Mars and other destinations beyond the International Space Station.

The rocket project would cost $10 billion through 2017, when the first test flight of the Space Launch System is scheduled to take place from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Another $6 billion is allotted to building the Orion deep-space crew capsule, a holdover from the defunct Constellation moon exploration initiative canceled by the Obama administration. NASA already has spent $5 billion on Orion.

In addition, $2 billion would be spent to refurbish NASA’s Florida spaceport to accommodate the new rocket.

The new rocket is based on the space shuttle’s liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engines and fuel tanks, coupled initially with upgraded solid-fuel shuttle booster rockets that also were developed under Constellation.

NASA plans a competition that could replace the Alliant Techsystems Inc booster rockets with liquid-fuel rockets.

The rocket would be more powerful than the Apollo-era Saturn booster that carried crews and equipment to the moon between 1969 and 1972.

“This is a tremendous step forward and really puts us in a position to go forward with exploration,” NASA Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters in a conference call.

The announcement follows a year-long tussle with Congress over the project’s cost, scope and technical parameters. The Obama administration withheld its plans while it obtained an independent cost estimate for the Space Launch System.

“We have been frustrated by the time delays,” said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican who serves on a NASA oversight committee.

“The numbers are within the authorization levels, we are now moving forward as a team for America,” she said. “Sometimes the making of the sausage isn’t pretty but we are at the right end, we hope.”

Compared with the now-retired space shuttle, which could carry about 50,000 pounds (22,500 kg) to an orbit about 300 miles from Earth, the new booster is intended to lift as much as 140,000 pounds (63,000 kg) of cargo.

Future versions would have nearly twice the lift capacity for missions into deep space.

Obama has called for a human expedition to an asteroid by 2025 and a journey to Mars in the 2030s.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and John O’Callaghan)

Researchers have created the smallest electric motor ever devised.

The motor, made from a single molecule just a billionth of a metre across, is reported in Nature Nanotechnology.

The minuscule motor could have applications in both nanotechnology and in medicine, where tiny amounts of energy can be put to efficient use.

Tiny rotors based on single molecules have been shown before, but this is the first that can be individually driven by an electric current.

"People have found before that they can make motors driven by light or by chemical reactions, but the issue there is that you're driving billions of them at a time – every single motor in your beaker," said Charles Sykes, a chemist at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US.

"The exciting thing about the electrical one is that we can excite and watch the motion of just one, and we can see how that thing's behaving in real time," he told BBC News.

The butyl methyl sulphide molecule was placed on a clean copper surface, where its single sulphur atom acted as a pivot.

The tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope – a tiny pyramid with a point just an atom or two across – was used to funnel electrical charge into the motor, as well as to take images of the molecule as it spun.

It spins in both directions, at a rate as high as 120 revolutions per second.

But averaged over time, there is a net rotation in one direction.

By modifying the molecule slightly, it could be used to generate microwave radiation or to couple into what are known as nano-electromechanical systems, Dr Sykes said.

"The next thing to do is to get the thing to do work that we can measure – to couple it to other molecules, lining them up next to one another so they're like miniature cog-wheels, and then watch the rotation propagation down the chain," he said.

As well as forming a part of the tiniest machines the world has ever seen, such minute mechanics could be useful in medicine – for example, in the controlled delivery of drugs to targeted locations.

But for the moment, Dr Sykes and his team are in contact with the Guinness Book of World Records to have their motor certified as the smallest ever.

By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation

Hawaii’s agriculture has undergone dramatic changes in the centuries since Polynesian voyagers first arrived on the islands bringing taro and bananas. It began with small farms and later morphed into large plantations growing pineapple and sugar cane. But, with the decline of the once booming sugar industry and the departure of a major pineapple manufacturer, small diversified farms have started to return.

Today, however, they are looking for a different kind of farmer.

“Agriculture has become more science-based and high tech,” says Traci Sylva, an assistant researcher at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Previously, a few handfuls of fertilizer, water and hard work was all you needed. But now it’s a lot more complicated, and interesting, than that.”

To that end, the University of Hawaii’s Leeward Community College is training students for new careers in agriculture that are grounded in science. The idea is to help local folks, especially native Hawaiians, learn to grow sustainable crops and plants, with the goal of overcoming the agricultural economic downturns of recent years and feeding the growing population.

The Plant Bioscience Technology program is a project of the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program, which is providing $658,078 in funds over three years.

“The coursework introduces students to the agriculture industry in Hawaii and focuses on the basic scientific knowledge needed to work in that industry,” Sylva says. “One of our objectives behind development and offering of the Plant Bioscience Technology program at Leeward Community College was to make this type of training more widely available and affordable to anyone who wishes to pursue and be successful in a career related to agriculture. We have designed the program to be concise, yet providing the depth and breadth needed to understand plant crops and the business of producing these in our global economy.”

The topics include plant anatomy and propagation, pest and soil management, crop improvement, such as breeding, to improve traits of these crops. “We also try to develop such skills as communication, which is something industry has told us it needs, how to work in teams better (workplace etiquette, as well as the basics of business), and what it takes to grow food for our growing population,” she adds. “Employers want their employees to know the basics of business and how their work impacts that business.”

Sugar, once a big business in Hawaii, began to disappear when the cost of land and labor started  to rise, and it became less costly to grow sugar cane elsewhere. Increasing the economic strain, Del Monte Produce Inc., a major manufacturer of canned pineapple, closed its Hawaii operations in 2006, laying off more than 500 workers.

“Because everyone wants to live or retire in Hawaii, the price of land has increased dramatically,” Sylva says.  “It became very expensive to do agriculture here, compared to other places.” 

Tourism remains Hawaii’s primary industry, although agriculture still generates $2.9 billion to the state economy every year, and provides 42,000 jobs, according to the state department of agriculture. Today’s farms grow exotic fruits, taro, corn seed, coffee, macadamia nuts, flowers and foliage that are among Hawaii’s major exports. Fishponds created by the state’s earliest settlers are now high-tech aquaculture ventures that farm various kinds of fish, shrimp, lobster, abalone, and seaweed from the sea.

“During the era of plantations, training of farmers was done by the plantations themselves,” Sylva says.  “In this day, because of diversification of crops and greater technology used in farming, the average farm size is a lot smaller and each farm needs more highly skilled workers. They really would like to hire people who already possess the right skills for their business.  All these farms need trained workers, and they don’t always have the resources to train them themselves, and they need workers trained at all educational levels.”

While the program is still confined to Leeward, on the island of Oahu, the goal is to extend the program to the other islands that make up the state—Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii Island, commonly referred to as the Big Island, starting with online courses that will allow students to study without having to travel. Also, the program has developed a public outreach campaign to alert the public, high school teachers and students, and adults looking for a career change about agricultural career opportunities in Hawaii.

By Patricia Quigley, ISNS Contributor

(ISNS)—Rae and Bruce Hostetler not only work very hard, they also relax just as well. Numerous vacations help the suburban Indianapolis couple to maintain their health and emotional well-being—and it’s no surprise to health care professionals.

"Rest, relaxation, and stress reduction are very important for people’s well-being and health. This can be accomplished through daily activities, such as exercise and meditation, but vacation is an important part of this as well," said primary care physician Natasha Withers from One Medical Group in New York. Withers lists a decreased risk of heart disease and improved reaction times as some of the benefits from taking some time off.

"We also know that the mind is very powerful and can help with healing, so a rested, relaxed mind is able to help the body heal better," said Withers.

Psychologists echo the value of vacations for the mind.

"The impact that taking a vacation has on one’s mental health is profound," said Francine Lederer, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who specializes in stress and relationship management. "Most people have better life perspective and are more motivated to achieve their goals after a vacation, even if it is a 24-hour time-out."

The Hostetlers combined short and long breaks in 2010 and 2011 that included a cruise, a ski trip, two beach trips, a weekend in Chicago, and have another cruise trip scheduled this upcoming fall. Counting the weekend days that buffer some trips, they’ll have been on vacation for 38 days since October of last year.

But they are not the norm among full-time working Americans.

The online travel agency Expedia conducted a survey about vacation time in 2010, and according to their data the average American earned 18 vacation days—but only used 14 of them. Every European country included in the survey reported both more vacation days earned and used. France topped the list, with the average worker earning 37 vacation days and using all but two of them. And according to Expedia’s data, only 38 percent of Americans said they used all of their vacation time, compared to 63 percent of French respondents.

Americans’ responses may not be surprising in a culture where long hours on the job often are valued, but that’s not always good for the individual, the family or the employer.

The on-the-go Hostetlers believe their trips are good for their health, good for their family and good for their businesses.

"Because we’re not thinking about schedules and where we need to be, we aren’t anticipating what’s coming next. We relax and enjoy the moment," Rae said. "I also find myself with better and more creative ideas for clients when I return from a trip."

"Time with the family is invaluable when we’re as busy as we are," Bruce said. "The biggest benefit is just spending time away from work and with each other."

The Expedia survey backed their claims up, finding that 45 percent of Americans agreed that "they come back to work feeling rested, rejuvenated, and reconnected to their personal life" after vacation, and 35 percent said "they return from vacation feeling better about their job and feeling more productive."

Vacations like those that the Hostetlers enjoy help restore the body and mind.

Clinical psychologist Deborah Mulhern of Bethesda, Md., also has found that people who don’t take enough time to relax may find it harder to relax in the future.

"Without time and opportunity to do this, the neural connections that produce feelings of calm and peacefulness become weaker, making it actually more difficult to shift into less-stressed modes," Mulhern said. "What neuroscience is showing is that we require down time in order for our bodies to go through the process of restoration. It is only when we are safe from external stresses that our bodies can relax enough to activate restoration."

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