Clipmarks | Marcariel's 'plasma' clips

Solar Plasma Plumes Disrupt Airline GPS

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:43:32 GMT

clipped by: Marcariel
clipper's remarks: Plasma plumes disrupting airline navigation is a dangerous problem. The article says the fix for this is "years away". Doesn't sound good!

Clip Source: space.newscientist.com

Mysterious plumes of plasma at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere are threatening airline navigation by throwing off GPS positioning information by up to the length of a football field.

A plasma plume over North America was mapped on 20 November 2003 by its effects on GPS signals (Image: Anthea Coster/John Foster/MIT)

Scientists have long understood that outbursts from the Sun called coronal mass ejections can interfere with communication between Earth-orbiting satellites and the ground.

More recently, they have learned that at least some of the disruptions are due to giant plumes of charged particles, or plasma, that form in response to the solar outbursts in the Earth's ionosphere

the plumes can disrupt airline navigation and radio communications

If we could go up to space and put an imager looking down, we could see these plumes form and have a much better picture of why they formed in the first place

Tags: plasma, gps, atmosphere, ionosphere, solar

Comet Looses Tail in Solar Hurricane

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:21:09 GMT

clipped by: Marcariel
clipper's remarks: Solar storms are wicked, Scientists say this is a first, from their observations, of a comet loosing it's tail. Powerful event in our ever changing Universe.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

For the first time, scientists have witnessed a collision between a comet and a solar hurricane.

The intergalactic crash—recorded by a NASA Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellite on April 20—sliced off the Encke comet's plasma tail as it was traveling within Mercury's orbit.

"We were awestruck when we first saw these images," Angelos Vourlidas, lead author of a new study on the event and researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory

"The surprise of seeing the disconnection of the tail was just the icing on the cake."

Solar hurricanes—or coronal mass ejections—occur when the sun spews out fierce eruptions of magnetized gas. The ejections create geomagnetic storms that can wreak havoc on human-made satellites and communication systems

Early analyses of the collision suggest that the comet lost its tail through a process called magnetic reconnection, when a comet's magnetic field is "crunched" by those of the solar hurricane.

Tags: xomet.tail.solar hurricane, plasma, dust

Plasma Can Be Yellow Gold

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:30:55 GMT

clipped by: Marcariel
clipper's remarks: I already cut an add out of the local paper for a company offering $100. for the first visit. Helping humanity, and getting paid for it. This is almost better than eBay!

Clip Source: articles.moneycentral.msn.com

No, you cannot legally sell even one of your kidneys, but you can peddle plasma and a few of the other things your body produces. And, in some cases, the price is right.

The big market: plasma, the protein-packed liquid component of blood used to manufacture lifesaving clotting factors and immune boosters, among others. These therapeutics comprise a $7.8 billion annual global market, according to the Marketing Research Bureau, with more than 70% of the source plasma originating from inside Americans.

If you can give blood, you can sell plasma -- probably. The eligibility requirements are similar. You must be 18, weigh at least 110 pounds, be free of communicable disease and in basic good health with strong iron levels.

Not every state has a paid donation center. Several companies recently pulled out of the business. To see if there's one near you, check the FDA search engine and select "Establishment Type: Plasmapheresis Center." Or visit the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association.

Tags: blood, plasma, selling.body