Youpaper Science Alert – ISSUE 3 – 27. November 2015

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Welcome to the 3rd ISSUE of Youpaper Science Alert!

Will Mars Lose One of its Moons?

Two young earth scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, USA,

made a discovery that could fundamentally change our view on Mars.

Image by Tushar Mittal using Celestia 2001-2010, Celestia Development Team

Mars' largest moon, Phobos, is slowly falling toward the planet. But, it is not

the way you might think. According to UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow

Benjamin Black and graduate student Tushar Mittal, the moon will rather

burst into millions of pieces and form a ring around the planet, like Jupiter,

Saturn, Uranus or Neptune has. Both researchers believe this phenomenon

might occur in about 20-40 million years. In a paper that appeared in

Nature Geoscience, both scientists conclude that the cohesiveness of

Phobos is not sufficient enough to resist the tidal force and that’s why lets

the moon come closer and closer to Mars. As Phobos comes closer to the

surface of Mars, its tidal force pulls even stronger on it, so that at some

point it will just shatter into millions of pieces and form a ring around the

planet made of debris. The image above shows how Mars could possibly

look like. It is still not clear whether we from earth could see the rings or

not. Most likely, Mars will only appear a little brighter than normal at the

evening sky.

Why The Great Barrier Reef Is Even More

Important Than We Ever Thought

As newest research shows, the world-famous Great Barrier Reef in Australia is

more then just a formation held together by calcium carbonate structures.

The world-famous Australian reef is furthermore providing an effective barrier

against landslide-induced tsunamis.

The Great Barrier Reef

is the world's largest

coral reef stretching

over an area of

approximately

344,400 square

kilometres. A large

part of the reef is

protected by the

Great Barrier Reef

Marine Park, unfortunately the other part is currently endangered by oil

companies, who suspect a large amount of oil being hidden under the Great

Barrier Reef’s surface.

An international team of researchers published this week an article in Marine

Geology about a landslide and tsunami that happened around 20,000-14,000

years ago at the coast of Maryland. At that time, it caused a 2-3m wave that

would later hit the coast of Australia. The wave could have killed thousands of

Aborigines. But, as the research team states: "However, if one did occur, our

findings suggest that the Great Barrier Reef is doing us a great service because

of its ability to absorb some of that potential wave energy."

Consequently, destroying the Great Barrier Reef would have far-reaching

consequences for Australia’s population today, including less protection in case

of landslides and approaching tsunamis.

Dead Arm Punching

Ever wondered why our fist is shaped like it is? Probably not. The following article

will make you overthink why you read Youpaper Science Alert. But, don’t worry,

it is not as bad as you think.

"The idea that aggressive

behavior played a role in the

evolution of the human hand is

controversial," says biology

professor David Carrier, senior

author of a study that discusses

why our fist is shaped the way It

is. "Many skeptics suggest that the human fist is simply a coincidence of natural

selection for improved manual dexterity. That may be true, but if it is a

coincidence, it is unfortunate”, he states in an interview. And, believe it or not,

he actually has a valid point on that matter. He suggests that the hand

proportions that allow the formation of a fist may tell us something important

about our evolutionary history and who we are as a species. Carrier and his

collaborators not only argue that our hands evolved partly for punching but that

the faces of human ancestors evolved to resist punching. What they did now will

not just shock you but also shocked some fellow researchers in the scientific

community; They took the arms of people who shortly passed away. The

experiment's cadaver arms were placed in a pendulum-like apparatus in order

to punch a force-detecting dumbbell with either a buttressed or clenched fist.

The image on the top right side shows from bird’s eye perspective how the

cadaver arms were placed in the pendulum-like device in order punch the

padded dumbbell weight.

In the end, most bones could resist a force of more then 200 pounds. The

experiment showed in detail that the hand is able to withstand enormous force

in a matter of milliseconds, which leads to the assumption that the human hand

has once been shaped for not only manual dexterity but also raw fighting.

Dead Arm Punching [Modell]: Andre Mossman, University of Utah