new fish

Spawned in the USA: new fish named after Barack Obama

Obama is one of four presidents to have newly discovered species of fish named after them for their green credentials

He already had the presidential seal. Now comes the presidential fish. Researchers have named a newly discovered species of freshwater fish after Barack Obama.

The honour may not have quite the heft of the Nobel peace prize that Obama picked up at the start of his first term. And it doesn't convey the sheer raw power that goes with riding in Air Force One. But it does put the Obama brand on an all-American fish, and it also puts him in good company.

The researchers named the five newly discovered species of the darter – the smallest member of the perch family – after four presidents and one vice-president. All but one are Democrats, like Obama.

The darter, which packs a lot of colour into its fairly diminutive dimensions – males are mostly under 50mm in length – spends its life in the fast-moving freshwater rivers and creeks that are the veins of America.

It gets it name from its ability to get around rocks and other obstacles on the bottom of waterways. Most darters live in the creeks of northern Alabama and eastern Tennessee, not typically hospitable terrain for Democrats.

None of them currently warrant protected status.

The researchers, Steve Layman from Geosyntec Consultants in Georgia and Rick Mayden from Saint Louis University, came across the first new species in the Duck and Buffalo rivers of the Tennessee river drainage, according to Scientific American's Running Ponies blog.

Etheostoma Obama, is a relatively skinny orange and blue speckled fish topped by a brilliant fan-shaped fin, with bold orange stripes. Males grow up to 48mm long. The scientists told Scientific American they wanted to honour Obama's environmental leadership.

"We chose President Obama for his environmental leadership, particularly in the areas of clean energy and environmental protection, and because he is one of our first leaders to approach conservation and environmental protection from a more global vision," Layman said.

Other honourees were also chosen for their environmental credentials: Teddy Roosevelt for setting aside vast areas of wilderness for national monuments and parks; Jimmy Carter, for his energy policy and humanitarian work in his post-presidential career; Bill Clinton, for wilderness preservation; and Al Gore, the sole vice-president on the list, both for his environmental work and his status as a Tennessee native, like the darter.

organic molecules on Mercury

Nasa's Messenger finds water ice and organic molecules on Mercury

 The red areas show permanently shadowed regions. The yellow areas show polar deposits. Photograph: Nasa

Nasa announced on Thursday that three scientific lines of enquiry have led them to conclude that water ice and organic molecules are present on Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, and the smallest planet in the solar system.

The presence of ice and organic material adds more weight to the widespread theory that icy comets bombarded the rocky worlds of the inner solar system aeons ago. That bombardment could have brought the oceans to Earth, and supplied our planet with the organic molecules needed to trigger the origin of life.

As I cautioned just last week when writing about Nasa's supposedly "historic" find with the Curiosity rover, "organic" should not be confused with "biological". Organic chemicals are those made from carbon bonded to hydrogen. They are essential for life, but not necessarily evidence of life because such molecules can be built from simple chemical reactions.

In the case of Mercury, researchers studying the data from Nasa's Messenger spacecraft suspect that the organics are tar-like or even coal-like substances. Unlike on Earth, these cannot be produced by the decay of once-living things.

No one thinks that life ever existed on Mercury. Its cratered face, similar to our moon's, tells us there have never been seas, oceans or even an atmosphere there because otherwise the wind and the waves would have eroded its craters away. So, the presence of water and especially organic molecules comes as a surprise.

Whereas Earth stays about 150 million kilometres distant from the sun, Mercury approaches to about 46 million kilometres, and never strays further than 70 million kilometres. As a result, Mercury's surface temperature can soar higher than 400 degrees centigrade. Hardly good for ice.

Crucially, however, Mercury's rotation axis is scarcely tilted. It is less than one degree from totally upright, which means that the planet never points its poles at the sun. The ice and organics have been found at the bottom of deep polar craters where they remain in permanent shadow.

If Mercury has been in this upright position since its birth, over 4bn years ago, it is possible that the ice preserved there could be truly primordial, dating back to the origin of the solar system.

The only other place that such ancient ice is found is in comets. That's where the European Space Agency's comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft comes in. Currently en route to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it will rendezvous with the icy remnant of the primordial solar system in 2014. Falling in step with the comet out beyond Jupiter's orbit, Rosetta will follow the comet for more than a year as it falls towards the sun.

Rosetta will sample the gases given out by the comet in the growing heat. It will also place a lander on the icy surface to directly analyse the molecules, including the organics that are widely expected to be found there.

We still do not know how life started on Earth but every time a spacecraft finds more organics in the solar system it gives us another clue. That's why Messenger's find is important. Organics are the "building blocks" of life, or at the very least the raw molecular material.

That's also why Nasa's Mars rover, Curiosity, and its now infamous "historic" announcement on 3 December will be watched with great interest. Organic molecules seem to be the best we can hope for, although Nasa has been doing some serious back-pedalling recently. Ina press release on Friday, the agency now says that it will not even be announcing the discovery of organics at its press conference on Monday.

In the meantime, Mercury has shown that it is far from the small, uninteresting ball of rock that many astronomers had assumed.

Be careful on Facebook

Be careful on Facebook, says Maharashtra girl who was arrested

Mumbai: Last week, Renu Srinivasan was arrested for liking a post by her friend on Facebook. Shaheen Dhada had questioned the shutdown of Mumbai when Shiv Sena president Bal Thackeray died; Renu liked that comment.  

Both Renu and Shaheen were released on bail after a few hours.  Their arrest incensed people all over the country, and has forced new scrutiny of IT laws.

Renu talks to NDTV about the experience.

NDTV: Renu, the chargesheet that was filed against you has been denied today, how do you feel? 

Renu: I am very happy that the case that was filed against us has been dropped. 

NDTV: What do you wish and expect from the future?

Renu: I wish that life goes back to normal for us; I don't want this incident to......

NDTV: Do you feel that you have got justice?

Renu: Yes, justice has been given.

NDTV: Will you keep using Facebook? Will you keep updating your status?

Renu: I de-activated my Facebook account right in the beginning of this controversy. I will keep behaving in the way I have always been.  

NDTV:  This controversy that happened with you, what would you like to tell people about it?

Renu:  I don't think all this should have happened, but now that it has happened we can't do anything about it.

NDTV: What advice would you like to give everyone?

Renu: I would just like to tell everyone that those who use Facebook should be a little careful, not that you shouldn't state your opinion, just don't be too rude while doing so and no one should use offensive language.

NDTV: The way in which you were brought to justice and the way these proceedings were carried out, what do you have to say about that?

Renu: I don't wish to comment on that at all because they are doing everything as per the law...

NDTV: You were supposed to sit for an exam, but due to all this, you couldn't. But the management selected you anyway?
 
Renu: It wasn't an exam, it was actually an interview and it was in this month itself and because of this controversy I wasn't able to make it for the interview, so they called me and said that in case you're interested, you can come and join our institute, there is no need for any interview.
 
NDTV: What was the interview about?
 
Renu: The interview concerned with music so they just asked about my interest in it, that's all.
 

robot

The robot can be controlled by a pilot or 
 with a smartphone in Japan 

Kogoro Kurata grew up watching futuristic robots in movies and animation, wishing he could bring them to life.

Now, his childhood dream has become a reality as he's built a massive robot that he can control.

His 4-tonne, 4-metre tall Kuratas robot has a built-in pilot's seat and hand-held controller.

It lets him move the robot's massive arms, and make it walk at speeds of up to six miles per hour.

"The robots we saw in our generation were always big and always had people riding them," said Kurata, who's a 39-year-old artist from Japan.

His robot also comes with an operating system that allows people to control it using a mobile phone.

It's not cheap though. One of Kurata's robots would set you back 110 million yen (well over £800,000).

One soft drink

One soft drink a day can up risk of prostate cancer by 40%

Just a single sugary soft drink per day may raise a man's risk of developing prostate cancer, a new 15-year study has claimed.

Swedish researchers found men who drank 300ml of a fizzy drink a day - slightly less than a standard can - were 40 per cent more likely to develop the disease than those who never consumed the drinks.

Worryingly, the risk applied not to early-stage disease that was spotted via blood tests but to cancers that had progressed enough to cause symptoms, the 'Daily Mail'

reported.

Experts believe that sugar triggers the release of the hormone insulin, which feeds tumours.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is far from the first to link the sugary soft drinks to poor health.

Previous research has flagged up heart attacks, diabetes, weight gain, brittle bones, pancreatic cancer, muscle weakness and paralysis as potential risks.

The new study tracked the health of more than 8,000 men aged 45 to 73 for an average of 15 years. The men, who were in good health at the start of the study, were also quizzed about what they liked to eat and drink.

At the end of the study, they compared the dietary habits of the men who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer with those who remained healthy and found a clear link between sugary drinks and the disease.

"Among the men who drank a lot of soft drinks we saw an increased risk of prostate cancer of around 40 per cent," Lund University researcher Isabel Drake said.

The analysis also linked large amounts of rice and pasta, cakes and biscuits, and sugary breakfast cereals with a less serious form of the disease. There was no link with fruit juice.

Diet drinks, and tea and coffee with sugar, were not included in the study.

Researchers said that although genetics plays a bigger role in prostate cancer than in many other tumours, diet also appears to be important.

Drake added that more research is needed to prove the link.

British experts also urged caution over the findings.

"We cannot be certain whether any particular dietary pattern has a significant impact on a man's risk of getting prostate cancer but it is highly unlikely that any single food source will lead to an increased chance of developing the disease," Dr Iain Frame, director of research at Prostate Cancer UK, said.

Samsung launches Series 5 ultrabook

Samsung launches Series 5 ultrabook with touchscreen for Rs. 64,990

Samsung has launched two new ultrabooks and a notebook for the Indian market - Samsung Series 5 ULTRA Touch, Samsung Notebook Series 9 (15-inch) and Samsung Series 5 ultrabook (Series 5 535U4C).Samsung Series 5 ULTRA touch is the first touch-enabled ultrabook by Samsung. It sports a 13.3-inch HD SuperBright 10-finger multi-touchscreen with a resolution of 1366X768 pixels and 3rd generation Intel Core i7-3517U processor. It runs on Windows 8 operating system. Other features of this ultraboook includes up to 12 GB RAM, 500 GB of hard drive and 24GB ExpressCache (SSD). There is one full HDMI port, an USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports on this ultrabook. It comes with 4-cell battery that Samsung claims will give up to 6.7 hours of backup. Samsung Series 5 ULTRA Touch is available in India for Rs. 64,990.
Samsung had launched a 13-inch notebook in its Series 9 in August 2012, and this notebook had "the world's thinnest and most compact notebook chassis". Now, Samsung has added another notebook in this series, which has a 15-inch screen. The new Series 9 notebook too is light and thin like its predecessor as it measures 14.9mm in thickness and weighs 1.65 kg. Sasmung 15-inch Series 9 notebook carries a price tag of Rs. 1,07,990.

Lastly, Samsung has also launched a Series 5 ultrabook (Series 5 535U4C).This ultrabook is powered by AMD quad-core A8 processor and will retail for Rs. 43,990.
Commenting on the launch, Jin Park, Vice President of the IT Solutions Business at Samsung Electronics says, "Our new Series 5 ULTRA Touch is designed to meet all the demands of our customers for a more intuitive use along with powerful performance and plenty of storage. With the arrival of Windows 8, use of notebook PCs is about to change, leading to a different demand from customers such as touch functionality but still maintaining the traditional common input methods such as keyboard and mouse".
"Ultrabooks as a category will continue to evolve in 2013. We are looking at ultrabooks and tablet PCs as being major growth drivers for our Notebook business which is expected to grow by over 50% next year", states Uday Bhat, Director, Samsung IT Business.

AMD

ReadWrite DeathWatch: AMD

Intel's success and a shrinking PC market have seriously hurt the number two chipmaker. Does it have enough fight left to reinvent itself?

The Basics

In 1982, Advanced Micro Devices cut a deal with Intel to provide secondary manufacturing services for IBM. Under the terms of the agreement, AMD could manufacture Intel's 8088 chip, which IBM used for the now-legendary IBM PC. The agreement created a rivalry that would last through more than a decade of court challenges, as AMD continued to manufacture low-priced chips based on Intel's designs.

In the mid-1990s, AMD began to find its own identity with the K5 processor, a Windows-compatible chip based on in-house designs. The K5's low price gained it some acceptance from PC manufacturers and hobbyists building budget systems. In 1997, AMD released the much more powerful and successful K6 chip, which offered a substantial performance edge for the money over Intel's Pentium II. The K6 created major demand in both the budget and gaming sectors, and its price/performance advantage made AMD a solid second option for PC owners. AMD strengthened that reputation at the high end when it merged with graphics processing specialist ATI Technologies in 2006, adding Nvidia to its list of competitors. For much of the early-to-mid 2000s, AMD was the go-to for high-end gaming systems, both custom-built and vendor-sourced.

When it acquired ATI, AMD was on top of the world, with a market cap topping $18 billion. But the realities of the integration softened the joy, the recession of 2008 took a toll, and 2012 has been brutal. Last fall, AMD laid off 12% of its workforce on lower-than-expected numbers. This year, it's cutting another 15% after losing $137 million in the third quarter. As of November 20, AMD's stock has tumbled more than 75% in just six months. A Reuters article recently revealed that AMD has enlisted the services of JPMorgan Chase & Co to "explore options" that could include a sale of all or part of the company. Officers have downplayed the significance of the bank's work, stating that AMD is "not actively pursuing a sale of the company or significant assets at this time." But they haven't pulled it off the table, either.

The Problem

AMD has pointed to a number of temporary and very correctable issues that have contributed to its current troubles. For example, a glut of Llano chips on the market is dampening demand for upcoming products. While that certainly doesn't help, AMD's real problems are simpler and more intractable:

AMD is a PC company. Intel is winning the PC war And the PC pie is getting smaller.

In its PC CPU space (still the company's bread and butter), AMD has dropped the ball. Bulldozer was a massive disappointment, Intel has strung together a couple of clear winners with Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge, and the performance crown won't be leaving Santa Clara any time soon.

Could AMD fight its way back to desktop dominance? Maybe, if Intel stumbles and AMD knocks it out of the park - but at what cost? These days, hard drives, graphics processors or other components are more likely to be the performance bottleneck - so the CPU maters less than it used to.

Worse, the PC market is shrinking fast. Just ask Intel, which lost its shirt on miserable ultrabook sales. Tablets are already 22% of non-phone device sales and growing, while laptop and desktop shipments can't keep up. A losing position in a legacy market market isn't much to build on.

This is neither a secret nor a surprise. AMD management has seen it coming for some time. It just haven't reacted fast enough. In AMD's latest earnings report, CEO Rory Read acknowledged that “It is clear that the trends we knew would re-shape the industry are happening at a much faster pace than we anticipated. As a result, we must accelerate our strategic initiatives to position AMD to take advantage of these shifts and put in place a lower-cost business model. Our restructuring efforts are designed to simplify our product development cycles, reduce our breakeven [sic] point and enable us to fund differentiated product roadmaps and strategic breakaway opportunities.”

In other words, AMD needs to do something new, and fast.

The Prognosis

AMD can't – and shouldn't – abandon its CPU business unless it finds a serious buyer, but it will almost certainly focus elsewhere, looking to its embedded products for growth. It looks like the company will try to crack the mobile handset market, as well, but based on the beating TI took before recently calling off the mobile charge, that could be an expensive, low-probability gamble.

As others have pointed out, selling AMD outright would open a very large, well-funded can of worms and could fan the flames of a legal war. Still, discrete pieces of the company's intellectual property could generate lots of cash.

Can This Company Be Saved?

There's only one way AMD gets out of this more-or-less intact. If a large enough company with substantial legal resources and a presence in the PC, tablet and smartphone markets wanted to diversify its hardware options, AMD would be a relatively cheap and easy way to do it. Unfortunately, there are only two potential buyers who meet those criteria, so there aren't a lot of options.

Updates On Previous Deathwatches

Sharp: Sharp has had to turn away applicants from its early retirement program after receiving many more applicants than expected. It will add a $311 million charge this quarter as a result.

 

NASA

NASA rover tracks big dust storm on Mars

WASHINGTON, NOV 26: 

A NASA spacecraft is keeping tabs on a vast dust storm on Mars that has spawned changes in the Martian atmosphere felt by Curiosity rover on the Red planet’s surface.

The Martian dust storm was first spotted by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on November 10 and has been tracked ever since, the space agency said.

Using the orbiter’s Mars Colour Imager, Bruce Cantor of Malin Space Science Systems, began observing the storm and subsequently reported it to the team operating NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

The storm came no closer than about 1,347 kilometres from Opportunity, resulting in only a slight drop in atmospheric clarity over that rover, which does not have a weather station.

Halfway around the planet from Opportunity, the NASA Mars rover Curiosity’s weather station has detected atmospheric changes related to the storm.

Sensors on the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), which was provided for Curiosity by Spain, have measured decreased air pressure and a slight rise in overnight low temperature.

“This is now a regional dust storm. It has covered a fairly extensive region with its dust haze, and it is in a part of the planet where some regional storms in the past have grown into global dust hazes,” said Rich Zurek, Chief Mars scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena.

“For the first time since the Viking missions of the 1970s, we are studying a regional dust storm both from orbit and with a weather station on the surface,” Zurek said.

Curiosity’s equatorial location and the sensors on REMS, together with the daily global coverage provided by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, provide new advantages compared with what Viking offered with its combination of orbiters and landers.

Each Martian year lasts about two Earth years. Regional dust storms expanded and affected vast areas of Mars in 2001 and 2007, but not between those years nor since 2007.

“One thing we want to learn is why do some Martian dust storms get to this size and stop growing, while others of this size keep growing and go global,” Zurek said.

From decades of observing Mars, scientists know there is a seasonal pattern to the largest Martian dust-storm events. The dust-storm season began just a few weeks ago, with the start of southern-hemisphere spring.

The Mars Climate Sounder instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected a warming of the atmosphere at about 25 kilometres above the storm. Since then, the atmosphere in the region has warmed by about 25 degrees Celsius.

This is due to the dust absorbing sunlight at that height, so it indicates the dust is being lofted well above the surface and the winds are starting to create a dust haze over a broad region.

13 new fish species

Manipur researchers discover 13 new fish species

Manipur University Prof Waikhom Vishwanath of Life Science department led research team has discovered 13 new freshwater fish species adding to the 220 plus fish species in Manipur. Altogether 368 fish species were reported discovered across the globe in 2012(http://www.worldfishcenter.org/).

The newly discovered freshwater fish species are Schistura porocephala, Physoschistura tigrinum, Physoschistura dikrongensis, Schistura obliquofascia, Glyptothorax churamanii, Glyptothorax verrucosus, Physoschistura tigrinum, Schistura koladynensis, Physoschistura chindwinensis, Glyptothorax jayarami, Garra namyaensis, Physoschistura tuivaiensis and Barilius profundus.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean: HTC One X India Users Getting OTA Update

With the Android Jelly Bean update declared for Samsung Galaxy S3 users in India, how can HTC sit behind. Well, here is the good news which you all had been waiting for – HTC One X owners! Now your handset will get more smoother and faster as compared to its current performance as it has been informed that the Taiwanese smartphone maker has begun rolling out Android 4.1 ‘Jelly Bean’ to its One X smartphones in India, starting yesterday. 

The report was first informed by Twitter user, Amit Shah (@shahamit99) on November 23. The quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 based smartphone has already made a huge mark on worldwide market attributed to its exciting features. However customers had been constantly requesting for an update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

With the newly released update to Jelly Bean will allow HTC One X users to try out the new OS on their HTC smartphones. Upgrading the system from Android ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ 4.0 will bring numerous improvements including an under-the-hood system dubbed Project Butter which boosts responsiveness and increases the framerate of the user interface to 60 frames per second for a more fluid experience. 

The update also brings HTC’s new updated Sense UI to the One X called Sense 4+ along with the Google Now voice-recognition system – a digital search assistant designed to compete with Apple’s Siri. Further, the update for Indian version will add on support for Punjabi, Oriya, Malayalam, Kannada languages. 

The Android Jelly Bean 4.1 update download size is 360MB and it is safe to connect with a Wi-Fi connection before installing the update to your HTC phones.

Small Pacific island

Australian scientists undiscover small Pacific island

With the modern age of satellite mapping and Google Maps, you might expect that the map of Earth’s landmass, including islands, around the globe is correctly and accurately mapped. However, it appears that errors in mapping do occur as evidenced by a group of geologists from the University of Sydney who undiscovered a small Pacific island. The small island is in the Coral Sea and is called Sandy Island.

For over a decade Sandy Island has appeared as a dark shape in the Coral Sea off the coast of Australia. A group of scientists on geographic expedition decided to visit the island while on an expedition to study plate tectonics. The scientist discovered that the island lay in their path and decided to investigate.

However, what they discovered was unexpected – the island doesn’t exist. The scientists say that while the island appeared on Google Earth maps, there were no images of it. Sandy Island also appeared on the known to be reliable world coastline database, but there were no signs of the island on their sea charts.

The scientists say they went to the bridge of the ship to check the navigation charts used by the captain and the island was nowhere to be found. The scientists decided to sail their ship through where the island was supposed to be. The ship captain was understandably nervous about running aground, but the scientists say the ocean floor never got shallower than 1300 m below the wave base.

Danny Dorling, president of the British Society of Cartographers said, “You can’t create a perfect map. You never will,” he said. “Our current world map is a collection of highly accurate satellite maps and some of the oldest data collected from Admiralty charts.”

He said the mistake would’ve been substantial had it been in a heavily trafficked sea lane, but “The Coral Sea is in the middle of nowhere.”

Logitech

Logitech launches new products for Windows 8 OS

Logitech announced a new line up of products, comprising mouse, touchpad and keyboards, designed to work with new Windows 8.

NEW DELHI: Computer peripherals maker Logitech today announced a new line up of products, comprising mouse, touchpad and keyboards, designed specifically to work with the new Windows 8 touch interface. 

Priced at Rs 2,895 onwards, the line up includes Logitech Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad T650, Touch Mouse T620, Zone Touch Mouse T400, Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 and Wireless Touch Keyboard K400R, which will be available in the Indian market from next week. 

"We have a tradition of launching innovative products and believe in their superiority. Windows 8 allows users to move from one form factor to another, and hence we are offering mouse with horizontal navigation," Logitech Country Manager India and South-West Asia Subrotah 

'Sleeping Beauty Syndrome'

'Sleeping Beauty Syndrome' causes teen to sleep for 64 days

For one Pennsylvania teenager, Sleeping Beauty isn’t just a fairy tale.

Seventeen-year-old Nicole Delien slept for 64 days straight, from Thanksgiving to January, due to a rare sleeping disorder, the Examiner reported.  Diagnosed with “Sleeping Beauty Disorder” or Kleine-Levin syndrome – a neurological disorder that causes Nicole to fall asleep up to 19 hours a day.

According to the National Institutes of Health, Kleine-Levin syndrome is characterized by abrupt "episodes" of sleep, which can last for days and sometimes weeks.  Symptoms can also include excessive food intake, disorientation and hallucinations.  People with Kleine-Levin typically do not remember what happened during their episodes.

At first Nicole’s parents figured she was a typical teenager, staying in bed for longer periods of time.  But as months elapsed and she slept more and more, they soon learned that something was wrong.  Doctors at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh diagnosed Nicole and said the condition is manageable with proper medication.

Now Nicole and her family are promoting awareness of sleeping disorders by making an appearance on Jeff Probst’s talk show, according to the Examiner.  Her parents said that Nicole will often sleep through holidays and even a Katy Perry concert she wanted to attend.  Luckily Perry surprised Nicole backstage at another event later.

Greenland

Greenland 'losing 200m tons ice every year'

Washington: Glacier-covered Greenland has had an average net loss of 200 million tons of ice every year since 2003, scientists who are studying the changing mass of the island using satellite data have confirmed. 

The latest analysis backs up the previously reported trend without even including the last two summers of record-breaking ice melts.

“Greenland is really the place where everyone agrees that (the ice melt) is definitely accelerating with time and there is a big contribution to sea level rise,” Discovery News quoted researcher Isabella Velicogna from the University of California at Irvine (UCI) as saying.

Velicogna is an expert at analyzing the same kind of data used in this most recent study: from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) which can detect mass changes on the surface of the Earth over time.

GRACE does this by detecting subtle increases and decreases in gravity, which is directly related to the mass below the two orbiting GRACE satellites.

In the latest work, Princeton University researcher Chris Harig and Frederik Simons applied a new method to analyzing the GRACE data.

They found that during 2003 and 2004, mass loss was centered along the eastern coast of Greenland. From 2005 to 2006 mass loss dropped in the northeast but rose in the southeast. Meanwhile, more mass was lost along the northwest coast, especially from 2007-2010.

“The study confirms what we already knew,” Eric Rignot, an Earth Systems Science Professor at UCI and scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, said.

“The authors use a new decomposition, but the sources of error and corrections are essentially the same as for other studies,” Rignot added.

The study has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.