Study: Blind still use brain visual center
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- People who have been blind from birth use a region of the brain normally involved in vision to refine their sense of sound and touch, a U.S. study has found.
Researchers led by neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center say this helps explain why the blind have such advanced perception of these senses, abilities that far exceed those of people who can see, a Georgetown release says.
The study suggests the different functional attributes that make up vision, such as analysis of space, patterns and motion, still exist in the visual cortex of blind individuals.
But instead of using those areas to understand what the eyes see, the blind use them to process what they hear and touch, because the same components are necessary to process information from those senses.
"We can see that in the blind, large parts of the visual cortex light up when participants are engaged in auditory and tactile tasks. This is in addition to the areas in their brain that are dedicated to processing sound and touch," said Josef P. Rauschecker, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at GUMC.
"This shows us that the visual system in the blind retains the functional organization that was anatomically laid out by genetics, but that the brain is plastic enough to use these modules to analyze input they receive from different senses.
"The neural cells and fibers are still there and still functioning, processing spatial attributes of stimuli, driven not by sight but by hearing and touch."
U.S. approves 'power tower' solar project
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- The United States has approved the first large-scale solar energy project on public lands that will use "power tower" technology, government officials said.
The proposed project, to be located in San Bernardino, Calif., could produce up to 370 megawatts of clean energy, enough to power 111,000 to 277,500 American homes when it is completed in 2013, a U.S. Department of the Interior release said Thursday.
"Power tower" technology uses fields of mirrors to focus solar energy on tower receivers near the center of each array. Steam from solar boilers in the towers drive a turbine that generates electricity for the transmission grid.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System after an extensive review that significantly altered the proposal in response to public comments in order to minimize environmental impacts.
"I am pleased with the changes we have made to improve this project," Salazar said. "It is important that we learn from our experience to ensure that environmentally-responsible clean energy is developed wisely and in the right places."
"Ivanpah is one of several renewable energy projects in the pipeline that will help California and this nation build a clean energy economy," Salazar said.
Sea cow 'mermaids' facing extinction
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Dugongs, or sea cows, thought to be the source of ancient legends of mermaids, could be extinct within 40 years, a United Nations panel says.
Urgent measures including banning fishing nets that trap them and setting up marine reserves are vital for their survival, the U.N. Environment Program said.
"Man-made threats pose the greatest risk to the gentle sea cow," a U.N.-backed forum concluded after a meeting in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, of governments, international and non-governmental organizations on the fate of the seemingly clumsy animal, the world's only herbivorous mammal living in marine waters.
"Illegal poaching, unsustainable hunting by local communities, severe injuries from ships and vanishing sea-grass beds are accelerating a critical loss of habitat and threatening populations," it said.
Enhanced regional cooperation among countries hosting dugongs is essential to ensure the survival of the creature that sailors once took for a mermaid when spotted from afar, it added.
A 2008 assessment found the dugong is now extinct in the Maldives, Mauritius and Taiwan, and declining in other waters in at least a third of the areas where it is found.
Moon of Saturn may have hidden ocean
GREENBELT, Md., Oct. 7 (UPI) -- A moon of Saturn that should be frozen solid may have liquid oceans, thanks to a "wobble" it experiences as it orbits the ringed planet, researchers say.
With temperatures around 324 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the surface of Enceladus is indeed frozen, but in 2005 NASA's Cassini spacecraft discovered a giant plume of water gushing from cracks in the surface over the moon's south pole, suggesting there was a reservoir of water beneath the ice, a release from NASA's Goddard Space Center said Thursday.
Analysis of the plume by Cassini shows the water is salty, indicating the reservoir is large, perhaps even a global subsurface ocean.
Scientists estimate the south polar heating is equivalent to a continuous release of about 13 billion watts of energy.
Researchers say tidal heating may be keeping Enceladus warm enough for liquid water to remain under its surface.
Enceladus' orbit around Saturn is slightly oval-shaped and the moon moves closer in and then farther away as it travels around the planet. The fluctuating gravitational tug on Enceladus causes it to flex slightly, and the flexing, called gravitational tidal forcing, generates heat from friction deep within Enceladus.
Also, the moon's rotation as it orbits may not be uniform, scientists say, and additional heat caused by this "wobble" could be five times as much as that created by tidal heating.
The extra heat makes it likely that Enceladus' ocean could be long-lived, significant to a search for life on the orbiting moon, because life requires a stable environment to develop, NASA scientists say.
