41 Incredible Earth Facts

The following list of Earth's extremes and other amazing facts is presented in Q&A format, so you can cover the answers to test your knowledge of the home planet. Sources include the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with other SPACE.com reporting.

1. What is the hottest place on Earth?

Count one wrong if you guessed Death Valley in California. True enough on many days. But El Azizia in Libya recorded a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922 -- the hottest ever measured. In Death Valley, it got up to 134 Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913.

2. And the coldest place around here?

Far and away, the coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -129 Fahrenheit (-89 Celsius) at Vostok, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

3. What makes thunder?

If you thought, "Lightning!" then hats off to you. But I had a more illuminating answer in mind. The air around a lightning bolt is superheated to about five times the temperature of the Sun. This sudden heating causes the air to expand faster than the speed of sound, which compresses the air and forms a shock wave; we hear it as thunder.

4. Can rocks float?

In a volcanic eruption, the violent separation of gas from lava produces a "frothy" rock called pumice, loaded with gas bubbles. Some of it can float, geologists say. I've never seen this happen, and I'm thankful for that.

5. Can rocks grow?

Yes, but observing the process is less interesting than watching paint dry. Rocks called iron-manganese crusts grow on mountains under the sea. The crusts precipitate material slowly from seawater, growing about 1 millimeter every million years. Your fingernails grow about the same amount every two weeks.

6. How much space dust falls to Earth each year?

Estimates vary, but the USGS says at least 1,000 million grams, or roughly 1,000 tons of material enters the atmosphere every year and makes its way to Earths surface. One group of scientists claims microbes rain down from space, too, and that extraterrestrial organisms are responsible for flu epidemics. There's been no proof of this, and I'm not holding my breath.

7. How far does regular dust blow in the wind?

A 1999 study showed that African dust finds its way to Florida and can help push parts of the state over the prescribed air quality limit for particulate matter set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The dust is kicked up by high winds in North Africa and carried as high as 20,000 feet (6,100 meters), where it's caught up in the trade winds and carried across the sea. Dust from China makes its way to North America, too.

8. Where is the worlds highest waterfall?

The water of Angel Falls in Venezuela drops 3,212 feet (979 meters).

9. What two great American cities are destined to merge?

The San Andreas fault, which runs north-south, is slipping at a rate of about 2 inches (5 centimeters) per year, causing Los Angeles to move towards San Francisco. Scientists forecast LA will be a suburb of the City by the Bay in about 15 million years.

10. Is Earth a sphere?

Because the planet rotates and is more flexible than you might imagine, it bulges at the midsection, creating a sort of pumpkin shape. The bulge was lessening for centuries but now, suddenly, it is growing, a recent study showed. Accelerated melting of Earth's glaciers is taking the blame for the gain in equatorial girth.

11. What would a 100-pound person weigh on Mars?

The gravity on Mars is 38 percent of that found on Earth at sea level. So a 100-pound person on Earth would weigh 38 pounds on Mars. Based on NASA's present plans, it'll be decades before this assumption can be observationally proved, however.

12. How long is a Martian year?

It's a year long, if you're from Mars. To an earthling, it's nearly twice as long. The red planet takes 687 Earth-days to go around the Sun -- compared to 365 days for Earth. Taking into account Mars' different rotational time (see #13 below) calendars on Mars would be about 670 days long with some leap days needed to keep things square. If you find one, please mail it to me. I'm curious how they worked out the months, given they have two moons. [The initial publication of this fact mistakenly said a Mars calendar would have 687 days.]

13. How long is the average Martian day?

A Martian can sleep (or work) and extra half-hour every day compared to you. Mars days are 24 hours and 37 minutes long, compared to 23 hours, 56 minutes on Earth. A day on any planet in our solar system is determined by how long it takes the world to spin once on its axis, making the Sun appear to rise in the morning and sending it down in the evening.

14. What is the largest volcano?

The Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii holds the title here on Earth. It rises more than 50,000 feet (9.5 miles or 15.2 kilometers) above its base, which sits under the surface of the sea. But that's all volcanic chump change. Olympus Mons on Mars rises 16 miles (26 kilometers) into the Martian sky. Its base would almost cover the entire state of Arizona.

Planet building

15. What was the deadliest known earthquake?

The world’s deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1557 in central China. It struck a region where most people lived in caves carved from soft rock. The dwellings collapsed, killing an estimated 830,000 people. In 1976 another deadly temblor struck Tangshan, China. More than 250,000 people were killed.

16. What was the strongest earthquake in recent times?

A 1960 Chilean earthquake, which occurred off the coast, had a magnitude of 9.6 and broke a fault more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) long. An earthquake like that under a major city would challenge the best construction techniques.

17. Which earthquake was more catastrophic: Kobe, Japan or Northridge, California?

The 1994 Northridge earthquake had a magnitude of 6.7 was responsible for approximately 60 deaths, 9,000 injuries, and more than $40 billion in damage. The Kobe earthquake of 1995 was magnitude 6.8 and killed 5,530 people. There were some 37,000 injuries and more than $100 billion in economic loss.

18. How far is it to the center of the Earth?

The distance from the surface of Earth to the center is about 3,963 miles (6,378 kilometers). Much of Earth is fluid. The mostly solid skin of the planet is only 41 miles (66 kilometers) thick -- thinner than the skin of an apple, relatively speaking.

19. What is the highest mountain?

Climbers who brave Mt. Everest in the Nepal-Tibet section of the Himalayas reach 29,035 feet (nearly 9 kilometers) above sea level. Its height was revised upward by 7 feet based on measurements made in 1999 using the satellite-based Global Positioning System.

20. Has the Moon always been so close?

It used to be much closer! A billion years ago, the Moon was in a tighter orbit, taking just 20 days to go around us and make a month. A day on Earth back then was only 18 hours long. The Moon is still moving away -- about 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) a year. Meanwhile, Earth's rotation is slowing down, lengthening our days. In the distant future, a day will be 960 hours long! [Find out why]

21. Where is the lowest dry point on Earth?

The shore of the Dead Sea in the Middle East is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) below sea level. Not even a close second is Bad Water in Death Valley, California, at a mere 282 feet below sea level.

22. Good thing California isn't sinking further, right?

Actually parts of it are, which is so interesting that I snuck this non-question onto the list. In a problem repeated elsewhere in the country, the pumping of natural underground water reservoirs in California is causing the ground to sink up to 4 inches (11 centimeters) per year in places. Water and sewage systems may soon be threatened.

23. What is the longest river?

The Nile River in Africa is 4,160 miles (6,695 kilometers) long.

24. What is the most earthquake-prone state in the United States?

Alaska experiences a magnitude 7 earthquake almost every year, and a magnitude 8 or greater earthquake on average every 14 years. Florida and North Dakota get the fewest earthquakes in the states, even fewer than New York.

25. What's the driest place on Earth?

A place called Arica, in Chile, gets just 0.03 inches (0.76 millimeters) of rain per year. At that rate, it would take a century to fill a coffee cup.

26. What causes a landslide?

Intense rainfall over a short period of time can trigger shallow, fast-moving mud and debris flows. Slow, steady rainfall over a long period of time may trigger deeper, slow-moving landslides. Different materials behave differently, too. Every year as much as $2 billion in landslide damage occurs in the United States. In a record-breaking storm in the San Francisco area in January 1982, some 18,000 debris flows were triggered during a single night! Property damage was over $66 million, and 25 people died.

27. How fast can mud flow?

Debris flows are like mud avalanches that can move at speeds in excess of 100 mph (160 kph).

28. Do things inside Earth flow?

You bet. In fact, scientists found in 1999 that molten material in and around Earth's core moves in vortices, swirling pockets whose dynamics are similar to tornadoes and hurricanes. And as you'll learn later in this list, the planet's core moves in other strange ways, too.

29. What is the wettest place on Earth?

Lloro, Colombia averages 523.6 inches of rainfall a year, or more than 40 feet (13 meters). That's about 10 times more than fairly wet major cities in Europe or the United States.

30. Does Earth go through phases, like the Moon?

From Mars, Earth would be seen to go through distinct phases (just as we see Venus change phases). Earth is inside the orbit of Mars, and as the two planets travel around the Sun, sunlight would strike our home planet from different angles during the year. Earth phases can be seen in recent photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor and the European Mars Express.

31. What is the largest canyon?

The Grand Canyon is billed as the world's largest canyon system. Its main branch is 277 miles (446 kilometers) long. But let's compare. Valles Marineris on Mars extends for about 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers). If added it to a U.S. map, it would stretch from New York City to Los Angeles. In places this vast scar on the Martian surface is 5 miles (8 kilometers) deep.

32. What is the deepest canyon in the United States?

Over the eons, the Snake River dug Hell’s Canyon along the Oregon-Idaho border. It is more than 8,000 feet (2.4 kilometers) deep. In contrast, the Grand Canyon is less than 6,000 feet deep -- a bit more than a mile.

33. Is Earth the largest rocky planet in the solar system?

Just barely! Earth's diameter at the equator is 7,926 miles (12,756 kilometers). Venus is 7,521 miles (12,104 kilometers) wide. Mercury and Mars, the other two inner rocky planets, are much smaller. Pluto is rocky, too, but it's comparatively tiny (and some say it is not a planet at all).

34. How many of Earth’s volcanoes are known to have erupted in historic time?

About 540 volcanoes on land are known. No one knows how many undersea volcanoes have erupted through history.

35. Is air mostly oxygen?

Earth's atmosphere is actually about 80 percent nitrogen. Most of the rest is oxygen, with tiny amounts of other stuff thrown in.

Venus is almost as big as Earth. Despite sweltering heat at the surface, its clouds might support life, some scientists say.

36. What is the highest waterfall in the United States?

Yosemite Falls in California is 2,425 feet (739 meters).

37. What percentage of the world’s water is in the oceans?

About 97 percent. Oceans make up about two-thirds of Earth's surface, which means that when the next asteroid hits the planet, odds are good it will splash down.

38. Which two landmasses contain the vast majority of the Earth’s fresh water supply?

Nearly 70 percent of the Earth's fresh-water supply is locked up in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland. The remaining fresh-water supply exists in the atmosphere, streams, lakes, or groundwater and accounts for a mere 1 percent of the Earth's total.

39. Which of the Earth’s oceans is the largest?

The Pacific Ocean covers 64 million square miles (165 million square kilometers). It is more than two times the size of the Atlantic. It has an average depth of 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers).

40. Why is Earth mostly crater-free compared to the pockmarked Moon?

Earth is more active, in terms of both geology and weather. Much of our planet's geologic history was long ago folded back inside. Some of that is regurgitated by volcanoes, but the results are pretty hard to study. Even more recent events evident on the surface -- craters that can by millions of years old -- get overgrown by vegetation, weathered by wind and rain, and modified by earthquakes and landslides. The Moon, meanwhile, is geologically quiet and has almost no weather; its craters tell a billions-year-long tale of catastrophic collisions. Interestingly, some of the oldest Earth rocks might be awaiting discovery on the Moon, having been blasted there billions of years ago by the very asteroid impacts that rattle both worlds.

41. How much surface area does Earth contain?

There are 196,950,711 square miles (510,100,000 square kilometers)

One Billion Affected by Neurological Disorders Says WHO

A report released from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that neurological disorders, ranging from epilepsy to Alzheimer disease, from stroke to headache, affect up to one billion people worldwide. Neurological disorders also include brain injuries, neuroinfections, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson disease. The report, Neurological disorders: Public health challenges, reveals that of the one billion people affected worldwide, 50 million suffer from epilepsy and 24 million from Alzheimer and other dementias. Neurological disorders affect people in all countries, irrespective of age, sex, education or income. The report recommends a series of simple but effective actions. It argues for greater commitment from decision makers, increased social and professional awareness, strategies that address stigma and discrimination, national capacity building and international collaboration.

NOTE: This report specifically excludes psychiatric illnesses (follow link: What are neurological disorders) which would boost this number by another billion. This means that brain-related illnesses impact nearly 2 Billion people worldwide.

Brain-implant enables mind over matter

A man paralysed from the neck down by knife injuries sustained five years ago can now check his email, control a robot arm and even play computer games using the power of thought alone.

Matt Nagle's extraordinary abilities were first reported in March 2005. Now details of the technology that lets him perform these tasks are published in the journal Nature. Another study in the same issue reveals a technique that could dramatically improve the speed with which such implants work.

Electrodes implanted in Nagle's brain measure the neural signals generated when he concentrates on trying to move one of his paralysed limbs. Software trained to recognise different patterns of neural activity then translates imagined gestures into the movement of an on-screen cursor or a robotic arm at Nagle's side.

"The fundamental findings are that you can record activity from the brain years after injury, that thinking about movement is sufficient to activate the brain, and that we can decode the signal," says John Donoghue of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who led the work.

"Even though only one person was studied, the findings are impressive, especially as you can use the system while talking," says Maria Stokes a neurologist at the University of Southampton, UK.

Surgeons drilled a hole in Nagle's skull and inserted a pill-sized chip covered with 96 protruding electrodes into his motor cortex, an area at the centre of his brain that normally controls bodily movement. The operation carries the risk of infection and brain damage, an especially chilling prospect for someone already quadriplegic.

Billions of neurons

The motor cortex is made up of billions of neurons that constantly produce electrical signals, known as "spikes". Activity in different parts of the motor cortex was already known to correspond to different limbs, but Donoghue's team was able to identify signals related to different movements of the same limb.

To do this, they asked Nagle to imagine moving a limb and recorded the corresponding electrical signals. They found that the same small clusters of neurons produced different numbers of spikes when imagined moving a limb in different ways. For example, the same cluster might produce 15 spikes when he thought about moving the left arm to the left and only six when he thought about moving it to the right.

Donoghue's team built a list of spike patterns and corresponding movements. By automatically matching these together, a connected computer allows Nagle to control his computer or robot arm. The implant and computer were developed by a company set up by Donoghue himself, called Cyberkinetics, based in Massachusetts, US.

In the same issue of Nature, Krishna Shenoy and colleagues at Stanford University in California, US, report a way to dramatically boost the efficiency of brain implants in monkeys. Using software that predicts the monkey's intention from only the first few bursts of neural activity, the animals' implants were able to function four times faster than normal - a rate that could enable a paralysed person to type out 15 words per minute.

Electrical stimulations

If the same techniques work in people, Donoghue's ambitious approach may yet be perfected. Working with researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, US, he ultimately hopes to enable quadriplegics to control their own limbs via electrical stimulation of their muscles.

Nagle's implant can only sample a fraction of the relevant brain activity and for the moment the signal can be patchy. This causes the cursor or robotic arm Nagle is controlling to wobble, and can make even simple tasks like checking email frustrating.

Less invasive brain-computer interfaces exist, but offer less control. A group led by Benjamin Blankertz at the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, Germany, has developed a system that measures electrical activity via a skull cap lined with electrodes. While this lets users type at a speed of eight characters a minute, it cannot perform more complex tasks like manipulating a robotic arm.

Journal reference: (Nature: vol 442, p 164; p 195).

New challenges facing biotechnology

Biotechnology is a horizontal discipline and can be applied to the environment and the design and production of drugs and vaccines.
Biology in marriage with technology is called ‘bio-technology’ and includes disciplines like molecular modelling, genomic, bio-informatics bio-simulation, clinical information and many more. Biotechnology is a horizontal discipline and can be applied to the environment, the design and production of drugs and vaccines. Extending the reach biotechnology investigates into the improvement of varieties of plants.
PressuresAs of now biotech companies at the inception stage are confronted by pressures to minimise costs, increase productivity and maintain a high level of quality and regulatory compliance, it is imperative that it is backed with effective solutions in terms of Information Technology (IT) Today, technology has entered into an alliance with biology and is commonly called ‘bio-technology’. Biotechnology is considered a horizontal discipline and includes bioinformatics, molecular modelling, bio-simulation, clinical information and many more.The ultimate goal of this new and emerging field is to enable the discovery of new biological insights, and create a global perspective by unifying principles in biology that can be distinguished.Extending the reach, biotechnology contributes to the design and production of drugs, vaccines and has greatly led to advancements in agriculture, space technology, industrial, animal health, marine biotechnology, crime detection, anthropology, and bio-warfare. With the fusion of high-powered computing and biology, the field is so much in demand that it has created a huge scope for employment, more with establishment of R&D labs.Computer Science, Information Technology (IT) and Biology are merging into a single discipline, the dependency on IT in case of biological research areas like genetics, proteomics and molecular biology is fuelled by the great need for computational analysis.New challengesThe establishment of biotech R&D labs have thrown open new challenges and opportunities for IT applications. Harnessing the power of IT, researchers can collect, organise, store, interpret, share, and analyse biological data such as nucleic acid, protein sequences, structures, functions, pathways and interactions.Large servers are being deployed for solving large genome comparisons, bio-simulations, and molecular modelling problems.Take the case of data mining and visualisation software by which, scientists are able to screen data and identify important relationships and drug discovery is made faster leading to lower costs and faster Time to Deliver.IT majors like Sun, HP and IBM are already offering IT hardware and software solutions in the form of blade servers, grid computing solutions, storage solutions, high performance computing solutions, bundled with operating systems like Linux or Unix variants, supported with suitable customised software or user applications. Yet certain problems need addressing.Pharmaceutical and biotech researchers have to face the problem of bringing various data types together such as gene sequence data, gene expression data, protein structure data, and integrating the same data of the same type collected using different technologies and experimental protocols. A researcher cannot effectively mine data until it has been brought together under a common roof. The problem which needs addressing is - Data Integration making the process of matching data sources and finding common keys, making judgments of equivalency and semantic relationships, and finally using technology to implement those decisions.There is need for technical and computational standards (exclusive for biotech) in the case of hardware and software, however, the imperative challenge, faced by modern day researchers is that there is a demand and need for extensive integration of data and applications.Finally at the end of the day, it is the general public that will use the drugs. It is of paramount importance that the drugs are investigated and, therefore, that those in the biotech industry, ensure that all procedures carried out during the conduct of clinical studies meet the high quality process standards that will be expected.KADAMBAM DEEPAK

APPLICATIONS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
* Healthcare - Medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and gene therapy* Agriculture - Crossbreeding and hybridisation programmes to produce superior organisms for high quality products for human and commercial consumption and bio-pesticides.* Industrial - Developing advanced biocatalyst, renewable energy, industrial enzymes and green plastics.* Crime Detection - Centralised databases have facilitated quick identification of criminals through DNA fingerprinting and forensic testing.

Unlocking the secrets of addiction

Drugs and alcohol are stunningly effective ways to have a nice day. So why does the pursuit of pleasure end in chronic misery for an unfortunate few? Adam Dudding investigates the mysteries of addiction - and the pitfalls of going straight.

The crsip bite of that first sip from a bottle of cold lager; the warming bitterness of cigarette smoke drawn deep down into the lungs; the startling euphoria that follows smoking methamphetamine; the infinite relaxation as molecules of heroin hurtle through the bloodstream to latch on to opioid receptors deep in the brain - there are many reasons to take alcohol and other drugs, and they all come back to the fact that they make us feel so damn good.

The chemicals that prod our brains so pleasingly are very specific in their effects (would sir like the substance that makes him feel giggly or paranoid or trippy or philosophical or messianic or talkative or cuddly or sleepy or all of the above?) yet all the complex changes wrought by recreational drugs appear to have one thing in common: they ultimately mess with the part of our brain that evolved to reward us for developing useful habits such as eating, procreating and socialising.

Taking drugs is like sex without all the awkward getting-to-know-you stuff; eating without needing to hunt or gather; great times with friends even if you have no friends.

And for most people, most of the time, most of these drugs work just fine: you get the chemicals into your body somehow, then something very complicated happens to the dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain and the nucleus accumbens in the limbic forebrain (don't worry - that's the last time you'll see those words) and you feel great.

But in some unlucky souls, something goes wrong.

An alignment of genes and circumstance turn that tickle of the neurons into an itch that must be scratched.

Over a period of seconds or days or weeks or years, the brain function that evolved about 500 million years ago to help our ancestors survive is hijacked, and hey presto, an addict is born - someone who will sacrifice pretty much anything, including their life, just as long as they can keep on taking their drug of choice.

In any given year, an estimated 140,000 New Zealanders, 3.5 per cent of the population, will exhibit a "substance abuse disorder" (ie, alcohol or drugs are stuffing up their life), and 13 per cent of us will have a problem over our lifetime.

Newspapers would be many pages thinner if all stories ultimately related to substance abuse and addiction were left out: the road deaths, the violence and crime, the accidents and illness, the falls from grace, the celebrity scandals.

This won't change soon. The government spends $85 million a year on alcohol and drug treatment, reaching just 19,000 people.

Most addicts seeking abstinence will relapse several times.

Some alcoholics stop drinking only to get hooked on another substance, or start gambling compulsively instead.

The glimmer of good news is that many substance abusers outgrow their youthful idiocy, but fewer than one in 10 true addicts will experience total recovery and abstinence, which is why public health policy is directed towards harm minimisation (a philosophy that at its most despairing might suggest an alcoholic takes taxis to and from the pub rather than drive drunk).

The outlook, frankly, sucks.

So why does the simple pursuit of pleasure sometimes erode into chronic misery?

Alex*, A 33-year-old Aucklander working in the media, believes his alcoholism was inevitable.

When he first tasted wine at the age of 10 (followed immediately by the entire bottle, then copious vomiting), it immediately felt right.

"It was like a big weight being lifted off my shoulders."

Alex says he was acting like a classic alcoholic even before that: "Feeling like I didn't fit in anywhere, obsessive behaviour, inflated ego, being controlling, being charming in order to manipulate."

All this at 10?

"Definitely."

Within 18 months, Alex was raiding his parents' alcohol supplies.

Inspired by a school chemistry lesson, he created a crude still to turn a mix of vodka, whiskey and gin into a potent substance tasting like soap and petrol.

His friends gagged, but he chugged through the lot, often on his own.

For the next 20 years, Alex drank constantly, though he developed a successful career.

He also consumed vast quantities of magic mushrooms, smoked heroin for three years in his early 20s, routinely used ecstasy, and smoked cannabis for several years.

Alcohol was his passion, though.

His drinking was nothing like that of his friends, even those who also drank hard.

"A thing that sticks in my mind was turning to a mate of mine in my 20s and saying `I f***ing hate alcohol'. And he said `I f***ing love it'.

"I was amazed to find out that when normal people take a drink they start to feel out of control.

I always felt I was gaining control when I drank - until I'd have a blackout, or freak out, or attack someone."

Scientists believe 30 per cent to 60 per cent of an individual's vulnerability to addiction can be attributed to genetic factors (other critical factors include early traumatic life events, peer influences in adolescence, low socio- economic status, lack of parental support, prevailing social attitudes, cost of the substance and, crucially, its availability).

Both of Alex's grandfathers were alcoholics; perhaps he was doomed to drink. But how exactly could Alex's DNA control his repeated decisions to reach for a bottle, even after his realisation, at the age of 24, that he had a problem?

Around 100 different genes have been implicated in addiction, and the ways they hustle an addict along the journey from use to abuse to physical and psychological dependence are fiendish in their complexity and subtlety, and understanding of their effects is far from complete.

Several of those genes, though, are also associated with reduced moderation of impulsivity (did this make it easier for Alex to take that first glug?).

Others are connected to novelty seeking and risk- taking - just the recipe for experimental puffing, pill-popping and drinking, and yet another is associated with compulsive behaviour ("I really hated it but couldn't stop," says Alex).

But genes on their own won't make an addict. The drug itself has to do some of the work.

The two most obvious physical effects of drug dependence are the development of tolerance (needing more and more to get the same effect) and withdrawal (you feel crap when denied a top-up).

Meanwhile, parts of the brain that control impulsivity and compulsivity are eroded by chronic use (ie, "just saying no" becomes a virtual impossibility).

It's a vicious combination of effects, but it gets worse.

Tolerance and withdrawal will fade once a user is on the wagon, but nothing can reverse other, long-term changes to an addict's brain: receptors to certain neurotransmitters remain sensitised forever, which explains why so many alcoholics fall off the wagon after years, even decades, after their last drink.

Alex hasn't had a drink for nine months, ever since a series of personal crises that culminated in a suicide attempt, a 76-hour alcohol detox in an Auckland hospital, a quick succession of drinking binges, then enrolling with an intensive outpatient course through Auckland's Community Alcohol and Drugs Service.

He has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings ever since.

His cravings for alcohol still get particularly strong when dealing with something emotional.

"When a friend I was very close to said she was moving away recently, I left work and sat outside a bottle shop for 10 minutes at 2pm, in the middle of my workday."

Just driving past a bottle shop makes the thought of drinking "ping" into his mind.

Without AA, says Alex, he wouldn't be able to resist the cravings.

Doesn't all this suggest that, for all the science describing addiction as a disease involving neurotransmitters and genetics, the solution to addiction is willpower?

Hasn't Alex simply decided to get his act together where in the past he was too weak?

Not at all, says Doug Sellman, director of the National Addiction Centre in Christchurch.

The biggest misconception, says Sellman, is that addicts "have only themselves to blame and if they weren't so weak they'd be able to recover, and that it's an issue of free will, rather than being viewed as the neurological disorder it undoubtedly is.

No one starts out to become an addict."

For now, says Sellman, the most effective therapies are three psychological treatments: cognitive behavioural therapy, 12-step facilitation therapy (as used by AA), and motivational enhancement therapy.

Addicts who don't accept they have a problem have no chance, but even once they do, from there it's a long, painful journey, with plenty of opportunities to go off course.

But if the secrets of addiction are all about brain chemistry, shouldn't there be a miracle pill to cure it?

Some drugs are already being used with good results, although always in conjunction with psychological therapy.

Treatment of opiate addictions (heroin and morphine) has been greatly aided by the use of methadone to prevent physical withdrawal; Valium is routinely used to help alcoholics dry out safely.

Indeed, one of the reasons addiction to stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine (P) are particularly tough is that there are not yet equivalent substances that can act as a replacements.

(Bruce Russell, senior lecturer in Pharmacotherapy at Auckland University says some GPs advise methamphetamine-addicted patients to double their consumption of coffee and cigarettes, as those "safer" stimulants can reduce cravings.)

Naltrexone, which is available but seldom used in New Zealand, has been shown to reduce cravings in alcoholics, and Sellman points to international testing of substances with such exotic names as Buprenorphine (for opioids), Varnicline (for nicotine) and Rimonabant (for overeating).

Overeating? Where did that one come from?

It seems the use of the word "addiction" to describe out-of-control versions of normal behaviours is more than just a drug company plot to define everything as a disease.

Studies show people "addicted" to sex, gambling, work or excessive eating are in fact caught up in similar brain-chemistry binds as their cousin alcoholics and junkies, dopaminergic neurons and all.

The convergence of every disease of overconsumption in one part of the brain holds out the tantalising prospect of an uber-pill that might cure everything, but no one expects that any time soon.

For Alex, AA's 12 steps are keeping him together.

Given his extraordinary thirst (and the fact that drinking has almost killed him) he believes abstinence is his only hope.

Buying drink and drugs has cost him $200,000 over the past 20 years, and it would have been much more if he hadn't always bought "horrible bargain bin white wine and cider".

Worse, it has cost him a lifetime of relationships. "All my friendships have ended either because I've sabotaged them or I've had a blackout, or I've tried to crash their car, or offended all their friends.

Just dickhead behaviour.

"I feel terrible about everything I've done to people and I've got to make amends.

I've only done about three people so far on a list of about 30."

He plans to be one of that small percentage of drinkers who get on the wagon and never fall off.

"I was mentally disabled for 20 years, is the way I've come to think of it.

But now I feel overwhelmingly happy at being able to live life like everyone else."

* Alex's name, and some identifying details, have been changed.

Stuff NZ

The Change of Jupiter’s Stripes

American scientist reported, Jupiter’s cloud patterns are undergoing dramatic changes. Hubble Space Telescope had revealed the new images. This images show a very detail change that never been explained.

Hubble has been keeping an eye on Jupiter to provide context for close-up observations made by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which flew by the solar system’s largest planet in February on its way to Pluto. In January, some changes were already eviden. Jupiter, the giant planet became observable again after a period when it was too close to the Sun in the sky for Hubble to image. Cloud bands around its equator that had been whitish for the past 15 years or so were noticeably darker, at that time.

Amy Simon-Miller, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, US, says that between 25 March and 5 June, a white band in the planet’s northern hemisphere turned brown, while a gap in the cloud layer produced a serpent-shaped dark streak in the same area. Now, the white bands in the southern hemisphere seem to be changing colour. This is much better than the image before (1980s and early 1990), where similar transformations happened.
The reason why the transformation happened, are not clear enough. Scientist still have no idea, what drives the white clouds that made ammonia ice. They just thougt that the white clouds to be higher up in the planet’s atmosphere than darker cloud. On the other hand, what gives the lower-altitude brownish clouds their distinctive colour is not clear. They though, that is one of the biggest mysteries about Jupiter.

That was the first time that they really have a complete set of data. They have a great expectation that they can figure out what’s going on by the new observations. “This is the key”, Miller says.

First Computer Ever Made

Scientists have finally demystified the incredible workings of a 2,000-year-old astronomical calculator built by ancient Greeks. A new analysis of the Antikythera Mechanism, a clock-like machine consisting of more than 30 precise, hand-cut bronze gears, show it to be more advanced than previously thought - so much so that nothing comparable was built for another thousand years. "This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind," said study leader Mike Edmunds of Cardiff University in the UK. "The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right ... In terms of historical and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa." If the sharp-sightedness of the Greeks had kept pace with their intelligence, then maybe even the Industrial Revolution had begun one thousand years before Columbus. And so, in our era, we would not just try to visit the Moon, but we would already have arrived on other close planets. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, English author and inventor