Huge Meteorite Impact Found In UK -- Britain's Largest

Evidence of the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles has been found by scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of Aberdeen. The scientists believe that a large meteorite hit northwest Scotland about 1.2 billion years ago near the Scottish town of Ullapool.

Previously it was thought that unusual rock formations in the area had been formed by volcanic activity. But the team report in the journal Geology that they found evidence buried in a layer of rock which they now believe is the ejected material thrown out during the formation of a meteorite crater. Ejected material from the huge meteorite strike is scattered over an area about 50 kilometres across, roughly centred on the northern Scottish town of Ullapool.

Ken Amor of Oxford University’s Department of Earth Sciences, co-author on the Geology paper, said: ‘Chemical testing of the rocks found the characteristic signature of meteoritic material, which has high levels of the key element iridium, normally only found in low concentrations in surface rocks on Earth. We found more evidence when we examined the rocks under a microscope; tell-tale microscopic parallel fractures that also imply a meteorite strike.’

The proposed volcanic origin for the rock formations has always been a puzzle as there are no volcanic vents or other volcanic sediments nearby. Scientists took samples from the formations during fieldwork in 2006 and have just had their findings published.

Professor John Parnell, Head of Geology & Petroleum Geology at the University of Aberdeen, also a co-author on the paper, said: ‘These rocks are superbly displayed on the west coast of Scotland, and visited by numerous student parties each year. We’re very lucky to have them available for study, as they can tell us much about how planetary surfaces, including Mars, become modified by large meteorite strikes. Building up the evidence has been painstaking, but has resulted in proof of the largest meteorite strike known in the British Isles.’

‘If there had been human observers in Scotland 1.2 billion years ago they would have seen quite a show,’ commented Oxford University’s Ken Amor. ‘The massive impact would have melted rocks and thrown up an enormous cloud of vapour that scattered material over a large part of the region around Ullapool. The crater was rapidly buried by sandstone which helped to preserve the evidence.’

Scott Thackrey, a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen, and also co-author of the paper, said: ‘The type of ejected deposit discovered in North West Scotland is only observed on planets and satellites that possess a volatile rich subsurface, for example, Venus, Mars and Earth. Due to the rare nature of these deposits, each new discovery provides revelations in terms of the atmospheric and surface processes that occur round craters just after impact.’

Since the formation of the solar system leftover space material has collided regularly with the Earth and other planets. Some of these impacts are large enough to leave craters, and there are about 174 known craters or their remnants on Earth.

Oxford’s Ken Amor said: ‘This is the most spectacular evidence for a meteorite impact within the British Isles found to date, and what we have discovered about this meteorite strike could help us to understand the ancient impacts that shaped the surface of other planets, such as Mars.’

Cooperative Classrooms Lead To Better Friendships, Higher Achievement In Young Adolescents

Students competing for resources in the classroom while discounting each others' success are less likely to earn top grades than students who work together toward goals and share their success, according to an analysis of 80 years of research.

Competitive environments can disrupt children's ability to form social relationships, which in turn may hurt their academic potential, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Cary J. Roseth, PhD, David W. Johnson, PhD, and Roger T. Johnson, PhD, reviewed the last eight decades of research on how social relationships affect individual behavior and achievement.

The researchers examined 148 studies that compared the effects of cooperative, competitive and individualistic goals on early achievement and peer relationships among 12- to 15-year-olds. The studies included more than 17,000 adolescents from 11 countries and used four multinational samples. No one was excluded from the analysis because of gender, nationality, or academic or physical ability.

According to the studies, adolescents in classrooms that supported cooperative learning -- studying together to complete a project or prepare for an exam -- got along better with their peers, were more accurate on academic tests and achieved higher scores on problem-solving, reasoning and critical thinking tasks compared to adolescents who were in classrooms geared toward competitive learning -- studying alone knowing that success would mean only one winner and plenty of losers.

Cooperative learning encouraged students to work together toward a goal by helping each other on tasks, sharing resources and information and trusting each others' actions. This led to shared rewards.

Students in classrooms that supported individual learning studied alone or with very little interaction and were evaluated by a set of criteria that didn't involve any comparison with others. Such an atmosphere did not affect friendships but the students had poorer academic outcomes than students in classrooms where teamwork was the norm.

Students who were in classrooms that focused on reaching goals in a competitive fashion, such as obstructing others' efforts, hiding resources and information and acting distrustful, had less social interaction, poorer friendships and lower achievement scores, according to the review. No differences were found between students who were in either competitive or individualistic environments on achievement measures or peer relationships.

The findings suggest that when teachers structured their classrooms more cooperatively, students felt more support and connection with their peers, had better success on academic tests and tasks, and sustained higher levels of achievement because of the better peer relations, said Roseth, the lead author.

"We know how crucial it is to keep young adolescents engaged in school and see this as an important finding for middle school educators," said Roseth. "When teachers set up their classrooms in a cooperative way, both social and academic goals are met simultaneously. Students can interact, which is naturally what they want to do at this age, while also working on assignments together."

This may also hold true for the adult worker whose organization supports cooperative interactions, Roseth said. "Some research has shown that high performing teams that cared about each other or had individuals who felt they had a good friend among them in business and industry succeeded in being more productive and effective."

Fastest Industrial Robot On The Market

ScienceDaily (May 8, 2007) — Researchers from CNRS and the Spanish foundation Fatronik have designed a manipulator-type robot that is twice as fast as all existing robots. To achieve this feat, which has not gone unnoticed by industry, they have worked on optimizing both the shape of the robot and its control system. The robot, baptized Adept Quattro from the name of its manufacturer and because of its four arms, has just been launched on the market. Several hundred orders have already been placed, among others, by the food processing, health and beauty industries.The LIRMM (Montpellier Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics, and Microelectronics, CNRS/Université Montpellier 2) has worked for many years on the creation of prototypes in the field of parallel robots. These manipulator robots comprise several “arms” or kinematic chains linking their base to their mobile parts. They are employed in various industries to handle small objects on production lines.

Over the last six years, the LIRMM has teamed up with the Fundación Fatronik, an applied research centre in the Spanish Basque Country, to design and control manipulator robots. The researchers have come up with a solution that is both innovative and compatible with the constraints of industry. Innovative by the general shape of the robot: it has four robotic arms with different ergonomics to those of a conventional single robotic arm and more similar to a human arm.

The researchers particularly focused on design calculations to optimize the dimensions of each component in order to obtain maximum acceleration. Their solution meets the constraints of industry thanks to the robot's control system, which limits vibrations and, consequently, the time required by the robot to set down a part at a precise spot. The result is a prototype that can handle 240 parts a minute and attain accelerations of 200 meters per square second with loads of two kilograms, compared to 100 meters per square second and one kilogram for current robots.

Thanks to this performance, the LIRMM prototype has convinced Adept, one of the world leaders in robotics, to produce the robot on an industrial scale. Over the last six months researchers and industrialists have worked on this transfer of technology, leading to the robot's market launch. Baptized Adept Quattro, it is targeted for all applications where objects need to be moved and packaged, particularly in industries such as food processing, health, beauty, electronics, etc. Several hundred orders have already been placed for the robots, which cost between 30,000 and 50,000 Euros each, depending on the amount of integration work that needs to be carried out in the industrial installation.