A massive solar flare — the strongest one so far this year — erupted today (Jan. 27) from the same active region of the sun that triggered a raging solar tempest earlier this week.

The solar flare was rated an X1.7-class eruption, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). X-class flares are the most powerful type of solar storm, with M-class storms falling within the mid-range, and C-class flares being the weakest.

Several spacecraft, including NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Solar Heliospheric Observatory, observed the solar eruption, which occurred at 1:37 p.m. EST (1837 GMT). The flare unleashed a wave of charged particles, called a coronal mass ejection, but space weather experts said it was not aimed at Earth.

@ SPACE.com

Microscopic plastic debris from washing clothes is accumulating in the marine environment and could be entering the food chain, a study has warned.

Researchers traced the “microplastic” back to synthetic clothes, which released up to 1,900 tiny fibres per garment every time they were washed.

Earlier research showed plastic smaller than 1mm were being eaten by animals and getting into the food chain.

The findings appeared in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

“Research we had done before… showed that when we looked at all the bits of plastic in the environment, about 80% was made up from smaller bits of plastic,” said co-author Mark Browne, an ecologist now based at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“This really led us to the idea of what sorts of plastic are there and where did they come from.”

Dr Browne, a member of the US-based research network National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, said the tiny plastic was a concern because evidence showed that it was making its way into the food chain.

@ THE BBC

As expected, a CME hit Earth’s magnetic field on Jan. 24th at approximately 1500 UT (10 am EST). The impact produced a G1-class geomagnetic storm and bright auroras around the Arctic Circle. As the storm crested, Göran Strand of Östersund, Sweden, took a panoramic photo and wrapped it 360-degrees to create this composition, which he calls Planet Aurora (above).

Even veteran aurora watchers were impressed. “This was one of the best Northern Lights displays that I’ve ever seen, and I mean ever in over 5000 hours on the ice,” says Andy Keen of Inari, Finland. “It was, in short, truly spectacular and something that will live with me for a lifetime.” In the Abisko National Park of Sweden, aurora tour guide Chad Blakely contributed a similar report: “Eight tourists and I were treated to one of the most wonderful displays I have ever seen. The auroras began as we were eating dinner and continued into the very early hours of the morning. Words can not describe the excitement we shared.”

The storm subsided as it crossed the Atlantic and petered out almost completely by the time it reached North America. Only observers in Scandinavia, Iceland and Greenland witnessed the full display.

@ SPACEWEATHER

U.S. President Barack Obama used his last State of the Union speech before the November election to paint himself as the champion of the middle class, by demanding higher taxes for millionaires and tight reins on Wall Street.

Taking advantage of the huge national platform of his annual speech to Congress, Obama defiantly defended his record after three years in office and laid blame for many of the country’s woes at the feet of banks and an out-of-touch Congress.

He proposed sweeping changes in the tax code and new remedies for the U.S. housing crisis as he made the case for reducing income inequality in America.

While the biggest proposals in Obama’s election-year speech are considered unlikely to gain traction in a divided Congress, the White House believes the president can tap into voters’ resentment over the financial industry’s abuses and Washington’s dysfunction.

But even as he called for a “return to American values of fair play and shared responsibility,” Obama seemed to take no blame on himself for a fragile economy and high unemployment that could trip up his re-election bid.

Instead he launched a highly partisan attack over taxes, the most divisive issue at the heart of this year’s presidential campaign, and said: “I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules.”

“Washington should stop subsiding millionaires,” Obama declared as he proposed a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate on those who earn a million dollars or more.

@ REUTERS

After I first learned about prime numbers as a kidlet, I became quite fond of them — a fondness that continues to this day, although I cannot explain why they are so appealing. But even amongst those special numbers that are prime, there is another, much smaller, group of numbers; the Mersenne prime numbers.

Named for Marin Mersenne, the French monk who began to study these numbers in the early 17th century, a Mersenne number (M) is defined as a positive prime integer (p) that is one less than a power of two:

for example;

M2 = 22 = 4 – 1 = 3

which is the smallest of the Mersenne primes. The next Mersenne prime is M3 = 7 and the third smallest Mersenne prime is M5 = 31.

Currently, only 47 Mersenne primes have been identified, and in fact, the largest known prime number, 2243,112,609 – 1, is a Mersenne prime. You’ll forgive me if I don’t write this number out for you, because this prime number is the first discovered to have more than 10 million base-10 digits.

@ THE GUARDIAN

The New Year is always an important holiday in Japan and other East Asian nations. Christmas is celebrated in Japan in much the same way it is in the West, but “New Years” is by far the more significant holiday. Before the Meiji Restoration, the New Year was celebrated according to the Chinese lunar calendar (January 23 for the year 2012). These days, though the calendar still has great influence on festivals and celebrations, the Gregorian calendar change is celebrated by most people as the “official” New Year.

In Japan, people busily prepare for the New Year by cleaning house and buying/cooking food (osechi) to welcome the “god of new life”. At this time, the Post Office is flooded by New Years’ cards which each person sends to friends, relatives, and associates. Rail and air terminals are jammed with people trying to get back to their home towns to spend the New Year’s “night” and “daybreak” with their relatives.

Japanese express wishes for the New Year by saying “Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!” (pronounced ah-keh-mah-shteh oh-meh-deh-toe go-zah-ee-mahss). Only one Kanji (Chinese character) is found in this phrase (within the first word). This Kanji is a combination of the characters for sun and moon, and among other ancient meanings, it has to do with the sun and the moon getting together and becoming “bright”. It entails “changing” and “opening”… “dawning”…

Year of the Dragon

Long before the Occupy movement swept the country—over two years ago—a political revolt began in one of the reddest states in America. Farmers and ranchers in Nebraska, many of whom are long-time conservatives, got angry about the amount of corporate influence in a single political issue that has since captivated the entire state and upset federal politics: the Keystone XL pipeline.

Today, the Obama administration announced that it is rejecting the project—which would have carried tar-sands petroleum from Alberta across Nebraska and five other states to the Gulf of Mexico, where it would have been refined and likely shipped overseas. The rejection is a major victory for the environmental movement, which staged a series of protests against the pipeline last fall. The decision comes after months of political ping-pong. The State Department announced this past November that the administration would delay the decision until after the 2012 election. Then in December, Congressional Republicans attached a mandate to the payroll tax cut extension that forced Obama to make his decision about the pipeline by February of this year. Currently, some members of Congress are crafting legislation that would override Obama’s ruling on Keystone XL, though no bill has yet been introduced. But within Nebraska, the pipeline has been about more than partisan squabbling: public sentiment stirred by the pipeline has the potential to remake state politics.

Like the Occupy movement, Nebraska’s pipeline revolt has raised the level of conversation about clean government and the role of corporate money—almost to a fever pitch. For the last several months, the pipeline has transcended the culture war and become an issue big enough to motivate Republicans at the grassroots to make friends with liberals and “treehuggers.” In Nebraska, the Keystone XL fight has opened a new sense of possibility that a few citizens with little money could wield collective political influence.

@ THE NATION

H1N1

In a letter published in the journals Nature and Science on Friday, 39 scientists defended the research as crucial to public health efforts, including surveillance programs to detect when the H5N1 influenza virus might mutate and spark a pandemic.

But they are bowing to fear that has become widespread since media reports discussed the studies in December that the engineered viruses “may escape from the laboratories” — not unlike the frightful scenario in the 1971 science fiction movie “The Andromeda Strain” — or possibly be used to create a bioterror weapon.

Among the scientists who signed the letter were leaders of the two teams that have spearheaded the research, at Erasmus Medical College in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, as well as influenza experts at institutions ranging from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the University of Hong Kong.

@ REUTERS