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The discovery by researchers on the University of South Florida College of Marine Science’s Weatherbird II vessel is the second significant undersea plume recorded since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

The thick plume was detected just beneath the surface down to about 3,300 feet (1,000 meters), and is more than 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) wide, said David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography at the school.

Hollander said the team detected the thickest amount of hydrocarbons, likely from the oil spewing from the blown out well, at about 1,300 feet (nearly 400 meters) in the same spot on two separate days this week.

The discovery was important, he said, because it confirmed that the substance found in the water was not naturally occurring and that the plume was at its highest concentration in deeper waters. The researchers will use further testing to determine whether the hydrocarbons they found are the result of dispersants or the emulsification of oil as it traveled away from the well.

The first such plume detected by scientists stretched from the well southwest toward the open sea, but this new undersea oil cloud is headed miles inland into shallower waters where many fish and other species reproduce.

The researchers say they are worried these undersea plumes may be the result of the unprecedented use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil a mile undersea at the site of the leak.

Hollander said the oil they detected has dissolved into the water, and is no longer visible, leading to fears from researchers that the toxicity from the oil and dispersants could pose a big danger to fish larvae and creatures that filter the waters for food.

“There are two elements to it,” Hollander said. “The plume reaching waters on the continental shelf could have a toxic effect on fish larvae, and we also may see a long term response as it cascades up the food web.”

Dispersants contain surfactants, which are similar to dishwashing soap.

A Louisiana State University researcher who has studied their effects on marine life said that by breaking oil into small particles, surfactants make it easier for fish and other animals to soak up the oil’s toxic chemicals. That can impair the animals’ immune systems and cause reproductive problems.

Ash plumes directly over erupting volcanoes have been known to generate lightning, and electrically charged ash has been found in previous plumes up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) from their source volcanoes.

But according to a new study, electric ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano was found a record 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) away from the eruption.

At that distance, it wasn’t energy from the eruption itself that charged the ash, said study co-author Giles Harrison, a meteorologist at the University of Reading in the U.K. Based on the average size and shape of particles in the ash, “any initial charging that occurred would have decayed away many times over.”

In fact, ash from deep in the volcanic plume was still charged 32 hours after being spewed from the Iceland peak, which suggests that the charge was self-renewing, the scientists say.

The discovery means that many volcanic ash plumes might be electrified, which could have implications for the air-travel industry.

Electric Ash Deep in Volcanic Plume

The Eyjafjallajökull volcano started erupting in late March, and on April 14 the volcano began belching out a gigantic plume of ash.

The plume traveled to continental Europe, grounding flights around the world for days, due to fears of ash clogging plane engines.

As the plume drifted over Scotland, Harrison and colleagues rushed to the western port city of Stranraer (map), where the 1,970-foot-thick (600-meter-thick) layer of ash loomed about two and a half miles (four kilometers) above.

The team launched a custom weather balloon outfitted with instruments to gauge the size and characteristics of atmospheric ash particles.

Even in fair weather, a very small electric field is present in Earth’s atmosphere. This field can charge airborne particles and the edges of clouds, Harrison said.

But the electric volcanic ash was found in the middle of the thick plume, not on its edges. That would seem to rule out atmospheric electricity and normal weather activity as sources of the charge.

“There has to be something related to the particles themselves, because the charge is in proportion to where the particles are and how many there are,” Harrison said. “But we really can’t say any more than that.”

Prior research done with weather balloons had shown that desert dust storms can become electrified through a process of particle collision that is not yet completely understood. The same phenomenon may be at work with volcanic ash, the scientists suggest.

How Electric Ash Affects Flights

Electrified ash could theoretically pose a risk to air traffic, because charged particles might interfere with radio transmissions, the study authors say. Also, if charged ash penetrates an aircraft cabin, it could create an electrostatic hazard to passengers and internal systems.

But Harrison noted that aircraft are built to withstand lightning strikes, which carry comparatively massive charges, so the risks from electricity in ash seem small. (Related: “Gamma Rays a Flight Risk?”)

In fact, Harrison noted, the discovery of electric ash could be a boon to air travelers, because the charge can help scientists better predict a volcanic ash plume’s movements.

Electric charges are fairly easy to observe with existing instruments, so a charged plume should be easier to track, even after the visible plume has largely dispersed.

Scientists also know how charges affect the way particles combine—which impacts their weight and thus their movements—and how easily particles are washed out of the sky by rainfall.

The 193rd Special Operations Wing operates a fleet of three of these EC-130J aircraft, cargo haulers that have been converted into flying radio and television stations. These “psychological operations” aircraft can broadcast their own signal over AM and FM radio, UHF and VHF television bands – or override broadcast stations on the ground, something they apparently did during operations in Bosnia and Iraq.

I recently accompanied a Commando Solo crew on a training mission. It was an unusual opportunity to see the crew at work testing their radio and television equipment at full power. This was an opportunity for what the crew calls “200 mile work”: In order to avoid interference with domestic frequencies — the aircraft can crank up to 1,000 watts of effective radiated power — the aircraft flies over 200 miles off the East Coast.

Once we’re safely out over the Atlantic, says Weapons Systems Officer Lt. Col. Mike Rice, “it’s game on.”

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The X-51A Waverider was released from a B-52 Stratofortress off the southern California coast Wednesday morning, the Air Force reported on its website. Its scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to Mach 6, and it flew autonomously for 200 seconds before losing acceleration. At that point the test was terminated.

The Air Force said the previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was 12 seconds.

“We are ecstatic to have accomplished many of the X-51A test points during its first hypersonic mission,” said Charlie Brink, an X-51A program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Nope. Rep. Kind of Wisconsin has introduced legislation that he proudly proclaims will track the body mass index (BMI) of your child from age 2-18:

A bill introduced this month in Congress would put the federal and state governments in the business of tracking how fat, or skinny, American children are. States receiving federal grants provided for in the bill would be required to annually track the Body Mass Index of all children ages 2 through 18. The grant-receiving states would be required to mandate that all health care providers in the state determine the Body Mass Index of all their patients in the 2-to-18 age bracket and then report that information to the state government. The state government, in turn, would be required to report the information to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for analysis.

The Healthy Choices Act–introduced by Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee–would establish and fund a wide range of programs and regulations aimed at reducing obesity rates by such means as putting nutritional labels on the front of food products, subsidizing businesses that provide fresh fruits and vegetables, and collecting BMI measurements of patients and counseling those that are overweight or obese.

IBM has filed a patent application that outlines a system that would turn the motors of a car off at a traffic light to conserve fuel. Few will take issue with green technology that conserves fuel, saves them money, and reduces pollution. However, there is a dark side to the patent application that privacy advocates will not like.

Transocean, according to the letter from the senators, plans to distribute dividends to its stockholders. And the senators are concerned that the payments might make it harder to collect liability payouts related to the massive oil spill.

A clause buried deep in the U.S. Clean Water Act may expose BP and others to civil fines that aren’t limited to any finite cap — unlike a $75 million limit on compensation for economic damages. The Act allows the government to seek civil penalties in court for every drop of oil that spills into U.S. navigable waters, including the area of BP’s leaking well.

As a result, the U.S. government could seek to fine BP or others up to $4,300 for every barrel leaked into the U.S. Gulf, according to legal experts and official documents.

So far, analysts and experts calculating potential oil spill liabilities have mostly concentrated on the cost of the clean-up and compensation for economic damages to affected parties. Some have also discussed criminal liabilities.

But the potential for civil fines has received scant attention — and they could add up very quickly, depending on how agressive the U.S. government is in pursuing them.

The threat of hefty fines underscores the importance of quantifying how much oil is pouring into the Gulf. As BP seeks to staunch the leak that has now been gushing for at least 33 days, it has estimated a spill rate of 5,000 barrels per day. But some experts say the volume — and hence the fines — could be more than 10 times higher.

The little-known, seldom applied clause in the Clean Water Act was added in 1990 after the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, and was intended to beef up the arsenal of penalties the government can apply to oil spillers to deter future disasters.

“These civil penalties could be staggeringly high, possibly running into the billions,” said Professor David Uhlmann, director of the Environmental Law program at University of Michigan.

Total liability — including civil fines as well as the cost of clean-up, economic damages and potential criminal liability — “will run into the billions and may be in the tens of billions,” Uhlmann said.