Science & TechnologyS


Meteor

Asteroid Lutetia... A Piece Of Earth?

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© ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDAThis image of the unusual asteroid Lutetia was taken by ESA’s Rosetta probe during its closest approach in July 2010. Lutetia, which is about 100 kilometres across, seems to be a leftover fragment of the same original material that formed the Earth, Venus and Mercury. It is now part of the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but its composition suggests that it was originally much closer to the Sun. Credit:
According to data received from ESA's Rosetta spacecraft, ESO's New Technology Telescope, and NASA telescopes, strange asteroid Lutetia could be a real piece of the rock... the original material that formed the Earth, Venus and Mercury! By examining precious meteors which may have formed at the time of the inner Solar System, scientists have found matching properties which indicate a relationship. Independent Lutetia must have just moved its way out to join in the main asteroid belt...

A team of astronomers from French and North American universities have been hard at work studying asteroid Lutetia spectroscopically. Data sets from the OSIRIS camera on ESA's Rosetta spacecraft, ESO's New Technology Telescope (NTT) at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, and NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii and Spitzer Space Telescope have been combined to give us a multi-wavelength look at this very different space rock. What they found was a very specific type of meteorite called an enstatite chondrite displayed similar content which matched Lutetia... and what is theorized as the material which dates back to the early Solar System. Chances are very good that enstatite chondrites are the same "stuff" which formed the rocky planets - Earth, Mars and Venus.

"But how did Lutetia escape from the inner Solar System and reach the main asteroid belt?" asks Pierre Vernazza (ESO), the lead author of the paper.

Telescope

Fresh Start: Scientists Glimpse Unsullied Traces of the Infant Universe

earliest gases universe
© Simulation by Ceverino, Dekel and PrimackUnsullied Strands: In this simulation image, strands of gas connect to a developing galaxy. The newfound gas clouds could occur in a filament around such a galaxy.
For the first time, astronomers discover pockets of pristine gas formed in the universe's first few minutes

By peering into the distance with the biggest and best telescopes in the world, astronomers have managed to glimpse exploding stars, galaxies and other glowing cosmic beacons as they appeared just hundreds of millions of years after the big bang. They are so far away that their light is only now reaching Earth, even though it was emitted more than 13 billion years ago.

Astronomers have been able to identify those objects in the early universe because their bright glow has remained visible even after a long, universe-spanning journey. But spotting the raw materials from which the first cosmic structures formed - the gas produced as the infant universe expanded and cooled in the first few minutes after the big bang - has not been possible. That material is not itself luminous, and everywhere astronomers have looked they have found not the primordial light-element gases hydrogen, helium and lithium from the big bang but rather material polluted by heavier elements, which form only in stellar interiors and in cataclysms such as supernovae.

Eye 1

Whether We Know It Or Not, We Can "See" Through One Eye At A Time

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© Unknown
Although portions of the visible world come in through one eye only, the brain instantaneously takes all that information and creates a coherent image. As far as we know, we "see" with both eyes at once. Now a new study suggests that the brain may know which eye is receiving information - and can turn around and tell that eye to work even harder.

"We have demonstrated for the first time that you can pay attention through one eye, even when you have no idea where the image is coming from," says Peng Zhang, who conducted the study with University of Minnesota colleagues Yi Jiang and Sheng He. And the harder that eye is working - the heavier the "informational load" - the more effectively still that eye can attend to its object. The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

Info

How Old is the Earth's Inner Core? Tech Researcher Weighs in with New Evidence

Earth's Inner Core
© MTUResearch by Assistant Professor Aleksey Smirnov and colleagues from University of Rochester indicates that the earth's inner core is much older than we thought.

Another discovery by a Michigan Technological University researcher could send shockwaves across the world of earth science.

Aleksey Smirnov, assistant professor of geophysics, with colleagues from the University of Rochester and Yale University, has discovered that the earth's inner core could actually be at least 1.2 billion years older than previously thought.

"It's a big deal to researchers in this basic science who thought the earth's core was much younger, so to speak," Smirnov says of his paper in the journal Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors. "They won't be happy with it."

Previously, Smirnov helped solve the mystery of how Siberian "traps" - large-scale basaltic formations - were formed, also a controversial finding.

Smirnov uses paleomagnetic data to do his research, measuring the magnetic fields in the oldest rocks on earth. By doing so with samplings from around the globe, he was able to estimate the age of the inner core, which he claims is also related to the start of plate tectonics.

Beaker

Texas Scientists Develop Nontoxic Flame-Resistant Clothing Using Water-Based Polymers

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Parents who worry about toxic chemicals in nonflammable children's clothing can soon breathe a sigh of relief. Using a technology that protects skyscrapers from fire, Texas A&M University scientist have developed a fire-resistant fabric composed of renewable ingredients such as garden-variety clay and chitosan, a natural compound extracted from shrimp and lobster shells. When heat is applied to the material, the coating bubbles out, creating a protective layer of foam that keeps the fabric from igniting. The first-of-its-kind polymer treatment could find applications in children's pajamas, terry-cloth bathrobes, and car seats, according to Jaime C. Grunlan, the associate professor of mechanical engineering heading the research. The water-based ingredients are less toxic than the so-called 'halogenated' or 'brominated' flame-retardants typically used, he says, not to mention more environmentally friendly.

Igloo

Russian Scientist Predicts 100 Years of Cooling

ice
© n/a
See their cooling graph for the next 100 years!

In a study of cyclic behavior of the Sun, Russian scientists now predict 100 years of cooling.

These are not just any scientists. This forecast comes from astrophysicist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the Russian segment of the International Space Station, and head of Space Research of the Sun Sector at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Russian scientists began by looking at a paper published by J. A. Eddy* in 1976 that documented the correlation between sunspot activity and corresponding large - and disruptive - climate changes on Earth. Disruptive because the changes frequently lead to economic and demographic crises that affected the existence of entire nations.

Conducting research similar to Eddy's, Russia's Eugene Borisenkov** discovered a quasi 200- year cycle of global cooling during the past 7,500 years that correlates to times of sunspot minima similar to the Maunder minimum. (These were also times when any industrial influence was non-existent, Abdussamatov points out. )

Robot

The Brave New World of Genetically Modifying a 'New Human Species'

Human Genome Sequence
© Wikimedia CommonsHuman Genome Sequence
If some of the information emerging from the technology, governmental, and academic worlds are any indication, not only is the police state here; the scientific dictatorship is right around the corner. Indeed, if recent comments made by Juan Enriquez are indicative of the coming state merger between technology and genetics, we have much to be concerned about.

For those that are unfamiliar with Enriquez, he may not be the most flashy of the science superstars currently on the scene, but he is not exactly a nobody either. Enriquez was the founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project and is currently chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy LLC., a "life sciences research and investment firm" and managing director of Excel Venture Management. He is the author of numerous books, including As The Future Catches You: How Genomics And Other Forces Are Changing Your Life, and Work, Health, and Wealth and The Untied States of America: Polarization, Fracturing, and Our Future.

Enriquez also serves on the boards of Cabot Corporation, The Harvard Medical School Genetics Advisory Council, The Chairman's International Council of the America's Society, the Visiting Committee of Harvard's David Rockefeller Center, Tuft University's EPIIC, and Harvard Business School's PAPSAC.

Chalkboard

X-ray facility to study conditions at Earth's core

ID24 beam line
© ESRFMaterials are heated to searing temperatures before being probed with a spray of intense X-rays
An experiment to recreate the extreme conditions of the centre of the Earth was officially opened on Thursday.

The ID24 beam line at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) will use X-ray beams to subject iron and other materials to extraordinary temperatures and pressures.

How the X-rays are absorbed should give insight into the mysterious processes going on at and near the Earth's core.

For example, the work could unravel why the Earth's magnetic field can "flip".

Question

Can Fetus Sense Mother's Psychological State? Study Suggests Yes

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© Mikael Damkier/FotoliaUltrasound image of fetus inside womb.
As a fetus grows, it's constantly getting messages from its mother. It's not just hearing her heartbeat and whatever music she might play to her belly; it also gets chemical signals through the placenta. A new study, which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this includes signals about the mother's mental state. If the mother is depressed, that affects how the baby develops after it's born.

In recent decades, researchers have found that the environment a fetus is growing up in - the mother's womb - is very important. Some effects are obvious. Drinking, for example, can be devastating. But others are subtler; studies have found that people who were born during the Dutch famine of 1944, most of whom had starving mothers, were likely to have health problems like obesity and diabetes later.

Info

Super Cool New H2O Discovered

Ice Block
© Wikimedia CommonsIce block at beach near Jökulsárlón, Iceland.
Besides vapor, ice and liquid, a fourth form of water may exist, but don't worry, Kurt Vonnegut fans, it's not ice-nine, the dangerous, solid at room temperature substance from the book Cat's Cradle. Unlike the fictional ice-nine, which melted at 114 degrees Fahrenheit, this new form of H2O likes it cold, about 54 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

Liquid water usually freezes into ice at 32 Fahrenheit, but under the right conditions, like the high pressure at the bottom of the ocean, water stays liquid below 32 Fahrenheit.

Water's fourth form, or phase, may be a liquid with some of the properties of both ice and regular liquid water. But laboratory equipment isn't sensitive enough to observe the rapid transformation from regular liquid water to the fourth form.