Science & TechnologyS


Airplane Paper

China tests 3,000-kph 'super-Maglev' train concept


RT
Sat, 10 May 2014 10:22 UTC
Maglev train
© Reuters / Ming MingMaglev train drives into terminal station in Shanghai
Chinese researchers at the Applied Superconductivity Laboratory of Southwest Jiaotong University claim their fast transportation concept based on magnetic levitation (Maglev) technology could potentially be three times faster than an airplane.

Maglev technology was first proposed in the mid-20th century. Nowadays, the Shanghai Maglev Train can reach speeds of over 430 kilometers (260 miles) per hour and is the world's fastest passenger-carrying train.

The "Super-Maglev" could, however, beat even that. Chinese researchers have been testing a concept train encapsulated in a vacuum tube, thus decreasing the speed limitations imposed by air resistance on regular Maglev trains.

Should the project be successful, the workable prototype will set the standard for the future evacuation tube transportation (ETT).
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Solar Flares

Sibling sun found 110 light yrs from Earth in the constellation of Hercules


RT
Sun, 11 May 2014 10:14 UTC
Sun
© AFP Photo / Fabrice Coffrini
The sun could have a sibling according to researchers at the University of Texas, who believe the star was born from the same cloud of gas as our sun. It is hoped this could give astronomers fresh insights into how life on earth started.

The study was conducted by astronomer Ivan Ramirez, based at the University of Texas, who says that the star is 110 light years away from Earth.

"We want to know where we were born," Ramirez said in a statement announcing his discovery. "If we can figure out in what part of the galaxy the sun formed, we can constrain conditions on the early solar system. That could help us understand why we are here."

The solar sibling, named HD 162826 by the team that made the discovery, is 15 percent larger than the sun and can be found in the constellation Hercules. It can be seen with the aid of binoculars and is not far from the bright star Vega.

Ramirez and his team studied 30 stars that other astronomers believed could be potential solar siblings. He managed to narrow down the list by analyzing the orbit and chemical make-up of each star. His team also included information about the stars' orbits, where they had been and where they are going in their paths around the center of the Milky Way. After taking all this data into account, they were able to pin point HD 162862 as the sun's sibling star.
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Fireball 3

Did a cometary impact knock the Moon on its side?

John Timmer
arstechnica.com
Sun, 11 May 2014 08:27 UTC
Anomalies suggest the far side and pole weren't always where they are today.
moon
© serguei_30
We tend to think of the Moon as a static, dead world, with no atmosphere and no plate tectonics. But there are various signs the Moon has been active - volcanoes and indications of a magnetic field frozen in rocks. Impact craters that flooded with molten rock are also indications of more active periods in the Moon's history. Now, some researchers are suggesting that the residual magnetic fields contain hints that the Moon was once flipped on its side by a violent event.

All evidence indicates that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized body collided with the early Earth, leaving both in a molten state. This would have left the Moon with a sufficiently molten core that it should have generated a magnetic field for hundreds of millions of years. Remnants of that field should remain trapped in rocks that solidified while it was still in place and remain trapped there to this day.
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Gingerbread

The science behind seeing Jesus in a piece of toast

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Wed, 07 May 2014 10:05 UTC
jesus toast
© Karl Tate / ShutterstockJesus on toast? This image may be doctored, but a phenomenon called pareidolia regularly tricks people into seeing faces in burnt bread.
The man in the moon. Jesus in toast. The Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich. Faces are everywhere - even when they're not, strictly speaking, supposed to be.

Now, new research reveals the brain processes that underlie these facial false alarms, a phenomenon called "face pareidolia." The findings suggest that expectations matter. When people expect to see a face, these expectations may activate a brain region responsible for processing faces, the researchers report in the April issue of the journal Cortex.

Pareidolia is a well-known phenomenon, responsible for turning a rocky landform on Mars into a face and a water stain on a Chicago underpass into the Virgin Mary. Not all instances of pareidolia result in visions of faces. For example, in 2013, eagle-eyed Internet sleuths swore up and down that NASA's Curiosity Rover had caught a snapshot of a rat on Mars. [Seeing Things On Mars: A History of Martian Illusions]
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Magnify

Researchers say lab mice anxiety toward male experimenters may have skewed years' worth of studies

Arturo Garcia
The Raw Story
Mon, 28 Apr 2014 23:42 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada released a study Monday suggesting that an untold number of experiments involving lab mice were potentially compromised because of a disparity in the animals' reactions to men and women involved.

"People have not paid attention to this in the entire history of scientific research of animals," team leader Jeffrey Mogil told The Verge. "I think that it may have confounded, to whatever degree, some very large subset of existing research."

The study, published in the journal Nature Methods, found that when the animals were exposed to men during experiments, they exhibited signs of pain reduction associated with increased stress levels, as well as body temperature increases.
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Info

Origin of mysterious jellyfish lightning 'sprites' revealed

Tanya Lewis
Live Science
Fri, 09 May 2014 13:13 UTC
Sprite
© Jason AhrnsA red sprite with a classic jellyfish shape viewed Aug. 6, 2013, above Canadian County, Oklahoma.
Red electrical flashes that mysteriously hover above some thunderstorms have long puzzled scientists, but now, new research reveals how these alien like atmospheric sprites form.

Sprites form at irregularities in the plasma, or charged particles of gas, in the ionosphere, the layer just above the dense lower atmosphere, about 37 to 56 miles (60 to 90 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, a study found. Since disturbances in the ionosphere can affect radio communication, sprites could be useful for sensing such disturbances remotely, researchers say.

"We would like to know how sprites are initiated and how they develop," Victor Pasko, an electrical engineer at Penn State and author of the study published May 7 in the journal Nature Communications, said in a statement.
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Evil Rays

Using radar to keep the elderly safe

Arielle Duhaime-Ross
The Verge
Wed, 07 May 2014 08:59 UTC
UK elderly people
© Paul Doyle / Alamy/Alamy
Americans are growing older, fast. In 2000, people 65 and over made up 12 percent of the population, and by 2030, that number is expected to climb to 19 percent. As a result, "elderly monitoring" products - products designed to help loved ones keep an eye on ailing parents such as GPS bracelets, motion sensors, and so-called "granny cams" - - have started popping up in online stores and specialized pharmacies all over the US.

Unfortunately, most of these systems have huge drawbacks that would make anyone reticent to use them. GPS systems, for instance, can really only tell you a person's location, not how well they're doing. And cameras infringe on a person's privacy in a big way. That's why researchers have turned to technology that you're much more likely to see in an airport than in your aging parent's home: radar.

Comment: Just what we need -- more electromagnetic frequencies and monitoring under the guise of keeping us "safe".

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Laptop

Ditch Internet Explorer, security experts warn

Samuel Gibbs
The Guardian
Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:18 UTC
Image
© KPA/Zuma/Rex FeaturesSerious security vulnerability could allow hackers to take control of a Windows computer through Internet Explorer, from version IE6 onwards.
More than half of all internet users are vulnerable to a serious security bug that means Windows XP is vulnerable to hackers

Security experts have urged Windows XP users to change browsers owing to a serious bug in Microsoft's Internet Explorer that could threaten over half of all internet users.

The vulnerability is actively being exploited by hackers, Microsoft has warned, and every active version of Internet Explorer is at risk, including IE 6 to IE 11, Windows XP and Windows RT. The bug could allow hackers to gain access to and hijack a Windows computer, including personal data.

Microsoft warned that it was "aware of limited, targeted attacks" currently under way using the security hole in Internet Explorer, which is used by over 55% of internet users globally, according to the latest data from research firm Netmarketshare.

"This issue allows remote code execution if users visit a malicious website with an affected browser. This would typically occur by an attacker convincing someone to click a link in an email or instant message," Dustin Childs, a group manager of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing department, explained in a blog post.

Comment: From 2010:
German government warns against using MS Explorer
France warns against Internet Explorer use

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Info

In silico: First steps towards a computer simulation of the human body

Chris Green
The Independent, UK
Thu, 08 May 2014 16:19 UTC
Human Body
© The University of Shefield, UK
A pregnant woman undergoing tests in hospital has her biological information plugged into a computer. The results say that she is highly likely to damage her pelvic floor muscles during the birth and will probably suffer from incontinence years later. Armed with this information, doctors intervene to minimise the damage as her baby is born, and the problems are avoided.

It sounds like the sort of predictive healthcare that we cannot expect for decades, but British researchers working on a huge collaborative medical research project have said that advances like this are not far away.

The University of Sheffield's Insigneo Institute, which was founded exactly a year ago, comprises 123 academics and clinicians who are working towards a grand European Commission-backed endeavour known as the Virtual Physiological Human programme. Collectively, they have already won more than £20 million in research funding.

The programme's ultimate aim is to create an in silico, or computer simulated, replica of the human body that will allow the virtual testing of treatments on patients based on their own specific needs - potentially predicting future problems they may encounter or eliminating the need for invasive procedures.
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Comet 2

Asteroid 2013 UQ4 suddenly becomes a dark comet with a bright future

Bob King
Universe Today
Thu, 08 May 2014 14:06 UTC
Comet C/2013 UQ4
© Artyom Novichonok and Taras PrystavskiComet C/2013 UQ4, originally discovered as an asteroid, now shows the characteristic coma of a comet. This photo was made on May 7, 2014 from a telescope in Australia.
On October 23, 2013, astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey picked up a very faint asteroid with an unusual orbit more like a that of a comet than an asteroid. At the time 2013 UQ4 was little more than a stellar point with no evidence of a hazy coma or tail that would tag it as a comet. But when it recently reappeared in the morning sky after a late January conjunction with the sun, amateur astronomers got a surprise.

On May 7, Comet ISON co-discoverer Artyom Novichonok, and Taras Prystavski used a remote telescope located in Siding Spring, Australia to take photos of 2013 UQ4 shortly before dawn in the constellation Cetus. Surprise, surprise. The asteroid had grown a little fuzz, making the move to comethood. No longer a starlike object, 2013 UQ4 now displays a substantial coma or atmosphere about 1.5 arc minutes across with a more compact inner coma measuring 25 arc seconds in diameter. No tail is visible yet, and while its overall magnitude of +13.5 won't make you break out the bottle of champagne, it's still bright enough to see in a 12-inch telescope under dark skies.
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