Science & TechnologyS


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New Worms' Silk Has Spider Strength

Spider SIlk T-shrit
© InnovationNewsDaily

Think of it as softness blended with strength: One research team has genetically engineered a silkworm that spins cocoons composed of about 95 percent silkworm proteins and 5 percent spider silk proteins. The composite silk is significantly stronger than regular silkworm silk and, researchers hope, as easy to produce in large quantities as regular silk.

The research team reported on their results from two genetically engineered silkworms in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Spider silk's strength, lightness and flexibility make it an appealing material for sutures, artificial ligaments and tendons, bulletproof vests and more. So far, however, nobody has been able to harvest enough spider silk for practical use.

One problem is that people can't farm spiders. The animals are territorial and, if kept in close quarters, have a tendency to eat each other. To get spider silk without cannibalizing spiders, several research teams have engineered cells and even goats to produce spider silk proteins. But that leads to a problem: how to spin that protein into large quantities of silken threads.

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Bees being turned into 'zombies' by parasite

Bees zombies by parasite
© Associated PressHoney bees
Honey bees are abandoning their hives and being turned into "zombies" by a deadly fly parasite in their stomachs.

The parasite makes the bees flee their hives and then walk round and round in circles before dying. It also makes them seek out bright lights.

The parasite lays its' eggs inside the abdomen of the honey bee. About a week after the bee dies, the pupae emerge from the throats and heads of the dead bees.

Scientists discovered the parasite by accident but they believe it may help them discover what is causing colony collapse disorder which is devastating honey bees in Europe and America cutting some populations in half.

Meteor

Unusual Russian Quasicrystal Rock has Ancient Extraterrestrial History

quasicrystal pattern
© n/a
A rock made of a type of crystal never before seen outside a laboratory is most likely a meteorite from the early days of the solar system, geologists say.

Two years after identifying the Russian rock's unusual composition, a team of scientists thinks it has nailed down its origin. The researchers say it is a quasicrystal formed under conditions far more likely in space than inside the Earth, and that its chemical composition of metallic copper and aluminum resembles what is found in so-called carbonaceous chondrites - the primitive meteorites that scientists think were remnants shed from the original building blocks of planets.

Crystals are symmetrical, neatly ordered patterns of atoms that repeat themselves regularly. They are found commonly in nature in different types of rock.

Thirty years ago, through experiments changing the structure of crystals, laboratories began producing quasicrystals, a strange arrangement of atoms that repeats with two different frequencies rather than one. Rather than a simple ratio of, say, 2:1, the ratio of atoms in a quasicrystal is based on an irrational number, such as the square root of 2:1. (This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry honored Dan Shechtman for his 1982 discovery of quasicrystals.)

Question

First Hybrid Shark Found

Hybrid Black Tip Shark
© University of QueenslandThis hybrid black tip shark contains both Common and Australian black tip DNA.

Scientists said on Tuesday that they had discovered the world's first hybrid sharks in Australian waters, a potential sign the predators were adapting to cope with climate change.

The mating of the local Australian black-tip shark with its global counterpart, the common black-tip, was an unprecedented discovery with implications for the entire shark world, said lead researcher Jess Morgan.

"It's very surprising because no one's ever seen shark hybrids before, this is not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination," Morgan, from the University of Queensland, said.

"This is evolution in action."

Colin Simpfendorfer, a partner in Morgan's research from James Cook University, said initial studies suggested the hybrid species was relatively robust, with a number of generations discovered across 57 specimens.

The find was made during cataloging work off Australia's east coast when Morgan said genetic testing showed certain sharks to be one species when physically they looked to be another.

Info

Bizarre Crystal Hitched Ride on Meteorite

Quasicrystals
© Paul Steinhardt, Princeton UniversityA rock sample containing quasicrystals unearthed in the Koryak Mountains in Russia.

A rock fragment containing a previously unidentified natural quasicrystal may be the remnant of a meteorite that originated in the early solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago before Earth even existed.

Until now, researchers had assumed such quasicrystals, whose atoms are arranged in a quasi-regular pattern rather than the regular arrangement of atoms inside a crystal, were not feasible in nature. In fact, until now the only known quasicrystals were synthetic, formed in a laboratory under carefully controlled conditions. (This year's Nobel Prize in chemistry honored Dan Shechtman for his 1982 discovery of quasicrystals, which at the time were thought to break the laws of nature.)

"Many thought it had to be that way, because they thought quasicrystals are too delicate, too prone to crystallization, to form naturally," researcher Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University said. The new finding, described this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests "quasicrystals are much more common in the universe than we thought," Steinhardt added.

Top Secret

Large Hadron Collider Confirms Discovery of First New Particle

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© UnknownLarge-Hadron-Collider
However, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) published confirmation about the first new observed particle by the Atlas experiment at CERN. Called the Chi_b (3P) is part of the bigger story that will help scientists fill in the gaps of the theory that binds matter.

"The new particle is made up of a 'beauty quark' and a 'beauty anti-quark', which are then bound together," explained Roger Jones in a conversation with BBC News. "People have thought this more excited state should exist for years but nobody has managed to see it until now." It may also provide new hints where to look for the Higgs particle.

At this point, the Higgs boson is still hypothetical and simply predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. There is the hope that the LHC will confirm the existence of this particle, which would also confirm that the Standard Model is correct and explain why matter has mass. Recent experiments at the LHC suggested that the Higgs boson has a mass of 115 - 130 GeV/c2. Researchers believe that they can either confirm or deny the existence of the particle next year.

Airplane

U.S. Navy Unveils "Cicada": Now Even the Drones Have Drones

Tiny drones are marvelously versatile, much like their insect namesakes

The U.S. Navy Research Lab's Tempest Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) may not be the mother of all drones, but it is the mother of two drones, at least. Hoisted up to 53,000 feet onto a high-flying trajectory via releasable balloon, the Tempest UAV "gives birth" in flight, launching a pair of mini "Cicada" drones.

The tiny Cicadas are an exercise in efficiency, with their logic boards doubling as wings. The Cicada UAVs are gliders, complete with smartphone-like two-axis gyroscopes and GPS circuits for navigation.

Several variants have been produced. The Cicada Mark I can be launched by firing it from a gun into the air. The Cicada Mark III is designed with special wings for improved range and stability, and is the model used by Tempest "mothership". Cicada stands for Close-In Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft.
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© U.S. Navy Research LabThe Tempest first floats up to high altitudes via balloon, then launches as a glider.

Cell Phone

U.S. Appeals Court Denies Citizens' Right to Sue Wiretapping Telecoms

But court lifts previous ban on suing the government over warrantless wiretapping campaigns
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© Quick Meme

If you have a problem with federal warrantless wiretapping campaigns, sue the government, not the telecoms.

That was the key message in the Thursday ruling handed down by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal appeals court that covers high profile cases appealed in nine western states, including California.

I. EFF is Greenlit for Class Action Against the NSA

The decision was still a quasi-victory for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), who was leading the push against the warrantless wiretaps, at it prevents the most sweeping of protections on the domestic surveillance system, giving U.S. citizens at least one avenue to challenge the campaigns in court.

The EFF was less-than-thrilled that the court upheld the immunity for telecoms who served as the government's accomplices, helping federal agents spy on their customers. The telecom immunity was granted by the "Protect America Act" of 2007 (Pub.L. 110-55, S. 1927).

The EFF was seeking class action status for a lawsuit against AT&T, Inc. (T) and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The EFF accuses AT&T of conspiring with the NSA to divert its customers voice, SMS, and internet traffic into special secure rooms at its facility across the country, giving the NSA the ability to freely snoop on whatever private communications they pleased.

Telescope

Space mountain produces terrestrial meteorites

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© NASAA side view of Vesta's great south polar mountain.

When NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around giant asteroid Vesta in July, scientists fully expected the probe to reveal some surprising sights. But no one expected a 13-mile high mountain, two and a half times higher than Mount Everest, to be one of them.
The existence of this towering peak could solve a longstanding mystery: How did so many pieces of Vesta end up right here on our own planet?

For many years, researchers have been collecting Vesta meteorites from "fall sites" around the world. The rocks' chemical fingerprints leave little doubt that they came from the giant asteroid. Earth has been peppered by so many fragments of Vesta, that people have actually witnessed fireballs caused by the meteoroids tearing through our atmosphere. Recent examples include falls near the African village of Bilanga Yanga in October 1999 and outside Millbillillie, Australia, in October 1960.

"Those meteorites just might be pieces of the basin excavated when Vesta's giant mountain formed," says Dawn PI Chris Russell of UCLA.

Bizarro Earth

US: Deep Gulf Drilling Thrives 18 Months After BP Spill

oil rig
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Alaminos Canyon Block 857, Gulf of Mexico - Two hundred miles off the coast of Texas, ribbons of pipe are reaching for oil and natural gas deeper below the ocean's surface than ever before.

These pipes, which run nearly two miles deep, are connected to a floating platform that is so remote Shell named it Perdido, which means "lost" in Spanish. What attracted Shell to this location is a geologic formation found throughout the Gulf of Mexico that may contain enough oil to satisfy U.S. demand for two years.

While Perdido is isolated, it isn't alone. Across the Gulf, energy companies are probing dozens of new deepwater fields thanks to high oil prices and technological advances that finally make it possible to tap them.

The newfound oil will not do much to lower global oil prices. But together with increased production from onshore U.S. fields and slowing domestic demand for gasoline, it could help reduce U.S. oil imports by more than half over the next decade.

Eighteen months ago, such a flurry of activity in the Gulf seemed unlikely. The Obama administration halted drilling and stopped issuing new permits after the explosion of a BP well killed 11 workers and caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history.