Science & TechnologyS


Sherlock

Elixir of Life Discovered on Easter Island


The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 30 Jun 2011 01:41 UTC
A drug has been discovered which scientists believe can reverse the effects of premature ageing and could extend human life by more than a decade.

Image
© ReutersEaster Island is one of the most remote places on Earth and found 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile.
Rapamycin, which has been nicknamed the "forever young" drug, was created from a chemical found in the soil on Easter Island, one of the most remote places on Earth and 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile.

It was used in experiments on children suffering from Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), a rare genetic condition in which ageing is hyper-accelerated and sufferers die of "old age" at around 12 years.

HGPS causes a dangerous process whereby a protein called progerin builds up in every cell of the body, causing them to age prematurely.

Rapamycin cleaned the cells of progerin, which swept away the defects and left healthy cells.
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Meteor

Flashback Best of the Web: The 100th anniversary of the Tunguska explosion


RIA Novosti
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:46 UTC

Comment: The103rd anniversary today.


Tunguska explosion
©RIA Novosti

At 7.14 a.m. local time (12.14 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time), an explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony) Tunguska River in East Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Territory, not far from the Vanavara trading post, now Vanavara town, the administrative center of the Evenki Autonomous Area's Tungussko-Chunsky District.
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Meteor

Flashback Best of the Web: When Comets Attack: Solving the Mystery of the Biggest Natural Explosion in Modern History

Mark Anderson
Popular Mechanics
Thu, 07 May 2009 10:00 UTC
Comet
© Pete Turner/Getty Images
On the morning of June 30, 1908, the sky exploded over a remote region of central Siberia. A fireball as powerful as hundreds of Hiroshima atomic blasts scorched through the upper atmosphere "as if there was a second sun," according to one eyewitness. Scientists today think a small fragment of a comet or asteroid caused the "Tunguska event," so named for the Tunguska river nearby. No one knows for certain, however, because no fragment of the meteoroid has ever been found. The explosion was so vast - flattening and incinerating over an 800 square-mile swath of trees - that generations of amateur sleuths have put forward scenarios as strange as stray black holes or UFO attacks to explain the tremendous explosion.

Now, a controversial scientific study suggests that a chunk of a comet caused the 5 to 10 megaton fireball - what amounts to the largest non-nuclear explosion in modern history. Crucially, according to the new hypothesis, most of the comet bounced off the atmosphere and back into orbit around the sun. The scientists have even identified a candidate Tunguska object - now more than 100 million miles away - that was somewhere near Earth on June 30, 1908 and will be passing close to Earth again in 2045. But just how could a comet - basically a ball of water ice and cosmic dust - create such a massive explosion and leave no trace? The answer, the scientists believe, can be found in basic chemistry rather than complicated physics or evidence yet to be found.
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Meteor

Flashback Best of the Web: Space shuttle science shows how 1908 Tunguska explosion was caused by a comet

Blaine Friedlander
Cornell University
Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:37 UTC
Image
© WikimediaTrees were levelled in Siberia after what is thought to have been an impact from space in 1908
The mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere, says new Cornell University research. The conclusion is supported by an unlikely source: the exhaust plume from the NASA space shuttle launched a century later.

The research, accepted for publication (June 24, 2009) by the journal Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union, connects the two events by what followed each about a day later: brilliant, night-visible clouds, or noctilucent clouds, that are made up of ice particles and only form at very high altitudes and in extremely cold temperatures.
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Telescope

Voyager 1 in Danger? Discovery of Magnetic "Bubbles" at Interstellar Border

Norman Byrd
Huliq
Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© NASAThe Voyager 1 spacecraft.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft moves through uncharted territory, literally, on a daily basis, moving through space and sending back collected data to researchers on Earth. But a recently discovered anomaly has been discovered at the edge of the Solar System. Could it pose a problem with Voyager 1's mission?

Voyager 1, the spacecraft launched 33 years ago to observe the largest planets circling the sun, is set to pass out of the Solar System within the next few years. It has entered what scientists refer to as the heliosphere, which is the outer border of the sun's charged particle influence. Data streaming back from both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 revealed that the border with interstellar space, however, isn't a smooth "transition zone" as was theorized. Instead, the border appears to be made up of "magnetic bubbles." Given the effects of magnetism on electromagnetic working systems, could the newly discovered "bubbles" pose a risk to Voyager 1's interstellar mission? Fortunately for Voyager 1 and her trailing sister craft, Voyager 2, the answer is "no."

Caltech professor Edward C. Stone, Voyager project scientist and former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, offered reassurance in an interview in early June. "The spacecraft are unaware of all this," he said. "From a spacecraft point of view, this is a better vacuum than anything here on Earth in a laboratory. Only our sensitive instruments will tell us when the direction and the speed of the wind has changed, and when the direction of magnetic field and its strength have changed."
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Cow

More Franken-Food Propaganda: Artificial Meat Could Slice Emissions, Say Scientists

Fiona Harvey
Guardian.co.uk
Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:49 UTC
Image
© Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty ImagesMeat grown artificially could minimise the emissions associated with conventional livestock.
Lab-grown meat would generate a tiny fraction of emissions associated with conventional livestock production

Meat grown artificially in labs could be a greener alternative for consumers who cannot bear to go vegetarian but want to cut the environmental impact of their food, according to new research.

The study found that growing meat in the lab rather than slaughtering animals would generate only a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with conventional livestock production.

The researchers believe their work suggests artificial meat could help feed the growing world population while reducing the impact on the environment.

According to the analysis by scientists from Oxford University and Amsterdam University, lab-grown tissue would reduce greenhouse gases by up to 96% in comparison to raising animals. The process would require between 7% and 45% less energy than the same volume of conventionally produced meat such as pork, beef, or lamb, and could be engineered to use only 1% of the land and 4% of the water associated with conventional meat.


Comment: Only on a planet this sick would anyone consider trading meat from a healthy live animal for some 'thing' grown in a lab. The environmentalist argument simply does not hold water when one considers the fact that greenhouse gas emissions have virtually NOTHING to do with the climate and Earth changes we're facing. Most likely there's another agenda at play...
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Comment: It's clear that these folks will not stop until they have TOTAL control of the food supply, and this 'franken-meat' is just the latest in a long series of bizarre GMO experiments they've subjected us to. As people have slowly moved away from natural foods, and particularly animal-derived products, to designer foods produced in factories, the next step is to eliminate any part that actual 'nature' plays in putting food on our plates.

For more information on GMO foods, see:

Who's Afraid of GMO's? Me!·

Latest GMO Research: Decreased Fertility, Immunological Alterations and Allergies

10 Freakiest Things About Frankenfish

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Telescope

Electric Universe: Power Lines

Stephen Smith
thunderbolts.info
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:17 UTC
© Hap GriffinA "galaxy string" known as Markarian's Chain.

Galaxies often exhibit alignment with one another across vast distances.

According to Electric Universe theory, galactic evolution occurs as large-scale plasma discharges form spinning wheels of coherent filaments that display electrodynamic behavior and not merely that which gravity alone can contribute. Stars in galaxies can also form long arcs that thread through them like silver beads on a string. No nebular contraction theory can adequately explain star formation. Beyond that, the great spirals that collect in clusters, that then also group themselves in superclusters, are beyond any conventional definition.

When plasma moves through a cloud of dust and gas, the cloud becomes ionized, initiating an electric field and the flow of electric current. Electricity moving through any substance forms magnetic fields that tend to align and constrict the current flow. Those fields create what are sometimes called "plasma ropes," otherwise known as Birkeland currents.
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Magnify

Deep History of Coconuts Decoded

Diana Lutz
seeddaily.com
Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:10 UTC
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© Bee Gunn/National Geographic SocietyA chef wearing avocado sunscreen holds a sweet nui vai coconut. The photo was taken in the Masoala Peninsula of Madagascar by plant biologist Bee Gunn while she was collecting coconut leaf tissue for DNA analysis.The DNA of the Madagascar coconuts turned out to be particularly interesting, preserving, as it did, news of the arrival of ancient Austronesians at the island off Africa.
The coconut (the fruit of the palm Cocos nucifera) is the Swiss Army knife of the plant kingdom; in one neat package it provides a high-calorie food, potable water, fiber that can be spun into rope, and a hard shell that can be turned into charcoal. What's more, until it is needed for some other purpose it serves as a handy flotation device.

No wonder people from ancient Austronesians to Captain Bligh pitched a few coconuts aboard before setting sail. (The mutiny of the Bounty is supposed to have been triggered by Bligh's harsh punishment of the theft of coconuts from the ship's store.)

So extensively is the history of the coconut interwoven with the history of people traveling that Kenneth Olsen, a plant evolutionary biologist, didn't expect to find much geographical structure to coconut genetics when he and his colleagues set out to examine the DNA of more than 1300 coconuts from all over the world.

"I thought it would be mostly a mish-mash," he says, thoroughly homogenized by humans schlepping coconuts with them on their travels.
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Blackbox

2,000-Year-Old Priestly Burial Box Is Real, Archaeologists Say


Associated Press
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:23 UTC
Image
© Mark Christianson ©1994
Israeli scholars say they have confirmed the authenticity of a 2,000-year-old burial box bearing the name of a relative of the high priest Caiaphas of the New Testament.

The ossuary bears an inscription with the name "Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri."

To confirm the authenticity of the ossuary, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), who discovered the ancient burial box turned to Dr. Boaz Zissu of the Department of the Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology of Bar Ilan University and Professor Yuval Goren of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations of the Tel Aviv University.

"The prime importance of the inscription lies in the reference to the ancestry of the deceased - Miriam daughter of Yeshua - to the Caiaphas family, indicating the connection to the family of the Ma'aziahcourse of priests of Beth 'Imri," wrote Zissu and Goren in the conclusion of their study.

An ossuary is a stone chest used to store bones.
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Sun

Partial Solar Eclipse Occurs This Week, But Will Anyone See It?

Joe Rao
Space.com
Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:26 UTC
Eclipse
© Svetlana KulkovaPhotographer and skywatcher Svetlana Kulkova snapped this view of the partial solar eclipse of June 1-2, 2011 just after sunrise on June 2 from Bratsk, Russia. The partial solar eclipse was dubbed a "midnight" eclipse as its viewing path crossed the International Date Line.
The moon will block part of the sun on Friday (July 1) in a partial solar eclipse, but everyone on the planet will likely miss the event unless you're a penguin, or possibly aboard an icebreaker sailing between Antarctica and Africa.

The partial solar eclipse will be relatively minor, as eclipses go, so it's no big deal for skywatchers to skip. However, this particular eclipse is noteworthy because it falls into two unusual categories.

First, it turns out that this event, puny as it is, will be the third eclipse to take place within a single month's time. It comes after a partial solar eclipse on June 1 over Earth's northern polar regions. That event was followed on June 15 by a stunning total lunar eclipse over Europe and Asia.

Now on Friday, there will be yet another partial eclipse of the sun.
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