Science & TechnologyS


Question

Huge Gamma-ray Flares Mystify World's Astronomers


The Daily Galaxy
Wed, 11 May 2011 13:44 UTC
Crab Nebula
© The Daily Galaxy
The Crab Nebula has stunned astronomers by emitting an unprecedented blast of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the Universe, from a small area of the famous nebula. The cause of the 12 April gamma-ray flare, which lasted for some six days, hitting levels 30 times higher than normal and varying at times from hour to hour, described at the Third Fermi Symposium in Rome, is a complete and total mystery. The Crab's recent outburst is more than five times more intense than any yet observed.

Nasa's Fermi space observatory is designed to measure only gamma rays, that emanate from the Universe's most extreme environments and violent processes. Since its launch nearly three years ago, Fermi has spotted three such outbursts, with the first two reported earlier this year at the American Astronomical Society meeting.

The Crab Nebula is composed mainly of the remnant of a supernova, which was seen on Earth to explode in the year 1054. At the core of the brilliantly coloured gas cloud is a pulsar - a rapidly spinning neutron star that emits radio waves which sweep past the Earth 30 times per second. But so far none of the nebula's known components can explain the signal Fermi sees, said Roger Blandford, director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, US.
Read More...
Info

The Human Body, Searchable in 3-D

Brittany Sauser
Technology Review, MIT
Tue, 10 May 2011 18:21 UTC
3D Anatomical Views
© Healthline and GE Healthyimagine Anatomical views: BodyMaps, a 3-D visual search tool, allows a user to search and navigate the human body. Shown at left is the left ventricle of the heart. Pop-up text gives definitions, descriptions, and common conditions. At right, the “deep muscle” view of the knee shows layers of the body from the skin and muscles down to the arteries, vessels, and bones.

The first online 3-D interactive search tool of the human body was released today. It allows a user to view and navigate the human anatomy, male or female, down to the finest detail - from the muscles and deep muscles to the nerves, arteries, vessels, and bones. This new tool, called BodyMaps, was developed by Healthline Networks, a company that provides medical information to consumers online, and GE Healthyimagination, a Web-based platform that shares and promotes projects that focus on consumer health, such as apps or healthy how-to videos.

BodyMaps is a consumer tool developed to educate the user on health conditions or medical ailments. At the center of the BodyMaps page is a 3-D image of the body; at left is textual information about the body section being shown. As a user mouses over the text, the section of the body in the image is highlighted, and vice versa if a user mouses over the image. At the bottom is a scrubber that lets the user rotate the body 360 degrees. The page also features videos, tips on staying healthy, information on symptoms and conditions, and a definition of the section in view.

The user can select a body region to explore by clicking the text or image, or by using the search tool. Selecting shoulders generated a crisp, high-definition 3-D image of the shoulder section, starting at the skin level, with the option to click through to see the muscles, nerves and vessels, and bone. Choosing the deltoid muscle, a definition popped up and the remaining muscles were shaded out. An option to read more provided a lengthy definition and description of the muscle, including common injuries and their causes and symptoms.
Read More...
Question

Destroyer of Galaxies Discovered: Hyper Cosmic Storms


The Daily Galaxy
Tue, 10 May 2011 17:44 UTC
Galaxy with Molecular Flow
© ESA/AOES MedialabAn artist’s impression showing a galaxy with a molecular outflow. Herschel has discovered that such outflows can travel at 1000 km/s, which could deplete the galaxy of the gas needed for further star formation within one million to 100 million years.
The European Space Agency's Herschel infrared space observatory has detected raging winds of molecular gas streaming away from galaxies. Suspected for years, these outflows may have the power to strip galaxies of gas and halt star formation in its tracks.

The winds that Herschel has detected are extraordinary, some blowing at a speed of more than 1000 km/s, or about 10,000 times faster than the wind in a terrestrial hurricane.

This is the first time that such molecular gas outflows have been unequivocally observed in a sample of galaxies. This is an important discovery because stars form from molecular gas, and these outflows are robbing the galaxy of the raw material it needs to make new stars. If the outflows are powerful enough, they could even halt star formation altogether.

"With Herschel, we now have the chance to really study what these outflows mean for galactic evolution," says Eckhard Sturm from the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik in Germany, the lead author of this work. Dr. Sturm and colleagues used Herschel's Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer to study 50 galaxies.
Read More...
Info

Neanderthals Died Out Earlier Than Thought: Study

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Mon, 09 May 2011 20:16 UTC
Neanderthal versus Modern Humans
© Ian TattersallComparison of Neanderthal and modern human skeletons. Photo: K. Mowbray, Reconstruction: G. Sawyer and B. Maley,
Neanderthals may have died out 10,000 years earlier than is commonly believed, suggests new dating of the remains of a Neanderthal infant.

The finding, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may revise the present Neanderthal timeline. It's commonly believed that Neanderthals from what is now Russia died out around 30,000 years ago. The latest discovery could push back the Neanderthal extinction, at least for this region, to 39,700 years ago, which was the age of the infant's fossil.

Since modern humans are believed to have arrived in the northern Caucasus region just a few hundred years beforehand, that means our species may not have had much, if any, time to interact with Neanderthals.
Read More...
Info

North America Was Populated by no More Than 70 People 14,000 Years Ago, Claims Stunning New DNA Research


The Daily Mail, UK
Mon, 09 May 2011 19:01 UTC
The next time you're having a disagreement with a work colleague or annoying neighbour, bear this in mind: Chances are you're related.

A new study of DNA patterns throughout the world suggests that North America was originally populated by no more than 70 people.

Most experts agree that, around 14,000 years ago, a group of humans crossed the land bridge that connected what is now Siberia in Russia with Alaska.

Google Map
© GoogleCrossing over: Most experts agree that, at some point between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago, people from Asia moved over to North America. A new study of genetics puts the number of New World travellers at 70.
But new research has shown just how small that group was, venturing into a vast continent from Asia during the last Ice Age.

Up to now DNA analyses of the intrepid and original 'founding fathers' looked at a particular gene, using estimates and academic assumptions on constant population sizes over time.
Read More...
Meteor

New Mineral Discovered: One of Earliest Minerals Formed in Solar System


Science Daily
Mon, 09 May 2011 19:24 UTC
New Mineral Meteorite
© Chi MaThe "Cracked Egg" grain, in which krotite was discovered, is contained in the NWA 1934 Meteorite.

In the May-June issue of the journal American Mineralogist, a team of scientists announced the discovery of the new mineral krotite, one of the earliest minerals formed in our solar system. It is the main component of an unusual inclusion embedded in a meteorite (NWA 1934), found in northwest Africa. These objects, known as refractory inclusions, are thought to be the first planetary materials formed in our solar system, dating back to before the formation of Earth and the other planets.

This particular grain is known affectionately as "Cracked Egg" for its distinctive appearance. Dr. Harold C. Connolly, Jr. and student Stuart A. Sweeney Smith at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) first recognized the grain to be of a very special type, known as a calcium-aluminum-rich refractory inclusion. ("Refractory" refers to the fact that these grains contain minerals that are stable at very high temperature, which attests to their likely formation as very primitive, high-temperature condensates from the solar nebula.)

Cracked Egg refractory inclusion was sent to Dr. Chi Ma at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for very detailed nano-mineralogy investigation. Dr. Ma then sent it to Dr. Anthony Kampf, Curator of Mineral Sciences at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), for X- ray diffraction study. Kampf's findings, confirmed by Ma, showed the main component of the grain was a low-pressure calcium aluminum oxide (CaAl2O4) never before found in nature. Kampf's determination of the atomic arrangement in the mineral showed it to be the same as that of a human-made component of some types of refractory (high-temperature) concrete.
Read More...
Info

Divers Attempt to Communicate With Wild Dolphins, Using A Two-Way Translation Device

Rebecca Boyle
New Scientist
Mon, 09 May 2011 15:53 UTC
Dolphins
© Wikimedia CommonsAtlantic Spotted Dolphins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Dolphins can understand more than 100 words, decipher human instructions and even use iPads to learn basic communication skills. But that's kind of unfair on the part of us humans, don't you think? Shouldn't dolphins be able to ask for more smelt without learning our sign language or using our gadgets?

A researcher in Florida aims to meet the mammals in the middle, creating a new language that both humans and dolphins can understand.

Denise Herzing, founder of the Wild Dolphin Project in Jupiter, Fla., and Thad Starner, an artificial intelligence researcher at Georgia Tech, developed a project called Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT). Researchers will test a prototype device this summer, reports New Scientist.

It involves a small computer encased in a waterproof shell and two hydrophones capable of detecting the full frequency of dolphin sounds, which can be up to 10 times higher than the highest pitch a person can hear. A diver will strap the computer to his or her chest, using a handheld device to select which sound to make in reply.
Read More...
Info

Alien Superfluids That Can Climb Upwards Detected at Core of Supernova Neutron Star


The Daily Galaxy
Mon, 09 May 2011 13:50 UTC
Cassiopeia A
© The Daily GalaxyThis image presents a beautiful composite of X-rays from Chandra (red, green, and blue) and optical data from Hubble (gold) of Cassiopeia A, the remains of a massive star that exploded in a supernova.
Evidence for a bizarre state of matter has been found in the dense core of the star left behind, a so-called neutron star, based on cooling observed over a decade of Chandra observations. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first direct evidence for a superfluid, a bizarre, friction-free state of matter, at the core of Cassiopeia A. Superfluids created in laboratories on Earth exhibit remarkable properties, such as the ability to climb upward and escape airtight containers. The finding has important implications for understanding nuclear interactions in matter at the highest known densities.

Neutron stars contain the densest known matter that is directly observable. One teaspoon of neutron star material weighs six billion tons. The pressure in the star's core is so high that most of the charged particles, electrons and protons, merge, resulting in a star composed mostly of uncharged particles called neutrons.

Two independent research teams studied the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, or Cas A for short, the remains of a massive star 11,000 light years away that would have appeared to explode about 330 years ago as observed from Earth. Chandra data found a rapid decline in the temperature of the ultra-dense neutron star that remained after the supernova, showing that it had cooled by about four percent over a 10-year period.
Read More...
Info

A Cometary Case for Titan's Atmosphere

Jason Major
Universe Today
Mon, 09 May 2011 13:33 UTC
Titan's Atmosphere
© NASA / JPL / SSI and Caltech/UCLA.Ancient comets may have created Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere. This image is a combination of a color-composite of Titan made from raw Cassini data taken on October 12, 2010 and a recolored infrared image of the comet Siding Spring, taken by NASA’s WISE observatory on January 10, 2010. The background stars were also taken by the Cassini orbiter.

Titan is a fascinating world to planetary scientists. Although it's a moon of Saturn it boasts an opaque atmosphere ten times thicker than Earth's and a hydrologic cycle similar to our own - except with frigid liquid methane as the key component instead of water. Titan has even been called a living model of early Earth, even insofar as containing large amounts of nitrogen in its atmosphere much like our own. Scientists have wondered at the source of Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere, and now a team at the University of Tokyo has offered up an intriguing answer: it may have come from comets.

Traditional models have assumed that Titan's atmosphere was created by volcanic activity or the effect of solar UV radiation. But these rely on Titan having been much warmer in the past than it is now...a scenario that Cassini mission scientists don't think is the case.

New research suggests that comet impacts during a period called the Late Heavy Bombardment - a time nearly 4 billion years ago when collisions by large bodies such as comets and asteroids were occurring regularly among worlds in our solar system - may have generated Titan's nitrogen atmosphere. By firing lasers into ammonia-and-water-ice material similar to what would have been found on primordial Titan, researchers saw that nitrogen was a typical result. Over the millennia these impacts could have created enough nitrogen to cover the moon in a dense haze, forming the thick atmosphere we see today.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Millions Face High Risk of Deadly Andes Quake

Charles Q Choi
Our Amazing Planet
Mon, 09 May 2011 13:23 UTC
Andes Mountains
© NASAMore than 7,000 kilometers (4,400 miles) long and more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) wide in places, the Andes Mountains encompass a wide range of climates and habitats, from snow-capped mountain peaks to rainforests to high deserts. This picture, acquired by NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite, shows a dramatic change in landscape about 250 kilometers southeast of la Paz, the capital of Bolivia.

Millions of people living near the Andes Mountains face a significantly higher risk of a giant earthquake than previously thought, and such a temblor could be more than 10 times stronger than anything the region has expected in the past.

Scientists investigated the Subandean margin along the eastern flank of the Andes Mountains, an area that includes Bolivia. A recent hazard assessment estimated a maximum earthquake there of magnitude 7.5.

Now, however, researchers unexpectedly find that a giant quake of up to magnitude 8.9 is possible, threatening more than 2 million people living in the area, where the infrastructure is not designed for a temblor that big.

"If the entire fault below the Subandes were to rupture, you can get a lot of damage," researcher Benjamin Brooks, a geodesist at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, told OurAmazingPlanet. "It could be like a combination of the 2010 earthquake in Chile, which was very powerful, with the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which hit a place with inadequate building standards."

The scientists used global positioning satellite data to map movement of the Earth's surface in the Subandean margin. They discovered that west-to-east surface movements measure 2 to 10 millimeters less per year over a stretch up to about 60 miles long (100 kilometers) than in the area's surroundings.
Read More...