Discovery Date: May 18, 2013

Magnitude: 17.4 mag

Discoverer: Eric J. Christensen (Mt. Lemmon)

The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2013-K38.

Can dolphins detect cancer in people? To some scientists, it's not even a legitimate hypothesis; and to many animal-rights activists, "swim-with-the-dolphin" cancer diagnostic centers would be no less objectionable than any other form of captivity.

But what if the rather far-fetched idea were true? What if we tested dolphins and discovered they can detect tiny tumors and abnormal growths in humans, perhaps even those missed by state-of-the-art technology? Instead of X-rays, MRIs and CAT scans, will patients one day be clamoring for cetacean-grams?

Probably not. But I, for one, believe the hypothesis is plausible. Others are positively convinced it is fact, including Patricia Stoops of Panama City, Florida, who claims that a captive dolphin named Keppler saved her life after a chance meeting at a swim-with program in the Caribbean.

Stoops was on a Carnival cruise in the British Virgin Islands when she eagerly signed up for the "dolphin excursion" on the island of Tortola.

She and about 15 others entered the water as a group of captive dolphins approached them and began interacting as normal. But one dolphin, Keppler, took a keen interest in Stoops and refused to leave her alone.

"He did a flip in front of me," she told WJHG-TV news in Panama City. "He kept running into me and I explained to the trainer that the dolphin had hit me. He said, 'Oh, that's unusual.' The dolphin trainer said the dolphin detected something wrong with me."

Near-Earth Objects (NEO) have long been a dilemma for scientists, especially since the discovery of 99942 Apophis in 2004. Apophis was first believed to be heading directly towards earth, and created a bit of a stir when people realized that it could hit earth in 2029. However, since then, due to several recalculations and lucky happenstances, the asteroid has only a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting earth.

Astrophycisist, Sir Martin Rees pf Cambridge University, has famously speculated that the asteroid risk is just one of many reasons why humankind has only a 50/50 chance of making it into the next century. Even so, he says comets are more frightening of a doomsday prospect.

Pound for pound, comets are much more dangerous than asteroids, which have nonetheless gotten more media attention. Comets travel a lot faster through space than Asteroids, which travel at about 25-30 km per second. The speed of a comet approaches a much faster 70 km per second. A relatively small object of just one and a half km in diameter hitting the Earth would release more energy than all the atomic bombs ever detonated and then some. An object of 20 km or more would likely cause mass extinction.

A massive dark, asteroid dubbed 1998 QE2 will make its closest pass to Earth on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. Its 1.7 miles long; its surface is covered in a black substance. If it impacted Earth, it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby. Scientists are not sure where this unusually large space rock, which was discovered 15 years ago, originated. But the mysterious sooty substance on its surface could indicate it may be a result of a comet that flew too close to the sun, said Amy Mainzer, who tracks near-Earth objects at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in La Canada Flintridge, Calif. It might also have leaked out of the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, she said.

Cold fusion has been called one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs that might likely never happen. On the surface, it seems simple - a room-temperature reaction occurring under normal pressure. But it is a nuclear reaction, and figuring it out and getting it to work has not been simple, and any success in this area could ultimately - and seriously - change the world. Despite various claims of victory over the years since 1920, none have been able to be replicated consistently and reliably.

But there's buzz this week of a cold fusion experiment that has been replicated, twice. The tests have reportedly produced excess heat with roughly 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline.

The names involved are familiar: Italian entrepreneur Andrea Rossi has been claiming for several years that his E-Cat device produces heat through a process called a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR), and puts out more energy than goes in. In the past, Rossi didn't allow anyone to verify his device because he claimed his device was an "industrial trade secret."

Near-Earth asteroid 1998 QE2 is approaching the Earth-Moon system for a flyby on May 31st. There's no danger of a collision; at closest approach the asteroid will be 3.6 million miles away. Even at that distance, however, the 1.7-mile-wide space rock will be an easy target for mid-sized backyard telescopes. Using a 14-inch Celestron, Alberto Quijano Vodniza of Narino, Colombia took this picture of 1998 QE2 on May 17th:

The sunlit side of the asteroid will turn more squarely toward Earth during the first week of June. At that time it will reach a maximum brightness of 11th magnitude. NASA radars will be monitoring the flyby, too. "Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target at Goldstone and Arecibo and we expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface features," says radar astronomer Lance Benner of JPL. "Whenever an asteroid approaches this closely, it provides an important scientific opportunity to study it in detail to understand its size, shape, rotation, surface features, and what they can tell us about its origin."

Stay tuned for updates and observing tips.

The moon will take the smallest of dips through the Earth's shadow in a minor eclipse tonight (May 24) and you can watch the lunar event live online via a webcast. The lackluster lunar eclipse will star in a free webcast by the Slooh Space Camera, which offers live views of the night sky via remotely operated telescopes. The eclipse webcast will begin at 11:37 p.m. EDT (0337 May 25 GMT).
You can watch the lunar eclipse webcast on SPACE.com courtesy of the Slooh Space Camera. The event comes on the heels of a "ring of fire" solar eclipse on May 10 and another partial lunar eclipse on April 25. Stargazing experts predict that tonight's eclipse won't be anywhere near as impressive as the other recent eclipses because only a tiny sliver of the May full moon will pass through the penumbra, the outermost part of Earth's shadow.

"It will thus be impossible to notice anything out of the ordinary concerning the moon's overall appearance," SPACE.com's skywatching columnist Joe Rao explained in a viewing guide today. "It will, in fact look like any other full moon."

Technologies are tools for doing or making things. They are a means to transform what nature has given into food, clothing, shelter, means of mobility, means of communication. Technology is a means to an end; it is not an end in itself. But when we stop perceiving technology as a means mediating between nature and human needs and elevate it to an end in itself, we falsely give it the status of a religion.

The Green Revolution bred seeds to respond to chemical fertilisers - they were called "miracle seeds". The father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, called the 12 people he sent across the world to spread chemicals by introducing new seeds his "wheat apostles". This is the discourse of religion, not of science and technology.

When the Green Revolution was introduced in India in 1965-66, no assessment was made of the impact chemical fertiliser will have on soil organisms, soil structure and the soil's water-holding capacity. No attempt was made to compare the yields of Green Revolution varieties and the outputs of indigenous varieties and mixed farming system. When we started to conserve native seeds through the Navdanya movement in 1987, we found many of the indigenous varieties outperformed the Green Revolution varieties in grain yield. They also outperformed them in total biomass yield - this really matters because while the grain is eaten by humans, straw is food for soil organisms and farm animals. Our work on mixtures and biodiverse systems of farming shows that as a system, indigenous biodiversity produces more food and nutrition per acre.

GPs can now refer patients with a common iron overload disorder for prompt treatment using an app that could see the end of paper based referrals.

In a world first, doctors developed a simple web based app that quickly identifies patients with hereditary haemochromatosis (HH) and refers them directly to the Red Cross blood service for therapeutic blood donation.

Under the old paper based system, patients often have to wait up to three months for paperwork to be completed, delaying much needed treatment and potentially putting them at risk of organ damage.

Twelve years of supersized earthquakes have contaminated GPS sites around the world, a new study finds.

The Global Positioning System is a network of satellites and ground stations that provide location information anywhere on Earth. Except for spots in Australia, western Europe and the eastern tip of Canada, every GPS site on the ground underwent small but important shifts since 2000 because of big earthquakes, according to a study published May 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

The research confirms that great earthquakes, those bigger than magnitude 8.0, can have far-reaching effects on the Earth's crust. And because GPS is critical for everything from calculating satellite orbits to sea level rise to earthquake hazards, scientists can't ignore these tiny zigs and zags, the researchers conclude.

"We have to find a way to deal with it," said Paul Tregoning, lead study author and a geophysicist at Australia National University in Canberra. "The community needs to work out how to find all the offsets, estimate them accurately and get everyone to agree on how to correct them," he told LiveScience.

Tregoning and his colleagues modeled the sudden jolts in Earth's crust from each of the 15 biggest earthquakes since 2000. They discovered that crust thousands of miles away from the faults had moved horizontally by as much as a tenth of an inch (a few millimeters). The model was checked against a few spots around the planet. On average, the earthquakes deformed the crust by a hundredth of an inch every year (0.4 millimeters a year) - about the width of the lead in a mechanical pencil.

"It's quite amazing to us that we can see this and detect this," Tregoning said.

These tiny effects won't make a difference to the GPS in cars or phones, or the tough little units carried by hikers and mountaineers. But scientists who need precise measurements to calculate sea level rise or satellite orbits should be concerned, Tregoning said.

In September, the U.S. government will fire into orbit a two-stage rocket from a Virginia launchpad. Officially, the mission is a scientific one, designed to improve America's ability to send small satellites into space quickly and cheaply. But the launch will also have a second purpose: to help the elite forces of U.S. Special Operations Command hunt down people considered to be dangerous to the United States and its interests.

For years, special operators have used tiny "tags" to clandestinely mark their prey - and satellites to relay information from those beacons. But there are areas of the world where the satellite coverage is thin, and there aren't enough cell towers to provide an alternative. That's why SOCOM is putting eight miniature communications satellites, each about the size of a water jug, on top of the Minotaur rocket that's getting ready to launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. They'll sit more than 300 miles above the earth and provide a new way for the beacons to call back to their masters.