Science & TechnologyS


Blackbox

Mystery of Moon's Lost Magnetism Solved?

Clara Moskowitz
SPACE.com
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:15 UTC
One of the abiding mysteries of our moon is why it apparently once had a magnetic field. Now two teams of scientists have offered two separate, but potentially complementary, explanations.
Image
© M.-H. Deproost, ORB, BelgiqueThis illustration shows one suggested mechanism for creating an ancient magnetic field on the moon. In this scenario, impacting space rocks on the moon would create instability in the moon's core that could lead to a dynamo that creates a magnetic field.

When Apollo astronauts brought back samples of moon rocks from their lunar landing missions in the 1960s and '70s, some of them shocked scientists by being magnetic. That means that individual rocks might have a magnetic north and south pole and a small magnetic field of their own.

This can happen to rocks with the right minerals inside them, if they cool in the presence of a magnetic field. The problem is, scientists had no idea that the moon had ever had a magnetic field, and were at a loss to explain how that might have happened.
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Chalkboard

Fibonacci: the man who figured out flowers

Keith Devlin
The Telegraph
Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:39 UTC
Fibonacci numbers math
© AlamyLeonardo of Pisa, or 'Fibonacci', and (right) a sunflower, the seeds of which display Fibonacci numbers
A new book reveals how a 13th-century tome on arithmetic has shaped modern finance and explains some mysteries of nature, says Keith Devlin.

Try to imagine a day without numbers. Try to imagine getting through the first hour of that day. No alarm clock, no time, no date, no television or radio, no stock market report or sports results in the newspapers, no bank account to check.

The fact is, our lives depend on numbers. You may not have "a head for figures", but you certainly have a head full of them. Most of what we do each day is conditioned by numbers. Indeed, the degree to which our modern society depends on those that are hidden from us was made clear by the financial meltdown in 2008, when overconfident reliance on the advanced mathematics of the credit market led to a collapse of the global financial system.

How did we become so familiar with, and so reliant on, these abstractions that our ancestors invented just a few thousand years ago? By the latter part of the first millennium AD, the system we use today to write numbers and do arithmetic had been worked out - expressing any number using just the 10 numerals 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing them by the procedures we are all taught in primary school. This familiar way to write numbers and do arithmetic is known as the Hindu-Arabic system, a name that reflects its history.
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Info

Costs of 'Expensive' Human Brain Still Up For Debate

Jennifer Welsh
Live Science
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:33 UTC
Human Brain Size
© Dannyphoto80 | Dreamstime.comDo our bigger brains drag our bodies down? A theory suggests that because our brains use so much energy, our bodies have to cope by shortening our guts. By studying brain and organ size in humans and 100 other mammals, research suggests that this just wasn't true. Brain size didn't mean that any give mammal had to skimp on other organs.
Half a million years ago, the human brain started expanding. Bigger brains need more energy to keep trucking, but scientists have been stumped as to where we found this extra juice when our metabolic rate, which is how we churn out energy, is on par with our pea-brained cousins.

One recent theory suggests that our brain's need for energy was fed by a smaller gut, since an easier-to-digest diet would free up energy from the gut to build up the brain. New research suggests this might not be the case, that storing energy in our fat deposits is more important.

"Animals with big brains, they had very low adipose [fat] tissue. Animals that had large adipose tissues had smaller brains," study researcher Ana Navarrete, of the University of Zurich, in Switzerland, told LiveScience. "Either you have a much [bigger] brain or a lot of adipose tissue. Usually they are mutually exclusive."
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Laptop

US: DARPA Wants More Money for Cyber Weapons

Shane McGlaun
Daily Tech
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:17 UTC
DARPA wants offensive and defensive weapons
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© Unknown

The number of cyber attacks and malicious software programs out there on the internet today are growing constantly these attacks may only be a nuisance to some of us, but they pose real world threats to the security of the U.S. during war (and even at times of relative peace). The Pentagon is looking to field new weapons on the cyber battlefield for offense and defense.

Researchers from DARPA want better weapons - and more of them -- that can be used to defend against cyber attacks and to attack foreign nations in times of war. DARPA director Regina Dugan is calling for a much greater investment in the development and deployment of defensive and offense cyber weapons.

"Malicious cyber attacks are not merely an existential threat to our bits and bytes. They are a real threat to our physical systems, including our military systems," said Dugan. "To this end, in the coming years we will focus an increasing portion of our cyber research on the investigation of offensive capabilities to address military-specific needs."
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Robot

Japan: Honda Shows Smarter Robot, Helps in Nuclear Crisis

Yuri Kageyama
The Associated Press
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press / Itsuo InouyeHonda Motor Co.'s revamped human-shaped robot "Asimo" opens the top of a thermos bottle before pouring the drink into a cup during a news conference at the Japanese automaker's research facility in Wako, near Tokyo, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011. Asimo can now run faster, balance itself on uneven surfaces, hop on one foot, pour a drink and even almost "think" on its own.
Honda's human-shaped robot can now run faster, balance itself on uneven surfaces, hop on one foot and pour a drink. Some of its technology may even be used to help out with clean-up operations at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.

Honda's demonstration of the revamped "Asimo" on Tuesday at its Tokyo suburban research facility was not only to prove that the bubble-headed childlike machine was more limber and a bit smarter.

It was a way to try to answer some critics that Asimo, first shown in 2000, had been of little practical use so far, proving to be nothing more than a glorified toy and cute showcase for the Honda Motor Co. brand.

Honda President Takanobu Ito told reporters some of Asimo's technology was used to develop a robotic arm in just six months with the intention of helping with the nuclear crisis in northeastern Japan.

The mechanical arm can open and close valves at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which went into meltdown after the March tsunami, according to Honda. The automaker is working with the utility behind the problem plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co., to try to meet demands to bring the plant under control.

Ito acknowledged that the first idea was to send in Asimo to help out, but that was not possible because the robot cannot maneuver in rubble, and its delicate computer parts would malfunction in radiation.
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Info

Irish Whodunit: The Mystery of the Moving Boulders

Andrea Mustain
OurAmazingPlanet
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:45 UTC
Wave
© Ronadh CoxA wave crashes against the dramatic cliffs that ring Ireland's Aran Islands.

On a trio of tiny islands off Ireland's western coast, there is a mystery afoot. Something has picked up massive boulders and set them down inland, on a flat, wind-lashed landscape encircled by craggy cliffs that rise from the Atlantic Ocean.

Strewn along the haunting, rugged coastlines of the Aran Islands, the rocks were ripped from the faces of the surrounding cliffs below. Some originate from beneath the ocean's surface. The largest of these boulders weigh about 78 tons, and lie some 40 feet (12 meters) above the reach of the sea. Smaller boulders, weighing about 3 or 4 tons each, lie more than 820 feet (250 m) inland.

"The local people say that these rocks are moving," said geologist Ronadh Cox, a professor of geosciences and chairwoman of the maritime studies program at Williams College in Massachusetts.

So what unseen hand is capable of tossing such heavy boulders so far inland?

Cox said that she and some of her students have uncovered the answer, thanks to some man-made rock walls, some high-tech tools, a species of tiny clam, and maps made more than a century ago. The team presented work at the recent Geological Society of America annual meeting held in Minneapolis, and have submitted the research for publication.
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Clock

Time is Running Out for the Leap Second

Zeeya Merali
Nature
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:52 UTC
Atomic Clock
© Clock Desktop.com

Abolition would see 'official' time unmoored from the Sun.

"The times," sang Bob Dylan, "they are a-changin'." His words could become literal truth in January, when the World Radiocommunication Conference of the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva, Switzerland, will vote on whether to redefine Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and pull our clock time out of synchronization with the Sun's location in the sky.

At issue is whether to abolish the 'leap second' - the extra second added every year or so to keep UTC in step with Earth's slightly unpredictable orbit. UTC - the reference against which international time zones are set - is calculated by averaging signals from around 400 atomic clocks, with leap seconds added to stop UTC drifting away from solar time at a rate of about one minute every 90 years.

But "leap seconds are a nuisance", says Elisa Felicitas Arias, the director of the Time Department at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in Sèvres, France. They cannot be preprogrammed into software because they are typically announced only six months in advance by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service in Frankfurt, Germany. If the seconds get implemented inconsistently in different systems, clocks can briefly go out of synch, potentially leading to glitches that can stall computers and leave international financial markets vulnerable to attack.
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Info

Realistic 3D, Human-Like Robotic Head Under Development


redOrbit
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:47 UTC
Mask-Bot
© Uli Benz / Technical University of MunichDr. Takaaki Kuratate and his robot communication interface Mask-Bot.

Researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) Institute for Cognitive Systems are in the process of creating a new robot that features a realistic human face and can reproduce basic dialog, according to a press release sent out by the university on Monday.

According to that media advisory, the so-called "Mask-Bot" features a number of innovations. Those include the projection of a vast array of realistic 3D faces that can be viewed from any number of angles, rather than the "cartoon-like style" utilized by other development teams.

Those faces are displayed on a transparent plastic mask, and can be changed at any time through the use of a projector that is positioned behind the mask itself, the TUM researchers said.

Furthermore, according to Popsci reporter Rebecca Boyle, Mask-Bot utilizes a "talking head animation engine" that allows it to "filter face emotions according to the emotional feel of spoken words, so the faces accurately reflect the speakers' expressions."
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Beaker

Scientists Successful in Rejuvenating Cells in Elderly Patients

Tiffany Kaiser
Daily Tech
Tue, 08 Nov 2011 09:42 UTC
A research team has accomplished the rejuvenation of cells from elderly donors, which could prove to be beneficial for regenerative medicine
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© INSERM

A research team from the Functional Genomics Institute has successfully reprogrammed cells from elderly donors in vitro to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and to rejuvenated human embryonic stem cells (hESC).

Jean-Marc Lemaitre, study leader and Inserm researcher at the Functional Genomics Institute (Inserm, CNRS, and Université de Montpellier 1 and 2), and Inserm's AVENIR Genomic plasticity and aging team, have accomplished the rejuvenation of cells from elderly donors, which could prove to be beneficial for regenerative medicine.

Since 2007, research teams have been able to reprogram human adult cells into iPSCs, which have similar traits as hESCs. HESCs are the desired result because they are undifferentiated cells that can form various types of differentiated adult cells in the body. Using embryonic stem cells is out of the question due to ethical problems with using stem cells from a human embryo, so researchers have been using different avenues to achieve the same results.
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Satellite

NASA Studying Ways to Make 'Tractor Beams' a Reality


NASA
Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:49 UTC
tractor beam NASA
© NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Debora McCallumGoddard laser experts (from left to right) Barry Coyle, Paul Stysley, and Demetrios Poulios have won NASA funding to study advanced technologies for collecting extraterrestrial particle samples.
Tractor beams -- the ability to trap and move objects using laser light -- are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or atmospheric particles and delivering them to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft for analysis.

The NASA Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) has awarded Principal Investigator Paul Stysley and team members Demetrios Poulios and Barry Coyle at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., $100,000 to study three experimental methods for corralling particles and transporting them via laser light to an instrument -- akin to a vacuum using suction to collect and transport dirt to a canister or bag. Once delivered, an instrument would then characterize their composition.

"Though a mainstay in science fiction, and Star Trek in particular, laser-based trapping isn't fanciful or beyond current technological know-how," Stysley said. The team has identified three different approaches for transporting particles, as well as single molecules, viruses, ribonucleic acid, and fully functioning cells, using the power of light.
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