Science & TechnologyS


Comet 2

Comet: C/2018 N2 (ASASSN)

Ernesto Guido
Remanzacco Blogspot
Mon, 16 Jul 2018 18:42 UTC
MPEC 2018-O01, issued on 2018, July 16, announces the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~16.1) in the course of the "All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae" (ASASSN) program, in images taken 2018 July 7-11 with the 14-cm "Cassius" survey telescope at Cerro Tololo. The new comet has been designated C/2018 N2 (ASASSN).

I performed follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the PCCP webpage. Stacking of 10 unfiltered exposures, 60 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2018, July 15.7 from Q62 (iTelescope network) through a 0.43-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD, shows that this object is a comet with a diffuse coma about 15 arcsec in diameter.

My confirmation image (click on it for a bigger version)
Comnet C/2018 NZ
© Remanzacco Blogspot
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Galaxy

Asteroid 2017 YE5 discovered to be locked in orbit with unusual twin

Michelle Starr
Science Alert
Fri, 13 Jul 2018 12:00 UTC
asteroid 2017 ye5
An asteroid discovered orbiting the Sun in December last year has revealed a fun surprise: it's not one asteroid, but two, locked in their own binary orbit around a mutual centre of gravity.

The object is called 2017 YE5 (as in "YE5 a surprise second asteroid, hooray!")*, and when it was first detected on 21 December 2017, it was angled in such a way that astronomers couldn't tell whether it was two objects, or two lobes of the same object joined by a slender waist - like Comet 67P.

But in late June, the asteroids were coming in on the closest point to Earth in their elliptical path around the Sun - a distance of about 6 million kilometres (3.7 million miles) from Earth; it was an observation opportunity too good to pass up.

Comment: Binary objects, like stars, are actually a relatively common feature in the universe:

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Horse

A horse's snort lets you know they're happy

Jordan Hindson
The New Scientist
Wed, 11 Jul 2018 20:12 UTC
horses snort
© Juniors Bildarchiv GmbHSounds happy to me
Horses appear to snort more when they're happy. The finding could be used to assess the conditions in which horses are kept.

The distinctive noise has long been thought to serve hygienic functions, removing phlegm, flies and more from the nostril - although some studies had suggested that horses that are well looked-after seem to do it more.

Martine Hausberger at the University of Rennes, France, decided to investigate by recording the snorting patterns of 48 horses in Brittany, France, living under different conditions. Some of the horses led restricted lives, housed in individual stalls and feeding on low-fibre meals. Others lived more freely, housed in groups and able to feed on grass and hay at their leisure.

Comment: Read more about the emotionally extraordinarily expressive animals:

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Flashlight

NASA releases crazy new photo of the 'spiders' on Mars

Brittany A. Roston
Slash Gear
Fri, 13 Jul 2018 12:00 UTC
‘spiders’ on Mars
© NASA
NASA has released an image showing "spiders" on Mars, small darks spots on the reddish landscape with tendrils one could easily perceive as tiny legs. The marks were captured by the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in mid-May at Mars' south pole during the planet's winter season. The "spiders" make their appearance as the season turns to spring, dotting the terrain.

Of course, the dark marks shown in the image above aren't spiders - they're not even living creatures. Rather, these are marks on the land called "araneiform terrain," a type of mound that appears to radiate outward with tendrils. These spots form in areas where carbon dioxide ice under the surface gets warm and then releases gas.

Comment: It seems Mars doesn't just experience seasons, but it's also undergoing other more extreme shifts, like we're seeing on earth, and elsewhere throughout space: And check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: The Electric Universe - An interview with Wallace Thornhill

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Telescope

Epic new image of Galactic center created with help of 64 South African telescopes

Ryan F. Mandelbaum
Gizmodo
Sun, 15 Jul 2018 13:20 UTC
The black hole at the center of the Milky Way and filaments.
© SARAOThe black hole at the center of the Milky Way and filaments.
You're looking at the center of our galactic home, the Milky Way, as imaged by 64 radio telescopes in the South African wilderness.

Scientists released this image today to inaugurate the completed MeerKAT radio telescope. But these scopes form part of an even more ambitious project: the Square Kilometer Array, a joint effort to build the world's largest telescope, spanning the continents of Africa and Australia.

This image shows filaments of particles, structures that seem to exist in alignment with the galaxy's central black hole. It's unclear what causes these filaments. Maybe they are particles ejected by the spinning black hole; maybe they are hypothesized "cosmic strings;" and maybe they're not unique, and there are other, similar structures waiting to be found, according to a 2017 release from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Comment: We're still very much in the dark regarding the properties and rhythms of our universe:

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Info

New control of cell division discovered


University of Zurich
Thu, 12 Jul 2018 22:35 UTC
When a cell divides, its constituents are usually evenly distributed among the daughter cells. UZH researchers have now identified an enzyme that guarantees that cell constituents that are concentrated in organelles without a membrane are properly distributed. Their discovery opens up new opportunities for the treatment of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, aging processes and viral infections.
Cell Division
© iStock/zimmytwsVinegar drops in olive oil illustrate the phase separation of two liquids.
As every cook has experienced: When balsamic vinegar and olive oil are mixed, both liquids separate. Round vinegar drops form, which then float on the surface of the oil. In physical terms, this constitutes the formation of two phases in the liquid. Phase separation of molecules also takes place inside cells. Here, liquid drops form in the cell plasma.

Phase separation guarantees distribution of cell components

Researchers at the laboratory of Lucas Pelkmans, professor at the Institute of Molecular Life Sciences at the University of Zurich (UZH), have now discovered that a class of enzymes - which are dual specificity kinases - actively control this process in cells. When a cell divides, the enzyme DYRK3 promotes the mixing of the phases. This guarantees that the cells can correctly build the machinery for separating the chromosomes and dividing the cell content. After division, the enzyme is broken down and the individual phases start to form again. If everything goes according to plan, the genetic material, organelles and cell contents are correctly distributed among the daughter cells. "These fundamental findings give us completely new insights into cell division: as a process in which the cell contents mix together and then separate again," says Lucas Pelkmans.
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Wedding Rings

New microcrystalline form of gold is much golder than normal gold

Michael Marshall
New Scientist
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 16:44 UTC
gold nugget
© Susan E. Degginger / Alamy Stock PhotoNot gold enough?
New form of gold is much golder than normal gold

All that glitters is not gold - but sometimes it really, really is. Researchers have made a new kind of gold crystal that is even more gold-like than regular gold.

Gold is a precious metal, which means that as well as being attractively shiny it is almost entirely chemically inert. Unlike other metals, it does not rust when exposed to air, and retains its lustre indefinitely.

It's said this property is why wedding rings are traditionally made of gold: it represents an eternity of love. Silver is another such "noble metal", but even silver reacts slowly with oxygen in the air, so requires occasional polishing.

In 2015 Giridhar Kulkarni of the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences in Bangalore, India and his colleagues described a new form of gold: microcrystals measuring between 2 and 17 micrometres. They made them by heating gold chloride to 220 °C for 30 minutes in the presence of a second chemical called tetraoctylammonium bromide. They look like angular, knobbly sausages.
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Mars

Crust-formation on Mars means red planet could have been habitable 100 million years before Earth was

Leah Crane
New Scientist
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:45 UTC
mars rocks
© NASA
The solid surface of Mars formed 100 million years before Earth's - meaning life would have had a head start to evolve on the Red Planet.

Early Mars, like the other rocky planets, was covered in a global magma ocean. The top of that sea of molten rock eventually hardened to a crust, but we weren't sure exactly when - researchers thought it could have happened between 30 million and 100 million years after the start of the solar system. Now, we have evidence that it was much faster.

Laura Bouvier at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and her colleagues figured this out by studying ancient crystals in a Martian meteorite found in Morocco in 2011, dating them to about 4.4 billion years old.

Based on the compositions of the crystals, the researchers suggest that Mars first formed a crust about 4.5 billion years ago. This initial surface survived for about 100 million years before parts of it were melted again, possibly by impacts, to create the magma that the zircons came from.

Comment: See also: Discovery of organic molecule on Mars strongly suggests life exists on other planets

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Colosseum

Genetic research suggests the Roman Empire helped to spread tuberculosis across three continents

Clare Wilson
New Scientist
Tue, 03 Jul 2018 00:00 UTC
romans spread tuberculosis
© Marco Ravagli / Barcroft MediaWhat did the Roman Empire ever do for us? It spread tuberculosis
The Romans gave us roads, public toilets and the modern calendar, but we may also have them to thank for spreading a deadly disease: tuberculosis.

A genetic analysis suggests that while TB first arose about 5000 years ago in Africa, the Roman Empire was behind its more recent, rapid spread around Europe and beyond.

TB is a lung infection that, if left untreated, can cause a chronic cough, weight loss and a lingering death. By some estimates the bacterium that causes it, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, has killed more people than any other infectious disease in history.

The strain of TB that affects humans can't be carried by other animals, says Caitlin Pepperell at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "So the evolution of the bacterium is inextricably tied to humans."

To find out its origins, Pepperell's team looked at the genetic sequences of 552 samples of TB bacteria obtained from people across most of the world. They left out North and South America as people in these continents are mainly affected by TB bacteria that arrived with the first Europeans.

Comment: Other research suggests that the spread of farming enabled the disease to initially take hold in human populations: Tuberculosis genomes and human history

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Mars

Solar System-wide Climate Change: Green flashes seen on Mars amidst 'global' dust storm


Space Weather
Thu, 12 Jul 2018 20:33 UTC
Green blue flash on Mars
Mars is approaching Earth for a 15-year close encounter on July 27th. The Red Planet now outshines every object in the sky except the sun, Moon, and Venus. Mars is doing things only very luminous objects can do--like produce a green flash. Watch this video taken by Peter Rosén of Stockholm, Sweden, on July 12th:


"Mars was shining brightly in the early morning sky," he says. "At an altitude of only 6.5° above the horizon, the turbulence was extreme, sometimes splitting the planet's disc in 2 or 3 slices and displaying a green and blue flash resembling those usually seen on the sun."

That's not all. Mars is also making its own glitter paths. Last night, Alan Dyer photographed this specimen from Driftwood Beach at Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta:
Fireball over Alberta
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