Science & Technology
Hyderabad India - India and Russia held discussions here on possibility of cooperation in space exploration, including missions to the moon and Mars. General Anatoly Perminov, Head of the Federal Space Agency, Russia met Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G Madhavan Nair on the sidelines of the 58th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here. "Discussions are on for possible cooperation with ISRO on missions to the moon and Mars," Perminov said. He said a special meeting of officials of space agencies from the two countries will be held in November to take the discussions forward.
Moffet Field CA - In May 2007, Victoria Meadows, Principal Investigator for the Virtual Planetary Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology's Spitzer Science Center, presented a lecture at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In part four of this six-part edited series, she explains how different types of worlds, even ones not like the Earth, can still be potential havens for life.
"Not all life is going to look like life on Earth. There are so many different types of worlds out there, so many things that we never expected to see that we are now seeing. It behooves us to not assume we're going to see a spectrum that looks just like the Earth's. That would be nice, but it's probably not going to happen. We have to consider that there will be a huge diversity of different types of worlds.
"Not all life is going to look like life on Earth. There are so many different types of worlds out there, so many things that we never expected to see that we are now seeing. It behooves us to not assume we're going to see a spectrum that looks just like the Earth's. That would be nice, but it's probably not going to happen. We have to consider that there will be a huge diversity of different types of worlds.
Hyderabad, India - India will develop its own technology to launch an astronaut into space rather than rely on outside support, the head of the country's space agency said Thursday.
India's space programme suffered in the past from sanctions imposed by the West, barring access to space material and technology transfers, after the country tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and in 1998.
India's space programme suffered in the past from sanctions imposed by the West, barring access to space material and technology transfers, after the country tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and in 1998.
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX)
NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on its way to study a pair of asteroids after lifting off Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:34 a.m. EDT (4:34 a.m. PDT). Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received telemetry on schedule at 9:44 a.m. EDT (6:44 a.m. PDT) indicating Dawn had achieved proper orientation in space and its massive solar array was generating power from the sun.
"Dawn has risen, and the spacecraft is healthy," said the mission's project manager Keyur Patel of JPL. "About this time tomorrow [Friday morning], we will have passed the moon's orbit."
NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on its way to study a pair of asteroids after lifting off Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:34 a.m. EDT (4:34 a.m. PDT). Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received telemetry on schedule at 9:44 a.m. EDT (6:44 a.m. PDT) indicating Dawn had achieved proper orientation in space and its massive solar array was generating power from the sun.
"Dawn has risen, and the spacecraft is healthy," said the mission's project manager Keyur Patel of JPL. "About this time tomorrow [Friday morning], we will have passed the moon's orbit."
What caused the extinction of mammoths and the decline of Stone Age people about 13,000 years ago remains hotly debated. Overhunting by Paleoindians, climate change and disease lead the list of probable causes. But an idea once considered a little out there is now hitting closer to home.
A team of international researchers, including two Northern Arizona University geologists, reports evidence that a comet or low-density object barreling toward Earth exploded in the upper atmosphere and triggered a devastating swath of destruction that wiped out most of the large animals, their habitat and humans of that period.
A team of international researchers, including two Northern Arizona University geologists, reports evidence that a comet or low-density object barreling toward Earth exploded in the upper atmosphere and triggered a devastating swath of destruction that wiped out most of the large animals, their habitat and humans of that period.
Deep-sea temperatures rose 1,300 years before atmospheric CO2, ruling out the greenhouse gas as driver of meltdown, says study in Science.
WASHINGTON - Astronomers who stumbled upon a powerful burst of radio waves said on Thursday they had never seen anything like it before, and it could offer a new way to search for colliding stars or dying black holes.
They were searching for pulsars -- a type of rotating compacted neutron star that sends out rhythmic pulses of radiation -- when they spotted the giant radio signal.
They were searching for pulsars -- a type of rotating compacted neutron star that sends out rhythmic pulses of radiation -- when they spotted the giant radio signal.
Microsoft on Thursday began phasing in a slick new version of its Live Search service in a bid to gain ground on leading Internet search rivals Google and Yahoo.
Microsoft's improved Live Search will be available throughout the United States in a week and globally by the end of October, according to vice president of search and advertising platform group Satya Nadella.
Microsoft's improved Live Search will be available throughout the United States in a week and globally by the end of October, according to vice president of search and advertising platform group Satya Nadella.
News from the American Physical Society
Magnetic Snakes Create Water Current
M. Belkin, A. Snezhko, I.S. Aranson, and W.-K. Kwok
Physicists at Argonne National Laboratory have found that magnetic particles suspended in water and subjected to an alternating magnetic field will form snake-shaped structures that can control the flow of the surrounding fluid. Current incarnations of the magnetic snake are a few centimeters long, but the team envisions much smaller versions as pumps to manipulate liquids on microscopic scales or precursors for next-generation magnetic recording media in future computers. The team's recent experiment shows that the speed of the water flowing along the snake depends on how quickly the magnetic field alternates.
Magnetic Snakes Create Water Current
M. Belkin, A. Snezhko, I.S. Aranson, and W.-K. Kwok
Physicists at Argonne National Laboratory have found that magnetic particles suspended in water and subjected to an alternating magnetic field will form snake-shaped structures that can control the flow of the surrounding fluid. Current incarnations of the magnetic snake are a few centimeters long, but the team envisions much smaller versions as pumps to manipulate liquids on microscopic scales or precursors for next-generation magnetic recording media in future computers. The team's recent experiment shows that the speed of the water flowing along the snake depends on how quickly the magnetic field alternates.
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| ©M. Belkin, A. Snezhko, I.S. Aranson, and W.-K. Kwok |
| Alternating magnetic fields create snake-like chains of magnetic particles suspended in fluid. The snakes direct the flow of the surrounding fluid along their lengths, potentially leading to new methods to control fluids in chip-based chemical analysis. |
When Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Kim Cobb and graduate student Jud Partin wanted to understand the mechanisms that drove the abrupt climate change events that occurred thousands of years ago, they didn't drill for ice cores from the glaciers of Greenland or the icy plains of Antarctica, as is customary for paleoclimatolgists. Instead, they went underground.
Growing inside the caves of the tropical Pacific island of Borneo are some of the keys to understanding how the Earth's climate suddenly changed - several times - over the last 25,000 years. By analyzing stalagmites, the pilar-like rock formations that stem from the ground in caves, they were able to produce a high-resolution and continuous record of the climate over this equatorial rainforest.
Growing inside the caves of the tropical Pacific island of Borneo are some of the keys to understanding how the Earth's climate suddenly changed - several times - over the last 25,000 years. By analyzing stalagmites, the pilar-like rock formations that stem from the ground in caves, they were able to produce a high-resolution and continuous record of the climate over this equatorial rainforest.
