In an attack that seems motivated more by malice than by money, the Epilepsy Foundation's Web site has been bombarded with hundreds of pictures and links using rapidly flashing images, reports an Associated Press story on MSNBC. Such lights and motion can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy.
Apparently the hackers did not try to commandeer the site or take control of users' PCs.
Science & Technology
Fresno, Calif. - The sheriff of the remote region where Charles Manson hid after a killing spree in the summer of 1969 said Friday that he will allow researchers to begin digging into the sandy soil in search of possible human remains.
Scientists have confirmed that the famed Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Chile is about 14,000 years old, making it the earliest known human settlement in the Americas, the journal Science reported Thursday.
The age of Monte Verde has been the subject of controversy over the years, since estimates appeared to conflict with other archaeological evidence related to the settlement of North America.
The new findings support not only the age of the Monte Verde site, but also the coastal migration theory currently ascribed to by most scholars, which hypothesizes that people first entered the New World through the Bering land bridge more than 16,000 years ago.
The age of Monte Verde has been the subject of controversy over the years, since estimates appeared to conflict with other archaeological evidence related to the settlement of North America.
The new findings support not only the age of the Monte Verde site, but also the coastal migration theory currently ascribed to by most scholars, which hypothesizes that people first entered the New World through the Bering land bridge more than 16,000 years ago.
New research on the Antennae Galaxies using the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows that this benchmark pair of interacting galaxies is in fact much closer than previously thought - 45 million light-years instead of 65 million light-years.
The Antennae Galaxies are among the closest known merging galaxies. The two galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, began interacting a few hundred million years ago, creating one of the most impressive sights in the night sky. They are considered by scientists as the archetypal merging galaxy system and are used as a standard against which to validate theories about galaxy evolution.
The Antennae Galaxies are among the closest known merging galaxies. The two galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, began interacting a few hundred million years ago, creating one of the most impressive sights in the night sky. They are considered by scientists as the archetypal merging galaxy system and are used as a standard against which to validate theories about galaxy evolution.
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| ©NASA, ESA & Ivo Saviane (European Southern Observatory)/Robert Gendler |
| The Antennae Galaxies are among the closest known merging galaxies. The two galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, started to interact a few hundred million years ago, creating one of the most impressive sights in the night sky. The ground-based image (left) is taken by Robert Gendler and shows the two merging galaxies and their impressive long tidal tails. The Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys image (right) shows a portion of the southern tidal tail. |
After working countless hours digging soil samples and analyzing them with sophisticated microscopes, Great Falls High School freshman Katelyn Gibbs has come up with evidence that a comet or meteorite crashed to Earth in Montana 13,000 years ago and had major impact on animals living here at the time.
"Bing! She nailed it!" said David Baker of Monarch, a veteran earth science research scientist who mentored Gibbs on the project. "Katelyn found definitive proof - nanodiamonds and iron micrometeorites - for the extraterrestrial impact event that killed the mammoths in Montana.
"Bing! She nailed it!" said David Baker of Monarch, a veteran earth science research scientist who mentored Gibbs on the project. "Katelyn found definitive proof - nanodiamonds and iron micrometeorites - for the extraterrestrial impact event that killed the mammoths in Montana.
Portland, Oregon -- The long-sought after memristor -- the "missing link" in electronic circuit theory -- has been invented by Hewlett Packard Senior Fellow R. Stanley Williams at HP Labs (Palo Alto, Calif.) Memristors -- the fourth passive component type after resistors, capacitors and inductors -- were postulated in a seminal 1971 paper in the IEEE Transactions on Circuit Theory by professor Leon Chua at the University of California (Berkeley), but their first realization was just announced today by HP. According to Williams and Chua, now virtually every electronics textbook will have to be revised to include the memristor and the new paradigm it represents for electronic circuit theory.
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| ©Alfred Pasieka |
| DNA |
Pssst! I'm going on a tour of the genome - want to come?
I'm going to walk among the coiled spirals of DNA, and ponder the different histories of the different segments. For one of the most remarkable discoveries of recent decades is that genomes are not static, fixed entities that evolve as one; instead, they are highly dynamic. From one generation to the next, stretches of DNA may appear or disappear, or move from one location to another. From time to time, entire new genes appear and become established, thus expanding the organisms' genetic repertoire.
Two decades of scrutinizing Saturn are finally paying off, as scientists have discovered a wave pattern, or oscillation, in Saturn's atmosphere only visible from Earth every 15 years.
The discovery of the wave pattern is the result of a 22-year campaign observing Saturn from Earth (the longest study of temperature outside Earth ever recorded), and the Cassini spacecraft's observations of temperature changes in the giant planet's atmosphere over time.
The Cassini infrared results, which appear in the same issue of Nature as the data from the 22-year ground-based observing campaign, indicate that Saturn's wave pattern is similar to a pattern found in Earth's upper atmosphere. The earthly oscillation takes about two years. A similar pattern on Jupiter takes more than four Earth years. The new Saturn findings add a common link to the three planets.
The discovery of the wave pattern is the result of a 22-year campaign observing Saturn from Earth (the longest study of temperature outside Earth ever recorded), and the Cassini spacecraft's observations of temperature changes in the giant planet's atmosphere over time.
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| ©Unknown |
| "You could only make this discovery by observing Saturn over a long period of time," said Orton, lead author of the ground-based study. "It's like putting together 22 years worth of puzzle pieces, collected by a hugely rewarding collaboration of students and scientists from around the world on various telescopes." |
The Cassini infrared results, which appear in the same issue of Nature as the data from the 22-year ground-based observing campaign, indicate that Saturn's wave pattern is similar to a pattern found in Earth's upper atmosphere. The earthly oscillation takes about two years. A similar pattern on Jupiter takes more than four Earth years. The new Saturn findings add a common link to the three planets.
In a meadow of one of Northern California's pristine national forests, 2,000-pound radio telescopes are popping up like mushrooms.
Made of aluminum and resembling something out of the movie "Contact," they point to the heavens and wait in silent attention. Scientists hope they will one day detect radio waves sent from a faraway planet.
Made of aluminum and resembling something out of the movie "Contact," they point to the heavens and wait in silent attention. Scientists hope they will one day detect radio waves sent from a faraway planet.
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| ©Gary Reyes / Mercury News |
| Forty-two radio dishes of the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Hat Creek, Calif. point to the skies collecting scientific data in the search for signs of intelligent life in the universe on April 29, 2008. Each dish is about 20-feet in diameter. |
ESA's orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has been used by a team of international astronomers to uncover part of the missing matter in the universe.
10 years ago, scientists predicted that about half of the 'ordinary' or normal matter made of atoms exists in the form of low-density gas, filling vast spaces between galaxies.
All the matter in the universe is distributed in a web-like structure. At dense nodes of the cosmic web are clusters of galaxies, the largest objects in the universe. Astronomers suspected that the low-density gas permeates the filaments of the web.
10 years ago, scientists predicted that about half of the 'ordinary' or normal matter made of atoms exists in the form of low-density gas, filling vast spaces between galaxies.
All the matter in the universe is distributed in a web-like structure. At dense nodes of the cosmic web are clusters of galaxies, the largest objects in the universe. Astronomers suspected that the low-density gas permeates the filaments of the web.
