The transition from June to July will be delayed by circumstances beyond everyone's control. Time will stand still for one second on Saturday evening (June 30) because a "leap second" will be added to let a lagging Earth catch up to super-accurate clocks.

International Atomic Time is a very accurate and stable time scale. It is a weighted average of the time kept by about 200 atomic clocks in over 50 national laboratories worldwide.

Atomic time is measured through vibrations of atoms in a metal isotope that resembles mercury and can keep time to within a tenth of a billionth of a second per day. The result is extremely accurate time that can be used to improve synchronization in precision navigation and positioning systems, telecommunications networks and deep-space communications.

But from their careful observations of the positions of the stars, astronomers have deduced that Earth's rotation is ever so slightly slowing down at a non-uniform rate, probably attributable to its sloshing molten core, the rolling of the oceans, the melting of polar ice and the effects of solar and lunar gravity.

A favorite theme of science fiction is "the portal"--an extraordinary opening in space or time that connects travelers to distant realms. A good portal is a shortcut, a guide, a door into the unknown. If only they actually existed....

It turns out that they do, sort of, and a NASA-funded researcher at the University of Iowa has figured out how to find them.

"We call them X-points or electron diffusion regions," explains plasma physicist Jack Scudder of the University of Iowa. "They're places where the magnetic field of Earth connects to the magnetic field of the Sun, creating an uninterrupted path leading from our own planet to the sun's atmosphere 93 million miles away."


Observations by NASA's THEMIS spacecraft and Europe's Cluster probes suggest that these magnetic portals open and close dozens of times each day. They're typically located a few tens of thousands of kilometers from Earth where the geomagnetic field meets the onrushing solar wind. Most portals are small and short-lived; others are yawning, vast, and sustained. Tons of energetic particles can flow through the openings, heating Earth's upper atmosphere, sparking geomagnetic storms, and igniting bright polar auroras.

NASA is planning a mission called "MMS," short for Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, due to launch in 2014, to study the phenomenon. Bristling with energetic particle detectors and magnetic sensors, the four spacecraft of MMS will spread out in Earth's magnetosphere and surround the portals to observe how they work.

Just one problem: Finding them. Magnetic portals are invisible, unstable, and elusive. They open and close without warning "and there are no signposts to guide us in," notes Scudder.

Actually, there are signposts, and Scudder has found them.

A professor has made the world's first automatic translation service for college lectures that can translate live talks instantly.

That solution for overcoming language barriers could open up universities to the most talented students from all over the world. The U.S. still leads the world in attracting international students - more than 723,000 attended U.S. universities in the fall of 2010 - but the new translation tool debuted at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany.

"The translation is not always perfect," said Alex Waibel, a professor of computer science at Germany's KIT and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, "but it is part of the language tools, by means of which students are enabled to better follow the lectures in spite of language barriers."

A first version of the language translator puts German lectures into English. That reflects the use of English as a standard international language among foreign students in Germany, but later versions of the translator could work across many more languages.

The translator can also read and translate written portions of past and present lectures - a relatively simple matter of jumping ahead a step in the translation process.

"The lecture translator automatically records the lecture, transcribes the text into a written version, and translates it into English in real time," Waibel explained. "Students can then follow the lecture via their PC or mobile phone."

Waibel built his translation service based on automatic speech recognition and machine translation technologies over 20 years of research. His work with Carnegie Mellon University and Mobile Technologies LLC & GmbH had funding from the European Commission and the German Excellence Initiative.

Research carried out at North Carolina State University to identify better methods for genetic material packaging to aid in gene therapy has led to findings that could significantly impact gene therapy research and DNA-based electronics.

Gene therapy is a treatment method for specific medical conditions where the relevant DNA cells are modified. The research team found that DNA's double helix structure could be unzipped by positively charged gold nanoparticles.

From the very beginning of genetic research and modification, it was
obvious that it would only be a matter of time before a claim would be staked on the very programming of human life by governments or international corporations. Unfortunately, that day has finally come with the recent patent of two human genes by Myriad Genetics.

The two genes being targeted by Myriad are BRCA1 and BRCA2 and they have already been the subject of several court rulings and a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Some scientists are claiming that these genes provide a link to "hereditary" breast or ovarian cancer. Yet, considering the history of corporations and the advantages they would gain by "owning" the DNA of a species (particularly of the human variety), we can safely assume that there is another agenda afoot which is concerned with more than mere science and development.

With that in mind, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit directed against Myriad Genetics aimed at challenging their claim to the human genes. Interestingly enough, this lawsuit is also working its way through the U.S. Court of Appeals for a second time.

Originally, a District Court had ruled that Myriad's patent on the human genes was invalid because it lays claim to a "product of nature," which is not patentable under law. However, in a 2-1 decision, the court of appeals reversed that ruling, agreeing with Myriad that "isolating" the DNA by removing it from the cell did in fact create a patentable molecule. Thankfully, the Supreme Court vacated this ruling and has ordered the Court of Appeals to reconsider the case.

Yet the idea that a corporation can patent the most basic and fundamental pieces of human biology is so onerous that, in addition to a lawsuit and several court appearances, it is beginning to draw the ire of notable DNA researchers - even those who have advocated eugenics in the past.

China's first female astronaut and two other crew members emerged smiling from a capsule that returned safely to Earth Friday from a 13-day mission to an orbiting module that is a prototype for a future space station.

The Shenzhou 9 parachuted to a landing on the grasslands of the country's sprawling Inner Mongolia region at about 10 a.m. (0200 GMT). China declared the first manned mission to the Tiangong 1 module a major stride ahead for the country's ambitious space program.

About an hour later, mission commander and veteran astronaut Jing Haipeng, 45, emerged from the capsule, followed by crew mates Liu Wang, 43, and 33-year-old Liu Yang, China's first female astronaut.

The three, all experienced air force pilots, were lifted on to folding chairs and appeared in good health. They smiled, waved, chatted and saluted as state television ran live footage from the landing site.

"Tiangong 1, our home in space, was comfortable and pleasant. We're very proud of our nation," Liu Yang told national broadcaster CCTV.

© UnknownBlack circle on map shows the location of the meteorite impact structure near the town Maniitsoq in Greenland.

A 100 kilometre-wide crater has been found in Greenland, the result of a massive asteroid or comet impact a billion years before any other known collision on Earth

The spectacular craters on the Moon formed from impacts with asteroids and comets between 3 and 4 billion years ago. The early Earth, with its far greater gravitational mass, must have experienced even more collisions at this time - but the evidence has been eroded away or covered by younger rocks. The previously oldest known crater on Earth formed 2 billion years ago and the chances of finding an even older impact were thought to be, literally, astronomically low.

Now, a team of scientists from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) in Copenhagen, Cardiff University in Wales, Lund University in Sweden and the Institute of Planetary Science in Moscow has upset these odds. Following a detailed programme of fieldwork, funded by GEUS and the Danish 'Carlsbergfondet' (Carlsberg Foundation), the team have discovered the remains of a giant 3 billion year old impact near the Maniitsoq region of West Greenland.

A new word of caution for Seattleites: The big quake you've been waiting for could be even bigger than expected.

The Seattle Fault, a zone of east-west thrust faults under the Puget Sound and Seattle, last ruptured in a magnitude-7.0 to -7.5 earthquake about 1,100 years ago. It's due for another one, but scientists don't know when that might happen.

Whenever it does, the quake - and ensuing hazards like landslides or a tsunami - could be larger and affect a wider area than scientists had calculated, according to recent research from the University of Washington.

"Before, it looked like the Seattle Fault had a very narrow zone that was deformed during the last major earthquake, but this evidence shows that the zone of deformation was actually several kilometers wider," said Maria Martin Arcos, a geologist with the engineering firm AMEC, who completed the research while she was a doctoral student at the University of Washington.

"This also shows that when you think about an earthquake, you also have to think about and plan for these other things, like landslides and tsunamis, that can come along with it," Arcos told OurAmazingPlanet.

The world's first geneticallymodified humans have been created, it was revealed last night.

The disclosure that 30 healthy babies were born after a series of experiments in the United States provoked another furious debate about ethics.

So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found to contain genes from three 'parents'.

Fifteen of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey.

The babies were born to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilised in an attempt to enable them to conceive.

In the sandy desert grasslands of Namibia in southern Africa, mysterious bare spots known as "fairy circles" will form and then disappear years later for no reason anyone can determine. A new look at these strange patterns doesn't solve the wistful mystery but at least reveals that the largest of the circles can linger for a lifetime.

Small fairy circles stick around an average of 24 years, while larger ones can exist as long as 75 years, according to research detailed today (June 27) in the journal PLoS ONE. Still, the study sheds little light on why the circles form, persist and then vanish into the landscape after decades.

"The why question is very difficult," said study researcher Walter Tschinkel, a biologist at Florida State University. "There are a number of hypotheses on the table, and the evidence for none of them is convincing." [See Photos of Fairy Circles]

Circles of life (and death)

Tschinkel grew interested in fairy circles during a 2005 safari to NamibRand Nature Reserve in southwest Namibia, in the Namib Desert. It was his first experience with the round clearings, tens of thousands of which expose the red sandy soil in the area. A short time after the circles form, a tall ring of grass grows around the border, highlighting the bare area.

Few researchers have studied fairy circles, in part because of their remoteness, 111 miles (180 km) from the nearest village. It's an arid landscape where springbok, ostriches, leopards and other large animals roam, Tschinkel told LIveScience.

"It's like dying and going to heaven if you like remote, beautiful desert places," he said.

At first glance, Tschinkel assumed the circles marked underground nests of harvester termites. But digs have shown no evidence of termite nests under fairy circles. Other explanations, such as differences in soil nutrients or the death of seedlings by toxic vapors from the ground, have likewise failed to hold up to study.