Science & TechnologyS


Pharoah

Ancient Egypt had powerful Sudan rival, British Museum dig shows

The Second Kushite Kingdom controlled the whole Nile valley from Khartoum to the Mediterranean from 720BC to 660BC.

Now archaeologists have discovered that a region of northern Sudan once considered a forgotten backwater once actually "a real power-base".

They discovered a ruined pyramid containing fine gold jewellery dating from about 700BC on a remote un-navigable 100-mile stretch of the Nile known as the Fourth Cataract, plus pottery from as far away as Turkey.

Other finds included numerous examples of ancient rock art and 'musical' rocks that were tapped to create a melodic sound.

Saturn

Flashback Saturn's rings may be remains of ancient moon

Saturn's rings
Why are Saturn's rings so spectacular? It could be that the planet managed to cling onto a moon when all the other gas giants in our solar system had already lost theirs. Today's rings formed when the moon was smashed up.

Sebastien Charnoz and colleagues at the University of Diderot, Paris, suggest it was during the "late heavy bombardment", 700 million years after Saturn formed, that a chunk of debris collided with one of the planet's moons. Because the moon was orbiting at just the right distance from Saturn when it shattered - within the so-called Roche limit - the tiny pieces formed the rings instead of dispersing.

Mr. Potato

Left-hand people 'more inhibited'

Left Handed
© BBCLeft-handed people studied felt more inhibited and anxious

People who are left-handed are more likely to get anxious or feel shy or embarrassed about doing or saying what they want, according to new research. Those involved in the Abertay University study were given a behavioural test that gauges personal restraint and impulsiveness.

Researchers found left-handers tended to agree more with statements such as "I worry about making mistakes." They also agreed that "criticism or scolding hurts me quite a bit." In total, 46 left-handed people were compared with 66 right-handers.

Satellite

Private Firm Reveals Ambitious Moon Mission Plan

Artemis Lander
© Astrobotic/Google Lunar X PRIZE The Astrobotic team's "Artemis Lander" (background) and "Red Rover" (foreground) is one of 10 spacecraft now enrolled to compete in the Google Lunar X PRIZE Cup.
A private group planning to launch a moon rover to the famed Apollo 11 landing site in a bid to win a $20 million prize announced an ambitious plan Thursday to send five more spacecraft to explore the lunar poles.

The Pittsburgh, Pennsyvania.-based firm Astrobotic Technology, Inc., led by Carnegie Mellon University roboticist William "Red" Whittaker, announced plans to launch its first rover to NASA's Tranquility Base in May 2010 to win the Google Lunar X Prize competition, the company announced Thursday.

Satellite

Huge Meteor Crater Found Underneath Martian Ice

Martian crater
© NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaA trough carved by erosion in Mars' north polar region. The conical mound indicates a buried crater underneath the ice-rich soil.
New images taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed rare evidence of an impact crater in Mars' north polar region.

Around the red planet's north pole is a feature called the north polar layered deposits, which are a series of ice-rich layers deposited over time and up to several kilometers thick.

The new images from MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera revealed an odd, solitary hill rising part-way down an eroding slope of the layered terrain.

The exposed section of the deposits is about 1,640 feet (500 meters) thick, and the conical mound is about 130 feet (40 meters) high.

Magnify

Light Weight Hydrogen 'Tank' Could Fuel Hydrogen Economy

Dutch-sponsored researcher Robin Gremaud has shown that an alloy of the metals magnesium, titanium and nickel is excellent at absorbing hydrogen. This light alloy brings us a step closer to the everyday use of hydrogen as a source of fuel for powering vehicles. A hydrogen 'tank' using this alloy would have a relative weight that is sixty percent less than a battery pack.

Telescope

Simulation may help solve mystery of dark matter

London - A computer simulation showing the formation and evolution of a galaxy like the Milky Way points to where scientists should look to spot dark matter, international researchers reported on Wednesday.
galaxy cluster designated Cl 0024+17
© REUTERS/NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford/Johns Hopkins University/Handout This undated image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a ghostly ring of dark matter in a galaxy cluster designated Cl 0024+17.

The findings published in the journal Nature move researchers a step closer to unraveling the mystery of the substance that makes up most of the universe, said Carlos Frenk, a cosmologist at Durham University in Britain.

"Discovering what dark matter is, is one of the most fundamental questions scientists can ask," Frenk, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

Telescope

China commissions huge telescope near Beijing

Beijing - China is commissioning a strangely shaped telescope in the forested hills northeast of Beijing that Chinese scientists said will be the world's most efficient tool for mapping the galaxy in three dimensions.

Unlike most such instruments, where the whole telescope moves to follow the object being studied in the sky, the Chinese design features a fixed structure and two moveable, segmented mirrors.

Rather than the traditional dome shape employed for most large telescopes, China's new instrument looks like a large, white, skewed pi symbol.

Meteor

Could Life Have Started In Lump Of Ice?

The universe is full of water, mostly in the form of very cold ice films deposited on interstellar dust particles, but until recently little was known about the detailed small scale structure. Now the latest quick freezing techniques coupled with sophisticated scanning electron microscopy techniques, are allowing physicists to create ice films in cold conditions similar to outer space and observe the detailed molecular organisation, yielding clues to fundamental questions including possibly the origin of life.
ice films
© iStockphoto/Christine BalderasPhysicists are creating ice films in cold conditions similar to outer space and observe the detailed molecular organization.

Researchers have been surprised by some of the results, not least by the sheer beauty of some of the images created, according to Julyan Cartwright, a specialist in ice structures at the Andalusian Institute for Earth Sciences (IACT) of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) and the University of Granada in Spain.

Recent discoveries about the structure of ice films in astrophysical conditions at the mesoscale, which is the size just above the molecular level, were discussed at a recent workshop organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and co-chaired by Cartwright alongside C. Ignacio Sainz-Diaz, also from the IACT. As Cartwright noted, many of the discoveries about ice structures at low temperatures were made possible by earlier research into industrial applications involving deposits of thin films upon an underlying substrate (ie the surface, such as a rock, to which the film is attached), such as manufacture of ceramics and semiconductors. In turn the study of ice films could lead to insights of value in such industrial applications.

Sun

Is the Sun waking up?

IONOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE:
Image
© Rudolf Slosiar
Magnetic fields above sunspot 1007 erupted yesterday, Nov. 3rd, sparking a B8-class solar flare. Although B-flares are considered minor, the blast nevertheless made itself felt on Earth. X-rays bathed the dayside of our planet and sent a wave of ionization rippling through the atmosphere over Europe. The sudden ionospheric disturbance (SID) disrupted propagation of VLF radio signals, a phenomenon recorded by Rudolf Slosiar of Bojnice, Slovakia: