Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

Searching For Primordial Antimatter


Science Daily
Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:34 UTC
Scientists are on the hunt for evidence of antimatter - matter's arch nemesis - left over from the very early Universe. New results using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory suggest the search may have just become even more difficult.

Antimatter is made up of elementary particles, each of which has the same mass as their corresponding matter counterparts --protons, neutrons and electrons -- but the opposite charges and magnetic properties. When matter and antimatter particles collide, they annihilate each other and produce energy according to Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2.
Bullet Cluster
© X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/M.Markevitch et al. Optical: NASA/STScI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al.This view of the Bullet Cluster is a combination of X-rays from Chandra (red) and optical data from the Hubble and Magellan telescopes (yellow). Scientists have examined this system with Chandra and Compton to look for evidence of antimatter that may be found in X-ray and gamma ray emission. The results did not reveal the signature for antimatter, meaning that if it is there, antimatter is less than 3 parts per million in this system.
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Cow Skull

Significant Fossil Discovery In Utah Shows Land Plants Of 200 Million Years Ago


Science Daily
Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:20 UTC
The importance of a new archeological site in St George, Utah, U.S. was recently highlighted by Andrew Milner, Paleontologist, City of St. George, Jim Kirkland, State Paleontologist and Sidney Ash, Paleo-botanists. The site is significant because it is the only early Jurassic land flora known in the western United States. It provides evidence that a variety of land plants were present in the area about 200 million years ago.
archeological site in Utah
© St. George Dinosaur Discovery SiteA significant archeological site in Utah provides evidence that a variety of land plants were present at this location about 200 million years ago.

The site was originally studied and written about in 2006, after a developer found the plant fossils while excavating the land for an industrial park. Now, developers along with scientists are working together to preserve the fossils. "This plant site is extremely important to help us examine further the vegetation recovery of plant life during the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic epoch," states Jim Kirkland, Utah State Paleontologist.
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Telescope

Hubble Scores A Perfect 10: Arp 147 Galaxy in Full View


Science Daily
Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:14 UTC
The Hubble Space Telescope is back in business with a snapshot of the fascinating galaxy pair Arp 147.

Just a couple of days after the orbiting observatory was brought back online, Hubble aimed its prime working camera, the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), at a particularly intriguing target, a pair of gravitationally interacting galaxies called Arp 147.

The image demonstrated that the camera is working exactly as it was before going offline, thereby scoring a "perfect 10" both for performance and beauty.
Galazy Arp 147
© NASA, ESA, and M. Livio (STScI)Perfect "10" due to the chance alignment of two galaxies. The left-most galaxy, or the "one" in this image, is relatively undisturbed, apart from a smooth ring of starlight. It appears nearly edge-on to our line of sight. The right-most galaxy, the "zero" of the pair, exhibits a clumpy, blue ring of intense star formation.

And literally "10" for appearance too, due to the chance alignment of the two galaxies. The left-most galaxy, or the "one" in this image, is relatively undisturbed, apart from a smooth ring of starlight. It appears nearly edge-on to our line of sight. The right-most galaxy, the "zero" of the pair, exhibits a clumpy, blue ring of intense star formation.
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Info

Real Robinson Crusoe: Evidence Of Alexander Selkirk's Desert Island Campsite


Science Daily
Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:07 UTC
Cast away on a desert island, surviving on what nature alone can provide, praying for rescue but fearing the sight of a boat on the horizon. These are the imaginative creations of Daniel Defoe in his famous novel Robinson Crusoe. Yet the story is believed to be based on the real-life experience of sailor Alexander Selkirk, marooned in 1704 on a small tropical island in the Pacific for more than four years, and now archaeological evidence has been found to support contemporary records of his existence on the island.
Robinson Crusoe, showing Crusoe and Friday
© iStockphoto/Duncan WalkerA scene from Robinson Crusoe, showing Crusoe and Friday.

An article in the journal Post-Medieval Archaeology presents evidence from an archaeological dig on the island of Aguas Buenas, since renamed Robinson Crusoe Island, which reveals evidence of the campsite of an early European occupant. The most compelling evidence is the discovery of a pair of navigational dividers which could only have belonged to a ship's master or navigator, as evidence suggests Selkirk must have been. Indeed Selkirk's rescuer, Captain Woodes Rogers' account of what he saw on arrival at Aguas Buenas in 1709 lists 'some practical pieces' and mathematical instruments amongst the few possessions that Selkirk had taken with him from the ship.
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Info

Programmable Genetic Clock Made Of Blinking Florescent Proteins Inside Bacteria Cells


Science Daily
Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:03 UTC
UC San Diego bioengineers have created the first stable, fast and programmable genetic clock that reliably keeps time by the blinking of fluorescent proteins inside E. coli cells. The clock's blink rate changes when the temperature, energy source or other environmental conditions change, a fact that could lead to new kinds of sensors that convey information about the environment through the blinking rate.
programmable genetic clock
© UC San Diego Jacobs School of EngineeringUC San Diego bioengineers have created the first stable, fast and programmable genetic clock that reliably keeps time by the blinking of fluorescent proteins inside E. coli cells. The clock's blink rate changes when the temperature, energy source or other environmental conditions change, a fact that could lead to new kinds of sensors that convey information about the environment through the blinking rate. One of the keys to this advance are the sophisticated microfluidic systems capable of controlling environmental conditions of their E. coli cells with great precision that have been developed in Jeff Hasty's bioengineering lab at UC San Diego.
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Satellite

Mercury was once alive with volcanoes

Will Dunham
Reuters
Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:03 UTC
WASHINGTON - While it seems like a geologically dead planet today, early in its history tiny Mercury may have been a caldron of volcanic activity, NASA scientists said on Wednesday.
Mercury
© NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of WashingtonImage of Mercury captured by MESSENGER on the probe's second approach.

Data from the U.S. space agency's car-sized MESSENGER probe's latest close encounter with the planet nearest the sun on October 6 is helping to settle a debate dating back to the 1970s over the role volcanoes played in Mercury's history.

MESSENGER sent back images showing extensive and deep lava flows on the surface, including hardened lava more than a mile deep filling a crater 60 miles in diameter.

The unmanned spacecraft also detected a so-called "wrinkle ridge," a long geological feature on Mercury's surface about 2,000 feet high apparently caused by long-ago contraction of the planet as it cooled, the scientists said.
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Info

Smart amoebas reveal origins of primitive intelligence

Colin Barras
New Scientist
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:26 UTC
Amoebas are smarter than they look, and a team of US physicists think they know why. The group has built a simple electronic circuit that is capable of the same "intelligent" behaviour as Physarum, a unicellular organism - and say this could help us understand the origins of primitive intelligence.

In recent years, the humble amoeba has surprised researchers with its ability to behave in an "intelligent" way. Last year, Liang Li and Edward Cox at Princeton University reported that the Dictyostelium amoeba is twice as likely to turn left if its last turn was to the right and vice versa, which suggests the cells have a rudimentary memory.

This year, Toshiyuki Nakagaki at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, won an Ig Nobel prize for his work on amoeba intelligence after his team found further evidence of the amoeba memory effect. They exposed Physarum amoeba to temperatures fluctuating regularly between cold and warm. It was already known that the cells become sluggish during cold snaps, but Nakagaki's team found that the amoeba slowed down in anticipation of cold conditions, even when the temperature changes had stopped (Physical Review Letters, DOI: link).
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Einstein

Artificial gravity could keep space pendulums swinging

Jessica Griggs
New Scientist
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:21 UTC
Can a pendulum swing in space? It might if it is quantum powered - a fact that could be exploited to build tiny timepieces that exploit an unusual force that occurs on the smallest scale in a vacuum.

The Casimir force is an effect that pushes two parallel conducting plates together when the distance between them is tiny. The force arises because the gap between the plates is filled with virtual photons popping in and out of existence.

As the plates come closer together, fewer photons can fit within the gap. On the outer sides of the plates, however, the photons are unconstrained, causing a pressure difference that pushes the plates together.
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Telescope

Opal hints at persistence of water on Mars

Maggie McKee
New Scientist
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:13 UTC
Opal, a mineral that needs water to form, is widespread in Martian terrain younger than 2.5 billion years old, new spacecraft observations suggest. The discovery offers the most recent mineralogical evidence yet of liquid water on the planet's surface - and suggests an intriguing new target for future searches for Martian life.
Valles Marineris Red Planet's Grand Canyon
© Viking Project/NASAThe 4000-km-long Valles Marineris is the Red Planet's Grand Canyon. Narrow outcrops of opal are found in and around the canyon. The minerals may be quite extensive – covering regions spanning 1000 km – but are only seen where erosion has cleared away overlying dust and rocks.

Two other types of water-containing, or hydrated, minerals have previously been found on Mars - clays and hydrated sulphates. Since scientists can date the age of a particular terrain by studying the number and sizes of its craters, they found that the two mineral types seem to have originated from different periods in the planet's history.
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Light Saber

Defending the Fruit Flies from Sarah Palin


insidehighered.com
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:52 UTC
Throughout his presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain has had a few choice earmarks to cite when he blasts the Congressional practice of setting aside funds for particular projects. One of his favorite targets is a study of bear DNA.

In a speech Friday, Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, tried to highlight another earmark - and some supporters of science say that the campaign has gone too far.

Comment: "This is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin so far, and there's been a lot of competition for that prize." - Richard Wolfe, Newsweek

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