Science & TechnologyS


Evil Rays

Radio-controlled bullets leave no place to hide

Kurt Kleiner
New Scientist
Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:31 UTC
Image
© Jon Mills/Rex FeaturesSoldiers could soon have a new weapon against a hidden enemy.
A rifle capable of firing explosive bullets that can detonate within a metre of a target could let soldiers fire on snipers hiding in trenches, behind walls or inside buildings.

The US army has developed the XM25 rifle to give its troops an alternative to calling in artillery fire or air strikes when an enemy has taken cover and can't be targeted by direct fire. "This is the first leap-ahead technology for troops that we've been able to develop and deploy," says Douglas Tamilio, the army's project manager for new weapons for soldiers. "This gives them another tool in their kitbag."

The rifle's gunsight uses a laser rangefinder to calculate the exact distance to the obstruction. The soldier can then add or subtract up to 3 metres from that distance to enable the bullets to clear the barrier and explode above or beside the target.
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Ambulance

Machine Keeps Animal Hearts Beating for Research

medgadget.com
medgaget.com
Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:47 UTC
Testing new cardiac techniques and devices on live animals requires proper oversight, regulation, and considerable expense. To overcome this, researchers at North Carolina State University developed a machine, specifically intended for study of mitral valve repair, that can pump a pig's heart straight from the slaughterhouse.
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Meteor

Mars/Jupiter: Two new Asteroids spotted


redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
Wed, 03 Jun 2009 06:50 UTC
Asteroid 951 Gaspra
© NASAThe asteroid 951 Gaspra, the first ever imaged by a spacecraft, taken by Galileo as it passed by it in 1991; the colors are exaggerated.
Swiss astronomer Jose De Queiroz on Wednesday announced the discovery of two new asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

According to the Mirasteilas Observatory, De Queiroz has located two new asteroids with a diameter of between 1 kilometer and 2 kilometers.

According to the Associated Press, the discovery of 2009FM1 and 2009FA1 was confirmed by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union in Cambridge, Massachusetts in March.
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Telescope

Spirit Takes a Peek at Her Belly


Nasa
Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:19 UTC
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© NASA/JPL/USGS This panorama of images from the Spirit rover, taken on Sol 1925 (June 2, 2009), is helping engineers assess the rover's current state and plan her extraction from the soft soil in the region now called "Troy." The images were taken by Spirit's microscopic imager instrument, mounted on the end of her robotic arm.
A new image of Spirit's underbelly is helping engineers assess the rover's current state and plan her escape from soft soil.
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Telescope

Why You Missed the Supernova in M82

Johannes Hirn
Sky and Telescope
Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:59 UTC
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© Milde Science Communication / NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / A. Brunthaler / MPIfRThe galaxy M82 as seen in visible light at left, with glowing hydrogen gas displayed in red.
Researchers have unexpectedly found radio emission from a supernova that went unnoticed when it exploded more than a year ago in the galaxy M82 in Ursa Major. Its visible light was apparently blocked by dense dust in the galaxy's central region. By following the radio emission created as the shock wave continues to expand, researchers hope to learn about the star's last few thousand years before it blew.
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Telescope

New Eclipsing Binary: It's Spica!

Ivan Semeniuk
Sky and Telescope
Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:51 UTC
One of the true pleasures in science comes when a new and surprising fact is uncovered about something thought to be utterly familiar. Such is the case this week with the revelation that Spica, one of the best-known stars in the night sky, is an eclipsing binary. Every 4.0145 days one of the two separate stars that makes up this system crosses in front of the other, blocking a portion of its light.

How could astronomers have missed this fact? It's no scandal. Spica's eclipses are the merest grazes. Each time it happens the total light output of the system dips by less than one hundredth of a visual magnitude. Nevertheless, these events are of interest to science because they offer a greatly improved understanding of the two star's sizes and shapes and the complex physics at work in a nearby and rather special star system. Astronomers have known since 1890 that Spica was a spectroscopic binary, but now we have a better handle on it.
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Sun

UF study finds that ancient mammals shifted diets as climate changed

Jen Laloup
Public Library of Science
Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:35 UTC
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Gainesville, Fla. --- A new University of Florida study shows mammals change their dietary niches based on climate-driven environmental changes, contradicting a common assumption that species maintain their niches despite global warming.

Led by Florida Museum of Natural History vertebrate paleontologist Larisa DeSantis, researchers examined fossil teeth from mammals at two sites representing different climates in Florida: a glacial period about 1.9 million years ago and a warmer, interglacial period about 1.3 million years ago. The researchers found that interglacial warming resulted in dramatic changes to the diets of animal groups at both sites. The study appears in the June 3 issue of the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.
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Sun

Cantabrian cornice has experienced seven cooling and warming phases over past 41,000 years


Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:28 UTC
In 1996, an international team of scientists led by the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) started to carry out a paleontological survey in the cave of El Mirón. Since then they have focused on analysing the fossil remains of the bones and teeth of small vertebrates that lived in the Cantabrian region over the past 41,000 years, at the end of the Quaternary. The richness, great diversity and good conservation status of the fossils have enabled the researchers to carry out a paleoclimatic study, which has been published recently in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
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Info

NASA Satellite Detects Red Glow to Map Global Ocean Plant Health


Environmental News Network
Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:43 UTC
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© NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
A study published by NASA uses satellite remote sensing technology to measure the amount of fluorescent red light emitted by ocean phytoplankton and assess how efficiently the microscopic plants are turning sunlight and nutrients into food through photosynthesis. They can also study how changes in the global environment alter these processes, which are at the center of the ocean food web.

Researchers have conducted the first global analysis of the health and productivity of ocean plants, as revealed by a unique signal detected by a NASA satellite. Ocean scientists can now remotely measure the amount of fluorescent red light emitted by ocean phytoplankton and assess how efficiently the microscopic plants are turning sunlight and nutrients into food through photosynthesis. They can also study how changes in the global environment alter these processes, which are at the center of the ocean food web.
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Bizarro Earth

Earth Losing Atmosphere Faster than Venus, Mars

Irene Klotz
Discovery News
Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:38 UTC
Researchers were stunned to discover recently that Earth is losing more of its atmosphere than Venus and Mars, which have negligible magnetic fields.

This may mean our planet's magnetic shield may not be as solid a protective screen as once believed when it comes to guarding the atmosphere from an assault from the sun.

"We often tell ourselves that we are very fortunate living on this planet because we have this strong magnetic shield that protects us from all sorts of things that the cosmos throws at us -- cosmic rays, solar flares and the pesky solar wind," said Christopher Russell, a professor of geophysics and space physics at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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