Science & TechnologyS


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Asteroid may have caused New York tsunami 2,300 years ago


Entertainment and Showbiz!
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:49 UTC
Scientists have found new evidence suggesting a giant tsunami that crashed in New York City 2,300 years ago, was caused by an asteroid 330 feet in diameter, which slammed into the Atlantic Ocean nearby.

According to a report in Discovery News, Katherine Cagen of Harvard University and a team of researchers found clues in the form of slit in the Hudson River, which indicates an asteroid impact in the past.

While sifting through samples, the researchers found carbon spherules, which are perfectly round particles that form in the extreme pressures of an impact.

"But the main thing that closes the deal is that we looked in the spherules and found nano-diamonds," said Dallas Abbott of Columbia University, a co-author on the work. "These have only been found in impact ejecta or in meteorites," he added.
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Sherlock

Giant Dinosaur Fossil Found in Sahara Desert


Live Science
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:46 UTC
Paleontologists claim they have unearthed a new type of pterosaur and a previously
dino fossil
© n/aA probable sauropod bone unearthed by researchers in the Sahara in Morocco. Shown are University College Dublin graduate student Nizar Ibrahim and David Martill of the University of Portsmouth, in England. Credit: Bob Loveridge, University of Portsmouth
unknown sauropod dinosaur in the Sahara Desert.

The probable pterosaur was identified by a large fragment of beak from the giant flying reptile, and the probable sauropod, an herbivore, was represented by a long bone measuring more than a yard long, indicating an animal nearly 65 feet (20 meters) in length. Now extinct, both would have lived almost 100 million years ago.

The fossils were found in southeast Morocco, near the Algerian border, during a month-long expedition.
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Better Earth

'Dark energy' expands, contracts universe: researchers


Astrophysical Journal
Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:22 UTC
dark energy
© AFPThis August 2008 image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory show a clear separation between dark and ordinary matter during a clash 5.7 billion light years from Earth.
Mysterious "dark energy" works simultaneously to expand the universe and shrink objects inside it, astronomers in the United States said Tuesday.

By studying how gravity competes with the expansion of galaxy clusters, scientists have found "a crucial independent test of dark energy," said the research compiled by scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

"This result could be described as 'arrested development of the universe,'" said lead researcher Alexey Vikhlinin of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in the northeastern state of Massachusetts.

"Whatever is forcing the expansion of the universe to speed up is also forcing its development to slow down."

Dark energy makes up about 70 percent of the universe, said the research to be published in the February 10 issue of Astrophysical Journal.
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Telescope

A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field


NASA Press Release
Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:21 UTC
NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to "load up" the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.
Earth's Magnetic Field Model
© Jimmy Raeder/UNHA computer model of solar wind flowing around Earth's magnetic field on June 3, 2007. Background colors represent solar wind density; red is high density, blue is low. Solid black lines trace the outer boundaries of Earth's magnetic field. Note the layer of relatively dense material beneath the tips of the white arrows; that is solar wind entering Earth's magnetic field through the breach.
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Evil Rays

Lightning-Storm Gamma Rays Could Harm Air Travelers

Alexis Madrigal
Wired
Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:14 UTC
San Francisco, California - The most energetic particles in the electromagnetic spectrum could pose a danger to commercial airline passengers.

About every 3000 hours of flying time, a plane is hit with a bolt of lightning. Recently, spacecraft have found gamma rays can be created by thunder storms, and according to new research presented at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting this week, the rays could be intense enough to cause radiation sickness.
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Info

Titan's Volcanoes Give NASA Spacecraft Chilly Reception


Science Daily
Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:18 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPLThe Cassini Radar Mapper imaged Titan on Feb. 22, 2008 (as shown on the left) and April 30, 2006 (as shown on the right).
Data collected during several recent flybys of Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft have put another arrow in the quiver of scientists who think the Saturnian moon contains active cryovolcanoes spewing a super-chilled liquid into its atmosphere. The information was released today during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, Calif.

"Cryovolcanoes are some of the most intriguing features in the solar system," said Rosaly Lopes, a Cassini radar team investigation scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "To put them in perspective -- if Mount Vesuvius had been a cryovolcano, its lava would have frozen the residents of Pompeii."

Rather than erupting molten rock, it is theorized that the cryovolcanoes of Titan would erupt volatiles such as water, ammonia and methane. Scientists have suspected cryovolcanoes might inhabit Titan, and the Cassini mission has collected data on several previous passes of the moon that suggest their existence. Imagery of the moon has included a suspect haze hovering over flow-like surface formations. Scientists point to these as signs of cryovolcanism there.
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Einstein

Distance boost for 'spooky' quantum communication

Colin Barras
New Scientist
Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:00 UTC
Quantum entanglement, which Einstein dubbed "spooky action at a distance", would be the perfect way to communicate - if technical hurdles could be overcome.

The method involves linking the quantum properties of two objects such that a change to one is instantly reflected in the other - offering the prospect of instant communication from opposite sides of the globe.

But the longest distance over which communication has been achieved is still less than 200 kilometres. The inability of the gas-based quantum computer memory used to hold onto information for more than a fraction of a second is to blame.

Now a way to have that memory store quantum information for longer opens up the possibility of entangled communication over 1000 kilometres.
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Telescope

Southern sky to be mapped for first time

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:39 UTC
Image
© ANUThe first digital survey of the southern sky, which includes the Milky Way's centre, is set to begin as early as April 2009.
Celestial cartographers will soon sail into uncharted territory: the southern sky. The first digital map of the sky south of the equator could reveal renegade stars and new dwarf galaxies in orbit around the Milky Way.

The northern sky has been mapped in unprecedented detail by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, whose telescope is based in Sunspot, New Mexico.

In its first eight years, Sloan plotted the positions of about a million galaxies over more than a quarter of the northern sky. It is now observing more distant galaxies in an effort to study dark energy's effect on the universe over time.

Now, a project called SkyMapper will survey the southern sky, including the Milky Way's crowded centre, from its perch on Siding Spring Mountain in southeastern Australia.

Over five years, astronomers plan to use SkyMapper's 1.35-metre telescope and 268-Megapixel camera to map the sky six times, each time in six different colours. The survey may begin as early as April 2009.
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Sherlock

Swiss watch found in 400-year-old tomb


Ananova
Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:39 UTC
swiss watch
© n/a
The watch ring was discovered as archeologists were making a documentary with two journalists from Shangsi town.

"When we tried to remove the soil wrapped around the coffin, a piece of rock suddenly dropped off and hit the ground with a metallic sound,? said Jiang Yanyu, former curator of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Museum.

"We picked up the object, and found it was a ring. After removing the covering soil and examining it further, we were shocked to see it was a watch."
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Hourglass

Danish Arctic research dates Ice Age

Julian Isherwood
Politiken
Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:41 UTC
The result of a Danish ice drilling project has become the international standard for the termination of the last glacial period. It ended precisely 11,711 years ago.

A Danish ice drilling project has conclusively ended the discussion on the exact date of the end of the last ice age.

The extensive scientific study shows that it was precisely 11,711 years ago - and not the indeterminate figure of 'some' 11,000 years ago - that the ice withdrew, allowing humans and animals free reign.

According to the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) in Copenhagen, the very precise dating of the end of the last Ice Age has made Denmark the owner of the "Greenwich Mean Time" of the end of the last glacial period and beginning of the present climate - the so-called International Standard Reference.
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