Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

Milky Way 'Ringing' Caused by Galaxy Crash

Darren Osborne
Discovery News
Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:00 UTC
Milky Way
© NASAArtist's concept of the Milky Way galaxy, with the "galactic bar" visible in the center. Like a stone dropping into a pond, a galactic collision almost two billion years ago resulted in vibrations that caused stars to clump together.
The effects of a small galaxy colliding with our own almost two billion years ago are still being felt, say an international team of astronomers.

Their findings, which appear on the pre-press physics Web site arXiv, explain why the Milky Way is vibrating, or "ringing," and why stars in it are clustering together.

Astronomers have known for almost a decade that the Milky Way is ringing, said Ken Freeman of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University.

They have suspected the ringing was caused by a bar-like structure in the center of the galaxy.

"In the center of our galaxy is a bar-like structure that is quite massive," he said. "Because it's not round its gravitational field is not round, so you get a certain kind of resonance between the bar and the stars that are moving."
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Sun

No-brainer: Astronomer devises giant sun shield to reverse 'global warming'

Jessica Salter
Telegraph.co.uk
Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:39 UTC
Professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the power of the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade.

Each lens will have a diffraction pattern etched onto it which will cause the sun's rays to change direction.

He intends to use electromagnetic propulsion to get the lenses into space.

If work was started immediately Prof Angel thinks the sunshield could be operation by 2040.

He said: "Things that take a few decades are not that futuristic."

Comment: Climate change can happen quickly, but the mechanism for it is entirely misunderstood by those with access to unlimited funding to implement crack-pot ideas that interfere with nature's way.

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R2-D2

Child-like robots only a few years away

Adam Hartley
Tech Radar
Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:23 UTC
Image
© UnknownBirth of the Machines: in the words of one journalist "iCub robot, like a human child, is unsightly, but deserving of our love"

The iCub robot, modelled on a human child, made its first appearance in Britain this week - the latest result of cutting edge robotics research funded by the European Commission.

iCub is capable of human style eye, head and leg movement as well as basic object recognition and a realistic hand grasping movement.

The mini humanoid robot has been modelled on a three-and-a-half-year-old child and is the result of a five-year £7.5m project is to develop a fully functioning child-like robot.

"Scientists want to give it the ability to crawl on all fours and sit up, to handle objects with precision and to have head and eye movements that echo those of humans," reports PA News.
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Sherlock

WWI French Battleship Found in Deep Water

Jonathan Amos
BBC News
Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:33 UTC
A French battleship sunk in 1917 by a German submarine has been discovered in remarkable condition on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Danton, with many of its gun turrets still intact, is sitting upright in over 1,000m of water.

Danton
© Galsi/FugroThe ship dug out the sediment as it hit the seafloor.
It was found by the Fugro geosciences company during a survey for a gas pipeline between Algeria and Italy.

The Danton, which sank with 296 sailors still onboard, lies 35km southwest of the island of Sardinia.

Naval historians record that the Danton's Captain Delage stood on the bridge with his officers and made no attempt to leave the ship as it went down.
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Chalkboard

'iTunes university' better than the real thing

Ewen Callaway
New Scientist
Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:33 UTC
Image
© Charles Platiau / Reuters

Students have been handed another excuse to skip class from an unusual quarter. New psychological research suggests that university students who download a podcast lecture achieve substantially higher exam results than those who attend the lecture in person.

Podcasted lectures offer students the chance to replay difficult parts of a lecture and therefore take better notes, says Dani McKinney, a psychologist at the State University of New York in Fredonia, who led the study.

"It isn't so much that you have a podcast, it's what you do with it," she says.
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Info

Fermilab 'closing in' on the God particle

Ivan Semeniuk
New Scientist
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:30 UTC
Scientists with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Illinois, home of the Tevatron particle accelerator, say their ageing machine now stands at least a 50% chance of spotting the elusive Higgs boson by the end of next year.

The estimate is based on the accelerator's efficiency at producing high energy particle collisions, now running at an all-time high, and the chances that the Higgs' mass falls within a range detectable at Fermilab.

With CERN's malfunctioning Large Hadron Collider (LHC) more than six months away from restarting, and another year or more from releasing data, it looks increasingly likely that the Tevatron will have a clear run at being the first to spot the Higgs.
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Meteor

Mass Extinctions May Follow One - Two Punch

Michael Reilly
Discovery News
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:51 UTC
Eruption
© Getty ImagesAn illustration of a large-scale volcanic eruption.
As agents of extinction, comet and asteroid impacts may be losing their punch.

According to a new theory about how mass dyings work, cosmic collisions generally aren't enough to cause a major extinction event. To be truly devastating, they must be accompanied by another event that inflicts long-term suffering, like runaway climate change due to massive volcanic eruptions.

In other words, a comet couldn't have killed the dinosaurs by itself -- unless they were already endangered species.
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Magnify

Malaria Parasite Zeroes In on Molecule to Enhance Its Survival


PhysOrg
Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:24 UTC
A team of researchers from Princeton University and the Drexel University College of Medicine has found that the parasite that causes malaria breaks down an important amino acid in its quest to adapt and thrive within the human body. By depleting this substance called arginine, the parasite may trigger a more critical and deadlier phase of the disease.

The scientists believe that shedding light on this poorly understood aspect of malaria metabolism has given them new insights on the interactions between the parasite and its human hosts. The work also may point the way to better treatments.

"The more we know about the parasite's metabolic network, the more intelligent we can be about targeting therapies that will cure malaria," said Kellen Olszewski, a graduate student at Princeton University and first author of the Feb. 18 Cell Host & Microbe paper describing the work. The project was led by Manuel Llinás, an assistant professor of molecular biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton.
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Satellite

Expert: Satellite collision shows need for more regulation of 'space debris'


Physorg.com
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:31 UTC
Last week's collision between U.S. and Russian space satellites has prompted questions over who is at fault while highlighting the need for stronger international regulation of space debris, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor and internationally renowned space law expert said.

Frans von der Dunk said international agreements dictate that if a space object causes damage to the earth or to another spacecraft, the country that launched the object is liable. But the collision that took place Feb. 10 is the first known instance that two full-fledged space objects from different countries have crashed into one another in space.

The collision was between a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian satellite. The two objects slammed into each other over northern Siberia and created a cloud of wreckage -- "space debris" -- that officials worry could threaten other unmanned spacecraft.
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Meteor

Lulin: Comet Making One-Time Only Visit Next Week

Seth Borenstein
The Huffington Post
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:27 UTC
Comet Lulin
© Jack Newton

An odd, greenish backward-flying comet is zipping by Earth this month, as it takes its only trip toward the sun from the farthest edges of the solar system. The comet is called Lulin, and there's a chance it can be seen with the naked eye - far from city lights, astronomers say. But you'll most likely need a telescope, or at least binoculars, to spot it.

The best opportunity is just before dawn one-third of the way up the southern sky. It should be near Saturn and two bright stars, Spica and Regula.
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