Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

University Of Leicester Study Into Earth's Magnetic Shield


Terra Daily
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:33 UTC


©Unknown
An artist's impression of the view of the Earth from the Moon if we could see in X-rays. The Earth is surrounded by an X-ray glow caused by particles from the Sun colliding with the gas trapped within the Earth's magnetic shield.

Scientists from the University of Leicester have taken an important first step in developing an innovative telescope which could one day be deployed on the Moon. The telescope is called MagEX, which stands for "Magnetosheath Explorer in X-rays" and is an international collaboration between scientists from the United States, the Czech Republic, and the University of Leicester. MagEX will study the magnetosheath, the magnetic "shield" that protects the Earth from the solar wind - the high energy particles that continuously flow out from the Sun. Without this shield, life on Earth as we know it could not exist.
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Info

Major Step Toward Knowing Origin Of Cosmic Rays


Space Daily
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:15 UTC
Recent observations from NASA and Japanese X-ray observatories have helped clarify one of the long-standing mysteries in astronomy -- the origin of cosmic rays. Outer space is a vast shooting gallery of cosmic rays. Discovered in 1912, cosmic rays are not actually rays at all; they are subatomic particles and ions (such as protons and electrons) that zip through space in all directions at near-light speed, with energies tens of thousands of times greater than particles produced in Earth's largest particle accelerators.

©JAXA/ Takaaki Tanaka/HESS
This image from Japan's Suzaku X-ray observatory shows RXJ1713.7-3946. This supernova remnant is the gaseous remnant of a massive star that exploded. The remnant is about 1,600 years old. The contour lines show where gamma-ray intensity is highest, as measured by the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) in Namibia.
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Bizarro Earth

Polar lightning - not just an earthly phenomenon


Agence France-Presse
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:04 UTC
Images from a NASA probe have shown that lightning does occur at the poles on Jupiter, a phenomenon previously only seen on Earth, a study released Tuesday said.

Lightning strikes had previously been observed at lower latitudes and around the equator on the gas planet but the jagged bolts of electricity had never been observed at either of its two poles, puzzling astronomers.
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Clock

Seeking Columbus's Origins, With a Swab

Amy Harmon
The New York Times
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:37 UTC
BARCELONA, Spain - When schoolchildren turn to the chapter on Christopher Columbus's humble origins as the son of a weaver in Genoa, they are not generally told that he might instead have been born out of wedlock to a Portuguese prince. Or that he might have been a Jew whose parents converted to escape the Spanish Inquisition. Or a rebel in the medieval kingdom of Catalonia.
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Display

Hard disk pioneers win physics Nobel Prize

Niklas Pollard
Reuters
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:46 UTC
France's Albert Fert and Germany's Peter Gruenberg won the 2007 Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for a breakthrough in nanotechnology that revolutionized data storage and led to gadgets such as laptops and iPods.

The 10-million Swedish crown ($1.54 million) prize, awarded by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, recognized the pair's discovery of giant magnetoresistance, which enables scientists to push huge amounts of data into ever-smaller spaces.
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Telescope

Japan plans unmanned mission to the moon


Reuters
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:39 UTC
Japan plans to launch its first mission to land a spacecraft on the moon in the next decade, officials said on Tuesday, joining China and India in a race among Asian nations to explore the lunar surface.

Japan's first lunar orbiter is currently circling the moon, and the country is racing with China and India to land a craft on the lunar surface -- a feat so far achieved only by the former Soviet Union and the United States.
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Question

Chimps choose more rationally than humans


United Press International
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:40 UTC
German researchers have demonstrated chimpanzees make choices that protect their self-interest more consistently than do humans.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig studied the chimp's choices by using an economic game with two players. In the game, a human or chimpanzee who receives something of value can offer to share it with another.
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Document

Microbes can survive 'deep freeze' for 100,000 years

Daniele Fanelli and Maggie McKee
New Scientist
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:11 UTC
Microbes can survive trapped inside ice crystals, under 3 kilometres of snow, for more than 100,000 years, a new study suggests. The study bolsters the case that life may exist on distant, icy worlds in our own solar system.
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Bulb

How Baboons Think (Yes, Think)

Nicholas Wade
The New York Times
Mon, 08 Oct 2007 22:03 UTC


©Dorothy Cheney
At the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana, Barbara grooms her older sister, Amazon, while another sister, Domino, and her baby watch.

Royal is a cantankerous old male baboon whose troop of some 80 members lives in the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. A perplexing event is about to disturb his day.
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Clock

Cyprus: once home to the dwarf elephants and pygmy hippos


Cyprus Mail
Mon, 08 Oct 2007 02:02 UTC
An excavation in the Famagusta district has unearthed animal remains including tiny elephants and hippopotamuses dating back some 250,000 years.

The recent findings in an area close to Ayia Napa revealed the skeletal remains of dwarf elephants (Elephas Cypriotes) and pygmy hippos (Phanourios minutis) as well as remains of ancient rats and bats.
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