Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

Space mountain produces terrestrial meteorites

Dauna Coulter
Physorg
Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:51 UTC
Image
© NASAA side view of Vesta's great south polar mountain.

When NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around giant asteroid Vesta in July, scientists fully expected the probe to reveal some surprising sights. But no one expected a 13-mile high mountain, two and a half times higher than Mount Everest, to be one of them.
The existence of this towering peak could solve a longstanding mystery: How did so many pieces of Vesta end up right here on our own planet?

For many years, researchers have been collecting Vesta meteorites from "fall sites" around the world. The rocks' chemical fingerprints leave little doubt that they came from the giant asteroid. Earth has been peppered by so many fragments of Vesta, that people have actually witnessed fireballs caused by the meteoroids tearing through our atmosphere. Recent examples include falls near the African village of Bilanga Yanga in October 1999 and outside Millbillillie, Australia, in October 1960.

"Those meteorites just might be pieces of the basin excavated when Vesta's giant mountain formed," says Dawn PI Chris Russell of UCLA.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Deep Gulf Drilling Thrives 18 Months After BP Spill

Jonathan Fahey
The Guardian, UK
Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:14 UTC
oil rig
© n/a
Alaminos Canyon Block 857, Gulf of Mexico - Two hundred miles off the coast of Texas, ribbons of pipe are reaching for oil and natural gas deeper below the ocean's surface than ever before.

These pipes, which run nearly two miles deep, are connected to a floating platform that is so remote Shell named it Perdido, which means "lost" in Spanish. What attracted Shell to this location is a geologic formation found throughout the Gulf of Mexico that may contain enough oil to satisfy U.S. demand for two years.

While Perdido is isolated, it isn't alone. Across the Gulf, energy companies are probing dozens of new deepwater fields thanks to high oil prices and technological advances that finally make it possible to tap them.

The newfound oil will not do much to lower global oil prices. But together with increased production from onshore U.S. fields and slowing domestic demand for gasoline, it could help reduce U.S. oil imports by more than half over the next decade.

Eighteen months ago, such a flurry of activity in the Gulf seemed unlikely. The Obama administration halted drilling and stopped issuing new permits after the explosion of a BP well killed 11 workers and caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
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Magic Wand

Corrupted Science Leaves Logic and Conscience at the Door while Debunking Unexplained Mysteries and Ecological Atrocities of 2011

Benjamin Radford
Discovery News
Sun, 18 Dec 2011 01:52 UTC
Image
© iStockPhoto
As we head inexorably toward 2012, we decided to look back at some of the strangest mysteries of this past year, and some of the mysteries that remain with us as we enter the new year.

5 "Unexplained" Mysteries Solved in 2011

The Jerusalem UFO Video

Just a few weeks into 2011 a stunning UFO video circulated around the world. On Jan. 28, a mysterious glowing light hovered high above the Dome of the Rock, an ancient Islamic shrine in Jerusalem.

It was touted as possibly the best video ever taken of an extraterrestrial spacecraft -- made all the more apparently authentic because it was captured by at least two other people at the same time, from different angles. When the videos appeared on YouTube UFO interest was whipped into a frenzy; as Ian O'Neill noted, "The news headlines read: "Holy Smoke -- UFO in Jerusalem," "Dome of the Rock Jerusalem light all proof UFO fans need that aliens exist" and "Credible? Jerusalem UFO footage captured from multiple viewpoints."

Comment: Read 2012 - On The Eve Of Destruction? to learn more about what awaits us in the next year.

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Boat

New calculations suggest Jupiter's core may be liquefying


Physorg
Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:23 UTC
Jupiters core liquefies
© NASA

Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, may be causing its own core to liquefy, at least according to Hugh Wilson and colleague Burkhard Militzer of UC, Berkeley. They've come to this conclusion after making quantum mechanical calculations on the conditions that exist within the big planet. In a paper published on the preprint server arXiv, and submitted to Physical Review Letters, the two explain that because the gas giant has a relatively small core made of mostly iron, rock (partly magnesium oxide) and ice, and sits embedded in fluid hydrogen and helium all under great pressure from the planet's gravity (which has created very high temperatures (16,000 K)), there is a likelihood that the core is liquefying due to the heat and pressure exerted on the magnesium oxide.

Calculating the possibility of the magnesium oxide liquefying had to be done to predict the outcome because recreating the environment that exists inside of Jupiter for experimentation purposes isn't feasible. They have in essence shown that magnesium oxide, when exposed to such high temperatures and pressure, has high solubility, which of course means a high probability of dissolving into a liquid. In a previous study, the team also made calculations showing that the core ice would likely be dissolving as well.

The findings suggest that Jupiter's core might not be as big as it once was, though it currently weights about as much as ten Earth's (the whole planet weighs as much as 318 Earth's). This implies that the core could eventually be reduced down to nothing at all. And if that's the case, than those who study exoplanets, particularly the giant gas variety, will have to do some rethinking, because those others might not have a core at all, contrary to conventional wisdom.
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Magic Wand

Scientists tickle animals to find laughter clues

Rebecca Morelle
BBC
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:48 UTC
Thought it was just humans that are ticklish? Think again - scientists are studying how animals respond to being tickled in a bid to shed light on how laughter evolved.


Tickling a gorilla is not for the faint-hearted. But keeper Phil Ridges is not worried at getting into the enclosure with Emmie at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent.

The gorilla, now 19, was hand-reared, and Phil has been her keeper for most of her life.

He says she has a tendency to be "a little bit frosty", but if she is in the mood, she cannot resist a chortle when she is tickled.

"I've worked with gorillas for a long time, and I've often seen gorillas tickling each other, so it is a nice feeling when they have accepted you enough and they don't mind you tickling them," he says.

But it is Emmie's response that has intrigued scientist Marina Davila-Ross from the University of Portsmouth, because the gorilla's reaction sounds a lot like human laughter.

Dr Davila-Ross says: "I was amazed about the way apes responded to being tickled - the apes seem to behave in the same way humans and children behave when they are being tickled."
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Sherlock

Police trialling lie detector tests in Britain


The Telegraph
Sat, 31 Dec 2011 05:00 UTC
Lie Detector
© GettyLie detector tests are being used to help officers decide whether to charge suspects in a groundbreaking scheme by a British police force
Lie detector tests are being used to help officers decide whether to charge suspects in a groundbreaking scheme by a British police force.

The devices are for the first time being used by detectives for pre-conviction testing in the UK in a trial which could pave the way for their introduction across the country.

Hertfordshire police completed a successful pilot scheme last month in which 25 sex offenders were tested using polygraphs.

The scheme led to many of the "low level" offenders being reclassified as posing a more serious risk to children than originally thought.

The force has now been given a further 12 months to experiment with the devices while senior officers across Britain are investigating ways the technology could assist in solving cases.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has established a working group to advise forces contemplating using lie detectors.
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Airplane

US Civilians Are Now Helping Decide Who To Kill With Military Drones

Robert Johnson
Business Insider
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:02 UTC
drone
© Business Insider
President Obama's enormous expansion of the U.S. drone program may be pushing too fast for military staffing to keep up.

David S. Cloud of The Los Angeles Times reports the military is now forced to rely on a string of civilian contractors placed at all levels along the "kill chain." These are the people who analyze incoming drone video and decide when to fire Hellfire missiles.

The practice is not new.

According to Cloud, an American civilian played a "central" role in the Predator attack that accidentally killed 15 Afghans in 2010, information that "surprised" the investigating Army officer.

Manning the drone fleet is a mounting issue in the Air Force.

It takes more staff to fly a drone than an F-15, and with more drones than ever in the air, non-government employees are increasingly employed to analyze video, and keep the UAVs in the air.
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Display

Stuxnet Weapon Has at Least 4 Cousins: Researchers

Jim Finkle
Reuters
Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:58 UTC
stuxnet graphic
© n/a
The Stuxnet virus that last year damaged Iran's nuclear program was likely one of at least five cyber weapons developed on a single platform whose roots trace back to 2007, according to new research from Russian computer security firm Kaspersky Lab.

Security experts widely believe that the United States and Israel were behind Stuxnet, though the two nations have officially declined to comment on the matter.

A Pentagon spokesman on Wednesday declined comment on Kaspersky's research, which did not address who was behind Stuxnet.

Stuxnet has already been linked to another virus, the Duqu data-stealing trojan, but Kaspersky's research suggests the cyber weapons program that targeted Iran may be far more sophisticated than previously known.

Kaspersky's director of global research & analysis, Costin Raiu, told Reuters on Wednesday that his team has gathered evidence that shows the same platform that was used to build Stuxnet and Duqu was also used to create at least three other pieces of malware.
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Saturn

Detecting Light Echoes from Ancient Star Eruption

Jon Voisey
Discovery News
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:34 UTC
Eta Carinae and its bipolar Homunculus Nebula
© NASA/ESA/Space Telescope Science InstituteEta Carinae and its bipolar Homunculus Nebula, which was partly created during an eruption in 1843, makes the object an attractive target for astronomers.
Eta Carinae underwent an enormous eruption in the 1800's -- we are now seeing light from the event bounce off the star's nebula.

During the mid 1800's, the well known star Eta Carinae underwent an enormous eruption becoming, for a time, the second brightest star in the sky.

Although 19th Century astronomers did not yet have the technology to study one of the largest eruptions in recent history in depth, astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute recently discovered that light echoes are just now reaching us.

This discovery allows astronomers to use modern instruments to study Eta Carinae as it was between 1838 and 1858 when it underwent its Great Eruption.

Light echoes have been made famous in recent years by the dramatic example of V838 Monocerotis. While V838 Mon looks like an expanding shell of gas, what is actually depicted is light reflecting off shells of gas and dust that was thrown off earlier in the star's life.
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Info

Scientists Solve Mystery That Inspired Hitchcock's The Birds

Sonia van Gilder Cooke
Time
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:18 UTC
Alfred Hitchcock
© Corbis

In the summer of 1961, seabirds hurled themselves into homes across California's Monterey Bay, inspiring one of Alfred Hitchcock's least scary films.

Now, it appears scientists have solved the mystery of the real-life murder of crows behind The Birds. "I am pretty convinced that the birds were poisoned," biologist Sibel Bargu of Louisiana State University told USA Today.

Bargu and her team investigated by inspecting the stomach contents of turtles and seabirds scooped up during 1961 Monterey Bay ship surveys. The animals' tummies contained a toxic algae that causes nerve and brain damage. The scientists say the birds that kamikazi-ed Monterey Bay that year likely munched on anchovies and squid packed with the same toxin.

A similar study in 2008 came to the same conclusion, noting that leaking septic tanks from newly-built homes in the area may have fed the toxic algae bloom in the bay.
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