|
| ©Brill Atlanta |
| Photo from cover of Nature March 2002 |
SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Science & TechnologyS
Two University of Utah geologists have completed research that challenges the popular understanding of how humans evolved.
An Indian origin led team of astronomers, has for the first time, spotted a black hole belching out a burst of gamma rays after gulping down part of a nearby star.
At first the phenomenon looked like another ordinary long Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) in a distant galaxy. GRBs are thought to be the death cries of massive stars collapsing to form black holes.
But this GRB, named GRB 070610 after the date of its discovery by NASA's Swift satellite on June 10, 2007, seemed to have a different origin altogether, said Mansi Kasliwal of Caltech in Pasadena, US.
At first the phenomenon looked like another ordinary long Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) in a distant galaxy. GRBs are thought to be the death cries of massive stars collapsing to form black holes.
But this GRB, named GRB 070610 after the date of its discovery by NASA's Swift satellite on June 10, 2007, seemed to have a different origin altogether, said Mansi Kasliwal of Caltech in Pasadena, US.
Hearing and balance experts at Johns Hopkins report successful testing in animals of an electrical device that partly restores a damaged or impaired sense of balance.
Though human testing of the so-called multichannel vestibular prosthesis remains a few years away, the scientists say such a device, which is partially implanted in the inner ear, could aid the 30,000 Americans the experts' own estimates show are coping with profound loss of inner ear balance. These people often suffer from unsteadiness, disequilibrium or wobbly vision. Problems with vestibular sensation can be inherited at birth or result from use of antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, Ménière's disease, viral infection, stroke or head trauma.
|
| ©Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions |
| Della Santina holding multichannel vestibular prosthesis. |
Though human testing of the so-called multichannel vestibular prosthesis remains a few years away, the scientists say such a device, which is partially implanted in the inner ear, could aid the 30,000 Americans the experts' own estimates show are coping with profound loss of inner ear balance. These people often suffer from unsteadiness, disequilibrium or wobbly vision. Problems with vestibular sensation can be inherited at birth or result from use of antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, Ménière's disease, viral infection, stroke or head trauma.
A rare meteor shower predicted to hit Earth on 1 September should give astronomers only their second chance to study an ancient comet's crust. It could also help them develop a warning system against an otherwise insidious threat - a comet aimed at Earth from the dark fringes of the solar system.
The afternoon Negev sun shone brightly on the solar panels at the National Center for Solar Energy near Sde Boker. The center's director, physicist Prof. David Feiman, squinted into the light. "After 30 years of research on solar energy, my life's work of experiments in how to produce electricity from the sun, I can say this year that I know how to manufacture solar energy that will compete with conventional energy," he says.
For the first time, there is solid data to refute a popular theory that life came to Earth aboard a comet, Rutgers researchers say.
Deteriorated DNA from microbes, frozen for millions of years in the Antarctic ice, shows that organisms could not have survived the bombardment of cosmic radiation during deep space travel from outside the solar system, said Paul Falkowski, a Rutgers biologist and oceanographer.
Deteriorated DNA from microbes, frozen for millions of years in the Antarctic ice, shows that organisms could not have survived the bombardment of cosmic radiation during deep space travel from outside the solar system, said Paul Falkowski, a Rutgers biologist and oceanographer.
We spend our lives on a spinning globe -- it takes only 24 hours to notice that, as night follows day and the cycle repeats. But what causes Earth to rotate on its axis?
The answer starts with the forces that formed our solar system.
A fledgling star gathers a disk of dust and gas around itself, said Kevin Luhman, an assistant professor of astronomy at Penn State. As things coalesce, the star's gravitational orbit sets that dust and gas to spinning. "Any clump that forms within that disk is going to naturally have some sort of rotation," Luhman said.
The answer starts with the forces that formed our solar system.
A fledgling star gathers a disk of dust and gas around itself, said Kevin Luhman, an assistant professor of astronomy at Penn State. As things coalesce, the star's gravitational orbit sets that dust and gas to spinning. "Any clump that forms within that disk is going to naturally have some sort of rotation," Luhman said.
Europe's first early human colonizers were from Asia, not Africa, a new analysis of more than 5,000 ancient teeth suggests.
Researchers had traditionally assumed that Europe was settled in waves starting around two million years ago, as our ancient ancestors-collectively known as hominids-came over from Africa.
But the shapes of teeth from a number of hominid species suggest that arrivals from Asia played a greater role in colonizing Europe than hominids direct from Africa.
Researchers had traditionally assumed that Europe was settled in waves starting around two million years ago, as our ancient ancestors-collectively known as hominids-came over from Africa.
But the shapes of teeth from a number of hominid species suggest that arrivals from Asia played a greater role in colonizing Europe than hominids direct from Africa.
PHOENIX - Scientists have discovered the universe's largest known planet, a giant ball made of mostly hydrogen that is 20 times larger than Earth and circling a star 1,400 light-years away.
Jonathan Kuniholm's right arm terminates in a carbon-fiber sleeve trailing cables connected to a PC. He has no right hand, unless you count the virtual one on a display in front of him. The CG hand, programmed to look like silvery stainless steel, moves through a sequence of motions: spherical grasp, cylindrical grasp, thumb to forefinger -- all in response to signals from Kuniholm's muscles picked up by electrodes in the sleeve.
|
| © Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory |
| The device pictured above is the second prototype in the U.S. military's ambitious prosthetics project to build a bionic arm. |
