Science & Technology
Chicago, ILL-- As the nation marks the sixth anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, questions remain about the future of the space program now that there's a new president. There is particular concern about the aging fleet of orbiters and proposals to extend the life of the shuttle program beyond its planned retirement next year.
© Plataforma SINC
The researchers have confirmed that fluctuations in the brightness detected in image A were repeated 14 months later in Image B. If they had been caused by the gravity of planets or stars, the fluctuations in image A would not have been exactly replicated in image B.
The researchers have confirmed that fluctuations in the brightness detected in image A were repeated 14 months later in Image B. If they had been caused by the gravity of planets or stars, the fluctuations in image A would not have been exactly replicated in image B.
Variations in the brightness of the Q0957+561 quasar, also known as the "twin quasar" due to its duplicated image on Earth, are intrinsic to the entity itself and not caused by the gravitational effects of possible planets or stars from a far away galaxy.
This is the conclusion of a study carried out by Spanish researchers resolving a mystery that has intrigued astronomers for the past 30 years.
The quasar Q0957+561, some 9 billion light years away in the Ursa Major constellation, was discovered in 1979 by an Anglo-American team. Since then scientists have managed to explain why two images are observed of the same object -separated by a little less than two thousandths of a degree in the sky-, but up until now had not been able to explain the origins of the "rapid" (lasting several months) variations in their brightness.
Addressing the importance of astronomy as a field of study, senior scientist Jayant Narlikar spoke about its role in development of science and its use to predict and protect the Earth from developments in the Universe.
He was speaking at the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) on Saturday during a lecture organised by the Mahrashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS) on the occasion of International Year of Astronomy 2009.
"Astronomy helps create rules for science. Remote sensing devices, satellites, impact of gravity all these concepts would be impossible to understand without studying astronomy," Narlikar said.
He was speaking at the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) on Saturday during a lecture organised by the Mahrashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS) on the occasion of International Year of Astronomy 2009.
"Astronomy helps create rules for science. Remote sensing devices, satellites, impact of gravity all these concepts would be impossible to understand without studying astronomy," Narlikar said.
© Discovery news
The Lone Persian
The Lone Persian
A cramped tunnel beneath a Middle Eastern fort might have produced the oldest evidence of chemical warfare, according to a CSI-style review of archival records.
Presented at the recent meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, the review focused on the dramatic remains of 20 Roman soldiers unearthed in the 1930s in the city of Dura-Europos, Syria.
Sitting on a cliff overlooking the Euphrates River, the Roman fort at Dura was the site of a violent siege by the powerful Persian Empire around 256 A.D.
No historical record of the battle exists, but archaeological remains have helped piece together the action.
© Discovery News
Prepare for Sudden Death
Prepare for Sudden Death
But in a paper published today in the journal Science, two physicists show that entangled particles can suddenly and irrevocably lose their connection, a phenomenon called Entanglement Sudden Death, or ESD.
"The degree of information entangled can disappear faster than the information itself," said Joseph Eberly, a physicist at the University of Rochester, who, along with Ting Yu, co-authored the paper. "It's completely non-classical physics."
© Google
Between 1430 and 1525 GMT, all search results were marked as harmful and users received the message: "Warning! This site may harm your computer."
"What happened? Very simply, human error," Goggle vice president for search products and user experience Marissa Mayer said on the company's official blog.
© The Canadian Press
An aerial view of a 5,000-year-old stone cairn and other structures in southern Alberta that a maverick Edmonton scientist believes are the central features of an ancient sun temple and calendar that accurately marks the solstices and the equinoxes.
An aerial view of a 5,000-year-old stone cairn and other structures in southern Alberta that a maverick Edmonton scientist believes are the central features of an ancient sun temple and calendar that accurately marks the solstices and the equinoxes.
Edmonton - An academic maverick is challenging conventional wisdom on Canada's prehistory by claiming an archeological site in southern Alberta is really a vast, open-air sun temple with a precise 5,000-year-old calendar predating England's Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids.
Mainstream archeologists consider the rock-encircled cairn to be just another medicine wheel left behind by early aboriginals. But a new book by retired University of Alberta professor Gordon Freeman says it is in fact the centre of a 26-square-kilometre stone ''lacework" that marks the changing seasons and the phases of the moon with greater accuracy than our current calendar.
© Unknown
NASA engineers still wonder what could have caused the memory loss, but there's no need to worry about Spirit, which is doing "pretty good," as William Nelson, chief of the engineering team for NASA's Mars rovers, said. Although the two rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) were not expected to last more than three months on the unfavorable surface of the Red Planet and after five years the two complex machines are still in activity, the engineers at NASA are still wondering what could have caused the memory loss.
Some of the secrets behind the emergence of new species have been uncovered in a genetic study, conducted in collaboration with bioscientists at The University of Nottingham.
Almost all plant species are known to have cross-breeds that sometimes produce infertile offspring. Now for the first time the team, led by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, INRA-Versailles, has identified a simple genetic mechanism that may explain why this happens. The results have been published in the journal Science.
Professor Malcolm Bennett, Biology Director for the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology and Head of Division of Plant and Crop Sciences at The University of Nottingham said: "As plants evolve, their genes may get copied, moved around the genome, and inactivated. This will reduce the possibilities for fertile cross-breeds and, over time, may result in the emergence of distinct species. We're delighted that this study demonstrates this process in action."
Almost all plant species are known to have cross-breeds that sometimes produce infertile offspring. Now for the first time the team, led by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, INRA-Versailles, has identified a simple genetic mechanism that may explain why this happens. The results have been published in the journal Science.
Professor Malcolm Bennett, Biology Director for the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology and Head of Division of Plant and Crop Sciences at The University of Nottingham said: "As plants evolve, their genes may get copied, moved around the genome, and inactivated. This will reduce the possibilities for fertile cross-breeds and, over time, may result in the emergence of distinct species. We're delighted that this study demonstrates this process in action."
© Unknown
Graphane crystal. This novel two-dimensional material is obtained from graphene (a monolayer of carbon atoms) by attaching hydrogen atoms (red) to each carbon atoms (blue) in the crystal.
Graphane crystal. This novel two-dimensional material is obtained from graphene (a monolayer of carbon atoms) by attaching hydrogen atoms (red) to each carbon atoms (blue) in the crystal.
Graphene, which was discovered at the University in 2004, is a one-atom-thick crystal with unusual highly conductive properties, which has quickly become one of the hottest topics in physics and materials science. It is also tipped for a number of future applications in electronics and photonics.
But research published today (Friday 30 January, 2009) by Professor Andre Geim and Dr Kostya Novoselov, who led the group that discovered graphene in 2004, suggests its uses could be far greater.
