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Saturn

Is that two moons around Saturn I see?

Philip Pullella
Reuters
Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:41 UTC
Saturn
© REUTERS/NASA
An undated handout image of Saturn from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, released October 21, 1998.

Italian and British scientists want to exhume the body of 16th century astronomer Galileo for DNA tests to determine if his severe vision problems may have affected some of his findings.

The scientists told Reuters on Thursday that DNA tests would help answer some unresolved questions about the health of the man known as the father of astronomy, whom the Vatican condemned for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun.

"If we knew exactly what was wrong with his eyes we could use computer models to recreate what he saw in his telescope," said Paolo Galluzzi, director of the Museum of History and Science in Florence, the city where Galileo is buried.
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Satellite

Old Russian nuclear satellite spewed fragments in orbit

Vladimir Isachenkov
Associated Press
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:15 UTC
Russia's military said Wednesday that an old Soviet-built nuclear-powered satellite has spewed fragments in orbit, but insisted they do not threaten the international space station or people on Earth.

The military's Space Forces said the decommissioned Cosmos-1818 satellite "partially fragmented" in July.

Space Forces chief of staff Gen. Alexander Yakushin said in Wednesday's statement that the satellite's fragments remained on a high orbit far above that of the international space station. Yakushin added that the fragments do not pose any threat of radioactive contamination on Earth.
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Better Earth

Did the Moon's far side once face Earth?

Richard Fisher
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:56 UTC
western hemisphere of the Moon
© Johnson Space Center Collection / NASA
The western hemisphere of the Moon, as seen by the Galileo spacecraft

Billions of years ago, the man in the moon may have performed the ultimate about-face, when an asteroid flipped the moon around.

The far side of the moon never faces us, because the moon rotates once for every orbit it makes of the Earth. Yet an analysis of impact craters shows the far side may once have pointed our way.

Mark Wieczorek and Matthieu Le Feuvre at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics in France studied the relative age and distribution of 46 known craters, gouged out by impacts from debris originating in the solar system's asteroid belt.

According to earlier computer simulations, the moon's western hemisphere as viewed from Earth should have about 30 per cent more craters than the eastern hemisphere. That's because the west always faces in the direction in which the moon orbits, which makes it more likely to be hit by debris, for the same reason that more raindrops strike a moving car's front windshield than its rear.
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Blackbox

Who is testing your DNA?

Peter Aldhous and Michael Reilly
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:43 UTC
cup of coffee
© Peter Dawson / Rex
A coffee can have consequences far beyond a caffeine high, if someone gets a sample of your DNA from the cup

When Ann Chamberlain-Gordon suspected that her husband was cheating, she took his underwear to her place of work - a police forensic lab in Lansing, Michigan.

Her husband, a former professional in the Canadian Football League, denied infidelity, but at a divorce hearing in March 2007, Chamberlain-Gordon testified that she had found female DNA on his underwear that did not match her own.

The opposing attorney quickly turned the tables on the forensic scientist, however, accusing her of misusing state equipment by running the tests. The Michigan State Police agreed, and Chamberlain-Gordon was fired a few months later.

If she had instead sent the underwear to a DNA testing company, such as Test Infidelity of Chatsworth, California, rather than taking matters into her own hands, Chamberlain-Gordon could have kept her job. "If you suspect your partner is being unfaithful, you can send in a pair of his or her underwear to test for the presence of another person's genetic material," Test Infidelity's website promises.

If Chamberlain-Gordon had suspected a particular woman and obtained her toothbrush, say, the company could also have analysed DNA from that to look for a match.
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Info

Unusual fossil may rule out ancient flood

Catherine Brahic
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:35 UTC
tuatara
© Flickr/Philip C/Creative Commons
A fossilised ancestor of the tuatara suggests that part of land mass that is now New Zealand survived ancient sea-level rise.

It is said that in the mists of time, the islands of New Zealand were lost, Atlantis-like, beneath the ocean. But a newly discovered fossil reptile suggests this theory does not hold water.

Marc Jones of University College London, UK, and colleagues found the portions of fossilised reptile jaw on New Zealand's South Island.

The wear patterns of the teeth suggest its owner had two parallel rows of upper teeth, and a single row of lower teeth that slotted in between. The only reptile known to have this type of jaw is the endangered tuatara and its ancestors.
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Info

Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life

Graham Lawton
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:00 UTC
Darwin tree of life drawing
© Mario Tama / Getty
This "Tree of Life" sketch is seen in Darwin's "B" notebook, at a press preview of the new "Darwin" exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History November 15, 2005 in New York City.

In July 1837, Charles Darwin had a flash of inspiration. In his study at his house in London, he turned to a new page in his red leather notebook and wrote, "I think". Then he drew a spindly sketch of a tree.

As far as we know, this was the first time Darwin toyed with the concept of a "tree of life" to explain the evolutionary relationships between different species. It was to prove a fruitful idea: by the time he published On The Origin of Species 22 years later, Darwin's spindly tree had grown into a mighty oak. The book contains numerous references to the tree and its only diagram is of a branching structure showing how one species can evolve into many.
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Telescope

Dark matter filaments stoked star birth in early galaxies

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:50 UTC
early massive galaxies show bursts of star formation
© Dekel et al
Some of the universe's early massive galaxies show bursts of star formation but no evidence of collisions. Cold gas piped in along filaments of dark matter could be responsible for the starbursts.

Tendrils of dark matter channelled gas deep into the hearts of some of the universe's earliest galaxies, a new computer simulation suggests. The result could explain how some massive galaxies created vast numbers of stars without gobbling up their neighbours.

Dramatic bursts of star formation are thought to occur when galaxies merge and their gas collides and heats up. Evidence of these smash-ups is fairly easy to spot, since they leave behind mangled pairs of galaxies that eventually merge, their gas settling into a bright, compact centre.

But several years ago, astronomers began finding disc-like galaxies with crowded stellar nurseries that seemed to bear no hallmarks of a past collision. These galaxies, which thrived when the universe was just 3 billion years old, were at least as massive as the Milky Way, but created stars at some 50 times our galaxy's rate.
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Cell Phone

Stalking by Texting is on the Rise

Sitafa Harden
OpEdNews.com
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:27 UTC
The results of a new survey by the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that an unprecedented number of Americans have reported being stalked in recent years with stalking by texting on the rise.

Cindy Dyer, director of the federal Office on Violence Against Women told the Associated Press,
The prevalence of these electronic devices gives a stalker another tool in his tool kit, makes it easier to stalk and increases victims' fear. It doesn't increase the number of stalking offenders, but it sure makes their job easier
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Telescope

Amazing observatories of the ancient world

Hazel Muir
New Scientist
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:46 UTC
oval arrangement of shoebox-sized stones in Wyoming
© Milne/Photographers Choice/Getty
A 25-metre-wide oval arrangement of shoebox-sized stones in Wyoming, US, may be a 2000-year-old Native American monument.

What ancient cultures lacked in their understanding of stars and planets, they made up for in their sense of connection with the starry skies. A thousand years ago, on every inhabited continent, people recognised astronomical patterns that are fundamental to the passage of time and natural cycles of renewal - the summer solstice, for instance - far more acutely than most societies do today.

You can sense that connection vividly by visiting some awesome ancient astronomical sites around the world.
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Telescope

How do you weigh the Milky Way?


New Scientist
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:41 UTC
Milky Way
© NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Milky Way was recently upgraded to heavyweight status, with a mass some 3 trillion times the mass of the Sun.

Earlier this month, astronomers announced a new measurement of the Milky Way's mass - saying it is 50% heftier than thought and about as heavy as our nearest large neighbour, Andromeda.

The new result is a major revision and a full three times larger than another team's recent estimate. It also raises a question: why don't astronomers know how much our home galaxy weighs?

Astronomers have attempted to measure the mass of the Milky Way since the 1920s. But the measurement turns out to be exceedingly tricky, not least because some 90% of the galaxy's mass is thought to be made of dark matter - a mysterious, invisible substance that only reveals its presence by its gravitational tugs on stars and gas clouds.
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