Science & TechnologyS


Meteor

Meteor Smoke Makes Strange Clouds - Imbedded in Noctilucent Clouds

Dr. Tony Phillips
SPACE.com
Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:13 UTC
Anyone who's ever seen a noctilucent cloud or "NLC" would agree: They look alien. The electric-blue ripples and pale tendrils of NLCs reaching across the night sky resemble something from another world. Researchers say that's not far off. A key ingredient for the mysterious clouds comes from outer space.

"We've detected bits of 'meteor smoke' imbedded in noctilucent clouds," reports James Russell of Hampton University, principal investigator of NASA's AIM mission to study the phenomenon. "This discovery supports the theory that meteor dust is the nucleating agent around which NLCs form."

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Magnify

Searching Salt for Answers About Life On Earth, Mars


ScienceDaily
Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:28 UTC
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© Wichita State UniversityAssociate professor Mark Schneegurt had a paper published in the journal Astrobiology about microbial life on Mars.
Wichita State University associate professor Mark Schneegurt recently had a paper published in the journal Astrobiology. His paper focused on bacteria that live in environments that are salty, but not with sodium chloride -- the kind of salt we're used to. It has to do with magnesium sulfate, also known as Epsom salt.

Researchers have discovered that not only is there evidence of liquid water on Mars, but the planet is also rich with magnesium sulfate.

One of the questions Schneegurt is seeking an answer to is whether microbial life on Earth can grow at these high concentrations of magnesium sulfate.

"This impacts our understanding of what ancient or current life on Mars may be like," he said. "What single discovery could have a greater impact on our philosophy and culture, how we view ourselves in the universe, than finding life on another planet?"
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Meteor

Delhi schoolboy discovers a new comet - SOHO 2333


ZeeNews.com
Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:26 UTC
A Delhi boy has discovered a new comet using data from NASA and European Space Agency's spacecraft-based observatory SOHO that studies the Sun.

Discovered by Prafull Sharma, a Class XII student of Ahlcon Public School, the new comet -- SOHO 2333 -- is a fragment believed to have separated from a relatively larger comet Machholz when it last came close to the Sun in 2007.

Sharma, who has been associated with Delhi-based NGO Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE), is part of a world-wide team of comet hunters who scour through images of the Sun transmitted back to Earth by Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

The British Astronomical Association also confirmed the find and included it in their list of newly discovered comets.

SOHO comets are small comets that are usually found in close proximity of the Sun, Chander Bhushan Devgun, Chairman of SPACE said.
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Display

Google Hit with a Million Requests Per Month to Remove Copyright Searches

Dominic Rushe
The Guardian
Thu, 24 May 2012 13:52 UTC
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© Marcio Jose Sanchez/APGoogle received 3.3m requests for removals on copyright grounds last year, and is on course to quadruple that number this year.
Figures from Google's transparency report reveal huge increase on 2009 as growth comes from rise in 'enforcement vendors'.

Google is receiving more than a million requests a month from copyright owners seeking to pull their content from the company's search results, the web giant has revealed. The number requests has grown so fast that it now often tops 250,000 a week, more than Google received for all of 2009.

The figures, disclosed in Google's transparency report, reveal that in the past month alone Google received 1.2m requests on behalf of 1,000 copyright owners targeting 23,000 websites.

Fred von Lohmann, Google's senior copyright counsel, said copyright infringement was the main reason Google had removed links from search terms. He said company had received a total of 3.3m requests for removals on copyright grounds last year, and was on course to quadruple that number this year. The company complies with 97% of requests.

The dramatic increase follows controversial and unsuccessful attempts to tighten up online copyright law earlier this year. The Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) was backed by many of the world's biggest media companies and had cross party political support. But it was brought down by a global backlash from online activists.
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Laptop

Google Caves in to Media Companies Complaints on Copyright Infringement

Amir Efrati
The Wall Street Journal
Fri, 10 Aug 2012 16:46 UTC
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© venturebeat.com
Google Inc. said its search engine would begin to penalize websites suspected of improperly posting copyrighted material, a gesture meant to succor media companies that have long complained about the issue.

In a post Friday on Google's blog, Amit Singhal, a top search executive, said Google's Web "search algorithms," which determine how websites are ranked in search results, would now take into account the number of valid copyright removal notices that Google receives for a particular site.

"Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results," he said.

The move comes as Google itself is attempting to become a major seller and distributor of professional video and music content through a variety of services, from its YouTube video site to the Google Play online-media store to its pay-TV service in Kansas City, which required deals with cable-channel networks. It is pursuing such initiatives partly in a bid to compete with Apple Inc. and Amazon Inc., among other tech companies that distribute media.

Comment: Not surprising since Google has had it's own issues with copyright infringement:

Google Convicted of Copyright Infringement
Google says Viacom lawsuit threat to Internet use
Google Responds to Viacom's YouTube Suit
Google Should Pay $750 a Book, Authors Say in E-Book Suit

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Rocket

Moon Lander Morpheus Crashes and Burns During Engine Test

Tiffany Kaiser
DailyTech
Sat, 11 Aug 2012 18:01 UTC
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© NASAMorpheus up in flames.
No one was on board, but the crash cost NASA $500,000

A NASA moon lander prototype crashed and exploded during testing yesterday afternoon.

The moon lander, called Morpheus, is a prototype spacecraft that is meant to carry around 1,100 pounds of cargo to the moon for future NASA space missions. Its engine is partially powered by methane.

The project has been ongoing for about two and a half years and has cost around $7 million.

But on Thursday afternoon, Morpheus took a dive during an engine test and then exploded about [1 minute and] 30 seconds later. No one was inside of the spacecraft when the crash occurred.
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Info

Phantom Limbs: Woman Experiences Hand that Does Not Exist

Helen Thomson
New Scientist
Fri, 10 Aug 2012 16:57 UTC
Phantom Limb
© Achim Sass/WestEnd61/Rex FeaturesAll present and correct.
A woman born missing a finger and a thumb has grown them back - albeit as part of a phantom limb. This extraordinary occurrence shows that our brain contains a fully functional map of our body image, regardless of what our limbs actually look like.

The woman, RN, was born with just three fingers on her right hand. Aged 18, RN had the hand amputated after a car accident. She later began to feel that her missing limb was still present, and developed a "phantom" hand.

"But here's the interesting thing," says Paul McGeoch at the University of California, San Diego. "Her phantom hand didn't have three digits, it had five."

RN was aware of a full complement of fingers, but her phantom thumb and index finger were less than half the usual length.

With training using a mirror box trick - a tool that creates the visual illusion of two hands - McGeoch and V.S Ramachandran, also at San Diego, managed to extend her short phantom finger and thumb to normal length.
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Meteor

Meteor Shower: When to Watch for Perseid Star Show


Newsday
Sat, 11 Aug 2012 03:04 UTC
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© The Associated PressAstronomers observe the night sky for the Perseid meteor shower at an observatory near the village of Avren east of the Bulgarian capital Sofia last year. The annual meteor shower is promising to put on a dazzling sky show. (Aug. 12, 2009)
How do you watch a meteor shower? Step one: Find yourself a clear, dark sky. Two, pour a cool summer beverage. Three, find a lawn chair, sit and drink aforementioned beverage.

Finally, look up.

We get not only fireworks on the Fourth of July but also nature's fireworks in mid-August. You can check out the Perseid - pronounced "PURR-see-id" - meteor shower Saturday night. This shower appears to emanate from the Perseus constellation, hence the name.

Although the Perseids loiter in our heavens from July 25 through Aug. 20, these shooting stars peak this weekend. You can start looking up late Saturday night. If you are lucky, you'll observe a handful of meteors dart across the cosmos.

You'll probably see more after midnight, in the wee hours of Sunday morning.
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Meteor

2012 Perseid meteor shower coincides with alignment of Moon, Venus, and Jupiter


SpaceWeather.com
Sat, 11 Aug 2012 12:27 UTC
Earth is entering a stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Worldwide observers are now reporting more than 30 Perseids per hour, a number that could triple during the weekend when Earth reaches the heart of the debris zone. Forecasters recommend looking during the dark hours before dawn, especially Sunday morning, August 12th, when activity is expected to be highest.

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Arrow Down

Confirmed: Mars rover Curiosity took photo of craft crash-landing

Scott Gold and Amina Khan
Los Angeles Times
Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:55 UTC
A review of landing data confirms that a photo taken by the Mars rover happened to capture Curiosity's spacecraft crash-landing in the distance, an extraordinary coincidence.
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© NASA / August 10, 2012Images taken by the Curiosity rover on Mars show a plume of dust, left, which had disappeared when another photo was snapped 45 minutes later. Engineers say the plume indicates the crash-landing of the spacecraft that delivered the rover to the Martian surface.
Engineers said Friday that the Curiosity rover happened to catch a picture of its own ride crash-landing on Mars - a wink-of-an-eye serendipity that some dismissed as a statistical impossibility, but appears to have been confirmed by a thorough review of landing data.

The final seconds of Curiosity's eight-month-plus journey to Mars called for a spacecraft to lower the rover to the surface using a "sky crane" - three ropes. The ropes were then cut, and the last of the spacecraft, known as the "descent stage," cast itself toward the horizon. It crash-landed, on purpose, about 2,000 feet away.

A low-resolution photograph Curiosity took seconds after landing Sunday night arrived promptly at La Cañada Flintridge's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managing the $2.5-billion mission for NASA.
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