Science & TechnologyS


Blackbox

Giant 'Alien Worm' Found on Mars?

Tom Rose
news.gather.com
Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:54 UTC
A video on YouTube claims that NASA photos of a giant "alien worm" lithering along the Martian surface may be proof there actually is life on Mars. Can it be true?

The video magnifies a NASA still photo of an unidentified area of the red planet taken as a reconnaissance satellite orbited overhead.

The terrain in the photo is typically Martian, with rocks and boulders strewn across a meteorite-blasted, fairly flat and desolate landscape. Except for the twisting, squirming, wormy object seemingly burrowing into the Martian soil. It's so large, it casts its own gigantic shadow.

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Sun

Solar Storm Hits - Power Grid Safe

Seth Borenstein
The Star
Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:30 UTC
Image
© NASA/ReutersThe largest solar storm in five years has engulfed Earth, but scientists say the planet has lucked out so far.
The largest solar storm in five years has engulfed Earth, but scientists say the planet has lucked out so far.

The storm arrived more peacefully Thursday morning than it could have. Scientists say that could change as the storm spends the day shaking the planet's magnetic field. It could disrupt technology but also spread colourful Northern Lights.

The storm started with a massive solar flare earlier in the week and grew as it raced outward from the sun. The storm arrived at Earth about 6 a.m. EST.

So far officials say there have been no reports of problems with power grids, GPS, satellites or other technologies that are often disrupted by solar storms.

The storm is part of the sun's normal 11-year cycle, which is supposed to reach peak storminess next year. Solar storms don't harm people, but they do disrupt technology. And during the last peak around 2002, experts learned that GPS was vulnerable to solar outbursts.
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Camera

NASA LRO Image: A New View of the Apollo 11 Landing Site


SpaceRef.com
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:48 UTC
This image of the Apollo 11 landing site captured from just 24 km (15 miles) above the surface provides LRO's best look yet at humanity's first venture to another world. When Neil Armstrong took his famous first steps onto the lunar surface, he kicked around the soil. "Yes, the surface is fine and powdery." Gazing at the flat horizon, he took in the view. "Isn't that something! Magnificent sight out here." After collecting a contingency sample Neil looked around and observed, "it has a stark beauty all its own. It's like much of the high desert of the United States. It's different, but it's very pretty out here." A few minutes later Buzz Aldrin descended the ladder and joined Neil on the surface of the Moon!
Image
© NASA/GSFC/Arizona State UniversityLROC's best look yet at the Apollo 11 Landing site. The remnants of Armstrong and Aldrin's historic first steps on the surface are seen as dark paths around the Lunar Module (LM), Lunar Ranging RetroReflector (LRRR) and Passive Seismic Experiment Package (PSEP), as well as leading to and from Little West crater. LROC M175124932R.
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No Entry

Families face having their internet cut off after laws to curb 'piracy' are upheld in court

Sean Poulter
The Mail Online
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:45 UTC
BT
© PALicking wounds: BT said it would now be considering the implications of today's ruling, while TalkTalk said it would 'continue to fight'
UK - Families who illegally download movies, music or books will appear on a blacklist and might - in future - have their internet services cut off.

The tough new regime, which is included in the Digital Economy Act, was upheld by the Court of Appeal today after judges threw out a legal challenge.

Major movie, music or publishing company will be able to require an internet service provider to blacklist customers who illegally download or upload copyright material.
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Sun

Biggest solar storm in years nears Earth, may disrupt power?

Seth Borenstein
USA Today / Associated Press
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:21 UTC
The largest solar flare in five years is racing toward Earth, threatening to unleash a torrent of charged particles that could disrupt power grids, GPS and airplane flights.


The sun erupted Tuesday evening, and the effects should start smacking Earth around 7 a.m. EST Thursday, according to forecasters at the federal government's Space Weather Prediction Center. They say the flare is growing as it speeds outward from the sun.

"It's hitting us right in the nose," said Joe Kunches, a scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He called it the sun's version of "Super Tuesday."
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Info

Gorillas & Humans Closer Than Thought, Genome Sequencing Reveals

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:00 UTC
Lowland Gorilla
© Ronald van der Beek, ShutterstockFor the first time, researchers have sequenced the complete genome of the western lowland gorilla.

Adding to the already-sequenced genomes of humans, chimpanzees and orangutans, researchers have completed the set of the great apes by sequencing the genes of a western lowland gorilla.

The complete genome comes from a female western lowland gorilla named Kamilah, who was born in captivity and now lives at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The researchers also sequenced parts of the genomes for two other western lowland gorillas and one eastern lowland gorilla. The results reveal more than ever about how the evolutionary tree connecting humans, chimps and gorillas was shaped.

"The gorilla genome is particularly important for our understanding of human evolution, because it tells us about this crucial time when we were diverging from our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees," study researcher Aylwyn Scally of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said in a press conference about the findings on Tuesday (March 6).
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Info

US Military Seeks Sixth Sense Training


InnovationNewsDaily
Tue, 06 Mar 2012 09:09 UTC
Soldiers in Pit
© U.S. Army | Staff Sgt. Sean A. FoleySoldiers occasionally get a sixth sense feeling about battlefield dangers. Here, Sgt. Auralie Suarez and Pvt. Brett Mansink take cover during a firefight with anti-Iraqi forces in the Al Doura section of Baghdad, March 7.

Ordinary soldiers have sometimes shown a battlefield sixth sense that has saved lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the U.S. military wants to better understand that "spidey sense" and train troops to tap their inner superhero instincts.

The U.S. Office of Naval Research pointed to sixth sense research about how "humans can detect and act on unique patterns without consciously and intentionally analyzing them," according to a special notice posted on Feb. 29. It hopes to encourage such intuition in the brains of new soldiers, Marines and other troops with little or no battlefield experience.

Having intuition allows for split-second detection of patterns in the midst of uncertain scenarios - a possibly life-saving action in the face of an ambush or area rigged with roadside bombs.

But intuition stands apart from step-by-step, time-consuming analytical thinking because it happens both rapidly and subconsciously. A soldier may see, smell or hear something that gets subconsciously organized within hundreds of milliseconds to create the "feeling or impression of a solution" leading up to a sudden insight about the battlefield situation.
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Better Earth

Human Origins Traced to Worm Fossil in Canada


Agence France-Presse
Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© University of Toronto/Canadian PressThe fossil of Pikaia gracilens was discovered in 1911 in the Burgess Shale fossil beds in Yoho National Park in Western Canada.
Paleontologists have traced the origins of humans and other vertebrates to a worm that swam in the oceans half a billion years ago, said a study published Monday.

A new analysis of fossils unearthed in the Canadian Rockies determined that the extinct Pikaia gracilens is the most primitive known member of the chordate family, which today includes fish, amphibians, birds, reptiles and mammals.

The research published in the British scientific journal Biological Reviews identified a notochord or rod that would become part of the backbone in vertebrates, and skeletal muscle tissue called myomeres in 114 fossil specimens of the creature.

They also found a vascular system.

"The discovery of myomeres is the smoking gun that we have long been seeking," said the study's lead author, Simon Conway Morris of the Cambridge University.
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Eye 1

Best of the Web: Open Source Mozilla Firefox Now 'Tracking the Trackers'

Anne Sewell
Digital Journal
Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
Collusion by Firefox tracking the trackers.
Collusion is a new add-on by Mozilla to their popular Firefox browser, which enables users to see who is tracking them on the 'net.

Everyone has heard that Big Brother is tracking their navigation on the internet. Now users have a chance to find out who is doing the tracking.

RT advises that Firefox is the second most popular browser in use by web surfers. The owners are now introducing the Collusion add-on, which will allow users to monitor how their actions and movements are tracked and shared by various websites. It will show, in real time, how that data creates a spider-web of interaction between companies and other trackers.
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Info

Study Demonstrates Gravity Determines Handedness of Molecular Screws

John Shanks
Sci-News
Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:03 UTC
Researchers have for the first time demonstrated that gravity plays a role in the formation of molecular aggregates, and that it can even be used to make them right-handed or left-handed.

Gravity
© Sci-NewsNon-chiral porphyrins, shown with green blocks, can form screw-shaped chiral structures. The rotation (red arrows) and gravity (green arrows) determine whether left- or right-handed screw structures are formed (N. Micali et al)
Many chemical and biochemical substances exist in the form of one of two structures that are the exact mirror-image of one another. However, no one could explain exactly how these images originally formed.

Now, researchers from the Nijmegen High Field Magnet Laboratory (HFML), the Netherlands, the CNR-IPCF Institute in Messina, Italy, and the University of Messina, have demonstrated that a combination of gravitational and rotational forces may play a role. The findings are published in Nature Chemistry.

The team carried out a growth experiment in which flat dye molecules (porphyrins) were allowed to aggregate. By varying the gravitational force using a strong magnetic field, and by rotating the vials containing the molecules in solution, the researchers were able to produce left-handed or right-handed aggregates as desired. The aggregates look a little like screws - or their mirror image.
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