Science & TechnologyS


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Russian science shot down by Nobel winner

Evgeniya Chaykovskaya
The Moscow News
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:06 UTC
Russian-born Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim - who was rejected by a leading Moscow institute before heading to the west - has dismissed overtures from the Skolkovo innovation centre.

The émigré physicist said plans to lure him back home to work at Skolkovo were "completely insane" and claimed the high-profile innovation centre was doomed to failure.

"Are people over there completely insane?" Geim raged to Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei. "I do not hold Russian citizenship, I am a Dutch national and I'm not interested in Skolkovo anyway.

"Do [the Russian authorities] think they can just offer everyone a bag of gold and invite them?"
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Telescope

Auroras and Lasers Over Greenland


Space Weather
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:05 UTC
On Oct. 5th, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth tipped south and temporarily punctured our planet's magnetosphere. Solar wind poured in and fueled this display over Greenland:
Image
© ICECAPS

Ed Stockard reports from the National Science Foundation's Summit Observatory, 11,000 feet atop the Greenland ice sheet: "We are experiencing clear skies and cooler temperatures here at the summit. These pictures were taken at our Mobile Science Facility where a project named ICECAPS has several instruments studying Arctic clouds. The experiment's lidars (green laser radars) may be seen lancing up into the auroras. The reds on the snow are reflections from a nearby beacon on a fifty meter tower."

"Did I mention cooler temps?" he adds. "The thermometer read -42 C."
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Sun

Filament Eclipse


Space Weather
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:27 UTC
At this time of year, near the autumnal equinox, the Earth can pass directly between the sun and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, producing a brief eclipse. Yesterday this happened just as a magnetic filament was flying off the sun's northeastern limb. The advancing edge of the Earth cut the sun in half at the moment of maximum eruption:
Image
© SOHO

Even by the lofty standards of SDO, this is a shot of rare beauty. A 5 1/2 hour movie sets the scene in motion; you can see the big-picture (5 MB gif) or a close-up (2 MB mpeg) of the filament. Another movie omits the Earth-shadows; it is easier to follow the filament, yet somehow less photogenic.
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Sherlock

Mystery Skeleton Found at Ancient Cypriot Site


Reuters
Wed, 06 Oct 2010 05:11 UTC
Experts in Cyprus are trying to unravel the identity of one of the island's older inhabitants, after a skeleton was discovered protruding from a cliff in one of the island's richest archaeological sites.

The intact skeleton was found at Curium in the southwest of the Mediterranean island renowned for its links to the ancient world. The earliest settlements here can be dated as far back as the Neolithic age, about 4,500 BC.

Experts believe the skeleton came to the surface due to years of erosion from the sea. The discovery is reminiscent of three skeletons found embracing in the same area back in the 1980s, the likely victims of a strong earthquake which hit the area around 365 AD.

"It looks like an isolated grave close to the coast," said Maria Hadjicosti, director of the island's Antiquities department.
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Bug

New GM worms mean large scale spider-silk production

Lewis Page
The Register
Fri, 01 Oct 2010 02:11 UTC
Boffins sidestep difficulties of farming spiders

Scientists in Indiana have announced success in producing a genetically modified abomination-style combo creature which is part spider and part silkworm. They believe that their creation will be handy for the production of next-generation bulletproof vests, among other things.

The cunning thing about the new arachno-worms is that they can produce spider silk, one of the strongest fibres known to science, while not actually being spiders. It is mainly the difficulty of farming spiders for their silk that has prevented the super-stuff from being widely used*.

"The generation of silk fibers having the properties of spider silks has been one of the important goals in materials science," says Malcolm Fraser Jr, biology prof at Notre Dame uni.
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Nuke

Iran nuclear plant shutdown due to 'leak'

John Leyden
The Register
Tue, 05 Oct 2010 01:54 UTC
Delays in bringing Iran's nuclear plant online at Bushehr are due to a "small leak" and nothing to do with the infamous Stuxnet worm, according to the country's energy minister.

Bushehr was due to begin producing electricity in November, following the transfer of fuel to the core in September, but power production is being delayed until "early 2011" following a leak in a storage pool, according to Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's vice president and political boss of its nuclear programme, AP reports. Salehi did not specify whether radioactive material was involved in the leak, much less whether any plant personnel were exposed to danger

"During a washing process prior to loading the actual nuclear fuel, a small leak was observed in a pool next to the reactor and was fixed," Salehi said, Iran's IRNA news agency reports. "This leak delayed activities for a few days."

Plant officials have previously admitted that the Stuxnet worm, a sophisticated strain of malware capable of sabotaging industrial plant control systems, had infected the laptops of an unspecified number of workers.
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Satellite

Last-minute Reprieve Keeps NASA Telescope in the Hunt

Debra Werner
SpaceNews.com
Wed, 06 Oct 2010 21:57 UTC
Image
© NASANASA's sky-mapping spacecraft, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)
A NASA space-based telescope that has been gathering imagery of comets, asteroids and distant galaxies since it was launched in December, received a last-minute reprieve in late September. Just as the hydrogen used to cool the detectors on the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) ran out, the space agency's Planetary Division stepped forward with $400,000 to continue the mission, albeit in a limited manner, for one month, said NASA spokesman J.D. Harrington.

Without the hydrogen coolant, only two of the WISE mission's four infrared detectors will operate. However, those two detectors still will be useful in finding asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter and near-Earth objects, the asteroids and comets moving relatively close to Earth's orbit, said Ned Wright, WISE principal investigator and professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

If the data from the extended mission, known as Near-Earth Object WISE (NEOWISE) proves useful, the Planetary Division will continue funding the effort to find near-Earth objects for three additional months, Harrington said.
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Rocket

Mars probe to solve 'lost atmosphere' mystery


Cosmos Online
Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:38 UTC
Washington: The U.S. space agency NASA announced it has given the green light to a mission to Mars aimed at investigating the mystery of how the 'red planet' lost its atmosphere.

NASA gave the approval for "the development and 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission," the agency said in a statement, noting that the project may also show Mars' history of supporting life.
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Magnify

Super-Strong Yarn for Spacesuits and Bullet-Proof Vests

Charles Q. Choi
TechNewsDaily
Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:21 UTC
Image
© Kai Liu.Fabrics woven using novel carbon-nanotube-loaded yarns.
Super-strong, highly conductive yarns made from extraordinarily thin carbon tubes could one day find use in spacesuits, bulletproof vests and radiation suits, researchers now suggest.

Carbon nanotubes are hollow pipes just nanometers or billionths of a meter in diameter - dozens to hundreds of times thinner than a wavelength of visible light. They can possess a range of extraordinary physical and electrical properties, such as being roughly 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth the weight.
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Einstein

For Wonder Material Graphene, Nobel Prize is Just The Start

Stuart Fox
TechNewsDaily
Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:14 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The Nobel Prize in physics serves as a signpost for measuring the progress of an idea from theoretical math to an inescapable part of everyone's lives. It was 42 years from Philip Eduard Anton von Lenard's Nobel Prize for cathode ray experimentation to regular TV broadcasts from NBC, CBS and ABC; 42 years from the Curies' award for discovering radiation to the ruins of Hiroshima; and 28 years from Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley's win for semiconductor research to the release of the personal computer.
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