Science & TechnologyS


Sun

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captures 'Tree of Avatar' on the sun


Spaceweather.com
Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:41 UTC
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is doing more than just taking crisp pictures of the sun. It is revealing our star as a place of intense and sometimes even alien beauty. In today's image, we see "The Tree of Avatar."

The trunk of the tree is a twisted, gnarly pillar of magnetism containing hundreds of millions of tons of relatively cool plasma. The canopy is a cloud of million-degree gas. As solar physicists watched this tree on April 19th, it exploded, producing one of the biggest eruptions in years: movie.

The colors in the movie trace different temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (60,000 K - 80,000 K); blues and greens are hot (1,000,000 K - 2,200,000 K). The tree's cool trunk rapidly heats up as it rises into the blast, and the canopy cools down as it falls in pieces back to the sun.
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Magnify

Melting ice reveals ancient hunting tools in Canadian north


Agence France-Presse
Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:15 UTC
Melting ice in Canada's far north has revealed a treasure trove of ancient tools used to hunt caribou and other prey, researchers said.

High in the Yukon's Mackenzie Mountains, Canadian archaeologists have discovered 2,400-year-old spear-throwing tools, a 1,000-year-old ground squirrel snare and bows and arrows dating back 850 years.

"The implements are truly amazing," said Tom Andrews, an archaeologist with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and lead researcher on the International Polar Year Ice Patch Study.
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Magnify

Reinventing technology assessment for the 21st century

Patrick Polischuk
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies
Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:57 UTC
New report calls for citizen participation to inform decision-making on science and technology

A new report from the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars defines the criteria for a new technology assessment function in the United States. The report, Reinventing Technology Assessment: A 21st Century Model, emphasizes the need to incorporate citizen-participation methods to complement expert analysis. Government policymakers, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and citizens need such analysis to capably navigate the technology-intensive world in which we now live.
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Info

Evidence for Our Sun's Twin?

John J. Matese, Daniel P. Whitmire
Cornell University Library
Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:01 UTC
Persistent Evidence of a Jovian Mass Solar Companion in the Oort Cloud

We present an updated dynamical and statistical analysis of outer Oort cloud cometary evidence suggesting the sun has a wide-binary Jovian mass companion. The results support a conjecture that there exists a companion of mass ~ 1-4 M_Jup orbiting in the innermost region of the outer Oort cloud. Our most restrictive prediction is that the orientation angles of the orbit normal in galactic coordinates are centered on the galactic longitude of the ascending node Omega = 319 degree and the galactic inclination i = 103 degree (or the opposite direction) with an uncertainty in the normal direction subtending ~ 2% of the sky. A Bayesian statistical analysis suggests that the probability of the companion hypothesis is comparable to or greater than the probability of the null hypothesis of a statistical fluke. Such a companion could also have produced the detached Kuiper Belt object Sedna. The putative companion could be easily detected by the recently launched Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).
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Question

Human Generator: A Man in Georgia Becomes a Scientific Phenomenon


RT.com
Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:44 UTC



"Let there be light!" is a phrase that Zurab Bedia from Georgia takes to a whole new level as he lights fluorescent lamps with just the touch of his hand.

"My brother was really into radio," recalls Bedia. "During one of his radio sessions, he was electrocuted and died instantly. Forty days after his death, I had a vision - I wouldn't call it a dream, it was really a vision - he told me to go and change a light bulb in the hallway. When I touched the bulb, it started blinking and kept blinking when I held it in my hand."

An entire laboratory has been set up by Georgia's top scientists to investigate the Zurab Bedia phenomenon. They have discovered that Bedia's geomagnetic field is several times more intense than that of most humans.
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Info

Brain shuts off in response to healer's prayer

Andy Coghlan
New Scientist
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:37 UTC
Fake Healers
© Robert Nickelsberg/GettyShut down.
When we fall under the spell of a charismatic figure, areas of the brain responsible for scepticism and vigilance become less active. That's the finding of a study which looked at people's response to prayers spoken by someone purportedly possessing divine healing powers.

To identify the brain processes underlying the influence of charismatic individuals, Uffe Schjødt of Aarhus University in Denmark and colleagues turned to Pentecostal Christians, who believe that some people have divinely inspired powers of healing, wisdom and prophecy.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Schjødt and his colleagues scanned the brains of 20 Pentecostalists and 20 non-believers while playing them recorded prayers. The volunteers were told that six of the prayers were read by a non-Christian, six by an ordinary Christian and six by a healer. In fact, all were read by ordinary Christians.
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R2-D2

NASA's android astronaut assistant prepares for launch


NewScientist
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:08 UTC
Image
© NASAR2 has a ticket for the space shuttle.
NASA is preparing to send its first humanoid robot into space. Robonaut first twitched to life in September 1999 and, after a decade of tests, the 140-kilogram R2 model will finally be launched to the International Space Station on the space shuttle Discovery's last mission in September.

With continual maintenance work needed on the ISS, the idea is to give the crew an assistant that never tires of undertaking mundane mechanical tasks - initially inside the craft but later outside it too.
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Telescope

Long-lost lunar rover successfully zapped with laser

David Shiga
NewScientist
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:02 UTC
Image
© NASA/GSFC/Arizona State UniversityLunokhod 1 (arrow) travelled more than 10 kilometres over the lunar surface over the course of 10 months after it landed in 1970.
Mirror mirror, on the moon, whose discovery has been a boon? The answer: a long-lost lunar rover. Now that we have a fix on its location, the rover's reflectivity could come in particularly handy for studying the moon's wobble.

Astronomers measure the moon's distance from Earth by bouncing laser beams off reflectors delivered to the surface by lunar missions. Three were left behind by Apollo astronauts and one is attached to the back of a Soviet-built robotic rover, Lunokhod 2.
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Laptop

The 3 Most Common Types of PC Virus Infections

Ned Smith
TechNewsDaily
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:12 UTC
Web security and the vexing problem of malicious software made headlines again last week when computer antivirus software maker McAfee sent out a botched update that crashed thousands of computers around the world.

Such hiccups in computer security software are rare. What isn't rare is the damage caused by the malicious software known as malware that antivirus software is designed to thwart. Last year hackers stole approximately 130 million credit card numbers, according to an Internet Security Threat Report released this month by security software maker Symantec. And in the third quarter of 2009 alone, there was over $120 million in reported losses due to online banking fraud.

David Perry, global director of education for security software maker Trend Micro, is a 22-year veteran of fighting malware. He gave TechNewsDaily a guided tour of malware's trinity, the three most likely sources of malware infection
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Sherlock

Remains of "Noah's Ark" Discovered 12,000 Feet Up a Turkish Mountain, Archaeologists Claim


The Daily Mail
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:38 UTC
Image
© Getty ImagesA group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers from Noah's Ark Ministries International claim to have found the ark, 4,000 metres up a Turkish mountain
A group of explorers claim to have found the remains of Noah's Ark.

The discovery was made 12,000ft up a Turkish mountain and comes 4,800 years after the vessel was said to be afloat.

The Chinese and Turkish evangelicals said specimen samples taken from the structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey underwent carbon testing, which linked them to the time period.

The team made the announcement of their find yesterday - the same day the Bible says the flood waters abated and the ark came to rest.

Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker and member of the 15-strong team from Noah's Ark Ministries International, said: 'It's not 100 per cent that it is Noah's Ark but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it.'

He said the structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals.
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