Science & TechnologyS


Info

Publishers Bet Future on iPad They Haven't yet Seen

Yinka Adegoke and Georgina Prodhan
ABC News
Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:36 UTC
Publishers are placing big bets that Apple Inc's iPad will kick-start a commercially viable transition to digital magazines and newspapers -- even though few executives have laid hands on the tablet ahead of launch.

In fact, many publishers likely will not announce their iPad applications until after the tablet hits U.S. stores on Saturday, due to the many constraints that Apple has placed on allowing its partners access to the device.

While media content is critical to the success of the iPad -- a 9.7-inch tablet that looks like a large iPhone and aims to bridge the gap between a smartphone and a laptop -- Apple has been typically secretive about its plans.

Media executives say they have had to test out the iPad in situ at Apple's Cupertino, California office, or agree to extremely restrictive security measures to get one off-site.
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No Entry

Nero's Domus Aurea Roof Collapses


Libero News
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:54 UTC
Situation 'of extreme alarm', commissioner says

Domus Aurea_Rome
© ANSA
Rome - Part of the ceiling of Roman Emperor Nero's Domus Aurea collapsed on Tuesday.

Some 60 square meters of the baths built on top of the Golden House by the emperor who succeeded Nero, Trajan, came down because of seepage from recent heavy rains, civil protection experts said.

The area where the collapse occurred, a tunnel that was once part of the baths, has been cordoned off because it is close to the entrance to public gardens above it, they said.

"Now we're trying to seal it off so no more rain will get into the hole," they said. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno said he was "very worried" about the state of the structure, one of Rome's most celebrated tourist attractions.

The special commissioner for the site, Luciano Marchetti, said "more collapses were possible". The situation, he said, is "one of extreme alarm".
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Magnify

After Patent on Genes Is Invalidated, Taking Stock

Andrew Pollack
The New York Times
Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:02 UTC
Many biotechnology stocks fell on Tuesday as investors struggled to understand the impact of a ruling that threw out parts of two gene patents and called into question thousands more.

Stock market losses were muted, with two major indexes that track the shares of the industry falling by less than 1 percent each. In part, that was because biotechnology executives hastened to reassure their investors that the ruling would not necessarily undermine their businesses, at least in the short run.

But the executives themselves were struggling on Tuesday to figure out what the long-term impact would be. Biotech companies spend billions every year trying to develop new tests and treatments based partly on genes they have isolated and patented.
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Meteor

Signs of giant comet impacts found in cores

Sid Perkins
Science News
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:44 UTC
Copious ammonium may be evidence of a 50-billion-ton strike at the end of the ice age

A new study cites spikes of ammonium in Greenland ice cores as evidence for a giant comet impact at the end of the last ice age, and suggests that the collision may have caused a brief, final cold snap before the climate warmed up for good.

In the April Geology, researchers describe finding chemical similarities in the cores between a layer corresponding to 1908, when a 50,000-metric-ton extraterrestrial object exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, and a deeper stratum dating to 12,900 years ago. They argue that the similarity is evidence that an object weighing as much as 50 billion metric tons triggered the Younger Dryas, a millennium-long cold spell that began just as the ice age was loosing its grip (SN: 6/2/07, p. 339).

Precipitation that fell on Greenland during the winter after Tunguska contains a strong, sharp spike in ammonium ions that can't be explained by other sources such as wildfires sparked by the fiery explosion, says study coauthor Adrian Melott, a physicist of the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

The presence of ammonium suggests that the Tunguska object was most likely a comet, rather than asteroids or meteoroids, Melott says. Any object slung into the Earth's atmosphere from space typically moves fast enough to heat the surrounding air to about 100,000° Celsius, says Melott, so hot the nitrogen in the air splits and links up with oxygen to form nitrates. And indeed, nitrates are found in snow around the Tunguska blast. But ammonium, found along with the nitrates, contains hydrogen that most likely came from an incoming object rich in water - like an icy comet.

Comment: For an in-depth study, read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls.

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Telescope

Full "Worm" Moon


Space Weather
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:57 UTC
The first full Moon of northern Spring is putting on a beautiful show. Mohamad Soltanolkottabi sends this picture from Esfahan, Iran, where the lunar disk was bisected last night by the spire of the Sheikh Lutfullah mosque:

Image
© Mohamad Soltanolkottabi
According to folklore, this is the "Worm Moon." It signals the coming of northern spring, a thawing of the soil, and the first stirrings of earthworms in long-dormant gardens. "The 'Worm Moon' is much prettier than it sounds," says Soltanolkottabi.

Step outside tonight and see for yourself!
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Sun

Radioactive Sunspots


Space Weather
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:53 UTC
Sunday in New Mexico, a startling roar issued from the loudspeaker of amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft's radio telescope. "It was sunspot 1057," he says. "All day long it had been producing small radio bursts around 21 MHz. Then, at 1813 UT, it let loose a big one. The burst only lasted a minute, but it saturated the radios." Click here to listen.

Image
© Larry Alvarez of Flower Mound, Texas
The sounds you just heard were a mix of Type III and Type V radio emissions. They're caused by beams of electrons shooting out of the sunspot into the sun's atmosphere overhead. Not all sunspots produce radio emissions, but AR1057 is definitely "radio-active." "I'll be listening for more bursts in the days ahead," says Ashcraft.
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Magnify

Magnets 'can modify our morality'


BBC News
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:44 UTC
Scientists have shown they can change people's moral judgements by disrupting a specific area of the brain with magnetic pulses.

They identified a region of the brain just above and behind the right ear which appears to control morality.

And by using magnetic pulses to block cell activity they impaired volunteers' notion of right and wrong.

The small Massachusetts Institute of Technology study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Info

NASA Prepares Remote-Controlled Global Hawk Airplane for Takeoff


TechNewsDaily
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:58 UTC
Image
© NASANASA's Global Hawk banks for landing over Rogers Dry Lake in California at the end of a test flight on October 23, 2009.
NASA is gearing up Global Hawk, a remote-controlled airplane, for its first scientific flights in coming weeks. With its capacity for long-distance, high-altitude flights that can last over a day, Global Hawk presents a new chapter in Earth science for NASA.

"It's a very exciting time," said Chris Naftel, project manager for Global Hawk. "This is the very first time that Global Hawk will be used for science."

Northrop Grumman originally manufactured the two Global Hawks now being retrofitted by NASA several years ago. These remote-controlled airplanes can fly for about 30 hours at altitudes up to 65,000 feet and were designed initially as surveillance aircraft.
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Cell Phone

EM field, behind right ear, suspends morality

Mark Baard
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:26 UTC
Image
© Eddie Van 3000Morally impaired?
This new finding, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, should cause scientists to more closely examine the risks to human health posed by mobile phones and other wireless, personal technologies. - M.B.

MIT neuroscientists believe they have isolated the brain region - just behind the right ear - where moral judgements take place.

And they can suspend someone's ability to judge right from wrong, simply by generating a magnetic field near the same spot where many of us hold our cellular phones and wireless, Bluetooth, headsets.

The researchers' findings, announced today:
"In both experiments, the researchers found that when the right TPJ (right temporo-parietal junction) was disrupted, subjects were more likely to judge failed attempts to harm as morally permissible."
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Sherlock

An Archaeological Mystery in a Half-Ton Lead Coffin


Science Daily
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:19 UTC
Image
© University of MichiganThe lead coffin archaeologists found in the abandoned ancient city of Gabii, Italy could contain a gladiator or bishop.
In the ruins of a city that was once Rome's neighbor, archaeologists last summer found a 1,000-pound lead coffin.

Who or what is inside is still a mystery, said Nicola Terrenato, the University of Michigan professor of classical studies who leads the project -- the largest American dig in Italy in the past 50 years.

The sarcophagus will soon be transported to the American Academy in Rome, where engineers will use heating techniques and tiny cameras in an effort to gain insights about the contents without breaking the coffin itself.

"We're very excited about this find," Terrenato said. "Romans as a rule were not buried in coffins to begin with and when they did use coffins, they were mostly wooden. There are only a handful of other examples from Italy of lead coffins from this age -- the second, third or fourth century A.D. We know of virtually no others in this region."

This one is especially unusual because of its size.
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