Science & TechnologyS


Saturn

Icy moon's lakes brim with hearty soup for life

David Shiga
New Scientist
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:51 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPLTitan's hydrocarbon lakes, seen here in radar images, boast life-friendly chemistry
Saturn's frigid moon Titan may be friendlier to life than previously thought. New calculations suggest Titan's hydrocarbon lakes are loaded with acetylene, a chemical some scientists say could serve as food for cold-resistant organisms.

At about -180° Celsius, Titan's surface is far too cold for liquid water. But two pairs of scientists proposed in 2005 that alien organisms might live instead in bodies of liquid hydrocarbons on the frigid moon. They suggested such organisms could eat acetylene that falls to the surface after forming in the atmosphere, combining it with hydrogen to gain energy.

Since then, Titan has spotted dozens of lakes on Titan's surface, thought to be made of a mixture of liquid ethane and methane. But since no probe has directly sampled them, no one knows how much acetylene they might contain.

An estimate made in 1989 suggested bodies of liquid hydrocarbons on Titan would contain a few parts in 10,000 of acetylene.
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Saturn

Cassini Sends Back Images Of Enceladus As Winter Nears


Saturn Daily / SPX
Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:28 UTC
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© NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteThis unprocessed image was captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its Nov. 21, 2009 flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus. It shows the moon's south polar region, where jets of water vapor and other particles spew from fissures on the surface.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has sailed seamlessly through the Nov. 21 flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus and started transmitting uncalibrated temperature data and images of the rippling terrain. These data and images will be processed and analyzed in the coming weeks.

They will help scientists create the most-detailed-yet mosaic image of the southern part of the moon's Saturn-facing hemisphere and a contiguous thermal map of one of the intriguing "tiger stripe" features, with the highest resolution to date.

"These first raw images are spectacular, and paint an even more fascinating picture of Enceladus," said Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The Cassini teams will be delving into the data to better understand the workings of this bizarre, active moon."

Scientists are particularly interested in the tiger stripes, which are fissures in the south polar region, because they spew jets of water vapor and other particles hundreds of kilometers, or miles, from the surface.
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Chalkboard

The Mandelbulb: first 'true' 3D image of famous fractal

Jacob Aron
New Scientist
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:18 UTC
Image
© Daniel WhiteReaching new dimensions
It may look like a piece of virtuoso knitting, but the makers of an image they call the Mandelbulb claim it is most accurate three-dimensional representation to date of the most famous fractal equation: the Mandelbrot set.

Fractal figures are generated by an "iterative" procedure: you apply an equation to a number, apply the same equation to the result and repeat that process over and over again. When the results are translated into a geometric shape, they can produce striking "self-similar" images, forms that contain the same shapes at different scales; for instance, some look uncannily like a snowflake. The tricky part is finding an equation that produces an interesting image.

The most famous fractal equation is the 2D Mandelbrot set, named after the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot of Yale University, who coined the name "fractals" for the resulting shapes in 1975.

But there are many other types of fractal, both in two and three dimensions. The "Menger sponge" is one of the simplest 3D examples.
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Book

Rare Charles Darwin Book Found on Toilet Bookshelf


PhysOrg
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:00 UTC
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© AP PhotoBritish scientist Charles Robert Darwin, founder of the theory for the evolution of life is seen at an unknown location.
An auction house says it is selling a rare first edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species found in a family's guest lavatory in southern England.

Christie's auction house said Sunday the book - one of around 1,250 copies first printed in 1859 - had been on a toilet bookshelf at a family's home in Oxford.

The book will be auctioned on Tuesday, the 150th anniversary of the publication of the famous work. Christie's said the book is likely to sell for 60,000 pounds ($99,000).

Darwin's The Origin of Species outlined his theory of natural selection, the foundation for the modern understanding of evolution.

Celebrations around the world this year have marked the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth.
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Sherlock

Archaeological Divers Believe They Found Civil War-Era Steamer Off Florida Coast

Dan DeWitt
St. Peterburg Times
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:00 UTC
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© Will VragovicMarine archaeologist Billy Morris sets up a pump for the dredge that Florida Public Archaeological Network divers used to explore a wreck off Bayport Park.
Considering the divers were looking for remains of an iron-hulled Civil War-era steamer, Tom Allyn's news was about as good as it could be.

"I found something - it's old and it's metallic,'' said Allyn, wearing a wet suit and standing in chest-deep water off Bayport Park on Thursday morning.

Then, moments later, marine archaeologist Billy Morris surfaced with an update that topped Allen's.

"It's a piece of steam pipe,'' Morris said.

That pipe, about 9 inches in diameter and 2 feet long - definitely iron and definitely consistent with the side-wheeler the divers were looking for - is some of the most solid evidence ever found of a dramatic and often overlooked chapter in Hernando history.
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Magnify

Nuclear Weapons: Predicting the Unthinkable


ScienceDaily
Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:00 UTC
If a nuclear weapon were detonated in a metropolitan area, how large would the affected area be? Where should first responders first go? According to physicist Fernando Grinstein, we have some initial understanding to address these questions, but fundamental issues remain unresolved.

"The predictive capabilities of today's state-of-the-art models in urban areas need to be improved, validated and tested," says Grinstein. "Work in this area has been limited primarily because of lack of consistent funding."

At the upcoming 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics in Minneapolis, Adam Wachtor -- a student who worked with Grinstein at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico -- will present his efforts to improve the way that models track the movement of radioactive fall-out carried by the wind. His wind models track the aftermath of a plume of hot gas released by a small, one-ton device in a typical urban setting at a three-meter resolution.
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Robot

The Brain Chip Cometh, & It Cometh from Intel

Jolie O'Dell
ReadWriteWeb.com
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:00 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Our own Marshall Kirkpatrick's dreaded brain chip for controlling computers and mobile devices may be closer than even he suspected.

Intel researchers in Pittsburgh told journalists today that brain implants are harnessing human brain waves to surf the Internet, manipulate documents, and much more. And just as we told you two years ago, the lucky recipients of these implants will be willing volunteers, not government-controlled guinea pigs. Some of us are now researching cheap flights to Pittsburgh.

Just think of how far we've come since the early days of portable tech. "If you told people 20 years ago that they would be carrying computers all the time," said Intel research VP Andrew Chien, "they would have said, 'I don't want that. I don't need that.' Now you can't get them to stop."
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Pistol

Star Trek-like phaser developed

Kate Devlin
The Daily Telegraph
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:17 UTC
phaser
© Daily TelegraphA phaser traditionally emits a beam capable of stunning or killing an enemy
Scientists have developed a Star Trek-like phaser, capable of causing paralysis with a beam of light.

However, anyone hoping that the machine will become a powerful new weapon could be disappointed, scientists have only proven the effect on worms.

A phaser traditionally emits a beam capable of stunning or killing an enemy.

Researchers have now found a way to paralyse tiny worms when they expose them to ultraviolet light.

Even when the ultraviolet light was turned off the animals stayed stunned.

However, if they were subsequently exposed to a different form of light they recovered again and were able to move.
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Laptop

Intel Thinks Brain Implants Could Control PCs by 2020


Fox News
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:27 UTC
In its Pittsburgh research laboratory, Intel is developing chips that can harness human brain waves to operate computers, television sets and cell phones.

The chips giant's scientists have found that blood flow changes in certain parts of the brain when people think of a specific word. By shrinking down the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines they use to monitor the flow of blood into a tiny chip, and implanting it in your head, you'll be able to type on a keyboard or dial your phone with the power of your thoughts.
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Sherlock

Flashback Biologists Discover Why 10 Percent Of Europeans Are Safe From HIV Infection


Science Daily
Sun, 03 Apr 2005 20:14 UTC
Biologists at the University of Liverpool have discovered how the plagues of the Middle Ages have made around 10% of Europeans resistant to HIV.

Scientists have known for some time that these individuals carry a genetic mutation (known as CCR5-delta 32) that prevents the virus from entering the cells of the immune system but have been unable to account for the high levels of the gene in Scandinavia and relatively low levels in areas bordering the Mediterranean.

They have also been puzzled by the fact that HIV emerged only recently and could not have played a role in raising the frequency of the mutation to the high levels found in some Europeans today.

Professor Christopher Duncan and Dr Susan Scott from the University's School of Biological Sciences, whose research is published in the March edition of Journal of Medical Genetics, attribute the frequency of the CCR5-delta 32 mutation to its protection from another deadly viral disease, acting over a sustained period in bygone historic times.
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