Science & TechnologyS


HAL9000

US to build fastest computer on planet for managing nuclear arsenal

Mike Harvey
The Times
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:48 UTC
A supercomputer with the processing power of two million laptops is to be built by IBM for the US government to help manage its nuclear arsenal.

IBM announced it was developing the technology for its "Sequoia" system, which will be easily the fastest computer on the planet, with delivery to the Department of Energy (DOE) scheduled in 2011.

According to IBM, Sequoia will be able to achieve performance speeds of up to 20 petaflops or 20,000 trillion calculations a second. IBM estimates that the computing power of the Sequoia system will be greater than that of every one of the current systems on the Top 500 supercomputer rankings combined.
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Satellite

Iran set to launch first domestic satellite by March 20


Novosti
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:48 UTC
Tehran - Iran plans to put its first domestically made communication satellite into orbit by March 19-20, the head of the Iranian space agency has said.

"If we do not run into problems, the first domestic satellite will be put in orbit by the end of this [Iranian solar calendar] year," Reza Taqipour said.

He said that technical experts were working to complete the preparations, adding that the precise launch date for the Omid (Hope) satellite would be announced as it drew nearer.

In November, Iran launched a carrier space rocket, Kavoshgar 2 (Explorer 2), which returned to earth after completing its mission.
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Ark

First Sign of Chocolate in Ancient U.S. Found

Jeanna Bryner
Live Science
Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:27 UTC
Cylinder jars
© American AntiquityCylinder jars excavated from Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon suggest residents were drinking chocolate as part of a ritual. Twelve jars, shown here, are housed in the Smithsonian Institution Department of Anthropology.
Chocolate residues left on ancient jars mark cacao's earliest known presence north of what is now the U.S.-Mexico border.

The residues, found on pottery shards excavated from a large pueblo (called Pueblo Bonito) in Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico, suggest the practice of drinking chocolate had traveled from what is now Mexico to the American Southwest by about 1,000 years ago.

Scientists have known about the early uses of chocolate in Mesoamerica, with evidence for rituals involving liquid drinks made from cacao beans dating back more than 1,000 years. (Mesoamerica extends from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua.)
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Info

Google Earth provides dizzying 3D views of Mars

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:28 UTC
Google Mars
© GoogleImages from past and current Mars probes are combined to create a global, three-dimensional exploration tool in the new version of Google Earth.

Mars enthusiasts can fly from the towering peak of Olympus Mons to Mars Pathfinder's peaceful resting place in an add-on to the latest version of the desktop application Google Earth, which was released on Monday.

The new Mars map amasses some 1000 gigabytes of data from a range of Mars probes, including NASA's Viking orbiters, Europe's Mars Express orbiter, and six landers, such as NASA's twin rovers, to create a three-dimensional view of the planet at a wide range of scales.

"What we've done is bring all that information into one single, easy-to-use platform," says Matthew Hancher of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "Everything that's ever gone to Mars has been put together to give us this unified view of the planet."
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Info

Could your DNA betray you?

Peter Aldhous
New Scientist
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:15 UTC
atomic structure of a DNA molecule
© Pasieka / SPLThis computer artwork shows the atomic structure of a DNA molecule. DNA from people in the UK may be being tested without their consent, despite a pioneering law that came into force more than two years ago expressly forbidding the practice.

DNA from people in the UK may be being tested without their consent, despite a pioneering law that came into force more than two years ago expressly forbidding the practice.

New Scientist approached genetic testing firms as a prospective UK customer, enquiring about running tests on DNA from stained bedding and other items. The responses raise serious concerns about some of the companies' understanding of the law, and about the difficulty of policing tests that are sold online to customers in the UK but conducted outside the country.

In many countries, consent is not required to run DNA tests for infidelity or paternity (New Scientist, 24 January, p 8). But since September 2006, it has been a criminal offence under the UK Human Tissue Act to have human bodily material with the intent to analyse its DNA without consent, except for certain specific purposes. These exceptions include when DNA is collected by the police for criminal investigations. Where consent is required, it must be provided by the individual concerned, or by their legal guardian in the case of a child. Breaches of the law are punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine.

Some DNA testing firms that target UK customers include information on their websites about testing various items that may carry an individual's DNA. These tests cost more than those run on cheek swabs, which would be the usual method of collecting a sample given by a person consenting to the test. Yet these websites do not always stress that UK customers must obtain consent from the people being tested.
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Sherlock

New Evidence from Excavations Supports Theory of the 'Birth of Zeus'


PhysOrg
Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:09 UTC
Birth of Zeus
© University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and AnthropologyOn the leftis Dan Diffendale, research assistant, Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project, in the ash altar of Zeus trench, at the discovery of a group of Mycenaean kylikes, circa 13th century BCE. Summer 2008. To the right is a small bronze hand of Zeus holding a silver lightning bolt (approximately 2 cm), circa 500 BCE, excavated at the ash altar of Zeus, Mt. Lykaion, Summer 2008.
In the third century BCE, the Greek poet Callimachus wrote a 'Hymn to Zeus' asking the ancient, and most powerful, Greek god whether he was born in Arcadia on Mt. Lykaion or in Crete on Mt. Ida.

A Greek and American team of archaeologists working on the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project believe they have at least a partial answer to the poet's query. New excavation evidence indicates that Zeus' worship was established on Mt. Lykaion as early as the Late Helladic period, if not before, more than 3,200 years ago. According to Dr. David Gilman Romano, Senior Research Scientist, Mediterranean Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum, and one of the project's co-directors, it is likely that a memory of the cult's great antiquity survived there, leading to the claim that Zeus was born in Arcadia.

Dr. Romano will present his team's new discoveries - and their implications for our understanding of the beginnings of ancient Greek religion - at a free public lecture, "The Search for Zeus: The Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project", Tuesday, January 27 in the Rainey Auditorium of the University of Pennsylvania Museum.
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Better Earth

After Google Earth comes Google Ocean


PhysOrg
Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:32 UTC
The search engine Google launched a new service Monday to allow Internet users to explore the depths of the world's oceans from the comfort of their homes on dry land.

The "Ocean in Google Earth" feature will allow users to "dive beneath the water surface, explore 3D underwater terrain and browse ocean-related content contributed by marine scientists," a Google statement said.

"Google Earth is equipping itself with a new dimension: depth," Jean-Francois Wassong, an engineer at Google France, told a news conference.
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Telescope

Astronomers Discover Link Between Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxy Formation


PhysOrg
Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:00 UTC
Astronomy
© NASA/AURATwo giant elliptical galaxies, NGC 4621 and NGC 4472, look similar from a distance, as seen on the right in images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
A pair of astronomers from Texas and Germany have used a telescope at The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory together with Hubble Space Telescope and many other telescopes around the world to uncover new evidence that the largest, most massive galaxies in the universe and the supermassive black holes at their hearts grew together over time.

"They evolved in lockstep," said The University of Texas at Austin's John Kormendy, who co-authored the research with Ralf Bender of Germany's Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and Ludwig Maximilians University Observatory. The results are published in this week's issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Astronomers know that galaxies, those vast cities of millions or billions of stars, grow larger through collisions and mergers. Kormendy and Bender's work involves the biggest galaxies in the universe--"elliptical galaxies" that are shaped roughly like footballs and that can be made of as many as a thousand billion stars. Virtually all of these galaxies contain a black hole at their centers, that is, an infinitely dense region that contains the mass of millions or billions of Suns and from which no light can escape.
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Telescope

Earth-hunter telescope prepared for launch

Irene Klotz
Reuters
Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:53 UTC
NASA's Kepler telescope
© REUTERS/NASA/Handout NASA's Kepler telescope in an undated illustration. NASA unveiled a modest telescope on Friday with a sweeping mission -- to discover if there are any Earth-type planets orbiting distant stars.

NASA unveiled a modest telescope on Friday with a sweeping mission -- to discover if there are any Earth-type planets orbiting distant stars.

Though astronomers have found more than 330 planets circling stars in other solar systems, none has the size and location that is believed to be key to supporting life.

"A null result is as important as finding planets," Michael Bicay, director of science at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, told reporters in Titusville, Florida, where the Kepler telescope is being prepared for launch.

Named after the 17th century astronomer who figured out the motions of planets, Kepler is scheduled for liftoff on March 5 aboard an unmanned Delta 2 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
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Info

Neanderthals Survive Until 24,000 Years Ago In South East Of Spain


Science Daily
Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:29 UTC
Gibraltar
© Museum of GibraltarPresent day landscapes of Gibraltar (above) and reconstructed landscapes of Gibraltar from 30,000 years ago (below).

Over 14,000 years ago during the last Pleistocene Ice Age, when a large part of the European continent was covered in ice and snow, Neanderthals in the region of Gibraltar in the south of the Iberian peninsula were able to survive because of the refugium of plant and animal biodiversity. Today, plant fossil remains discovered in Gorham's Cave confirm this unique diversity and wealth of resources available in this area of the planet.

The international team jointly led by Spanish researchers has reconstructed the landscape near Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar, by means of paleobotanical data (plant fossil records) located in the geological deposits between 1997 and 2004. The study, which is published in the Quaternary Science Reviews, also re-examines previous findings relating to the glacial refugia for trees during the ice age in the Iberian Peninsula.
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