Science & TechnologyS


Star

US: Planets Align for the 4th of July

Dr. Tony Phillips
Science.NASA.gov
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:27 UTC
On 4th of July weekend, NASA forecasts lights in the sky. No, not those lights. Look beyond the fireworks. Almost halfway up the western sky, just above the twilight glow of sunset, a trio of worlds is gathering: Saturn, Mars and the crescent Moon.

The show gets going on Friday, July 4th. Red Mars and ringed Saturn converge just to the left of the bright star Regulus. The three lights make a pretty 1st-magnitude line in the heavens: sky map.

But that is just the beginning. On Saturday, July 5th, with weekend fireworks at fever pitch, a lovely crescent Moon joins the show. Saturn, Mars, and the Moon trace an even brighter line than the night before: sky map.

Scan a small telescope along the line. You'll see Saturn's rings, the little red disk of Mars, a grand sweep of lunar mountains and craters, and just maybe - flash! - a manmade incendiary. How often do you see fireworks through a telescope?
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Telescope

Gravity Probe B - Results to Date - Does It Show Solar System Motion Consistent with a Binary Twin?


Binary Research Institute
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:04 UTC
It was recently reported by NewScientist that Gravity Probe B received an "F" from the U.S. Government and the project would receive no more funding.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Here's why:
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Info

New DNA Weapon Against Avian Flu Identified


Science Daily
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:57 UTC
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified a potential new way to vaccinate against avian flu. By delivering vaccine via DNA constructed to build antigens against flu, along with a minute electric pulse, researchers have immunized experimental animals against various strains of the virus.

This approach could allow for the build up of vaccine reserves that could be easily and effectively dispensed in case of an epidemic.

"This is the first study to show that a single DNA vaccine can induce protection against strains of pandemic flu in many animal models, including primates," says David B. Weiner, Ph.D., Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. "With this type of vaccine, we can generate a single construct of a pandemic flu vaccine that will give much broader protection."

Traditional vaccines expose a formulation of a specific strain of flu to the body so it can create immune responses against that specific strain. Conversely, a DNA vaccine becomes part of the cell, giving it the blueprint it needs to build antigens that can induce responses that target diverse strains of pandemic flu.

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Pharoah

Researchers open secret cave under Mexican pyramid

Miguel Angel Gutierrez
Reuters
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:42 UTC
MEXICO CITY - Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities.

The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico.

Image
©Reuters/Henry Romero
A general view shows the Pyramid of the Sun at the Teotihuacan archaeological site in the outskirts of Mexico City February 2, 2008.

But little is known about the civilization that built the immense city, with its ceremonial architecture and geometric temples, and then torched and abandoned it around 700 AD.

Archeologists are now revisiting a cave system that is buried 20 feet beneath the towering Pyramid of the Sun and extends into a tunnel stretching for some 295 feet (90 meters) with a height of 8 feet.

They say new excavations begun this month could be the key to unlocking information about the sacred rituals of the people who inhabited the city, later dubbed "The Place Where Men Become Gods" by the Aztecs who believed it was a divine site.
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Telescope

Rosetta awakes from hibernation for asteroid encounter


SpaceRef.com
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:30 UTC
Spacecraft controllers have just awoken Rosetta from hibernation to prepare for its encounter with asteroid (2867) Steins on 5 September. ESA's comet chaser will study the relatively rare asteroid as it flies by on its way to comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Launched in March 2004, Rosetta will reach its final destination only in 2014, after travelling a total of about 6500 million km. The distance between the spacecraft and the Sun as it approaches the comet will be about 600 million or 4 AU (1 AU or 1 Astronomical Unit is equal to 150 million km, the mean distance between Earth and the Sun).

Rosetta has swung by Earth twice and Mars once, performing gravity-assist manoeuvres, that gave it the necessary boost to continue on its journey. The third and last Earth swing-by is scheduled for November 2009. The spacecraft will also fly by two asteroids and study them on the way: (2867) Steins in September this year and (21) Lutetia in June 2010. As it closes in on (2867) Steins in September, Rosetta will have travelled about 3700 million km and will be 2.1 AU from the Sun.
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Health

Flashback How To Build A Baby's Brain

Sharon Begley
Newsweek
Mon, 03 Mar 1997 00:32 UTC
A Baby Is Born With A Head On Her Shoulders And A Mind Primed For Learning. But It Takes Years Of Experience--Looking, Listening, Playing, Interacting With Parents--To Wire The Billions Of Complex Neural Circuits That Govern Language, Math, Music, Logic And Emotions.
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Telescope

Solar system a bit squashed, not nicely round

Will Dunham
Reuters
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:02 UTC
WASHINGTON - The solar system may not be a nice round shape, but rather a bit squashed and oblong, according to data from the Voyager 2 spacecraft exploring the solar system's outer limits, scientists said on Wednesday.

Launched in 1977, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 unmanned probes are now studying the edges of the heliosphere, the huge magnetic "bubble" around our solar system created by the solar wind as it runs up against the thin gas in interstellar space.

The solar wind is made up of electrically charged particles blown into space in all directions by the sun. The boundary between the heliosphere and the rest of interstellar space is known as the "termination shock."

Voyager 2 in August 2007 crossed this boundary 7.8 billion miles from the sun.

Voyager 1 had crossed the boundary in December 2004 about 10 billion miles away from Voyager 1 and almost a billion miles farther from the sun.

Scientists think this indicates that the bubble carved into interstellar space by the heliosphere, which extends well past the distant orbit of Pluto, is not perfectly round, and the solar system is shaped a bit like an oblong.
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Einstein

Worms Do Calculus To Find Meals Or Avoid Unpleasantness


Science Daily
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:52 UTC
Thanks to salt and hot chili peppers, researchers have found a calculus-computing center that tells a roundworm to go forward toward dinner or turn to broaden the search. It's a computational mechanism, they say, that is similar to what drives hungry college students to a pizza.

Image
©Shawn Lockery
A spike in salt concentration in ASEL (left neuron) activates expression that leads a worm to proceed in a straight line. A dip in salt levels in ASER (right neuron) turns on a negative reaction that tells a worm to change to a turning movement to look around.

These behavior-driving calculations, according to a paper published in the July 3 issue of the journal Nature, are done "in a tiny, specialized computer inside a primitive roundworm," says principal investigator Shawn Lockery, a University of Oregon biologist and member of the UO Institute of Neuroscience.
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Target

Exploding Asteroid Theory Strengthened By New Evidence Located In Ohio, Indiana


Science Daily
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:47 UTC
Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North America -- when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase of extinction for animals and humans - to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid explosion over top of Canada.

Ken Tankersley
©University of Cincinnati
Ken Tankersley
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Info

Newcomer In Early Eurafrican Population?


Science Daily
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:55 UTC
A complete mandible of Homo erectus was discovered at the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca by a French-Moroccan team co-led by Jean-Paul Raynal, CNRS senior researcher at the PACEA laboratory (CNRS/Université Bordeaux 1/ Ministry of Culture and Communication). This mandible is the oldest human fossil uncovered from scientific excavations in Morocco. The discovery will help better define northern Africa's possible role in first populating southern Europe.

A Homo erectus half-jaw had already been found at the Thomas I quarry in 1969, but it was a chance discovery and therefore with no archeological context. This is not the case for the fossil discovered May 15, 2008, whose characteristics are very similar to those of the half-jaw found in 1969.

Image
©Jean-Paul Raynal
Photograph of the fossil human mandible discovered May 15, 2008 at the Thomas I quarry site in Casablanca.

The morphology of these remains is different from the three mandibles found at the Tighenif site in Algeria that were used, in 1963, to define the North African variety of Homo erectus, known as Homo mauritanicus, dated to 700,000 B.C.
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