Science & TechnologyS


Bulb

Some fundamental interactions of matter turn out to be fundamentally different than thought, say Stanford researchers

Louis Bergeron
Stanford University
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:12 UTC
Collisions have consequences. Everyone knows that. Whether it's between trains, planes, automobiles or atoms, there are always repercussions. But while macroscale collisions may have the most obvious effects - mangled steel, bruised flesh - sometimes it is the tiniest collisions that have the most resounding repercussions.

Such may be the case with the results of new experimental research on collisions between a single hydrogen atom and a lone molecule of deuterium - the smallest atom and one of the smallest molecules, respectively - conducted by a team led by Richard Zare, a professor of chemistry at Stanford University.

When an atom collides with a molecule, traditional wisdom said the atom had to strike one end of the molecule hard to deliver energy to it. People thought a glancing blow from an atom would be useless in terms of energy transfer, but that turns out not to be the case, according to the researchers.
Read More...
Pharoah

Archaeologists Find Silos And Administration Center From Early Egyptian City


Science Daily
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:02 UTC
A University of Chicago expedition at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt has unearthed a large administration building and silos that provide fresh clues about the emergence of urban life. The discovery provides new information about a little understood aspect of ancient Egypt - the development of cities in a culture that is largely famous for its monumental architecture.

Image
©N. Moeller, Tell Edfu Project
Excavation area at Tell Edfu showing superimposed settlement layers dating to various phases, with some of the silos of the 17th Dynasty (ca. 1650-1520 BC) covered by a thick ash layer on top into which several storage compartments were built which are of a later date.

The archaeological work at Tell Edfu was initiated with the permission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Zahi Hawass, under the direction of Nadine Moeller, Assistant Professor at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Work late last year revealed details of seven silos, the largest grain bins found in ancient Egypt as well as an older columned hall that was an administration center.

Long fascinated with temples and monuments such as pyramids, scholars have traditionally spent little time exploring the residential communities of ancient Egypt. Due to intense farming and heavy settlement over the years, much of the record of urban civilization has been lost. So little archaeological evidence remains that some scholars believe Egypt did not have a highly developed urban culture, giving Mesopotamia the distinction of teaching people how to live in cities.
Read More...
Telescope

Hubble Sees Supernova Remnant In Celestial Fireworks


Science Daily
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:46 UTC
A delicate ribbon of gas floats eerily in our galaxy. A contrail from an alien spaceship? A jet from a black-hole? Actually this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago.

On or around May 1, 1006 A.D., observers from Africa to Europe to the Far East witnessed and recorded the arrival of light from what is now called SN 1006, a tremendous supernova explosion caused by the final death throes of a white dwarf star nearly 7,000 light-years away. The supernova was probably the brightest star ever seen by humans, and surpassed Venus as the brightest object in the night time sky, only to be surpassed by the moon. It was visible even during the day for weeks, and remained visible to the naked eye for at least two and a half years before fading away.

supernova remnant
©NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
A delicate ribbon of gas floats eerily in our galaxy. A contrail from an alien spaceship? A jet from a black-hole? Actually this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago.

It wasn't until the mid-1960s that radio astronomers first detected a nearly circular ring of material at the recorded position of the supernova. The ring was almost 30 arcminutes across, the same angular diameter as the full moon. The size of the remnant implied that the blast wave from the supernova had expanded at nearly 20 million miles per hour over the nearly 1,000 years since the explosion occurred.
Read More...
Question

Scientists solve volcanic mercury mystery

Rich Bowden
The Tech Herald
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:32 UTC


Image
©Josep Renalias/Wikipedia

British scientists have solved an important mystery; how traces of the element mercury with volcanic signatures ends up in polar ice cores far away from any volcanoes.

"It has always been a mystery how trace metals, like mercury, with a volcanic signature find their way into polar ice in regions without nearby evidence of volcanic activity," said Dr David Pyle of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences who led the research team with colleague Dr Tamsin Mather. "These traces only appear as a faint 'background signal' in ice cores but up until now it has still been difficult to explain."
Read More...
Bulb

New map IDs the core of the human brain


Science Daily
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:20 UTC
An international team of researchers has created the first complete high-resolution map of how millions of neural fibers in the human cerebral cortex -- the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher level thinking -- connect and communicate. Their groundbreaking work identified a single network core, or hub, that may be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain.

The work by the researchers from Indiana University, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, and Harvard Medical School marks a major step in understanding the most complicated and mysterious organ in the human body. It not only provides a comprehensive map of brain connections (the brain "connectome"), but also describes a novel application of a non-invasive technique that can be used by other scientists to continue mapping the trillions of neural connections in the brain at even greater resolution, which is becoming a new field of science termed "connectomics."

"This is one of the first steps necessary for building large-scale computational models of the human brain to help us understand processes that are difficult to observe, such as disease states and recovery processes to injuries," said Olaf Sporns, co-author of the study and neuroscientist at Indiana University.

Image
Indiana University
The first complete high-resolution map of the human cerebral cortex identifies a single network core that could be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain.
Read More...
Telescope

Cluster Satellites Listen To The Sounds Of Earth


Volcano Ashes Blog
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:20 UTC


Image
©Unknown

The first thing an alien race is likely to hear from Earth is chirps and whistles, a bit like R2-D2, the robot from Star Wars. In reality, they are the sounds that accompany the aurora. Now ESA's Cluster mission is showing scientists how to understand this emission and, in the future, search for alien worlds by listening for their sounds.

Scientists call this radio emission the Auroral Kilometric Radiation (AKR). It is generated high above the Earth, by the same shaft of solar particles that then causes an aurora to light the sky beneath. For decades, astronomers had assumed that these radio waves travelled out into space in an ever-widening cone, rather like light emitted from a torch. Thanks to Cluster, astronomers now know this is not true.
Read More...
Black Cat

SOTT Focus: Neil Entwistle: Psychopath

Harrison Koehli
sott.net
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:55 UTC


Entwistle
©Reuters
The face of evil.

You've probably heard the story, or at least one like it. Husband kills wife and child, seemingly without remorse, then attempts to pass it off as a murder/suicide. And, remarkably, people believe him. The latest such example is Neil Entwistle, a British computer programmer, who murdered his American wife and 9-month-old daughter in 2006. He was recently sentenced to life in prison.

The trial made for a fascinating and disturbing spectacle. Aptly described by jurors as a complete narcissist, Entwistle put on quite the display during the presentation of a video of the bloody crime scene. But before we see his reaction for ourselves, let's see what the media tells us we see.
Read More...
Arrow Up

High density vertical growth technology


Valcent Products Inc
Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:32 UTC


Veggie grower
©Valcent Products Inc
Veggies growing on an overhead conveyor system

Valcent Products Inc. (OTCBB: VCTPF) introduces its revolutionary High Density Vertical Growth (HDVG) system, now producing vegetables within its greenhouse production plant in El Paso, Texas. The HDVG technology provides a solution to rapidly increasing food costs caused by transportation/fuel costs spiraling upwards with the cost of oil. Together with higher cost comes a reduction in availability and nutritional values in the food we consume.

Comment: Maybe individuals could incorporate some of these ideas in increasing the yields of their own growing efforts.

Read More...
Attention

Earth Not Ready for Meteors or Comets

Brian Handwerk
National Geographic
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:23 UTC
A hundred years after a mysterious and massive explosion struck Russia, experts are warning that Earth is ill prepared to face a cosmic catastrophe that could do similar damage.

The blast, known as the Tunguska event, leveled some 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of forest with the power of nearly 200 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs.

Image
© Chris Foss
An explosion rips through the Siberian wilderness in an artist's conception. A hundred years after a mysterious blast leveled some 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of forest in Siberia, experts are saying that Earth is unprepared to face a similar blast caused by a meteor strike.

Remarkably few people witnessed the event, and debate has raged for decades about its cause.

One of the leading theories is that a comet or asteroid hit Earth or exploded upon entering the atmosphere above remote western Siberia.

"Had that same object exploded over a metropolitan area, there would have been millions of people killed," U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (a Republican from California) said yesterday at a briefing at the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California.

"Right now we have no plan in place to detect these objects far enough out to deflect them."

Read More...
Display

"Virtual man" may ease drug R&D woes: report

Ben Hirschler
Reuters
Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:48 UTC
Paris - New computing technologies and the evolution of a "virtual man" to predict the effects of new drugs before they enter clinical trials could transform the fortunes of pharmaceutical research, a report said on Friday.
Read More...