Science & TechnologyS


Meteor

Tunguska Event still a mystery 100 years on


RIA Novosti
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:40 UTC
Scientists will gather in Siberia to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska Event June 26-28, one of the world's most mysterious explosions which flattened 80 million trees but largely went unnoticed at the time.

The massive blast, equivalent to around 15 megatons of TNT, occurred approximately 7-10 km (3-6 miles) above the Stony Tunguska River in a remote area of central Siberia early on June 30, 1908. The explosion, which was estimated to measure up to 5 on the Richter scale, knocked people off their feet 70 km away and destroyed an area of around 2,150 sq km (830 sq miles).

And if the explosion had occurred some 4 hours and 47 minutes later, due to the Earth's rotation it would have completely destroyed the then Russian capital of St. Petersburg.

Image
©Unknown
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Robot

Flashback Killer Machines Are Coming: iRobot to Create Revolutionary New Robot for DARPA


iRobot Corporation
Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:22 UTC
iRobot Corp. today announced the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office have awarded the company a new multi-year, multi-million dollar R&D project to develop Chemical Robots (ChemBots). The goal of this program is to develop a soft, flexible, mobile robot that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than its actual structural dimensions to perform Department of Defense (DoD) tasks within complex and highly cluttered environments.

As the established leader in innovative robotics research and development, iRobot will lead a team composed of leading technical experts from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to incorporate advances in chemistry, materials science, actuator technologies, electronics, sensors and fabrication techniques into ChemBots engineering. The resulting revolutionary new robot platform designs will expand the capabilities of robots in urban search and rescue, as well as reconnaissance missions.
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Bulb

Scientists find how neural activity spurs blood flow in the brain


Harvard University
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:19 UTC
New research from Harvard University neuroscientists has pinpointed exactly how neural activity boosts blood flow to the brain. The finding has important implications for our understanding of common brain imaging techniques such as fMRI, which uses blood flow in the brain as a proxy for neural activity.

The research is described in the June 26 issue of the journal Neuron.

"When you see a brain image from fMRI studies, you are actually looking at changes in blood flow and oxygenation," says Venkatesh N. Murthy, professor of molecular and cellular biology in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "But because of the tight coupling between neural activity and blood flow, we are able to use the blood flow changes as a surrogate for brain activity. A better understanding of exactly how brain activity boosts blood flow should help us better read this process in reverse, which is what we do when interpreting fMRI images."

While it represents only about 5 percent of the human body's mass, the brain consumes 20 percent of the oxygen carried in its blood. Unlike muscle and other types of tissue, the brain has no internal energy stores, so all its metabolic needs must be met through the continuous flow of blood.
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Meteor

Asteroid-hunting satellite a world first


University of Calgary
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:15 UTC
Canada is building the world's first space telescope designed to detect and track asteroids as well as satellites. Called NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite), this spacecraft will provide a significant improvement in surveillance of asteroids that pose a collision hazard with Earth and innovative technologies for tracking satellites in orbit high above our planet.

Weighing in at a mere 65-kilograms, this dual-use $12-million mission builds upon Canada's expertise in compact "microsatellite" design. NEOSSat will be the size of a large suitcase, and is cost-effective because of its small size and ability to "piggyback" on the launch of other spacecraft. The mission is funded by Defence Research Development Canada(DRDC) and the Canadian Space Agency(CSA). Together CSA and DRDC formed a Joint Project Office to manage the NEOSSat design, construction and launch phases. NEOSSat is expected to be launched into space in 2010. The two projects that will use NEOSSat are HEOSS (High Earth Orbit Space Surveillance) and the NESS (Near Earth Space Surveillance) asteroid search program.
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Meteor

Huge crater on Mars 'solves red planet's two-faced riddle'


The Daily Mail
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:21 UTC
A giant crater made by an asteroid or comet is the reason Mars is so lopsided, scientists said today.

The impact gouged out a hole 5,200 miles across and 6,500 miles long, leaving a basin covering 40 per cent of the red planet, researchers reported in the journal Nature.

The depression is the size of the combined areas of Asia, Europe and Australia, which makes it by far the largest crater in the solar system.

In 1984 scientists proposed an impact had caused the two-faced appearance of Mars with two strikingly different kinds of terrain in its northern and southern hemispheres.

mars
©Reuters
An artist's impression of a huge asteroid impact that would explain Mars' lopsided shape
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Better Earth

Oceans clearing greenhouse gases faster than expected

Ian Sample
Guardian
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:00 UTC
Greenhouse gases over the tropical Atlantic are disappearing faster than expected, according to the first comprehensive measurements taken in the region.

British scientists working at the Cape Verde Observatory on the volcanic island of São Vicente believe chemicals produced by sea spray and tiny marine organisms are speeding up natural processes that destroy the gases.
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Hourglass

Greek style architecture found in ancient Iranian City


Asian News International
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:34 UTC
Tehran - Archaeologists have used geological surveys in the south of Iran to reveal rectangular formations inspired by Greek architecture dating to the Sassanid era.

According to a report by CHN (Cultural Heritage News Agency), archeologists have said that the structures, located in Fars Province, are part of the urban planning of the ancient Achaemenid city of Istakhr during the Sassanid period (226-651 CE).
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Telescope

Astronomers on Verge of Finding Earth's Twin

Jeanna Bryner
SPACE.com
Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:27 UTC
Planet hunters say it's just a matter of time before they lasso Earth's twin, which almost surely is hiding somewhere in our star-studded galaxy.

Momentum is building: Just last week, astronomers announced they had discovered three super-Earths - worlds more massive than ours but small enough to most likely be rocky - orbiting a single star. And dozens of other worlds suspected of having masses in that same range were found around other stars.
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Magnify

The Minerva Consortium: Controlling Social Science Research in the US Through Directed Funding

David Price
CounterPunch
Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:25 UTC
"In Paracelsus's time the energy of universities resided in the conflict between humanism and theology; the energy of the modern university lives in the love-affair between government and science, and sometimes the two are so close it makes you shudder." -- Robertson Davies The Rebel Angels
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Bulb

Numbers beyond words: A Brazilian tribe may grasp exact quantities without naming them

Bruce Bower
Science News
Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:33 UTC
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do, especially if you don't even have a word for it. That's the situation of the Pirahã people, denizens of Brazil's Amazon rainforest who have no term for the number one or for any other exact quantity, a new study finds.

Until now, researchers have not demonstrated the absence of a way to express the number one in any language, according to a team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology cognitive scientist Edward Gibson.

Yet Pirahã individuals can still identify the number of items that an experimenter places in front of them, Gibson's team reports. The new findings challenge the longstanding idea that number words enable people to think about and recognize exact quantities of items.

Image
©Edward Gibson
A Pirahã man participates in a new experiment that, researchers say, indicates that his language contains no number words, even for the number one.
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