Science & TechnologyS


Star

For the first time, scientists view a star's final moments


PTI
Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:41 UTC
It was a dream come true for astronomers at the University of Oxford, as they witnessed for the first time the final moments of death of a massive star a blast of ultraviolet light signals.

"Astronomers have been dreaming about seeing the first light from the violent death of a star for over 30 years," Kevin Schawinksi, lead researcher of the University of Oxford, was quoted by Space.Com as saying.

"Our observations open up an entirely new avenue for studying the final stages in the lives of massive stars and the physics of supernovae." Schawinksi and his colleagues detected the ultraviolet signal of a hefty star on the verge of explosion which they detail in the June 13 issue of the journal 'Science'.

Usually when astronomers see a supernova, the star has already been destroyed. "It's very hard to tell much about precisely the kind of star that actually died there," Schawinski told SPACE.Com.
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Robot

DARPA pilot-ware unflappable in wing-fling damage test

Lewis Page
The Register
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:45 UTC
Robot aeroplanes are rapidly learning how to do pretty much anything that a human pilot can. The droid flyboys can take off, land, follow people about and even do in-flight refuelling. Plans are afoot to teach them how to do a catapult launch and arrested deck landings on aircraft carriers, too, and to fly entire strike missions on their own.

But the news today is perhaps even more remarkable. The latest ace-in-a-box tech can happily cope with large parts of its aircraft breaking off (or getting shot away by enemy forces) and yet still fly home to a safe landing.
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Pumpkin

Why a scared expression brings a survival advantage

Alison Motluk
New Scientist
Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:25 UTC
You wrinkle your nose and squint when you see a dead rat in the road, but open your eyes, nose and mouth wide when you see a live one in your bedroom.

Why? Common facial expressions like disgust and fear, new research suggests, do more than just convey how you are feeling - they alter your sensory relationship to the world around you.

scared
©Unknown
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Bulb

NASA data helps pinpoint impacted populations in disaster aftermath


NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:06 UTC
When two catastrophic natural disasters struck within days of each other in May 2008, disaster relief, humanitarian aid, and health officials, as well as members of the news media tapped into a unique set of NASA data products describing the location of the exposed populations. In the hours and days following the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China's Sichuan Province, workers had the data they needed to assess the numbers of people possibly affected in these deadly events. What arose was a timely example of how NASA data comes to the aid of officials when such disasters occur.

"The gridded population product we produce helps officials understand the density of the population in and around a disaster area," said Robert Chen, manager of NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York. "The data set shows where people actually live in relationship to hazardous events."

Members of the news media use the data and associated maps to report on possible casualties and property destruction. "When a major disaster hits, people want to know how many people were exposed to the disaster, in addition to how many were killed," said Chen. "For example, CNN used our map of population density in Burma to help explain how the unusual path of cyclone Nargis affected the low-lying, densely populated delta."
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Einstein

Untangled Quantum Quirk Is Significant Step Toward Quantum Computing


Science Daily
Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:16 UTC
Quantum computing has been hailed as the next leap forward for computers, promising to catapult memory capacity and processing speeds well beyond current limits. Several challenging problems need to be cracked, however, before the dream can be fully realized.
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Question

The Sunspot Enigma: The Sun is "Dead" - What Does it Mean for Earth?

Rebecca Sato
Daily Galaxy
Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:54 UTC


sun satelite
©Unknown

Dark spots, some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, typically move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go. These strange and powerful phenomena are known as sunspots, but now they are all gone. Not even solar physicists know why it's happening and what this odd solar silence might be indicating for our future.
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Bulb

Video: Water-fueled car unveiled in Japan

Michelle Carlile-Alkhouri
Reuters
Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:02 UTC
Japanese company Genepax presents its eco-friendly car that runs on nothing but water.

The car has an energy generator that extracts hydrogen from water that is poured into the car's tank. The generator then releases electrons that produce electric power to run the car. Genepax, the company that invented the technology, aims to collaborate with Japanese manufacturers to mass produce it.
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Bulb

Ancient mineral shows early Earth climate tough on continents


University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:38 UTC
A new analysis of ancient minerals called zircons suggests that a harsh climate may have scoured and possibly even destroyed the surface of the Earth's earliest continents.

Zircons, the oldest known materials on Earth, offer a window in time back as far as 4.4 billion years ago, when the planet was a mere 150 million years old. Because these crystals are exceptionally resistant to chemical changes, they have become the gold standard for determining the age of ancient rocks, says University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist John Valley.

Valley previously used these tiny mineral grains - smaller than a speck of sand - to show that rocky continents and liquid water formed on the Earth much earlier than previously thought, about 4.2 billion years ago.

In a new paper published online this week in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, a team of scientists led by UW-Madison geologists Takayuki Ushikubo, Valley and Noriko Kita show that rocky continents and liquid water existed at least 4.3 billion years ago and were subjected to heavy weathering by an acrid climate.
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Star

Scientists confirm that parts of earliest genetic material may have come from the stars


Imperial College London
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:29 UTC
Scientists have confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material which has been found in meteorite fragments is extraterrestrial in origin, in a paper published on 15 June 2008.

The finding suggests that parts of the raw materials to make the first molecules of DNA and RNA may have come from the stars.

The scientists, from Europe and the USA, say that their research, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, provides evidence that life's raw materials came from sources beyond the Earth.

Image
©Unknown
Genetic material from space rock
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Robot

Astronauts spot object floating from shuttle, NASA not worried


Agence France-Presse
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:59 UTC
Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery spotted an unidentified object floating behind the craft as well as a bump on the shuttle rudder on Friday but neither was cause for concern, NASA said.

After carrying out routine testing the day before Discovery is due to land back on Earth on Saturday, "the crew indicated they had seen a 1-1.5-foot (30-45 centimeter) long rectangular object floating away from the shuttle from behind the rear portion of the right wing," the US space agency said.

"Shortly afterwards, the crew described what they called a 'bump' on the left side trailing edge of Discovery's rudder," it said in a statement.
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