Science & TechnologyS


Ark

Amazonian Indigenous Culture Demonstrates Universal Mapping Of Number Onto Space


Science Daily
Sat, 31 May 2008 13:44 UTC
The ability to map numbers onto a line, a foundation of all mathematics, is universal, says a study published May 30 in the journal Science, but the form of this universal mapping is not linear but logarithmic. The findings illuminate both the nature and the limits of the human predisposition to measurement, a foundation for science, engineering, and much of our modern culture.

Image
©iStockphoto/Anthony Hall
Munduruku people spontaneously placed numbers on a line in a compressed, logarithmic function, such that smaller numbers appeared at greater spatial intervals (as they do on slide rules).
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Info

Invasion Strategy Of World's Largest Virus Revealed


Science Daily
Sat, 31 May 2008 12:48 UTC
A Weizmann Institute study provides important new insights into the process of viral infection. The study, reported in the online journal PLoS Biology, reveals certain mechanisms by which mimivirus - a virus so called because it was originally thought to mimic bacteria in various aspects of their behavior - invades amoeba cells.

Virus
©Distinct DNA Exit and Packaging Portals in the Virus Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus Zauberman N, Mutsafi Y, Halevy DB, Shimoni E, Klein E, et al. PLoS Biology Vol. 6, No. 5, e114 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060114
(A) TEM image of cryo-fixed sectioned and stained extracellular Mimivirus particles revealing a star-shaped structure at a unique vertex. (B) Cryo-TEM image of a whole vitrified fiber-less Mimivirus. (C) SEM image of the star-shaped structure in a mature extracellular Mimivirus particle. (D) Cryo-SEM of an immature, fiber-less particle. (E) Tomographic slice of a mature intracellular Mimivirus particle captured at a late (12 h post infection) infection stage. As shown in Video S1, at this late stage the host cell is packed with mature viral particles. (F and G) Volume reconstruction of the particle shown in (E), revealing the presence of an outer (red) and inner (orange) capsid shells. The star-shaped structure is present in both shells but adopts partially open (dark, star-like region), and completely sealed configurations in the outer and inner shells, respectively. (H) Superposition of the two shells in (F) and (G).
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Telescope

Possible Ice On Mars Seen By Phoenix Lander Robotic Arm Camera


Science Daily
Sat, 31 May 2008 12:42 UTC
Scientists have discovered what may be ice that was exposed when soil was blown away as NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed on Mars last Sunday, May 25. The possible ice appears in an image the robotic arm camera took underneath the lander, near a footpad.

Phoenix mars Lander
©NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona
As seen in the top center of this image from Phoenix, the exhaust from the descent engine has blown soil off to reveal either rock or ice, which has not yet been determined.
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Telescope

How Plasma From Superstorms Affects Near-Earth Space


Science Daily
Sat, 31 May 2008 11:13 UTC
NASA scientists have uncovered new details about how plasma from superstorms interact with Earth's magnetosphere.

Earths inner magnetosphere during a superstorm
©NASA/Mei-Ching Fok and Thomas E. Moore
This computer-generated image shows a view of Earth's inner magnetosphere during a superstorm.

"The surprising result of this model is that the magnetosphere's main phase pressure is dominated by energetic protons from the plasmasphere, rather than from the solar wind," says Mei-Ching Fok, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Fok and her team will present their findings on May 29 at the American Geophysical Union conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.
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Stormtrooper

Pentagon wants laser attack warnings for satellites

Paul Marks
New Scientist
Wed, 28 May 2008 10:20 UTC
The Pentagon is developing sensors to pinpoint a ground-based laser attempting to blind one of its spy satellites. The move will be interpreted as a further step towards the militarisation of space, say some experts.

Pentagon officials have privately voiced concern that malfunctioning spy satellites might actually be the target of "illumination" by Chinese forces testing such technology.

Last year the Space Superiority Systems Wing, a department within the US Air Force responsible for developing military space technology, called on contractors to develop technologies to "sense and attribute" a laser attack, in a program called Self Awareness/Space Situation Awareness (SASSA).
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People

Ancient hair suggests multiple migrations into Americas


New Scientist
Thu, 29 May 2008 10:16 UTC
An ancient tuft of dark-brown human hair suggests that a tribe of humans trekked from north Asia to settle in what is now Greenland more than 4000 years ago - and then vanished.

A team of Danish scientists has found that DNA collected from the hair traces back to Asians, not Native Americans or the Eskimos that currently populate the region. This suggests that the first humans to colonise the American Arctic were distinct from the first people who arrived in America more than 14,000 years ago.

The hair - found in northern Greenland - may even be a relic of a steady trickle of human migrations across a harsh Arctic landscape, says evolutionary anthropologist Tom Gilbert of Copenhagen University in Denmark, who led the study. "It's bloody hard work to colonise the Arctic. It is not an easy venture," he adds.

Image
©Bjarne Grønnow
An ancient tuft of hair suggests that the first Greenlanders weren't related to Native Americans or modern Eskimos
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Robot

Phoenix Mars Lander has short-circuit problem

Arthur H. Rotstein
Associated Press
Sat, 31 May 2008 10:04 UTC
Scientists for the Phoenix Mars Lander are wrestling with an intermittent short circuit on the spacecraft.

The problem is in a device that will analyze ice and soil dug from the planet's surface, the scientists said Friday. The short circuit was found during testing done before the mission's experiments get under way.

The short circuit isn't considered critical, said William Boyton of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Boynton is in charge of the device that will heat and analyze samples scooped up by the lander's robotic arm.

Image
©AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
The Surface Stereo Imager Right on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander acquired the individual images that are combined into this one view, provided by NASA, Thursday, May 29, 2008. The spacecraft successfully freed its 8-foot robotic arm from the restraints that kept it folded up and protected from vibrations during the launch and landing, scientists said Thursday. Preparations are now under way to partially flex the arm.
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Sherlock

New findings at Stonehenge show burials as early as 3000 B.C.


eitb24
Sat, 31 May 2008 07:38 UTC
New dating of cremated remains shows burials occurred as early as 3000 B.C. when the first ditches around the monument were being built.
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Einstein

Computers 'decode' the human brain

Guy Dixon
VNUnet
Fri, 30 May 2008 23:07 UTC
Scientists have come up with a computer-based system which can predict activity patterns in the human brain when prompted by certain words.

The results of a study published today in the journal Science show how scientists can use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to monitor blood flow patterns in the brain.

This has allowed them to forecast the response to around 60 nouns associated with senses, including sight, touch, taste or smell.
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Telescope

What is the Fastest Spinning Object in the Solar System? Near-Earth Asteroid 2008 HJ

Ian O'Neill
Universe Today
Wed, 28 May 2008 17:56 UTC
A British astronomer has discovered a strange spinning object. The fact that it is spinning in itself is not strange, but the speed it is doing so has raised some eyebrows. The near-Earth asteroid 2008 HJ has been spotted spinning at a rate of one rotation every 42.7 seconds, breaking the record for the fastest rotating natural object in the Solar System. It is so fast that it has been designated as a "super-fast rotator". What makes this discovery even more interesting was that it was spotted by an amateur astronomer when using the Australian Faulkes Telescope South observatory, operating it remotely over the Internet, in his Dorset home in the south of the UK...
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