Science & TechnologyS


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Biologists Surprised To Find Parochial Bacterial Viruses


sciencedaily.com
Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:28 UTC
Biologists examining ecosystems similar to those that existed on Earth more than 3 billion years ago have made a surprising discovery: Viruses that infect bacteria are sometimes parochial and unrelated to their relatives in other parts of the globe.

pozas in Mexico
©Tommy LaVergne/Rice University
The spring-fed pools, or "pozas," in Mexico's remote Cuatro Ciénegas valley are home to at least 70 species found nowhere else on Earth.
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Telescope

Newborn Stars: Seeing Dark Filaments Inside A Molecular Cloud


sciencedaily.com
Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:01 UTC
Astronomers have measured the distribution of mass inside a dark filament in a molecular cloud with an amazing level of detail and to great depth. The measurement is based on a new method that looks at the scattered near-infrared light or 'cloudshine' and was made with ESO's New Technology Telescope. Associated with the forthcoming VISTA telescope, this new technique will allow astronomers to better understand the cradles of newborn stars.

Corona Australis molecular cloud
©ESO
Part of a filament in the Corona Australis molecular cloud. The image is a composite of J-, H-, and K-band near-infrared observations that were made with the SOFI instrument on ESO's NTT telescope in August 2006. The observations were made to test, how easily the scattered light can be observed and how good it is as a tracer of cloud structure. The J-, H-, and K-band intensities are coded with blue, green, and red colours. The gradual saturation of the near-infrared bands is visible as a change of colour. In diffuse regions the shorter wavelength J-band is strong and the colour is bluish. When the J-band saturates the colour changes first to green and finally, in the centre of the filament, the red colour corresponding to the K-band becomes the strongest. In the most saturated regions the surface brightness data can only be used to derive a lower limit for the total amount of dust on the line of sight.
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Telescope

Astronomers Capture Rare Video Of Meteor Falling To Earth; Hunt For Meteorite


sciencedaily.com
Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:39 UTC
Astronomers from The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, have captured rare video of a meteor falling to Earth.

The Physics and Astronomy Department at Western has a network of all-sky cameras in Southern Ontario that scan the sky monitoring for meteors. Associate Professor Peter Brown, who specializes in the study of meteors and meteorites, says that Wednesday evening (March 5) at 10:59 p.m. EST these cameras captured video of a large fireball and the department has also received a number of calls and emails from people who actually saw the light.

meteor
©Unknown
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Star

Tunguska meteorite: a warning from outer space

Alexander Bagrov
RIA Novosti
Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:34 UTC
Almost a century ago, on June 17 (30), 1908, a massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in what is now Russia's Krasnoyarsk Territory, Central Siberia.

The residents of the Vanavara trading post, 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of the blast site, later claimed that the ground trembled violently when attacked by a huge ball of fire, followed by a terrible storm that destroyed everything in its wake.

meteorite
©Unknown
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Telescope

Cornell telescope lacks funding despite rare asteroid discovery

Clara Eisinger
The Ithacan Online
Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:25 UTC
Scientists at Puerto Rico's Arecibo Telescope, run by Cornell University, found a rare asteroid last month with two moons only seven million miles from Earth - a breakthrough for a facility in the midst of serious budget woes.

Michael Nolan, research associate and head of radar astronomy at Arecibo, said the facility was the first in the world to find extrasolar planets and to develop a three dimensional map of how galaxies are distributed in the universe. Still, NASA completely cut off funding to the facility in 2004, and the National Science Foundation has refused to step up its funding in the meantime.
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Bug

Language of a fly proves surprising: Insect's sensory data tells a new story about neural networks


DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory
Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:30 UTC
A group of researchers has developed a novel way to view the world through the eyes of a common fly and partially decode the insect's reactions to changes in the world around it. The research fundamentally alters earlier beliefs about how neural networks function and could provide the basis for intelligent computers that mimic biological processes.

In an article published in the Public Library of Science Computational Biology Journal, Los Alamos physicist Ilya Nemenman joins Geoffrey Lewen, William Bialek and Rob de Ruyter van Steveninck of the Hun School of Princeton, Princeton University and Indiana University, respectively, in describing the research.
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Special seismic studies of deep tremor - Cascadia Arrays for Earthscope (CAFE)

Steve Malone
The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network
Sat, 08 Mar 2008 11:32 UTC
The University of Washington seismic group began studying deep tremor associated with Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS) events in 2003 using both the regional PNSN and small aperture arrays. With NSF funding we installed Cascadia Arrays for Earthscope (CAFE) for both structural and tremor studies. The CAFE experiment is still installed as of winter, 2008; however the transportable array stations (TA) of earthscope are starting to be pulled out of western Oregon and many will be pulled out of western Washington in February ....... just before the next ETS. Too bad. Some of the more critical stations are being left longer as well as some stations that the PNSN is taking over by purchasing the equipment from IRIS using funds supplied by the Murdock Chairtable Foundation.
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Cow Skull

Giant Fossil Bats Out Of Africa, 35 Million Years Old


Science Daily
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:13 UTC
When most of us think of Ancient Egypt, visions of pyramids and mummies fill our imaginations. For a team of paleontologists interested in fossil mammals, the Fayum district of Egypt summons an even older and equally impressive history that extends much further back in time than the Sphinx.

In a recent issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, scientists report on the discovery of six new bat species dating to around 35 million years ago, which sheds new light on the early evolution of bats.

It took over 25 years of fieldwork to collect the 33 specimens that form the basis of the new study. "That translates to a little over one specimen per year - a lot of effort for a single fossil," said Erik Seiffert, a paleontologist at Stony Brook University. "But it shows just how important patience and long term field programs are to science. Our long-term commitment to field work certainly paid off in this case." Among the new species is "a giant among bats; though weighing in at less than a half-pound, it is one of the largest fossil bats ever discovered," said Greg Gunnell, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan.

Image
©Drawing by Bonnie Miljour
Reconstruction of Witwatia schlosseri, a new species of very large bat from the Fayum distric of Egypt.
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Bulb

Artificial black hole created in lab


PhysicsWorld
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:58 UTC
Everyone knows the score with black holes: even if light strays too close, the immense gravity will drag it inside, never to be seen again. They are thought to be created when large stars finally spend all their fuel and collapse. It might come as a surprise, therefore, to find that physicists in the UK have now managed to create an "artificial" black hole in the lab.

Originally, theorists studying black holes focused almost exclusively on applying Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of massive objects arises from the curvature of space - time. Then, in 1974, the Cambridge University physicist Stephen Hawking, building on the work of Jacob Bekenstein, showed that quantum mechanics should also be thrown into the mix.
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Telescope

NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS:Preparing for Doomsday

Richard Stone
Science
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:01 UTC
Over the next several years, new telescopes will spot thousands of near-Earth asteroids and comets. If one is headed our way, will world leaders be ready to respond?

NEO Figure
©IMAGES COURTESY OF SCOTT MANLEY/ARMAGH OBSERVATORY
Aswarm with asteroids. In 2000, there were more than 86,000 known asteroids. By 2007, there were nearly 380,000, including main-belt objects that don't approach Earth (green); objects that approach but do not cross Earth's orbit (yellow); and objects that cross Earth's orbit (red).

TIESHAN TEMPLE NATIONAL FOREST, CHINA--In the control room of XuYi Observatory, Zhao Haibin sits at a computer and loads the night sky over Jiangsu Province. A faint white dot streaks across a backdrop of pulsating stars. "That's a satellite," Zhao says. Elsewhere on the screen, a larger white dot lumbers from east to west. It's a main-belt asteroid, circling the sun between Mars and Jupiter.
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