Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

Largest galactic diamond found


Press TV
Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:21 UTC


Lucy, the space diamond

Harvard astronomers have discovered 'Lucy' the largest diamond in the galaxy located at a distance of 50 light years from the Earth.
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Star

The Enduring Mysteries of Comets

Charles Q. Choi
Space.com
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:04 UTC
For millennia, comets were believed to be omens of doom. Instead, solving the mysteries regarding these "dirty snowballs" could help reveal the part they played in the birth of life on Earth, as well as secrets concerning the rest of the galaxy.

Comment: According to the gathered data and research, pretty soon Jewitt will have an opportunity to observe up close and personal many of those interstellar comets.

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Star

Asteroid Impact on Mars: Collision Probability Increased

Leonard David
Live Science
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:56 UTC
The chance that a rogue mini-world - asteroid 2007 WD5 - will smack into Mars on January 30th has increased from 1.3 percent to 3.9 percent.

That's the new estimation from officials at the Near Earth Object Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), stemming from several sky watching teams in Alaska, New Mexico, and in Arizona.
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Roses

Can plants think? This slime solved a maze

Cameron Smith
The Star
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:49 UTC
For scientists, a maze has been a useful tool for examining the analytic capacity of animals - chiefly mice and rats.

Seven years ago, however, a simple experiment demonstrated that a plant can identify the shortest route to food in a maze, prompting researchers to conclude that, "This remarkable process of cellular (analysis) implies that cellular materials can show a primitive intelligence."

The plant was one of the lower fungi, a slime mould, which is a thin organism that spreads across cool, shady, moist places. There are 550 different species of this type of mould in a variety of colours, some of them spectacularly beautiful. The experiment, led by Toshiyuki Nakagaki at the Bio-Mimetic Control Research Centre in Nagoya, Japan, is reported in Nature, 2000, 407:470.
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Bizarro Earth

Ancient mammoth carcass arrives in Japan


Associated Press
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 10:37 UTC
The frozen carcass of a 37,000-year-old baby mammoth unearthed this summer in Siberia arrived in Japan on Saturday for tests that researchers hope will shed new light on the internal structure of the ancient beasts, an official said.

Comment: Clearly, "climate change" is what killed this mammoth, so quickly that ice covered it before it could be scavenged. Although, the article mentions that its tail and ear were bitten off, this could have happened recently, after the ice thawed. The time of it's death, 37,000 years ago coincides, within error, with the mass die-off of other mammals by a suspected meteorite strike in Russia or North America.

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Telescope

Quadrantid Meteor Shower Will Sparkle on January 3rd

Tammy Plotner
universetoday.com
Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:50 UTC
Beginning each New Year and lasting for nearly a week, the Quadrantid Meteor Shower sparkles across the night sky for nearly all viewers around the world.

Its radiant belongs to an extinct constellation once known as Quadran Muralis, but any meteors will seem to come from the general direction of bright Arcturus and Boötes.

©Unknown
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Wine

Beer Brewed Long Ago by Native Americans

Heather Whipps
livescience.com
Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:51 UTC
Ancient Pueblo Indians brewed their own brand of corn beer, a new study suggests, contradicting claims that the group remained dry until their first meeting with the Europeans.

Archaeologists recently found that 800-year-old potsherds belonging to the Pueblos of the American Southwest contained bits of fermented residue typical in beer production.

Before the discovery, historians thought a pocket of Pueblos in New Mexico did not have alcohol at all, despite being surrounded by other beer-making tribes, until the Spanish arrived with grapes and wine in the 16th century.

The tests were done using a highly sensitive set of scanning technologies at Sandia National Laboratories, a U.S. government facility that usually employs the gadgetry for national defense.

©Randy Montoya
Sandia researcher Ted Borek used gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to analyze vapors produced by mild heating of pot samples.
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Bizarro Earth

Remains of ancient civilization discovered on the bottom of a lake

Nikolai Lukashov
RIA Novosti
Fri, 28 Dec 2007 13:20 UTC
An international archeological expedition to Lake Issyk Kul, high in the Kyrgyz mountains, proves the existence of an advanced civilization 25 centuries ago, equal in development to the Hellenic civilizations of the northern coast of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) and the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.
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Pharoah

Ancient pyramid found in central Mexico City

Miguel Angel Gutierrez
news.yahoo.com
Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:24 UTC
Archeologists have discovered the ruins of an 800-year-old Aztec pyramid in the heart of the Mexican capital that could show the ancient city is at least a century older than previously thought.

Mexican archeologists found the ruins, which are about 36 feet high, in the central Tlatelolco area, once a major religious and political centre for the Aztec elite.

©Henry Romero/Reuters
A general view shows the 'Plaza de las Tres Culturas', or the plaza of the three cultures, in the central Tlatelolco area of Mexico City December 27, 2007. Archeologists have discovered the ruins of the 800-year-old Aztec pyramid in the heart of the Mexican capital that could show the ancient city is at least a century older than previously thought. The pyramid, found last month as part of an investigation begun in August, could have been built in 1100 or 1200, signaling the Aztecs began to develop their civilization in the mountains of central Mexico earlier than believed.

The pyramid, found last month as part of an investigation begun in August, could have been built in 1100 or 1200, signaling the Aztecs began to develop their civilization in the mountains of central Mexico earlier than believed.
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Robot

International Robotic Rivalry in Space

Leonard David
livescience.com
Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:05 UTC
It has to be some sort of record. At no time over the five decades of sending robot craft into the heavens have so many spacecraft been on duty at such a variety of far-flung destinations or en route to their targets.

Ballistic buckshot of science gear is now strewn throughout the solar system - and in some cases, like Voyager hardware - have exited our cosmic neighborhood to become an interstellar mission.

But the march of time has also meant that more nations have honed the skills and know-how to explore the solar system. For example, Europe has dispatched probes to the Moon, Mars and Venus - and their Rosetta spacecraft is on a 10-year journey to investigate a comet in 2014.

Meanwhile, Japan's Kaguya and China's Chang'e 1 lunar orbiters have each just settled into an aggressive campaign of surveying the Moon. India is set to orbit the Moon with its Chandrayaan-1 in 2008, and the German space agency is also prepping for a future robotic lunar mission as is the United Kingdom.

All this action at the Moon - including the rekindling of Russian and U.S. lunar missions - bodes well for bolder ventures ever-deeper into the solar system by multiple nations.

©JAXA
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is operating its Kaguya Moon orbiter. The probe has made the world's first continuous reflectance spectra of the far side of the Moon in the visible and near infrared region - enabling a precise determination of the type and breakdown of minerals on the lunar surface.
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