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| ©Unknown |
| In the olden days... |
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The world's smallest hard drives have already shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, but nanoscale computing may soon make that achievement look elephantine, say some of the stars of information technology.
The radar system on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has uncovered new details about some of the most mysterious deposits on Mars: the Medusae Fossae Formation. It has provided the first direct measurement of the depth and electrical properties of these materials, providing new clues about their origin.
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| ©NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Italian Space Agency/Univ. of Rome/Smithsonian |
| This image combining a topographic map viewed obliquely (color portion of image) with a radargram of the subsurface (monochrome portion) shows features of mysterious Martian deposits named the Medusae Fossae Formation. The westward-looking view includes the divide between Martian highlands on the south and lowlands on the north, spanning a range from about 12 degrees south latitude (left edge of image) to 5 degrees north latitude (right edge of image). The deposits of the Medusae Fossae Formation are found in the lowlands along the divide, in the center foreground. The radar sounder on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has revealed echoes from what is interpreted as a boundary between the overlying deposits and underlying lowland plains buried by these deposits. |
Stars always evolve in the universe in large groups, known as clusters. Astronomers distinguish these formations by their age and size. The question of how star clusters are created from interstellar gas clouds and why they then develop in different ways has now been answered by researchers at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn with the aid of computer simulations. The scientists have solved - at least at a theoretical level - one of the oldest astronomical puzzles, namely the question of whether star clusters differ in their internal structure.
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| ©Unknown |
| For astronomers, another important insight from this work is that both light and heavy star clusters do have the same origins. As Professor Kroupa explains, "It seems that when the universe was born there were not only globular clusters but also countless mini star clusters. A challenge now for astrophysics is to find their remains." The computations in Bonn have paved the way for this search by providing some valuable theoretical pointers. |
Scientists have found a key protein that helps newts regrow severed limbs and which may guide future research into human regenerative medicine.
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| ©REUTERS/Handout.Anoop Kumar |
| An undated phtoo of a North American newt. Scientists have found a key protein that helps newts regrow severed limbs and which may guide future research into human regenerative medicine. |
HOUSTON (AP) - NASA worked furiously Thursday to plan a spacewalk to fix the ripped solar wing at the international space station, hoping to solve the problem before the shuttle Discovery undocks.
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| ©AP Photo/NASA |
| This image provided by NASA shows the damage to a solar array which ripped as it was being unfurled by astronauts aboard the international space station on Tuesday Oct. 30, 2007. |
The first literate humans, living in Mesopotamian cities like Ur and Erech more than 5,000 years ago, seemed to believe that comets caused bad things to happen or, at the very least, they foretold that bad things would happen. Either way, they regarded a new comet in the evening sky as a portent of some future disaster.
Overhunting. Abrupt climate change. Disease.
Scientists have cited those and other theories in their decades-old debate about why mammoths, mastodons, sloths, saber-toothed cats, camels, horses and other large creatures disappeared from North America at the end of the last ice age.
Scientists have cited those and other theories in their decades-old debate about why mammoths, mastodons, sloths, saber-toothed cats, camels, horses and other large creatures disappeared from North America at the end of the last ice age.
Comment: The fact that large scale cometary impacts have happened so relatively recently, and seem to happen in cycles, and are getting so much attention lately, makes one wonder if Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Right now, NASA is tracking 127 asteroids that have a very small chance of striking the planet. That number is about to get a lot higher. Stronger telescopes, and a new mandate from Congress, will allow scientists to detect thousands of smaller asteroids more likely to hit Earth. And scientists are plotting ways to stop them, from "gravity tractors" to solar ray guns. "There is no question that these will hit the Earth," says Russell Schweickart, a former Apollo astronaut who is involved in a group studying asteroids. "The question is how often we will have to do something about it." In fact, Schweickart thinks world leaders might have to do something about it very soon, within the next 15 years.Stronger telescopes or more asteroids and comets?
And what would cause these cycles?
Cometary evidence of a massive body in the outer Oort cloudThe paper can be read here. Figures and tables are here.
Approximately 25% of the 82 new class I Oort cloud comets have an anomalous distribution of orbital elements that can best be understood if there exists a bound perturber in the outer Oort cloud. Statistically significant correlated anomalies include aphelia directions, energies, perihelion distances and signatures of the angular momentum change due to the Galaxy. The perturber, acting in concert with the galactic tide, causes these comets to enter the loss cylinder - an interval of Oort cloud comet perihelion distances in the planetary region which is emptied by interactions with Saturn and Jupiter. More concisely, the impulse serves to smear the loss cylinder boundary inward along the track of the perturber. Thus it is easier for the galactic tide to make these comets observable. A smaller number of comets are directly injected by the impulsive mechanism. We estimate that the perturber-comet interactions take place at a mean istance of 25000 AU. The putative brown dwarf would have a mass of 3 +/- 2M Jupiter and an orbit whose normal direction is within 5 degrees of the galactic midplane. This object would not have been detected in the IRAS database, but will be detectable in the next generation of planet/brown dwarf searches, including SIRTF. It is also possible that its radio emissions would make it distinguishable in sensitive radio telescopes such as the VLA.
Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found that a supernova discovered last year was caused by two colliding white dwarf stars. The white dwarfs were siblings orbiting each other. They slowly spiraled inward until they merged, touching off a titanic explosion. CfA observations show the strongest evidence yet of what was, until now, a purely theoretical mechanism for creating a supernova.
"This finding shows that nature may be richer than we suspected, with more than one way to make a white dwarf explode," said Harvard graduate student and first author Malcolm Hicken.
"This finding shows that nature may be richer than we suspected, with more than one way to make a white dwarf explode," said Harvard graduate student and first author Malcolm Hicken.
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A Halloween-themed spam campaign greets you with the following question: "Do you want to see [...] the new dancing skeleton?" The answer better be no...
The spammers hope that gullible users would download the so-called "dancing skeleton", which is in fact a malicious package designed to download a new variant of the Storm Worm Trojan on vulnerable computers.
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| ©Munch |
| Vampire |
Beliefs about spirits coming in the night to eat the flesh of the living were pervasive among early New Englanders, and may have inspired the creator of Dracula -- and fear of blood-sucking vampires lurking in the night.
Although it is unlikely that the early settlers of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire used the term "vampire," historical evidence shows rampant belief in the undead.
Comment: There is a better solution to this mystery. See: Alien Abduction, Demonic Possession and The Legend of the Vampire.
Comment: For further information on the complexities of Outer Space, please refer to the following article:
Something Wicked This Way Comes