Science & TechnologyS


Wine

There's science behind that stunning red sun

Kevin Lollar
The News-Press
Fri, 11 May 2007 12:37 UTC
Something weird hung high in the mid-morning sky earlier this week like a vision from Superman's home planet Krypton - a red sun.

OK, maybe not all that weird; after all, even the morning drive-time radio guys pointed out that smoke from Southwest Florida's wildfires had made the sun go red.

©Andrew West/news-press.com
Smoke from recent fires have created stunning sunsets like this one over the Sanibel Causeway April 30 and Wednesday's red sun
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Telescope

SUPERNOVA NIGHTMARES

Alan Boyle
Cosmic Log
Thu, 10 May 2007 12:18 UTC
Some astronomers would be delighted if a super-bright supernova blast like the one reported this week were to occur in our own galaxy. One says it could be "the best star-show in the history of modern civilization." But if the blast was pointed right at us from close quarters? Well, that would be bad.

©NASA
An artist's conception shows a gamma-
ray burst sweeping over Earth's
atmosphere, depleting ozone and
creating smog in the process. In reality,
the gamma radiation would be invisible.
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Snowman

Weird Gravity in Canada Blamed on Hefty Glaciers

Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience
Thu, 10 May 2007 14:01 UTC
A mysterious dip in gravity over Canada has been a weighty topic for some scientists. Now satellite data reveal a thick ice sheet that once cloaked the region partially resolves this so-called gravitational anomaly.
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Magnify

Asphalt-Munching Bacteria Discovered

Dave Mosher
LiveScience
Fri, 11 May 2007 11:29 UTC
Vehicles may crowd the asphalt of downtown Los Angeles freeways above ground, but below ground hundreds of newly discovered bacteria thrive by munching on heavy oil and natural asphalt.

Trapped in the Rancho La Brea tar pits 28,000 years ago, the bacteria are equipped with special enzymes that can break down petroleum, environmental scientists at the University of California, Riverside report in a recent issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
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Telescope

Gamma-ray Burst: One of the Longest Ever Seen


Gamma-ray Burst Real-time Sky Map
Fri, 11 May 2007 04:49 UTC
This was quite a burst!

The main emission of gamma rays lasted for about 50 seconds, and had about *20* bright peaks during the first 20 seconds. After that it faded, but emission was seen for about 800 second total, making this one of the longest bursts ever seen. The Japanese satellite Suzaku also detected the burst, as did the Konus-WIND experiment.
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Cloud Lightning

NASA: Widespread 'Twilight Zone' Detected Around Clouds


NASA
Thu, 03 May 2007 12:13 UTC
There seems to be something new under the sun -- in the sky, specifically -- that could complicate scientists' efforts to get a fix on how much the world will warm in the future. Greenhouse gases are not the only things in the air that influence the temperature of our atmosphere. Clouds and small airborne particles called aerosols also play an important and complicated role. And now a new ingredient has been discovered: an extensive and previously unseen "twilight zone" of particles that represents a gradual transition from cloud droplets to dry particles.

©Koren et al., Geophysical Research Letters
What appears as clear sky around a cloud as seen from the ground through a digital camera (left) actually has a twilight zone of light-reflecting particles around it (right). To see this, the blue light from the atmosphere in the original image is first subtracted (middle). The twilight zone is revealed after the darker parts of the image are enhanced (right).
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Attention

NASA study suggests extreme summer warming in the future


NASA
Wed, 09 May 2007 09:07 UTC
A new study by NASA scientists suggests that greenhouse-gas warming may raise average summer temperatures in the eastern United States nearly 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the 2080s.

"There is the potential for extremely hot summertime temperatures in the future, especially during summers with less-than-average frequent rainfall," said lead author Barry Lynn of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, New York.
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Coffee

Three-dimensional printers: Beam It Down From the Web

Saul Hansell
The New York Times
Mon, 07 May 2007 15:19 UTC
Sometimes a particular piece of plastic is just what you need. You have lost the battery cover to your cellphone, perhaps. Or your daughter needs to have the golden princess doll she saw on television. Now.

In a few years, it will be possible to make these items yourself. You will be able to download three-dimensional plans online, then push Print. Hours later, a solid object will be ready to remove from your printer.
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Bulb

Protein May Be Key to Brain's Evolution


Canadian Press
Tue, 08 May 2007 15:12 UTC
A certain form of a protein called neuropsin, which plays a role in learning and memory, is expressed only in the central nervous system of humans, concludes a Chinese study that compared the DNA of humans to several species of monkeys and apes.
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Star

Storms power winds on Saturn


The Associated Press
Wed, 09 May 2007 11:57 UTC
Scientists say they now believe rotating storms are driving Saturn's jet stream winds, and not the other way around.

The new view is based on images taken by the orbiting international Cassini spacecraft, which tracked the movement of cloud features on the ringed planet's southern hemisphere. Scientists initially believed eddies, or giant rotating storms, sapped energy out of the jets.

"Instead, what we find is that they are pumping energy into the jets," Cassini scientist Andrew Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement Tuesday.

The findings will appear in a future issue of the journal Icarus.
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