Science & TechnologyS


Satellite

China unveils new 'Heavenly Palace' space station as ISS days numbered

Ludovic Ehret
Phys.org
Tue, 06 Nov 2018 06:39 UTC
China space station
China unveiled a partial model of its manned space station at an aerospace fair in Zhuhai
China unveiled on Tuesday a replica of its first permanently crewed space station, which would replace the international community's orbiting laboratory and symbolises the country's major ambitions beyond Earth.

The 17-metre (55-foot) core module was a star attraction at the biennial Airshow China in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai, the country's main aerospace industry exhibition.

Outside, China's J-10 fighter jet and J-20 stealth fighter wowed spectators as they zoomed across Zhuhai's sky. Back inside, the country displayed its fleet of drones and other military hardware.

Crowds gathered around the cylindrical space station module representing the living and working quarters of the Tiangong-or "Heavenly Palace"-which will also have two other modules for scientific experiments and will be equipped with solar panels.

Three astronauts will be permanently stationed in the 60-tonne orbiting lab, which will enable the crew to conduct biological and microgravity research.

Assembly is expected to be completed around 2022 and the station would have a lifespan of around 10 years.

The International Space Station-a collaboration between the United States, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan-has been in operation since 1998 but is due to be retired in 2024.

China will then have the only space station in orbit, though it will be much smaller than the ISS which weighs 400 tonnes and is as large as a football pitch.
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Blue Planet

The struggle to visualize climate when most people impose flat Earth conceptions into a three-dimensional atmosphere

Dr. Tim Ball
Watts Up With That?
Sun, 04 Nov 2018 00:00 UTC
flat earth
In a recent article, I used an illustration of 1200 km circles around a weather station to illustrate the extent the IPCC considered it represented. A comment about the article asked if I was aware of the map distortion and its effect on the circle of coverage. It was an arcane but important observation. He was pointing to the distortion created by using a Mercator projection map.

I am very aware of the distortion. My entire career involved working with maps. This included flying in the Air Force; teaching courses and running labs about maps and map reading; studying climate weather maps; the movement and migration of people driven by climate change; and teaching a course in political geography. I provided major research for a book on the search for the Northwest Passage on the Pacific west coast written by Sam Bawlf titled, "The Secret Voyages of Sir Francis Drake." Dr. John Dee, science advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, gave Drake his sailing and scientific instructions. This included accurately determining the longitude of the west coast of North America. This research resulted in Drake visiting the Dutch map maker Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) after his return. Two months after Drake's visit Ortelius produced a new world map with the coast shifted 60° of longitude to its proper position.

Dee drew a map for Elizabeth I that illustrates his spatial awareness of the world (Figure 1). It is a unique perspective, even for today's space-age citizen because it is looking down on the North Pole. Our view of the world and spatial relationships were distorted by the Mercator map introduced in 1569. Its specific purpose was to make navigating a three-dimensional world using a two-dimensional map easier.
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Ladybug

Orphan genes, and the problem they pose for evolution

Ann Gauger
Evolution News
Tue, 06 Nov 2018 17:05 UTC
Leafcutter ants
© Pjt56 / Wikimedia CommonsLeafcutter ants in the Wilhelma Zoo, Germany
Orphan genes - genes that are present in only one species, or a group of closely related species - are of particular interest to advocates of intelligent design. The reason for this has to do with the assumptions of evolutionary biology.

The main evolutionary assumption is common descent, that all life is descended from one or a few ancestors. Following from this, and taken as evidence for this, is the assumption that all life shares DNA in common. Prior to the advent of widespread genome sequencing, it was assumed that living things shared genes, that there was a set of shared housekeeping genes, and a set of genes specific to a taxonomic group, though these would be few in number. It was assumed that the vast majority of genes would be found multiple places in the genomes of living things. The reason? It was assumed that getting new genes was hard, and once a workable solution was found it would be preserved in the descendants that followed. The bulk of genes would have been invented early in evolution, and thus would be broadly shared.
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Moon

Russia plans to set up lunar base inhabited by 'avatar robots' controlled from earth


RT
Tue, 06 Nov 2018 12:19 UTC
russia moon base avatar robots
The base will be chiefly managed by “robotized systems, avatars that will be executing tasks on the moon’s surface,” he said, noting that whole project will be larger than the US ‘Apollo’ program of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
After unveiling an ambitious plan to install a permanent base on the moon, Russia's space boss Dmitry Rogozin has now added a truly sci-fi-esque detail: humans will control it from Earth through sophisticated 'avatar robotics.'

"We're talking about creating a long-term base, not constantly manned, but visitable," Rogozin, who leads Russia's national space agency, 'Roscosmos' told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

The base will be chiefly managed by "robotized systems, avatars that will be executing tasks on the moon's surface," he said, noting that whole project will be larger than the US 'Apollo' program of the '60s and '70s.

Rogozin didn't go into details of the ambitious plan leaving many to wonder how the lunar 'avatars' will look and function. The choice of words hints that he was inspired by James Cameron's 2009 sci-fi blockbuster. The box office hit told the story of the distant jungle planet called Pandora. Since its air wasn't breathable for humans, they roamed the planet by mentally 'logging' into 'avatars,' which mimicked the bodies of local humanoid race, the Na'vi.
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Dig

New giant dinosaur species discovered in Argentina


RT
Sun, 04 Nov 2018 14:46 UTC
Dinosaur
© AFP / Agencia CTYS
Three well-preserved specimens of a new gigantic dinosaur species, named Lavocatisaurus agrioensis, have been discovered by a multinational team of scientists in the Argentine province of Neuquén.

The remains, an adult and two juveniles reptiles which roamed the Earth some 110 million years ago, were unearthed by a team of Argentine and Spanish paleontologists. The new species, which the discoverers named Lavocatisaurus agrioensis, were herbivorous and belonged to Sauropods saurischian clade of dinosaurs with very long necks, long tails, and a small head.

In addition to parts of the neck, tail and back, the team found "most" of the cranial bones, including the snout, the jaws, and teeth, making it possible to create an "almost complete reconstruction," noted Jose Luis Carballido, a researcher at the Egidio Feruglio museum and the national council of scientific investigations.
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Comet 2

Czech Mate - Confirmation of the Younger Dryas impact event


The Cosmic Tusk
Thu, 04 Oct 2018 01:17 UTC
Gunther Kleteschka
© The Cosmic Tusk
See another blockbuster confirmation of the Younger Dryas cosmic impact below. I keep a pretty close eye on our subject but had no idea such intricate, original and thorough work was underway in the Czech Republic. Gunther Kleteschka has appeared on several YDB papers, but has clearly been busy in his own laboratory collecting entirely new, informative and well dated expressions of the YDB boundary in lake sediments. His work and that of his local colleagues is clearly exciting and in keeping with the predictions made by the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis.

Cosmic-Impact Event in Lake Sediments from Central Europe Postdates the Laacher See Eruption and Marks Onset of the Younger Dryas

Gunther Kletetschka,1,2,3,* Daniel Vondrák,4 Jolana Hruba,2 Vaclav Prochazka,2 Ladislav Nabelek,1,2 Helena Svitavská-Svobodová,5 Premysl Bobek,5 Zuzana Horicka,6,7 Jaroslav Kadlec,8 Marian Takac,2 and Evzen Stuchlik7

Institute of Geology, Czech Academy of Sciences, CZ-252 43 Průhonice 770, Czech Republic; 2. Institute of Hydrogeology, Engineering Geology and Applied Geophysics, Charles University, Albertov 6, CZ-128 43 Prague 2, Czech Republic; 3. Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 903 North Koyukuk Drive, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-7320, USA; 4. Institute for Environmental Studies, Charles University, Benátská 2, CZ-128 01 Prague 2, Czech Republic; 5. Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences, Zámek 1, CZ-252 43 Průhonice, Czech Republic; 6. Branch of Applied Ecology, T. G. Masaryk Water Research Institute, Podbabská 30, CZ-160 00 Prague 6, Czech Republic; 7. Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, Na Sádkách 7, CZ-370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic; 8. Institute of Geophysics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Boční II 1401, CZ-141 31 Prague 4, Czech Republic

Comment: Of Flash Frozen Mammoths and Cosmic Catastrophes

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Cassiopaea

Overnight sensation Cow supernova reveals "central engine"

Davide Castelvecchi
Nature
Sat, 03 Nov 2018 21:09 UTC
Supernova Cow 'AT2018cow'
© The ATLAS teamThe mysterious stellar explosion, known as Cow.
For many astronomers, 2018 will be remembered as the Year of the Cow - after the nickname of a spectacular stellar explosion that has kept them busy for months.

The unusual event has offered an unprecedented window on to the collapse of a star, two teams of researchers suggest in papers submitted to the arXiv preprint server on 25 October1,2.

Contrary to the slow ramp-up of a typical supernova, Cow became stupendously bright essentially overnight, leaving astronomers perplexed.

"It popped up out of nowhere," says Stephen Smartt, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast, UK, who first discovered the explosion, and who named it according to an alphabetical protocol that just happened to spell out the word 'cow'.

Comment: While it's true that technology is enabling scientists to see more than ever before, there is also increasing evidence for an uptick in activity on earth and throughout space:

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Moon

Space agency chief says Russia planning for permanent lunar base by 2030's


RT
Fri, 02 Nov 2018 14:17 UTC
lunar eclipse
© Peter Hartenfelser/Global Look PressLunar eclipse
Russia's plans for moon exploration are to be updated within two weeks, but Moscow still wants to have a permanent base on its surface, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said.

Rogozin, who was appointed Russia's space chief in May, announced the looming lunar changes in an interview with RIA Novosti, as he was outlining his plans for a major overhaul of the space industry.

"We expect the suggestions from the Academy of Sciences and the Science and Technology Council of Roscosmos to come very soon. Within two weeks they are expected to present their vision for exploring the Moon," he said. He didn't offer further details about how the program may change, but said plans for a surface base would remain in it.

Comment: Russia doesn't need to play 'second fiddle' to the US in space exploration as others are willing to collaborate for mutual benefits:

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UFO

Israeli astronomers speculate that asteroid 'Oumuamua' could actually be alien craft


RT
Sat, 03 Nov 2018 14:30 UTC
asteriod probe
© Reuters / Handout
Interstellar mystery rock Oumuamua might have been part of an alien reconnaissance mission, according to two Harvard Smithsonian astronomers who saw in the strange object signs it could be a light-driven probe.

As the strange rock moved out of our solar system last September, it sped up instead of slowing down as would be expected. Observers dismissed the acceleration as the result of a release of gas from within the rock, but astronomers Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb are rethinking the whole matter, reasoning that if Oumuamua had merely been a comet undergoing outgassing, the release would have set the object to spinning. Instead, it remained flat, and the astronomers believe that could be by design.

Oumuamua could be "powered" by the force exerted on its surface by sunlight, Bialy and Loeb concluded. Such a means of "power" would allow, say, an alien probe to travel far into the universe with nothing but light needed to fuel it. While there's a possibility that the object is merely an abnormally thin, extremely large naturally-occurring piece of interstellar rock - it didn't emit any radio signals detectable by human instruments - they speculate that it could be a defunct light-sail, space detritus fallen from a long-gone ship.

Comment: You know you're in a new reality when published papers are open to High Strangeness!

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Archaeology

Study reconstructs Neanderthal ribcage, offering new clues to ancient human anatomy and functioning

Katherine J. Wu
PBS Nova
Tue, 30 Oct 2018 20:11 UTC
kebara neanderthal skeleton fossil
© Nicolas Perrault III, Wikimedia CommonsA replica of the Kebara 2 skeleton, which boasts the most complete thorax of any Neanderthal remains discovered to date. Kebara 2 was about 30 years old when he died, approximately 60,000 years ago.
Researchers used modern technology to virtually reconstruct a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal rib cage, potentially shedding light on how these hominids interacted with their environment.

We are not Neanderthals. At the same time, we're not all that different. Like our own Homo sapiens ancestors, Neanderthals made use of stone tools and fire. They may have buried their dead and cared for the sick. Neanderthals even mingled their DNA with ours. For many, these sexual encounters paint an odd portrait of a union between our Homo sapiens predecessors and their stooped, brutish caveman rivals. But more and more, it's becoming clear that our conception of Neanderthals needs a reboot: they're much closer to us than we once believed.

Today, a new discovery further blurs the boundaries between us modern humans and these people of the past. With the first 3D virtual reconstruction of the Neanderthal rib cage, an international team of scientists shows these archaic humans not only stood upright, but also may have breathed and moved in ways that differed only subtly from modern humans.
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