Science & TechnologyS


Fireball 5

Retired Georgia professor says meteor may have caused unexplained boom that shook Athens

Wayne Ford
Online Athens
Wed, 31 May 2017 16:07 UTC
Meteor (stock image)
© SkyandTelescope.com, Rick Scott and Joe Orman/Associated Press
The loud unexplained sound that rattled homes and unnerved people across the Athens area on Saturday may have been a sonic boom created by a meteor, a retired University of Georgia professor said Wednesday.

"I think if it wasn't the military, it may well have been a meteor, which may have been natural or a piece of space junk returning to Earth," said Michael Covington, an artificial intelligence expert who's been involved in astronomy for 50 years.

Because the boom was deafening across a wide area, a ground-based explosion could be ruled out as the cause, according to Covington.

"It seemed to be loud at a bunch of different places from the Athens Country Club to the Epps Bride Parkway area" in a north-to-south direction, he said.

Covington heard rattling in his Athens home at 1:26 p.m. Saturday.
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Info

Human organ you've never heard of - The omentum

Andrew Masterson
Cosmos
Fri, 02 Jun 2017 18:51 UTC
The omentum
© Getty ImagesThe omentum, a sheet of fatty tissue that stretches over the abdomen, plays a surprising role in immune response and the growth of certain cancers.
The omentum is one of the human body's largest organs, but also arguably one of its least familiar - to scientists as well as the rest of us.

Now, however, it is coming under increased scrutiny as researchers strive to understand how it functions as an important part of the immune system but also, perversely, as a nursery for cancer cells.

The organ is effectively a large apron-like expanse of fatty tissue that encases the liver, intestine and stomach.

In a review published in the journal Trends in Immunology, Troy Randall and Selene Meza-Perez of the University of Alabama, in the US, look at the omentum's role in resisting infection, and at how its toxin-fighting mechanism inadvertently serves to protect, rather than destroy, certain cancer cells.

Key to the organ's activity are discrete white patches that cover its surface. Known as "milky spots", they were recorded by anatomists as far back as 1874, although their function wasn't deduced until rather more recently.
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Info

Vision continues to develop until mid-life: Brain research extends timeline for visual cortex maturity


Medical Express
Mon, 29 May 2017 00:00 UTC
visual cortex
The visual cortex, the human brain's vision-processing centre that was previously thought to mature and stabilize in the first few years of life, actually continues to develop until sometime in the late 30s or early 40s, a McMaster neuroscientist and her colleagues have found. Kathryn Murphy, a professor in McMaster's department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, led the study using post-mortem brain-tissue samples from 30 people ranging in age from 20 days to 80 years.

Her analysis of proteins that drive the actions of neurons in the visual cortex at the back of the brain recasts previous understanding of when that part of the brain reaches maturity, extending the timeline until about age 36, plus or minus 4.5 years.

The finding was a surprise to Murphy and her colleagues, who had expected to find that the cortex reached its mature stage by 5 to 6 years, consistent with previous results from animal samples and with prevailing scientific and medical belief.
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Nebula

Mini black hole created in laboratory by world's most powerful X-ray laser

Shivali Best
Daily Mail
Thu, 01 Jun 2017 07:49 UTC
molecule black hole
© DESY Science Communication LabScientists were in for a surprise when they tested the world's most powerful X-ray laser on a single molecule, and created a 'molecular black hole' (artist's impression).
Scientists were in for a surprise when they tested the world's most powerful X-ray laser on a single molecule, and created a 'mini black hole.' The intense laser destroyed the molecule from the inside out, leaving a void, similar to a black hole in space. Researchers hope that this unexpected insight could advance the imaging of whole viruses and bacteria, which could help scientists to develop medicines.

The 'molecular black hole' was created by researchers from Kansas State University, who were testing the X-ray laser on a small molecule. The single laser pulse stripped all but a few electrons out of the molecule's biggest atom from the inside out, leaving a void that started pulling in electrons from the rest of the molecule, like a black hole gobbling a spiraling disk of matter.

And within 30 femtoseconds - millionths of a billionth of a second - the molecule lost more than 50 electrons, causing it to blow up.
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Bizarro Earth

Fault running under San Diego capable of producing stronger and more frequent earthquakes than previously known

Gary Robbins and Rong-Gong Lin II
Los Angeles Times
Thu, 01 Jun 2017 17:50 UTC
San Diego Rose Canyon earthquake fault system
© California Geological Survey / Google MapsThis map of earthquake faults shows the general route of the Newport-Inglewood/Rose Canyon fault system, which extends from San Diego along the coast to Huntington Beach, Long Beach and into the Westside of Los Angeles.
New research released this week found that a fault under the heart of San Diego can produce stronger and more frequent earthquakes than previously thought.

It's the second study in recent months pointing to heightened quake risks in the San Diego area.

Here is a breakdown:

Rose Canyon Fault

More, stronger quakes than previously believed

San Diego's Rose Canyon fault produces powerful earthquakes more frequently than once believed, according to researchers from San Diego State University.

SDSU scientists who studied the fault in Old Town determined that the system — which before about 1990 was thought to be inactive — generates a magnitude 6.5 to 6.8 earthquake about once every 700 years.
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Cassiopaea

3bn years old and 3bn light years away black hole cosmic wave detected in 2017


RT
Fri, 02 Jun 2017 14:59 UTC
twin black holes
© Reuters
Albert Einstein's once-theoretical gravitational waves were detected in January for only the third time in history, scientists announced Thursday.

The waves are ripples in space which permeate through time when two black holes smash together to create a supermassive one.

Einstein predicted gravitational waves over a century ago but they remained elusive until September 2015 when scientists working with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) picked up the cosmic vibrations.

These vibrations are caused when massive celestial objects - in this latest case two black holes - smash together and merge, triggering ripples in space that echo through time and are picked up by LIGO here on Earth.
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Beaker

In world-first trials scientists are using embryonic stem cells to treat Parkinson's and blindness

Mike McRae
Science Alert
Thu, 01 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC
stem cells
© nobeastsofierce/Shutterstock
This is happening.

In a world first, surgeons in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou are planning to inject stem cells derived from human embryos into the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease with the aim of treating their debilitating symptoms.

Meanwhile, another medical team in the same city is aiming to target vision loss using embryonic stem cells (ESC) to replace lost cells in the retina, marking a new direction in China in the wake of major changes in how the country regulates stem cell treatments.

While similar treatments on Parkinson's patients have already been tested in Australia, those trials relied on cells taken from eggs that were forced to divide without first being fertilized in an effort to circumvent any ethical concerns.

Stem cells are a little like blank slates that are yet to take on a specific task. If you rewind the clock on any of your body's tissues, its cells will become less specialized, until you're left with a cell with a lot of potential to become nearly anything.
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Airplane

World's largest airplane rolls out of its hanger for first time


RT
Thu, 01 Jun 2017 18:20 UTC
Stratolaunch plane
© April Keller / Stratolaunch Systems Corp / AFP
The world's largest airplane - designed to reshape space travel by launching rockets mid-air into orbit from 30,000 ft - rolled out of its hangar for the first time Wednesday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in the US.

The groundbreaking plane, which looks like two aircraft joined together, is the brainchild of billionaire Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen and his private spaceflight company Stratolaunch. Allen founded the company in 2011 with the goal of making access to low-Earth orbit more "convenient, reliable and routine."

It has the biggest wingspan of any aircraft ever built, coming in 385ft (117 meters), longer than an NFL field which is 360ft in length.
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Airplane

Delta and JetBlue will test replacing boarding passes with facial and fingerprint recognition technology

Mary Schlangenstein
Bloomberg
Wed, 31 May 2017 16:55 UTC
jetblue plane
© Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
JetBlue Airways Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc. will test facial- and fingerprint-recognition technology at two U.S. airports to replace boarding passes, building on industry efforts to increase security and ease passage through airports.

The JetBlue program will start next month on flights from Boston to Aruba's Queen Beatrix International Airport, the airline said in a statement Wednesday. It will match passenger photos to their passport or visa photos. Delta has been trying fingerprint identification in Washington that may eventually replace boarding passes.

The testing highlights efforts by carriers to speed customers through congested airports while increasing security. Europe's KLM airline in February began using face-scanning technology for boarding at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Delta this month said it would attempt a self-serve process for checking bags at one airport using facial recognition.

"We hope to learn how we can further reduce friction points in the airport experience, with the boarding process being one of the hardest to solve," Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue's executive vice president for customer experience, said in the statement.
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Fireball 2

Asteroid strike may have 'tipped axis' of Saturn's moon Enceladus


RT
Wed, 31 May 2017 20:34 UTC
Enceladus
© saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
Saturn's moon Enceladus may have been tipped after being struck by an asteroid at some point in the distant past, according to research from NASA's Cassini mission.

The team found that the moon appeared to have unsettled from its original axis by around 55 degrees - more than halfway toward rolling completely onto its side.

"We found a chain of low areas, or basins, that trace a belt across the moon's surface that we believe are the fossil remnants of an earlier, previous equator and poles," said Radwan Tajeddine, a Cassini imaging team associate.
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