Science & TechnologyS


Meteor

Doomsday warning or #fakenews? Earth will be destroyed by a rogue solar system in 2017

Hannah Ferrett
The Sun
Sun, 01 Jan 2017 17:08 UTC
Planet collision
© ALAMY
Research scientist David Meade claims the system contains several planets, but it's difficult to see.

The new year has only just begun, but according to this conspiracy theory you might want to make the most of it while you can.

We previously reported on claims a new world, known as Planet X or Nibiru, might be on a collision course with Earth.

Well according to one man, there's a whole solar system which is going to crash into ours in 2017 and we've already had the warning signs.

Comment: For a little more perspective: Is life as we know it going to end? The scientific case for Nibiru/Planet X that will not go away

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Rocket

SpaceX failure probe complete: Flights to resume Sunday from California

William Harwood
Spaceflight Now
Mon, 02 Jan 2017 17:07 UTC
SpaceX rocket
© NASA
After an exhaustive investigation, SpaceX engineers have identified the most likely cause of the spectacular explosion of a Falcon 9 rocket during a pre-launch test Sept. 1 that destroyed the booster and its $195 million satellite payload, the company announced Monday.

SpaceX engineers believe the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station mishap was triggered by the failure of a high-pressure helium tank, one of three used to pressurize the second stage liquid oxygen tank.

Putting corrective actions in place, the company said Monday it plans to resume flights with a launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles on Jan. 8 to boost 10 Iridium NEXT satellite telephone relay stations into orbit.

Comment: Is there something Musk is not revealing in this investigation and why?

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Brain

Scientists uncover clues in memory consolidation

Stacey Liboratore
Daily Mail
Fri, 30 Dec 2016 16:05 UTC
brain
Although brain waves play a key role in this procedure, experts have yet to identify the mechanism that forms their shape and rhythm – until now. Researchers have discovered that one of the brain waves needed for consolidating memories.
In order to remember a skill or experience, the memory needs to be strengthened through a process called memory consolidation.

Although it is known that brain waves play a key role in this process, the mechanism that forms their shape and rhythm had not yet been determined - until now.

Researchers have discovered that one of the brain waves needed for consolidating memories is dominated by synaptic inhibition, which they believe 'could be a main factor in memory consolidation'.

Memories must first go through a process called memory consolidation in order to become stronger, which is where brain waves come into play.

The brain waves linked to stabilizing memories, called sharp wave ripples, help the brain set what you've learned or experienced as a quick instant replay.

Comment: Brain filter for clear information transmission is key for memory formation

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Eye 1

High-tech refrigerators, washing machines to be used in criminal investigations

Sarah Knapton
The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 02 Jan 2017 09:04 UTC
Samsung Family Hub refrigerator
© Will Fulton/Digital Trends
High-tech washing machines and fridges will soon be used by detectives gathering evidence from crime scenes, experts have forecast.

The advent of 'the internet of things' in which more devices are connected together in a world of 'smart working' could in future provide important clues for the police.

Detectives are currently being trained to look for gadgets and white goods which could provide a 'digital footprint' of victims or criminals.

Mark Stokes, the head of the digital, cyber and communications forensics unit at the Metropolitan Police told The Times: "Wireless cameras within a device, such as fridge, may record the movement of owners and suspects.

"Doorbells that connect directly to apps on a user's phone can show who has rung the door and the owner or others may then remotely, if they choose, to give controlled access to the premises while away from the property. All these leave a log and a trace of activity. The crime scene of tomorrow is going to be the internet of things."
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Christmas Lights

Northern Lights' Festive Show Captured in Stunning NASA Image

Kacey Deamer
Live Science
Thu, 28 Dec 2017 18:59 UTC
Northern Lights from space
© Jesse Allen / NASA Earth ObservatoryThe northern lights — the swirling, cloud-like features in this image — stretched across northern Canada during the nighttime hours of Dec. 22, 2016.
The northern lights put on a festive show over northern Canada just before Christmas, and a NASA satellite captured a stunning infrared image of the spectacular display.

The night after the winter solstice, NASA's Suomi NPP spacecraft recorded the northern lights, or aurora borealis, across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut, and Northwest Territories in Canada on the night of Dec. 22. From 512 miles (824 kilometers) above the Earth, the satellite's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite captured the northern lights display, which appeared as glowing swirls of clouds over northern Canada, NASA's Earth Observatory said in a statement.

The northern lights occur when particles from the sun known as the solar wind interact with Earth's magnetic field, according to NASA scientists. Because the particles are charged, they can cause electrical current changes in the field that then send energetic particles into the upper atmosphere's gases. When the particles hit the gases, they charge them, and when the gases release this gained energy, the aurora glows are triggered.

Comment: Related articles:

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Ice Cube

Skeptical climate scientists coming in from the cold

James Varney
RealClearInvestigations
Sat, 31 Dec 2016 20:19 UTC
Sun over Arctic
In the world of climate science, the skeptics are coming in from the cold.

Researchers who see global warming as something less than a planet-ending calamity believe the incoming Trump administration may allow their views to be developed and heard. This didn't happen under the Obama administration, which denied that a debate even existed. Now, some scientists say, a more inclusive approach - and the billions of federal dollars that might support it - could be in the offing.

"Here's to hoping the Age of Trump will herald the demise of climate change dogma, and acceptance of a broader range of perspectives in climate science and our policy options," Georgia Tech scientist Judith Curry wrote this month at her popular Climate Etc. blog.
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Holly

Scientists unlock the secret medicinal toolbox of plants

April McCarthy
Prevent Disease
Thu, 22 Dec 2016 14:58 UTC
plants
© Krivosheev Vitaly/Shutterstock.
Using molecular movie technology, scientists have confirmed for the first time that a cluster of enzymes discovered unlock a plant's secret medicinal toolbox.

The metabolic activities of higher organisms are highly coordinated. At the cellular level, compartmentalization into organelles and substructures thereof optimizes the concentration of substrates targeted by enzymes.

Metabolons are temporary structural-functional complexes formed between sequential enzymes of a metabolic pathway. They increase the efficiency of the metabolic pathways by channelling substrates between the enzymes.

The discovery has been hailed as a "milestone," and the renowned journal Science called it "a watershed in metabolon research." The paper, featured in a recent issue of Science, shows how plants activate complex mechanisms in concert to respond so efficiently to challenges in their environment.
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Microscope 2

Experimental brain cancer treatment injects 'biological assassin' cells into brain that 'seek and destroy' cancerous cells


Sputnik
Fri, 30 Dec 2016 22:12 UTC
cancer weapons
© AP Photo/ Wong Maye-E, File
An experimental brain-cancer treatment successfully eliminated tumors in a man's brain, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The treatment, which involves injecting cancer-killing cells into the part of the brain that produces spinal fluid, has been called 'striking' and 'remarkable' by neurosurgeons in early-stage testing.

50-year-old Richard Grady was diagnosed with a brain tumor known as a glioblastoma, or GBM tumor. The American Brain Tumor Association describes GBM tumors as "usually highly malignant," "[growing] rapidly," and "difficult to treat." Rare Disease Report writes that GBM tumors develop rapidly, and that the life expectancy for patients who develop a GBM tumor is 12 months, even with treatment. Grady received the typical treatment of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, but it proved ineffective and his cancer returned within six months.

Grady was then enrolled in a clinical trial which experimented with CAR-T cell therapy, a treatment technique in which immune cells known as T-cells are modified in a lab to become "biological assassins" that seek and destroy cancerous cells. CAR-T therapy is usually used to treat bloodborne cancers, but doctors at City of Hope cancer center in Duarte, California, believe it may also be effective against solid tumors.
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Fireball

NASA spots comet and a body that's 'either a comet or an asteroid'

Avaneesh Pandey
International Business Times
Fri, 30 Dec 2016 18:21 UTC
On Thursday, NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (Neowise) mission announced the discovery of two objects — one of which is a comet while the other is a mysterious object that seems to straddle the line between a comet and an asteroid.

The comet, C/2016 U1 NEOWISE, made its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 12, when it flew by at a distance of 0.71 AUs (1 AU, or the mean distance between Earth and the Sun, is roughly 93 million miles). As it nears the sun, there is "a good chance" that it might be seen with a pair of binoculars next week, although it's hard to be certain, given the unpredictable nature of a comet's brightness.

"As seen from the northern hemisphere during the first week of 2017, comet C/2016 U1 NEOWISE will be in the southeastern sky shortly before dawn," NASA said in a statement. "It is moving farther south each day and it will reach its closest point to the sun, inside the orbit of Mercury, on Jan. 14, before heading back out to the outer reaches of the solar system for an orbit lasting thousands of years. While it will be visible to skywatchers at Earth, it is not considered a threat to our planet."

The nature of the other object, named 2016 WF9, is less clear. Scientists at NASA believe that given its 4.9-year-orbit — which, at its closest approach on Feb. 25, will bring it to a distance of roughly 32 million miles from Earth — it can have multiple possible origins. It may once have been a comet, or it may be a dark asteroid that has strayed from the asteroid belt.


Comment: Ahem, 'comets' ARE 'asteroids', just 'lit up' as they discharge the solar capacitor while passing through our electric solar system.

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Monkey Wrench

Dr. Jim Kozubek warns that gene editing could wipe out future generations of geniuses

Joseph Jankowski
Planet Free Will
Tue, 27 Dec 2016 17:18 UTC
Gene Editing
© The AntiMedia
While the development of new genome-editing technology that could one day ensure that children do not inherit unwanted diseases and disorder sounds like a magnificent breakthrough, one scientist is warning that the latest technology runs the risk of eliminating future geniuses like Thomas Edison and Stephen Hawking.

According to Dr. Jim Kozubek, author of Modern Prometheus, eliminating conditions such as depression, autism, schizophrenia or Asperger's through the new CRISPR-Cas9 human genome editing technology runs the risk of seeing future generations of geniuses wiped out.

Express reports:
Dr Kozubek said a world without depression, autism, schizophrenia or Asperger's might also mean one without the likes of playwright Tennessee Williams, as figures show that writers are ten times more like to suffer from bipolar than the general population and poets are 40 times more likely to be diagnosed with it.

Dr Kozubek said: "Thomas Edison was 'addled' and kicked out of school. Tennessee Williams, as a teenager on the boulevards of Paris felt afraid of 'the process of thought' and came within 'a hairsbreadth of going quite mad'.

Comment: While gene editing is 'set to revolutionize how we investigate and treat the root causes of genetic disease' there are concerns about the 'other applications' of this type of technology: The overlooked threats of gene editing
Perhaps no technology yet has been poised to change the world so profoundly. All life on Earth, every living organism, now stands the possibility of potentially being "edited" on the most basic genetic level, enhancing or degrading it, but forever changing it.

Gene editing or "gene therapy" performed on children or adults changes the genetic makeup of targeted cells after which and upon dividing, impart this new genetic material on each subsequent new cell. This is why treatments for diseases using gene therapy often are successful with only a single shot. The "treatment" self-replicates perpetually within the patient's body. Everything from leukemia to congenial genetic defects have been overcome in clinical trials using this method.

The Biggest Threats: The Jab and Slow Kill

Talk of gene editing usually revolves around its use to treat diseases and produce super-crops and livestock to "save the world." But as history has shown us, any technology is but a double-edged sword. Whatever good it is capable of, it is proportionally capable of just as much bad.

The first and foremost danger of human gene editing in particular is its use in weaponized vaccines. Such fears are founded upon what was revealed by the United Nations during the apartheid government in South Africa where a government program named "Project Coast" actually endeavored to produce vaccines that were race-specific in hopes of sterilizing or killing off its black population...

Another danger is "slow kill." This would be the process of using gene editing to affect individuals directly or through a genetically modified food supply subtly, infecting or killing off targeted demographic groups over a longer period of time. The advantage of this method would be the ambiguity surrounding what was causing upticks in "cancer" and other maladies brought on by degraded immune systems and overall health.


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