Science & TechnologyS


Family

Cerebral lateralisation: How do brains develop handedness?

Gillian Forrester
The Conversation
Wed, 06 Apr 2016 23:46 UTC
left handed kid
© Aleksei Potov/www.shutterstock.comLeft-handedness is no longer seen as an abnormality.
As children grow older, they tend to favour one hand over the other for certain tasks, particularly for writing or drawing. A child's "handedness" is generally categorised as right, left or mixed, and tends to settle around the same time they acquire language - about four-years-old. It remains a persistent characteristic throughout our life.

We now know that a child's handedness says something about the organisation and function of their brain.

The left and right hemispheres of the brain control motor action on the opposite sides of the body. Yet, the left and right halves of the brain are not equal in their control of different types of behaviours, which results in a bias of one hand over the other for certain tasks. The dominance of one hemisphere over the other for certain behaviours is called cerebral lateralisation.

Comment: For more on handedness see:

Read More...
Galaxy

KELT-4Ab, newly-found planet, inhabits triple-star system


Science Daily
Thu, 07 Apr 2016 23:34 UTC
Jupiter and stars
© NASA/JPL-Caltech.Artist's interpretation of a hypothetical moon in orbit around a planet found in a tight-knit triple-star system.
Crisp, clear images of a "hot Jupiter" system captured by a University of Notre Dame physicist were vital in determining that a newly found planet inhabits a three-star system, a phenomenon documented only a few times before.

Justin R. Crepp, Freimann Assistant Professor of Physics, was part of the team that discovered KELT-4Ab, a so-called "hot Jupiter" because it is a gas giant that orbits extremely close to one of the stars in its solar system. The discovery was published in The Astronomical Journal.

While the KELT, or Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope, detected the likely presence of the planet now called KELT-4Ab about 685 light years from Earth, Crepp was able to capture crisp, clear images of the system, discovering that the planet was in fact a member of a triple star system -- one of only a few found to date.
Read More...
Telescope

Spectacular image shows Jupiter's powerful auroras


RT
Fri, 08 Apr 2016 15:51 UTC
Jupiter aurora
© apod.nasa.gov
A dazzling image has been released showing off Jupiter's impressive magnetosphere and auroras in all their cosmic glory.

Similar to Earth, Jupiter's magnetic field compresses when hit by a blast of charged particles emitted from the sun.

The compression pushes the charged particles towards Jupiter's poles and down into the atmosphere, generating an astonishing aurora light over the giant planet.
Read More...
Nebula

Multiple supernovae events over a million years showered Earth with radioactive debris

Australian National University in Canberra
Astronomy Magazine
Thu, 07 Apr 2016 15:19 UTC
supernova
© Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator LabAn artist's impression of a supernova.
An international team of scientists has found evidence of a series of massive supernova explosions near our solar system, which showered the Earth with radioactive debris.

The scientists found radioactive iron-60 in sediment and crust samples taken from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The iron-60 was concentrated in a period between 3.2 and 1.7 million years ago, which is relatively recent in astronomical terms, said research leader Dr. Anton Wallner from The Australian National University (ANU).

"We were very surprised that there was debris clearly spread across 1.5 million years," said Dr. Wallner, a nuclear physicist in the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. "It suggests there were a series of supernovae, one after another. "It's an interesting coincidence that they correspond with when the Earth cooled and moved from the Pliocene into the Pleistocene period."

The team from Australia, the University of Vienna in Austria, Hebrew University in Israel, Shimizu Corporation and University of Tokyo, Nihon University and University of Tsukuba in Japan, Senckenberg Collections of Natural History Dresden and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Germany, also found evidence of iron-60 from an older supernova around eight million years ago, coinciding with global faunal changes in the late Miocene. Some theories suggest cosmic rays from the supernovae could have increased cloud cover.
Read More...
Fireball 4

NASA's asteroid-hunter spots eight new asteroids that could pose a threat to earth


RT
Thu, 07 Apr 2016 22:40 UTC
WISE spacecraft
© NASAThis artist's concept shows the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE spacecraft, in its orbit around Earth.
Eight of the objects discovered in the past year have been classified as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), based on their size and how closely their orbits approach Earth," the report goes.

In what NASA described as a "milestone" mission, the telescope, which is tasked with detecting, tracking, and characterizing asteroids and comets, detected a total of 439 NEOs (near-Earth objects) in 2015, of which 72 were newly discovered.

"NEOWISE discovers large, dark, near-Earth objects, complementing our network of ground-based telescopes operating at visible-light wavelengths. On average, these objects are many hundreds of meters across," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE's principal investigator.
Read More...
Telescope

Supermassive black holes may be more common in the Universe than previously thought


Yahoo News
Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:00 UTC
supermassive black hole
© AFPThe elliptical galaxy NGC 1600, 200 million light-years away — at the centre of the image and highlighted in the box.
Astronomers have stumbled upon a supermassive black hole in an unexpected corner of the Universe, implying these galactic monsters are much more common than once thought, a study said Wednesday.

The giant, with an estimated mass 17 billion times that of our Sun, was discovered in a relative desert, astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in the journal Nature.

"While finding a gigantic black hole in a massive galaxy in a crowded area of the Universe is to be expected -- like running across a skyscraper in Manhattan -- it seemed less likely they could be found in the Universe's small towns," said a university statement.

Big, star-rich galaxies where supermassive black holes had previously been found, are very rare.

Smaller ones like the NGC 1600 galaxy housing the newly-discovered whopper, are much more common, but were not previously thought to be appropriate hosts.
Read More...
Info

Neanderthal Y-chromosome genes disappeared from the human genome long ago


Science Daily
Thu, 07 Apr 2016 20:55 UTC
Neanderthal DNA
© Sergey Nivens/FotoliaDNA (stock illustration).
Although it's widely known that modern humans carry traces of Neanderthal DNA, a new international study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that Neanderthal Y-chromosome genes disappeared from the human genome long ago.

The study will be published April 7 in The American Journal of Human Genetics, in English and in Spanish, and will be available to view for free. The senior author is Carlos Bustamante, PhD, professor of biomedical data science and of genetics at the School of Medicine, and the lead author is Fernando Mendez, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford.

The Y chromosome is one of two human sex chromosomes. Unlike the X chromosome, the Y chromosome is passed exclusively from father to son. This is the first study to examine a Neanderthal Y chromosome, Mendez said. Previous studies sequenced DNA from the fossils of Neanderthal women or from mitochondrial DNA, which is passed to children of either sex from their mother.

Other research has shown that the DNA of modern humans is from 2.5 to 4 percent Neanderthal DNA, a legacy of breeding between modern humans and Neanderthals 50,000 years ago. As a result, the team was excited to find that, unlike other kinds of DNA, the Neanderthal Y chromosome DNA was apparently not passed to modern humans during this time.

"We've never observed the Neanderthal Y chromosome DNA in any human sample ever tested," Bustamante said. "That doesn't prove it's totally extinct, but it likely is."
Read More...
Satellite

Pluto's bladed terrain in 3-D


Space Daily
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 13:58 UTC
Pluto
© NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
One of the strangest landforms spotted by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft when it flew past Pluto last July was the "bladed" terrain just east of Tombaugh Regio, the informal name given to Pluto's large heart-shaped surface feature.

No geology degree is necessary to see why the terrain is so interesting - just a pair of 3-D glasses will do. The blades are the dominant feature of a broad area informally named Tartarus Dorsa.

They align from north to south, reach hundreds of feet high and are typically spaced a few miles apart. This remarkable landform, unlike any other seen in our solar system, is perched on a much broader set of rounded ridges that are separated by flat valley floors.
Read More...
Eye 1

Total surveillance: Samsung patents contact lenses with built-in camera


Sputnik
Thu, 07 Apr 2016 15:36 UTC
samsung smart contact lenses
South Korean company Samsung has patented a Google Glass killer, high-tech contact lenses that place graphics in a wearer's field of vision, and can, with the blink of an eye, record photo and video as well.

According to reports, the contact lens will be equipped with "a tiny display, a camera, an antenna, and several sensors" to detect eye movement.

Much like the Google Glass, the new device will need to be tethered to a smartphone to function. The lenses are said to be capable of clandestinely taking photos or videos.

Comment: Eight things you wouldn't think are spying on you, but are

Read More...
People

Hinglish, Swenglish and Manglish: There is no correct way to speak English

Natalie Zarrelli
Atlas Obscura
Tue, 05 Apr 2016 18:52 UTC
singapore sign
A sign in Singapore with the four official languages: English, Mandarin, Tamil and Malay.
Jenny Suomela grew up in Sweden, but began learning English in school as a young child. She currently lives in the United States, and is married to a man whose only language is English. If she's speaking with Swedish friends, however, you might hear more than a few English words and phrases thrown in: "det är awesome", for example, means "it is awesome." Popularly called Swenglish, this use of English in Sweden is a mix of the two languages; a practice common throughout the world.

This meddling of English with other tongues has become increasingly pervasive, used in schools, business meetings, online forums, and everywhere in between. There are estimated to be two billion people speaking dozens of varieties of English in the world, a number far beyond the estimated 340 million native English speakers. "I think there is international awareness of the global role of English, mainly because it is so ubiquitous, and inescapable," says Robert McCrum, author of the book Globish and co-writer of the BBC series and book, The Story of English.
Read More...