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What The Romans Learned From Greek Mathematics


Science Daily
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:55 UTC
Greek mathematics is considered one of the great intellectual achievements of antiquity. It has been decisive to the academic and cultural development of Western civilisation. The three Roman authors Varro, Cicero and Vitruvius were all, in their own way, influenced by Greek knowledge and transferred it to Roman literature.

In his dissertation, Erik Bohlin, at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, studied the traces of Greek influence on these authors with regard to the mathematical branch of geometry.

Most people have heard of the great Greeks Euclid and Archimedes. And who is not familiar with Pythagoras' theorem? When Rome usurped political power around the Mediterranean, the Romans came into close contact with Greek culture, its literature and science.
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Blackbox

Mars Life? Computer Analysis Hints At Water - And Life - Under Olympus Mons


Science Daily
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:49 UTC
Image
© Rice University/NASAUsing a computer modeling system to figure out how Olympus Mons came to be, McGovern and Morgan reached the surprising conclusion that pockets of ancient water may still be trapped under the mountain.

The Martian volcano Olympus Mons is about three times the height of Mount Everest, but it's the small details that Rice University professors Patrick McGovern and Julia Morgan are looking at in thinking about whether the Red Planet ever had - or still supports - life.

Using a computer modeling system to figure out how Olympus Mons came to be, McGovern and Morgan reached the surprising conclusion that pockets of ancient water may still be trapped under the mountain.

Their research is published in February's issue of the journal Geology.

The scientists explained that their finding is more implication than revelation. "What we were analyzing was the structure of Olympus Mons, why it's shaped the way it is," said McGovern, an adjunct assistant professor of Earth science and staff scientist at the NASA-affiliated Lunar and Planetary Institute. "What we found has implications for life - but implications are what go at the end of a paper."
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Sun

Spectacular spectrum reveals Sun's chemistry

Anil Ananthaswamy
New Scientist
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:31 UTC
Image
© N A Sharp, NOAO/NSO/Kitt Peak FTS/AURA/NSFThis high-resolution masterpiece was created by a spectrometer affixed to the world's largest solar telescope.

This is what visible light from the sun looks like if you split it into its constituent colours. But playing with a prism at home will not give you this high-resolution masterpiece, which was created using a sophisticated spectrometer fixed to the world's largest solar telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. The spectrometer splits light from the sun into two beams and sends them towards two mirrors, which bounce the light back to a detector where the beams recombine. Via a complex mathematical technique, the resulting interference pattern appears as a spectacular solar spectrum, covering the entire range of visible light.

What are the dark blobs in the image? These are known as Fraunhofer lines after German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer, who first studied them in detail in 1814. They are caused by specific elements in the outer layers of the sun absorbing a characteristic wavelength of light - the missing wavelength showing up as a dark line. This barcode-like image tells us about the elements present in the sun. For instance, the broad dark patch in the red part of the spectrum (upper right) indicates the presence of hydrogen and the two prominent lines in the yellow part are sodium.
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Cloud Lightning

Scientist Looks to Weaponize Ball Lightning

David Hambling
Wired
Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:40 UTC
Two hundred years ago this week, the warship HMS Warren Hastings was struck by a weird phenomenon: "Three distinct balls of fire" fell from the heavens, striking the ship and killing two crewmen, leaving behind "a nauseous, sulfurous smell," according to the Times of London.

Ball lightning has been the subject of much scientific scrutiny over the years. And, as with many powerful natural phenomena, the question arises: "Can we turn it into a weapon?" Peculiar as it may seem, that's exactly what some researchers are working on -- even though it hasn't even been properly replicated in the laboratory yet.

The exact cause and nature of ball lighting has yet to be determined; there may be several different types, confusing matters further. But generally it manifests as a grapefruit-sized sphere of light moving slowly through the air which may end by fizzling out or exploding.
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Eye 2

Scientists make HIV strain that can infect monkeys

Will Dunham
Reuters
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:34 UTC
Washington - Scientists have created a strain of the human AIDS virus able to infect and multiply in monkeys in a step toward testing future vaccines in monkeys before trying them in people, according to a new study.

This strain of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, was developed by altering a single gene in the human version to allow it to infect a type of monkey called a pig-tailed macaque, the researchers said on Monday.

The genetically engineered virus, once injected into this monkey, proliferates almost as much as it does in people, but the animal ultimately suppresses it and the virus does not make it sick, they said.
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Sherlock

Video: Strange Elongated Skulls Discovered


Yahoo
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:37 UTC

Strange Elongated Skulls Discovered @ Yahoo! Video
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Satellite

Earth critters hitch ride to Martian moon

Irene Klotz
msnbc
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:07 UTC
Critters, microbes scheduled to make a round-trip journey to Phobos

Phobos
© NASAThis NASA image shows the Martian moon Phobos, believed to have once been an asteroid that was snagged by the Red Planet's gravity and then became an orbiting moon. A Russian mission to the moon will test whether living organisms can survive the ride to space and back.
No one knows if there is life on Mars, but if all goes well with a Russian science mission later this year, there will be life on the Martian moon Phobos - for a short time anyway.

An assortment of critters and microbes are scheduled to make a round-trip journey to Phobos as passengers aboard a Russian spacecraft, scheduled to launch in October.

The mission, called Phobos-Grunt, aims to return samples of the Martian moon to Earth for analysis. It will be the first Russian-led mission to Mars since the loss of the Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 probes in 1988 and the botched launch of the Mars 96 spacecraft.
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Telescope

Gullies On Mars Show Tantalizing Signs Of Recent Water Activity


Science Daily
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:36 UTC
gully system in the Promethei Terra region of Mars
© NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaThe gully system in the Promethei Terra region of Mars appears to have been carved by melt water and may be the most recent period when water was active on the planet.

Planetary geologists at Brown University have found a gully fan system on Mars that formed about 1.25 million years ago. The fan offers compelling evidence that it was formed by melt water that originated in nearby snow and ice deposits and may stand as the most recent period when water flowed on the planet.

Gullies are known to be young surface features on Mars. But scientists studying the planet have struggled with locating gullies they can conclusively date. In a paper that appears on the cover of the March issue of Geology, the Brown geologists were able to date the gully system and hypothesize what water was doing there.

The gully system shows four intervals where water-borne sediments were carried down the steep slopes of nearby alcoves and deposited in alluvial fans, said Samuel Schon, a Brown graduate student and the paper's lead author.
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Telescope

Three Galaxies Locked In Gravitational Tug-of-war


Science Daily
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:25 UTC
alaxies -- NGC 7173 (middle left), NCG 7174 (middle right) and NGC 7176
© NASA, ESA and R. Sharples (University of Durham, U.K.))The three pictured galaxies -- NGC 7173 (middle left), NCG 7174 (middle right) and NGC 7176 (lower right) -- are part of the Hickson Compact Group 90, named after astronomer Paul Hickson, who first catalogued these small clusters of galaxies in the 1980s. NGC 7173 and NGC 7176 appear to be smooth, normal elliptical galaxies without much gas and dust. In stark contrast, NGC 7174 is a mangled spiral galaxy, barely clinging to independent existence as it is ripped apart by its close neighbours. The strong tidal interaction surging through the galaxies has dragged a significant number of stars away from their home galaxies. These stars are now spread out, forming a tenuous luminous component in the galaxy group.

About 100 million light-years away, in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish), three galaxies are playing a game of gravitational give-and-take that might ultimately lead to their merger into one enormous entity.

A new image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope allows astronomers to view the movement of gases from galaxy to galaxy, revealing the intricate interplay among them.

The three pictured galaxies - NGC 7173 (middle left), NCG 7174 (middle right) and NGC 7176 (lower right) - are part of the Hickson Compact Group 90, named after astronomer Paul Hickson, who first catalogued these small clusters of galaxies in the 1980s. NGC 7173 and NGC 7176 appear to be smooth, normal elliptical galaxies without much gas and dust.
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Saturn

Newfound Moon May Be Source Of Outer Saturn Ring


Science Daily
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:16 UTC
newly found moonlet in a bright arc of Saturn's faint G ring
© NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteThis sequence of three images, obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft over the course of about 10 minutes, shows the path of a newly found moonlet in a bright arc of Saturn's faint G ring.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found within Saturn's G ring an embedded moonlet that appears as a faint, moving pinprick of light. Scientists believe it is a main source of the G ring and its single ring arc.

Cassini imaging scientists analyzing images acquired over the course of about 600 days found the tiny moonlet, half a kilometer (about a third of a mile) across, embedded within a partial ring, or ring arc, previously found by Cassini in Saturn's tenuous G ring.

The finding is being announced March 3 in an International Astronomical Union circular. Images can be found HERE, HERE and HERE.

"Before Cassini, the G ring was the only dusty ring that was not clearly associated with a known moon, which made it odd," said Matthew Hedman, a Cassini imaging team associate at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "The discovery of this moonlet, together with other Cassini data, should help us make sense of this previously mysterious ring."
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