Science & TechnologyS


Saturn

Did the Vatican suppress hidden 'Galileo Cryptogram'?

Lewis Page
The Register
Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:17 UTC
Inquisition Neptune conspiracy vs Copernican Heresy

An Australian boffin says that the planet Neptune may have actually been discovered 234 years earlier than had been thought, by the famed Renaissance Italian astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei - who was persecuted by the Inquisition for his "heretical" astronomy research. Professor David Jamieson of Melbourne Uni says that proof for this theory may lie within a hidden coded message yet to be discovered.
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Telescope

Venus and Mars Grace the Pre-dawn Sky

Joe Rao
SPACE.com
Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:31 UTC
Image
© Starry Night softwareVenus and Mars in the eastern predawn sky this weekend at around 3:30 a.m. local time (wherever you are). Venus is unmistakably bright. The scene does not change much in coming days.
Two planets are prominent in the predawn sky these July mornings. They are brilliant Venus and the much dimmer Mars.

Actually, these two planets have spent the past couple of months rather close to each other in our sky, but since late June they have gradually been pulling apart, with Venus slowly moving away to the east.

Nonetheless, both planets appear in the same general region, low in the eastern sky a couple of hours before sunrise [Map]. Over these past couple of months, both planets have also been shifting east against the zodiacal constellations, and now they both can be seen against the rich backdrop of stars that make up Taurus, the Bull.
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Light Saber

Military mega-lasers are too hot to handle

Jeff Hecht
New Scientist
Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:59 UTC
Image
© Northrop GrummanTactical High-Energy Laser (THEL) has shot down an arsenal of aerial targets in live tests , however they cannot maintain lengthy operation.
High-energy laser weapons have been hailed as the future of anti-missile defence, but they may be further from being battle-ready than military chiefs hoped.

In recent tests, several prototypes have suffered serious damage to their optics at intensities well below the expected levels of tolerance. "Optical damage has been quietly alarming upper management in most major programmes," Sean Ross of the US Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico told a meeting of the Directed Energy Professional Society in Newton, Massachusetts, last week. There are also big problems managing the waste heat generated by high-intensity beams.

Laser weapons require mirrors and lenses to focus powerful beams onto distant moving targets, and to compensate for atmospheric perturbations that can reduce the power they deliver. The higher the intensity of the beam, the more likely it is to damage the surface of its optical components.
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Telescope

Europeans develop ultra-fast astronomical camera


European Commission
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:04 UTC
Image
© ESOThe OCam camera
Scientists at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), working together with researchers from three French laboratories, have developed a new ultra-fast camera that can take 1 500 finely exposed images per second. Called OCam, this camera uses the CCD220 detector developed by e2v Technologies in the UK. The team said OCam will be a major component of the next generation of adaptive optics instruments of the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), in particular for the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) instrument.
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Info

Lightning Strikes Delay Endeavour's Launch Again

Roy Mark
eWeek.com
Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:40 UTC
Twice delayed in June, NASA again scratches its mission to the International Space Station after 11 lightning strikes are recorded in the launch area. After a check of all systems, NASA hopes to finally get the mission under way July 12.

NASA called off the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour for a third time July 11 after lightning strikes in the Cape Canaveral area prompted the space agency to move the liftoff to July 12. The mission to deliver equipment to the International Space Station was scratched twice in June due to a mysterious launch pad hydrogen gas leak that appears to be resolved.
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Magnify

Flashback Farming Microbes in Tasmania

Rose Grant
ABC News
Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:15 UTC
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© Rosemary Grant Rae Young removing a giant tea bag filled with compost from the brewing unit
A group of progressive farmers in the midlands of Tasmania are restoring the soil food web to 900 hectares of pasture in Tasmania.

They've been successful in getting a Federal Government $104,000 Caring for Our Country grant to put the biology back into the soils on the broadacre.
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Info

Copernicus Had Blue Eyes

Rossella Lorenzi
Discovery News
Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:33 UTC
Image
© Getty ImagesA painting of Copernicus. Genetic research has not only identified Copernicus' remains, but has also found that the priest and astronomer had blue eyes, fair skin and light hair color.
Nicolaus Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy, gazed at the sky through bright blue eyes, according to genetic research that has identified the scientist's remains.

Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research -- announced last November -- details the identification of the remains, while also suggesting that Copernicus most likely had blue eyes, fair skin and light hair color.

"This is the end of a search that has lasted for at least two centuries," Swedish and Polish researchers who carried the genetic tests wrote.
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Info

Tossing a coin in the microcosm

Dr. Artur Widera
University of Bonn
Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:14 UTC
Bonn physicists take first step towards super-fast search algorithms for quantum computers

When you toss a coin, you either get heads or tails. By contrast, things are not so definite at the microcosmic level. An atomic 'coin' can display a superposition of heads and tails when it has been thrown. However, this only happens if you do not look at the coin. If you do, it decides in favour of one of the two states. If you leave the decision where a quantum particle should go to a coin like this, you get unusual effects. For the first time, physicists at the University of Bonn have demonstrated these effects in an experiment with caesium. Their research will be published in the next issue of the scientific journal Science.
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Sun

Simulations Illuminate Universe's First Twin Stars

Melinda Lee
National Accelerator Laboratory
Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:04 UTC
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© Ralf Kaehler, Matthew Turk and Tom AbelThis computer-simulated image shows the formation of two high density regions (yellow) in the early universe, approximately 200 million years after the Big Bang. The cores are separated by about 800 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and are expected to evolve into a binary—or "twin"—star system.
Menlo Park, Calif. - The earliest stars in the universe formed not only as individuals, but sometimes also as twins, according to a paper published today in Science Express. By creating robust simulations of the early universe, astrophysicists Matthew Turk and Tom Abel of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Brian O'Shea of Michigan State University have gained the most detailed understanding to date of the formation of the first stars.
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Family

Good dancers make the fittest mates

Nic Fleming
New Scientist
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:54 UTC
As generations of men with two left feet have learned to their cost, having the dance floor prowess of Mr Bean is no help in the mating game.

To make matters worse for the terminally uncoordinated, it now looks as if women are right to go for men who can strut their stuff like John Travolta or Patrick Swayze - as they are more likely to be strong and to produce healthy offspring.

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