Science & Technology
Using an ultra-fast method of measuring how a transistor switches from the "off" to the "on" state, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently reported that they have uncovered an unusual phenomenon that may impact how manufacturers estimate the lifetime of future nanoscale electronics.
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| ©NASA/JPL/Caltech |
| A schematic diagram of the Sun-Earth magnetospheric connection |
(M)odern scientists have found that the sun has an electrical plasma connection that tapers towards the earth's magnetic poles and causes electromagnetic storms.
Curiously, ancient mythical and cosmological traditions have long anticipated the discovery of the solar wind and its Birkeland currents when they spoke about "ropes" and "strings" tying the earth to the sun. In the mystical tradition of India, the three worlds - earth, air, and sky - are attached to the sun by means of a string "by which the Devas first strode up and down these worlds, using the 'Universal Lights' as their stepping stones".
A spacecraft sent on a mission to inspect comets has filmed the Earth and its moon from 31 million miles away, making an alien's-eye view of our world.
The two brief sequences show the Moon passing in front of the Earth as it orbits.
"Making a video of Earth from so far away helps the search for other life-bearing planets in the Universe by giving insights into how a distant, Earth-like alien world would appear to us," said University of Maryland astronomer Michael A'Hearn, who leads the project using NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft.
The two brief sequences show the Moon passing in front of the Earth as it orbits.
"Making a video of Earth from so far away helps the search for other life-bearing planets in the Universe by giving insights into how a distant, Earth-like alien world would appear to us," said University of Maryland astronomer Michael A'Hearn, who leads the project using NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft.
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| ©Donald J. Lindler, Sigma Space Corporation/GSFC; EPOCh/DIXI Science Teams |
| Series of images showing the Moon transiting Earth, captured by NASA's EPOXI spacecraft. |
LOS ANGELES -- While Microsoft Corp. chases Yahoo Inc., Eric Schmidt, Google Inc.'s CEO and chairman, is seeking a stronger relationship with IBM, something IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano appears very interested in.
Distant quasars shine light on ancient magnetic fields
Light from distant quasars - early galaxies that shine with tremendous brightness - has given researchers a new clue to the origin of vast magnetic fields studding today's galaxies: They were running strong when the universe was only a third of its present age.
Astronomers had observed that radio emissions from quasars tend to be angled, or polarized, in such a way that powerful magnetic fields must have twisted them. The greater their distance from Earth, the more polarized their light. But researchers didn't know whether the magnetic fields were part of the quasar or were present in galaxies encountered by quasar light as it made its journey to our telescopes.
Light from distant quasars - early galaxies that shine with tremendous brightness - has given researchers a new clue to the origin of vast magnetic fields studding today's galaxies: They were running strong when the universe was only a third of its present age.
Astronomers had observed that radio emissions from quasars tend to be angled, or polarized, in such a way that powerful magnetic fields must have twisted them. The greater their distance from Earth, the more polarized their light. But researchers didn't know whether the magnetic fields were part of the quasar or were present in galaxies encountered by quasar light as it made its journey to our telescopes.
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| ©Unknown |
| Space shuttle Endeavor, Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
WASHINGTON - The final flight in NASA's space shuttle program will take off on May 31, 2010, four months before the fleet is retired after 30 years of service, the agency said Tuesday.
The last mission is one of 10 flights that NASA has planned for Endeavour, Discovery and Atlantis before they are taken out of service in September 2010.
Oh, for the good old days, when asteroids were asteroids and comets were comets! In the simplest model of the solar system, which most planetary scientists had accepted for decades, asteroids are rocky, geologically dead bodies and comets are icy objects that flaunt majestic dust tails when they near the sun.
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| ©Hsieh, Jewitt |
| Although all three of these objects lie in the asteroid belt, they flaunt comet-like dust tails and are known as main-belt comets. New observations and models are further blurring the line between comets and asteroids. |
Some bacterial cells can swim, morph into new forms and even become dangerously virulent - all without initial involvement of DNA. Yale University researchers describe July 18 in the journal Science how bacteria accomplish this amazing feat - and in doing so provide a glimpse of what the earliest forms of life on Earth may have looked like.
To initiate many important functions, bacteria sometimes depend entirely upon ancient forms of RNA, once viewed simply as the chemical intermediary between DNA's instruction manual and the creation of proteins, said Ronald Breaker , the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale and senior author of the study.
Proteins carry out almost all of life's cellular functions today, but many scientists like Breaker believe this was not always the case and have found many examples in which RNA plays a surprisingly large role in regulating cellular activity. The Science study illustrates that - in bacteria, at least - proteins are not always necessary to spur a host of fundamental cellular changes, a process Breaker believes was common on Earth some 4 billion years ago, well before DNA existed.
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| ©Yale University |
| Ronald Breaker and the chemical structure of cyclic di-GMP. |
To initiate many important functions, bacteria sometimes depend entirely upon ancient forms of RNA, once viewed simply as the chemical intermediary between DNA's instruction manual and the creation of proteins, said Ronald Breaker , the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale and senior author of the study.
Proteins carry out almost all of life's cellular functions today, but many scientists like Breaker believe this was not always the case and have found many examples in which RNA plays a surprisingly large role in regulating cellular activity. The Science study illustrates that - in bacteria, at least - proteins are not always necessary to spur a host of fundamental cellular changes, a process Breaker believes was common on Earth some 4 billion years ago, well before DNA existed.
Scientists have located an area in the brain that fails to "kick-in" for people with obsessive compulsive disorder and those at risk of developing the condition.
The discovery could allow researchers to diagnose the debilitating disorder much earlier and better track how drug treatments are working, they reported in the journal Science.
"The main finding is that in people with obsessive compulsive disorder and their unaffected relatives, part of their orbitofrontal cortex didn't kick in on line as it should have," said Samuel Chamberlain, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, who led the study.
"This is the first study to identify underactive brains in people at risk of OCD."
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| ©REUTERS/Adam Hampshire/University Of Cambridge/Handout |
| Undated brain scans show brain activity in healthy brains and ones with obsessive compulsive disorder. |
The discovery could allow researchers to diagnose the debilitating disorder much earlier and better track how drug treatments are working, they reported in the journal Science.
"The main finding is that in people with obsessive compulsive disorder and their unaffected relatives, part of their orbitofrontal cortex didn't kick in on line as it should have," said Samuel Chamberlain, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, who led the study.
"This is the first study to identify underactive brains in people at risk of OCD."
A new sequence of Hubble Space Telescope images offers an unprecedented view of a planetary game of Pac-Man among three red spots clustered together in Jupiter's atmosphere. The images were taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, developed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The time series shows the passage of the "Red Spot Jr." in a band of clouds below (south) of the Great Red Spot. "Red Spot Jr." first appeared on Jupiter in early 2006 when a previously white storm turned red. This is the second time, since turning red, it has skirted past its big brother apparently unscathed.
But this is not the fate of "baby red spot," which is in the same latitudinal band as the Great Red Spot. This new red spot first appeared earlier this year. The baby red spot gets ever closer to the Great Red Spot in this picture sequence until it is caught up in its anticyclonic spin. In the final image, the baby spot is deformed and pale in color and has been spun to the right (east) of the Great Red Spot. Amateur astronomers' observations confirm that this pale spot is the migrating baby spot.
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| ©NASA, ESA, A. Simon-Miller (Goddard Space Flight Center), N. Chanover (New Mexico State University) and G. Orton (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) |
| This time series (click on image for full view) shows the passage of the "Red Spot Jr." in a band of clouds below (south) of the Great Red Spot. The "baby red spot" is in the same latitudinal band as the Great Red Spot. |
The time series shows the passage of the "Red Spot Jr." in a band of clouds below (south) of the Great Red Spot. "Red Spot Jr." first appeared on Jupiter in early 2006 when a previously white storm turned red. This is the second time, since turning red, it has skirted past its big brother apparently unscathed.
But this is not the fate of "baby red spot," which is in the same latitudinal band as the Great Red Spot. This new red spot first appeared earlier this year. The baby red spot gets ever closer to the Great Red Spot in this picture sequence until it is caught up in its anticyclonic spin. In the final image, the baby spot is deformed and pale in color and has been spun to the right (east) of the Great Red Spot. Amateur astronomers' observations confirm that this pale spot is the migrating baby spot.
