Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

Galileo: Around the sun and back

Andrew McKie
New Scientist
Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:36 UTC
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© Biblioteca Marucelliana / FirenzeA new exhibit in Florence shows Galileo's contribution to humanity using astronomical artefacts, stunning artwork and impressive technology.
With all the attention on Darwin this year, one could almost overlook the 400th anniversary of one of the most significant events in the history of science: the first time Galileo peered through his telescope and provided conclusive evidence that the Earth circles the sun. Two exhibitions are marking the occasion, though, both in conjunction with the Institute and Museum of the History of Science (IMSS) in Florence, Italy.

See some of the exhibitions' best artefacts in our gallery

"Galileo, Medici and the Age of Astronomy" opens next month at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania featuring one of Galileo's two surviving telescopes. Meanwhile, an expansive exhibition has just opened at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. "Galileo: Images of the universe from antiquity to the telescope" details the development of astronomy from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to Galileo's new universe.
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Blackbox

Is dark energy getting weaker?

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:29 UTC
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© SCIENCE SOURCE/SPLThis multi-wavelength image of Abell 520 shows the aftermath of a complicated collision of galaxy clusters, some of the most massive objects in the universe. In this image, the hot gas as detected by Chandra is coloured red.
After billions of years of runaway expansion, is the universe starting to slow down? A new analysis of nearby supernovae suggests space might not be expanding as quickly as it once was, a tantalising hint that the source of dark energy may be more exotic than we thought.

For more than a decade, astrophysicists have grappled with evidence of a baffling force that seems to be pushing the universe apart at an ever-increasing rate. Exactly what constitutes the dark energy responsible for this cosmic speed-up is unknown, says Michael Turner at the University of Chicago. "The simplest question we can ask is 'does the dark energy change with time?'"

So far, the evidence has suggested that dark energy is constant, though its effect on the universe has become stronger as the universe has expanded and the gravitational force between objects weakens with distance.
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Powertool

Iran declares major breakthroughs in nuclear drive


Agence France-Presse
Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00 UTC
Isfahan, Iran -- Iran Thursday declared major advances in its controversial atomic drive as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened a nuclear fuel plant and announced the testing of two high capacity centrifuges.

Ahmadinejad's announcements at a function in central Isfahan province marking national nuclear day are likely to trigger fresh concerns among world powers, who fear Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at making atomic weapons.

Tehran insists its programme is for peaceful purposes only.
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Magnify

Scientists start to unlock secrets of bird flight

Randolph E. Schimd
Associated Press
Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:27 UTC
For millennia, people have watched the birds and bees and wondered: "How do they do that?" Thanks to high-speed film and some persistent scientists, at least one of the secrets of flight is now revealed. When birds, bats or bugs make a turn, all they have to do is start flapping their wings normally again and they straighten right out.

That came as a surprise to researchers who thought turning and stopping took more steps.

Lead researcher Tyson L. Hedrick of the University of North Carolina compared it to sitting at a desk chair and turning left. It's a three-step process, launch the turn by pushing with one foot, turn, then stop by pushing with the other.

It's a simpler, one-step process for flying animals, he explained in a telephone interview, launch a turn and then simply flap normally to end it and fly away.
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R2-D2

Robot scientist Adam makes new discovery


Pharmaceutical technology
Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:36 UTC
robot adam
© Jen Rowland

In a world first, researchers believe that a robot scientists has independently discovered new scientific knowledge.

The robot, Adam, which is a computer system that fully automates the scientific process, hypothesized that certain genes in baker's yeast code for specific enzymes that catalyse biochemical reactions in yeast. Adam then devised experiments to test these predictions, ran the experiments using laboratory robotics, interpreted the results and repeated the cycle. Separate manual experiments have been used to confirm that the hypotheses were both novel and correct.

"Because biological organisms are so complex it is important that the details of biological experiments are recorded in great detail. This is difficult and irksome for human scientists, but easy for robot scientists," says Ross King, who led the research at Aberystwyth University.
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Sun

Solar-powered cooker nabs climate prize


Reuters
Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:22 UTC
Oslo - A $6 cardboard box that uses solar power to cook food, sterilize water and could help 3 billion poor people cut greenhouse gases, has won a $75,000 prize for ideas to fight global warming.

The "Kyoto Box," named after the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol that seeks to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, is aimed at billions of people who use firewood to cook.

Costing 5 euros ($6.60) to make, it can also make it easier to boil polluted water.

"We're saving lives and saving trees," the Kyoto Box's developer Jon Boehmer, a Norwegian based in Kenya, said in a statement.
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Control Panel

Google, Universal Music partner on new music video site

Greg Sandoval
CNET
Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:56 UTC
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© Wired
Universal Music Group and Google are now partners in the music-video business.

The largest of the four top recording companies and YouTube's parent company announced on Thursday that they are working together on Vevo, a new music and video entertainment service set to launch later this year. YouTube will handle the technology while Universal Music supplies the content. The two companies will share ad revenue.

The companies said and at this point it appears that Universal's content and artists will be the only label represented on the site. However, Doug Morris, Universal Music's chief executive, said in a conference call with the media that he is in negotiations with other top record labels and is confident they will join.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said on the same conference call that YouTube and Universal Music have renewed their existing licensing agreement. YouTube will continue to be licensed to allow visitors to use songs from Universal Music. Professionally made videos from the label will only appear on Vevo, the companies said.

This is the first time that YouTube has launched a satellite Web site, Schmidt said but he added that he hopes there will be more.
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Blackbox

Do aliens share our genetic code?

Lewis Dartnell
New Scientist
Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:04 UTC
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© Jonathan Hordle / RexWas Jabba the Hutt made from the same genetic building blocks as life on Earth?
What similarities will alien life forms have to living things here on Earth? We won't know until we find some, but now there is evidence that at least the basic building blocks will be the same.

All terrestrial life forms share the same 20 amino acids. Biochemists have managed to synthesise 10 of them in experiments that simulate lifeless prebiotic environments, using proxies for lightning, ionising radiation from space, or hydrothermal vents to provide the necessary energy. Amino acids are also found inside meteorites formed before Earth was born.

Paul Higgs and Ralph Pudritz at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, point out that all these experiments produced a subset of the same 10 amino acids and calculate that these 10 require the least amount of energy to form.

This, they argue, suggests that if alien life exists it probably has the same 10 amino acids at its core.
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Saturn

First DNA analysis from Mars?

Ewen Callaway
New Scientist
Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:39 UTC
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© NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team/STScI/AURA/J Bell/Cornell/M Wolff/Space Science InstituteSome 3-4 billion years ago, impacts threw pieces of Earth and Mars into space. Life may have hitched a ride on this rocky debris, some of which landed on neighbouring planets as meteorites
In August 1996, molecular biologist Gary Ruvkun was about to reveal one of the biggest discoveries of his scientific career. His lab at Harvard Medical School had recently found a gene called age-1 that determines lifespan in roundworms. Their work offered the tantalising possibility that tinkering with molecular pathways might extend the lifespan of other organisms - and perhaps even humans.

Harvard sent out a press release and Ruvkun prepared for an onslaught of media attention. But it never came. Two days before his team's paper came out, scientists analysing a meteorite from Mars called ALH84001 made headlines worldwide. Then-US president Bill Clinton even got in on the announcement.

"My grad student leans in the door and says, 'They've just announced life on Mars,'" recalls Ruvkun. "That would really f--- us," Ruvkun replied, thinking his student was joking.

Scientists have since raised serious doubts about the existence of the purported fossilised microbes in the meteorite.
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Telescope

Pulsar Creates Cosmic "Hand"

Victoria Jaggard
National Geographic
Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:35 UTC
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© NASA
A new x-ray image has revealed an unusual hand-shaped nebula that brings a whole new meaning to the expression "reach for the stars."

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory recently snapped this shot of energetic particles streaming from a pulsar - the rapidly rotating core left behind after a very massive star exploded as a supernova. Known as B1509, the pulsar is thought to be about 1,700 years old and lies roughly 17,000 light-years from Earth.

The tiny pulsar is just 12 miles (19.3 kilometers) wide. But it is spinning so fast - it makes seven complete rotations every second - that the particles it spews have created a nebula spanning 150 light-years.
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