Science & TechnologyS


Evil Rays

New Look At Gravity Data Sheds Light On Ocean And Climate


Space Daily / SPX
Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:40 UTC
Image
© NASAThis map shows changes in ocean bottom pressure measured by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace). Red shows where pressure varies by large amounts, blue where it changes very little.
A discovery about the moon made in the 1960s is helping researchers unlock secrets about Earth's ocean today. By applying a method of calculating gravity that was first developed for the moon to data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, known as Grace, JPL researchers have found a way to measure the pressure at the bottom of the ocean.

Just as knowing atmospheric pressure allows meteorologists to predict winds and weather patterns, measurements of ocean bottom pressure provide oceanographers with fundamental information about currents and global ocean circulation. They also hold clues to questions about sea level and climate.

"Oceanographers have been measuring ocean bottom pressure for a long time, but the measurements have been limited to a few spots in a huge ocean for short periods of time," says JPL oceanographer Victor Zlotnicki.

Launched in 2002, the twin Grace satellites map Earth's gravity field from orbit 500 kilometers (310 miles) above the surface. They respond to how mass is distributed in the Earth and on Earth's surface -the greater the mass in a given area, the stronger the pull of gravity from that area.
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Telescope

Flashback To Neptune's Moon Triton


Space Daily / SPX
Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:36 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPL/Universities Space Research Association/Lunar and Planetary InstituteThis view of the volcanic plains of Neptune's moon Triton was produced using topographic maps derived from images acquired by NASA's Voyager spacecraft during its August 1989 flyby, 20 years ago this week.
Newly released images commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Voyager flyby of Neptune's moon Triton on Aug. 24, 2009.

Triton was the last solid object visited by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft as it headed toward the edges of our solar system.

Triton, Neptune's largest moon, is one of the "coolest" objects in the solar system, literally, with a surface temperature of minus 235 degrees Celsius (minus 391 degrees Fahrenheit). Voyager 2 discovered that Triton has active geysers.

The images and a movie show the moon's sparsely cratered surface with smooth volcanic plains, mounds and round pits formed by icy lava flows.
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Sun

Cygnus X-1: Still A "Star"


Space Daily / SPX
Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:30 UTC
Image
© NASA/CXC
Since its discovery 45 years ago, Cygnus X-1 has been one of the most intensively studied cosmic X-ray sources. About a decade after its discovery, Cygnus X-1 secured a place in the history of astronomy when a combination of X-ray and optical observations led to the conclusion that it was a black hole, the first such identification.

The Cygnus X-1 system consists of a black hole with a mass about 10 times that of the Sun in a close orbit with a blue supergiant star with a mass of about 20 Suns.

Gas flowing away from the supergiant in a fast stellar wind is focused by the black hole, and some of this gas forms a disk that spirals into the black hole. The gravitational energy release by this infalling gas powers the X-ray emission from Cygnus X-1.
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Telescope

Trifid Nebula Triple Threat


Space Daily / SPX
Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:26 UTC
Image
© ESOThe massive star factory known as the Trifid Nebula was captured in all its glory with the Wide-Field Imager camera attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. So named for the dark dust bands that trisect its glowing heart, the Trifid Nebula is a rare combination of three nebulae types that reveal the fury of freshly formed stars and point to more star birth in the future. The field of view of the image is approximately 12 x 16 arcminutes.
Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), of which the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council is a partner, have captured a stunning new image of the Trifid Nebula, showing just why it is a firm favorite of astronomers, amateur and professional alike.

This massive star factory is so named for the dark dust bands that trisect its glowing heart, and is a rare combination of three nebula types, revealing the fury of freshly formed stars and indicating more star birth.

Smoldering some 5,500 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the Trifid Nebula presents a compelling portrait of the early stages of a star's life, from gestation to first light. The heat and "winds" of newly ignited, volatile stars stir the Trifid's gas and dust-filled cauldron; in time, the dark tendrils of matter strewn throughout the area will themselves collapse and form new stars.

The French astronomer Charles Messier first observed the Trifid Nebula in June 1764, recording the hazy, glowing object as entry number 20 in his renowned catalogue. Observations made about 60 years later by John Herschel revealed the dust lanes that appear to divide the cosmic cloud into three lobes, inspiring the English astronomer to coin the name "Trifid".
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Question

Doctors Baffled, Intrigued by Girl Who Doesn't Age

Bob Brown
ABC News
Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:00 UTC

Years Pass, but Brooke Greenberg Remains a Toddler. No One Can Explain How or Why.

"Why doesn't she age?" Howard Greenberg, 52, asked of his daughter. "Is she the fountain of youth?"

Such questions are why scientists are fascinated by Brooke. Among the many documented instances of children who fail to grow or develop in some way, Brooke's case may be unique, according to her doctor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine pediatrician Lawrence Pakula, in Baltimore.

"Many of the best-known names in medicine, in their experience ... had not seen anyone who matched up to Brooke," Pakula said. "She is always a surprise."

Brooke hasn't aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke's body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why.
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Battery

Airport travellers get a robot chauffeur

MacGregor Campbell
New Scientist
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:31 UTC
Driverless, battery-powered pod-cars will soon zip passengers around part of London's Heathrow Airport. The manufacturers of the Ultra personal rapid transit (PRT) system say it is the world's first public transport to balance the convenience of a taxi with the efficiency of a bus or light rail - albeit only for business passengers arriving at the world's third busiest airport.

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Battery

An Intelligent System Helps Elderly Or Memory-impaired To Remember Everyday Tasks


Science Daily
Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:17 UTC
A team of researchers from the University of Granada (UGR) has created a system with Artificial Intelligence techniques which notifies elderly people or people with special needs of the forgetting of certain everyday tasks. This system uses sensors distributed in the environment in order to detect their actions and mobile devices which remind them, for example, to take their keys before they leave home.

An elderly lady is about to go to bed. She goes into her room, sits down on the bed, takes off her slippers and turns off the light. Suddenly, before getting into bed, a small alarm goes off and a mobile device reminds her that she has not taken her tablets.
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Magnify

Mutation Rate in Humans Measured by Direct Sequencing


Xinhua
Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:29 UTC
DNA
© Unknown
An international research team has reported the first direct measurement of the general rate of genetic mutation at individual DNA letters in humans.

The team, including 16 Chinese and British scientists, published its findings in the latest edition of the journal Current Biology.

"If we say the mutation drives human evolution as an ongoing train, now we finally get its speed measured," said Dr. Xue Yali, a Chinese scientist working in the British Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the first author of the team's research paper.

The team sequenced the same piece of DNA -- 10,000,000 or so letters or 'nucleotides' from the Y chromosome -- from two men separated by 13 generations, and counted the number of differences. Among all the nucleotides, they found only four mutations.
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Sherlock

Archaeologists Unearth 5,000-Year-Old "Cathedral" in Britian


Newspost Online
Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:00 UTC
A team of archaeologists has unearthed a Neolithic "cathedral" - a massive building of a kind never before seen in Britain, which go back nearly 5,000 years, easily predating the Egyptian pyramids.

According to a report in The Press and Journal, the "cathedral", at 82 ft long and 65 ft wide, is placed between two of Orkney's most famous Neolithic landmarks, the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness.

Even the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness would have seemed quite small in the presence of the cathedral-type building, which would have stood on the spot that has now been excavated.

Nick Card, from the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology, who is leading the dig, said the building was effectively a cathedral for the north of Scotland.
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Sherlock

Bulgaria Archaeologists find 14th Century Medallion with Christ


Sofia News Agency
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:00 UTC
Medallion
© Narodno DeloA unique medallion with Christ Pancrator was discovered by archaeologists near Varna.
Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered a unique glass medallion with Christ Pantocrator at the excavated fortress of Kastritsi near Varna.

The archaeological team is led by Valentin Pletnyov, head of the Varna Regional History Museum.

The medallion, which is dated back to the 14th century, the later period of the Second Bulgarian State (1186-1396), is an extremely rare find. It was discovered in the wooden floor of one of the large buildings in the fortress Kastritsi, which is close to the Euxinograd palace on the Black Sea coast.

Pletnyov said the medallion was made of copper enamel, i.e. a type of glass produced in Byzantium after the 13th century. The medallion has a diameter of 4 cm, and shows Christ Pantocrator holding the Gospel, and giving a blessing with his other hand. Nothing of this kind has ever been discovered in Bulgaria so far.
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