Science & TechnologyS


2 + 2 = 4

Oldest fossilized sperm found and it's enormous

Mussel-Shrimp Sperm Looks Like Angel-Hair Pasta
Image
© Renate Matzke-Karasz, Ludwig-Maximilian University and the Geo-Bio-Center
Paleontologists have just discovered the world's oldest-known petrified, fossilized sperm, according to a paper published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The sperm dates to at least 16 - 17 million years ago and was found in a near-perfect state of preservation. The researchers often use one word to describe it: "giant."

Beaker

Miracle material graphene can pose danger to the environment

graphene
© Northwestern University
The wonder stuff could damage the environment if it is let loose, experts have warned

Graphene has been hailed as a miracle material that many believe could revolutionise many industries, but it might have more dangerous side effects as it spreads into the environment, experts say.

Researchers have found that the graphene oxide, created when the material is exposed to air, moves easily through bodies of water. Researchers worry could lead to it easily finding its way into human bodies.

That is worrying because the effects of graphene in human bodies are unknown. One recent study at Brown University found that jagged edges of the material can easily pierce cell membranes, allowing it to enter cells and disrupt their functions.

"The situation today is similar to where we were with chemicals and pharmaceuticals 30 years ago," said Jacob D Lanphere, a graduate student who worked on the new paper studying graphene in water. "We just don't know much about what happens when these engineered nanomaterials get into the ground or water."

Graphene is expected to be used for new inventions including super-fast computers, taking the place of the non-toxic silicon. The very strong and thin material is made by slicing off atom-thick layers of carbon in a lab, but can also be made using a kitchen blender.

Info

New galaxy discovered in Leo constellation

Milky Way
© Wikimedia CommonsAn image of the Milky Way in the night sky above Paranal Observatory.
Astronomers from the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany and the Jagiellonian University in Poland have discovered a new galaxy in the constellation Leo, it was announced Tuesday.

The new galaxy, near the Milky Way, has emerged from the merger of two other galaxies, which makes it the closest recycled galaxy the researchers have observed so far. A report on the new discovery was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

With his Polish colleagues, Dominik Bomans from the Astronomical Institute at Ruhr examined a candidate for a dwarf galaxy in a nearby group of galaxies, the Leo Triplet in the constellation Leo.

Saturn

Mysterious 'spokes' in Saturn's Rings are still there

Saturn's Ring
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute The bright spokes in Saturn's darkest B ring appear as bright features that rotate with the planet's magnetic field.
There are many mysteries about the enigmatic ringed gas giant, but the curious mechanism behind Saturn's 'spokes' is one of the more intriguing puzzles. And in new observations from NASA's Cassini mission, these bright features seem to be persisting in Saturn's darkened B ring.

Observed first during the Voyager spacecraft flybys in the early 1980′s, it was realized that these strange features, which flare out like spokes on a bicycle wheel, were not caused by gravitational interactions with the planet, moons or ring material. Further observations were made by Cassini in 2005 when it was confirmed the spokes are likely related to the gas giant's global magnetic field.

The leading theory is that charged dust particles suspended above and below the rings are interacting with Saturn's magnetic field, causing the spokes to rotate with the planet's interior spin. They are also thought to be seasonal over Saturn's near-30 year solar orbit - they vanish during Saturn's midwinter and midwinter, only to reappear around the Saturnian equinox. As Saturn's northern hemisphere approaches summer solstice, astronomers predict the spokes will disappear.

This observation was taken when Cassini was zooming approximately 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) above Saturn's ring plane in October 2013.

Bomb

Scientists drill into 2000-year old virgin ice core in Antarctica for climate change snapshot

Antarctic ice core
© Tony Fleming / Australian Antarctic Division / AFP / Getty ImagesA scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division climate program extracts an ice core at the Aurora Basin drilling camp in Antarctica. The team successfully removed ice cores, some dating back 2,000 years, from the heart of Antarctica in a bid to measure how the Earth’s climate has evolved.
Researchers in Antarctica say they've captured a climate change "snapshot" by successfully drilling into the continent's ice cover to retrieve an ice core going back 2,000 years.

An international team of scientists from the United States, Australia, Germany, France, Denmark and China says the success of their Aurora Basin North project could be a step toward a "holy grail" of climate science, recovery of a core containing ice that's a million years old.

Drilling into some of Antarctica's thickest ice, in a region where it covers the continent in a sheet almost two miles thick, should yield the most precise record to date of the past climate of the area, the researchers say.

That data will come from analyzing atmospheric gases, chemical elements and particles contained in snow that fell on the region and was compacted into ice over thousands of years.

"Using a variety of scientific tests on each core, we'll be able to obtain information about the temperature under which the ice formed, storm events, solar and volcanic activity, sea ice extent, and the concentration of different atmospheric gases over time," project leader Mark Curran, a glaciologist with the Australian Antarctic Division, says.

Airplane Paper

China tests 3,000-kph 'super-Maglev' train concept

Maglev train
© Reuters / Ming MingMaglev train drives into terminal station in Shanghai
Chinese researchers at the Applied Superconductivity Laboratory of Southwest Jiaotong University claim their fast transportation concept based on magnetic levitation (Maglev) technology could potentially be three times faster than an airplane.

Maglev technology was first proposed in the mid-20th century. Nowadays, the Shanghai Maglev Train can reach speeds of over 430 kilometers (260 miles) per hour and is the world's fastest passenger-carrying train.

The "Super-Maglev" could, however, beat even that. Chinese researchers have been testing a concept train encapsulated in a vacuum tube, thus decreasing the speed limitations imposed by air resistance on regular Maglev trains.

Should the project be successful, the workable prototype will set the standard for the future evacuation tube transportation (ETT).

Solar Flares

Sibling sun found 110 light yrs from Earth in the constellation of Hercules

Sun
© AFP Photo / Fabrice Coffrini
The sun could have a sibling according to researchers at the University of Texas, who believe the star was born from the same cloud of gas as our sun. It is hoped this could give astronomers fresh insights into how life on earth started.

The study was conducted by astronomer Ivan Ramirez, based at the University of Texas, who says that the star is 110 light years away from Earth.

"We want to know where we were born," Ramirez said in a statement announcing his discovery. "If we can figure out in what part of the galaxy the sun formed, we can constrain conditions on the early solar system. That could help us understand why we are here."

The solar sibling, named HD 162826 by the team that made the discovery, is 15 percent larger than the sun and can be found in the constellation Hercules. It can be seen with the aid of binoculars and is not far from the bright star Vega.

Ramirez and his team studied 30 stars that other astronomers believed could be potential solar siblings. He managed to narrow down the list by analyzing the orbit and chemical make-up of each star. His team also included information about the stars' orbits, where they had been and where they are going in their paths around the center of the Milky Way. After taking all this data into account, they were able to pin point HD 162862 as the sun's sibling star.

Fireball 3

Did a cometary impact knock the Moon on its side?

Anomalies suggest the far side and pole weren't always where they are today.
moon
© serguei_30
We tend to think of the Moon as a static, dead world, with no atmosphere and no plate tectonics. But there are various signs the Moon has been active - volcanoes and indications of a magnetic field frozen in rocks. Impact craters that flooded with molten rock are also indications of more active periods in the Moon's history. Now, some researchers are suggesting that the residual magnetic fields contain hints that the Moon was once flipped on its side by a violent event.

All evidence indicates that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized body collided with the early Earth, leaving both in a molten state. This would have left the Moon with a sufficiently molten core that it should have generated a magnetic field for hundreds of millions of years. Remnants of that field should remain trapped in rocks that solidified while it was still in place and remain trapped there to this day.

Gingerbread

The science behind seeing Jesus in a piece of toast

jesus toast
© Karl Tate / ShutterstockJesus on toast? This image may be doctored, but a phenomenon called pareidolia regularly tricks people into seeing faces in burnt bread.
The man in the moon. Jesus in toast. The Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich. Faces are everywhere - even when they're not, strictly speaking, supposed to be.

Now, new research reveals the brain processes that underlie these facial false alarms, a phenomenon called "face pareidolia." The findings suggest that expectations matter. When people expect to see a face, these expectations may activate a brain region responsible for processing faces, the researchers report in the April issue of the journal Cortex.

Pareidolia is a well-known phenomenon, responsible for turning a rocky landform on Mars into a face and a water stain on a Chicago underpass into the Virgin Mary. Not all instances of pareidolia result in visions of faces. For example, in 2013, eagle-eyed Internet sleuths swore up and down that NASA's Curiosity Rover had caught a snapshot of a rat on Mars. [Seeing Things On Mars: A History of Martian Illusions]

Magnify

Researchers say lab mice anxiety toward male experimenters may have skewed years' worth of studies

Image
© Shutterstock
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada released a study Monday suggesting that an untold number of experiments involving lab mice were potentially compromised because of a disparity in the animals' reactions to men and women involved.

"People have not paid attention to this in the entire history of scientific research of animals," team leader Jeffrey Mogil told The Verge. "I think that it may have confounded, to whatever degree, some very large subset of existing research."

The study, published in the journal Nature Methods, found that when the animals were exposed to men during experiments, they exhibited signs of pain reduction associated with increased stress levels, as well as body temperature increases.