Science & TechnologyS


Sun

Exposure to sunlight in the morning tied to weight loss

Image
© 1ms.net
Light might make you a lightweight - in a good way. It's been known that bright light in the morning can reduce appetite and body weight. But that fact did not prove that light has a direct effect on weight. Early morning exposure to light could just be a marker for a regular sleep cycle, which is also associated with a healthy body weight.

The question was thus whether light exposure was associated with weight regardless of sleep patterns.

To find out, researchers had 54 adults record their diet and sleep for a week. The subjects also wore sensors that monitored the timing and intensity of their light exposure.

Satellite

Astronaut twins to participate in NASA space travel study

twin astronauts
© NBC NewsWire/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty ImagesMark Kelly (left) will stay on Earth while his brother, Scott Kelly, spends a year on the International Space Station. NASA will test how the environments affect them differently.
This month, NASA revealed new details of the plan to send humans to Mars by 2030. It's an elaborate and expensive mission, involving a giant deep-space rocket, and roping an asteroid into the moon's orbit to use as a stepping stone to Mars.

But there are still some serious questions about a manned expedition to Mars. Namely, is it safe? That's where astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly come in. The Kelly brothers are identical twins, and the only siblings ever to both fly in space.

Starting next March, Scott Kelly will spend a year at the International Space Station. While he's up there, he will be a part of some novel scientific experiments comparing his health to his brother's down on Earth.

Water

Water was flowing on Mars 200,000 years ago

Mars
© NASAMars
New research has suggested that water was flowing across the surface of Mars some 200,000 years ago. The nature of rock formations in a Mars crater suggests the sediment deposits and channels it contained were formed by 'recent' flowing water.

Swedish scientists from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Gothenburg identified"Very young ...and well-preserved deposits of water bearing debris flows in a mid-latitude crater on Mars,"according to the study published in the journal Icarus.

It was previously estimated that liquid water flowed across the Red Planet during its last 'ice-age', some 400,000 years ago. However, the young age of the crater means the features signifying water must have appeared since.

Magnify

California scientists go underground to monitor Hayward Fault - San Andreas Fault's sibling

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© ABC
Cutting a direct path through the East Bay hills, the Hayward Fault is the San Andreas Fault's less-celebrated sibling. Yet it's a seismic threat the U.S. Geological Survey has described as 'a tectonic time bomb' - ready to rupture - bringing devastation to the Bay Area.

Now, scientists at UC Berkeley hope to get a jump on the fault's next big move.

The last major quake on the Hayward Fault was in the mid-1800s, before the region became packed with properties worth an estimated $1.5 trillion.

The fault has been pretty quiet since that 6.8 magnitude event but, today, a shaker that strong could buckle Interstate 80, I-880 and partially collapse the Caldecott Tunnel - even damaging the supposedly quake-resilient new eastern span of the Bay Bridge.

Cell Phone

Nokia finalises Microsoft handset deal

Nokia
© GettyNokia will sell its handset business to Microsoft for a "slightly higher" price than the earlier quoted 5.44 billion euros.
The former Finnish telecom giant Nokia completed the sale to Microsoft of its once iconic handset business on Friday, leaving factories in India and Korea out of the deal.

The company said that the value of the transfer announced in September, would be "slightly higher" than the earlier quoted price of 5.44 billion euros ($NZ8.77 billion).

The final figure would be decided on the basis of "the verified balance sheet", it said in a statement.

The US software giant Microsoft agreed to exclude factories in Chennai in southern India and in South Korea.

Question

Unique mineral discovered In Australia

Putnisite
© P. Elliott et alPurple mineral - Crystals of putnisite, in purple.
A previously unknown mineral has been discovered in a remote location in Western Australia. The mineral, named putnisite, appears purple and translucent, and contains strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, a very unusual combination.

While dozens of new minerals are discovered each year, it is rare to find one that is unrelated to already-known substances. "Most minerals belong to a family or small group of related minerals, or if they aren't related to other minerals they often are to a synthetic compound--but putnisite is completely unique and unrelated to anything," said Peter Elliott, co-author of a study describing the new substance and a researcher at the South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide, in a statement. "Nature seems to be far cleverer at dreaming up new chemicals than any researcher in a laboratory."

It appears as tiny semi-cubic crystals and is often found within quartz. Putnisite is relatively soft, with a Mohs hardness of 1.5 to 2 (out of 10), comparable to gypsum, and brittle. It's unclear yet if the mineral could have any commercial applications.

Putnisite was discovered during prospecting for a mine at Lake Cowan in southwestern Australia, and is named after mineralogists Andrew and Christine Putnis. Mineral names are usually proposed by the discoverer, as in this case, but must be approved by the International Mineralogical Association.

Telescope

NASA's telescopes find coldest known brown dwarf

brown dwarf concept art
This artist's conception shows the object named WISE J085510.83-071442.5,
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered what appears to be the coldest "brown dwarf" known - a dim, star-like body that, surprisingly, is as frosty as Earth's North Pole.

Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object's distance to 7.2 light-years away, earning it the title for fourth closest system to our sun. The closest system, a trio of stars, is Alpha Centauri, at about 4 light-years away.

"It's very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close," said Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, University Park. "And given its extreme temperature, it should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures."

Comet

Comet PANSTARRS K1 swings by the Big Dipper this week, sprouts second tail

Comet C/2012 K1
© Rolando LigustriComet C/2012 K1 PANSTARRS displays two tails in this excellent image taken remotely with a telescope in New Mexico. The shorter, brighter spike is the dust tail; the longer is the ion tail with distinct kinks caused by interactions with the solar wind.
Comets often play hard to get. That's why we enjoy those rare opportunities when they pass close to naked eye stars. For a change, they're easy to find! That's exactly what happens in the coming nights when the moderately bright comet C/2012 K1 PANSTARRS slides past the end of the Big Dipper's handle. I hope Rolando Ligustri's beautiful photo, above, entices you roll out your telescope for a look.

Info

Spooky atmospheric 'teleconnections' link North and South Poles


Long-distance atmospheric connections between the North and South poles are linking weather and climate in distant parts of the globe, according to data from a NASA spacecraft.

These so-called "teleconnections" explain why the winter air temperature in Indianapolis, Ind., during the so-called polar vortex correlated with a reduction in high-altitude clouds over Antarctica, thousands of miles away, researchers say.

"Changes in the polar regions in the North were 'communicated' all the way over to the other side of the globe," said Cora Randall, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a member of the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft's science team.

Info

Gravitational lensing confirmed as source of super-luminous supernova

Type Ia Supernova
© Kavli IPMU Artist's conception of Type Ia Supernova.
Four years ago a team of scientists observed a supernova - PS1-10afx - shining brighter than any other in its class. Reporting the observation last year in the Astrophysics Journal Letters, University of Tokyo researchers said they had discovered the first Type Ia Supernova (SNIa) that exploded more than nine billion years ago.

Now, the same team of researchers, led by Robert Quimby, of the University of Tokyo's Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, said the exceptionally bright supernova they reported in 2013 is so luminous because a lens in the sky amplified its light. The discovery settles an important controversy in the field of astronomy.

"PS1-10afx is like nothing we have seen before," said Quimby.

Its exceptional glow was very puzzling, leading some to conclude it was a new type of extra-bright supernova, while others suggested it was a normal SNIa magnified by a lens in the form of a massive object, such as a nearby supermassive black hole.

"The team that discovered it," Quimby said, "proposed that it was a new type of supernova, one that no theory predicted."

The PS1-10afx supernova is 30 times brighter than any supernova found before it and the research team now say this SNIa is the first example of strong gravitational lensing of a supernova, confirming the team's previous explanation for the unusual properties of this supernova.

The team's research has further shown that such discoveries of SNIa can be made far more common than previously thought possible.