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Scientists map tapeworm DNA


Raw Story
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:47 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
Scientists said Wednesday they had unravelled the genetic code of the tapeworm, unearthing data that should lead to more efficient drugs against the dangerous intestinal parasite.

Tapeworms are among the first known parasites of humans, recorded by Hippocrates and Aristotle as long ago as 300 BC.

Published in the journal Nature, the research highlighted genetic similarities between tapeworms and cancer tumours.

The finding suggests existing cancer drugs that suppress cell division and prevent DNA replication point to a novel cure, which would save time and money in development, the authors said.

"These genome sequences are helping us to immediately identify new targets for much-needed drug treatment," Matthew Berriman of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said in a statement.
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Question

Mysterious gas in Titan's atmosphere

Sid Perkins
ScienceNow
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:40 UTC
Titan
© NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
A fluorescent glow high in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, signifies the presence of a gas that astronomers have yet to identify. Data gathered by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini craft during Titan flybys show that the spectral emission is strongest at an infrared wavelength of about 3.28 micrometers.

That wavelength is very near one where emissions of methane, a gas prevalent in Titan's atmosphere, are also strong - one reason that emissions from the unknown gas were previously obscured, the researchers note. The glow appears only on the daytime side of the moon at altitudes between 600 and 1250 kilometers, with the largest intensity occurring at an altitude of about 950 km, the team reports online and in a forthcoming issue of Geophysical Research Letters. (Although the gas is present throughout the atmosphere, it doesn't glow on the nighttime side of the moon because the fluorescence is produced only when sunlight strikes the gas molecules.)

Detailed analyses reveal that the glow doesn't stem from a problem with Cassini's sensors, and it isn't associated with methane or any of the other hydrocarbons already identified as constituents of Titan's atmosphere. The yet-to-be-identified compound may belong to groups of molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or heterocyclic aromatic compounds, the researchers suggest, because the 3.28-micrometer emission is characteristic of those substances, all of which contain ring-shaped arrangements of atoms as part of their overall structure.
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Mars

Mars Changes! Rocks indicate relatively recent 'marsquakes', volcanism on Red Planet


American Geophysical Union
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:36 UTC
Image
© HiRISE imageScientists have found evidence of relatively recent quakes on the surface of Mars by studying boulders that fell off cliffs, leaving tracks behind.
Images of a martian landscape offer evidence that the Red Planet's surface not only can shake like the surface of Earth, but has done so relatively recently. If marsquakes do indeed take place, said the scientists who analyzed the high-resolution images, our nearest planetary neighbor may still have active volcanism, which could help create conditions for liquid water.

With High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) imagery, the research team examined boulders along a fault system known as Cerberus Fossae, which cuts across a very young (few million years old) lava surface on Mars. By analyzing boulders that toppled from a martian cliff, some of which left trails in the coarse-grained soils, and comparing the patterns of dislodged rocks to such patterns caused by quakes on Earth, the scientists determined the rocks fell because of seismic activity. The martian patterns were not consistent with how boulders would scatter if they were deposited as ice melted, another means by which rocks are dispersed on Mars.

Gerald Roberts, an earthquake geologist with Birkbeck, an institution of the University of London, who led the study, said that the images of Mars included boulders that ranged from two to 20 meters (6.5 to 65 feet) in diameter, which had fallen in avalanches from cliffs. The size and number of boulders decreased over a radius of 100 kilometers (62 miles) centered at a point along the Cerberus Fossae faults.

Comment: Is our solar system being energised in some way? Something seems to be rocking and shaking all the planets from within...

Sulphur dioxide detected on Venus points to active volcanoes

"It's extremely unusual, as we can only see the vortex at infrared wavelengths" - Giant 'invisible' vortex still remains on Saturn following huge storm

Saturn's Rotation Observed to Slow Down, Instrumental Error Ruled Out

Uranus: The bizarre weather of a planet that was once thought to be rather placid

Solar system-wide 'climate change': Tally of Jupiter's moons goes up and down

Jupiter photos reveal big changes on giant planet

NASA scientists struggle to understand signs of massive climate shift on Jupiter as giant planet is bombarded with cometary debris

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Saturn

Closest Earth-like planet may be half as far as previously thought

David Ferguson
Raw Story
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:05 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
The closest rocky, Earth-like world could be as close as 6.5 to 7 light years away, according to new research. New Scientist magazine reported Tuesday that Penn State University astronomer Ravi Kopparapu's estimates put these types of potentially life-sustaining worlds half as distant from Earth as previously believed.

In February, Courtney Dressing and David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts announced their findings that the nearest Earth-like planet is probably orbiting a small red dwarf star at a distance of 13 or so light years from Earth. "Earth-like" means a small, rocky planet, rather than a gas giant like Saturn or Jupiter.

Using data gathered by NASA's Kepler telescope, Dressing and Charbonneau analyzed fluctuations in the light reaching Earth from nearby red stars. Planets passing between the stars and Earth cause the light from that star to waver.

Small planets create smaller disturbances in the light and are therefore harder to find, but the scientists were able to count 95 dim, red dwarf stars nearby which host possible planets, including three Earth-sized worlds located within the "habitable zone," meaning at enough distance from their respective suns to allow for the existence of liquid water.
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Telescope

Ancient Mars could have supported primitive life, NASA says

Mike Wall
Fox News
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 09:03 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPL-CALTECH/CORNELL/MSSSThis set of images shows the results from the rock abrasion tool from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity (left) and the drill from NASA's Curiosity rover (right). Note how the rock grindings from Opportunity are brownish red, indicating the presence of hematite, a strongly oxidized iron-bearing mineral.
It's official: Primitive life could have lived on ancient Mars, NASA says.

A sample of Mars drilled from a rock by NASA's Curiosity rover and then studied by onboard instruments "shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes," NASA officials announced Tuesday in a statement and press conference.

The discovery comes just seven months after the Curiosity rover landed on Mars to spend at least two years determining if the planet could have ever supported primitive life.

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."
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Fireball 4

Cardiff University astrobiologists find ancient fossils in Sri Lankan fireball fragments


Technology Review
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:09 UTC
Algae-like structures inside a Sri Lankan meteorite are clear evidence of panspermia, the idea that life exists throughout the universe, say astrobiologists.
Meteor fossil1

On 29 December 2012, a fireball lit up the early evening skies over the Sri Lankan province of Polonnaruwa. Hot, sparkling fragments of the fireball rained down across the countryside and witnesses reported the strong odour of tar or asphalt.

Over the next few days, the local police gathered numerous examples of these stones and sent them to the Sri Lankan Medical Research Institute of the Ministry of Health in Colombo. After noticing curious features inside these stones, officials forwarded the samples to a team of astrobiologists at Cardiff University in the UK for further analysis.

The results of these tests, which the Cardiff team reveal today, are extraordinary. They say the stones contain fossilised biological structures fused into the rock matrix and that their tests clearly rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination.
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Info

Extremely rare triple quasar found


EarthSky Org
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:53 UTC
For only the second time in history, a team of scientists have discovered an extremely rare triple quasar system.

For only the second time in history, a team of scientists including Michele Fumagalli from the Carnegie Institution for Science in the United States have discovered an extremely rare triple quasar system. Their work is published in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Quasars are extremely bright and powerful sources of energy that sit in the centre of a galaxy, surrounding a black hole. In systems with multiple quasars, the bodies are held together by gravity and are believed to be the product of galaxies colliding.

It is very difficult to observe triplet quasar systems, because of observational limits that prevent researchers from differentiating multiple nearby bodies from one another at astronomical distances. Moreover, such phenomena are presumed to be very rare.
Quasar
© Emanuele Paolo FarinaAn infrared image of the triple quasar system QQQ J1519+0627, made using the 3.5-m aperture telescope of the Calar Alto Observatory. The three quasars are labelled A, B and C.
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Heart

Predicting death in heart disease patients

Lee Rannals
RedOrbit
Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:08 UTC
Heart Disease
© Nonnakrit / Shutterstock
Researchers studying more than 3,500 patients with heart disease say the length of DNA strands can help predict life expectancy.

Scientists at the Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City presented a new study March 9 at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session in San Francisco, claiming they were able to predict survival rates among patients with heart disease.

The team said they used the length of strands of DNA found on the ends of chromosomes known as telomeres to determine whether someone had a greater chance of living a longer life or not.

Previous studies showed that telomere length can be used as a measurement of age, but these findings suggested that telomere length may also predict the life expectancy of patients with heart disease. The researchers from Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center decided to test this out.

As people get older, their telomeres get shorter, until the cell is no longer able to divide. A shortened telomere is associated with age-related diseases like heart disease or cancer, as well as exposures to oxidative damage from stress, smoking, air pollution, or conditions like accelerated biologic aging.
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Comet

Comet C/2013 A1 and its close approach to Mars

Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes
Remanzacco Observatory
Sun, 10 Mar 2013 15:15 UTC
The discovery of comet C/2013 A1 (SIDING SPRING) was announced on Cbet nr. 3368 & M.P.E.C. 2013-A14, issued on 2013, January 05. The comet was discovered on CCD images obtained by notable Australian observer R. H. McNaught with the 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt telescope a few days earlier on Jan. 03 (with a discovery magnitude 18.6). Precovery images of the comet *(images taken but not known/recorded of the comet) by the Catalina Sky Survey from 8 December 2012 and Pan-STARRS from 4 October 2012 were subsequently found and then used in an attempt to determine the orbit.

It has been noted that C/2013 A1 will have a very close approach with planet Mars on October 19, 2014. With an observation arc thus far of 148 days, JPL/NASA give a nominal closest approach of ~0.0003578 A.U. which is around 53,500 km on 2014 Oct. 19 at approximately 19:28UT +/- 1:03. The comet will pass Mars at a relative velocity of 56 km/s. Early estimates for the diameter of the nucleus have varied from 5 up to 50 km.

Due to the uncertainty within the orbital calculations, there is also a very small possibility that the comet may impact Mars (~ from 0.1% to 0.01% according to how you handle the observations thus far. See here for more info about this).

By comparison below you can find a table of the the closest known approaches to the Earth by comets published on Minor Planet Center website. This list is intended to be complete for comets discovered after 1700 that approached the earth to within 0.1020 AU. It also includes a number of well-documented earlier approaches by periodic comets. C/1491 B1 allegedly came to within 0.0094 AU on 1491 Feb. 20.0 TT, but the orbit of this comet is very uncertain.
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Attention

Facebook preferences predict personality traits

John Bohannon
ScienceNow
Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:00 UTC
Curly Fries
© Brand X Pictures/ThinkstockDiet of the clever? People with high IQs tend to "like" curly fries on Facebook, for reasons unknown.
Every day, millions of people click on Facebook "Like" buttons, boldly declaring their preferences for a variety of things, such as books, movies, and cat videos. But those "likes" may reveal more than they intend, such as sexual orientation, drug use, and religious affiliation, according to a study that analyzed the online behavior of thousands of volunteers.

Your preferences define you. Researchers have known for decades that people's personal attributes - gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, and personality type - correlate with their choice of products, concepts, and activities. Just consider the different populations at an opera and a NASCAR race. This is why companies are so eager to gather personal information about their consumers: Advertising is far more effective when it is targeted to groups of people who are more likely to be interested in a product.

The only aspect that has changed is the increasing proportion of personal information that is available as digital data on the Internet. And Facebook has become a major hub for such data through its like button. A team led by Michal Kosinski, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom as well as at Microsoft Research, wondered just how much people's likes reveal about them.
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