Science & TechnologyS


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Nasa Team Scours Moon Crash Data

Nasa scientists have been outlining their preliminary results after crashing two unmanned spacecraft into the Moon in a bid to detect water-ice.

A rocket stage slammed into the Moon's south pole at 1231 BST (0731 EDT).

Another craft followed just behind, looking for signs of water in debris kicked up by the first collision.

Instruments on the second spacecraft identified a flash from the initial impact as well as a crater, but the expected debris cloud was not evident.

The $79m (£49m; 53m euro) US space agency mission is known as LCROSS (the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite).

Book

Case Closed: Famous Royals Suffered From Hemophilia

Prince Alexei
© State Archives of the Russian FederationRoyal affliction. Prince Alexei bled frequently and for prolonged periods.
Queen Victoria's male descendants were cursed with poor health. The 19th century British monarch's son Leopold, Duke of Albany, died from blood loss after he slipped and fell. Her grandson Friedrich bled out at age 2; her grandsons Leopold and Maurice, at ages 32 and 23, respectively. The affliction, commonly known as the "Royal disease," spread as Victoria's heirs married into royal families across Europe, decimating the thrones of Britain, Germany, Russia, and Spain. Based on the symptoms, modern researchers concluded that the royals suffered from hemophilia--a genetic disease that prevents blood from clotting--but there was never any concrete evidence. Now, new DNA analysis on the bones of the last Russian royal family, the Romanovs, indicates the Royal disease was indeed hemophilia, a rare subtype known as hemophilia B.

Hemophilia prevents proteins known as fibrins from forming a scab over a cut or forming clots to stop internal bleeding. Even minor injuries can lead to bleeding, which lasts for days or weeks and can be fatal. The disease is recessive and is carried on the X chromosome, meaning that men are more likely to develop it, whereas women usually act as carriers and don't show symptoms.

Sherlock

Pre-Columbian Graves Found in Peru

Tombs
© Unknown
A team of archaeologists with Peru's National Institute of Culture, or INC, discovered a dozen graves and an equal number of pre-Columbian earthen enclosures at a complex located in an urban district of the ancient city of Cuzco, the official Andina news agency reported.

The discovery was made at an archaeological site known as Qata Ccasapata Llacta (a Quechua phrase that means village at the summit where it is cold). According to the report, people dedicated to serving the elite in Inca times lived at that satellite settlement.

The site is located in the northwestern part of that southeastern city, near a ravine and overlooking the Francisco Bolognesi housing community.

Also found at the same complex was an altar that may have served as a place of worship for the inhabitants of the village, archaeologist Carmen Concha Olivera told Andina.

One of the 12 graves was believed to be that of a important person because his skeletal remains were placed inside a large funerary urn along with 10 metal, ceramic and stone objects, Concha Olivera said.

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UK: Blind 7-Year-Old Boy Sees With His Ears

Murray
© Sarah MurrayLucas Murray, a 7-year-old from Dorset, England, uses a technique called echolocation to create pictures of his surroundings.
Humans Can Use Same Technique as Dolphins, Bats to Create Pictures With Sound

Born without sight, 7-year-old Lucas Murray used to be so afraid of walking he wouldn't take a step without his parents by his side.

"He would walk, but he would hold our hands. Always," said his mother, Sarah Murray of Dorset, England. "When he was younger, he wouldn't even walk on a bumpy surface."

But now Lucas has become more mobile than his parents ever imagined, running with friends, playing basketball and jumping on a trampoline -- all on his own.

The incredible change, his mother said, is owed to a technique called echolocation, similar to the method used by dolphins and bats, that allows Lucas to paint a picture of his surroundings using sound he creates himself.

Telescope

Proof! Probe Photos of Apollo Landing Sites Reveal to Doubters that Man DID Walk on the Moon

Ever since astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps on the Moon, there has been an adamant group of conspiracy theorists who claim the whole event was concocted in a film studio.

In 2002, a frustrated Mr Aldrin even punched a documentary maker who claimed the Moon missions were faked.

Now new photos taken by Nasa's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO) camera may settle the matter once and for all.

Telescope

Europa, Jupiter's Moon, Could Support Complex Life

Europa
© NASAEuropa, pictured above, may have enough oxygen to support complex, animal-like organisms, according to a new study.
Jupiter's moon Europa should have enough oxygen-rich water to support not only simple micro-organisms but also complex life, according to a University of Arizona researcher who studies ice flows on the frozen moon.

Judging by how quickly Europa's surface ice is replenished, Richard Greenberg estimates that enough oxygen reaches the subterranean ocean to sustain "macrofauna" -- more complex, animal-like organisms.

Assuming Europa life forms would need as much oxygen as Earth-like fish, Greenberg estimates the moon's ocean has enough oxygen to support 6.6 billion pounds of macrofauna.

A key question about whether Europa can support life has been whether its suspected buried ocean contains adequate levels of oxygen.

Arrow Down

Easter Island - Tourists Destroying 'Perfect Place'

Easter Island
© Unknown
Stepping off the plane, tourists are welcomed to Easter Island with a garland of flowers. They find themselves on a tiny dot in the Pacific Ocean, 3,700 kilometres west of Chile, to which the island belongs, and 2,000 kilometres east of Pitcairn Island. All around are the white-flecked waves of the Pacific. "What perfect peace," exclaimed Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer when he arrived in the mid-1950s.

He might not say so today. Some 70,000 visitors now arrive each year, up from just 14,000 in the mid-1990s. Apart from the island's utter remoteness, what attracts the tourists are the moai, the mysterious giant stone statues erected by the ancestors of the indigenous Rapa Nui people. They are a testament to a complex society of up to 20,000 people that later shrank to a shadow as a result of calamitous environmental stress and deforestation, a cautionary tale narrated in Collapse, a book by Jared Diamond, a polymath at the University of California.

Today, Easter Island once again faces environmental threats. Food comes from Chile, either by ship or on the seven weekly flights from Santiago (there are also two from Tahiti). The visitors "all pull the chain," Luz Zasso, the mayor, notes acidly. The absence of a sewage system is threatening the cleanliness of the island's underground water sources. But it would be hard to install one without damaging archaeological sites. Electricity comes from diesel-powered generators. Power cuts are frequent. Trash is piling up.

Info

New Virtual Museum Exhibit Launched

OSS
© Natural MuseumOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) officers training in Prince William Forest Park during WWII.
A new online exhibit showcases the compelling stories of Prince William Forest Park, a 15,000-acre woodland where nature and history unite.

Over the centuries, people worked and lived off this forested landscape and called it home. From the 1880s, for 40 years, men and young children toiled in Cabin Branch Pyrite Mine and worked their small farms for sustenance.

In 1936, with the Great Depression and the mine closure, the Roosevelt Administration established the Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area. Over 2,000 Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees constructed roads, dams, and cabins. These housed generations of happy American children escaping from the harsh realities of a city-bound childhood.

In the 1940s, the camps were used to train spies of the Office of Strategic Services, later the Central Intelligence Agency, who were sent behind enemy lines during World War II.

Sherlock

A Third of Dinosaur Species Never Existed?

T Rex
© NGCMany fossils of young dinosaurs, including T. rex relatives (above, a computer-generated image of a young T. rex), have been misidentified as unique species, paleontologists said in October 2009.
Many dinosaurs may be facing a new kind of extinction - a controversial theory suggests as many as a third of all known dinosaur species never existed in the first place.

That's because young dinosaurs didn't look like Mini-Me versions of their parents, according to new analyses by paleontologists Mark Goodwin, University of California, Berkeley, and Jack Horner, of Montana State University.

Instead, like birds and some other living animals, the juveniles went through dramatic physical changes during adulthood.

This means many fossils of young dinosaurs, including T. rex relatives, have been misidentified as unique species, the researchers argue.

Attention

Indus Script Linguistically Dravidian: Expert Reports

The Indus script is Dravidian linguistically and culturally closer to the old Tamil polity than what has been recognised so far, eminent epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan has said.

He shared some of his recent and still-not-fully-published findings relating to the interpretation of the Indus script, in an endowment lecture on 'Vestiges of Indus Civilisation in Old Tamil' at the 16th annual session of the Tamil Nadu History Congress, which opened here on Friday.

Mr. Mahadevan said that though the claim could be met with incredulity, the evidence he had gathered over four decades of intensive study of the sources - the Indus texts and old Tamil anthologies - had led him to the conclusion.