Saturday, July 25, 2009
Apollo 11 Experiment Still Going After 40 Years
From Yahoo News/Space:
The Apollo 11 astronauts returned from the moon 40 years ago today, but they left behind more than footprints. An experiment they placed on the moon's surface is still running to this day.
The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment is the only moon investigation to continuously operate since the Apollo 11 mission. The experiment studies the Earth-Moon system and beams the data to labs around the world, including NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
"Yes, we are still going," said James Williams, a JPL scientist involved with the experiment, in an e-mail interview.
Read more ....
Is the Sun Missing Its Spots?
SUN GAZING These photos show sunspots near solar maximum on July 19, 2000, and near solar minimum on March 18, 2009. Some global warming skeptics speculate that the Sun may be on the verge of an extended slumber. NASAFrom The New York Times:
The Sun is still blank (mostly).
Ever since Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, a German astronomer, first noted in 1843 that sunspots burgeon and wane over a roughly 11-year cycle, scientists have carefully watched the Sun’s activity. In the latest lull, the Sun should have reached its calmest, least pockmarked state last fall.
Indeed, last year marked the blankest year of the Sun in the last half-century — 266 days with not a single sunspot visible from Earth. Then, in the first four months of 2009, the Sun became even more blank, the pace of sunspots slowing more.
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Friday, July 24, 2009
Alien-Wasp Swarms Devouring Birds, Bugs in Hawaii
Invasive western yellowjacket wasps in Hawaii (above, a wasp eats an unidentified insect near another wasp) are munching their way through an "astonishing diversity" of creatures, from caterpillars to ring-necked pheasants, a July 2009 study says. The voracious wasps, which have exploded in their new habitat, can wipe out whole swaths of prey insects surrounding their nests. Photograph courtesy Erin Wilson From National Geographic:
Attacking from nests as big as pickup-truck beds, invasive western yellowjacket wasps in Hawaii are munching their way through an "astonishing diversity" of creatures, from caterpillars to pheasants, a new study says.
Adult yellowjackets consume only nectar. But they kill or scavenge prey to deliver needed protein to their growing broods.
Read more ....
Nasa Finds Monster Black Hole Sucking Up Gas, Dust And Stars At Centre Of Galaxy
The galaxy NGC-1097 with a monstrous black hole surrounded by a ring of stars at its centrePhoto: REUTERS / NASA
From The Telegraph:
Nasa has found a monster black hole 100 million times the mass of the Sun feeding off gas, dust and stars at the centre of a galaxy 50 million light-years away.
The star-ringed black hole forms the eye of a galaxy called NGC-1097 which was photographed by the US space agency's Spitzer Space Telescope in California.
A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational pull is so powerful that nothing, including whole planets, can escape being sucked in if they come within its reach.
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Sensational Collection Of Satellite Images Captures Earth's Natural Wonders From Space
This image shows how dust from the Sahara desert blew all the way over the British IslesFrom The Daily Mail:
For decades, man has gazed up at the stars and marvelled at the wonders of the universe.
But, as this amazing selection of images shows, there are many mind-blowing sights to behold from the other direction.
Pictures taken by astronauts and Nasa satellites give a fascinating bird's-eye view of Earth's natural wonders - including hurricanes, volcanoes and other powerful weather formations - from space.
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What NASA's Return To The Moon May Look Like
To explore the lunar surface, NASA envisions a pressurised rover that will act as a mobile habitat, allowing astronauts to explore the lunar surface for weeks at a time without returning to their base. If supply depots are scattered along the way, these rovers could potentially have a range of hundreds of kilometres. (Image: Regan Geeseman)From New Scientist:
The Apollo era may have ended as funding fizzled, and the programme's astronauts may be bigger fans of Mars, but the hope of returning to the moon never really went away.
Twenty years ago, on the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, then-President George H. W. Bush proposed that the US build a base on the moon and send an expedition to Mars. The call fell flat with Congress, which never provided the funding to back up the plan.
But a decade and a half later, his son, President George W. Bush, articulated a similar vision with a clear deadline – an aim to return humans to the moon by 2020, as a stepping-stone on the way to Mars.
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Wireless Power System Shown Off
From BBC:
A system that can deliver power to devices without the need for wires has been shown off at a hi-tech conference.
The technique exploits simple physics and can be used to charge a range of electronic devices over many metres.
Eric Giler, chief executive of US firm Witricity, showed mobile phones and televisions charging wirelessly at the TED Global conference in Oxford.
He said the system could replace the miles of expensive power cables and billions of disposable batteries.
Read more ....
China Announces First Panda From Frozen Sperm
From Yahoo News/AP:
BEIJING – China announced the first successful birth of a panda cub from artificial insemination using frozen sperm, giving a new option for the notoriously poor breeders, officials said Friday.
Panda females have only three days a year in which they can conceive — one reason their species is endangered.
Female panda You You (pronounced Yo Yo) gave birth to the new cub Thursday morning at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in southwestern Sichuan. It is You You's third baby, and the 10th panda cub born at Wolong this year.
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Auroras In Northern And Southern Hemispheres Are Not Identical
Asymmetric aurora. (Credit: Polar VIS Earth (J. B. Sigwarth) and IMAGE WIC (S. B. Mende))From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (July 24, 2009) — Norwegian researchers have shown that the auroras in the Northern and the Southern hemispheres can be totally asymmetric. These findings contradict the commonly made assumption of aurora being mirror images of each other.
The study was performed by PhD student Karl Magnus Laundal and professor Nikolai Østgaard at the Institute of Physics and Technology at the University of Bergen.
Read more ....
Money Relieves Pain
Money dulls physical pain and eases the sting of rejection, new research shows.From Live Science:
Money dulls physical pain and eases the sting of social rejection, new research shows.
Through six experiments, psychologists and a marketing professor probed the power of money as a proxy for social acceptance. Among their results, they found that merely touching bills or thinking about expenses paid affected the participants both physically and emotionally.
Because it affects pain, money may be a clue to how the brain evolved to process social interactions, the researchers wrote in a paper published in the June edition of the journal Psychological Science.
Read more ....
My Comment: And a lack of money causes a lot of pain and grief. Tell me sonething that I do not know.
New NASA Administrator Delays Ares Launch, Decries "Path We Are On"
Bolden Looks Ahead: NASA administrator Charles Bolden testifies at his confirmation hearing before the Senate on July 8, 2009. NASA/Bill Ingalls From Popsci.com:
Charlie Bolden rips off the Spock mask, and the space agency delays its new rocket test until Halloween
Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin once likened himself to Spock in his rational, emotionally-detached approach. Now Griffin's replacement, Charles Bolden, seems ready to inject new passion into a space agency that is struggling to reevaluate both long term goals and its vision for space exploration.
The new administrator choked up five times during a speech to agency employees on Tuesday where he pushed back against criticism that President Obama is uncommitted to space exploration, according to the Washington Post. Part of that emotional upwelling came as Bolden described meeting with the Apollo 11 astronauts on the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing.
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100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
From Geek Dad/Wired Science:
There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks.
That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias …
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CSI Stone Age: Did Humans Kill Neanderthals?
A painting imagines the world of Neanderthal menMansell / Time Life Pictures / Getty
From Time Magazine:
It is one of the world's oldest cold cases. Sometime between 50,000 and 75,000 years ago, a Neanderthal male known to scientists as Shanidar 3 received a wound to his torso, limped back to his cave in what is now Iraq and died several weeks later. When his skeleton was pieced together in the late 1950s and early '60s, scientists were stumped by a rib wound that almost surely killed him, hypothesizing that it could have been caused by a hunting accident or even a fellow Neanderthal. New research suggests that Shanidar 3 may have had a more familiar killer: a human being.
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Historic Snow Event In South America
In Bahia Blanca, a coastal city in the Southern part of the Buenos Aires, the snow storm is heavy and local authorities describe it as the worst snow event in 50 years. Roads are already blocked by snow and ice in the regional. TN news channel reports some areas of the Sierra de La Ventana could pick up even 3 feet of snow, unimaginable to the region.From Watts Up With That:
Early this Wednesday afternoon, satellite pictures were showing a band of clouds advancing to the North and snow precipitation could no be ruled out in the capital Buenos Aires. In July 9th and 10th 2007 it snowed in the city of Buenos Aires for the first time in 89 years and it could snow again just two years later. Snow was also reported in the capital of Chile Santiago. MetSul Weather Center is not ruling out snow also in Uruguay.
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Thursday, July 23, 2009
New Discovery Suggests Trees Evolved Camouflage Defense Against Long Extinct Predator
Pseudopanax crassifolius, adult foliage and developing fruit, Mangaweka, Central North Island, New Zealand. The Araliaceae tree has several defences which researchers suggest are linked to the historic presence of moa. Seedlings produce small narrow leaves, which appear mottled to the human eye. Saplings meanwhile produce larger, more elongated leaves with thorn-like dentitions. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain Image)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (July 23, 2009) — Many animal species such as snakes, insects and fish have evolved camouflage defences to deter attack from their predators. However research published in New Phytologist has discovered that trees in New Zealand have evolved a similar defence to protect themselves from extinct giant birds, providing the first evidence of this strategy in plant life.
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Far-Out Photo: Sunrise in Space
This sunrise was photographed with a handheld camera by astronauts during space shuttle mission STS-127 on July 17, 2009. Credit: NASAFrom Live Science:
Astronauts orbiting Earth see a lot more sunrises and sunsets that those of us stranded on the surface. They circle the planet every 90 minutes, and the sun just keeps coming.
A new picture of a sunrise from space was taken with a handheld camera by astronauts Friday on the day the Space Shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station during shuttle mission STS-127.
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The Business Of Personal Genomes
Image: Genomic profile: Shown here is a close-up look at a genetic sequence done by Knome, a personal genomics startup in Cambridge, MA. The image shows a chromosome (top) and the letter-by-letter sequence (bottom) in a small section of that chromosome. The pink box highlights a specific genetic variation. Credit: Knome From Technology Review:
Jorge Conde speaks on the complexities of personal genomics.
In some ways, Jorge Conde, cofounder of the genomics startup Knome, knows his clients more intimately than any other company president. Knome is the first company to sequence and analyze a consumer's complete genome. And Conde and his team have spent a full day with each member of their select clientele, going through the minute details of the results in search of hidden genomic time bombs, subtle health risks, and other information.
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Living, Breeding Mice Grown From Skin Cells
From Wired Science:
Cells from flakes of skin have grown into living, breeding mice, through a bit of biotechnological wizardry.
This feat helps confirm that reprogrammed adult cells, considered a potentially convenient source of stem cell therapies, share the shape-changing powers of embryonic stem cells.
The goal was to create an animal made entirely from reprogrammed cells, and to confirm that reprogrammed cells “are as good as embryonic stem cells,” said Beijing National Stem Cell Bank director Qi Zhou, co-author of the study published Thursday in Nature.
Read more ....
Circus Performer's Flight Preview Steals NASA Show
In this image provided by NASA the Japanese Logistics Module is handed over from Endeavour's remote manipulator system to the space station's remote manipulator system during unberthing and mating operations Tuesday July 21, 2009. (AP Photo/NASA)From Yahoo News/AP:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A former stiltwalker and fire-eater stole NASA's show Thursday, saying he'll be "like a kid in a candy store" experimenting with zero-gravity tricks on his upcoming tourist trip to the international space station.
Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte is shelling out a reported $35 million for his round-trip ticket aboard a Russian spacecraft. He will rocket into orbit from Kazakhstan at the end of September with a professional astronaut and cosmonaut, and spend more than a week at the space station.
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The Cost Of Maintaning The Climate Industry -- A Commentary
Government Monopsony Distorts Climate Science, says SPPI -- Trans World NewsThe climate industry is costing taxpayers $79 billion and counting.
The Science and Public Policy Institute announces the publication of Climate Money, a study by Joanne Nova revealing that the federal Government has a near-monopsony on climate science funding. This distorts the science towards self-serving alarmism. Key findings:
The US Government has spent more than $79 billion of taxpayers’ money since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, propaganda campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks. Most of this spending was unnecessary.
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Testing Relativity, Black Holes And Strange Attractors In The Laboratory
Through the optical-mechanical analogy, metamaterials and other advanced optical materials can be used to study such celestial phenomena as black holes, strange attractors and gravitational lenses. Here an air-GaInAsP metamaterial mimics a photon-sphere, one of the key black hole phenomena in its interactions with light. (Credit: Xiang Zhang)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (July 22, 2009) — Even Albert Einstein might have been impressed. His theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of a massive object, such as a star, can curve space and time, has been successfully used to predict such astronomical observations as the bending of starlight by the sun, small shifts in the orbit of the planet Mercury and the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Now, however, it may soon be possible to study the effects of general relativity in bench-top laboratory experiments.
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Could Extinct Animals Be Resurrected From Frozen Samples?
Julie Feinstein, a collection manager at the American Museum of Natural History, removes frozen animal tissue samples from a vat. The museum will store samples from endangered species in national parks. Credit: R. Mickens/AMNHFrom Live Science:
Futurists have proposed that extinct animals could be resurrected some day via cloning of their DNA extracted from bone or frozen tissue.
There is little agreement on this, but a new project to store tiny samples of tissue from endangered animals at New York's natural history museum again prompts questions on whether this approach might be insurance against extinction, not just a valuable data repository for biologists.
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Language Learning Deciphered
A 9-month-old Finnish girl listend to the sounds of English, Finnish and Mandarin Chinese while in a MEG machine. New research shows just how children's brains can become bilingual so easily, and scientists are trying to turn those findings into technology that helps adults learn a new language a bit easier. (AP/University of Washington)From Stltoday:
WASHINGTON -- The best time to learn a foreign language: Between birth and age 7. Missed that window?
New research is showing just how children's brains can become bilingual so easily, findings that scientists hope eventually could help the rest of us learn a new language a bit easier.
"We think the magic that kids apply to this learning situation, some of the principles, can be imported into learning programs for adults," says Dr. Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, who is part of an international team now trying to turn those lessons into more teachable technology.
Read more ....
Hawaii Chosen To Host World's Largest Telescope
From RIA Novosti:MOSCOW, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - The world's largest telescope, which could offer a glimpse into the beginning of the universe, will be built on top of the dormant Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii, a consortium of U.S. and Canadian universities has announced.
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), named for the diameter of its primary mirror, will be able to detect light that has taken 13 billion years to reach the Earth, effectively allowing scientists to see pictures of the past, such as how stars and galaxies were formed in the early years of the universe.
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Gates Puts Feynman Lectures Online
From New York Times:
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates believes that if he had been able to watch physicist Richard Feynman lecture on physics in 1964 his life might have played out differently.
Mr. Gates, of course, is legendary as a Harvard University dropout who went on to create the world’s most successful software firm. He has told associates that if had watched the lectures earlier in his life he might have become a physicist instead of a software entrepreneur.
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Astronauts Cut Spacewalk Short Due To Suit Trouble
In this image from NASA television, Endeavour astronaut Christopher Cassidy makes his way around the space station during a spacewalk to replace four nickel-hydrogen batteries Wednesday, July 22, 2009. (AP Photo/NASA TV)From The AP:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Two astronauts cut short their spacewalk and hurried back to the safety of the international space station on Wednesday after a suit problem resulted in rising carbon dioxide levels for one of the men.
NASA officials stressed that spacewalker Christopher Cassidy was never in any danger and experienced no symptoms of carbon dioxide buildup.
The trouble cropped up late in Wednesday's spacewalk, the third for shuttle Endeavour's crew.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Lighting Revolution Forecast By Top Scientist
In search of the 60 - year household light bulb - packaged green LEDs on InGaN multiple quantum well devices grown at Cambridge University. (Credit: Image courtesy of AlphaGalileo Foundation)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (July 22, 2009) — New developments in a substance which emits brilliant light could lead to a revolution in lighting for the home and office in five years, claims a leading UK materials scientist, Professor Colin Humphreys of Cambridge University. The source of the huge potential he foresees, gallium nitride (GaN), is already used for some lighting applications such as camera flashes, bicycle lights, mobile phones and interior lighting for buses, trains and planes.
But making it possible to use GaN for home and office lighting is the Holy Grail. If achieved, it could reduce the typical electricity consumption for lighting of a developed country by around 75% while delivering major cuts in carbon dioxide emissions from power stations, and preserving fossil fuel reserves.
Read more ....
Scramjets Promise Space Travel For All
Business-class return to space, please (Image:NASA)From New Scientist:
ON A bright autumn morning five years ago, the space-flight community was turned on its head by a little teardrop-shaped spacecraft built in a small workshop in California's Mojave desert. The successful flight of SpaceShipOne on 29 September 2004, the first of two flights en route to winning the $10 million Ansari X prize, seemed to usher in a new era of space travel - one in which space flight would be affordable, frequent and, perhaps most importantly, accessible to all.
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Massive New Zealand Quake Moves Country West
From Yahoo News/AP:
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Southern New Zealand has moved slightly closer to the east coast of neighboring Australia as a result of a massive earthquake last week off the country's South Island, a scientist said Wednesday.
The magnitude 7.8 quake, centered in the ocean near Resolution Island in the country's Fiordland region, twisted South Island out of shape and moved its southern tip 12 inches (30 centimeters) closer to Australia, seismologist Ken Gledhill said.
Gledhill, director of government-owned GNS Science's "GeoNet" national earthquake monitoring project, said the island's geographic shift showed the immensity of the forces involved.
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John S. Barry, Main Force Behind WD-40, Dies at 84
From CNBC:John S. Barry, an executive who masterminded the spread of WD-40, the petroleum-based lubricant and protectant created for the space program, into millions of American households, died on July 3 in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego. He was 84.
The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease, said Garry Ridge, president and chief executive of the WD-40 Company.
The company says surveys show that WD-40, the slippery stuff in the blue and yellow aerosol can, can be found in as many as 80 percent of American homes and that it has at least 2,000 uses, most discovered by users themselves. These include silencing squeaky hinges, removing road tar from automobiles and protecting tools from rust.
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Unsung Heroes Save Net From Chaos
The same social structures that drive Wikipedia also keep the net healthyFrom BBC:
Crack teams of volunteers keep the net online and functioning, according to leading internet lawyer Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard University.
The way data is divided up and sent around the internet in many jumps makes it "delicate and vulnerable" to attacks or mistakes, he said.
However, he added, the "random acts of kindness" of these unsung heroes quietly keep the net in working order.
Professor Zittrain's comments came at the TED Global conference in Oxford.
Incidents such as when the Pakistan government took YouTube offline in 2008 exposed the web's underlying fragility, he explained.
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For Scientists, Moon Rocks Tell Story Of A Young Earth
From Philadelphia Inquirer:For 40 years, the rocks hauled back from the moon have been changing the history of the Earth as we knew it.
The lunar rocks suggest that a smaller planet slammed into ours 4.5 billion years ago, creating the moon and enlarging the Earth. They tell the tale of a storm of space debris violently pounding both the Earth and moon, perhaps triggered by a dramatic reshuffling of the entire solar system.
Scientists today are still studying those rocks, hoping to decipher whether life had already emerged before the near-apocalyptic pummeling 3.9 billion years ago - and, incredibly, survived.
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Scientists Capitalize On Extended Solar Eclipse
On Wednesday, 2009 July 22, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half of Earth. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in India and crosses through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reaches 6 min 39 s. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean. (Credit: F. Espenak / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (July 22, 2009) — Scientists at an observatory outside Hangzhou joined residents and tourists across China and India in observing the longest total solar eclipse in a century and probably the most-viewed ever.
The moon's shadow traced a path across the world's two most populous countries before racing across the Pacific, providing a view of totality for five minutes and 36 seconds for scientists gathered here from around the world as part of the Williams College Eclipse Expedition.
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Human Stabbed A Neanderthal, Evidence Suggests
Steven Churchill of Duke University is holding a replica of a Neanderthal-type spear (left hand) and a spear thrower and dart (right hand) that would have been similar to weapons used by early modern humans tens of thousands of years ago. Credit: Duke Photo by Les Todd.From Live Science:
Newly analyzed remains suggest that a modern human killed a Neanderthal man in what is now Iraq between 50,000 and 75,000 years ago. The finding is scant but tantalizing evidence for a theory that modern humans helped to kill off the Neanderthals.
The probable weapon of choice: A thrown spear.
The evidence: A lethal wound on the remains of a Neanderthal skeleton.
The victim: A 40- to 50-year-old male, now called Shanidar 3, with signs of arthritis and a sharp, deep slice in his left ninth rib.
Read more ....
My Comment: I am skeptical that one can say that it was a "human" who did it .... but it is still intriguing.
Made In China: The Monster Dust Cloud That Completed A Full Circle Of The Globe In Just Thirteen Days
Phenomenal: An enormous dust cyclone swirls over northeastern ChinaFrom The Daily Mail:
It was a natural phenomenon that would have tested the limits of even Mr Muscle.
Scientists in Japan have found that clouds generated by a massive dust storm in China's Taklimakan desert in 2007 completed more than one full circle around the planet in just 13 days.
And measuring around 1.9 miles vertically and up to 1,242 miles horizontally, the dust cloud - which formed in the northwestern region of Xinjiang - stayed in that formation the whole way.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1201213/Made-China-The-monster-dust-cloud-completed-circle-globe-just-thirteen-days.html#ixzz0LzeVp8N7
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How To Use Your iMac As A Second Screen
The 17in iMac on display at Macworld 2002 in New York.(Photograph by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
From Popular Mechanics:
Can you use your iMac's built-in monitor as a second screen for another computer? The answer is yes. Here's how.
Q:
My iMac has a built-in monitor. Is there a way of using this as a second screen for another computer?
A:
When it comes to screen space, you can never go overboard. Large monitor and multiscreen set-ups make it easy to multitask, and have been shown by a number of studies to boost productivity. It’s a shame, then, that Apple doesn’t build video input jacks into its iMacs—these all-in-one computers have a built-in monitor, and it’d be nice to be able to use it with other systems. This would be particularly useful for laptop users looking for a way to expand screen space when they aren’t on the road.
But even without an input jack, you can still put an iMac to work as an external monitor for another computer. You’ll need a program called ScreenRecycler, which employs what is called the VNC, or Virtual Network Computing, protocol. VNC is usually used as a way to allow one computer to remotely access and control another, but ScreenRecycler uses it to turn the second computer into an adjunct monitor. Note, though, that while the second screen can come from any type of computer (even a laptop), the computer you’re working on has to be a Mac.
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A Reprogrammable Space Probe Design For Mission Multitasking in Orbit
The Juno Space Probe: Honest to blog courtesy of NASA From Popsci.com:
Multi-purpose hardware lets Japanese satellite change its mission on the fly.
Right now, thousands of satellites are circling the Earth. They're a diverse bunch. Some relay telephone calls, some spy on North Korea, some monitor the weather. But they all have one thing in common: each can only do one thing. A spy satellite can't suddenly start forecasting storms, and a communications satellite can't study asteroids.
Well, that's all about to change.
Researchers at the Institute of Space Systems at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, have designed a variable-function satellite that can alter its mission on the fly.
Read more ....
Thinkers Meet To Plot The Future
From BBC:Leading thinkers in technology, design and science are gathering in Oxford to share their ideas about the future.
TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is the European cousin of an already established top US event.
The invitation-only conferences are dedicated to "ideas worth spreading" and have seen talks by former US presidents and Nobel Laureates.
This year's event will explore questions in neuroscience, astrophysics and economics.
"It is about all the hidden, invisible, not yet discovered or fully explored parts of our lives, society and the world," said Bruno Giussani, European director of TED.
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Tuesday, July 21, 2009
How Do You Sneeze In A Spacesuit? Very Carefully
In this 19 July 2009 photo provided by NASA shows Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette float onto the mid deck of the space shuttle Endeavour, where she joins astronaut Dave Wolf, who makes an entry on a laptop computer. The two STS-127 mission specialists are part of a seven member shuttle crew currently visiting the International Space Station, which is now docked with the shuttle. (AP Photo/NASA)From Yahoo News/AP:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – When it comes to sneezing in a spacesuit while in the void of space, it is best to aim well.
That's the advice lead spacewalker David Wolf offered Tuesday while answering one of the questions posted on YouTube for the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor.
"I've done it quite a few times, most recently yesterday," said Wolf, who led the mission's second spacewalk Monday and was set to go on a third spacewalk Wednesday. "You learn in training, and I don't know how to say this, aim well. It can mess up your view and there is no way to clear it."
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Everest Revealed From Above In British Balloonist's Breathtaking Panoramic Shot Of World's Highest Peaks
(Click Image to Enlarge)'Best snap on Earth': Everest dominates the picture, shot from 36,000ft and in -56C temperatures by Leo Dickinson on the world's first-ever balloon flight over the highest mountain. The curvature of the planet is exaggerated by the wide-angle lens
From The Daily Mail:
This awe-inspiring photograph captures the majesty of Mount Everest as you've never seen it before - from more than a mile above.
The spectacular panorama shows the breathtaking landscape of the Himalayas from six miles above sea level.
It was shot by an intrepid British photographer wearing breathing apparatus in -56C temperatures 36,000 feet up.
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10 Reasons Why Apollo 11 Moon Landing Was Awesome
From Wired News/Geek Dad:Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Forty years ago mission commander Neil A. Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr. walked on the moon while command module pilot Michael Collins orbited above. Today however, marks the 40th anniversary of the day people really reacted to what just happened. As with all major events in time, there is always a day of reflection. I’d like to honor that day of reflection with my top 10 thoughts about the Apollo 11 moon landing.
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Eclipse Of The Century Live Online Tonight
From Wired Science:
The century’s most dramatic solar eclipse will be visible along a narrow swath of Asia and the Pacific Ocean later today. And, thanks to some University of North Dakota researchers, it’ll be visible on the internet, too. The live webcast begins at 5:15 p.m. Pacific time.
The eclipse will last six minutes and 39 seconds, which is near the theoretical maximum duration for a solar eclipse of seven minutes and 31 seconds. For everyone except Ray Kurzweil and the other singulatarians, this will be the longest eclipse of our lifetimes. The Earth won’t see an eclipse this long until June 13, 2132.
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Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain
In the human brain the left hemisphere controls language, the dexterity of the right hand, the ability to classify, and routine behavior in general. The right hemisphere specializes in reacting to emergencies, organizing items spatially, recognizing faces and processing emotions.Photoillustration by TWIST CREATIVE; MedicalRF.com Corbis (brain); Medioimages Getty Images (calculator); Joerg Steffens Corbis (faces); Westend61 Corbis (woman smiling); Dougal Waters Getty Images (ballerina); Mike Kemp Getty Images (rattlesnake); C Squared Studios Getty Images (palette); Vladimir Godnik Getty Images (paintbrushes); Carrie Boretz Corbis (girls whispering); Robert Llewellyn Corbis (calipers)
From Scientific American:
The division of labor by the two cerebral hemispheres—once thought to be uniquely human—predates us by half a billion years. Speech, right-handedness, facial recognition and the processing of spatial relations can be traced to brain asymmetries in early vertebrates
The left hemisphere of the human brain controls language, arguably our greatest mental attribute. It also controls the remarkable dexterity of the human right hand. The right hemisphere is dominant in the control of, among other things, our sense of how objects interrelate in space. Forty years ago the broad scientific consensus held that, in addition to language, right-handedness and the specialization of just one side of the brain for processing spatial relations occur in humans alone. Other animals, it was thought, have no hemispheric specializations of any kind.
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China Dust Cloud Circled Globe In 13 days
People ride amid sandstorms in Turpan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region May 26, 2009.REUTERS/China Daily
From Reuters:
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Dust clouds generated by a huge dust storm in China's Taklimakan desert in 2007 made more than one full circle around the globe in just 13 days, a Japanese study using a NASA satellite has found.
When the cloud reached the Pacific Ocean the second time, it descended and deposited some of its dust into the sea, showing how a natural phenomenon can impact the environment far away.
"Asian dust is usually deposited near the Yellow Sea, around the Japan area, while Sahara dust ends up around the Atlantic Ocean and coast of Africa," said Itsushi Uno of Kyushu University's Research Institute for Applied Mechanics.
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Risk Of Huge Pacific Ocean Tsunami On West Coast Of America Greater Than Previously Thought
The city of Sitka, Alaska. The potential for a huge Pacific Ocean tsunami on the West Coast of America may be greater than previously thought, according to a new study of geological evidence along the Gulf of Alaska coast. (Credit: iStockphoto/Brandon Laufenberg)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) — The potential for a huge Pacific Ocean tsunami on the West Coast of America may be greater than previously thought, according to a new study of geological evidence along the Gulf of Alaska coast.
The new research suggests that future tsunamis could reach a scale far beyond that suffered in the tsunami generated by the great 1964 Alaskan earthquake. Official figures put the number of deaths caused by the earthquake at around 130: 114 in Alaska and 16 in Oregon and California. The tsunami killed 35 people directly and caused extensive damage in Alaska, British Columbia, and the US Pacific region*.
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Comet Killed Ice Age Beasts
The nanodiamonds were found on the island of Santa Rosa, which was linked to three of the Northern Channel Islands off the southern California coast in a landmass known as Santarosae (encircled at top). Credit: Courtesy NOAA and UC Santa Barbara.From Live Science:
Space rocks that slammed into the glaciers of eastern Canada some 12,900 years ago likely helped wiped out mega-animals like woolly mammoths and possibly the continent's first human inhabitants called the Clovis people, according to a new study that adds to evidence that a trio of factors were involved.
The new evidence comes from recently discovered nano-sized diamonds, which researchers say are the strongest clues to date for an argument that could explain the region's die-off during the late Pleistocene epoch.
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Five Human Achievements That Could Top Walking on the Moon
Free Fusion Energy?: The National Ignition Facility Target Room From Popsci.com:
Forty years after Apollo 11, a look forward at the world-changing discoveries that could match--or even top--humankind's first steps on the moon.
Possibly the single most influential event in the public's interest in science and technology (not to mention one of humankind’s greatest adventures), the Apollo 11 mission touched the collective dreams of millions, while pushing science and technology swiftly forward at an unprecedented pace.
But in the decades since man first walked on the moon, science has advanced so rapidly that technology which even a few years ago might have been considered magic has become commonplace. Even so, it would be naïve to assume that Apollo 11 ever represented science and technology’s pinnacle, and that nothing forthcoming will similarly explode the world’s collective dreams and perceptions of what it means to be human.
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Google Earth Launches Interactive 3D Moon Atlas To Celebrate Apollo Landings
A view of the moon in the new feature of Google Earth 5.0From The Daily Mail:
It’s exactly forty years ago today that Neil Armstrong took man’s first step on the moon.
And to mark the historic occasion Google Earth has taken the same leap in cyberspace.
The search engine leader today launched Moon in Google Earth, an interactive 3D atlas of the moon which allows space fans to take their very own virtual steps on the surface of our closest satellite.
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Jupiter Sports New 'Bruise' From Impact
Infrared observations taken at the Keck II telescope in Hawaii reveal a bright spot where the impact occurred. The spot looks black at visible wavelengths (Image: Paul Kalas/Michael Fitzgerald/Franck Marchis/UC Berkeley/SETI Institute)From New Scientist:
Something has smashed into Jupiter, leaving behind a black spot in the planet's atmosphere, scientists confirmed on Monday.
This is only the second time such an impact has been observed. The first was almost exactly 15 years ago, when more than 20 fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with the gas giant.
"This has all the hallmarks of an impact event, very similar to Shoemaker-Levy 9," said Leigh Fletcher, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. "We're all extremely excited."
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Photo Of Space Shuttle's Belly Shows Dings
From Scientific American:
Before docking with the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, space shuttle Endeavour performed a backflip maneuver so that crew members on the station could check the shuttle's heat shield for damage. Earlier in the week, as the shuttle lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, pieces of foam insulation fell off the orbiter's external fuel tank, striking the shuttle and carving small nicks [white specks on right edge] into several of the tiles that make up the thermal shield.
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Update: Flooded $19 Million Space Toilet Repaired -- FOX News
Monday, July 20, 2009
Asia Will Witness 21st Century's Longest Eclipse
The Sun’s corona, pictured from Siberia during a 2008 eclipse. Jay M. Pasachoff, William G. Wagner, and Hana DruckmülerováFrom AP:
BANGKOK — Millions of people across Asia will witness the longest total solar eclipse that will happen this century, as vast swaths of India and China, the entire city of Shanghai and southern Japanese islands are plunged into darkness Wednesday for about five minutes.
Streams of amateur stargazers and scientists are traveling long distances to witness the once-in-a-lifetime event.
Astronomers hope the eclipse will unlock clues about the sun, while an astrologer in Myanmar predicts it could usher in chaos. Some in India are advising pregnant relatives to stay indoors to follow a centuries-old tradition of avoiding the sun's invisible rays.
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Update: Solar Eclipse on July 22 May Be Most Viewed Ever -- National Geographic
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