NASA Builds World's Largest Space Parachute For Martian Landing

Parachute Diameter: 52 feet. (Photograph by NASA).

From Popular Mechanics:

To survive the thin Martian atmosphere, the 2000-plus-lb. Mars Science Laboratory rover will depend on the largest space parachute ever built. Here’s how NASA’s next chute will work.

When the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover lands on Mars in 2012, it will face a unique obstacle: With an Earth weight of nearly a ton (compared to about 400 pounds for previous Mars rovers) and a Mars weight of about 750 pounds, it is too massive for any existing space parachute. So to cushion its fall through the thin Martian atmosphere (which is less than 1 percent as dense as Earth’s), NASA engineers had to come up with something really big. The new parachute opens to a diameter of 52 feet, making it twice the size of any parachute ever flown beyond Earth.

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Argentine Glacier Advances Despite Global Warming

In this May 18, 2009 file photo, a tourist looks back through a cave on Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina's Patagonia region. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)

From Yahoo News/AP:

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is one of only a few ice fields worldwide that have withstood rising global temperatures.

Nourished by Andean snowmelt, the glacier constantly grows even as it spawns icebergs the size of apartment buildings into a frigid lake, maintaining a nearly perfect equilibrium since measurements began more than a century ago.

"We're not sure why this happens," said Andres Rivera, a glacialist with the Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile. "But not all glaciers respond equally to climate change."

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Sonic Disruptions Create Artificial Black Hole

None More Black : Erlenmeyer fask. Check. Beaker. Check. Black hole. Ummm... courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

From Popsci.com:

After 30 years of trying, scientists create first-ever acoustic black hole.

Stephen Hawking once theorized that black holes would emit a stream of electromagnetic radiation named, what else, Hawking Radiation. However, in the 35 years since Hawking made his prediction, no one has observed the phenomena. Now, a team of Israeli scientists are working on a way to make their own Hawking Radiation by creating an artificial black hole in their lab.

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Can Microsoft's Bing Really Challenge Google?

From Times Online:

Bing will start to take on the mighty Google in the battle for web search supremacy this week; UK version a 'Beta test'

The two biggest names in technology are set to slug it out over the coming weeks in a $20 billion (£12 billion) battle for web supremacy. In one corner is Google, the dominant player in online searches; in the other is Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company. Microsoft is poised to launch Bing, a new search engine it says will give more useful results and end its rival’s hegemony.

If the software lives up to its maker’s claims, it will allow users to target their searches more accurately and do away with the millions of irrelevant results that many searches retrieve on Google. Microsoft calls it a “decision engine” because, it claims, it refines your search more carefully and offers a list of topics of related interest — something Google doesn’t do.

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How A Solar System 'Wobble' Could Make The Earth Crash Into Mars... But Don't Worry, It Won't Happen For 3 Billion Years

Scientists have discovered that small rocky planets like Earth are far less stable than the gas giants

From The Daily Mail:

A wobble in the precise clockwork of the solar system could see the Earth collide with Mercury, Mars or Venus, scientists predict.

But they say reassuringly that such a mishap is unlikely to occur for billions of years.

The orbits of the planets are not completely stable because of the gravitational interplay between them.

Over time, the system can become increasingly disordered - like a poorly balanced tyre that eventually tears itself off the axle of a moving car.

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What Really Prompts The Dog's 'Guilty Look'

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 14, 2009) — What dog owner has not come home to a broken vase or other valuable items and a guilty-looking dog slouching around the house? By ingeniously setting up conditions where the owner was misinformed as to whether their dog had really committed an offense, Alexandra Horowitz, Assistant Professor from Barnard College in New York, uncovered the origins of the “guilty look” in dogs in the recently published “Canine Behaviour and Cognition” Special Issue of Elsevier’s Behavioural Processes.

Horowitz was able to show that the human tendency to attribute a “guilty look” to a dog was not due to whether the dog was indeed guilty. Instead, people see ‘guilt’ in a dog’s body language when they believe the dog has done something it shouldn’t have – even if the dog is in fact completely innocent of any offense.

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Marijuana Damages DNA and May Cause Cancer

From Live Science:

A lot of studies have shown marijuana is not good for you. It can fry the brain and contribute to psychosis. The latest one finds "convincing evidence" that marijuana smoke damages the genetic material DNA in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.

Toxic substances in tobacco smoke can damage DNA and increase the risk of lung and other cancers. However, there has been uncertainty over whether marijuana smoke has the same effect.

Scientists are especially concerned about the toxicity of acetaldehyde, present in both tobacco and marijuana. However, it has been difficult to measure DNA damage from acetaldehyde with conventional tests.

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The Evolution of House Cats

From Scientific American:

Genetic and archaeological findings hint that wildcats became house cats earlier--and in a different place--than previously thought

It is by turns aloof and affectionate, serene and savage, endearing and exasperating. Despite its mercurial nature, however, the house cat is the most popular pet in the world. A third of American households have feline members, and more than 600 million cats live among humans worldwide. Yet as familiar as these creatures are, a complete understanding of their origins has proved elusive. Whereas other once wild animals were domesticated for their milk, meat, wool or servile labor, cats contribute virtually nothing in the way of sustenance or work to human endeavor. How, then, did they become commonplace fixtures in our homes?

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Microsoft To Give Away Anti-Virus

From The BBC:

Microsoft is poised to start giving away security software.

The company is reportedly trialling free anti-virus software internally and said the beta version would be released "soon".

Called Morro, the software will tackle viruses but lack the broader range of utilities, such as parental locks, found in paid-for security suites.

Morro will be Microsoft's second venture in the highly competitive security market.

Microsoft's first attempt revolved around the Windows Live OneCare service that did not succeed in turning many customers away from rivals such as Symantec and McAfee.

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Gravity Mysteries: What Is Gravity?

Image: We tend to think of gravity as a force that affects objects, but Einstein showed it was something else entirely (Image: Alex Telfer Photography Limited / Getty)

From New Scientist:

You jump up, and gravity brings you back down to Earth. You reach the brow of a hill and gravity accelerates you down the other side. All neat and tidy then: gravity behaves in the way Newton thought of it, as a force that affects and changes the motion of something else.

That, at least, was how it seemed until Einstein came along. His general theory of relativity tells us that gravity is not quite that simple.

General relativity provides a framework under which the laws of physics look the same for everyone at every moment, regardless of how they are moving. Einstein achieved this by making gravity a property of the universe, rather than of individual bodies.

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Early Rocks To Reveal Their Ages

From BBC:

A new technique has been helping scientists piece together how the Earth's continents were arranged 2.5 billion years ago.

The novel method allows scientists to recover rare minerals from rocks.

By analysing the composition of these minerals, researchers can precisely date ancient volcanic rocks for the first time.

By aligning rocks that have a similar age and orientation, the early landmasses can be pieced together.

This will aid the discovery of rocks rich in ore and oil deposits, say the scientists. The approach has already shown that Canada once bordered Zimbabwe, helping the mining industry identify new areas for exploration.

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Leak Halts Shuttle Launching

There would be no countdown to launch after NASA delayed the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour due to a hydrogen gas leak. Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

From The New York Times:

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The launching of the space shuttle Endeavour on Saturday was called off because of a hydrogen leak similar to one that delayed another shuttle’s departure three months ago.

During fueling with liquid hydrogen, sensors detected a leak at the valve next to the external tank, creating a potential for fire.

The planned 7:17 a.m. liftoff was called off at 12:26 a.m. and will be delayed at least four days. A similar leak occurred during the countdown for the shuttle Discovery in March.

Mission managers originally said that if the Endeavour could not go by Monday, the launching would be moved to July because a lunar orbiter was scheduled to lift off Wednesday.

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Red Wine Compound Resveratrol Demonstrates Significant Health Benefits

Low to moderate drinking -- especially of red wine -- appears to reduce all causes of mortality. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 12, 2009) — The benefits of alcohol are all about moderation. Low to moderate drinking – especially of red wine – appears to reduce all causes of mortality, while too much drinking causes multiple organ damage. A mini-review of recent findings on red wine's polyphenols, particularly one called resveratrol, will be published in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research; the review is also available at Early View.

"Reports on the benefits of red wine are almost two centuries old," said Lindsay Brown, associate professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland and corresponding author for the study. "The media developed the more recent story of the French paradox in the early 1990s. However, studies on the actions of resveratrol, one of the active non-alcoholic ingredients, were uncommon until research around 1997 showed prevention of cancers. This led to a dramatic interest in this compound."

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Genetic Difference Found in Wild vs. Tame Animals

From Live Science:

A study of nasty and nice lab rats has scientists on the verge of knowing the genes that separate wild animals like lions and wolves from their tame cousins, cats and dogs.

Unlike their wild ancestors, house pets and other domesticated animals share the trait of tameness, meaning they tolerate or even seek out human presence. New research, which is published in the June issue of the journal Genetics and involved the interbreeding of friendly and aggressive rats, reveals gene regions that influence the opposing behaviors.

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Mind-Reading Tech May Not Be Far Off

Brain Browsing: ChrisDag (CC Licensed)

From Popsci.com:

At the World Science Festival this week, indications that brain scanners may soon uncover your private thoughts

Neuroscientists are already able to read some basic thoughts, like whether an individual test subject is looking at a picture of a cat or an image with a specific left or right orientation. They can even read pictures that you're simply imagining in your mind's eye. Even leaders in the field are shocked by how far we've come in our ability to peer into people's minds. Will brain scans of the future be able to tell if a person is lying or telling the truth? Suggest whether a consumer wants to buy a car? Reveal our secret likes and dislikes, or our hidden prejudices? While we aren't there yet, these possibilities have dramatic social, legal and ethical implications.

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Get Ready! Facebook To Offer Personalised URLs From Tomorrow

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg got his personalised URL ahead of the rush tomorrow

From The Daily Mail:

Facebook users will soon be able to choose a web address for their profile page which is all together more personal.

At present anyone with a Facebook account has a string of random numbers at the end of their web address. However from 5am tomorrow (BST) they will be able to create a memorable URL by adding their name, such as www.facebook.com/joebloggs.

Tags will be assigned on a first come first served basis so those with common names will need to get in quick. The website founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has already claimed his.

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Search For ET Just Got Easier: Effective Way To Search Atmospheres Of Planets For Signs Of Life

An artist's concept of the sunlight glowing through the Earth's thin atmosphere and reaching an observer on the Moon during a lunar eclipse. (Credit: Gabriel Perez Diaz, SMM, Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC))

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 12, 2009) — Astronomers using the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma have confirmed an effective way to search the atmospheres of planets for signs of life, vastly improving our chances of finding alien life outside our solar system.

The team from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) used the WHT and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) to gather information about the chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere from sunlight that has passed through it. The research is published June11 in Nature.

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Global Biosphere Images Reveal Changes in Plant Growth

The 2008 global biosphere. Chlorophyll concentration in blue, vegetation index in green. Credit: NASA/Rob Simmon/Jesse Allen.

From Live Science:

A new series of NASA images illustrates how Earth's plant growth has changed over the past 11 years.

The images are part of the series, "World of Change: Global Biosphere." They show the yearly changes in plant growth between 1999 and 2008 based on data on chlorophyll on the ocean's surface and vegetation density on land. Scientists use the images to study Earth's carbon cycle – the uptake and release of carbon by Earth's biosphere.

The global biosphere, or the sum of all ecosystems that support life on Earth, is in constant flux. The images show changes in chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants allows photosynthesis to occur, averaged over each year. Changes in land growth are shown as a vegetation index, a blend of the variation between the summer flourishes and the slow growth winter.

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The Inside Story Of The Conficker Worm

The Conficker worm has seized control of millions of computers in just
a few months (Image: Carsten Müller / stock.xchng)

From New Science:

A HOTEL bar in Arlington, Virginia, 23 October 2008. A group of computer security experts has spent the day holed up with law enforcement agencies. It is an annual event that attracts the best in the business, but one the participants like to keep low-key - and under the radar of the cybercriminals they are discussing.

That evening, conversation over drinks turned to a security update Microsoft had just released. Its timing was suspicious: updates usually came once a month, and the next was not due for two weeks. "I remember thinking I should take a look at this," recalls Paul Ferguson, a researcher at Trend Micro, a web security company in Cupertino, California.

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Large Hadron Collider To Start Again, But Costs Rise In Race To Discover 'God Particle'

From The Telegraph:

The Large Hadron Collider is to be run flat out throughout the year in order to make up for lost time and to beat an American rival to finding the elusive Higgs Boson – known as the "God Particle".

The £4bn particle accelerator, which broke down last year, was to be turned off in winter to reduce energy demands during peak electricity prices.

But the delays and the news that a smaller less powerful accelerator at Fermilab in Illinois is closing in on the particle has meant it will continue running throughout the year – at an extra cost of £13 million.

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