The 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11

On July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to set foot on the moon. In this image from a panorama of the landing site taken by Aldrin, Armstrong stands at the base of the lunar module.

From Scientific American:

Four decades after mankind's giant leap, a look at the harrowing first lunar landing, the Apollo missions that never flew, and how the historic event looked from the Soviet Union

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Solar Cycle Linked To Global Climate

Scientists find link between solar cycle and global climate similar to El Nino/La Nina.
(Credit: NCAR)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 17, 2009) — Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niña and El Niño events in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The research may pave the way toward predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the approximately 11-year solar cycle.

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5 Myths About The Male Body

From Live Science:

From rumors about feet size to sex life, there's a lot of cultural misinformation circulating about men and their physiques. And men themselves offer precious little clarification what with their tendencies toward joshing around and playing things close to the chest. So for the record, here are five classic assumptions about men's bodies that are totally false. -- Robin Nixon

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Why Music Moves Us

From Scientific American:

New research explains music's power over human emotions and its benefits to our mental and physical well-being.

As a recreational vocalist, I have spent some of the most moving moments of my life engaged in song. As a college student, my eyes would often well up with tears during my twice-a-week choir rehearsals. I would feel relaxed and at peace yet excited and joyful, and I occasionally experienced a thrill so powerful that it sent shivers down my spine. I also felt connected with fellow musicians in a way I did not with friends who did not sing with me.

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India Moon Probe 'Malfunctions'

From The BBC:

India's first mission to the Moon has experienced a technical problem, India's space research officials say.

A sensor of the unmanned Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has "malfunctioned" and steps have been taken to ensure it is able to continue its work, they say.

But the possibility remains that the mission may have to be cut short.

Chandrayaan-1 was launched last October and is regarded as a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace with other space-faring nations in Asia.

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Man And Machine The Real Legacy Of The Moon Race

From Boston.com:

For the millions who watched the grainy television feed from the moon on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong’s small step seemed to herald a new era. Arthur C. Clarke had already predicted that the children born during the Apollo missions would one day have their passports stamped on the moon; in the lunar spectacle, we glimpsed a brighter future in which humans would conquer the vastness of space and acknowledge their brotherhood on the pale blue dot of the home planet.

And yet, 40 years on, the Apollo program looks less like the start of a new era and more like an ancient culture that flourished briefly and then vanished, leaving only ruined towers, ritual costumes, and incomprehensible glyphs. In the decades since the last towering Saturn V tore through the night sky, NASA’s astronauts have spent their time on modest missions closer to home. The age of easy space travel that Apollo seemed to promise never materialized. And for all its technological marvels, Apollo bequeathed little to our material culture besides instant orange drink, freeze-dried ice cream, and the statuettes of the MTV video music awards.

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Inside the New Harry Potter Movie's VFX Tech

From Popular Mechanics:

The sixth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, opens today. Recently, PM's Digital Hollywood spoke with the film's visual-effects supervisor, Tim Burke, and with Tim Alexander of Industrial Light & Magic, about some of the technical effects behind the new wizarding film.

Millennium Bridge
At the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince—the first Potter film in two years, out today—things are looking pretty grim not just for the boy wizard, but for everyone. Gray storm clouds roll ominously over London as pedestrians, eyes on the sky, hurry across the city's Millennium Bridge. Suddenly, the bridge begins to quake. Cables snapping, the bridge undulates and twists, pulling free of its piers, and crashes violently into the Thames. Voldemort has recently returned from the dead, and he isn't satisfied to wreak havoc only in the wizarding world: His Death Eaters take his campaign of violent mayhem into the Muggle realm by destroying the Millennium Bridge in the film's dramatic opening sequence.

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Lunar Orbiter Photographs Apollo Landing Sites

The Apollo 11 landing site, photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The scene is 925 feet across. (Credit: NASA)

From CNET News:

Forty years after the Apollo 11 voyage to the moon, NASA released photographs from the new Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft Friday showing five of the six Apollo landing sites. Shadows cast by the Apollo descent stages are clearly visible and in some cases, the moon walkers' paths can be seen in the disturbed dust.

"We were very interested in getting our first peek at the lunar module descent stages just for the thrill - and to see how well the cameras had come into focus," Mark Robinson, principal investigator of the LRO's main camera, said in a statement. "Indeed, the images are fantastic and so is the focus."

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Windpower Could Provide 40 Times Earth's Power Needs

Virgin Waters: The Hywind project aims to perfect technology for floating windmills in the deep ocean, opening up new room for wind power to breathe Stephen Toner/Getty Images

From Popsci.com:

A team at Harvard decided to reinvestigate the potential for windpower around the globe, and found their new results to be significantly different than previous studies. According to the new study, we're capable of someday producing 40 times more power via wind than we currently consume overall.

This finding corresponds with recent research suggesting that you can draw more power at higher altitudes. The Harvard study is based around the use of taller 100-meter turbines, as opposed to 50-to-80-meter turbines.

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Apollo 11 Hoax: One In Four People Do Not Believe In Moon Landing

20 July, 1969: Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E."Buzz" Aldrin, Jr erecting the US flag at Tranquility Base during the First Lunar walk Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

A quarter of Britons believe the Apollo 11 mission moon landings in 1969 were a hoax.

Eleven of the 1009 people surveyed thought Buzz Lightyear was the first person on the Moon.

The Toy Story film character was named alongside Louis Armstrong. Eight of those taking part thought the late jazz musician made the first moon walk.

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Attack Of The Giant Squids

Photo: Marine biologist John Hyde holds a jumbo flying squid,
which have returned to the Californian coast

Terror As Hundreds Of 5ft Long Creatures Of The Deep Invade Californian Coastline -- The Daily Mail

Hundreds of aggressive jumbo flying squid have appeared off the coast of San Diego, attacking divers and washing up dead on beaches.

The 5-foot long sea monsters, which have razor-sharp beaks and toothy tentacles, have been bringing terror to scuba drivers and swimmers on the coast's tourist-packed beaches.

The carnivorous calamari, which can grow up to 100 pounds, came up from the depths last week and swarms of them have pounced on unsuspecting divers.

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DNA Not The Same In Every Cell Of Body: Major Genetic Differences Between Blood And Tissue Cells Revealed

New research calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 16, 2009) — Research by a group of Montreal scientists calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell. Their results appear in the July issue of the journal Human Mutation.

This discovery may undercut the rationale behind numerous large-scale genetic studies conducted over the last 15 years, studies which were supposed to isolate the causes of scores of human diseases.

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Neanderthals Were Few And Poised For Extinction

From Live Science:

Neanderthals are of course extinct. But there never were very many of them, new research concludes.

In fact, new genetic evidence from the remains of six Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) suggests the population hovered at an average of 1,500 females of reproductive age in Europe between 38,000 and 70,000 years ago, with the maximum estimate of 3,500 such female Neanderthals.

"It seems they never really took off in Eurasia in the way modern humans did later," said study researcher Adrian Briggs of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

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New Material Could Cool Electronics 100 Times More Efficiently

Thermal Ground Plane Conductive Material Georgia Tech

From Popsci.com:

Georgia Tech researchers are working on a new novel material for cooling high-powered military radar gear up to 100 times better than current conductive heat-dissipation technology.

Developed in conjunction with Raytheon and DARPA, the material is a composite of copper and diamond, two of the most effective heat-conducting materials. The composite would serve as part of a sandwich of cooling materials called a Thermal Ground Plane, which, combined with a liquid cooling setup, would surround the transmit/receive module in a radar system.

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Cave Record Of Britain's Pioneers

From The BBC:

The Cheddar Gorge in Somerset was one of the first sites inhabited by humans when they returned to Britain towards the end of the last Ice Age.

New radiocarbon dates on bones from Gough's Cave show people were living there some 14,700 years ago.

The results confirm the site's great antiquity and suggest human hunters re-colonised Britain at a time of rapid climate warming.

From 24,000 years ago, an ice sheet extended over much of Britain.

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Periodic Table Gets A New Element After The Discovery Of 'Copernicium'

Image: Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, after whom the new element is named

From The Daily Mail:

The periodic table - the chart studied by generations of children and chemists - is to get a little more crowded.

Scientists yesterday announced they are to add a 'super heavy' element, called copernicium, to the table.

The element - which has the symbol Cp - is named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus who deduced that the planets revolved around the sun.

It was discovered 13 years ago in a German nuclear laboratory - but was only accepted as a genuine element in June. For much of the last 13 years, copernicium was known as element 112.

The discovery and naming of a new element is big news in the world of chemistry.

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After 40 Years NASA Has Goals, But Lacks Funds

Photo: The Saturn V makes history. The launch is marked in the annals of time by a period that included two other key events: Sen. Edward Kennedy's crash at Chappaquiddick (July 18) and Woodstock (Aug. 15). Apollo 11 video here. NASA

From Houston Chronicle:

It had all come down to three men sitting atop a 363-foot Saturn V rocket.

In the eight years since President John F. Kennedy stunned the spaceflight community and issued his challenge to put a man on the moon, NASA had spent $25 billion — akin to $140 billion-plus, today — and employed more than 300,000 technicians in its race against the Russians.

The result of these labors sat on a pad at Launch Complex 39A.

At 8:32 a.m. Houston time July 16, 1969, the rocket's engines fired, and the Apollo 11 crew — Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins — shook, rattled and reached orbit 12 minutes later.

Four days hence, with the planet watching from 240,000 miles away on television signals delayed by 1.3 seconds, Armstrong guided the lunar module Eagle to the surface of the moon. Then he uttered words that would make the city of Houston famous around the world:

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

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Apollo 11 Moon Landing Footage Enhanced Hollywood Style

From The Telegraph:

It may have been a giant leap for mankind, but it was recorded for posterity in dark, fuzzy footage that has never quite lived up to importance of the occasion.

However, now, with a little help from Hollywood, man's first steps on the moon can be seen in suitably discernible, if not pristine, quality.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo mission and Neil Armstrong's historic stride down from the ladder of a lunar excursion module, NASA has released an enhanced version of the television footage first broadcast to an audience of half a billion.

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Mysterious, Glowing Clouds Appear Across America’s Night Skies

From Wired Science:

Mysterious, glowing clouds previously seen almost exclusively in Earth’s polar regions have appeared in the skies over the United States and Europe over the past several days.

Photographers and other sky watchers in Omaha, Paris, Seattle, and other locations have run outside to capture images of what scientists call noctilucent (”night shining”) clouds. Formed by ice literally at the boundary where the earth’s atmosphere meets space 50 miles up, they shine because they are so high, they are lit by the sun longer than the Earth’s surface.

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Moon Landing Tapes Got Erased, NASA Admits

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.

NASA released the first glimpses of a complete digital make-over of the original landing footage that clarifies the blurry and grainy images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the surface of the moon.

The full set of recordings, being cleaned up by Burbank, California-based Lowry Digital, will be released in September. The preview is available at http://www.nasa.gov.

NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing.

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