The Truth About Airplane Turbulence

(Photograph courtesy of NASA Langley Research Center)

From Popular Mechanics:

Rough air injured more than two dozen airline passengers this week, but that's just one unavoidable risk you take while flying. Or is it? Our primer explains the three kinds of airplane turbulence, and what you can do to stay safe on a plane.

It's an unpleasant but familiar experience: You're cruising along at 30,000 feet when turbulence seems to yank the airplane out from under you. If you're like some of the 26 injured passengers on Continental Airlines Flight 128 last Monday (or the two people on Delta Airlines Flight 2871 last Tuesday) and you're not buckled in when this happens, you could meet the ceiling with unpleasant results.

Read more ....

PHOTOS: World's Largest Telescope Unveiled

From National Geographic:

August 6, 2009--A low-hanging sun brightens the fields around the dome of the Gran Telescopio Canarias, or GTC, the latest addition to the handful of Earth-based optical telescopes designed to study the heavens.

Crowds gathered last week on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands--a Spanish territory--to watch Spanish King Juan Carlos inaugurate the U.S. $180-million GTC, which is co-owned by Spain, Mexico, and the University of Florida in the U.S.

Read more ....

Shuttle Astronauts Practice Launch Pad Escape

The space shuttle Discovery lifts off (Reuters: Scott Audette)

From Yahoo News/Space.com:

Seven astronauts climbed aboard NASA's space shuttle Discovery Friday for a vital drill to practice escaping from the spacecraft at the launch pad and go over plans for their late August blast off.

Clad in bright orange pressure suits, the astronauts strapped into Discovery at NASA's seaside Kennedy Space Center in Florida and rehearsed the last few hours before liftoff before scurrying out the shuttle's hatch to a set of baskets designed to zip down a 1,200-foot slide wire away from the launch pad in the event of an emergency.

The exercise capped a three-day training session to give Discovery's astronauts some hands-on experience with the spacecraft before their planned Aug. 25 launch to the International Space Station.

Read more ....

Why ARE So Many Planes Falling Out Of The Sky? A Spate Of Disastrous Crashes Reveals One Terrifying Common Flaw...

Some of the debris from the missing Air France flight was eventually recovered

From the Daily Mail:

Three hours into the flight, none of the 216 passengers would have had any reason to be concerned. As the dinner plates in business class were being cleared away, the beaches of northern Brazil, 35,000ft below, were slipping past at 550mph. Some of the passengers might have ordered an after-dinner drink, others might have been crawling beneath their blankets, hoping for a few hours' sleep.

Read more ....

San Diego Zoo's Giant Panda, Bai Yun, Gives Birth To A Healthy Cub

From The L.A. Times:

Late last month, the San Diego Zoo announced that its resident female giant panda, Bai Yun, was pregnant. Pandas' reproductive systems are still largely a mystery to researchers, so even zoo staff, who'd been monitoring Bai Yun extremely closely, didn't know when she would give birth.

Today just before 5 a.m., Bai Yun gave birth to what the zoo's senior research technician Suzanne Hall called a "vigorous, squawking" cub. For about 24 hours prior to the birth, Bai Yun had been restless, alternating between sleep and bouts of nest-building, Hall wrote on the zoo's blog. The cub's gender is not yet known.

Read more ....

Twitter Continues to Battle DDoS Attack

From PC World:

More than two days after experiencing a complete outage as a result of a distribute denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, Twitter and other social networking sites such as Facebook are still battling a surge in traffic related to the attack. Twitter has taken some steps to mitigate the spike in traffic and ensure that the site is not knocked offline again, but some of those steps are having an impact on third-party tools that link to Twitter through API's (application programming interface).

Read more ....

More Accurate Weather Forecasts Coming Soon

Queen's University Belfast engineers Raymond Dickie (L) and Professor Robert Cahill (R) are pictured with their new filter, that for the first time, will give scientists access to a completely new range of data, leading to improved accuracy in weather forecasting. (Credit: Queen's University Belfast Media Services)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2009) — More accurate global weather forecasts and a better understanding of climate change are in prospect, thanks to a breakthrough by engineers at Queen's University Belfast's Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT).

The ECIT team has developed a high performance electronic device -- known as a dual polarized Frequency Selective Surface filter -- that is to be used in future European Space Agency (ESA) missions.

Read more ....

How Fast Can Sprinters Go?

From Live Science:

Well, maybe Usain Bolt was right after all. As discussed in our Physiology of Speed story, Bolt predicted he could run 100 meters in 9.54 seconds, lowering his own world record of 9.69 seconds.

Now, researchers from Tilburg University in the Netherlands say he could shave another 3/100ths of a second off and hit the tape at 9.51 seconds.

Using the "extreme value theory," Professor of Statistics John Einmahl and former student Sander Smeets have calculated the fastest possible times for men and women. Between 1991 and 2008, they chronicled the best times for 762 male sprinters and 469 female sprinters. They did not trust the data prior to 1991 as possibly being tainted by doping athletes (not that's its gotten much better since then.)

Read more ....

Extinction Hits 'Whole Families'

From The BBC:

Whole "chunks of life" are lost in extinction events, as related species vanish together, say scientists.

A study in the journal Science shows that extinctions tend to "cluster" on evolutionary lineages - wiping out species with a common ancestor.

The finding is based on an examination of past extinctions, but could help current conservation efforts.

Researchers say that this phenomenon can result in the loss of an entire branch of the "tree of life".

The message for modern conservation, say the authors, is that some groups are more vulnerable to extinction than others, and the focus should be on the lineages most at risk.

Read more ....

Fast-Spinning Black Holes Might Reveal All

Image: Spinning away in space (Image: David A. Aguilar (CfA))

From New Scientist:

IT IS the ultimate cosmic villain: space and time come to an abrupt end in its presence and the laws of physics break down. Now it seems a "naked" black hole may yet emerge in our universe, after spinning away its event horizon.

In 1969, physicist Roger Penrose postulated that every singularity, or black hole, must be shrouded by an event horizon from which nothing, including light, can escape. His Cosmic Censorship Conjecture has it that singularities are always hidden.

Read more ....

Apollo Led To Cosmic Shift In Human Condition

The Earth is photographed, seemingly rising up from behind the Moon, by Apollo 8 crewmember Bill Anders in December 1968. Credit: NASA

From Cosmos:

One of the many legacies of the Apollo program was the way it caused an extraordinary, enduring – and, for some, troubling – change in how we perceived the universe and our place in it.

Before Apollo, the Moon was distant and aloof, a symbol of everything that is unattainable, a place of dreams, an object of superstition and veneration.

After being explored by Apollo 11 on July 20 1969, the Moon's enigma was stripped away. Human willpower and the rigour of science revealed it to be an arid, airless, inhospitable rock for which there was little use as a resource.

Read more ....

How Lice Thwarted Napoleon's Invasion of Russia

Napoleon's failed 1812 invasion of Russia has long been blamed on the weather. But a new theory argues that body lice were to blame. DPA

From Der Spiegel:

His invasion of Russia failed miserably, leaving a trail of corpses from Moscow all the way to Paris. In a new book, one historian blames not the wintry march but the spread of "war plague" -- typhus -- through Napoleon's Grand Army.

The fate of Napoleon's Grand Army was sealed long before the first shot was fired. In the spring of 1812, more than 600,000 men marched towards Russia under the command of the diminutive Corsican -- an army larger than the population of Paris at the time.

Read more ....

Raise A Glass To The Science Of Beer

John Mills enjoys a drink in the classic film Ice Cold in Alex (1958)
Photo: Ronald Grant Archive

From The Telegraph:

As the Great British Beer Festival opens in London, a scientific look at the drink that helped shape the nation.

He is the stock in trade of cartoonists and comics – that lonely figure, tie askew, sitting at the bar, contemplating fate while gazing into a pint of beer. Should you find yourself in this situation, short of company, you could do a lot worse than stare into your own glass, for it is there that you will find a microcosm of the world around you.

Read more ....

'Cloud Ship' Scheme To Deflect The Sun's Rays Is Favourite To Cut Global Warming

The unmanned ships would be directed by satellite to areas with the best conditions for increasing cloud cover.

From The Telegraph:

Ships with giant funnels which travel the world's seas creating more clouds to deflect the sun's rays could help cut global warming, say scientists.

The "cloud ships" are favoured among a series of schemes aimed at altering the climate which have been weighed up by a leading think-tank.

The project, which is being worked on by rival US and UK scientists, would see 1,900 wind-powered ships ply the oceans sucking up seawater and spraying minuscule droplets of it out through tall funnels to create large white clouds.

Read more ....

The Future of Farming: Eight Solutions For a Hungry World

Desert Oasis: The Sahara Forest Project will use concentrating solar power to provide energy to greenhouses in the desert. Paul Wootton

From Popular Science:

The challenge of growing twice as much food by 2050 to feed nine billion people—with less and less land—is everyone’s problem. But scientists are hard at work fomenting a second green revolution.

Today’s crops crisscross the globe: Mexico’s tomatoes end up on your plate, our wheat heads to Africa. As a result, the challenge of growing twice as much food by 2050 to feed nine billion people—with less and less land—is everyone’s problem. But scientists are hard at work fomenting a second green revolution. Here’s how nitrogen-spewing microbes, underground soil sensors and fruit-picking robots will help keep food on our tables.

Read more ....

Titan Moon Resembles Earth

Titan Earth Moon Comparison (Image Wikipedia)

From The Independent:

Saturn's smog-ridden moon Titan bears a striking resemblance to Earth despite its alien environment, a study has revealed.

Scientists have now mapped a third of Titan's surface using radar to pierce the planet-sized moon's thick atmosphere.

The probe has revealed mountain ranges, dunes, numerous lakes and suspected volcanoes.

Just as on Earth, the weather on Titan appears to have erased most evidence of meteorite craters.

Read more ....

Climate Change Melting US Glaciers At Faster Rate, Study Finds

A composite image showing South Cascade glacier in Washington state (year 2000, left, 2006, right). A new study today found a sharp rise in the melt rate of three key American glaciers over the last 10-15 years. Photograph: USGS

From The Guardian:

US geological survey commissioned by Obama administration indicates a sharp rise in the melt rate of key American glaciers over the last 10-15 years.

Climate change is melting America's glaciers at the fastest rate in recorded history, exposing the country to higher risks of drought and rising sea levels, a US government study of glaciers said today.

The long-running study of three "benchmark" glaciers in Alaska and Washington state by the US geological survey (USGS) indicated a sharp rise in the melt rate over the last 10 or 15 years.

Read more ....

Wonder Wall: The 400ft Shoal Of Sardines Captured By Divers On Philippine Reef

Silver lining: The divers described the shimmering shoal as a cloud,
whipping up the water like a tornado.

From The Daily Mail:

This incredible wall of shimmering silver fish was captured by stunned divers who had been exploring a reef in the Philippines.

The spectacle is known as the 'sardine run', and occurs in the region every July.

The vast shoal, which measured around 50ft wide, 50ft deep and 400ft long, was spotted off the coast of Pescador Island.

The divers described its presence like a cloud as it swarmed around them, whipping up the water like a tornado before shooting off on their way.

This photograph was snapped by American diver Erwin Poliakoff, who was on holiday with his wife and teenage son at the time.

Read more ....

Kepler Orbiting Telescope

From Science Daily:

Planet-finder Shows Its Power: Kepler Orbiting Telescope Should Soon Find Alien Earths

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2009) — The first results are in from the Kepler orbiting observatory, the world's most powerful planet-searching telescope, and according to MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager they show that the instrument should have no trouble detecting "alien Earths" -- planets that are about the size of our own.

Read more ...

Bookyards Editor: For ebooks on science, go here.

No Evidence That Therapy Can Turn Gays Straight

From Live Science:

Gays and lesbians have long been encouraged to change their sexual orientation through therapy or other treatments, on the assumption that homosexuality is merely a lifestyle choice.
That advice should change, psychologists now say.
Mental health professionals should avoid telling clients that they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or other treatments, according to a new resolution adopted by the American Psychological Association.
The reason: It won't work, the group has concluded.

Read more ...