NASA/Ames-Controlled Moon Mission Will Add To New Discovery Of Water

From Mercury News:

A probe controlled from Ames Research Center that will hit the moon in two weeks may help unlock a major new scientific riddle, following NASA's stunning announcement Wednesday that the lunar surface is laced with water.

LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite), a mission controlled from Moffett Field in Mountain View, is scheduled to smash into a crater near the moon's south pole in the early hours of Oct. 9. Scientists will analyze the resulting debris plume for signs of large amounts of ice that may have persisted for eons in the extreme cold of perpetually shadowed craters.

The LCROSS mission had been about human exploration, trying to answer the question of whether there is enough ice on the moon to aid human exploration. The components of water — hydrogen and oxygen — could be used for life support or rocket fuel, if and when NASA returns astronauts to the moon.

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How to Get Your Gadgets Off The Grid

From Popular Mechanics:

PM's October issue is all about how to survive disasters, including tales of off-the-grid homesteaders and stories of men who showed remarkable self-reliance in the face of hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes. But surviving the aftermath of a major disaster without any electricity sounds pretty boring to PM senior technology editor Glenn Derene—what would he do without his LCD TV, wii, Internet access or power tools? In this “electric cold-beer gadget test,” Derene shows that with a small wind turbine, generator, solar charging kit and two very powerful batteries, you won’t have to abandon your gadgets (or beer fridge) after an emergency.

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India Successfully Launches Seven Satellites With a Single Rocket

India Lifts Off India launches a satellite into space in January 2008. The country's space agency put seven satellites in orbit today, including six from foreign nations. PhysOrg

From Popular Science:

It’s been a busy day for India’s space agency. Underscoring the world’s largest democracy’s desire to become a serious player in the space business, the Indian Space Research Organisation launched seven satellites today, six of which belong to foreign nations.

India’s satellite, Oceansat-2, will enhance the ocean monitoring capabilities of the original Oceansat, which launched in 1999. Four of the other six satellites were German, while one was Turkish and one Swedish. Each of those carries a university-funded payload designed to conduct research on various new technologies.

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Russia Hopes U.S. to Extend Shuttle Operations

From ABC News:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia hopes the United States will extend the deadline to retire its space shuttles beyond 2011 and has heard unofficially it is possible, the head of Russia's space agency was quoted as saying on Friday.

The U.S. space agency NASA plans six more missions by its fleet of aging space shuttles by late next year or early 2011 after the construction of the $100 billion International Space Station (ISS) is completed. The shuttles will then be retired.

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The Field Of Gold: How Jobless Treasure Hunter Unearthed Greatest Ever Haul Of Saxon Artefacts With £2.50 Metal Detector

Discovery of a lifetime: Metal detecting fan Terry Herbert found the amazing haul in a Staffordshire field

From The Daily Mail:

It will revolutionise our understanding of the Dark Ages, bring delight to millions and make two men very rich indeed.

Archaeologists yesterday unveiled the largest and most valuable hoard of Saxon gold in history – 1,500 pieces of treasure unearthed from a farmer’s field by a man with a metal detector.

The haul includes beautiful gold sword hilts, jewels from Sri Lanka, exquisitely carved helmet decorations and early Christian crosses.

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The World's Best Impact Craters

Also known as the "eye of Quebec", Manicougan Crater in Canada is one the Earth's oldest known impact craters, and is about 200 million years old. Today it contains a 70-kilometre hydroelectric reservoir along its edge. The island in the centre of the crater was formed by post-impact uplift of the land. Also visible in the bottom left-hand corner is the fin of the space shuttle from which this image was taken.(Image: LSTS-9 Crew/NASA/GSFC)

From The New Scientist:

Approximately 150 impact craters are known on Earth, but most are severely eroded or hidden beneath tonnes of rock. Still, a few spectacular examples are visible with aerial photography, satellites or instruments that can peek beneath the surface.

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HIV Vaccine 'Reduces Infection'

From the BBC:

An experimental HIV vaccine has for the first time cut the risk of infection, researchers say.

The vaccine - a combination of two earlier experimental vaccines - was given to 16,000 people in Thailand, in the largest ever such vaccine trial.

Researchers found that it reduced by nearly a third the risk of contracting HIV, the virus that leads to Aids.

It has been hailed as a significant, scientific breakthrough, but a global vaccine is still some way off.

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Mutations Make Evolution Irreversible: By Resurrecting Ancient Proteins, Researchers Find That Evolution Can Only Go Forward

Fish fossil. Researchers resurrected and manipulate the gene for a key hormone receptor as it existed in our earliest vertebrate ancestors more than 400 million years ago. Over a rapid period of time, five random mutations made subtle modifications in the protein's structure that were utterly incompatible with the receptor's primordial form. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

A University of Oregon research team has found that evolution can never go backwards, because the paths to the genes once present in our ancestors are forever blocked. The findings -- the result of the first rigorous study of reverse evolution at the molecular level -- appear in the Sept. 24 issue of Nature.

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Full Moon Does Not Affect Surgery Outcomes

From Live Science:

While a full moon can tug on ocean tides and make for a romantic setting, scientists have found no reliable evidence that it triggers suicides or hospital admissions, or facilitates conception, the transformation of werewolves or any of a host of other phenomena often blamed on it.

Evidence is mounting, however, for things on which the moon has no impact.

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Roaches Hold Their Breath To Stay Alive

Cockroaches hold their breath when they need to stop water loss more than they need oxygen
(Source: Philip Matthews )

From ABC News (Australia):

Australian scientists have discovered another reason why cockroaches might well inherit the earth after humans are long gone.

Animal physiologist Dr Craig White of the University of Queensland in Brisbane and colleagues report their findings in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

"Several decades ago, scientists discovered that some insects hold their breath," says White.

"But it's not been clear why they do this."

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NASA Finds Water Ice In Mars Craters

An image by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on the NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows Sawtooth Pattern in Carbon Dioxide Ice on Mars recorded during the month of April through early August 2009. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been studying Mars with an advanced set of instruments since 2006. (University of Arizona/JPL/NASA/Reuters)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

NASA's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter spotted ice just below the surface that was exposed by fresh meteor crashes, not far from where the Viking 2 Lander looked in 1976.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found water ice much closer to the planet’s equator than scientists believed possible.

And it’s far purer than they expected, suggesting that in the recent past, the planet’s climate was far more humid than models of Mars’s climate history suggested.

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The Australian Dust Storm As Seen From Space – Dry lake Eyre Not Global Warming?

From Watts Up With That?

There’s been quite a bit of buzz about the dust storm in Australia that hit Queensland, New South Wales, and NSW city Sydney on September 23rd. Pictures like the ones below have been all over the web.

But it is the photos taken from space that are the most interesting I think. NASA’s Earth Observatory captured a truly amazing photo that shows the dust storm front as it swept across the continent and headed out to sea over eastern Australia where the borders of Queensland and NSW meet.

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Quantum Chip Helps Crack Code

Photo: Jonathan Matthews/University of Bristol

From IEEE Spectrum:

Experimental chip does part of code-cracking quantum algorithm.

3 September 2009—Modern cryptography relies on the extreme difficulty computers have in factoring huge numbers, but an algorithm that works only on a quantum computer finds factors easily. Today in Science, researchers at the University of Bristol, in England, report the first factoring using this method—called Shor’s algorithm—on a chip-scale quantum computer, bringing the field a tiny step closer to realizing practical quantum computation and code cracking.

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Update: Quantum Computer Factors the Number 15 -- Scheneider Security

Guinness Facts: In Black And White

A pint of Guinness settling

From The Telegraph:

As millions of people toast the birth of the world's most famous stout, members of the Guinness family will remember how a blessed inheritance to their forefather Arthur changed their fortunes.

– Arthur Guinness set up his first brewery in Leixlip, Co Kildare, in 1756 after he was left a £100 inheritance by his godfather, Archbishop Arthur Price.

– He later handed the business to his brother and, in 1759, signed a 9,000 year lease on the St James's Gate Brewery for an annual fee of £45.

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iRex Announces e-Reader with Barnes & Noble Catalog, Verizon 3G

iRex Reader

From Popular Science:

With a larger screen and 400,000 more titles, iRex's DR800SG forces a standoff against the Kindle and the Sony Reader.

Barnes and Noble first tipped their hand in July, when they announed their new e-book store and its 700,000 titles would be made available on the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms. Then in August, the bookseller announced a partnership with e-reader maker iRex, in addition to love for Plastic Logic and their devices. And today (drumroll, please) the company officially announced the iRex DR800SG reader, the first e-book reader with access to the Barnes and Noble catalog.

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US Dirty Bomb Attack Would Bring Clean-Up Chaos

From New Scientist:

A dirty bomb attack on the US would find the country ill-prepared to clean up the resulting radioactive mess, a government watchdog has warned – and hasty attempts at cleaning up could make things worse.

Building a true nuclear bomb requires expert knowledge and possession of plutonium or enriched uranium, which governments keep under tight security. But more widely available radioactive materials, intended for applications such as medical imaging, could be used to construct a "dirty bomb" detonated a conventional explosives such as dynamite.

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Mysterious Ruins May Help Explain Mayan Collapse

This is one of the exceptionally well preserved buildings discovered at Kiuic. This building dates to the Late/Terminal Classic (A.D. 800-1000) and is part of the later major royal Palace discovered at the site.By Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project.

From USA Today:

Ringing two abandoned pyramids are nine palaces "frozen in time" that may help unravel the mystery of the ancient Maya, reports an archaeological team.

Hidden in the hilly jungle, the ancient site of Kiuic (KIE-yuk) was one of dozens of ancient Maya centers abandoned in the Puuc region of Mexico's Yucatan about 10 centuries ago. The latest discoveries from the site may capture the moment of departure.

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Voters choose 'Embracing The Hope' Setting For Famed Diamond

From The L.A. Times:

Last month we mentioned that, as a PR stunt for a Smithsonian Channel documentary, you had a chance to vote on which of three Harry Winston settings the famous Hope Diamond should temporarily reside. And, based on the number of comments All The Rage received (and we weren't even the ones tallying the votes), folks had some pretty strong opinions on the topic -- though most of you said you would prefer it remain in its traditional setting (to which it will return by the end of next year).

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Genetic Discovery Could Break Wine Industry Bottleneck, Accelerate Grapevine Breeding

From Science Daily:

One of the best known episodes in the 8000-year history of grapevine cultivation led to biological changes that have not been well understood – until now. Through biomolecular detective work, German researchers have uncovered new details about the heredity of Vitis varieties in cultivation today. In the process, they have opened the way to more meaningful classification, accelerated breeding, and more accurate evaluation of the results, potentially breaking a bottleneck in the progress of the wine industry.

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What Seniors Need To Know About The Flu

From Live Science:

Flu season in the northern hemisphere can range from as early as November to as late as May. The peak month usually is February.

However, this coming season is expected to be unpredictable because of the emergence of the H1N1 influenza virus or swine flu. The H1N1 has caused the first global outbreak — pandemic — of influenza in more than four decades.

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