Aluminum Fuel Could Power Future Space Trips

Powered by Powdered Aluminum: This test rocket soared 1300 feet into the air using seven inches of a new, environmentally friendly fuel made of nanoaluminum and ice. Purdue University/Steven Son

From Discovery News:

Aluminum and water is usually a boring combination, but light a mixture of nanoaluminum and ice and the results are explosive.

Scientists from Purdue University have created a new, environmentally friendly solid rocket fuel that recently sent a rocket screaming 1300 feet into the air using seven inches of nanoaluminum and ice. The new fuel could power missions to the moon or Mars while dramatically reducing the amount of on-board fuel.

"Theoretically you can get very high temperatures using aluminum and water, but the kinetics would be so slow and it would be so hard to ignite that it's very hard to actually make the rocket work," said Steven Son, a professor at Purdue University in Indiana who helped develop the new fuel.

Read more ....

Beyond North and South: Evidence For Magnetic Monopoles

Field Day: Magnets always have a north pole and a south pole. Physicists have managed to separate them in unusual materials called spin ices, enabling each pole to move freely. Cordelia Molloy Photo Researchers, Inc.

From Scientific American:

A sighting, of sorts, of separate north-south magnetic poles.

Magnets are remarkable exemplars of fairness—every north pole is invariably accompanied by a counterbalancing south pole. Split a magnet in two, and the result is a pair of magnets, each with its own north and south. For decades researchers have sought the exception—namely, the monopole, magnetism’s answer to the electron, which carries electric charge. It would be a free-floating carrier of either magnetic north or magnetic south—a yin unbound from its yang.

Read more ....

Comic Books Are Good For Children's Learning

From The Telegraph:

Parents should not "look down" on comics as they are just as good for children as reading books, a new study claims.

Researchers believe they can benefit from tales about the caped crusader, Superman and even Dennis the Menace in the same way they can from reading other types of literature, despite teachers and parents often being snooty about comics, experts say.

According to the research, critics say that reading comics is actually a "simplified version" of reading that doesn't have the complexity of "real" books with their "dense columns of words and lack of pictures".

Read more ....

Which One To Choose? Apple's Store Tops 100,000 Applications

iPhone users can now choose from 100,000 different applications

From The Daily Mail:

Apple revealed today that developers have crammed the virtual shelves of their App Store with more than 100,000 programmes for iPhones and iPod Touch devices.

Applications can range from time-wasting games, to maps that interact with real-time videos which create an augmented reality.

Even celebrities are getting in on the app action. Noel Edmonds has created a Cosmic Ordering programme to maker user's dreams come true while David Hasselhoff has launched 'Ask the Hoff' to answer your tricky questions.

Read more ....

Early Origins For Uncanny Valley

Macaques find fake monkeys creepy

From The BBC:

Human suspicion of realistic robots and avatars may have earlier origins than previously thought.

The phenomenon, called the uncanny valley, describes the disquiet caused by synthetic people which almost, but not quite, match human expressiveness.

Experiments with macaque monkeys show they too are suspicious of replicas that fall short of the real thing.

The research suggests a deep-seated evolutionary origin for the reactions such artificial entities evoke.

Read more ....

Archaeologists Track Infamous Conquistador Through Southeast

Sixteenth century glass beads are among the rare artifacts discovered at Fernbank Museum of Natural History's archaeology site, which scholars believe is a stop along Hernando de Soto's trek through the Southeast in 1540. (Credit: Dan Schultz/Fernbank Museum of Natural History)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 5, 2009) — Archaeologists at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History have discovered unprecedented evidence that helps map Hernando de Soto's journey through the Southeast in 1540. No evidence of De Soto's path between Tallahassee and North Carolina has been found until now, and few sites have been located anywhere.

Read more ....

The Truth About 2012 Doomsday Hype

An ancient Mayan Pyramid at Chchen Itza. The Mayan calendar ends in 2012, but Mayans never predicted the world would end. Rather, the ending of their calendar is rather like how our Gregorian calendar ends each Dec. 31. Credit: Stockxpert

From Live Science:

2012 is coming very soon. The movie, that is — the disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich depicting global catastrophe of Biblical proportions. The year itself is of course a few dozen months away, and there is growing interest, excitement, and concern for both events.

The film "2012," which opens Nov. 13, takes place, rather obviously, in the year 2012, though it could have been set in 1995 or 2013. The movie's disasters have no particular link to that year, it's just when the Earth happens to start burping earthquakes and farting fire. 2012 made a perfect promotional hook for the film, because the ancient Mayans predicted that the world would end that year, if not specifically on December 21, 2012.

Read more ....

Remembering A Former Caltech Rocket Scientist And The Founder Of China's Space Program

China's Rocket Pioneer: Left: A Chinese Long-March 4-B rocket blasts off on Nov. 6, 2004. Right: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visits Qian Xuesen on August 2, 2008. Xinhua

From Popular Science:

Qian Xuesen has died at 98; he helped found Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory before being deported as a suspected Communist.

One can only imagine how history might have played out if the United States had not deported a Chinese-born Caltech rocket scientist on suspicion of being a Communist in 1955. Qian Xuesen first fought his deportation, but later accepted his fate and went on to become the founder of China's missile and space programs. His death this past Sunday comes as China broadens its space exploration efforts to become a potential challenger to a troubled U.S. space program, or perhaps a partner.

Read more ....

Can We Really Control The Weather?

Cloud-seeding is a controversial practice common in Russia and China. Getty

From The Independent:

Recently both Russia and China have claimed to be able to use cloud seeding to increase rainfall and snowfall, or change the location of where it falls. In the past, snow-making experiments have been carried out in North American ski resorts in the past with little evidence of success. So how have the Russian and Chinese scientists achieved this feat and what evidence is there that it is in fact due to cloud seeding?

Read more ....

Nanoparticles Could Damage DNA At A Distance, Study Suggests

Doses of nanoparticles used in the study were higher than anything a human might be exposed to.
Photograph: Getty Images

From The Guardian:

Lab tests show that metal nanoparticles can affect DNA without actually coming into contact with it – though the results are difficult to extrapolate to the human body.

Nanoparticles of metal can damage the DNA inside cells even if there is no direct contact between them, scientists have found. The discovery provides an insight into how the particles might exert their influence inside the body and points to possible new ways to deliver medical treatments.

Read more ....

Tweak Gravity: What If There Is No Dark Matter?

INVISIBLE OR NONEXISTENT? A composite image of the galaxy cluster Abell 520 shows the inferred presence of matter, primarily dark matter, in blue. X-ray: NASA/CXC/UVic./A.Mahdavi et al.; Optical/Lensing: CFHT/UVic./A.Mahdavi et al.

From Scientific American:

Modifications to the theory of gravity could account for observational discrepancies, but not without introducing other complications.

Theorists and observational astronomers are hot on the trail of dark matter, the invisible material thought to account for puzzling mass disparities in large-scale astronomical structures. For instance, galaxies and galactic clusters behave as if they were far more massive than would be expected if they comprised only atoms and molecules, spinning faster than their observable mass would explain. What is more, the very presence of assemblages such as our Milky Way Galaxy speaks to the influence of more mass than we can see. If the mass of the universe were confined to atoms, the clumping of matter that allowed galaxies to take shape would never have transpired.

Read more ....

Carl Sagan Day Celebrated At Florida University

From The Telegraph:

The first Carl Sagan Day is being celebrated at Broward College, Florida, in honour of the great astronomer, novelist and sceptic.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who died in 1996, would have turned 75 on Monday 9 November 2009. Broward College is to hold a day of activities and talks in his memory.

The university, near Davie, Florida, held planetarium shows and star-gazing, as well as a talk by the magician and sceptic James Randi, a friend of Dr Sagan.

Read more ....

A Neutron Star Is Born: Stellar Core Just 12 Miles Across Spotted 11,000 Light Years Away

This supernova was captured by Nasa's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The neutron star is the blue dot at the centre of the picture

From The Daily Mail:

An infant neutron star, the super-dense core of a stellar explosion, has been observed for the first time.

The 12.4 mile-wide object is the youngest object of its kind ever discovered, having appeared just 330 years ago.

It has been cloaked in mystery since it was identified as a powerful X-ray source in 1999. Astronomers now know the source is a neutron star 11,000 light years from Earth at the centre of the supernova Cassiopeia A.

Read more ....

Coffee Brims With Health Benefits, Researchers Say

From Sci-Tech Today:

Although caffeine might be considered the "active ingredient" in coffee, coffee is only two percent caffeine and 98 percent "other stuff," including more than 1,000 different compounds such as vitamins, minerals and amino acids. It even contains fiber. Each cup contains the kind that helps prevent cholesterol from being absorbed by the intestines.

Read more ....

F1 Designer Unveils Electric Car

Photo: Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson test drives the T.27

From The BBC:

An electric car created by the McLaren F1 'supercar' road car designer Gordon Murray has been unveiled.

Three prototypes of the T.27 model will be developed over the next 16 months.

The manufacturing process, called iStream, has received £9m of investment, half of which came from the government's Technology Strategy Board.

iStream plants can be just one fifth of the size of a conventional car factory, as the cars are not made from stamped steel.

Read more ....

Are The Alps Growing Or Shrinking?

The Matterhorn, in the Alps. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 6, 2009) — The Alps are growing just as quickly in height as they are shrinking. This paradoxical result comes from a new study by a group of German and Swiss geoscientists.

Due to glaciers and rivers, about exactly the same amount of material is eroded from the slopes of the Alps as is regenerated from the deep Earth's crust. The climatic cycles of the glacial period in Europe over the past 2.5 million years have accelerated this erosion process. In the latest volume of the science magazine Tectonophysics ( No. 474, S.236-249) the scientists show that today's uplifting of the Alps is driven by these strong climatic variations.

Read more ....

A Simple Sneeze Raises Fear of Death

From Live Science:

In the current atmosphere of heightened concern over the H1N1 virus, the everyday sneeze can trigger fears of totally unrelated hazards, including heart attacks, new research suggests.

An everyday achoo reminds people that swine flu is lurking, the researchers found. That intensifies worries about flu. From there, people rely on current feelings to assess unrelated health risks and even policy decisions, the study found.

Read more ....

Giant Crack In Africa Formed In Just Days

A 500-metre-long crack opened up in just a few days in Afar, Ethiopia, in 2005
(Image: University of Rochester)

From The New Scientist:

A crack in the Earth's crust – which could be the forerunner to a new ocean – ripped open in just days in 2005, a new study suggests. The opening, located in the Afar region of Ethiopia, presents a unique opportunity for geologists to study how mid-ocean ridges form.

The crack is the surface component of a continental riftMovie Camera forming as the Arabian and African plates drift away from one another. It began to open up in September 2005, when a volcano at the northern end of the rift, called Dabbahu, erupted.

Read more ....

TV Switch-Over Triggers Rush To See Rare Stars

The skies are ours, for now: the Arecibo Observatory has a window of opportunity to view the sky at frequencies previously masked by TV (Image: Seth Shostak/SPL)

From New Scientist:

US SKIES are clearer than usual after the switch in June from analogue to digital TV freed up a chunk of the radio spectrum. Astronomers are now rushing to see what they can find before transmissions from cellphone companies and others fill the space.

Prior to the switch-over, naturally occurring radio waves at frequencies between 700 and 800 megahertz were obscured by analogue TV signals, preventing astronomers from investigating the universe using this band. Now a receiver has been installed at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to take advantage of the new-found clarity.

Read more ....

Wearable Artificial Intelligence Could Help Astronauts Troll Mars for Signs of Life

Cyborg Eyes Tests on the cyborg astrobiologist suit involve real-time color-based novelty detection using a field-capable digital microscope. An AI integrated spacesuit using the technology could help a manned mars mission search for sign of life on Mars' hostile surface. P.C. McGuire, arXiv:0910.5454.

From Popular Science:

Not since RoboCop has being a cyborg seemed so very cool. University of Chicago geoscientists are developing an artificial intelligence system that future Mars explorers could incorporate into their spacesuits to help them recognize signs of life on Mars' barren surface.

Read more ....