Mars Rover Spirit's Days May Be Numbered

Artist's concept of the Spirit rover on Mars (before getting stuck in a sand trap).
(Credit: NASA)

From CNET News:

One of NASA's seemingly immortal Mars rovers might soon be at the end of its days.

The Spirit rover had been cruising around the Red Planet, along with its companion, Opportunity, since they both arrived six years ago this month. (Spirit landed on January 3, 2004, while Opportunity landed on January 24 of that year.) Their mission to send back photos and data about the Martian surface was expected to last a mere 90 days. Instead, the two traveling research bots blew away all expectations, continuing their treks year after year.

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Poker Paradox: The More Hands You Win, The More Money You Lose

From Science A Gogo:

Analyzing more than 27 million hands of No-Limit Texas Hold'em, a Cornell researcher has found that the more hands players win, the less money they're likely to collect - especially when it comes to novice players. The study was published in the Journal of Gambling Studies.

Cornell's Kyle Siler hypothesizes that the multiple wins are likely for small stakes, and the more you play, the more likely you will eventually be walloped by occasional - but significant - losses. "[The finding] coincides with observations in behavioral economics that people overweigh their frequent small gains vis-à-vis occasional large losses, and vice versa," Siler explained. In other words, players feel positively reinforced by their streak of wins but have difficulty fully understanding how their occasional large losses offset their gains.

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Second Smallest Exoplanet Spotted: Discovery Highlights New Potential for Eventually Finding Earth-Mass Planets

Astronomers have detected an extrasolar planet with a mass just four
times that of Earth. (Credit: L. Calcada, ESO)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 14, 2010) — Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and other institutions, using the highly sensitive 10-meter Keck I telescope atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea, have detected an extrasolar planet with a mass just four times that of Earth. The planet, which orbits its parent star HD156668 about once every four days, is the second-smallest world among the more than 400 exoplanets (planets located outside our solar system) that have been found to date. It is located approximately 80 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Hercules.

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Airport Security Unlikely To Spot Hard-to-Find Weapons

Human psychology could be making an airport screener's job even harder,
a new study found. Credit: StockXpert

From Live Science:

When airport screeners don’t expect to find a gun in your bag, they likely won’t, suggests new research that shows that when people think something will be difficult to find, they don't look as hard as when they think they're likely to see what they're searching for.

Call it the needle-in-the-haystack effect: Humans aren’t adapted to finding rare things.

"We know that if you don't find it often, you often don't find it," said cognitive scientist Jeremy Wolfe of Harvard Medical School. "Rare stuff gets missed."

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New Study Raises Concerns About HIV-Drug Resistance

A supply of antiretroviral drugs is prepared for free distribution to HIV patients at the Integrated HIV Service Unit at the Cipto Mangunkusumo government hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia. Romeo Gacad / AFP / Getty

From Time Magazine:

Last January a team of scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) published a study in the British medical journal the Lancet making the audacious claim that the tools already exist to end the AIDS epidemic. Doctors have long noted that antiretrovirals — the drugs commonly used to treat HIV — are so successful at suppressing the number of viruses in an infected patient's blood that they can render a person no longer contagious. Using mathematical models, the researchers claimed that universal HIV testing followed by the immediate treatment of newly infected patients with antiretroviral drugs could eliminate the disease from even the most heavily infected populations within 10 years.

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Herschel Space Telescope Restored To Full Health

From The BBC:

Europe's billion-euro Herschel Space Telescope is fully operational again after engineers brought its damaged instrument back online.

The observatory's HiFi spectrometer was turned off just three months into the mission because of an anomaly that was probably triggered by space radiation.

The Dutch-led consortium that operates HiFi has now switched the instrument across to its reserve electronics.

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Marvels From Mars: Stunning Postcards From The Red Planet

Devil's punch bowl? The mouth of Albor Tholus, an extinct volcano, is 30km across

From The Daily Mail:

The Red Planet, Mars, fascinates us like no other celestial body. We have yet to visit the most Earth-like world in the solar system in person, but since the Sixties a small armada of space probes have poked and prodded the dusty Martian surface.

And, as these astonishing images show, they have taken the most spectacular close-up pictures while orbiting the planet.

Because Mars has so little air, and certainly no substantial running water and no vegetation, the processes of weathering and erosion, so important on Earth, operate differently on Mars.

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Government Gmail Use Following Google's China News

From ZNet:

Updated: A Google spokesman responds with the following: The premise of Mr. Strassmann’s post is without merit: There’s no need to withdraw servers that store Gmail information from China because there aren’t any there.

Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra has been a consistent advocate of increasing the government’s use of commercially available technologies, such as Gmail. In fact, as the District of Columbia’s chief technology officer, Kundra implemented Google Apps, including Gmail, for all District employees.

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Major Antarctic Glacier Is 'Past Its Tipping Point'

A catastrophic collapse is imminent, according to the latest study
(Image: NASA/Jane Peterson, NSERC)

From New Scientist:

A major Antarctic glacier has passed its tipping point, according to a new modelling study. After losing increasing amounts of ice over the past decades, it is poised to collapse in a catastrophe that could raise global sea levels by 24 centimetres.

Pine Island glacier (PIG) is one of many at the fringes of the West Antarctic ice sheet. In 2004, satellite observations showed that it had started to thin, and that ice was flowing into the Amundsen Sea 25 per cent faster than it had 30 years before.

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Google Earth Reveals The Devastation In Haiti

On the left, buildings surrounding Haiti's capital are reduced to rubble, and the roof of the capital itself (at top) is crumbled. On the right, the capital building on Sept. 29, 2008. GeoEye Satellite Image

GeoEye Satellite Images: Haiti Before and After -- FOXNews.com

Before and after photographs from GeoEye's satellites shows the destruction to the capital and surrounding buildings in Port-au-Prince.

Before and after photographs from GeoEye's satellites shows the destruction to the National Palace and surrounding buildings in Port-au-Prince.

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More News On Satellite Pictures Over Haiti

Google Earth Reveals the Devastation in Haiti -- PC World
Google's Satellite Images of the Haiti Earthquake -- Time Magazine
Google Earth Reveals Extent of Haiti Quake Damage -- Sphere
Updated Google maps show Haiti devastation -- Toronto Star
First Satellite Map of Haiti Earthquake -- Science Daily

Why China Needs Google More Than Google Needs China

From Popular Mechanics:

Cyber attacks targeting Gmail accounts of Chinese human right activists have led to a decision by Google to relax self-censorship for China. This may be the first step in a much larger pullout from China by tech giant Google. This bold business move is a good thing, according to Popular Mechanics's senior technology editor, Glenn Derene. Here, Derene argues that China needs Google's innovation and creativity much more than Google needs Chinese business.

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DARPA Spends $51 Million On Matrix-Like Cyber War Firing Range

Do Virtual IT Administrator Opponents Dream Of Electric Jolt Cola Bottles? via Chas Andrews

From Popular Science:

As any soldier will tell you, consistent and realistic drill forms the foundation of any successful military action. But whereas an infantryman can hone his aim at a firing range, America's Internet warriors don't have a similar venue for developing their skills at cyberwar. But DARPA hopes a $51 million network simulation, complete with computer programs that behave like human targets and adversaries, will provide the perfect arena for developing the next generation of cyberwar weapons and tactics.

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My Comment: The ultimate in computer warfare and conflict .... sigh .... I wish I was involved in this.

Faster And More Efficient Software For The US Air Force

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 12, 2010) — Researchers at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln have addressed the issue of faulty software by developing an algorithm and open source tool that is 300 times faster at generating tests and also reduces current software testing time.

The new algorithm has potential to increase the efficiency of the software testing process across systems.

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The Devastating Haiti Earthquake: Questions And Answers

Desolate: Survivors gather around bodies laid out after being recovered from the wreckage

From Live Science:

The earthquake that devastated Haiti Tuesday was the strongest temblor to hit the island nation in more than 200 years. The magnitude 7.0 quake caused tremendous damage that officials have yet to fully characterize, and the death toll may run into the thousands.

What caused the Haiti earthquake, and why was it so devastating? Here are answers to these and other questions:

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The Exoplanet Explosion

The first six weeks of scientific data returned by Kepler has already turned up five exoplanets, with many more candidates waiting to be studied. (credit: NASA)

From The Space Review:

Fifteen years ago, there were virtually no known planets beyond the (then nine) planets in our own solar system: just a few found by chance orbiting a pulsar. Then, in late 1995 and 1996, came the initial discovery of planets orbiting main sequence stars like the Sun. That slow trickle of discoveries became a steady stream as astronomers refined their instruments and techniques, as well as increased both the number of stars studied and their period of time observed. By the beginning of 2010 astronomers reported finding over 400 such extrasolar planets, or exoplanets.

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Cocaine Found In Shuttle Work Area, NASA Says

Workers align the space shuttle Discovery's thrusters in Orbiter Processing Facility Bay 3 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in December 2009. A small amount of cocaine was found in a restricted area of the facility on Wednesday, NASA said. NASA

From MSNBC/Space.com:

NASA says workers face drug tests; no impact on flights expected.

NASA is investigating how a small amount of cocaine ended up in a space shuttle hangar at the agency's Florida spaceport.

A bag containing the cocaine residue was discovered in the space shuttle Discovery's hangar at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The hangar, known as the Orbiter Processing Facility, is a restricted zone for shuttle workers only.

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Exotic Stars May Mimic big Bang

'Electroweak' stars may recreate the conditions of the big bang in an apple-sized region in their cores (Illustration: Casey Reed, courtesy of Penn State)

From New Scientist:

A new class of star may recreate the conditions of the big bang in its incredibly dense core.

Pack matter tightly enough and gravity will cause it to implode into a black hole. Neutron stars were once thought to be the densest form of matter that could resist such a collapse. More recently, physicists have argued that some supernovae may leave behind even denser quark stars, in which neutrons dissolve into their constituent quarks.

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Doomsday Clock Moves Back A Minute

The Doomsday Clock now reads six minutes until midnight. Scott Olson/AFP

'Doomsday Clock' Moves Away From Midnight but Only by 1 Minute -- ABC News

Despite Threats, Scientists Say State of Affairs Is 'Hopeful'

The world can breathe a sigh of relief today... kind of.

A group of international scientists this morning announced that they are moving the hands of the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" away from midnight -- or the figurative apocalypse -- but only by one minute.

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More News On The "Doomsday Clock"

Scientists Push "Doomsday Clock" Back a Minute -- ABC News/Reuters
Scientists Move Doomsday Clock Back One Minute -- Global Security Newswire
Atomic scientists move Doomsday Clock one minute further away from midnight -- New York Daily News
Doomsday Clock moves back a minute -- The Independent
Time Moves Backward for Doomsday Clock -- Sphere
Doomsday Clock Set Back One Minute -- Associated Content
Doomsday Clock shows signs for hope, need for progress -- Christian Science Monitor

My Comment: The scientists quote President Obama .... Scientists Say State of Affairs Is 'Hopeful'.

Sighhh ... hope and change is still in the air.

Could Haiti's Earthquake Tragedy Have Been Prevented?

A destroyed building is seen on January 12, 2010 in Port-au-Prince after a huge earthquake measuring 7.0 rocked the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti. (Photograph by Lisandro Suero/AFP/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti was long predicted by one group of geophysicists. Could the tragedy have been prevented?

On January 12, around dinnertime, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, decimating the island nation and leaving hundreds of thousands presumed dead. A rescue effort is underway now, but as government officials and rescue agencies sort through the rubble, it is worth asking: Could this tragedy have been prevented?

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Looking For Life As We Know It

The Australia Telescope array near Narrabri, New South Wales, with Mercury, Venus, and the Moon all is the same stretch of sky. It's the 50th anniversary of attempts to search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. Credit: Graeme L. White and Glen Cozens/James Cook University

From Cosmos:

Some scientists are convinced life is common in the universe, but intelligence rare. As for how long civilisations last - and stay detectable - few are willing to hazard a guess.

Two young physicists at Cornell University in upstate New York, Philip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi, had long been interested in gamma rays. One spring day in 1959, Cocconi posed an intriguing question: wouldn’t gamma rays be perfect for communication between the stars?

The discussion that followed led to a two-page article in the British journal Nature entitled “Searching for interstellar communications”. Sandwiched between a paper on the electronic prediction of swarming in bees and one on metabolic changes induced in red blood cells by X-rays, the duo argued that if advanced extraterrestrial civilisations existed, and wanted to communicate, they would likely use radio.

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