Most Fascinating Science News Of The Week: July 20, 2010

Here is a list of interesting science news headlines that I have found the most interesting this week. All headline links go to sciencedaily.com. 


Triceratops and Torsaurus were same dinosaur at different stages -
ScienceDaily (2010-07-14) -- Triceratops and Torosaurus were the same dinosaur at different stages of growth, according to new research. Since the late 1800s, scientists have believed that Triceratops and Torosaurus were two different types of dinosaurs. Triceratops had a three-horned skull with a rather short frill, whereas Torosaurus had a much bigger frill with two large holes through it.

Mayan king's tomb discovered in Guatemala -
ScienceDaily (2010-07-17) -- A well-preserved tomb of an ancient Mayan king has been discovered in Guatemala. The tomb is packed with carvings, ceramics, textiles, and the bones of six children, who may have been sacrificed at the time of the king's death.

Fly's brain -- a high-speed computer: Neurobiologists use state-of-the-art methods to decode the basics of motion detection -
ScienceDaily (2010-07-13) -- The minute brains of flies process visual movements in only fractions of a second. Just how the brain of the fly manages to perceive motion with such speed and precision is predicted quite accurately by a mathematical model.

Juno spacecraft armored up to go to Jupiter -
ScienceDaily (2010-07-14) -- NASA's Juno spacecraft will be forging ahead into a treacherous environment at Jupiter with more radiation than any other place NASA has ever sent a spacecraft, except the sun. In a specially filtered cleanroom in Denver, where Juno is being assembled, engineers recently added a unique protective shield around its sensitive electronics.

Stellar explosions provide the key to understanding the fate of the universe -
ScienceDaily (2010-07-13) -- The mysteries of the universe and how we came to be are set to be unlocked by a technique for modeling fluids, similar to one which is becoming increasingly popular within the film industry to improve the realism of special effects.


Fascinating images from a new world: Close-ups of the asteroid Lutetia - Gabriel's Pick
ScienceDaily (2010-07-14) -- The ESA space probe Rosetta flew past the Lutetia planetoid on July 10, 2010. The OSIRIS camera system provided unique images of this rendezvous. They not only show a large number of craters on the surface of the celestial body, but also individual rocks and parallel grooves.

Record-breaking X-ray blast briefly blinds space observatory -
ScienceDaily (2010-07-14) -- A blast of the brightest X-rays ever detected from beyond our Milky Way galaxy's neighborhood temporarily blinded the X-ray eye on NASA's Swift space observatory earlier this summer, astronomers now report. The X-rays traveled through space for 5-billion years before slamming into and overwhelming Swift's X-ray Telescope. The blinding blast is by far the brightest light source ever seen in X-ray wavelengths at cosmological distances.

Unravelling the mystery of massive star birth: All stars are born the same way -
ScienceDaily (2010-07-14) -- Astronomers have obtained the first image of a dusty disc closely encircling a massive baby star, providing direct evidence that massive stars form in the same way as their smaller brethren.


Super-hot planet with unique comet-like tail discovered -
ScienceDaily (2010-07-15) -- Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the existence of a baked object that could be called a "cometary planet." The gas giant planet, named HD 209458b, is orbiting so close to its star that its heated atmosphere is escaping into space. Observations taken with Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) suggest powerful stellar winds are sweeping the cast-off atmospheric material behind the scorched planet and shaping it into a comet-like tail.

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Most Fascinating Science News Of The Week: July 12, 2010

Here is a list of science news headlines that I have found the most interesting this week. All headline links go to sciencedaily.com -- the best place for science news in my opinion.
 
Surprisingly regular patterns in hurricane energy discovered
ScienceDaily (2010-07-09) -- Researchers in Spain have discovered a mathematical relation between the number of hurricanes produced in certain parts of Earth and the energy they release.

Watch while an asteroid eats a star
ScienceDaily (2010-07-06) -- In a rare event on July 8, 2010, skywatchers will be able to see an asteroid briefly block out the light from a star as it passes in front. It may be the only asteroid 'occultation' this century observable with the naked eye.

Black hole blows big bubble
ScienceDaily (2010-07-08) -- Combining observations made with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope, astronomers have uncovered the most powerful pair of jets ever seen from a stellar black hole. This object, also known as a microquasar, blows a huge bubble of hot gas, 1000 light-years across, twice as large and tens of times more powerful than other known microquasars.

Rosetta triumphs at asteroid Lutetia
ScienceDaily (2010-07-11) -- Asteroid Lutetia has been revealed as a battered world of many craters. European Space Agency's Rosetta mission has returned the first close-up images of the asteroid showing it is most probably a primitive survivor from the violent birth of the Solar System.

Miniature energy harvesting technology could power wireless electronics
ScienceDaily (2010-07-09) -- Newly published research focuses on miniature energy harvesting technologies that could potentially power wireless electronics, portable devices, stretchable electronics, and implantable biosensors.


Any of these stories strike a particular interest?

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Nuclear Weapons Might Save Mankind From Killer Asteroids

In the movie Armageddon, the scientists say that launching nuclear rockets will make the problem worse by bursting the asteroid into thousands of pieces, creating the same life ending scenario, except with smaller pieces.

So they come up with the solution to land on the asteroid and drill deep into it, plant a nuclear bomb, and explode it from it's interior. Instead of bursting it into thousands of pieces; it would split the asteroid in half and out of Earth's orbit, as shown in the movie.

Let's get our minds out of movies for a second and listen to real scientists. Bruce Willis won't be here for the real thing I can assure you that!

According to physicist David Dearborn, of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California--nuclear weapons could be a solution for an asteroid that would impact Earth within 50 years or so. The power of the nuclear explosion, he believes, would knock the asteroid out of it's orbit with Earth.

On the contrary, David Morrison, director at Nasa Lunar Science Institue and senior scientist at Nasa's Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, California, said this to Space.com: "If we have an asteroid that is really large, and we don't have more than a few years notice, nuclear is probably all we can do. If it's a mile or smaller and we have 10 to 20 years warning, we probably won't go nuclear."
  
On July 10, the Rosetta--a European spacecraft--will flyby the asteroid called Lutetia in hopes of capturing valuable photographs for scientists to study. This will further advance the somewhat small knowledge known about asteroids in space. If we go further into the future, by 2025, NASA plans to send astronauts to land on an asteroid. If that happens, it will be one hell of a day!


Landing on asteroids and planting nuclear weapons may be a viable option in some cases, however, according to Morrison, ballistic rockets may be an even better solution.

"If we test the ballistic impact, as people have proposed doing, then we can make it much more accurate than a nuke. One of the problems with the nuclear alternative is that I don't think anyone will ever let us test it," he said.

The other scientist, Dearborn, explains that exploding an asteroid with powerful enough nuclear explosives could be an effective solution to knock it off it's orbit with Earth. It could even be done with an asteroid as close as 15 days from impact.

"If you can intersect it 15 days out, which is beyond the orbit of the moon, that would be fine," said Dearson.

You would still have to worry about space debris, but, he says, if you use enough nuclear energy, it will diminish most of the debris before it gets to Earth.

The farther the explosion out in space, the less of an impact the debris may cause.

As our technology stands today, we should have the ability to protect the Earth from big asteroids. Sadly, the only thing technology has for us to solve such a problem is nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets.

Do you think nuclear weapons should be used if an asteroid impact is imminent?

For Further Reading Go to this article on space.com

Other News:
Antimatter Like Particles Discovered Deep Inside Earth
Scientist Claims Humans Will Become Extinct In 100 Years
The Solar Storm That May End It All In 2013
Possible Life On Saturn's Moon Titan Found
Life On Mars Possible Researchers Say 

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Most Fascinating News Of The Month: June 2010

 Here are the most fascinating news headlines for the month of June 2010. Enjoy!
 
Antimatter Like Particles Discovered Deep Inside Earth - Scientists have discovered antimatter like particles deep under the Earth's surface. The particles that were discovered are called geoneutrinos. Geoneutrinos are lightweight, neutrally charged particles, that are the antimatter counterparts of neutrinos.

Scientist Claims Humans Will Become Extinct In 100 Years - Overpopulation, food shortages, climate change, and future wars over food. Are we already at the point of no return? According to 95 year old Professor Frank Fenner, we are.
"We're going to become extinct. Whatever we do now is too late." He said in an interview with The Australian.


The Solar Storm That May End It All In 2013 - In the next few years, NASA has predicted that solar storms may get so intense that it could utterly end all electronic technology known to man. Essentially, knocking us all back the the pioneer days!


Possible Life On Saturn's Moon Titan Found - Scientists are speculating that there could be possible life on Saturn's moon Titan. They have found strange chemical activity that could lead to evidence of alien life.


Life On Mars Possible Researchers Say - Researchers have discovered methane-eating bacteria in a spring in Canada's extreme North. Located on Axel Heiberg island the spring is called the Lost Hammer spring and could be very similar to springs that have existed on Mars.

Dinosaur Found In Mexico Has Horns 4 Feet Long - A brand spanking new species of dinosaur was found in Mexico recently. The horns on this raging beast get up to 4 feet long.

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Antimatter Like Particles Discovered Deep Inside The Earth

Scientists have discovered antimatter like particles deep under the Earth's surface. The particles that were discovered are called geoneutrinos. Geoneutrinos are lightweight, neutrally charged particles, that are the antimatter counterparts of neutrinos.

Antimatter holds pretty much the opposite properties of regular matter. For example, If  just an ordinary particle, say an electron, collides with an antimatter particle--They will explode. Antimatter is sometimes referenced to as the "god particle" and for good reason. With just around 1 kg of antimatter, you could create an explosion big enough to match that of the Tsar bomb, which is the world's most powerful nuclear weapon. Although, the discover of these so called "antimatter particles" are not actually antimatter. They kinda are similar in the sense that geoneutrinos are the opposites of neutrinos, like how antimatter is the opposite of matter.

Deposits of these antimatter particles is caused by radioactive decay of thorium, uranium, and potassium from the Earth's crust and mantle.

The discovery originated at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics. They used a giant steel sphere that is buried about a mile under Gran Sasso moutain in Italy. The sphere has a inner nylon sphere detector that holds 1,000 tons of hydrocarbon liquid. It then has an outer steel sphere which contains ultra-sensitive photodetectors and then the whole thing is encased in another steel sphere (45 ft diameter) that holds about 2,400 tons of purified water. The thing is designed to only detect solar neutrinos, geoneutrinos and neutrinos. After an entire year of searching for the geoneutrinos particles, only a few were found. However, solar neutrinos are relatively common as the sphere can detect them more easily. Geoneutrinos, on the other hand, are very difficult to find as they can pass through everything without any kind of interaction whatsoever. The research is still ongoing.

Studying geoneutrinos could help researchers better understand the way heat develops and flows under our planet and how it can affect events like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

Photo credit: Paolo Lombardi INFN-MI
Story Adapted from: Livescience

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Scientists Claim Humans Will Become Extinct In 100 Years
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Scientist Claims Humans Will Become Extinct In 100 Years

 Are humans on the brink of extinction? How long do we have left?

Overpopulation, food shortages, climate change, and future wars over food. Are we already at the point of no return? According to 95 year old Professor Frank Fenner, we are.

 "We're going to become extinct. Whatever we do now is too late." He said in an interview with The Australian.

He spells a very bleak future for humankind. As the population of human beings keeps growing from 7 billion and beyond, Fenner claims this will put a critical strain on the already vanishing global food supplies. With countries struggling to get food this will cause "food wars" he says .

Climate change is yet another problem as it could trigger global drought and essentially make the earth into no man's land -- causing even more food shortages in the near future.

Although mankind is already trying to overcome the problem of global warming, Professor Frank Fenner says it is already too late.

"Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years," he said. "A lot of other animals will, too. It's an irreversible situation. I think it's too late."

I guess the only thing to do now is to grab a front seat ticket to the end of the world. Humans are in for one hellish ride! If 2012 don't get us, maybe this will?

I'll leave you with these words of wisdom by Fenner, "Mitigation would slow things down a bit, but there are too many people here already." Hm, ouch!

Maybe this guy just isn't a people person?

Related Posts:
The Solar Storm that may end it All in 2013
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The Solar Storm that may End it All in 2013

In the next few years, NASA has predicted that solar storms may get so intense that it could utterly end all electronic technology known to man. Essentially, knocking us all back the the pioneer days!

The period of the highest solar intensity is said to hit somewhere around 2013, however, It could happen any day now. The Sun has be very quiet for the past several years and that is just an indication of the calming before the storm.

Richard Fisher, who is head of the Heliophysics Division at NASA is worried, saying:

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

 The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club held a meeting in Washington DC on June 8th to discuss the impact that these solar storms may cause.

The increase in solar activity is a serous cause for concern. If the earth was hit with excessive solar radiation this could mean the end for many of the technology we rely on for safety and survival. Were talking about electronic based Smart power grids, GPS, airplanes, air travel, emergency radio, satellites, phones, computers, that can all be destroyed from intense solar activity.

Richard Fisher said this in an interview by the Daily Telegraph:

"We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be. It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigation's, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world."

What can we do about it?
I know it kinda sounds like the end of the world, however, there are things we can do. For example, if we can get proper warnings and forecasting of the storms; then we can put satellites in what they call "safe mode" and pray that it doesn't get fried. Turning off electronic devices and removing the batteries may also prevent damage. Power companies may need to even disconnect transformers to prevent the whole grid from going down.

So I guess these are some of the things we can do to prevent problems, though, if we don't get the proper forecasting in place; we will all get caught in the storm.

Solar storms are nothing new. The Earth has been hit many times before. Except when those storms hit; the world didn't run on electronics. We are in for one wild ride!

What do you think is going to happen?

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Possible Life On Saturn's Moon Titan Found

Scientists are speculating that there could be possible life on Saturn's moon Titan. They have found strange chemical activity that could lead to evidence of alien life.

Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system. Its bigger than both Mercury and Pluto. The atmosphere is very thick and full of nitrogen, methane, and other stuff. No liquid water exists on Titan, however, there are lakes of liquid methane.

Titan is way too cold to have liquid water, which as we know is essential for life; at least on our planet. Or is it?

With new discoveries like organisms found on Lost Hammer spring, Axel Heiberg island, Canada we now know that liquid water and oxygen are not the only elements that will support life. There are organisms that can breathe other elements like sulfate for example. In the case of Titan, scientists are measuring the depleting levels of hydrogen on the surface that are without any explanation whatsoever.

Could it be possible that there are microscopic organisms consuming the hydrogen? 

One thing to consider is that the previous measurements of Titan's hydrogen levels could have been over estimated. That would make it seem as if the hydrogen on the surface is depleting when its really not. Only future tests will tell.

Currently, the Titan Mare Explorer is being proposed to NASA for development. If NASA accepts the proposal then it will be set to launch around 2017. The only way for us to know for certain if there is life on Titan is the send a probe up there. Until then, we can only speculate what's up there and causing this strange chemical disturbance. It might be alien life; it might be nothing. For the sake of my sanity, I hope its life!

Adapted from materials found on: universetoday.com
Photo credit: NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org

Do you think there could be life on Titan?

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