WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on the Red Planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist is theorizing.The Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life, so they didn't recognize it, a geology professor at Washington State University said.
Dirk Schulze-Makuch presented his theory in a paper delivered at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington.
The paper was released Sunday...
Monday, January 08, 2007
Reverse Mars Attacks!
Scientist Says NASA Found Alien Life (and killed it)
Monday, December 25, 2006
The Real End Times
"White Dwarf Hints At Our Solar System's End
Andrea Thompson
Staff Writer
SPACE.com Sat Dec 23, 7:30 AM ET
Andrea Thompson
Staff Writer
SPACE.com Sat Dec 23, 7:30 AM ET
A debris disk spied recently around a distant dead star is likely the remains of an asteroid that was vaporized when the star died, scientists say.
The discovery, detailed in the Dec. 22 issue of the journal Science, could be a sign of what will happen in our own solar system in a few billion years. Because the crushed asteroid was probably gravitationally lassoed in by one or more planets, the finding also provides evidence that planetary systems can form around massive stars. . ."
Friday, December 22, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
52 New Species
'WWF: 52 new species discovered on Borneo
© 2006 The Associated Press
GENEVA — Scientists have discovered at least 52 new species of animals and plants on the southeast Asian island of Borneo since 2005, including a catfish with protruding teeth and suction cups on its belly to help it stick to rocks, WWF International said Tuesday."The more we look the more we find," said Stuart Chapman, WWF International coordinator for the study of the "Heart of Borneo," a 85,000-square-mile rain forest in the center of the island where several of the new species were found. "These discoveries reaffirm Borneo's position as one of the most important centers of biodiversity in the world . . ."'
Sunday, December 10, 2006
On Evolving
Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution - New York Times: "Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution
Article Tools Sponsored By
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: December 10, 2006
A surprisingly recent instance of human evolution has been detected among the peoples of East Africa. It is the ability to digest milk in adulthood, conferred by genetic changes that occurred as recently as 3,000 years ago, a team of geneticists has found.
The finding is a striking example of a cultural practice — the raising of dairy cattle — feeding back into the human genome. It also seems to be one of the first instances of convergent human evolution to be documented at the genetic level. Convergent evolution refers to two or more populations acquiring the same trait independently.
Throughout most of human history, the ability to digest lactose, the principal sugar of milk, has been switched off after weaning because there is no further need for the lactase enzyme that breaks the sugar apart. But when cattle were first domesticated 9,000 years ago and people later started to consume their milk as well as their meat, natural selection would have favored anyone with a mutation that kept the lactase gene switched on. . ."
Article Tools Sponsored By
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: December 10, 2006
A surprisingly recent instance of human evolution has been detected among the peoples of East Africa. It is the ability to digest milk in adulthood, conferred by genetic changes that occurred as recently as 3,000 years ago, a team of geneticists has found.
The finding is a striking example of a cultural practice — the raising of dairy cattle — feeding back into the human genome. It also seems to be one of the first instances of convergent human evolution to be documented at the genetic level. Convergent evolution refers to two or more populations acquiring the same trait independently.
Throughout most of human history, the ability to digest lactose, the principal sugar of milk, has been switched off after weaning because there is no further need for the lactase enzyme that breaks the sugar apart. But when cattle were first domesticated 9,000 years ago and people later started to consume their milk as well as their meat, natural selection would have favored anyone with a mutation that kept the lactase gene switched on. . ."
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Brazil Scores One For Environment
ABC News: Brazil Protects Great Swath of Amazon: "RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil Dec 4, 2006 (AP)— A swath of Amazon rain forest the size of Alabama was placed under government protection Monday in a region infamous for violent conflicts among loggers, ranchers and environmentalists.
Known as the Guayana Shield, the 57,915-square-mile area contains more than 25 percent of the world's remaining humid tropical forests and the largest remaining unpolluted fresh water reserves in the American tropics."
Known as the Guayana Shield, the 57,915-square-mile area contains more than 25 percent of the world's remaining humid tropical forests and the largest remaining unpolluted fresh water reserves in the American tropics."
Monday, December 04, 2006
On. . . Everything
The Blog | Deepak Chopra: The God Delusion? Part 7 | The Huffington Post: ". . .It's hard for materialists not to thump their chests, as Dawkins so brazenly does. Unfortunately, the Theory of Everything has hit a brick wall. Quantum physics lacks the power to cross the border into the invisible world that lies beyond subatomic particles, the so-called virtual domain. Not only is this the realm of 'dark matter' and 'dark energy'--mysterious shadows of the matter and energy we see around us--but all possible universes also lie across the same boundary, as well as the 'zero point' where space and time are born.
Genetics seems to be riding higher, but behind the display of public triumph, biology has not solved the existence of mind, and therefore the same obstacle faces both fields. An invisible world lies sealed off from investigation, leaving us to trace its footprints and echoes. MRIs and CAT scans are impressive but limited. As someone once commented, brain research is like putting a stethoscope to the outside of the Astrodome and trying to figure out the rules of football. Dawkins finds consciousness (as well as quantum physics) totally irrelevant, a comment on his own intellectual limitations rather than reality. If God is going to become viable again, he will have to be a God who solves some key mysteries in the virtual domain:
This last question is the most pressing one, for both believers and non-believers. . ."
Genetics seems to be riding higher, but behind the display of public triumph, biology has not solved the existence of mind, and therefore the same obstacle faces both fields. An invisible world lies sealed off from investigation, leaving us to trace its footprints and echoes. MRIs and CAT scans are impressive but limited. As someone once commented, brain research is like putting a stethoscope to the outside of the Astrodome and trying to figure out the rules of football. Dawkins finds consciousness (as well as quantum physics) totally irrelevant, a comment on his own intellectual limitations rather than reality. If God is going to become viable again, he will have to be a God who solves some key mysteries in the virtual domain:
--What separates life from inert matter?
--What part does the observer play in creating reality?
--How does the infinite quantum field organize and govern every event in the universe?
--How does chaos relate to order? Are they enemies or secret allies?
--How did evolution overcome entropy, the ceaseless march of the physical universe toward chaos and the deep freezer of "heat death"?
--Why is the universe so amazingly hospitable to human life?
This last question is the most pressing one, for both believers and non-believers. . ."
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Good Dogs
Science Blog | Think. It's not illegal yet.: "Infants Wheeze Less in Homes With Multiple Dogs
Submitted by BJS on Thu, 2006-11-30 09:55. animal kingdom
Living in a home with multiple dogs may help reduce an infant’s risk for developing wheezing in the first year of life, according to new research from the University of Cincinnati (UC). Cincinnati researchers, led by David Bernstein, MD, have found that infants living in homes with high levels of endotoxins (bacterial contaminants) and multiple dogs were more than two times less likely to wheeze than other infants."
Submitted by BJS on Thu, 2006-11-30 09:55. animal kingdom
Living in a home with multiple dogs may help reduce an infant’s risk for developing wheezing in the first year of life, according to new research from the University of Cincinnati (UC). Cincinnati researchers, led by David Bernstein, MD, have found that infants living in homes with high levels of endotoxins (bacterial contaminants) and multiple dogs were more than two times less likely to wheeze than other infants."
Friday, December 01, 2006
Dino Gone
Single massive asteroid wiped out dinosaurs: study - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A single, gigantic asteroid slammed into Earth 65 million years ago, dooming the dinosaurs and many other species, scientists said on Thursday in a new study rebutting theories that multiple impacts did the deed.
ADVERTISEMENT
An examination of rock sediments drilled from five sites at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean strongly supports the notion that one massive hunk of space rock caused the mass extinction, a research team led by University of Missouri-Columbia geology professor Ken MacLeod found.
'It's a completely straightforward, single-impact scenario,' MacLeod, whose findings appear in the Geological Society of America Bulletin, said in an interview. 'It was a haymaker that nobody saw coming. One shot, and that's all you need to explain it.'
Scientists believe that an asteroid about 6 miles wide hurtled to Earth 65.5 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period, plunging into what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to carve out the Chicxulub (pronounced CHIK-shu-loob) crater measuring about 110 miles across.
To put it mildly, it was a bad day to live on Earth."
ADVERTISEMENT
An examination of rock sediments drilled from five sites at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean strongly supports the notion that one massive hunk of space rock caused the mass extinction, a research team led by University of Missouri-Columbia geology professor Ken MacLeod found.
'It's a completely straightforward, single-impact scenario,' MacLeod, whose findings appear in the Geological Society of America Bulletin, said in an interview. 'It was a haymaker that nobody saw coming. One shot, and that's all you need to explain it.'
Scientists believe that an asteroid about 6 miles wide hurtled to Earth 65.5 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period, plunging into what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to carve out the Chicxulub (pronounced CHIK-shu-loob) crater measuring about 110 miles across.
To put it mildly, it was a bad day to live on Earth."
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
LiveScience.com - Scientists Levitate Small Animals
LiveScience.com - Scientists Levitate Small Animals: "
Scientists Levitate Small Animals
By Charles Q. Choi
Special to LiveScience
posted: 29 November 2006
10:28 am ET
Scientists have now levitated small live animals using sounds that are, well, uplifting.
In the past, researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China, used ultrasound fields to successfully levitate globs of the heaviest solid and liquid—iridium and mercury, respectively. The aim of their work is to learn how to manufacture everything from pharmaceuticals to alloys without the aid of containers. At times compounds are too corrosive for containers to hold, or they react with containers in other undesirable ways."
Scientists Levitate Small Animals
By Charles Q. Choi
Special to LiveScience
posted: 29 November 2006
10:28 am ET
Scientists have now levitated small live animals using sounds that are, well, uplifting.
In the past, researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China, used ultrasound fields to successfully levitate globs of the heaviest solid and liquid—iridium and mercury, respectively. The aim of their work is to learn how to manufacture everything from pharmaceuticals to alloys without the aid of containers. At times compounds are too corrosive for containers to hold, or they react with containers in other undesirable ways."
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Monsters of the Deep
Bizarre deep-sea creatures imaged off New Zealand - life - 27 November 2006 - New Scientist
Vestimentiferan worms - a type of tube worm widely seen at the methane seeps - were sampled from the "Builder's Pencil" site. Builder’s Pencil, which covers 180,000 square metres, is one of the largest seep sites in the world (Image: NOAA/NIWA)
Related Articles
- Extreme seabed-survival boosts hope of aliens
- 28 August 2006
- Instant Expert: Mysteries of the Deep
- 04 September 2006
- Search New Scientist
- Contact us
Web Links
The furry filaments on this hermit crab’s claws are thought to allow it to feed off the energy-rich chemicals from the seep (Image: NOAA/NIWA)
"The weird and wonderful creatures living by methane vents in the southwest Pacific have been photographed for the first time (see images right and below).
The deep-sea communities live around methane seeps off New Zealand’s eastern coast, up to 1 kilometre beneath the sea surface. The team of 21 researchers from the US and New Zealand, who spent two weeks exploring the area, have just returned to shore. See video footage recorded by the researchers here, here and here.
“It's the first time cold seeps have been viewed and sampled in the southwest Pacific, and will greatly contribute to our knowledge of these intriguing ecosystems,” says Amy Baco-Taylor from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US.
Cold seeps are areas of the seabed where methane or hydrogen sulphide gas escape from stores deep underneath. Like hydrothermal vents, the gases support unique life forms that can convert the energy-rich chemicals into living matter in the absence of any sunlight.
Sheer extent
Animals living around methane seeps off Chile and Japan have been observed before, but not near New Zealand. “The seeps here are remarkable in the sheer extent of their chemosynthetic communities,” says Baco-Taylor, whose team visited eight such sites between 750 and 1050 metres beneath the surface.
They used sonar to map the seafloor and to detect plumes of water rich in methane, then lowered a video and stills camera system over each site.
This allowed them to record images of tube worms between 30 cm and 40 cm in length as they emerged from beneath limestone boulders. They also recorded corals, sponges and shell beds covered with various types of clam and mussel..."
Monday, November 27, 2006
What if you could erase your memory? - The Stanford Daily Online
What if you could erase your memory? - The Stanford Daily Online: "...Pitman’s research suggests that if a patient undergoes treatment with propanolol within the hours following a traumatic episode, negative memories would not be as deeply embedded in the brain. By extension, McGough suggests that the drugs could also be taken in anticipation of a disturbing experience, such as paramedics scraping bodies off the highway or a mother visiting the morgue to identify a dead son.
A recent article in The New York Times expressed concern that if the use of propanolol becomes routine, people who would not have developed PTSD will be taking the medication unnecessarily. However, neither McGaugh nor Pitman are concerned with this possibility because of the lack of serious side effects associated with the medication.
Even so, some find the manipulation of memory formation troubling.
While not wanting to appear insensitive to those suffering from PTSD, junior Erin Lashnits remarked, “I think that memories make up an important part of a person’s identity . . . even if the memories don’t change, you’re changing the intensity of that memory or of the reaction to an event. [The drug] has the potential to have much more serious complications with a person’s personality than just making life a little easier...”"
A recent article in The New York Times expressed concern that if the use of propanolol becomes routine, people who would not have developed PTSD will be taking the medication unnecessarily. However, neither McGaugh nor Pitman are concerned with this possibility because of the lack of serious side effects associated with the medication.
Even so, some find the manipulation of memory formation troubling.
While not wanting to appear insensitive to those suffering from PTSD, junior Erin Lashnits remarked, “I think that memories make up an important part of a person’s identity . . . even if the memories don’t change, you’re changing the intensity of that memory or of the reaction to an event. [The drug] has the potential to have much more serious complications with a person’s personality than just making life a little easier...”"
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Climate Change
Science Blog | Think. It's not illegal yet.: "Climate change sceptics 'out of step, out of arguments and out of time'
Submitted by BJS on Wed, 2006-11-15 13:57. energy & environment
Climate change must be taken as seriously as the issues that have traditionally monopolized first-order political attention such as conflict, poverty and the proliferation of deadly weapons, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a United Nations conference on the issue in Nairobi today. “Instead of being economically defensive, let us start being more politically courageous,” he said. “The Nairobi conference must send a clear, credible signal that the world’s political leaders take climate change seriously. The question is not whether climate change is happening, but whether, in the face of this emergency, we ourselves can change fast enough.”"
Submitted by BJS on Wed, 2006-11-15 13:57. energy & environment
Climate change must be taken as seriously as the issues that have traditionally monopolized first-order political attention such as conflict, poverty and the proliferation of deadly weapons, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a United Nations conference on the issue in Nairobi today. “Instead of being economically defensive, let us start being more politically courageous,” he said. “The Nairobi conference must send a clear, credible signal that the world’s political leaders take climate change seriously. The question is not whether climate change is happening, but whether, in the face of this emergency, we ourselves can change fast enough.”"
Tribbles
Science Blog | Think. It's not illegal yet.: "'Tribbles' Implicated in Common and Aggressive Form of Leukemia
Submitted by BJS on Thu, 2006-11-16 11:06. bioscience & medicine
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified a new protein associated with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Several lines of evidence point to a protein called Tribbles, named after the furry creatures that took over the starship Enterprise in the original 'Star Trek' series. Tribbles was first described in fruit flies."
Submitted by BJS on Thu, 2006-11-16 11:06. bioscience & medicine
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified a new protein associated with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Several lines of evidence point to a protein called Tribbles, named after the furry creatures that took over the starship Enterprise in the original 'Star Trek' series. Tribbles was first described in fruit flies."
NASA NanoTech
Science Blog | Think. It's not illegal yet.: "NASA Nanotechnology Comes to Market
Submitted by BJS on Wed, 2006-11-15 15:20. nanotech & materials
Finding affordable ways to make technology available to everyone is a common challenge. Now, NASA has done that with the process that creates 'nanotubes.' A nanotube is a tiny, hollow, long, thin and strong tube with an outside diameter of a nanometer that is formed from atoms such as carbon. A hair from a person’s head is around 50,000 nanometers wide. If you split a hair into 50,000 strands, that would be the width of a nanometer."
Submitted by BJS on Wed, 2006-11-15 15:20. nanotech & materials
Finding affordable ways to make technology available to everyone is a common challenge. Now, NASA has done that with the process that creates 'nanotubes.' A nanotube is a tiny, hollow, long, thin and strong tube with an outside diameter of a nanometer that is formed from atoms such as carbon. A hair from a person’s head is around 50,000 nanometers wide. If you split a hair into 50,000 strands, that would be the width of a nanometer."
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Sky News: Goblins And Giants: Humans To Split
Sky News: Goblins And Giants: Humans To Split: "Haves' And 'Have-Nots'
Updated: 20:39, Tuesday October 17, 2006
Social division might split humans into two sub-species 100,000 years from now, an evolution expert has claimed.
The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative.
They would be a far cry from the 'underclass' humans, who will have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.
The forecast was made by Dr Oliver Curry, who spent two months investigating the ascent and descent of man over the next 100 millennia.
He said, within a thousand years, humans will evolve into coffee-coloured giants between 6 and 7ft tall.
But Dr Curry said centuries of sexual selection - being choosy about one's partner - was likely to create more and more genetic inequality.
The logical outcome would be two sub-species, 'gracile' and 'robust' humans.
Dr Curry said: 'Things could get ugly, with the possible emergence of genetic 'haves' and 'have-nots'.'"
Updated: 20:39, Tuesday October 17, 2006
Social division might split humans into two sub-species 100,000 years from now, an evolution expert has claimed.
The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative.
They would be a far cry from the 'underclass' humans, who will have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.
The forecast was made by Dr Oliver Curry, who spent two months investigating the ascent and descent of man over the next 100 millennia.
He said, within a thousand years, humans will evolve into coffee-coloured giants between 6 and 7ft tall.
But Dr Curry said centuries of sexual selection - being choosy about one's partner - was likely to create more and more genetic inequality.
The logical outcome would be two sub-species, 'gracile' and 'robust' humans.
Dr Curry said: 'Things could get ugly, with the possible emergence of genetic 'haves' and 'have-nots'.'"
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Teleporting
Mad In The Middle: "Scientists teleport two different objects
CNN.com - Scientists teleport two different objects - Oct 4, 2006: 'LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Beaming people in 'Star Trek' fashion is still in the realms of science fiction, but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.
Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second.
But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.
'It is one step further because for the first time it involves teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium,' Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.
The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further."
CNN.com - Scientists teleport two different objects - Oct 4, 2006: 'LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Beaming people in 'Star Trek' fashion is still in the realms of science fiction, but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.
Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second.
But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.
'It is one step further because for the first time it involves teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium,' Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.
The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further."
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Junk Woes
The Blog | Bill Maher: Drug War Allowed To Get In The Way of Terror War | The Huffington Post:
". . . But I noticed in the recent drug survey - the same one that said baby boomers were getting high while their children say 'no' - about 6 percent of people said they had used marijuana in the past month. About 4 percent of people surveyed said they had used methamphetamine. 2.6 percent said they had abused prescription drugs. Just about 1 percent said they had used cocaine.
Heroin? Only 0.1 percent used heroin.
So why worry so much about the opium crop in Afghanistan when Americans don't really have a heroin problem? We're sacrificing the war on terror in the vain hope of one day helping Courtney Love kick her smack habit?"
". . . But I noticed in the recent drug survey - the same one that said baby boomers were getting high while their children say 'no' - about 6 percent of people said they had used marijuana in the past month. About 4 percent of people surveyed said they had used methamphetamine. 2.6 percent said they had abused prescription drugs. Just about 1 percent said they had used cocaine.
Heroin? Only 0.1 percent used heroin.
So why worry so much about the opium crop in Afghanistan when Americans don't really have a heroin problem? We're sacrificing the war on terror in the vain hope of one day helping Courtney Love kick her smack habit?"
Defense Tech: Area 51: Hype vs. Reality
Defense Tech: Area 51: Hype vs. Reality: "Area 51: Hype vs. Reality
In the October Popular Science, veteran aviation journo Bill Sweetman writes about secret airplanes he believes might be under development at the Air Force's remote Groom Lake test facility in Nevada, a.k.a. Area 51. Sweetman describes three demonstrators unveiled in recent years -- the Northrop Grumman Tacit Blue and Boeing Bird of Prey manned stealth planes and the Lockheed Martin Polecat drone -- but insists these are just consolation prizes offered up by a military that is keeping its major black airplane programs under wraps.
Not that he has a ton of proof. 'Hint[s]' and guesswork, mostly. The new construction at Groom Lake must mean something, he figures. And then there are those 'obvious... significant gaps in the military’s known aviation arsenal -- gaps that the Pentagon can reasonably be assumed to be actively, if quietly, trying to fill . . .'"
In the October Popular Science, veteran aviation journo Bill Sweetman writes about secret airplanes he believes might be under development at the Air Force's remote Groom Lake test facility in Nevada, a.k.a. Area 51. Sweetman describes three demonstrators unveiled in recent years -- the Northrop Grumman Tacit Blue and Boeing Bird of Prey manned stealth planes and the Lockheed Martin Polecat drone -- but insists these are just consolation prizes offered up by a military that is keeping its major black airplane programs under wraps.
Not that he has a ton of proof. 'Hint[s]' and guesswork, mostly. The new construction at Groom Lake must mean something, he figures. And then there are those 'obvious... significant gaps in the military’s known aviation arsenal -- gaps that the Pentagon can reasonably be assumed to be actively, if quietly, trying to fill . . .'"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
