|  How an Ion Drive Helped NASA's Dawn Probe Visit Dwarf Planet Ceres  | A NASA probe that takes four days to go from 0 to 60 mph is about to make space exploration history. NASA's Dawn spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, early Friday morning (March 6). If all goes according to plan, Dawn will become the first probe ever to orbit a dwarf planet, as well as the first to circle two celestial bodies beyond the Earth-moon system. The $473 million Dawn mission's unprecedented deep-space feats are enabled by its innovative ion propulsion system, which is about 10 times more efficient than traditional chemical thrusters.
| Read More » Earliest Human Species Possibly Found in Ethiopia  | An ancient jawbone fragment is the oldest human fossil discovered yet, a bone potentially from a new species that reveals the human family may have arose a half million years earlier than previously thought, researchers say. These extinct lineages were members of the genus Homo just as modern humans are. For decades, scientists have been searching Africa for signs of the earliest phases of the human family, during the shift from more apelike Australopithecus species to more human early Homo species. Until now, the earliest credible fossil evidence of the genus Homo was dated to about 2.3 million or 2.4 million years ago.
| Read More » Sunken Japanese WWII Battleship Located in the Philippines  | More than 70 years after it sank during World War II, the legendary Japanese battleship Musashi has been discovered off the coast of the Philippines. Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has been leading an expedition to find the Musashi — one of the biggest battleships ever built — aboard his high-tech 414-foot-long (125 meters) yacht, the M/Y Octopus.
| Read More » Cleaner Air Really Does Improve Kids' Lung Health Tougher air pollution control strategies in California may have resulted in better lung health in children, a new study suggests. Researchers found that children in California experienced improved lung function as levels of air pollution in the state declined between 1994 and 2011. "We saw about a 10-percent improvement" in the amount that children's lung capacity grew over a four-year period, said study researcher Jim Gauderman, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. Read More » Mars on Earth: Mock Space Mission Examines Trials of Daily Life  | NASA officials are hoping for this latter scenario when assigning crews to future Mars missions sometime in the future. NASA is examining the daily lives of the crew to see how they're coping in a harsh and isolated environment, and to improve the agency's plans for future long missions in space, according to the crew's chief scientist. "In part, this study is attempting to answer long-standing questions about the ideal crew composition for handling the challenges of a long-duration mission," Jocelyn Dunn told Space.com via e-mail. Dunn said it took the crew a month to get acclimatized to their new home, between learning the systems, figuring out the most efficient way to conduct NASA's studies, and making sure the habitat was organized.
| Read More » Gemini Constellation Holds Starry Treats for March Stargazers  | The constellation Gemini is currently well placed in the evening sky, just above and to the left of Orion for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. The Gemini constellation is marked by two of the brightest stars in the sky, Castor and Pollux.
| Read More » Arctic Sea Ice 'Thinning Dramatically,' Study Finds  | Arctic sea ice — the ice that freezes and floats on Arctic waters — is thinning at a steadier and faster rate than researchers previously thought, a new study finds. Using modern and historic measurements, the researchers got an extensive view of how the thickness of Arctic sea ice has changed over the past few decades. According to measurements from multiple sources, the ice in the central Arctic Ocean thinned 65 percent between 1975 and 2012, from 11.7 feet (3.59 meters) to 4.1 feet (1.25 m). The thinning is even steeper for September sea-ice levels, when sea ice is at its lowest after the summer melt.
| Read More » What Would It Be Like to Live On Dwarf Planet Ceres in the Asteroid Belt?  | The aptly named asteroid belt is a region of space between Mars and Jupiter that's home to the majority of the asteroids in the solar system. In recent years, asteroid belt objects have gained much attention as potential locations for future space mining operations that seek to harvest water for long-distance space missions (water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel). One potential resource is Ceres — the largest object in the asteroid belt, comprising up to a third of the belt's mass. Once labeled an asteroid, Ceres is now classified as a "dwarf planet," a step below a full-fledged planet.
| Read More » Vulcan Salute: Astronauts Honor Leonard Nimoy from Space (Photos)  | Two astronauts in space said goodbye to a science fiction legend on Earth by beaming back striking photos from the International Space Station. European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti honored "Star Trek" actor Leonard Nimoy — who died Friday (Feb. 6) due to end-stage lung disease — by posting a photo of herself wearing a Starfleet insignia, holding up the Vulcan salute and looking toward Earth on Twitter Saturday (Feb. 28). "'Of all the souls I have encountered.. his was the most human,'" Cristoforetti wrote on Twitter, quoting a line referencing Spock from the original "Star Trek" series. Cristoforetti's fellow space station crewmember, NASA astronaut Terry Virts, also posted a photo tribute to Nimoy.
| Read More » Crowdfunding psychedelics: LSD brain-imaging study seeks funds By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists are turning to crowdfunding to complete the first scientific study ever to image the brain of someone "tripping" on the psychedelic drug LSD. The study, part of a psychedelic research project the scientists say could revolutionize understanding of the human brain, is led by neuroscientists at Imperial College London who now need around 25,000 pounds ($38,000) to finish their work. When they do, the research will produce the world's first images of the human brain on LSD and will begin to reveal the way the drug can work to heal many debilitating illnesses such as alcohol addiction, depression and anxiety, the scientists told a briefing in London. "Despite the incredible potential of this drug to further out understanding of the brain, political stigma has silenced research," said David Nutt, a psychiatrist and professor of psychopharmacology at Imperial College London. Read More » Wow! Watch a Drone Fly Through the World's Largest Atom Smasher  | It's safe to say the world's largest atom smasher is big. A new video shot by a drone flying over and through the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) provides unique views of the immense particle detector, which is located underground near Geneva in Switzerland. The LHC's ring is 16 miles (27 kilometers) long. The LHC's largest magnets weigh 35 tons and are about 50 feet (15 meters) long.
| Read More » Bioterrorism Prep: Docs Must Look Out for Rare Diseases Doctors have better treatments for potential victims of bioterrorism attacks today than in the past, but it's critical for medical workers to quickly recognize illnesses such as anthrax and botulism, so they can respond properly, experts say. It has now been more than a decade since the anthrax attack that killed five people and sickened 17 in New York and Washington, D.C., and many physicians may have forgotten how to diagnose and treat illnesses related to a biological attack, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist and a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Health Security. "I think there's been an erosion of [doctors'] knowledge base" since that 2001 attack, in which victims received letters laced with anthrax spores, Adalja said. For this reason, Adalja and his colleagues have now outlined how to identify and treat five diseases that experts say have the most potential to be used as biological weapons, including anthrax, smallpox, plague, botulism and tularemia. Read More » Step It Up! The States Where People Walk Most  | And despite what may seem like a desire to hunker down and drink hot cocoa when the snow is falling, most people keep their activity levels fairly constant across both seasons, with just a slight dip in activity during winter, the data showed. "With walking as a primary form of transportation for many of its residents, the Empire State rules all for step-count staying power," the company said on its website. While some popular guidelines suggest people should walk at least 10,000 steps a day, that's not the official recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People in the Empire State logged the most steps all year round, walking an average of about 8,800 steps daily in the summer and 7,700 steps daily in the winter, when temperatures average just 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 4 degrees C).
| Read More » Uranus, Venus and Mars! See Planets in the March Night Sky  | Meanwhile, Mars appears below Venus early in the month, but looks only a fraction as bright. Jupiter is not quite as dazzling as Venus, but remains in the sky for practically the entire night and is a wonderful sight to behold through a telescope. Uranus — If you never laid eyes on the planet Uranus, you're going to have to excellent chances this month thanks to its close proximity to two much brighter planets. Mars — On March 11, Uranus will pass by Mars about one week after it moves by Venus in the night sky.
| Read More » 7 Strange Facts About Dwarf Planet Ceres  | On Friday morning (March 6), NASA's Dawn spacecraft will arrive at Ceres, becoming the first probe ever to orbit a dwarf planet. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and the closest dwarf planet to Earth. Dawn is expected to provide a wealth of information about Ceres' evolution and composition. While Dawn's work will be the first in-depth examination of Ceres, astronomers have learned a bit about the dwarf planet already using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Europe's Herschel Space Observatory and other instruments.
| Read More » Praying mantis looks long before it leaps Slowed-down video footage of a series of praying mantises leaping towards a target has demonstrated the extraordinary precision of the insect while jumping. British scientists Malcolm Burrows and Gregory Sutton studied the insect's jump, which from take-off to landing lasts less than a tenth of a second - faster than the blink of a human eye. Read More » Star Wars-inspired prototype creates holographic display A new 3D technology aims to give mobile devices the power to display holographic images and video. Partly inspired by a scene from Star Wars where a holographic image of Princess Leia pleads for help from Obi-Wan Kenobi, the appropriately named 'Leia' recently demonstrated a prototype of its display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Leia CEO David Fattal says their technology is a first for mobile displays: "It's a display that is able to project 64 different images, going in different directions of space. His work with optical interconnects, which let computers exchange information encoded in light, led him to realize the same principle could be used to display holographic images. Read More » Fresh coat: scientists develop tough new self-cleaning paint British and Chinese scientists say they have developed a new paint that can be applied to clothes, paper, glass and steel to make resilient surfaces that can self-clean even after being scratched or scuffed. In research published in the journal Science on Thursday, the scientists said the paint, made from coated titanium dioxide nanoparticles, is extremely repellent to water but, unlike other waterproof coatings, continues to work even when damaged or exposed to oil. "The biggest challenge for self-cleaning surfaces is finding a way to make them tough enough to withstand everyday damage," said Claire Carmalt, a professor of inorganic chemistry at University College London, who co-led the research. Read More » Wet Mars: Red Planet Lost Ocean's Worth of Water, New Maps Reveal  | New maps of water in the atmosphere of Mars reveal that the Red Planet might once have had enough to cover up to a fifth of the planet, researchers say. Further research to refine these maps could help guide the quest to identify underground reservoirs on Mars, the scientists added. Although the Martian surface is now cold and dry, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that rivers, lakes and seas covered the Red Planet billions of years ago. Since there is life virtually wherever there is liquid water on Earth, some researchers have suggested that life might have evolved on Mars when it was wet, and life could be there even now, hidden in subterranean aquifers.
| Read More » Fastest Star in the Galaxy Has a Strange Origin  | Its speed will allow it to escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy, and eventually make its way into intergalactic space. Most other stars moving fast enough to get out of the galaxy are thought to be ejected by the monster black hole at the galactic center, the researchers say. But there is a class of so-called hypervelocity stars, or HVSs, that are moving with speeds high enough to escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy. Thus far, the fastest of these hypervelocity stars have been clocked at about 2 million miles per hour.
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