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Sunday, March 1, 2015

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Big Bang, Deflated? Universe May Have Had No Beginning

If a new theory turns out to be true, the universe may not have started with a bang. In the new formulation, the universe was never a singularity, or an infinitely small and infinitely dense point of matter. "Our theory suggests that the age of the universe could be infinite," said study co-author Saurya Das, a theoretical physicist at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. The new concept could also explain what dark matter — the mysterious, invisible substance that makes up most of the matter in the universe — is actually made of, Das added.

Rare Roman Tombstone Discovered in England

A 1,800-year-old tombstone was discovered at a Roman cemetery in England this week. Because of its inscription, archaeologists know who was buried in the grave: a 27-year-old woman named Bodica. "It's incredibly rare," Neil Holbrook, of Cotswold Archaeology, told Live Science. For the last two months, Holbrook's team has been excavating a Roman cemetery just outside the ancient city walls of Cirencester, a town in Gloucestershire, to make way for the construction of a new office park.

NASA Satellite Captures Amazing 3D Videos of Rain, Snow

Mesmerizing and swirling animations of rain and snow dance across a map of the Earth, shown in a video released yesterday (Feb. 26) by NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. The NASA video captures worldwide precipitation from April to September 2014, and even shows Hurricane Arthur twist into a tropical storm from July 2 to 4 in the Atlantic Ocean, said Gail Skofronick-Jackson, a GPM project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The "GPM mission is the first coordinated international satellite network that provides near real-time global estimates of rain and snow," Skofronick-Jackson said at news conference yesterday. The video is the product of the GPM Core Observatory, launched one year ago on Feb. 27 by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

NASA resolves issue with spacesuit helmet water leak

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Water that leaked into an astronaut's helmet after a spacewalk on Wednesday poses no threat, clearing the way for another outing to rig the International Space Station for new space taxis, NASA said on Friday. Space station flight engineer Terry Virts was back in the station's airlock on Wednesday following a successful spacewalk when he noticed a small amount of water in his helmet. Another astronaut nearly drowned during a July 2013 spacewalk due to a helmet leak. Virts, who was making his second spacewalk in a week, was never in any danger, NASA said.

White & Gold or Blue & Black? Science of the Mystery Dress

David Williams, a vision scientist at the University of Rochester in New York, has a theory. Light is made up of different wavelengths, which the brain perceives as color.

Monsanto says GM corn trial in final stage in India

By Mayank Bhardwaj and Krishna N. Das NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Monsanto's Indian subsidiary expects to submit final trial results for its genetically modified (GM) corn to lawmakers within a year for the government to then decide on a commercial launch, the company's country head said on Friday. India does not currently allow the growing of GM food crops but the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, keen to improve farms' productivity, has encouraged open field trials after a five-year de facto ban. "We are close to the final stage in corn," Shilpa Divekar Nirula, chief executive of Monsanto India, told Reuters.

NASA Spacecraft Arrives at Dwarf Planet Ceres This Week

NASA's Dawn spacecraft will begin orbiting the mysterious dwarf planet Ceres this week, ending a deep-space chase that lasted 2 1/2 years. "We've been using the ion propulsion system for a long time gradually to reshape Dawn's orbit around the sun so that it matches Ceres' orbit," said Dawn Mission Director and Chief Engineer Marc Rayman, who's based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The $466 million Dawn mission launched in September 2007 to study Vesta and Ceres, which are 330 miles (530 kilometers) and 590 miles (950 km) wide, respectively. Dawn's observations of these planetary building blocks should shed light on the planet-formation process and the conditions prevalent during the solar system's early days, NASA officials have said.

Astronauts leave space station for third spacewalk

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - Two U.S. astronauts left the International Space Station on Sunday for a seven-hour spacewalk to install communications and navigation aides for new commercial space taxis. Station commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts floated outside the station's Quest airlock shortly after 7 a.m. EST/1200 GMT to begin their third spacewalk in eight days, a NASA Television broadcast showed. The purpose of the outings is to prepare berthing slips for spaceships being developed by Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. One adapter will be installed at the berthing slip once used by NASA's space shuttles, which were retired in 2011.

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Friday, February 27, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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U.S. rocket launch pad repair set to halt in funding spat

By irene klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - Work to repair a Virginia-owned launch pad damaged by an Orbital ATK rocket explosion is about to halt amid a debate about who should pick up the bill, officials involved in the dispute told Reuters. Orbital was launching its third Antares mission for NASA under a $1.9 billion contract to fly cargo to the International Space Station. Orbital had insurance to cover its losses at Wallops, as well as damage to federal property and other entities as required by the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial launches in the United States. A funding solution may come as Orbital talks to Virginia officials and NASA, which owns and operates the Wallops Flight Facility.

More Mysterious Craters Found in Siberia

Last summer, the discovery of several new giant craters in Siberia drew worldwide interest, launching wild speculation that meteorites, or even aliens, caused the gaping crevasses. In July 2014, reindeer herders discovered a 260-feet-wide (80 meters) crater in northern Russia's Yamal Peninsula. Now, satellite images have revealed at least four more craters, and at least one is surrounded by as many as 20 mini craters, The Siberian Times reported. "We know now of seven craters in the Arctic area," Vasily Bogoyavlensky, a scientist at the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, told The Siberian Times.

Cool Pacific Ocean Slowed Global Warming

The Pacific Ocean has been a planetary air conditioner for the past two decades, but the relief may soon end, a new study finds. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans undergo decades-long natural oscillations that alter their sea surface temperatures. Over the past 130 years, the tempo of global warming has revved up or slowed down in tune with changing ocean temperatures, researchers reported today (Feb. 26) in the journal Science. The Pacific Ocean wielded its mighty influence starting in 1998, when it interrupted the rapid climb of global temperatures, the study reported.

US Needs a Mars Colony, Buzz Aldrin Tells Senators

The United States must do more than just plant a flag on Mars if it wants to continue as a leader in the field of space exploration, Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin told senators this week. "In my opinion, there is no more convincing way to demonstrate American leadership for the remainder of this century than to commit to a permanent presence on Mars," Aldrin told members of the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness during a hearing Tuesday (Feb. 24). Going to Mars without setting up a colony — launching only round-trip manned missions, in other words — would not be enough, nor would setting up human outposts on the moon, Aldrin said. Buzz Aldrin, who set foot on the moon just after Neil Armstrong in July 1969, has developed an architecture to establish a Mars colony, with the first manned Red Planet landings envisioned in 2038.

New Space Telescope Tech Could Be 1,000 Times Sharper Than Hubble

A new type of orbiting telescope could take images more than 1,000 times sharper than those snapped by NASA's famous Hubble Space Telescope, the technology's developers say. Researchers have dubbed their concept the "Aragoscope," after French scientist Francois Arago, who was the first to discover that light waves diffract around a disk. The Aragoscope could take images of plasma swaps between stars and of black hole event horizons, the points beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape a black hole's gravitational pull, said project leader Webster Cash of the University of Colorado, Boulder. "The heavier the space telescope, the more expensive the cost of the launch," said CU-Boulder doctoral student Anthony Harness.

Stephen Hawking Thinks These 3 Things Could Destroy Humanity

Stephen Hawking may be most famous for his work on black holes and gravitational singularities, but the world-renowned physicist has also become known for his outspoken ideas about things that could destroy human civilization. Here are a few things Hawking has said could bring about the demise of human civilization. Hawking is part of a small but growing group of scientists who have expressed concerns about "strong" artificial intelligence (AI) — intelligence that could equal or exceed that of a human. "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," Hawking told the BBC in December 2014.

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Thursday, February 26, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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Food Additives Linked to Weight Gain, Inflammation

Food additives that are commonly used to thicken and stabilize processed foods may disrupt the bacterial makeup of the gut, causing health problems, a new study in animals suggests. In the study, mice that were fed two chemicals that are commonly added to foods gained weight, had altered blood sugar and developed intestinal problems. The chemicals were "emulsifying agents," chemicals that hold together mixtures that include both fat and water, which would otherwise separate. The chemicals were "able to trigger low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome," in the mice, said study co-author Benoit Chassaing, a microbiologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Greenhouse Effect Is Witnessed…and Getting Worse

The climate-changing greenhouse effect exists and has been directly measured in the United States, a new study reports. The results confirm what scientists had already proved through models and laboratory experiments: Pumping carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere is warming the Earth's surface. "We're actually measuring the fact that rising carbon dioxide concentrations are leading to the greenhouse effect," said lead study author Dan Feldman, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Since the late 1950s, scientists have documented rising levels of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" in Earth's atmosphere.

Google's Artificial Intelligence Can Probably Beat You at Video Games

Computers have already beaten humans at chess and "Jeopardy!," and now they can add one more feather to their caps: the ability to best humans in several classic arcade games. A team of scientists at Google created an artificially intelligent computer program that can teach itself to play Atari 2600 video games, using only minimal background information to learn how to play. By mimicking some principles of the human brain, the program is able to play at the same level as a professional human gamer, or better, on most of the games, researchers reported today (Feb. 25) in the journal Nature. This is the first time anyone has built an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can learn to excel at a wide range of tasks, study co-author Demis Hassabis, an AI researcher at Google DeepMind in London, said at a news conference yesterday.

Astronaut Reports Minor Water Leak in Spacesuit Helmet After Spacewalk

An American astronaut found water inside his spacesuit helmet at the end of an otherwise flawless spacewalk outside the International Space Station today (Feb. 25), but he was never in any danger, NASA officials say. NASA astronaut Terry Virts and his crewmate Barry "Butch" Wilmore had just completed a nearly seven-hour spacewalk to upgrade the space station and entered the airlock when Virts reported what appeared to be a minor water leak. "There was no indication whatsoever of any water intrusion into the helmet during the spacewalk itself," said NASA spokesman Rob Navias during the agency's live coverage. Navias stressed that Virts was in no danger at any time during or after the spacewalk, and that he and Wilmore were in good spirits after their successful 6-hour, 43-minute excursion.

Confirmed: Space Rock Created Swedish Lake

After two centuries of arguing about its origin, scientists have finally confirmed that Hummeln Lake in southern Sweden is an impact crater. Hummeln Lake's rounded shoreline first drew interest from scientists as far back as the 1820s, but it wasn't identified as a possible impact crater until the 1960s, said Carl Alwmark, lead author of the new study and a geologist at Lund University in Sweden.

Monster Black Hole Is the Largest and Brightest Ever Found

Astronomers have discovered the largest and most luminous black hole ever seen — an ancient monster with a mass about 12 billion times that of the sun — that dates back to when the universe was less than 1 billion years old. Supermassive black holes are thought to lurk in the hearts of most, if not all, large galaxies. The largest black holes found so far in the nearby universe have masses more than 10 billion times that of the sun. In comparison, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is thought to have a mass only 4 million to 5 million times that of the sun.

Mystery Spot on Dwarf Planet Ceres Has Mysterious Partner (Photos)

The intrigue surrounding Ceres continues to deepen as a NASA probe gets closer to the dwarf planet. The new photos of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which is scheduled to arrive in orbit around Ceres on the night of March 5, reveal that a puzzling bright spot on the dwarf planet's surface has a buddy of sorts. "Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin," Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell, of UCLA, said in a statement.

3D Laser Scanner Makes Haunting Works of Art

Two historians on a mission to preserve historic structures in Ethiopia inadvertently turned a cutting-edge 3D scanning device into a tool for creating works of art. Some lidar technologies can see through foliage, and have been used to hunt for lost cities buried in the jungle.

Earth's Worst Mass Extinction Preserved Ancient Footprints

Earth's worst mass extinction may have created ideal conditions for preserving the ancient footprints of giant reptiles on the muddy ocean floor, according to a new study. Researchers found a spike in fossilized tracks of tetrapods (these early four-limbed vertebrates include amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) during the early Triassic period, roughly 250 million years ago. This increase may be the result of a mass extinction at the end of the Permian period that wiped out worms and other tiny creatures that typically churn up ocean sediments, leaving behind sticky seafloor conditions that preserved the wading and swimming habits of ancient giant reptiles, the scientists said. The researchers captured a "Goldilocks" window when they could see this behavior simply because they had "this magical time after this mass extinction," said study co-author Mary Droser, a professor of geology at the University of California, Riverside.

Woman's Rare Case of 'Seasonal OCD' Cured

A rare case of "seasonal" obsessive-compulsive disorder in a woman in highlights the complexity of this mental health condition, researchers say. The woman's OCD symptoms appeared every year when winter began, and then ended as the seasons shifted toward summer. After living with the condition for a decade, the woman was treated at a clinic and recovered, the case report said. Psychiatrists "do believe that there is a tie between times of the year and the exacerbation of illness," said Dr. Howard L. Forman, an attending psychiatrist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the woman's case.

Deadly Gut Bacteria Cause Half a Million Infections Yearly

Nearly half a million cases of the difficult-to-treat and sometimes deadly infection called "C. diff" now occur yearly in the United States, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers found that in 2011, Americans had an estimated 453,000 infections with the bacteria Clostridium difficile, or C. difficile, which can cause severe diarrhea, and frequently comes back after treatment. "This is a very severe illness that causes tremendous suffering, and death," Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, said in a news conference today (Feb. 25). Infections from C. difficile have been on the rise in recent years, and a strain of the bacteria that causes more severe disease has become more common, Bell said.

Playing physics: Student builds Lego Large Hadron Collider

A particle physics student has used his downtime to build a Lego model of the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and is now lobbying the toy company to take it to market. Nathan Readioff's design uses existing Lego pieces to replicate all four elements of the LHC -- known as ATLAS, ALICE, CMS and LHCb -- and uses cutaway walls to reveal all of the major subsystems. He also wrote step-by-step guides to making the miniatures and has now submitted his models to the Lego Ideas website, where ideas from members of the public that get more than 10,000 votes are considered by Lego for future production.

Australian researchers unveil world's first 3D printed jet engine

By Jane Wardell SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian researchers unveiled the world's first 3D-printed jet engine on Thursday, a manufacturing breakthrough that could lead to cheaper, lighter and more fuel-efficient jets. Engineers at Monash University and its commercial arm are making top-secret prototypes for Boeing Co, Airbus Group NV, Raytheon Co and Safran SA in a development that could be the savior of Australia's struggling manufacturing sector. "This will allow aerospace companies to compress their development cycles because we are making these prototype engines three or four times faster than normal," said Simon Marriott, chief executive of Amaero Engineering, the private company set up by Monash to commercialize the product.

Best 3D View of Deep Universe Reveals Astonishing Details (Video)

The amazing new photo, released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) today (Feb. 26) reveals never-before-seen cosmic objects in a relatively small patch of sky. The MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile spent 27 hours staring at the Hubble Space Telescope's Deep Field South region, helping scientists learn more about far-flung galaxies. Scientists are using the new image to gather new information about the distance, speed, composition and other details about the galaxies spotted by MUSE. "After just a few hours of observations at the telescope, we had a quick look at the data and found many galaxies — it was very encouraging," Roland Bacon, principal investigator of the MUSE instrument, said in the same statement.

Stone Age Britons imported wheat in shock sign of sophistication

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Stone Age Britons imported wheat about 8,000 years ago in a surprising sign of sophistication for primitive hunter-gatherers long viewed as isolated from European agriculture, a study showed on Thursday. British scientists found traces of wheat DNA in a Stone Age site off the south coast of England near the Isle of Wight, giving an unexpected sign of contact between ancient hunter-gatherers and farmers who eventually replaced them. The wheat DNA was dated to 8,000 years ago, 2,000 years before Stone Age people in mainland Britain started growing cereals and 400 years before farming reached what is now northern Germany or France, they wrote in the journal Science. "We were surprised to find wheat," co-author Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick told Reuters of finds at Bouldnor Cliff.

Cooler Pacific has slowed global warming, briefly: study

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - A natural cooling of the Pacific Ocean has contributed to slow global warming in the past decade but the pause is unlikely to last much longer, U.S. scientists said on Thursday. The slowdown in the rate of rising temperatures, from faster gains in the 1980s and 1990s, has puzzled scientists because heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and cars have hit record highs. Almost 200 nations are due to agree a U.N. deal to slow climate change in Paris in December. Examining temperatures of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans back to 1850, which have natural swings in winds and currents that can last decades, the scientists said a cooler phase in the Pacific in recent years helped explain the warming hiatus.

'Big Brain' Gene Found in Humans, Not Chimps

A single gene may have paved the way for the rise of human intelligence by dramatically increasing the number of brain cells found in a key brain region. This gene seems to be uniquely human: It is found in modern-day humans, Neanderthals and another branch of extinct humans called Denisovans, but not in chimpanzees. By allowing the brain region called the neocortex to contain many more neurons, the tiny snippet of DNA may have laid the foundation for the human brain's massive expansion. "It is so cool that one tiny gene alone may suffice to affect the phenotype of the stem cells, which contributed the most to the expansion of the neocortex," said study lead author Marta Florio, a doctoral candidate in molecular and cellular biology and genetics at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

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