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Monday, January 6, 2014

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Bizarre Earthquake Lights Tied to Rifts in Earth

Mysterious flashes of electricity known as earthquake lights are more likely to happen near rifts, where pieces of the Earth are pulling away from each other, new research suggests. The quick buildup of stress at these nearly vertical faults may cause electrical current to flow to the surface and cause the eerie light shows, the researchers find. The conclusions, published today (Jan. 2) in the current issue of the journal Seismological Research Letters, were drawn from analyzing 65 documented cases of earthquake lights over the last 400 years. But until recently, most seismologists didn't believe the earthquake lights were real because the reports were all anecdotal and hard to explain physically.

Mystery of Bizarre Amazon Web Formations Unraveled

About six months ago, a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology first spotted a mysterious web unlike anything scientists had seen before: Each one of the weird webs was a tiny sphere surrounded by a circular fence less than an inch (2 centimeters) in diameter. The student, Troy Alexander, found the mysterious formation underneath a tarp at the Tambopata Research Center in Peru and had no idea what it was, so he posted photos of the webs on Reddit.

Moon Rovers Planned for Commercial Lunar Exploration Project

The commercial spaceflight company Golden Spike – which aims fly private missions to the moon by 2020 – has teamed up with the New York-based firm Honeybee Robotics to design robotic rovers for the planned lunar expeditions. "We're very proud to be working with Honeybee, which has tremendous experience and a record of successful performance in the development of flight systems for NASA," Golden Spike President and CEO Alan Stern said in a statement last month. Golden Spike first announced its goal of launching two-person commercial flights to the moon in December 2012. "Honeybee brings a unique body of knowledge and skills to help us augment the capabilities of human exploration missions with advanced robotics," Clive Neal, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and chair of Golden Spike's lunar science advisory board, said in a statement.

Your First Telescope: Stargazing Tips for Amateur Astronomers

Over the years many other amateur astronomers have said their interest in the sky can be traced back to receiving their first telescope over the holidays.

Boeing to Use Former Space Shuttle Hangar for Secret Space Plane

A former NASA space shuttle hangar will serve as the new home and servicing facility for a fleet of secretive military space planes. The Boeing Company announced on Friday (Jan. 3) it will begin converting Orbiter Processing Facility-1 (OPF-1) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to support the U.S. Air Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). Built by Boeing's Phantom Works, the winged X-37B space plane resembles in some ways a smaller version of NASA's shuttle with a 15-foot (4.5 m.) wingspan. The move to use OPF-1 will "enable the U.S. Air Force to efficiently land, recover, refurbish, and re-launch" the 29-foot-long (8.8 m.), reusable unmanned spacecraft, Boeing officials said in a statement.

New Views of Famed Supernova Reveal Cosmic Dust Factory (Images)

WASHINGTON — New views from a giant radio telescope in Chile are revealing massive amounts of dust created by an exploding star for the first time. Scientists used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope in Chile to make the discovery while observing supernova 1987A, an exploded star in the Large Magellanic Cloud — a dwarf galaxy companion of the Milky Way located about 168,000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers have long thought that supernovas are responsible for creating some of the large amounts of dust found in galaxies around the universe, yet they haven't directly observed the process until now, ALMA officials said. "We have found a remarkably large dust mass concentrated in the central part of the ejecta from a relatively young and nearby supernova," astronomer Remy Indebetouw, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the University of Virginia, said in a statement.

'Polar Vortex' Creates Huge Temperature Difference Across US

A blast of Arctic air pushing south as far as Atlanta has caused air temperatures across the United States to plunge, creating a massive 140-degree Fahrenheit (77 degrees Celsius) temperature difference between the chilly Dakotas and balmy Florida yesterday (Jan. 5).

Sunken Vases Double As 2,000-Year-Old Biology Experiments

CHICAGO — Oysters, barnacles and corals that cling to ancient artifacts strewn about the seafloor are often a scourge in the eyes of marine archaeologists; The RPM Nautical Foundation is starting to document the creatures clung to ancient ceramic amphoras, as they map shipwrecks throughout the Mediterranean. These new data points promise to help scientists learn more about the region's underwater ecology and history, Derek Smith, a researcher at the University of Washington and RPM team member, explained here Friday (Jan. 3) at the Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting. "The amphoras have shape to them, they've got little cracks and crevices, they've got an interior and an exterior space, they've got different material types like different clays from around the region — things like that inspire all different communities to show up," Smith told LiveScience.

Uncannily Lifelike Roman Masks Recreated in Wax

CHICAGO — Some 2,000 years ago, elite Roman families stuffed their closets with wax masks made in the likeness of their male ancestors so that during funeral processions actors could fill in for the missing links of the genealogical line. Recently, however, a team of researchers at Cornell University made life-cast molds of their own faces to recreate these imagines maiorum, and they found that the wax masks were indeed uncannily lifelike. The group's work was presented here at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America this past weekend. With a limited wax supply, Jarriel had to melt down a botched mask she made of her colleague Carrie Fulton's face, she explained to LiveScience.

China Destroys Part of Illegal Ivory Stockpile

As part of an effort to discourage elephant poaching and the illegal trade in elephant ivory, China this morning (Jan. 6) destroyed part of its stockpile of confiscated ivory. The ceremony, largely symbolic, was conducted in the city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, and destroyed 6 tons of ivory (including tusks and various carvings) by burning, according to news reports and a release from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Elephant numbers have declined drastically across much of the continent, with some 96 elephants killed each day on average, mostly for their ivory, according to the WCS. Along with burning part of its ivory stockpile, China has increased some of its enforcement against illegally trading ivory, with the arrest last month of five poachers in Jilin Province, a record, the WCS said in its release.

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Sunday, January 5, 2014

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Why Pull-Ups Are Harder for Women

News that many female marines in boot camp cannot complete three pull-ups might have you wondering: Why do women find the exercise so difficult? This week, the Associated Press confirmed that the Marine Corps will delay the implementation of a new standard that would have required women to do at least three pull-ups on their yearly fitness test (the same as the requirement for men). Women find pull-ups more difficult than men do because they have less muscle mass in their upper extremities, said Tim Hewett, director of research in the department of sports medicine at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

Cause of Polar Bear Knut's Death Found

The culprit of the sudden death of famed polar bear tot Knut has been found, says an international team of scientists. An exhaustive analysis shows a viral form of encephalitis, or brain swelling, led to the seizures and untimely death. "After a detailed necropsy and histology that took several intense days to perform, the results clearly suggested that the underlying cause of Knut's seizures was a result of encephalitis, most likely of viral origin," Claudia Szentiks, of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin (IZW), said in a statement. Born in captivity at the Berlin Zoo on Dec. 5, 2006, Knut quickly rose to celebrity-hood after he was rejected by his mama and hand-raised by Thomas Dorflein, a zookeeper who died in 2008 of a heart attack.

Personality Traits Help Explain Creationist Beliefs

A belief in the literal Biblical version of creation may boil down, in part, to personality. In contrast, religious believers who see the Bible's creation story as symbolic tend to be more intuitive. "Intuitives tend to be much more at home with symbolic things, generally," said Andrew Village, the head of the theology and religious studies program at York St. John University in the United Kingdom. He applied that scientific sensibility in the new study, which surveyed 663 English churchgoers on their beliefs about Genesis, the book of the Bible that describes the Earth's creation.

SpaceX Delays Falcon 9 Rocket Launch

SpaceX has delayed the launch of a Thai communications satellite from Friday until at least Monday, according to the U.S. Air Force. "We're not aware of anything that would cause a mission failure, but in order to ensure the highest possible level of mission assurance we decided to conduct additional inspections of the launch vehicle," said Emily Shanklin, a SpaceX spokesperson. The Air Force's 45th Space Wing operates communications and safety systems for all launches out of Cape Canaveral. A launch would not be possible Tuesday because the SpaceX mission shares a tracking station in Bermuda with the Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket set for launch from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on a resupply flight to the International Space Station.

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Saturday, January 4, 2014

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Private Cygnus Cargo Ship Launching Delivery Mission to Space Station Next Week

A private spaceship is scheduled to launch on its first official cargo run to the International Space Station next week. The unmanned Cygnus spacecraft, which is built by Virginia-based firm Orbital Sciences, is slated to blast off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Tuesday afternoon (Jan. 7), in a launch that could be visible from large stretches of the U.S. East Coast, weather permitting. If all goes according to plan, Cygnus will arrive at the station on Friday morning (Jan. 10), delivering 2,780 pounds (1,261 kilograms) of supplies and science experiments to the crewmembers of the orbiting lab's Expedition 38, NASA officials said. A Cygnus spacecraft has visited the space station once before during a landmark demonstration flight last September.

Elite of Ancient Pompeii Dined on Sea Urchin, Giraffe

The commoners of the ancient city of Pompeii may have eaten a varied diet, with the wealthier even dining on giraffe, new research suggests. "The traditional vision of some mass of hapless lemmings — scrounging for whatever they can pinch from the side of a street, or huddled around a bowl of gruel — needs to be replaced by a higher fare and standard of living, at least for the urbanites in Pompeii," study co-author Steven Ellis, a classics professor at the University of Cincinnati, said in a statement. Pompeii was a bustling Roman city that was buried in ash after the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Ellis and his colleagues excavated about 20 shop fronts near one of the once-bustling gates of Pompeii known as the Portia Stabia.

First Asteroid Discovery of 2014 Likely Hit Earth

Astronomers have spotted the first new asteroid of 2014 — a car-size space rock that apparently slammed harmlessly into Earth's atmosphere just after the New Year began. Scientists with the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Ariz., discovered the asteroid, known as 2014 AA, early Wednesday (Jan. 1), NASA officials said. Orbit projections suggest that the space rock likely entered Earth's atmosphere sometime between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning (Jan. 2). "The most likely impact location of the object was just off the coast of West Africa at about 6 p.m. PST (9 p.m. EST) Jan. 1," NASA officials wrote in a press release Thursday.

China Moon Rover Stamps and Medals Celebrate Country's 1st Lunar Landing

China's postal service and largest bank are marking the country's first moon landing by launching new stamps and medallions featuring the Chang'e-3 probe and Yutu rover. The China Post on Wednesday (Jan. 1) released its second set of postage stamps commemorating the Chang'e 3 mission, which touched down on the lunar surface on Dec. 14 to mark the first moon landing in 37 years. In December, China Post also introduced souvenir sheets featuring the spacecraft and lander as a part of the artwork surrounding, but not appearing on the stamps (also known as the "selvage"). The postage stamps came packaged in folders printed with the rover's image.

Pointer Dogs: Pups Poop Along North-South Magnetic Lines

Dog owners have observed some odd behaviors among their pets — sniffing butts, eating garbage, giving unconditional love — but one habit has probably escaped their attention: Dogs apparently prefer to poop while aligned with the north-south axis of the Earth's magnetic field. The researchers found that the dogs preferred to poop when their bodies were aligned in a north-south direction, as determined by the geomagnetic field. This latest set of findings, published last week in the journal Frontiers in Zoology, joins a long and growing list of research showing that animals — both wild and domesticated — can sense the Earth's geomagnetic field and coordinate their behavior with it. Birds also use magnetic fields to migrate thousands of miles, some research suggests.

Speak, Fido: Device Promises Dog Translations

Developed by the design team at the Sweden-based Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery (NSID), the No More Woof is a lightweight headset, sized for dogs, with sensors that can record electroencephalogram (EEG) readings. The EEG readings are then analyzed by a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, which will, according to NSID, be programmed to translate those EEG readings into simple phrases like, "I'm hungry," or "Who is that person?" Once translated, those phrases will be reported over a small speaker. If and when the No More Woof ever comes to market, it would mark the latest in a centuries-old effort to communicate with dogs, dolphins, apes and a whole menagerie of other animals. Dolphin researchers designed the speakers to broadcast a specific series of vocalizations and then record dolphins' responses;

Celestial Triple Play: Watch Meteor Shower, Sun and Jupiter Live Online This Weekend

The online Slooh Space Camera will webcast live views of the annual Quadrantid meteor shower on Friday (Jan. 3), Earth's closest approach to the sun of the year on Saturday (Jan. 4) and Earth's passage between the sun and Jupiter on Sunday (Jan. 5). You can watch all three of these events live here on SPACE.com, as well as directly from the Slooh website here: http://www.slooh.com. The action kicks off at 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT) on Friday with Slooh's coverage of the Quadrantids, one of the few annual showers capable of exhibiting more than 100 meteors per hour. "Using high-sensitivity wide-field cameras in the Canary islands and in Arizona, Slooh will show the Quadrantid meteors accompanied by narration from Slooh astronomer Bob Berman," Slooh officials said in a statement.

10 Years on Mars: NASA Rover Mission Celebrates 10th Martian Birthday

Ten years ago today, NASA dropped the first of two rovers onto the surface of Mars, kicking off a wildly successful mission that continues to beam home data about the Red Planet and its wetter, warmer past.

Jupiter Shines All Night Long Sunday: How to See It

Jupiter will reign as king of the night sky on Sunday (Jan. 5), visible all night long as it reaches opposition. Jupiter sets in the west just as the sun is rising in the east. Because we are only two weeks past the winter solstice, the shortest day in the year, this means that Jupiter will be above the horizon for over 15 hours for skygazers in mid-northern latitudes.

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