[ekim68]

X-rays beat computer as best invention ever

Science Museum poll looks backwards

As part of its centenary celebrations the Science Museum's curators chose ten objects from its collection and asked the public to vote on their favourite.

From a list which included a Pilot ACE Computer, based on Alan Turing's work, the Apollo 10 Capsule, a Model T Ford, penicillin and the DNA double helix the public chose the X-ray machine as its favourite.

Said medical device, invented in 1895, inexplicably beat off competition from Stephenson's Rocket, the electric telegraph, the steam engine and the Nazis' V2 rocket engine.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11...eum_centenary/

[ekim68]

NASA: 2 companies win $1.65M moon lander prize

NASA said it will this week award $1.65 million in prize money to a pair of aerospace companies that successfully simulated landing a spacecraft on the moon and lifting off again.

NASA's Centennial Challenges program, which was managed by the X Prize Foundation will give a $1 million first prize to Masten Space Systems and a $500,000 second prize to Armadillo Aerospace for successfully completing the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

To win the prize, teams had to demonstrate a rocket-propelled vehicle and payload that could take off vertically, climb to a defined altitude, fly for a pre-determined amount of time, and then land vertically on a target that is a fixed distance from the launch pad. After landing, the vehicle then needed to take off again within a predetermined time, fly for a certain amount of time and then land back on its original launch pad.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/47068

[lotuseclat79]

Gamma Ray Astronomy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.

The current golden age for gamma ray astronomy is creating more questions than answers.


Gamma Ray Bursts

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Giant galaxy graveyard grows.

The largest known galactic congregation is bigger than astronomers thought—and its inhabitants are all dead or dying


Where galaxies go to dieThe largest known galactic structure is strewn with dead galaxies, and it’s even bigger than astronomers thought. ESO/Subaru


GALACTIC GRAVEYARDThe galaxies that make up the newly-observed supercluster are highlighted in red.ESO/Subaru

Galaxies near the Milky Way, at least, are at a safe distance from the graveyard. “We will probably never turn into such an environment anyway,” Finoguenov says. “We will keep living.”

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Precise picture of early Universe supports 'dark matter' theory.

A detailed picture of the seeds of structures in the universe has been unveiled by an international team co-led by a Cardiff University scientist.


The QUaD collaboration uses the 2.6-meter telescope shown here to view the temperature and polarization of the cosmic microwave background, a faintly glowing relic of the hot, dense, young universe. Credit: Image courtesy of Nicolle Rager Fuller, NSF.

The team has obtained extremely precise data about the early universe, using a telescope near the South Pole in the Antarctic.

Their measurements of the cosmic microwave background - a faintly glowing relic of the hot, dense, young universe - provide further support for the standard cosmological model of the universe. The findings confirm the model's prediction that dark matter and dark energy make up 95% of everything in existence, while ordinary matter makes up just 5%.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

African desert rift confirmed as new ocean in the making.

In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.

Africa is being torn apart. And as Ethiopia's rift valley grows slowly wider, an international team of scientists is taking a unique opportunity to plot the progress of continents on the move.

Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world's oceans, and the rift is indeed likely the beginning of a new sea.

Related article: Volcanic eruptions may split Africa: scientists.

Volcanic activity may split the African continent in two owing to a recent geological crack in northeastern Ethiopia, researchers said on Tuesday.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Stars Fueled by Dark Matter Could Hold Secrets to the Universe.

The first stars in the universe may have been very different from the stars we see today, yet they may hold clues to understanding some of the mysterious features of the universe. These "dark stars," first theorized in 2007, could grow to be much larger than modern stars, and would be powered by dark matter particles that annihilate inside them, rather than by nuclear fusion. In the early universe, dark stars would have emitted visible light like the Sun, but today their light would be redshifted into the infrared range by the time it reaches us, and so dark stars would be invisible to the naked eye.


Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Dark stars could grow to become much larger than normal stars, and might collapse to form the giant black holes in the centers of galaxies. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Fantastic Voyage.

By travelling to the outer solar system, the two Voyager spacecraft allowed us to see amazing details of far-distant planets and moons.


Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, as seen by the passing Voyager spacecraft. Credit: NASA


Neptune's Great Dark Spot, accompanied by white high-altitude clouds. Credit: NASA


Representation of Neptune’s complex moon-ring system. Credit: Ruslik0


Voyager 2 was deflected downward by Neptune and is heading southward below the plane of the planets. With a somewhat lower speed than Voyager 1, it is about eighty percent as far from the Sun. Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object in the universe. At the beginning of 2005, the spacecraft was about 94 times as far from the Sun as is Earth. It was deflected northward above the plane of the planets' orbits when it swung by Saturn in 1980 and is now speeding outward from the Sun at nearly one million miles per day.. Long-lived nuclear batteries are expected to provide electrical power until at least 2020 when Voyager 1 will be more than 13 billion miles from Earth and may have reached interstellar space. Image Credit: NASA/Walt Feimer

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Babble Of Baby Reveals Language Skills.

Children have a remarkable ability to learn new languages. As little as five hours of exposure to a second language is enough to help infants incorporate characteristics of that language into their babbling according to a new study.


Credit: CDC.gov

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Bacteria expect the unexpected: Scientists observe the emergence of a new adaptation strategy.

Organisms ensure the survival of their species by genetically adapting to the environment. If environmental conditions change too rapidly, the extinction of a species may be the consequence. A strategy to successfully cope with such a challenge is the generation of variable offspring that can survive in different environments. Even though a portion of the offspring may have a decreased chance to survive, the survival of the species as a whole is guaranteed.


Within a generation, genetically identical offspring is produced that varies in the degree of adaptation to the current environment. Anticipating drastic changes of the environmental conditions in future, some variants have an increased chance to survive if the event occurs. This ensures the survival of the species as a whole. Credit: Hubertus J. E. Beaumont

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Scientists launch effort to sequence the DNA of 10,000 vertebrates.

Scientists have an ambitious new strategy for untangling the evolutionary history of humans and their biological relatives: Create a genetic menagerie made of the DNA of more than 10,000 vertebrate species. The plan, proposed by an international consortium of scientists, is to obtain, preserve, and sequence the DNA of approximately one species for each genus of living mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish.

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Solving Teapot Effect.

A team of scientists from France have worked out why teapots dribble at low flow rates, and how to stop them. The effect is called the "teapot effect", and solving it could finally put an end to tea stains from dribbling teapots.


Beating the teapot effect with a superhydrophobic coating. Top: water flow under the spout of an (hydrophilic) teapot, exhibiting a bending of the streamlines (a), and drip-ping as the water flow decreases (a'). Bottom: In contrast, a teapot with a spout coated by a superhydrophobic coating (here black soot) fully avoids dripping (b and b'). Image: FIG 1. from arXiv:0910.3306.

Note: This is a problem in the category of: General Physics

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Large Hadron Collider scuttled by birdy baguette-bomber (2 web pages).

Bread on the busbars could have seen 'dump caverns' used

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

NASA's Chandra X-ray Space Observatory images.


Infant Neutron Star Picture: NASA/PA

-- Tom

[lotuseclat79]

Astronomy Picture of the Day for November 6, 2009.


Ring Nebula Deep Field Credit & Copyright: Vicent Peris (DSA / OAUV / PixInsight), Jack Harvey (DSA / SSRO), Steve Mazlin (DSA / SSRO), Jose Luis Lamadrid (DSA / ceFca), Ana Guijarro (CAHA), RECTA, DSA.

-- Tom