Group items tagged

17 January – NASA announces that the Kepler space observatory has developed a reaction wheel issue

2 January A study by Caltech astronomers reports that the Milky Way Galaxy contains at least one planet per sta

3 January

8 January

20 January – Scientists prove that quadruple-helix DNA is present in human cells

25 January

An international team of scientists develops a functional light-based "tractor beam", which allows individual cells to be selected and moved at will. The invention could have broad applications in medicine and microbiology

30 January – South Korea conducts its first successful orbital launch

6 February

Astronomers report that 6% of all dwarf stars – the most common stars in the known universe – may host Earthlike planets

Scientists discover live bacteria in the subglacial Antarctic Lake Whillans

American scientists finish drilling down to the subglacial Lake Whillans, which is buried around 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) under the Antarctic ice

10 February NASA's Curiosity Mars rover uses its onboard drill to obtain the first deep rock sample ever retrieved from the surface of another plane

15 February A 10-ton meteoroid impacts in Chelyabinsk, Russia, producing a powerful shockwave and injuring over 1,000 people

28 February

Astronomers make the first direct observation of a protoplanet forming in a disk of gas and dust around a distant sta

A third radiation belt is discovered around the Eart

1 March – Boston Dynamics demonstrates an updated version of its BigDog military robot

3 March – American scientists report that they have cured HIV in an infant by giving the child a course of antiretroviral drugs very early in its life. The previously HIV-positive child has reportedly exhibited no HIV symptoms since its treatment, despite having no further medication for a year

researchers replace 75 percent of an injured patient's skull with a precision 3D-printed polymer replacement implant. In future, damaged bones may routinely be replaced with custom-manufactured implants

7 March

A study concludes that heart disease was common among ancient mummies

11 March

12 March NASA's Curiosity rover finds evidence that conditions on Mars were once suitable for microbial life after analyzing the first drilled sample of Martian rock, "John Klein" rock at Yellowknife Bay in Gale Crater. The rover detected water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, chloromethane and dichloromethane. Related tests found results consistent with the presence of smectite clay minerals

14 March CERN scientists confirm, with a very high degree of certainty, that a new particle identified by the Large Hadron Collider in July 2012 is the long-sought Higgs boson

18 March

NASA reports evidence from the Curiosity rover on Mars of mineral hydration, likely hydrated calcium sulfate, in several rock samples, including the broken fragments of "Tintina" rock and "Sutton Inlier" rock as well as in the veins and nodules in other rocks like "Knorr" rock and "Wernicke" rock.[177] Analysis using the rover's DAN instrument provided evidence of subsurface water, amounting to as much as 4% water content, down to a depth of 60 cm

27 March – A potential new weight loss method is discovered, after a 20% weight reduction was achieved in mice simply by having their gut microbes altered.

NASA scientists report that hints of dark matter may have been detected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station

3 April

15 April A functional lab-grown kidney is successfully transplanted into a live rat in Massachusetts General Hospital

18 April – NASA announces the discovery of three new Earthlike exoplanets – Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f, and Kepler-69c – in the habitable zones of their respective host stars, Kepler-62 and Kepler-69. The new exoplanets, which are considered prime candidates for possessing liquid water and thus potentially life, were identified using the Kepler spacecraft

21 April The Antares rocket, a commercial launch vehicle developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, successfully conducts its maiden flight

After years of unpowered glide tests, Scaled Composites' SpaceShipTwo hybrid spaceplane successfully conducts its first rocket-powered fligh

29 April

1 May IBM scientists release A Boy and His Atom, the smallest stop-motion animation ever created, made by manipulating individual carbon monoxide molecules with a scanning tunnelling microscope

A new study finds that children whose parents suck on their pacifiers have fewer allergies later in life

NASA reports that a reaction wheel on the Kepler space observatory may be malfunctioning and may result in the premature termination of the observatory's search for Earth-like

15 May

16 May Water dating back 2.6 billion years, by far the oldest ever found, is discovered in a Canadian mine

27 May Four-hundred-year-old bryophyte specimens left behind by retreating glaciers in Canada are brought back to life in the laboratory

29 May

Russian scientists announce the discovery of mammoth blood and well-preserved muscle tissue from an adult female specimen in Siberia

A new treatment to "reset" the immune system of multiple sclerosis patients is reported to reduce their reactivity to myelin by 50 to 75 percent

4 June

During the Shenzhou 10 mission, Chinese astronauts deliver the country's first public video broadcast from the orbiting Tiangong-1 space laboratory

20 June

China's Shenzhou 10 manned spacecraft returns safely to Earth, having conducted China's longest manned space mission to date

26 June

20 June

20 June

6 July

Scientists report that a wide variety of microbial life exists in the subglacial Antarctic Lake Vostok, which has been buried in ice for around 15 million years. Samples of the lake's water obtained by drilling were found to contain traces of DNA from over 3,000 tiny organisms

15 July

ASA engineers successfully test a rocket engine with a fully 3D-printed injector

19 July

NASA scientists publish the results of a new analysis of the atmosphere of Mars, reporting a lack of methane around the landing site of the Curiosity rover

Earth is photographed from the outer solar system. NASA's Cassini spacecraft releases images of the Earth and Moon taken from the orbit of Saturn

29 July – Astronomers discover the first exoplanet orbiting a brown dwarf, 6,000 light years from Earth

exoplanet

7 January

Astronomers

report that "at least 17 billion" Earth-sized exoplanets are estimated to reside in the Milky Way Galaxy

20 February

NASA reports the discovery of Kepler-37b, the smallest exoplanet yet known, around the size of Earth's Moon

10 June

Scientists report that the earlier claims of an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, a star close to our Solar System, may not be supported by astronomical evidence

25 June – In an unprecedented discovery, astronomers detect three potentially Earthlike exoplanets orbiting a single star in the Gliese 667

11 July For the first time, astronomers determine the true colour of a distant exoplanet. HD 189733 b, a searing-hot gas giant, is said to be a vivid blue colour, most likely due to clouds of silica in its atmosphere

NASA announces that the failing Kepler space observatory may never fully recover. New missions are being considered

15 August

Phase I clinical trials of SAV001 – the first and only preventative HIV vaccine – have been successfully completed with no adverse effects in all patients. Antibody production was greatly boosted after vaccination

3 September

12 September NASA announces that Voyager I has officially left the Solar System, having travelled since 1977

NASA scientists report the Mars Curiosity rover detected "abundant, easily accessible" water (1.5 to 3 weight percent) in soil samples

26 September

In addition, the rover found two principal soil types: a fine-grained mafic type and a locally derived, coarse-grained felsic type

mafic

as associated with hydration of the amorphous phases of the soi

perchlorates, the presence of which may make detection of life-related organic molecules difficult, were found at the Curiosity rover landing site

earlier at the more polar site of the Phoenix lander) suggesting a "global distribution of these salts

Astronomers have created the first cloud map of an exoplanet, Kepler-7b

30 September

8 October The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to François Englert and Peter Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider"

16 October Russian authorities raise a large fragment, 654 kg (1,440 lb) total weight, of the Chelyabinsk meteor, a Near-Earth asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere over Russia on 15 February 2013, from the bottom of Chebarkul lake.

Researchers have shown that a fundamental reason for sleep is to clean the brain of toxins. This is achieved by brain cells shrinking to create gaps between neurons, allowing fluid to wash through

17 October

22 October – Astronomers have discovered the 1,000th known exoplanet

4 November - Astronomers report, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way Galaxy

11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting sun-like stars

5 November – India launches its first Mars probe, Mangalyaan

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has made the first discovery of very high energy neutrinos on Earth which had originated from beyond our Solar System

21 November

1 December – China launches the Chang'e 3 lunar rover mission, with a planned landing on December 16

3 December – The Hubble Space Telescope has found evidence of water in the atmospheres of five distant exoplanets: HD 209458b, XO-1b, WASP-12b, WASP-17b and WASP-19b

9 December NASA scientists report that the planet Mars had a large freshwater lake (which could have been a hospitable environment for microbial life) based on evidence from the Curiosity rover studying Aeolis Palus near Mount Sharp in Gale Crater

12 December NASA announces, based on studies with the Hubble Space Telescope, that water vapor plumes were detected on Europa, moon of Jupiter

14 December – The unmanned Chinese lunar rover Chang'e 3 lands on the Moon, making China the third country to achieve a soft landing there

18 December

nomers have spotted what appears to be the first known "exomoon", located 1,800 light years away

20 December – NASA reports that the Curiosity rover has successfully upgraded, for the third time since landing, its software programs and is now operating with version 11. The new software is expected to provide the rover with better robotic arm and autonomous driving abilities. Due to wheel wear, a need to drive more carefully, over the rough terrain the rover is currently traveling on its way to Mount Sharp, was also reported

Only the largest eruptions could melt all the ice above them and poke through to the surface, but even smaller eruptions could potentially cause global sea level to rise, although no one knows how big the rise might be

The crust is thinned by the West Antarctic Rift System, a series of giant rift valleys beneath the ice sheet

erupted lava from underground magma chambers has burst through the ice repeatedly over geological history as the plates moved over the top

No one knew whether magma was still stirring

until seismic monitoring stations were installed on the ice between 2007 and 2010.

Researchers built the stations to study the shifting crustal blocks of the West Antarctic Rift System

But seismologist

found another use

They noticed a series of small earthquakes, mainly occurring during two “seismic swarms” in January and February 2010 and March 2011

These earthquakes were unusual: The ground was shaking much more slowly during the quakes than one would expect from the plates grinding against each other

looked at two different types of waves that come in—the P wave, which is the primary wave, and the S wave, which is the secondary wave

calculations revealed that the waves had come from 25 to 40 kilometers below Earth's surface and were centered around a point

approximately the point the volcanic activity should have reached if it had continued the linear trend of volcanoes to the south

The exact cause of these deep quakes is not understood, but they are thought to result from the movement of magma deep below active or soon-to-be active volcanoes

They found that the area showed a slightly higher magnetic field than the surrounding area and that there was a bump in the crust—common signals of magmatic activity

Radar mapping also indicated a layer of volcanic ash embedded in the ice

probably

from an eruption of Mount Waesche about 8000 years ago—very recent geological history

There is no evidence of an actual eruption since then, but, because magma is still moving deep under the Earth, an eruption could occur at any time

The current center of volcanic activity is covered by at least 1 kilometer of ice, and it would take an exceptionally large eruption to melt all this

But an eruption could make its presence felt in subtler ways. As fresh snow adds to their own mass, ice sheets flow downward into the sea

melting the base of the ice sheet, an eruption could speed up this flow, potentially raising the level of the ocean. No one knows how significant such a rise might be

Any effect on the ice sheet above, and thus any effect on the oceans, would probably be quite small

a proper study is needed to find out how significant volcanic activity could be to future sea levels

a gray plastic vessel, as long as a baseball bat, filled with water from Lake Whillans, half a mile below.

The bottle was hurried into a 40-foot cargo container outfitted as a laboratory on skis

Some of the lake water was squirted into bottles of media in order to grow whatever microbes might inhabit the lake

cultures could require weeks to produce results

When lake water was viewed under a microscope, cells were seen: their tiny bodies glowed green in response to DNA-sensitive dye. It was the first evidence of life in an Antarctic subglacial lake.

(A Russian team has reported that two types of bacteria were found in water from subglacial Lake Vostok, but DNA sequences matched those of bacteria that are known to live inside kerosene—causing the scientists to conclude that those bacteria came from kerosene drilling fluid used to bore the hole, and not from Lake Vostok itself

In order to conclusively demonstrate that Lake Whillans harbors life, the researchers will need to complete more time-consuming experiments showing that the cells actually grow

dead cells can sometimes show up under a microscope with DNA-sensitive

weeks or months will pass before it is known whether these cells represent known types of microbes, or something never seen before

t a couple of things seem likely. Most of those microbes probably subsist by chewing on rocks. And despite being sealed beneath 2,600 feet of ice, they probably have a steady supply of oxygen.

oxygen comes from water melting off the base of the ice sheet—maybe a few penny thicknesses of ice per year

When you melt ice, you’re liberating the air bubbles [trapped in that ice

That’s 20 percent oxygen

, lake bacteria could live on commonly occurring pyrite minerals that contain iron and sulfur

would obtain energy by using oxygen to essentially “burn” that iron and sulfur (analogous to the way that animals use oxygen to slowly burn sugars and fats).

The half mile of glacial ice sitting atop Lake Whillans is quite pure—derived from snow that fell onto Antarctica thousands of years ago.

contains only one-hundredth the level of dissolved minerals that are seen in a clear mountain creek, or in tap water from a typical city

a sensor lowered down the borehole this week showed that dissolved minerals were far more abundant in the lake itself

The fact that we see high concentrations is suggestive that there’s some interesting water-rock-microbe interaction that’s going on

Microbes, in other words, might well be munching on minerals under the ice sheet

will take months or years to unravel this picture

will perform experiments to see whether microbes taken from the lake metabolize iron, sulfur, or other components of minerals

will analyze the DNA of those microbes to see whether they’re related to rock-chewing bacteria that are already known to science.

Antarctica isn’t the only place in the solar system where water sits concealed in the dark beneath thick ice. Europa and Enceladus (moons of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively) are also thought to harbor oceans of liquid water. What is learned at Lake Whillans could shed light on how best to look for life in these other places

This is the first study to show such long-term survival in any plant; similar timescales have only been seen before in bacteria

Mosses are

the dominant plants over large areas and are a major storer of fixed carbon

The team took cores of moss from deep in a frozen moss bank in the Antarctic

This moss would already have been at least decades old when it was first frozen

in an incubator at a normal growth temperature and light level

After only a few weeks,

the moss began to grow

Using carbon dating, the team identified the moss to be at least 1,530 years of age, and possibly even older, at the depth where the new growth was seen.

discovery comes from samples collected in an expedition in 2012 where a Russian team drilled down to the surface of Lake Vosto

believed to have been covered by ice for more than a million years but has kept its liquid state.

Lake Vostok is the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica

The Russian team last year drilled almost four kilometres (2.34 miles) to reach the lake and take the samples.

t the interest surrounded one particular form of bacteria whose DNA was less than 86 percent similar to previously existing forms.

"In terms of work with DNA this is basically zero. A level of 90 percent usually means that the organism is unknown."

not even possible to find the genetic descendants of the bacteria.

"If this had been found on Mars everyone would have undoubtedly said there is life on Mars. But this is bacteria from Earth."

new samples of water would be taken from Lake Vostok during a new expedition in May.

"If we manage to find the same group of organisms in this water we can say for sure that we have found new life on Earth that exists in no database,"

Exploring environments such as Lake Vostok allows scientists to discover what life forms can exist in the most extreme conditions

whether life could exist on some other bodies in the solar system.

Saturn's moon Enceladus and the Jupiter moon Europa as they are believed to have oceans, or large lakes, beneath their icy shells.

increase our limited knowledge of how life can sustain itself in these extreme environments on our own planet and beyond.

Lake Vida, the largest of several unique lakes found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, contains no oxygen, is mostly frozen and possesses the highest nitrous oxide levels of any natural water body on Earth

approximately six times saltier than seawater

average temperature is minus 8 degrees Fahrenheit

the brine harbors a surprisingly diverse and abundant variety of bacteria that survive without a current source of energy from the sun

Previous studies of Lake Vida dating back to 1996 indicate the brine and its inhabitants have been isolated from outside influences for more than 3,000 years.

the best analog we have for possible ecosystems in the subsurface waters of Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa

collaborators

developed stringent protocols and specialized equipment for their 2005 and 2010 field campaigns to sample from the lake brine while avoiding contaminating the pristine ecosystem

expands our knowledge of environmental limits for life and helps define new niches of habitability

To sample unique environments such as this, researchers must work under secure, sterile tents on the lake's surface

The tents kept the site and equipment clean as researchers drilled ice cores, collected samples of the salty brine residing in the lake ice and assessed the chemical qualities of the water and its potential for harboring and sustaining life

analyses suggest chemical reactions between the brine and the underlying iron-rich sediments generate nitrous oxide and molecular hydrogen

may provide the energy needed to support the brine's diverse microbial life.

Additional research is under way to analyze the abiotic, chemical interactions between the Lake Vida brine and its sediment

investigating the microbial community by using different genome sequencing approaches

More than 38,000 meteorites have been found in Antarctica, but only 30 bigger than 40 pounds (18 kg).

The Russian meteor that burst into fragments above the Chelyabinsk region on Feb. 15 is also an ordinary chondrite

charred black crust stands out

in the

snow, and the cold, dry climate helps preserve any organic chemicals inside the rocks

The expedition collected 425 meteorites in 40 days, with a total weight of 165 pounds (75 kg).

they may have found one Mars meteorite and one piece of the asteroid Vesta among the many discoveries.

A team from Belgium and Japan discovered the

meteorite as the members drove across the East Antarctic plateau on snowmobiles

the new data has revealed several smaller features—both on Antarctica's surface and buried under the ice—that were missed in the previous Bedmap effort

scientists want to know the shapes of mountains and rocks to model how fast ice will move across these features on its way to the ocean, where the ice can melt and contribute to sea level rise

he’s not talking and police in Texas won’t press charges against him.

good news is that the missing telescope has been found – sitting at a truck wash — after a frantic cross-country search

telescope is a high-tech irreplaceable piece of equipment that is 22 ft high 15 ft wide (6.5 X 4.5 meters

designed to detect radiation from the Big Bang and it took fifteen people 8 years to build

will be shipped to Antarctica, where it will be attached to a giant balloon in December and sent 110,000 feet (33,500 meters) into the atmosphere.

Friday, a Minnesota trucking company sent off one of their trucks with telescope inside

Monday there was no word from the trucker and the scientists started to panic when the truck didn’t show up at the NASA facility

Calls to the trucker went unanswered

The owner of the trucking company sent his son to Dallas to search for the truck and the driver

only clue was a credit card charge at a Dallas truck stop.

The son found the driver, asleep in the cab of the truck, but the trailer, with the precious cargo inside, was nowhere to be seen.

driver said he left the trailer at a hotel parking lot

when the searchers arrived, it wasn’t there

trucker clammed up and wouldn’t provide any more clues or reasons for why he didn’t deliver his cargo

another employee of the trucking company found the trailer sitting at a truck wash in Dallas

If they would not have found that particular trailer at that time, maybe half a day or a day later someone would have stolen it and taken it for metal or just for scrap,”

NASA unpacked the crate Thursday morning and said the telescope was unharmed and is in great shape

specimen of the glass, polished by ancient jewellers, is found in Tutankhamun's brooch with its striking yellow-brown scarab

The first ever evidence of a comet entering Earth's atmosphere and exploding, raining down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path, has been discovered

a mysterious black pebble found years earlier by an Egyptian geologist in the area of the silica glass

After conducting highly sophisticated chemical analyses on this pebble

conclusion that it represented the very first known hand specimen of a comet nucleus

The impact of the explosion also produced microscopic diamonds

The team have named the diamond-bearing pebble "Hypatia" in honour of the first well known female mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria

Comet fragments have not been found on Earth before except as microscopic sized dust particles in the upper atmosphere and some carbon-rich dust in the Antarctic ice.

the center of the Moon’s shadow — known as the antumbra during an annular eclipse — will juuuust miss the Earth and instead pass scant kilometres above the Antarctic continent

out of 3,956 annular eclipses occurring from 2000 BCE to 3000 AD, only 68 (1.7%) are of the non-central variety

An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is too distant to cover the disk of the Sun, resulting in a bright “annulus” or “ring-of-fire” eclipse

several southern Indian Ocean islands and all of Australia will still witness a fine partial solar eclipse from this event

A scattering of islands in the southern Indian Ocean will see a 55% eclipsed Sun.

for Australia

Perth seeing a 55% eclipsed Sun and Sydney seeing a 50% partial eclipse.

in Sydney and eastern Australia

the eclipse occurs low to the horizon to the west at sunset

The safest method to view a partial solar eclipse is via projection