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Mars Base

Astronomers Find Tantalizing Hints of a Potentially Habitable Exoplanet - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...otentially-habitable-exoplanet

scibyte71 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 14 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The star HD 40307, is a perfectly quiet old dwarf star, so there is no reason why such a planet could not sustain an Earth-like climate
  • HD 40307 g has been added to the Planetary Habitability Laboratory’s Habitable Exoplanets Catalog
  • now in 4th place of top exoplanets of interest based on similarity to Earth
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • the estimated 7-Earth-mass exoplanet receives around 62-67% of the radiation that Earth gets from the Sun
  • HD 40307 g is still a candidate
  • observations are needed to not only confirm its existence but also to find out exactly what kind of planet it may be
Mars Base

Astronomers find tantalizing hints of a potentially habitable exoplanet - 0 views

phys.org/...nts-potentially-habitable.html

scibyte71 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 14 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • previously been found to hold three "super-Earth" exoplanets in close orbit
  • researchers poring over data from ESO's HARPS planet-hunting instrument are suggesting that there are likely at least six super-Earth exoplanets
  • one of them appearing
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • into the star's water-friendly "Goldilocks" zone
  • HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) on ESO's La Silla 3.6m telescope is a dedicated exoplanet hunter
  • detect the
  • slight wobble of a star caused by the gravitational tug of orbiting planets
  • HD 40307 g is located far enough away from its star to likely not be tidally locked
  • it wouldn't have one side subject to constant heat and radiation while its other "far side" remains cold and dark
  • the estimated 7-Earth-mass exoplanet receives around 62% of the radiation that Earth gets from the Sun
  • HD 40307 g is still a candidate—more observations are needed to not only confirm its existence but also to find out exactly what kind of planet it may be.
  • more detailed characterization of this candidate is very unlikely using ground based studies because it is very unlikely [sic] to transit the star, and a direct imaging mission seems the most promising way of learning more
  • just finding potential Earth-sized worlds in a system like HD 40307′s is a big deal for planetary scientists
Mars Base

Frequent multitaskers are bad at it: Motorists overrate ability to talk on cell phones ... - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...rs-bad-motorists-overrate.html

scibyte79 multitasking

shared by Mars Base on 24 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Most people believe they can multitask effectively, but a
  • study indicates that people who multitask the most – including talking on a cell phone while driving – are least capable of doing so.
  • data suggest the people talking on cell phones while driving are people who probably shouldn't. We showed that people who multitask the most are those who appear to be the least capable of multitasking effectively
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • The people who are most likely to multitask harbor the illusion they are better than average at it, when in fact they are no better than average and often worse
  • The study ran 310 undergraduate psychology students through a battery of tests and questionnaires to measure actual multitasking ability, perceived multitasking ability, cell phone use while driving, use of a wide array of electronic media, and personality traits such as impulsivity and sensation-seeking.
  • people who score high on a test of actual multitasking ability tend not to multitask because they are better able to focus attention on the task at hand
  • 70 percent of participants thought they were above average at multitasking, which is statistically impossible
  • The more people multitask by talking on cell phones while driving or by using multiple media at once, the more they lack the actual ability to multitask, and their perceived multitasking ability "was found to be significantly inflated
  • People with high levels of impulsivity and sensation-seeking reported more multitasking
  • there was an exception: People who talk on cell phones while driving tend not to be impulsive, indicating that cell phone use is a deliberate choice
  • research suggests that people who engage in multitasking often do so not because they have the ability, but "because they are less able to block out distractions and focus on a singular task
  • The study participants were 310 University of Utah psychology undergraduates – 176 female and 134 male with a median age of 21 – who volunteered for their department's subject pool in exchange for extra course credit.
  • To measure actual multitasking ability, participants performed a test named Operation Span, or OSPAN.
  • The test involves two tasks: memorization and math computation
  • Participants must remember two to seven letters, each separated by a math equation that they must identify as true or false
  • A simple example of a question: "is 2+4=6?, g, is 3-2=2?, a, is 4x3=12." Answer: true, g, false, a, true.
  • Participants also ranked their perceptions of their own multitasking ability by giving themselves a score ranging from zero to 100, with 50 percent meaning average.
  • Study subjects reported how often they used a cell phone while driving, and what percentage of the time they are on the phone while driving
  • also completed a survey of how often and for how many hours they use which media, including printed material, television and video, computer video, music, nonmusic audio, video games, phone, instant and text messaging, e-mail, the Web and other computer software such as word processing
  • researchers looked for significant correlations among results of the various tests and questionnaires
  • people who multitask the most tend to be impulsive, sensation-seeking, overconfident of their multitasking abilities, and they tend to be less capable of multitasking
  • 25 percent of the people who performed best on the OSPAN test of multitasking ability "are the people who are least likely to multitask and are most likely to do one thing at a time
  • 70 percent of participants said they were above-average at multitasking, and they were more likely to multitask
  • Media multitasking – except cell phone use while driving – correlated significantly with impulsivity, particularly the inability to concentrate and acting without thinking.
  • Multitasking, including cell phone use while driving, correlated significantly with sensation-seeking, indicating some people multitask because it is more stimulating, interesting and challenging, and less boring – even if it may hurt their overall performance
Mars Base

Light From a 'SuperEarth' Detected for the First Time - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...th-detected-for-the-first-time

scibyte46 Spitzer exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 09 May 12 - No Cached
  • 55 Cancri
  • one of the first known stars to host an extrasolar planet
  • discovered via radial velocity measurements in 2004
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • astronomers were able to determine its mass and radius
  • Spitzer became the first telescope to detect light from a planet beyond our solar system, when it saw the infrared light of a “hot Jupiter
  • NASA’s Hubble and Kepler space telescopes
  • using the same method
  • In this method, a telescope gazes at a star as a planet circles behind it. When the planet disappears from view, the light from the star system dips ever so slightly, but enough that astronomers can determine how much light came from the planet itself
  • information reveals the temperature of a planet, and, in some cases, its atmospheric components
  • other current planet-hunting methods obtain indirect measurements of a planet by observing its effects on the star.
  • about 8.57 Earth masses
  • radius is 1.63 times that of Earth
  • density is 10.9 ± 3.1 g cm-3 (the average density of Earth is 5.515 g cm-3),
  • Cancri e is tidally locked, so one side always faces the star
  • James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, likely will be able to learn even more about the planet’s composition
  • might be able to use a similar infrared method to Spitzer to search other potentially habitable planets for signs of molecules possibly related to life.
Mars Base

A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China : Nature : Nature Publ... - 0 views

www.nature.com/...nature10906.html

scibyte41 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 05 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Figures at a glance
  • Numerous feathered dinosaur specimens have recently been recovered from the Middle–Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous deposits of northeastern China, but most of them represent small animals1
  • shares some features, particularly of the cranium, with derived tyrannosauroids2
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • analysis suggests that Y. huali differed from tyrannosaurids in its growth strategy13
Mars Base

Common Lab Dye Found to Interrupt Formation of Huntington's Disease Proteins: Scientifi... - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte59 GrabBag MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • methylene blue, gets a mention in medical literature as early as 1897 and was used to treat, at one time or another, ailments ranging from malaria to cyanide poisoning
  • never formally approved it as a therapy for any illnesses.
  • Because of existing knowledge of methylene blue and the fact that it’s not harmful to humans, I would hope that progress toward clinical trials could go relatively quickly," says 
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • a neurobiologist at University of California–Irvine
  • Huntington’s disease occurs when the C-A-G sequence of DNA base pairs repeat too often on the HTT gene, resulting in an abnormally long version of the huntingtin protein, that therefore folds incorrectly and forms clumps in the brain
  • usually begins to affect people in their 30s and 40s, causing movement problems and early death
  • No drug is currently available to stop the disease from progressing
  • For their experiment, researchers fed methylene blue mixed with food for a week to Drosophila flies
  • brains showed that protein clumps had been reduced by 87 percent compared with a control group
  • given methylene blue
  • underwent several tests to assess mobility
  • At two months of age, the treated mice showed abnormal clasping of their hind claws only 20 percent of the time
  • untreated counterparts clasped at a 60 percent rate
  • the number of mice used was not sufficient to provide statistically significant results and the difference in the test quickly dropped off at nine weeks of age
  • the data as hopeful, because even a delay in Huntington’s symptoms would be very helpful
  • more research is needed
  • Methylene blue would absolutely require further testing in mouse models and would need safety and efficacy trial before it could be used for humans."
  • This study shows promise pre-clinically and follow-up studies are needed in a more representative mouse model that expresses the full-length Huntingtin protein
Mars Base

Physicist creates scale model of LHC ATLAS experiment of out LEGO blocks - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...cist-scale-lhc-atlas-lego.html

scibyte27

shared by Mars Base on 30 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • The Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland has generated a lot of news of late, e.g. the announcement that a team had found what it believes to be a particle that traveled faster than he speed of light, an actual new particle, and of course the seemingly never-ending storyline associated with the hopeful discovery of the elusive Higgs Boson, now a physicist not associated with the project, has built a scale model replica of the ATLAS experiment; a particle detector that will likely serve as ground zero should the so-called “god particle” ever be observed.
  • a physicist with the Niels Bohr Institute took almost thirty five hours to build and cost two thousand Euros (paid for by the high energy physics group at the university). The point of building the replica, he says, is to incite interest in physics. Plus, no doubt, it was sort of fun.
  • The real ATLAS project is 44 meters long and 22 meters wide and weighs 7000 tonnes. Mehlhase’s model, at approximately 1:50 scale is approximately 1 meter long by a half meter wide. And while the real deal has millions of parts, the model has 9500 pieces, mostly LEGO blocks.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • first tried to model the ATLAS on computer, but then apparently found the undertaking untenable
  • Abandoning that approach, he set to work replicating the ATLAS by simply mimicking what it looked like
  • Mehlhase says he’s contacted LEGO (a Danish company) in hopes of having his model included as one of the model kits sold by the company, though he hasn’t yet made a manual. He’d like to see similar models constructed in schools all over the world.
  • To give some perspective, he modeled some tiny physicists as well.
Mars Base

Fun New App: MoonWalking - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...fun-new-app-moonwalking

scibyte29 App moon

shared by Mars Base on 13 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • January 12, 2012
  • app called MoonWalking allows you to bring Tranquility Base down to Earth
  • Using your iPhone or iPad as an interactive
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • you can watch all the action, and even take pictures of the events with your iPhone
  • augmented-reality app that recreates Tranquility Base in your backyard or neighborhood park
  • download it from iTunes for only $.99.
  • is for iPhones and iPads only.
Mars Base

ScienceShot: New Species Discovered, Thanks to Flickr - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...shot-new-species-discover.html

scibyte58 species

shared by Mars Base on 10 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers recently spotted a previously unknown species of lacewing while randomly flipping through images posted on the online database Flickr
  • The images of the new lacewing, which has a 30-millimeter wingspan, were taken in a forested park north of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by an amateur photographer and then posted online
  • entomologist randomly viewing the images
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • suspected the creature was an undescribed species
  • the photographer had released the insect after taking its picture, so researchers had to wait until the shutterbug revisited the area and collected a specimen before they could officially write up their discovery
Mars Base

Curiosity Rover Snaps Best Mars Solar Eclipse Photos Ever | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/se-curiosity-rover-photos.html

G+ Curiosity scibyte101

shared by Mars Base on 07 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Phobos does not completely cover the sun as seen from the Red Planet's surface, so the Aug. 17 event was an annular or "ring of fire" eclipse
  • Phobos is just 14 miles (22 kilometers) wide on average
  • Phobos appears
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • relatively big
  • because the moon orbits so close to Mars
  • just 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers
  • Phobos takes eight hours to complete one lap around Mars
  • Observations of Phobos and Deimos by Curiosity and
  • Opportunity should help researchers refine their knowledge of the two moons' orbits
Mars Base

New Earth-Like Blazing Hot Planet 'Kepler-78b' Discovered - 0 views

www.scienceworldreport.com/...overed-an-impossible-world.htm

scibyte108 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • first known Earth-sized planet with an Earth-like density
  • diameter of 9,200 miles,
  • is 1.2 times the size of Earth and 1.7 times more massive than Earth and it is composed of iron and rock
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • planet circles its star every eight and a half hours at a distance of less than one mile
  • one of tightest known orbit on record and due to this its formation is deemed as impossible and not suitable for life.
  • The scientists believe no planet can form so close to its star nor could it have moved to its current position.
  • Kepler-78b poses a challenge to theorists
  • When this planetary system was forming, the young star was larger than it is now.
  • the current orbit of Kepler-78b would have been inside the swollen star
  • The star of Kepler-78b is slightly smaller and less massive than the sun
  • Sun-like G-type star, which is  located 400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus
  • The exoplanet was discovered using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope
  • follow up observations were made using W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii
Mars Base

Astronomers answer key question: How common are habitable planets? - 0 views

phys.org/...-common-habitable-planets.html

scibyte109

shared by Mars Base on 07 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • astronomers analyzed all four years of Kepler data in search of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of sun-like stars
  • Based on this analysis, they estimate that 22 percent of stars like the sun have potentially habitable Earth-size planets, though not all may be rocky or have liquid water
  • NASA's Kepler spacecraft
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • provided enough data to complete its mission objective: to determine how many of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets
  • Based on a statistical analysis
  • astronomers now estimate that one in five stars like the sun have planets about the size of Earth and a surface temperature conducive to life.
  • nearly 20 years since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a normal star
  • Since then we have learned that most stars have planets of some size and that Earth-size planets are relatively common in close-in orbits that are too hot for life
  • Earth-size planets in Earth-size orbits are not necessarily hospitable to life, even if they orbit in the habitable zone of a star where the temperature is not too hot and not too cold
  • thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive
  • rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms
  • Last week,
  • provided hope that many such planets actually are rocky
  • NASA launched the Kepler space telescope in 2009 to look for planets that cross in front of, or transit, their stars, which causes a slight diminution – about one hundredth of one percent – in the star's brightness
  • 150,000 stars photographed every 30 minutes for four years
  • reported more than 3,000 planet candidates
  • the Keck Telescopes in Hawaii
  • help them determine each star's true brightness and calculate the diameter of each transiting planet, with an emphasis on Earth-diameter planets.
  • The team's definition of habitable is that a planet receives between four times and one-quarter the amount of light that Earth receives from the sun
  • Independently
  • focused on the 42,000 stars that are like the sun or slightly cooler and smaller, and found 603 candidate planets orbiting them
  • Only 10 of these were Earth-size, that is, one to two times the diameter of Earth and orbiting their star at a distance where they are heated to lukewarm temperatures suitable for life
  • Accounting for missed planets, as well as the fact that only a small fraction of planets are oriented so that they cross in front of their host star as seen from Earth, allowed them to estimate that 22 percent of all sun-like stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets in their habitable zones.
  • All of the potentially habitable planets found in their survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun
  • analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like the sun
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