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Mars Base

Astronomers Discover 18 Huge New Alien Planets | Alien Planets & Solar Systems | Gas Gi... - 0 views

www.space.com/en-planets-keck-telescope.html

scibyte24

shared by Mars Base on 03 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Astronomers have found 18 new alien planets, all of them Jupiter-size gas giants that circle stars bigger than our sun
  • increase the number of known planets orbiting massive stars by 50 percent
  • should also help astronomers better understand how giant planets form and grow
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • just a few months after a different team of researchers announced the discovery of 50 newfound alien worlds
  • including one rocky planet that could be a good candidate for life
  • list of known alien planets is now well over 700 and climbing fast
  • researchers surveyed about 300 stars using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and instruments in Texas and Arizona
  • focused on so-called "retired" type A stars that are at least 1.5 times more massive than our own sun
  • just beyond the main stage of life — hence the name "retired"
  • ballooning out to become what's known as subgiant stars
  • scrutinized these stars, looking for slight wobbles caused by the gravitational tug of orbiting planets
  • revealed 18 new alien worlds
  • All 18 planets also orbit relatively far from their stars, at a distance of at least 0.7 times the span from Earth to the sun (about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers
  • the new finds lend support to one of two theories that attempt to explain the formation and evolution of planets
  • core accretion, posits that planets grow as gas and dust glom onto seed particles in a protoplanetary disk.
  • predicts that the characteristics of a planetary system — the number and size of planets, for example — depend strongly on the mass of the star
  • competing theory, called gravitational collapse, holds that planets form when big clouds of gas and dust in the disk spontaneously collapse into clumps that become planets
  • According to this idea, stellar mass should have little impact on planet size, number and other characteristics
  • it seems that stellar mass does in fact play an important role
Mars Base

Supernova Candidate Stars May Signal "Impending Doom" - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...tars-may-signal-impending-doom

scibyte24

shared by Mars Base on 02 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • very visible supernova event. Hosted in the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51),
  • researchers at Ohio State University, a galaxy survey may have captured evidence of a “stellar signal” just before it went supernova
  • OSU team was undertaking a survey of 25 galaxies for stars that changed their magnitude in usual ways
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  • goal was to find a star just before it ended its life
  • a binary star system located in M51 produced just the results they were looking fo
  • ne star dropped amplitude just a short period of time before the other exploded
  • Maybe stars give off a clear signal of impending doom, maybe they don’t
  • But we’ll learn something new about dying stars no matter the outcome
  • it was a binary star system being studied by the OSU team
  • consisted of both a blue and red star
  • At this point, the astronomers surmise the red star was the one that dimmed significantly over the three-year period while the blue one blew its top
  • reviewing the LBT data
  • when compared with Hubble images, the red star dimmed at about 10% over the final three-year period at an estimated 3% per previous years
  • researchers surmise the red star may have actually survived the supernova event
  • After the light from the explosion fades away, we should be able to see the companion that did not explode
Mars Base

Researches find poop-throwing by chimps is a sign of intelligence - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...owing-chimps-intelligence.html

scibyte24

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • researchers studying such behavior have come to the conclusion that throwing feces, or any object really, is actually a sign of high ordered behavior
  • they are the only other species besides humans that regularly throw things with a clear target in mind
  • watching chimps in action for several years and comparing their actions with scans of their brains to see if there were any correlations between those chimps that threw a lot
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • those that didn’t or whether they’re accuracy held any deeper meaning
  • chimps that both threw more and were more likely to hit their targets showed heightened development in the motor cortex
  • more connections between it and the Broca’s area, which they say is an important part of speech in humans
  • Such findings led the term to suggest that the ability to throw is, or was, a precursor to speech development in human beings
  • those that could throw better also appeared to be better communicators within their group
  • better throwing chimps didn’t appear to posses any more physical prowess than other chimps
  • throwing didn’t develop as a means of hunting, but as a form of communication within groups
  • throwing stuff at someone else became a form of self expression
Mars Base

Early sign of Alzheimer's reversed in lab - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ly-alzheimer-reversed-lab.html

scibyte24

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • One of the earliest known impairments caused by Alzheimer's disease - loss of sense of smell – can be restored by removing a plaque-forming protein in a mouse model of the disease
  • study confirms that the protein, called amyloid beta, causes the loss
  • we can use the sense of smell to determine if someone may get Alzheimer's disease, and use changes in sense of smell to begin treatments, instead of waiting until someone has issues learning and remembering
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  • We can also use smell to see if therapies are working
  • Smell loss can be caused by a number of ailments
  • since the 1970s, it has been identified as an early sign of this disease
  • There is currently no effective treatment or cure for the disease
  • They found that just a tiny amount of amyloid beta – too little to be seen on today's brain scans - causes smell loss in mouse models
  • Amyloid beta plaque accumulated first in parts of the brain associated with smell, well before accumulating in areas associated with cognition and coordination
  • Despite spending more time sniffing, the mice failed to remember smells and became incapable of telling the difference between odors
  • While losses in the olfactory system occurred, the rest of the mouse model brain, including the hippocampus, which is a center for memory, continued to act normally early in the disease stage
  • Mice were given a synthetic liver x-receptor agonist, a drug that clears amyloid beta from the brain
  • After two weeks on the drug, the mice could process smells normally
  • After withdrawal of the drug for one week, impairments returned
  • team are now following-up on these discoveries to determine how amyloid spreads throughout the brain, to learn methods to slow disease progression
Mars Base

Mars Express Reveals Possible Martian Glaciers - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...eals-possible-martian-glaciers

scibyte24

shared by Mars Base on 03 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • , one of the greatest needs future astronauts will face is water
  • Mars Express has imaged an area on the red planet which may yield large quantities of sub-surface ice
  • Extending from the northeastern portion of the Elysium volcanic province to the northern lowlands
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • spanning latitudes from roughly 30°N to 50°N, the Phlegra Montes
  • gently rolling series of hills that have been probed by radar
  • surmised these low mountain ranges are not volcanic in origin, but created through tectonic forces and may conceal a copious supply of frozen water
  • high resolution stereo imaging from ESA’s Mars Express orbiter, we’re able to detect a feature called ‘lobate debris aprons’.
  • it’s a normal feature for mountains found around these latitudes
  • Earlier studies of the debris aprons show the material has slid down the mountain slopes with time – a feature shared with Earth’s glaciers
  • scientists surmise this region may be a type of Martian glacier
  • also been confirmed by radar on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
  • lobate debris aprons could indeed signal the presence of ice – perhaps only 20 meter below the surface
  • , nearby impact craters also show signs of recent glaciation
  • ridges formed inside these ancient holes from snowfall, and then slid down the slopes
  • With time, it compacted to form a glacier structure
  • A one time, Mars’ polar axis was quite different than it is today
  • it created different climatic conditions and mid-latitude glaciers may have developed at different times over the last several hundred million years
Mars Base

NASA's Pluto Probe Marks a New Milestone - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...to-probe-marks-a-new-milestone

scibyte24

shared by Mars Base on 03 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • December 2, 2011
  • today New Horizons passed a new milestone: it is now (and will be for quite some time) the closest spacecraft ever to Pluto
  • previous record held by Voyager 1, which came within 983 million miles (1.58 billion km) of the dwarf planet on January 29, 1986
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • launch on January 19, 2006
  • speeding toward Pluto at around 34,500 mph (55,500 km/hr).
  • New Horizons will pass by Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015
  • It will image Pluto’s surface in unprecedented detail, resolving features as small as 200 feet (60 meters) across
  • will not land or enter orbit around Pluto
  • instead quickly pass by and continue on into the Kuiper Belt
  • team is currently investigating further exploration targets should its mission be extended.
Mars Base

Spandex manufacturer makes elastic electrical cable (w/ video) - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...ic-electrical-cable-video.html

scibyte24

shared by Mars Base on 03 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Japanese company Asahi Kasei Fibers
  • has applied its knowledge of stretchable materials to make stretchable elastic power and USB cables
  • originally designed the elastic cable material, called Roboden, for wiring the soft, flexible skin of humanoid robots
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  • human skin can stretch by a factor of 1.5
  • the wiring can stretch with the robots’ movements, such as twisting and turning, without losing its ability to transfer power and data.
  • the elastic cables could prove useful for minimizing cord clutter in homes and offices
  • made of an outer elastic shell with spiraled internal wiring that unspirals when pulled
  • Another application of the elastic cables could be wearable electronics - possibly for health-monitoring materials, wearable solar panels, and futuristic electronic clothing fashions
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