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Mars Base

Saturday's Lunar Eclipse Will Include 'Impossible' Sight | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...-will-include-impossible-sight

scibyte25

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • This year's second total lunar eclipse on Saturday, Dec. 10, will offer a rare chance to see a strange celestial sight traditionally thought impossible
  • For most places in the United States and Canada, there will be a chance to observe an unusual effect
  • one that celestial geometry seems to dictate can't happen
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • "selenelion" (or "selenehelion") and occurs when both the sun and the eclipsed moon can be seen at the same time.
  • When we have a lunar eclipse, the sun, Earth and moon are in a geometrically straight line in space, with the Earth in the middle.
  • during a lunar eclipse, the sun and moon are exactly 180 degrees apart in the sky
  • atmospheric refraction that makes a selenelion possible
  • Atmospheric refraction causes astronomical objects to appear higher in the sky than they are in reality
  • when you see the sun sitting on the horizon, it is not there really. It's actually below the edge of the horizon, but our atmosphere acts like a lens and bends the sun's image just above the horizon, allowing us to see it.
  • we end up seeing the sun for a few minutes in the morning before it has actually risen and for a few extra minutes in the evening after it actually already has set. 
  • The same holds true with the moon, as well.
  • for many localities there will be an unusual chance to observe a senelion firsthand with Saturday morning's shadowy event
  • There will be a short window of roughly 1-to-6 minutes (depending on your location) when you may be able to simultaneously spot the sun rising in the east-southeast and the eclipsed full moon setting in the west-northwest
  • east of the Appalachian Range, this will, unfortunately, be a non-event
Mars Base

North America's Biggest Dinosaur Unearthed In New Mexico | Fox News - 1 views

www.foxnews.com/...nosaur-unearthed-in-new-mexico

scibyte25

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • North America's biggest dinosaur has been unearthed
  • it once called New Mexico home.
  • titanosaurus was documented in a recent issue of Acta Palaeontologica Polonica published on Dec. 6.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Alamosaurus sanjuanensis
  • A cousin of the Diplodocus
  • stumbled upon the bones during a dig in the New Mexico desert back in 2004
  • after the full bone had been freed, Fowler said the trip back to the truck was the hardest part of the entire process
  • There was only two of us out there, and it was about 1.2 miles
  • Alamosaurus vertebra that Fowler and Sullivan found puts the dinosaur in the same category as other Titanosaurus sauropods discovered in South America
  • Argentinosaurus and the Puertasaurus which both could weigh up to 80 – 100 metric tons
  • the Alamosaurus they discovered could potentially be the same size.
  • new questions have emerged as to the behavior of sauropods in North America
  • These dinosaurs are found primarily in the south, only getting as far north as Utah, leading Fowler and other researchers to wonder about their preferred environment
  • Perhaps they actually emigrated in from South America during this time, and maybe they just haven’t got as far north quite yet
Mars Base

Video: How Parrots Talk - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...enceshot-how-parrots-talk.html

scibyte25

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Parrots have neither lips nor teeth, but that doesn't stop them from producing dead-on imitations of human speech
  • like humans, parrots use their tongues to form sounds
  • scientists took x-ray movies of monk parakeets
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • No other type of bird is known to move its tongue to vocalize
  • Parrots use their mobile, muscular tongues to explore their environment and manipulate food
  • Those capable organs
  • also help parrots utter greetings in words that even humans can understand.
Mars Base

LHC to narrow search for Higgs boson - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...12-lhc-narrow-higgs-boson.html

scibyte25 HiggsBoson

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Finding it would be an enormous scientific breakthrough for the physics world and would help explain why different particles have different masses
  • That is because the particle itself is thought to give mass to other particles
  • any firm discovery will have to wait until next year
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • we're close to the stage where we're going to see something
  • The hunt for the Higgs boson is different than the much-publicized research by French and Italian researchers that appeared to show subatomic neutrino particles traveling faster than light
  • But scientists at CERN are involved in testing that research
Mars Base

Learning high-performance tasks with no conscious effort may soon be possible (w/ video) - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ks-conscious-effort-video.html

scibyte25

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • New research published today in the journal Science suggests it may be possible to use brain technology to learn to play a piano, reduce mental stress or hit a curve ball with little or no conscious effort
  • Japan, recently demonstrated that through a person's visual cortex, researchers could use decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to induce brain activity patterns to match a previously known target state and thereby improve performance on visual tasks
  • Think of a person watching a computer screen and
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • brain patterns modified to match those of a high-performing athlete
  • or modified to recuperate from an accident or disease
  • pictures gradually build up inside a person's brain, appearing first as lines, edges, shapes, colors and motion in early visual areas
  • The brain then fills in greater detail
  • none of these studies directly addressed the question of whether early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning
  • Until now.
  • implemented a method using decoded fMRI neurofeedback to induce a particular activation pattern in targeted early visual areas that corresponded to a pattern evoked by a specific visual feature in a brain region of interest
  • is a novel learning approach sufficient to cause long-lasting improvement in tasks that require visual performance
  • the approached worked even when test subjects were not aware of what they were learning
  • the decoded neurofeedback method might be used for various types of learning, including memory, motor and rehabilitation
  • this study we confirmed the validity of our method only in visual perceptual learning
Mars Base

Physicists to Make Major 'God Particle' Announcement Next Week | Higgs Boson & Particle... - 0 views

www.space.com/article-announcement-week.html

scibyte25 HiggsBoson

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • cautioned that LHC's ATLAS and CMS experiments have not accrued enough data to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson, an as yet undetected particle thought to give all other particles their mass
  • particle is thought to have a mass of between 114 and 185 gigaelectronvolts, or GeVs. (One GeV is equivalent to the mass of a proton, the positively charged particle in the nucleus of an atom
  • Tantalizing data spikes between 120 and 140 GeV suggest that the Higgs mass might lie in that range, the LHC teams reported in July
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  • the data at that stage was not reliable enough to make any scientific claims
Mars Base

Scientist: Russia's Failed Mars Moon Probe Worth a Second Try | Russia Phobos-Grunt Spa... - 0 views

www.space.com/bos-grunt-spacecraft-life.html

Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • 08 December 2011
  • European Space Agency to resume tracking Phobos-Grunt this week, after calling off tracking last Friday (Dec. 2),
  • the probe was said to have shown signs of uncontrolled tumbling, yet reports in recent days suggest that its attitude control may now be working
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • unless Phobos-Grunt not only can be contacted, but can be made to accept commands to boost its orbit, the spacecraft will reenter the atmosphere in early January.
  • it is possible that the vibrations and tumbling that will set in as the speeding craft begins interacting significantly with mesospheric air will dislodge the vehicle's most famous component — the return capsule that was to carry a 200-gram sample from the Phobosian surface back to Earth —  sparing it a fiery death
  • the capsule might make a survivable reentry trajectory, miss the oceans, and come down on land, just as it was designed to do
Mars Base

Scientists About to Find The Force - 0 views

gizmodo.com/...ntists-about-to-find-the-force

scibyte25 HiggsBoson

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • CERN scientists may have already found evidence of the existence of the elusive Higgs boson
  • scientist from the Cern particle physics laboratory has told the BBC he expects to see "the first glimpse" of the Higgs boson next week
  • Tuesday, when two Large Hadron Collider teams would reveal the results of their research, highlighting ten candidates that show evidence of Higgs
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Those ten candidates were found from the remains of about 350 trillion collisions using the ATLAS and CMS detectors.
  • Higgs field that is everywhere
  • The elusive Higgs particle would be the carrier of that field, interacting with all the other particles
  • The Higgs boson is a pivotal part of the standard model of particle physics
  • one of the main reasons of why the Large Hadron Collider was built
  • we've been living with Higgs theory now for almost 50 years
  • Tuesday's data will not be confirmed until they are able to produce repeated evidence in future experiments
  • expect this to happen around next summer
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

NASA - Space Station Astronaut Will Answer Video Questions From Public - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...HQ_11-406_Ask_the_Crew.html

scibyte29 SpaceStation

shared by Mars Base on 03 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • unique opportunity to ask the commander of the International Space Station a question about his role on the orbiting outpost
  • Commander Dan Burbank will answer videotaped questions from the public during a live event tentatively set for Friday, Jan. 20
  • video questions must be less than 30 seconds
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Submitters should introduce themselves and mention their location
  • Questions must be posted as responses to a video Burbank recorded on YouTube at: http://go.nasa.gov/sDYpzP
  • Burbank launched to the station on Nov. 13
  • conduct a variety of science experiments and perform station maintenance during his nearly six-month stay on the outpost
  • Burbank will answer questions during the time available
  • airing live on NASA TV
  • answers will be posted to YouTube
  • http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie
  • Expedition 30 and the exact time of the event, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
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
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • 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
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
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • 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
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • 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
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