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Mars Base

Last meal found in stomach of fuzzy dinosaur | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...ound-in-stomach-fuzzy-dinosaur

scibyte61 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 30 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • The predator was roughly the size of a wolf, about 6 feet (2 meters) long, and had feathers or hairlike fuzz covering its body to help keep it warm
  • quintessential dinosaur environment, with lots of volcanic activity that periodically inundated the landscape and buried things within it with exquisite preservation
  • apparently dined on a birdlike, cat-size feathered dinosaur known as Sinornithosaurus
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • remains uncertain whether the dinosaurs actively hunted or scavenged these meals
  • the fact that Sinocalliopteryx gobbled at least two birds of the same species at about the same time "says chances are very good it was actively selecting its prey; that makes it a predator
Mars Base

Opportunity Rover Tops 35 Kilometers of Driving - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...-tops-35-kilometers-of-driving

scibyte61 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 01 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • has now exceeded over 35 kilometers (21.75 miles)
  • vehicle designed for only about 1 kilometer (.6 miles) of distance and 90 sols (days)
  • now operating for 3,057 Martian sols
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Oppy is now moving
  • surveying exposed outcrop in search of phyllosilicate clay minerals that have been detected from orbit
  • What are those rocks made of? How did this feature form? What do the diferent colours and textures mean? These are all questions which the MER team will be hoping to answer over the next few days
  • Opportunity’s solar array energy production is good, producing about 568 watt-hours
  • MER team reports that on Sol 3055 (Aug. 27, 2012), the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) on the end of the robotic arm was imaged (top image) to re-confirm the available bit for future grinding and the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) collected a measurement of atmospheric argon.
Mars Base

Private Manned Mars Mission Gets First Sponsors | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/mars-one-mission-sponsors.html

scibyte61 GrabBag PrivateSpaceTravel mars

shared by Mars Base on 01 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • A Dutch company that aims to land humans on Mars in 2023 as the vanguard of a permanent Red Planet colony has received its first funding from sponsors
  • Mars One plans to fund most of its ambitious activities via a global reality-TV media event
  • follow the mission from the selection of astronauts through their first years on the Red Planet
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Receipt
  • Initial sponsors include Byte Internet (a Dutch Internet/Webhosting provider); Dutch lawfirm VBC Notarissen; Dutch consulting company MeetIn; New-Energy.tv (an independent Dutch web station that focuses on energy and climate); and Dejan SEO (an Australia-based search engine optimization firm). [
  • Mars One aims to launch a series of robotic missions between 2016 and 2020 that will build a habitable outpost on the Red Planet. The first four astronauts will set foot on Mars in 2023, and more will arrive every two years after that. There are no plans to return these pioneers to Earth.
  • Mars One estimates that it will cost about $6 billion to put the first four humans on the Red Planet
  • hopes the "Big Brother"-style reality show will pay most of these costs
  • televised action is slated to begin in 2013, when Mars One begins the process of selecting its 40-person astronaut corps
Mars Base

Study: Tigers take the night shift to coexist with people - 0 views

phys.org/...ight-shift-coexist-people.html

scibyte62 Tiger

shared by Mars Base on 04 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Tigers
  • a new study indicates that the feared and revered carnivores in and around a world-renowned park in Nepal are taking the night shift to better coexist with their human neighbors.
  • Conventional conservation wisdom is that tigers need lots of people-free space, which often leads to people being relocated or their access to resources compromised to make way for tigers
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • home to about 121 tigers. People live on the park's borders
  • analysis of the thousands of images show that people and tigers are walking the same paths, albeit at different times
  • Tigers typically move around at all times of the day and night
  • discovered that the tigers had become creatures of the night.
  • camera's infrared lights document a pronounced shift toward nocturnal activity
  • People in Nepal generally avoid the forests at night
  • it appears tiger population numbers are holding steady despite an increase in human population size
  • Tigers need to use the same space as people if they are to have a viable long-term future. What we're learning in Chitwan is that tigers seem to be adapting to make it work."
  • There appears to be a middle ground where you might actually be able to protect the species at high densities and give people access to forest goods they need to live
Mars Base

Humans and Tigers Can Timeshare Territory - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...and-tigers-can-timeshare-.html

scibyte62 Tiger

shared by Mars Base on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • A field study of tigers in Nepal suggests that, in some cases, people and animals can coexist by "timesharing" the same territory
  • Nepal's Chitwan National Park, established in 1973, covers about 1000 square kilometers and is one of only 28 reserves in the world that can support more than 25 breeding female tigers—likely the smallest number needed to maintain genetic diversity
  • Local residents
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • collect firewood, soldiers patrol forest roads to deter poachers and other criminals, and a growing number of ecotourists visit the area each year
  • conducted their research from January through May—during the dry season before the monsoon rains began—in both 2010 and 2011, each year deploying at least 75 camera traps spaced no more than 1 kilometer apart.
  • And overall tiger numbers in the park didn't drop when more humans were around: In 2010, the team estimates, the area hosted about 4.4 tigers per 100 square kilometers. The next year, that number jumped by about 40%—even though the number of humans measured by the “camera traps” rose by 55%.
  • analyses show that tigers were more likely to be found at sites away from human settlemen
  • also found that the tigers in and around Chitwan park were much more likely to be active at night than tigers living elsewher
  • Timesharing the environment might not work well with many threatened species or in many areas
  • the notion of humans and endangered animals sharing the same terrain by shifting their behavior—and particularly by shifting when each species uses the habitat—should be incorporated into conservation plans when it makes sense
Mars Base

Disintegrating Alien Planet Has Comet-Like Tail | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/n-planet-dust-tail-kepler.html

scibyte62 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Astronomers have found a dusty tail streaming off a faraway alien planet, suggesting that the tiny, scorching-hot world is indeed falling apart.
  • In May, researchers announced the detection of a possibly distintegrating exoplanet, a roughly Mercury-size world being boiled away by the intense heat of its parent star
  • a different team has found strong evidence in support of the find
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Both studies used observations from NASA's Kepler space telescope
  • completing an orbit every 15 hours
  • surface temperatures estimated to be around 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (1,982 degrees Celsius).
  • predicted that the planet is likely surrounded by a huge veil of dust and gas
  • In the new study, a different team
  • affirms the existence of this planetary dust tail
  • found clear signals that
  • light is being scattered and absorbed by large amounts of dust.
  • Further work with different instruments could help nail down just what the planet is made of
  • By observing the dust clouds in different colors, something Kepler cannot do, we will be able to determine the amount and the composition of the dust and estimate its lifetime
  • "As the evaporation peels the planet like an onion, we can now see what used to be the inside of a planet."
Mars Base

Students: Asteroid 1999 RQ36 Needs a New Name! - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...oid-1999-rq36-needs-a-new-name

scibyte62 Asteroid

shared by Mars Base on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • NASA and the Planetary Society are giving students worldwide the opportunity to name an asteroid
  • an upcoming NASA mission will return samples of this asteroid to Earth
  • Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) will be heading to an asteroid, currently named (101955) 1999 RQ36
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Scheduled to launch in 2016
  • NASA also is planning a crewed mission to an asteroid by 2025
  • competition is open to students under age 18 from anywhere in the world
  • Each contestant can submit one name, up to 16 characters long
  • must include a short explanation and rationale for the name
  • Submissions must be made by an adult on behalf of the student. The contest deadline is Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012
  • sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington; and the University of Arizona in Tucson
  • A panel will review proposed asteroid names. First prize will be awarded to the student who recommends a name that is approved by the International Astronomical Union Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature
  • asteroid was discovered in 1999
  • received its designation of (101955) 1999 RQ36 from the Minor Planet Center, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Mars Base

Triton: A subsurface ocean? - 0 views

phys.org/...9-triton-subsurface-ocean.html

sibyte62 Tritan

shared by Mars Base on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Neptune's largest moon Triton is most likely a captured Kuiper Belt Object. The capture of icy Triton and the subsequent taming of its orbit likely led to the formation of a subsurface ocean through tidal heating. New research suggests that this ocean could still exist today.
  • much about Neptune's largest moon still remains a mystery
  • Voyager 2 flyby in 1989 offered a quick peak at the satellite, and revealed a surface composition comprised mainly of water ice
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • also had nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide
  • density is quite high, it is suspected that it has a large core of silicate rock
  • possible that a liquid ocean could have formed between the rocky core and icy surface shell
  • Triton has a unique property among large solar system moons; it has a retrograde orbit
  • planets and their moons must also orbit in this same direction
  • Planets form from a circumstellar disc of dust and gas
  • These orbits are known as prograde
  • retrograde orbit of Triton means that it most likely did not form around Neptune.
  • Triton likely originated in the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune, and was sent hurtling inwards until it was captured by Neptune's gravity
  • Directly after capture, the moon would have been in a highly elliptical, eccentric orbit
  • This type of orbit would have raised large tides on the moon, and the friction of these tides would have caused energy to be lost
  • energy loss is converted into heat
  • melt some of the icy interior and form an ocean beneath the ice shell
  • energy loss from tides is also responsible for gradually changing Triton's orbit from an ellipse to a circle
  • there
  • also radiogenic heating. This is heat that is caused by the decay of radioactive isotopes within a moon or planet, and this process can create heat for billions of years
  • Radiogenic heating contributes several times more heat to Triton's interior than tidal heating
  • this heat alone is not sufficient to keep the subsurface ocean in a liquid state over 4.5 billion years
  • One model of Triton’s interior. 70 to 80 percent rock (1), with the remainder being water ice (2) and an outer layer of methane and nitrogen ice (3). This is also believed to be the general interior configuration for the ice dwarf Pluto. Credit: Wikipedia
  • The exact point in time when Triton was captured by Neptune, along with the length of the time it took the orbit to become circularized are unknown
  • orbit is currently almost exactly circular
  • the exact size of Triton's rocky core is unknown
Mars Base

Video: A Ball of Metal Bounces Off a Thin Sheet of Super-Tough Hydrogel | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...ts-ball-metal-without-breaking

scibyte62 Hydrogel

shared by Mars Base on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers
  • , have already tried to make them autonomous self-healers, ready to repair themselves when they break
  • hydrogels
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • what if they just didn't break at all under strain
  • Toughness is a major plus for hydrogels
  • , created the gel from two polymers: alginate and polyacrylamide
  • The ionic bonds of the alginate molecules break and reform under pressure, spreading the energy of an impact over a wider area
  • protects the covalent bonds in the polyacrylamide molecules, which hold the gel together
  • A hydrogel as tough as rubber that can stretch 20 times its normal length
Mars Base

Video: Cheetah Robot Sets a New Land Speed Record | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...bot-sets-new-land-speed-record

scibyte62 BosonDynamics

shared by Mars Base on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Boston Dynamics' Cheetah
  • fastest a robot had ever run
  • was coursing along at 18 miles per hour
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • that up to a frightening 28.3 MPH.
  • Usain Bolt's peak speed during the 100-meter dash was 27.78 MPH
  • Cheetah, for now, is tethered to an external power supply, and runs on an indoor treadmill.
  • Next year, however, Boston Dynamics plans to unleash Wildcat (pictured above), a Cheetah that's designed to run untethered.
Mars Base

NASA's Voyager 1 Spacecraft May Not Be Near Edge of Solar System After All | Observatio... - 0 views

blogs.scientificamerican.com/...edge-of-solar-system-after-all

scibyte62 Voyager1

shared by Mars Base on 06 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Nearly eight years ago, the spacecraft crossed into the heliosheath, the outer region of the solar system where the solar wind (plasma from the sun) begins to slow due to pushback from interstellar plasma
  • in 2010, the velocity of the solar wind at Voyager 1’s back unexpectedly dropped all the way to zero
  • Researchers expected that
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • No one knows the thickness of the heliosheath, so no one knows how soon Voyager 1 might reach its outer edg
  • “Whether these very new data are another feature of the broad transition region that Voyager 1 has been in for the past two years, or a new region or boundary of the heliosphere, remains to be seen.”
Mars Base

Space Shuttle Endeavour Taking Cross-Country Flight for Display | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ur-museum-flight-schedule.html

scibyte62 scibyte63 scibyte67 shuttle

shared by Mars Base on 07 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • The trip is set to begin on Sept. 17, weather permitting, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and culminate at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Sept. 20
  • The carrier aircraft will arrive at Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 11
  • Three days later, the orbiter will be rolled out to meet the SCA at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), where Endeavour returned to Earth for its 25th and final time in the early morning hours of June 1, 2011
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Endeavour will be hoisted off the ground by crane
  • then be lowered onto the SCA's back and secured for flight
  • Coordinating with the Federal Aviation Administration, the SCA will perform low flyovers — as low as 1,500 feet (457 meters) — as it passes NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.
  • low passes over areas around Houston, Clear Lake and Galveston in Texas before making a landing at Ellington Field near NASA's Johnson Space Center.
  • Weather permitting, the SCA and Endeavour will remain at Ellington for the remainder of the day and all day on Sept. 18, providing Johnson employees and the Houston public an ample opportunity to see the shuttle.
  • take to the air again at sunrise on Sept. 19, and after a brief refueling stop at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, Texas
  • low-level flyovers of White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, N.M., and Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California
  • morning of Sept. 20
  • Finally on the morning of Sept. 20, Endeavour, still on top of the SCA, will take off one last time, departing Dryden to fly over Northern California, passing above NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field and various landmarks in multiple cities, including San Francisco and Sacramento, the state's capitol
  • The carrier aircraft will fly near
  • , the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena before performing flyovers over many Los Angeles landmarks on its way to a landing at LAX
  • According to NASA, some of the flyovers or layovers that are planned could be delayed or cancelled as a result
  • flies over seven states and eight of NASA's facilities
Mars Base

Endeavour to Take to the Skies One Last Time - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ake-to-the-skies-one-last-time

scibyte62 shuttle

shared by Mars Base on 08 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Endeavour, mounted atop NASA’s modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), will become the last Space Shuttle orbiter to soar aloft when it departs Monday, Sept. 17, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a three-day flight to Los Angeles International Airport.
  • In cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration, the SCA is scheduled to conduct low-level flyovers at about 1,500 feet above many locations along the planned flight path, including Cape Canaveral, Stennis Space Center, New Orleans and stopovers in both Houston and Edwards Air Force Base in California
  • also planned before landing at LAX on the 20th
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Flyovers of Sacramento and San Francisco ar
  • The orbiter then will travel through Inglewood and Los Angeles city streets on a 12-mile journey from the airport to the California Science Center, arriving on the evening of Oct. 13
  • Beginning Oct. 30, the shuttle will be on permanent display in the science center’s Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion
  • Endeavour (OV-105) was the last shuttle orbiter to be constructed for NASA. Endeavour completed 25 missions, spent 299 days in orbit, and orbited Earth 4,671 times while traveling 122,883,151 miles.
  • s #spottheshuttle and #OV105
Mars Base

Treatment with fungi makes a modern violin sound like a Stradiavarius - 0 views

phys.org/...dern-violin-stradiavarius.html

scibyte62 Violin Stradivarius

shared by Mars Base on 08 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Low density, high speed of sound and a high modulus of elasticity – these qualities are essential for ideal violin tone wood.
  • In the late 17th and early 18th century the famous violin maker Antonio Stradivari used a special wood that had grown in the cold period between 1645 and 1715
  • long winters and the cool summers, the wood grew especially slowly and evenly, creating low density and a high modulus of elasticity
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • A good violin depends not only on the expertise of the violin maker, but also on the quality of the wood that is used.
  • Swiss wood researcher
  • has succeeded in modifying the wood for a violin through treatment with special fungi
  • making it sound indistinguishably similar to a Stradivarius
  • discovered two species of fungi
  • which decay Norway spruce and sycamore – the two important kinds of wood used for violin making – to such an extent that their tonal quality is improved
  • Normally fungi reduce the density of the wood, but at the same time they unfortunately reduce the speed with which the sound waves travel through the wood
  • unique feature of these fungi is that they gradually degrade the cell walls, thus inducing a thinning of the walls
  • , a stiff scaffold structure remains via which the sound waves can still travel directly
  • the wood remains just as resistant to strain as before the fungal treatment
  • Before the wood is further processed to a violin, it is treated with ethylene oxide gas. "No fungus can survive that
  • mycowood (wood treated with wood decay fungi
  • on September 7, 2012 in
  • reported on his research and gave a preview of what his wood treatment method could mean, particularly for young violinists
  • In 2009 the violins were played in a blind, behind-the-curtain test versus a genuine Stradivarius from 1711
  • Both the jury of experts and the majority of the audience thought that the mycowood violin that Schwarze had treated with fungi for nine months was the actual Strad
  • Currently Professor Schwarze is working on an interdisciplinary project to develop a quality-controlled treatment for violin wood, with successful, reliable and reproducible results
  • cessful implementation of biotechnological methods for treating soundboard wood could in the future give young musicians the opportunity to play on a violin with the sound quality of an expensive – and for most musicians unaffordable – Stradivarius
Mars Base

Mars Clays May Have Volcanic Source - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...clays_may_have_volcanic_source

scibyte63 mars

shared by Mars Base on 10 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Ancient clay deposits on Mars may not indicate that the Red Planet was originally a warm, wet place, as scientists have thought. Instead of needing liquid water to form, many of Mars’ 4-billion-year-old clays could have originated from cooling lava, researchers report
  • last year, some researchers suggested that underground hydrothermal activity provided the water that is necessary to form the clays
  • “We’re not saying all clays on Mars formed by this process,” says coauthor Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary geologist at Caltech. However, “if most clays formed by a magmatic process, it says maybe water wasn’t so available on early Mars.”
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • ow there’s another suggestion: Crystallizing lava may have contained tiny pockets where water could react with other chemicals to make small amounts of iron- and magnesium-rich clay. No additional water flowing on the surface or belowground would be needed. So early Mars could have been a largely cold, dry world
  • not saying all clays on Mars formed by this process
  • “if most clays formed by a magmatic process, it says maybe water wasn’t so available on early Mars
  • researchers investigated the cooling-lava scenario because some Martian clays don’t appear to fit with previous explanations
  • Some Martian meteorites contain clay minerals with hydrogen isotope compositions characteristic of water coming from Mars’ mantle and carried in lava — not from the atmosphere or surface — suggesting water-rich lava has produced some Martian clay.
  • The researchers also looked at clay deposits from French Polynesia’s Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific Ocean that formed from cooling lava
  • This clay reflects the same wavelengths of infrared light as Martian deposits
  • suggesting that both have similar mineralogical properties and thus probably formed in the same way.
  • team says cooling lava can account for the most geographically abundant Noachian clay minerals
  • that doesn’t mean water didn’t flow on the surface during brief episodes
  • evidenced by the planet’s ancient river valleys, says coauthor
  • Ehlmann says scientists need to find a spot on Mars where Noachian-aged clay is found so that all three proposed clay-forming mechanisms can be tested
  • where NASA’s Curiosity landed is not a good test location because the clays there are slightly younger and are clearly part of a sedimentary
  • Mars Base on 10 Sep 12
     
    Highlight
Mars Base

Higgs boson: landmark announcement clears key hurdle - 0 views

phys.org/...boson-landmark-key-hurdle.html

scibyte62 scibyte63 HiggsBoson

shared by Mars Base on 10 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • The announcement two months ago that physicists have discovered a particle consistent with the famous Higgs boson cleared a formal hurdle on Monday with publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Although CERN's announcement was never doubted, it still had to be vetted by peers and then published in an established journal to meet benchmarks of accuracy and openness.
  • Further work is being carried out to confirm whether the new particle is the famous Higgs
Mars Base

Water Boils Sans Bubbles - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...Water_boils_sans_bubbles

scibyte63 BoilingWater

shared by Mars Base on 13 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • researchers covered a steel ball with Glaco Mirror Coat, a water-hating material, along with some other water-repelling chemical
  • turned the sphere’s exterior into a nanoscale mountain range peppered with deep valleys
  • Heating the sphere to 400º Celsius and dropping it in room-temperature water spurred boiling, but no furious bubbles
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • water near the sphere became vapor that got trapped in the valleys on the sphere’s surface. Eventually this sheet of vapor slipped off and a new one formed
  • Treating the surface of another sphere to make it water-loving had the opposite effect, locking the water in the violent bubbling phase
  • Manipulating this phase-chemistry could lead to tricks for reducing drag on ships or preventing forceful bubbling explosions in labs or kitchens
Mars Base

Santorini Bulges as Magma Balloons Underneath - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...lava-santorini-volcano-science

scibyte63 Santorini

shared by Mars Base on 13 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Santorini locals began to suspect last year that something was afoot with the volcano under their Greek island group
  • Wine glasses occasionally vibrated and clinked in cafes, suggesting tiny tremors, and tour guides smelled strange gasses.
  • satellite radar technology has revealed the source of the symptoms. A rush of molten rock swelled the magma chamber under the volcano by some 13 to 26 million cubic yards (10 to 20 million cubic meters)—about 15 times the volume of London's Olympic Stadium—between January 2011 and April 2012
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • even forced parts of the island's surface to rise upward and outward by 3 to 5.5 inches (8 to 14 centimeters).
  • volcano has been quiet for 60 years
  • recent events don't indicate an imminent eruption
  • the earthquake activity and the rate of bulging have both slowed right down in the last few months, it doesn't look as though the volcano is about to start to erupt, and it is quite likely that it could remain quiet for another few years or decades.
  • don't know enough about the lifecycle of large volcanoes in between eruptions to be certain
  • beginning in the January 2011 data, more than a thousand small quakes, most of them imperceptible
  • confirmed a subtle rise in Santorini's surface level with satellite radar images and GPS receivers
  • Catastrophic eruptions on Santorini, which produce mostly pumice rather than lava, appear to occur here about 20,000 years apart
  • The last one, in 1950, oozed enough lava to cover a few tennis courts
  • Despite its relative quiet, Santorini is an ideal location to learn more about processes like the magma chamber's rapid inflation
  • While satellite evidence of swelling magma chambers has rarely been available for an active volcano, the processes the data represent may not be all that unusual
  • some large volcanoes like Santorini and Yellowstone spend hundreds or thousands of years in a state of what you'd call dormancy
  • they'll often have these little restless patches
  • These types of phenomena are likely to be common, but you need the right instruments and technology to detect what are usually rather small changes in behavior."
  • we aren't any closer to knowing if, or when, the next lava eruption might happen
  • likening the recent swelling to someone blowing a big breath into an invisible balloon.
  • don't know how small or big the balloon is, and we don't know whether just one more breath will be enough for it to pop or not
Mars Base

Is Homeopathy Really As Implausible As It Sounds? | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...lity-test-homeopathic-medicine

scibyte63 Homeopathy

shared by Mars Base on 13 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • The new British minister of health has recently become the target of scorn and mockery, after a science writer with The Telegraph noted that he supports homeopathy
  • there’s a difference between something that hasn’t been proven to work and something that couldn’t possibly work
  • Improvements in brain imaging technology, for example, have shown that meditation—a practice long dismissed by Western doctors as pure mysticism—can improve both the structure and function of the brain
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Let's ignore, for example, the homeopathic notion that illness is caused by a disturbance in an individual's "vital force" rather than something external, like a bacterium or virus
  • Another thing homeopathy has in common with Western medicine is its strict attention to how treatments are dosed
  • All homeopathic remedies are available in a huge range of concentrations
  • those concentrations are really small
  • homeopaths think of a large dose as a high dilution, instead of a high concentration.
  • idea that a lower dose of a drug has a bigger effect than a high dose runs contrary to what western medicine has found
Mars Base

Say Ahhh to Mars - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...say-ahhh-to-mars

scibyte63 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 14 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • new panorama from Mars
  • Zoom in and you can see actual rocks
  • a look of things to come. In black-and-white image from Curiosity, there appear to be big dunes to cross to get to the foothills of Aeolis Mons, or Mount Sharp.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Curiosity has nearly finished robotic arm tests. Once complete, the rover will be able to touch and examine its first Mars rock
  • about to drive some more and try to find the right rock to begin doing contact science with the arm
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