NASA sending Radiation Belt Storm Probes to study the Van Allen Belt
Radiation is a common hazard of space exploration and space agencies usually tend to avoid it for obvious reasons. It can be dangerous for astronauts and fatal to the microcircuitry of satellites. Why, then, is NASA sending its next unmanned mission right into the worst radiation hazard in the neighborhood? On August 23, two Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) will launch atop an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida to study the radioactive Van Allen Belts.
The Van Allen Belts were detected in 1958 by the first successful American satellite, Explorer I, and are named after their discoverer James Van Allen. They are two belts of radiation caused by the interaction of the Sun and the Earth’s magnetic field. |  |
Extraterrestrial Origin: Bizarre Crystal Zipped Here From Outer Space
A sample of a bizarre crystal once considered unnatural may have arrived on Earth 15,000 years ago, having hitched a ride on a meteorite, a new study suggests.
The research strengthens the evidence that this strange "quasicrystal" is extraterrestrial in origin. The pattern of atoms in a quasicrystal falls short of the perfectly regular arrangement found in crystals. Until January, all known quasicrystals were man-made. "Many thought it had to be that way, because they thought quasicrystals are too delicate, too prone to crystallization, to form naturally," study researcher Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University told LiveScience at the time. |  |
Perseid meteor shower to reach peak over Britain
The meteors, which appear when particles of space dust collide with our atmosphere, will be visible as bright streaks across the night sky eminating from the Perseus constellation to the north.
The Perseid shower, which happens each August, began on Wednesday night but will reach its most active period on Saturday with thousands of meteors expected to be seen over the coming evenings. After midnight, as the planet turns towards the stream of dust left by the Swift-Tuttle comet, as many as 90 meteors could be visible each hour from areas unspoiled by light pollution. |  |
Hopi Elders Speak Out on Senate Bill 2109
A group of Hopi elders has added their voices against the Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement Act of 2012.
“For the first time in history the Traditional Hopi Elders from the Village to Shungopavi (the Mother Village) are stepping forward to speak to the public,” says the text accompanying the video. “They have a warning for the world. They say they have been told this time would come when the water would be taken from them. If this happens it will have an effect on the whole world as they are the microcosm of the world, of the universe.” |  |
Anti-Glacier Prayer "Worked Too Well"—Vatican Approves New Ritual
About 50 people set out on foot from the Swiss village of Fiesch at dawn on July 31. As the sun rose over 13,000-foot (4,000-meter) Alpine peaks, the procession moved slowly up a mountainside and into the cool of a pine forest, stopping at a tiny church.
By 7:30 the group had swollen to around a hundred—too many to fit inside the chapel of Maria Heimsuchung, or Mary of the Visitation, so a makeshift altar was erected outside. |  |
When the world burned less
In the years after Columbus’ voyage, burning of New World forests and fields diminished significantly – a phenomenon some have attributed to decimation of native populations by European diseases. But a new University of Utah-led study suggests global cooling resulted in fewer fires because both preceded Columbus in many regions worldwide.
“The drop in fire [after about A.D. 1500] has been linked previously to the population collapse. We’re saying no, there is enough independent evidence that the drop in fire was caused by cooling climate,” says the study’s principal author, Mitchell Power, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Utah.
“The drop in fire [after about A.D. 1500] has been linked previously to the population collapse. We’re saying no, there is enough independent evidence that the drop in fire was caused by cooling climate,” says the study’s principal author, Mitchell Power, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Utah.
Warrior King Statue Discovered in Ancient Mediterranean City
A newly discovered statue of a curly-haired man gripping a spear and a sheath of wheat once guarded the upper citadel of an ancient kingdom's capital.
The enormous sculpture, which is intact from about the waist up, stands almost 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, suggesting that its full height with legs would have been between 11 and 13 feet (3.5 to 4 m). Alongside the statue, archaeologists found another carving, a semicircular column base bearing the images of a sphinx and a winged bull. |  |
Who Was Mary Magdalene?
The whole history of western civilization is epitomized in the cult of Mary Magdalene. For many centuries the most obsessively revered of saints, this woman became the embodiment of Christian devotion, which was defined as repentance. Yet she was only elusively identified in Scripture, and has thus served as a scrim onto which a succession of fantasies has been projected. In one age after another her image was reinvented, from prostitute to sibyl to mystic to celibate nun to passive helpmeet to feminist icon to the matriarch of divinity’s secret dynasty.
What Vikings really looked like
There’s no shortage of myths about the appearance of our notorious Viking ancestors.
To find out more about these myths, ScienceNordic’s Danish partner site, videnskab.dk, asked its Facebook readers to list their favourite myths about what the Vikings looked like. We have picked out five myths from the resulting debate and asked researchers to help us confirm or bust these myths. |  |
Engineers create ultra-sensitive artificial skin
Engineers from South Korea and the United States working together have developed a new type of artificial skin that is less complex, cheaper to make and more sensitive than other electronic sensors designed to mimic human skin. In their paper published in Nature Materials, the team says the idea for their strain gauging material came from the way tiny hairs on some beetles’ bodies interlock with equally tiny hairs on their wings, allowing them to sense very small external stimuli.
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Humans might be hard-wired to 'love thy neighbor'
The amount of physical space between people may influence how they react to each other in certain situations, new research suggests.
British psychologists from the University of Lincoln argue that people may actually be hard-wired to "love thy neighbor." In conducting the study, the researchers analyzed the behavior of contestants in first-round episodes of the BBC quiz show, "The Weakest Link.". |  |
Research team discovers eating habits of Jurassic age dinosaur
COLUMBIA, Mo. – A team of researchers from the University of Bristol, Natural History Museum of London, the University of Missouri and Ohio University has discovered the eating habits of Diplodocus using a three-dimensional model of the dinosaur's skull. The eating habits of the herbivore have been uncertain since its discovery more than 130 years ago. Understanding these behaviors could help scientists better understand extinct and modern ecosystems and what it takes to feed these giant herbivores, as well as today's living animals.
Divided dolphin societies merge 'for first time'
A unique social division among a population of bottlenose dolphins in Australia's Moreton Bay has ended, according to a new study.
The dolphins lived as two distinct groups that rarely interacted, one of which foraged on trawler bycatch. But scientists think that a ban on fishing boats from key areas has brought the two groups together. They believe these socially flexible mammals have united to hunt for new food sources. |  |
Flying Lasers Reveal Buried Historical Structures
Archaeology is being revolutionized by remote-scanning techniques that use lasers to detect otherwise invisible ground features. The technology digitally extracts vegetation for a clean image of the earth's surface. Archaeologists in Germany have already discovered thousands of new sites.
The Glauberg is a hot spot for archaeologists. For decades, researchers have been studying the hill in the central German state of Hesse, where people settled some 7,000 years ago. |  |
Federal agencies kick off $132 million effort to create 'human on a chip'
Many medications and treatments, even after years of research, fail in the final phase of review — when they're actually tested in humans. Despite having performed well in the lab, in mice, and perhaps in closer human analogues like monkeys, drugs occasionally turn out to be ineffective or toxic when used by the humans they're meant to help. To improve this process, and limit the risks to human testers, the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are together pledging up to up to $132 million for creating "organ-on-a-chip" systems, with the eventual goal of simulating the entire human body.
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For NASA, there's no liftoff from politics
Always reaching for the stars, NASA often finds itself mired in earthbound politics.
Born in the Cold War, beset by tragedies and buoyed by triumphs, the $17.7 billion space agency once more faces debate in the post-space shuttle era. Once again, an administration's plans for NASA face congressional criticism, scrutiny from a blue-ribbon panel and demands for more funds that set parts of the agency against one another. |  |
Moon formation: Was it a 'hit and run' accident?
Scientists have proposed a fresh idea in the long-running debate about how the Moon was formed.
What is certain is that some sort of impact from another body freed material from the young Earth and the resulting debris coalesced into today's Moon. But the exact details of the impactor's size and speed have remained debatable. |  |
Severed Hands Discovered in Ancient Egypt Palace
A team of archaeologists excavating a palace in the ancient city of Avaris, in Egypt, has made a gruesome discovery.
The archaeologists have unearthed the skeletons of 16 human hands buried in four pits. Two of the pits, located in front of what is believed to be a throne room, hold one hand each. Two other pits, constructed at a slightly later time in an outer space of the palace, contain the 14 remaining hands. They are all right hands; there are no lefts. |  |
Uruguay in marijuana dealing plan
A plan by Uruguay's leaders to turn the government into the nation's marijuana dealer has been presented to Congress.
President Jose Mujica's entire cabinet signed up to the proposed law, which aims to take over an illegal marijuana trafficking business estimated to be worth 30 million to 40 million US dollars (£19 million to £25 million) a year. The law would allow the government to control marijuana imports, production, sale and distribution, creating a legal market for people to get pot without turning to riskier illegal drugs. |  |
Study suggests dark matter near the sun
Large amounts of invisible “dark matter” may have been discovered near the sun.
The mysterious substance exerts a gravitational influence on thousands of dwarf stars in our galactic neighbourhood, a study suggests.
Dark matter is thought to make up about 70 per cent of the universe, yet it cannot be seen or detected directly.
Scientists only know it exists because of the way its gravity affects other material.
The mysterious substance exerts a gravitational influence on thousands of dwarf stars in our galactic neighbourhood, a study suggests.
Dark matter is thought to make up about 70 per cent of the universe, yet it cannot be seen or detected directly.
Scientists only know it exists because of the way its gravity affects other material.
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