50 Tons of Litter Pulled from Pacific
Scientists loaded their ship to the max this month off the coast of Hawaii, but their bounty wasn't fish or coral or any other scientific specimen. It was garbage.
The crew of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Oscar Elton Sette pulled 50 metric tons of marine debris out of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument off the northwestern Hawaiian Islands last month, part of an ongoing mission since 1996 to clean up the shallow coral reef environment. |  |
'Invisible UFOs' Fill the Skies
"Why are all the good UFOs invisible?" one Gather.com user asked in response to the latest "invisible UFO" report posted to the site.
You might have thought a defining characteristic of a UFO would be visibility. But thanks to zealous alien hunters doggedly scanning the sky with night-vision cameras, a new class of flying objects that only emit infrared light has emerged from the darkness. Are they spies from the great beyond?. |  |
Why Earth's Magnetic Field Is Wonky
The solution to a long-standing puzzle, why magnetic north sits off the coast of Canada, rather than at the North Pole, may have been found in the strange, lopsided nature of Earth's inner core.
The inner core is a ball of solid iron about 760 miles (1,220 kilometers) wide. It is surrounded by a liquid outer core (mostly iron and nickel), a rocky, viscous mantle layer and a thin, solid crust. |  |
Iceberg bigger than Manhattan breaks from Greenland glacier
A massive iceberg larger than Manhattan has broken away from the floating end of a Greenland glacier this week, an event scientists predicted last autumn.
The giant ice island is 46 square miles, and separated from the terminus of the Petermann Glacier, one of Greenland's largest. The Petermann Glacier last birthed — or "calved" — a massive iceberg two years ago, in August 2010. The iceberg that broke off and floated away was nearly four times the size of Manhattan, and one of the largest ever recorded in Greenland. |  |
Geoengineering Could Backfire, Make Climate Change Worse
Deploying giant space mirrors and spraying particles from stadium-sized balloons may sound like an engineer’s wild fantasy, but climate models suggest that the potential of geoengineering to offset rising atmospheric carbon dioxide may be significantly overstated.
Through a variety of computer simulations used for reporting to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the team investigated a scenario where an increase in the world’s atmospheric carbon dioxide levels was balanced by a “dimming” of the sun. Across all four models tested, the team showed that geoengineering could lead to adverse effects on the Earth’s climate, including a reduction in global rainfall. They therefore concluded that geoengineering could not be a substitute for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. |  |
Could Laser Beams Induce Rain?
Charles Dudley Warner, a friend of Mark Twain, wrote, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." He'd have thought differently if he had laser beams.
A review in the Institute of Physics' Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, says that it might be possible to use high-powered laser beams to make it rain. This might be an alternative to seeding clouds, either with dry ice or silver iodide particles. While such seeding is common, it isn't always clear how effective it is and the results can vary a lot. It's also unclear what the consequences are to the atmosphere in those areas where seeding is done. |  |
World’s most powerful laser shot ever fired
It may not be a frickin’ shark with a frickin’ laser beam attached to its head, but government scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California have fired the most powerful laser shot ever recorded.
The shot with the 192 laser beam system delivered more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 megajoules of ultraviolet laser light to its target, measuring 2 millimeters in diameter.
That’s 1,000 times more power than the United States uses at any instant in time and 100 times more energy than any other laser regularly produces today.
The shot with the 192 laser beam system delivered more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 megajoules of ultraviolet laser light to its target, measuring 2 millimeters in diameter.
That’s 1,000 times more power than the United States uses at any instant in time and 100 times more energy than any other laser regularly produces today.
It's decision time for future spaceflight at NASA
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — In the beginning, it was said that all NASA Administrator James Webb had to do was take a couple of buckets up to the Hill, and Congress would fill them with money.
It certainly is not that easy today. The country cannot afford waste. A prudent NASA should take advantage of the $6.6 billion worth of spaceport facilities and flight hardware that it bought and paid for — facilities that are now growing grass in the Florida sun. NASA should be doing everything possible to launch American astronauts from their own Cape Canaveral pads. |  |
Gold and tea compound may be more effective at treating prostate cancer than chemotherapy
A new study shows gold nanoparticles, in combination with a compound found in tea, may treat prostate cancer better than chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy can treat different kinds of cancer, but typically carries toxic side effects. While it has been known to shrink tumors, chemo also destroys healthy areas as it passes through the body. But, University of Missouri researchers discovered that when small gold particles and a compound found in tea leaves were combined, they targeted prostate cancer tumors more directly. |  |
Dolphins appear to do nonlinear mathematics
Dolphins may use complex nonlinear mathematics when hunting, according to a new study that suggests these brainy marine mammals could be far more skilled at math than was ever thought possible before.
Inspiration for the new study, published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society A, came after lead author Tim Leighton watched an episode of the Discovery Channel's "Blue Planet" series and saw dolphins blowing multiple tiny bubbles around prey as they hunted. |  |
Using Lasers and Antimatter to Trek to the Stars
While interstellar journeys have been explored by researchers, one type of mission has not received much attention, namely the interstellar rendezvous and return mission that could be accomplished on timescales comparable with a working scientist's career.
Such a mission would involve an initial boost phase followed by a coasting phase to the target star system. Next would be the deceleration and rendezvous phase, which would be followed by a period of scientific data gathering. |  |
For four months out of every year in the ancient Mayan city of Tikal, the skies dried up and no rain fell. Nevertheless, this metropolis in what is now Guatemala became a bustling hub of as many as 80,000 residents by A.D. 700. Now, researchers have found that the residents of Tikal hung on to their civilization for more than 1,000 years thanks to a surprisingly sustainable system of water delivery.
The water needs of Tikal were met by a series of paved reservoirs that held rainwater during the 8-month-long wet season for use during dry periods, archeologists report Monday (July 16) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This early plumbing system was surprisingly resilient, seeing the city through times of both plenty and drought. |  |
Asteroid miners to hitch a ride with Virgin Galactic
Billionaire-backed Planetary Resources, the company that in April announced ambitious plans to mine space rocks for minerals, will hitch a ride with space tourism company Virgin Galactic.
The new union is a sign that the nascent commercial space-flight industry could soon become self-sustaining. It was prompted by LauncherOne, a low-cost satellite-launching rocket that Virgin founder Richard Branson revealed on 11 July at the Farnborough International Airshow, UK. |  |
'Invisible' UFO Filmed from Plane (Video)
A type of UFO never filmed before was caught by a passenger videotaping the scene out the window of a jet flying at high altitude. The unidentified flying object is nearly transparent with several concentric rings. What is it?
The video, only 15 seconds in length, catches the action but does nothing to identify the videographer or the location. It's obviously taken inside a passenger jet cabin and the area below looks to be very mountainous.
The video, only 15 seconds in length, catches the action but does nothing to identify the videographer or the location. It's obviously taken inside a passenger jet cabin and the area below looks to be very mountainous.
The UFO Files: the 'strangest job in Whitehall'
The role of UFO Desk Officer involved recording UFO sightings, investigating up to half a dozen reports of extraterrestrials each year.
It clarifies the role is the closest the Ministry of Defence had to the post of “UFO expert”, but it is a “generalist, non-technical” post focusing on communicating with the public. “Somewhat ironically”, it adds, the “best source of information” at their disposal was found to be the internet and Google. The details of the UFO Desk Officer position have emerged along with thousands of documents published today by the National Archives. |  |
Top university offers free degree on alien life
Edinburgh University will launch a series of short courses accessible online to the public for free from late 2012, including an opportunity to study an "Introduction to Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life".
The course, which will be taught by Charles Cockell, a professor of Astrobiology, is one of six being offered as part of the Coursera scheme – a US-run project backed by Stanford and Princeton universities which encourages leading institutions from around the world to make high-calibre courses available globally. "We took the decision to offer courses that reflect our specific strengths," said Ranald Leask, a spokesman for the university. "Something like extraterrestrial life comes out of a wide and deep base of knowledge and academic endeavour." |  |
Nasa may miss Curiosity Mars rover's landing signal
Nasa might not be able to follow the progress of its big Mars rover all the way to the surface when it attempts to land on the planet on 6 August (GMT).
The Curiosity vehicle is aiming for a deep depression known as Gale Crater. The US space agency will be tracking the descent with satellites, but its prime craft for the task may not now be in the correct place in the sky. Engineers have been tackling a fault on the Odyssey satellite and it is no longer in the best observational orbit. |  |
Portugal Decriminalized All Drugs Eleven Years Ago And The Results Are Staggering
On July 1st, 2001, Portugal decriminalized every imaginable drug, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin. Some thought Lisbon would become a drug tourist haven, others predicted usage rates among youths to surge.
Eleven years later, it turns out they were both wrong. Over a decade has passed since Portugal changed its philosophy from labeling drug users as criminals to labeling them as people affected by a disease. This time lapse has allowed statistics to develop and in time, has made Portugal an example to follow. |  |