The nearside of the Moon will never resemble your Granddad’s back forty, but agriculture remains the key to living and working off-world. All the mineral ore in the solar system can’t replace the fact that for extended periods on the Moon or Mars, future off-worlders will need bio-regenerative systems in order to prosper.
Here on earth, researchers still debate how best to make those possible, but nuclear-powered state of the art LED (Light-emitting Diode) technology is arguably what will drive photosynthesis so necessary to provide both food and oxygen for future lunar colonists. |  |
Tracking a Subtle Scent, a Dog May Help Save the Whales
OFF THE COAST OF SAN JUAN ISLAND, Wash. — A dog named Tucker with a thumping tail and a mysterious past as a stray on the streets of Seattle has become an unexpected star in the realm of canine-assisted science. He is the world’s only working dog, marine biologists say, able to find and track the scent of orca scat, or feces, in open ocean water — up to a mile away, in the smallest of specks.
Through dint of hard work and obsession with an orange ball on a rope, which he gets to play with as a reward after a successful search on the water, Tucker is an ace in finding something that most people, and perhaps most dogs, would just as soon avoid.
Through dint of hard work and obsession with an orange ball on a rope, which he gets to play with as a reward after a successful search on the water, Tucker is an ace in finding something that most people, and perhaps most dogs, would just as soon avoid.
Drought Leads To Historic Discovery in Springfield
SPRINGFIELD, IL (IRN) - A hot day in Springfield a month ago led Tony Blisset and his family to take a dip in the Sangamon River. That led to the discovery of what could have been, as his wife guessed, an old piece of wood.
Fortunately for history, she was wrong and his hunch was correct: it was a fossilized bone. |  |
New research eclipses existing theories on the Moon formation
The Moon is believed to have formed from a collision, 4.5 billion years ago, between Earth and an impactor the size of Mars, known as "Theia." Over the past decades scientists have simulated this process and reproduced many of the properties of the Earth-Moon system; however, these simulations have also given rise to a problem known as the Lunar Paradox: the Moon appears to be made up of material that would not be expected if the current collision theory is correct. A recent study published in Icarus proposes a new perspective on the theory in answer to the paradox.
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Curiosity starts quarter-mile journey that could reveal secrets of Mars
As extraterrestrial journeys go, it is not the most imposing challenge that science has faced. Yet the quarter-mile journey on which the Martian rover Curiosity embarked last week is being watched with breathless attention by planetary experts.
The $2.5bn vehicle, the most sophisticated machine to visit another world, was sent to the Red Planet to provide data that could show Mars is, or was, capable of supporting life. This task will require the use of a battery of instruments – lasers to zap rocks, neutron beams to analyse soil and drills to break up samples – which will be put through their paces on this, the Nasa craft's first test drive. |  |
So was the 'Baltic Sea UFO' an alien saucer? No - it's just rocks, claim debunkers
Since its discovery at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in May 2011, the anomaly has fascinated observers.
The apparently man-made object sits at the bottom of the ocean, looking for all intents and purposes like a drowned Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars movies. Theories have ranged over its purpose since the Ocean X Team discovered the object on sonar scans. To some observers, it is a UFO - The 'Roswell of the Ocean', while others speculate that it is a Nazi anti-submarine defence, or a plug to the underworld. But according to one expert, the 'strange' and 'mysterious' object, as described by the team who found it, is nothing more than glacial rocks that have been dragged across the ocean floor. |  |
Nasa Awards Funding For 'Sideways' Plane Concept
Nasa has awarded $100,000 in funding for a team designing a new 'sideways' super-sonic plane.
The aircraft, which looks like a four-point ninja star, was developed at Florida State University. The new plane could fly much faster than traditional commercial jets, with a greatly reduced 'sonic boom' when it reaches super-sonic speeds. |  |
Whisky space experiment tribute launched
A limited edition whisky has been launched to mark a unique experiment in space.
A rocket carrying vials of chemical compounds from Ardbeg's Islay distillery was blasted up to the International Space Station last year to test the effects of near zero gravity on the maturation process. Ardbeg has now released "Ardbeg Galileo" to celebrate the event. The experiment is believed to be the first of its kind. |  |
Chimps' Answer to Einstein
Natasha, a chimp at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda, has always seemed different from her peers. She's learned to escape from her enclosure, teases human caretakers, and scores above other chimps in communication tests. Now, Natasha has a new title: genius. In the largest and most in-depth survey of chimpanzee intelligence, researchers found that Natasha was the smartest of the 106 chimps they tested—a finding that suggests that apes have their geniuses, too.
"Natasha was really much better than other chimps," says biologist and first author of the new study Esther Herrmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. |  |
Amazon Seeds Its Own Rain
The Amazon rainforest makes its own rain. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that microscopic bits of potassium-rich salt spewed skyward by trees and fungi may be seeding much of the region’s precipitation. Because aerosols also scatter light back into space, they can cool Earth’s surface as well.
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The Greatest Hurricanes Ever
From June 1 through Nov. 30 each year, the coastal United States comes under threat from the ferocious winds and floodwaters of the hurricanes that form in the Atlantic Ocean basin.
In 2005, one of the most devastating storms ever to hit U.S. soil, Hurricane Katrina, all but destroyed parts of New Orleans, as the surging ocean waters it pushed to land overtopped the city's protective levees, inundating a vast region, displacing millions of residents and killing more than 1,800 people. |  |
Pilot whales die in mass stranding off Scottish coast
British Divers and Marine Life Rescue said the mammals were among a group of 26 pilot whales stranded at Pittenweem, in eastern Scotland.
"This is very unusual. We have members of our rescue team who have been around these coasts all their lives and haven't known this type of thing to happen before. We've had occasional single animals beaching, but not a whole pod like this," he said.
"This is very unusual. We have members of our rescue team who have been around these coasts all their lives and haven't known this type of thing to happen before. We've had occasional single animals beaching, but not a whole pod like this," he said.
Toxic Spill From Zinc Mine in Peru
Peruvian authorities say wastewater laced with heavy metals from a major zinc mine has spilled into a tributary of the Amazon, contaminating at least six miles of the waterway.
Pasco regional mining enviromental engineer Juan Escalante tells The Associated Press that an unknown quantity of toxic wastewater from the Atacocha mine escaped from a sedimentation well Wednesday into the Huallaga River. The mine is owned by the Brazilian company Votorantim.
Pasco regional mining enviromental engineer Juan Escalante tells The Associated Press that an unknown quantity of toxic wastewater from the Atacocha mine escaped from a sedimentation well Wednesday into the Huallaga River. The mine is owned by the Brazilian company Votorantim.
A new filter that separates the two substances only using gravity could help
Oil and water’s disdain for each other is legendary, but once forced to comingle they’re nearly impossible to separate. Now scientists have developed a specialized filter that cleanly separates the two, allowing water to pass through and leaving oil behind.
Such filters could prove useful for cleaning up oil spills or cleaning water at treatment plants. A simple setup using the new filter successfully removed more than 99.99 percent of oil from an oil-water mix, researchers report online August 28 in Nature Communications. |  |
Waste water harnessed to make electricity and plastics
TREATING waste water is energy intensive. In the US, it sucks up the equivalent output of four of the country's biggest power plants every year. But it needn't be such a drain on resources - soon it might be able to earn its keep.
A team led by Hong Liu from Oregon State University in Corvallis has plans for microbial fuel cells that will reclaim energy from waste water and produce around 2.87 watts per litre of waste water. That is almost double the amount of electrical power usual for such a cell. And its by-products could be harnessed to create cheap, biodegradable plastics. |  |
Waste cooking oil makes bioplastics cheaper
"Bioplastics" that are naturally synthesized by microbes could be made commercially viable by using waste cooking oil as a starting material. This would reduce environmental contamination and also give high-quality plastics suitable for medical implants, according to scientists presenting their work at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference at the University of Warwick.
Coconut oil could combat tooth decay
Coconut oil attacks the bacteria behind tooth decay and could be used in dental care products, according to research.
Scientists found that coconut oil which had been treated with enzymes stopped the growth of Streptococcus bacteria - a major cause of tooth decay. Tooth decay affects 60% to 90% of children in industralised countries. |  |
Another potentially habitable world emerges
BEIJING — A potentially habitable planet has been discovered orbiting the star Gliese 163, 50 light-years away. The planet is bigger than Earth — roughly seven times as massive — and resides near the inner edge of the star’s habitable zone, Thierry Forveille of France’s Observatoire de Grenoble reported on August 30 at the International Astronomical Union’s general assembly meeting. Depending on its composition and how insulating its atmosphere is, the planet could be capable of supporting life.
UFO 'Secrets' To Be Revealed In September — National Atomic Testing Museum
In just a few weeks, some kind of UFO-related secrets will be revealed at a Smithsonian Institution affiliated museum.
That's the implied promise in the title of a special lecture coming up at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas on Sept. 22. The secrets haven't yet been revealed, but the players involved certainly present the potential for something intriguing to emerge from this one-night event that's part of the museum's ongoing Area 51 lecture series. |  |
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