DNA could have existed long before life itself
THE latest twist in the origin-of-life tale is double helical. Chemists are close to demonstrating that the building blocks of DNA can form spontaneously from chemicals thought to be present on the primordial Earth. If they succeed, their work would suggest that DNA could have predated the birth of lifeMovie Camera.
DNA is essential to almost all life on Earth, yet most biologists think that life began with RNA. Just like DNA, it stores genetic information. What's more, RNA can fold into complex shapes that can clamp onto other molecules and speed up chemical reactions, just like a protein, and it is structurally simpler than DNA, so might be easier to make. |  |
Spaceship companies clear NASA milestones
Two commercial spaceflight companies have checked off vital milestones on the path toward flights to the International Space Station for NASA, the space agency announced Thursday.
The Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX has completed its Space Act Agreement under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, or COTS. The company is slated to launch the first of its 12 contracted robotic cargo flights to the space station from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in October, officials said. |  |
XCOR Aerospace plans to set up spaceship center in Florida
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — XCOR Aerospace, one of a handful of firms developing suborbital spaceships, plans to build its vehicles and fly tourists, researchers and commercial payloads from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials announced Thursday.
The privately owned firm, currently based in Mojave, Calif., is developing a two-seat suborbital rocket plane called Lynx that is expected to begin test flights by early next year.
Eventually, the company expects to do up to four commercial flights a day, at a cost of $95,000 per person. The Lynx flights are similar to rides being offered aboard SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot vehicle owned by Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group.
The privately owned firm, currently based in Mojave, Calif., is developing a two-seat suborbital rocket plane called Lynx that is expected to begin test flights by early next year.
Eventually, the company expects to do up to four commercial flights a day, at a cost of $95,000 per person. The Lynx flights are similar to rides being offered aboard SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot vehicle owned by Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group.
Discover Hubble's hidden treasures
The team behind the Hubble Space Telescope has transformed our view of the universe through iconic images such as the Pillars of Creation and the Cat's Eye, but even the professionals can miss some gems — as demonstrated by today's winners of the "Hubble's Hidden Treasures" contest.
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Launch of radiation belt probes delayed
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (CBS/AP) — NASA has delayed the launch of its newest science satellites.
The countdown proceeded all the way down to the four-minute mark early Friday morning at Cape Canaveral in Florida. But a problem cropped up with the rocket's tracking beacon, a mandatory safety item. NASA tentatively is aiming for another launch attempt early Saturday for the Radiation Belt Storm Probes — provided the problem can be fixed quickly. Launch director Tim Dunn says engineers need to determine whether the problem is with the beacon itself or ground equipment. |  |
Black Hills Sacred Site Auction Cancelled
According to a release on the LastRealIndians.com website, the August 25 auction “for the acreage called Reynolds Prairie, also known as Pe’ Sla to the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation), has been cancelled on direction of the owners’ representative, according to Brock Auction, Co. Inc.”
Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney and founding writer Last Real Indians that has been working in the defense of Pe’ Sla says neither the owners, nor the auction company will issue a statement or reason as to why the auction was cancelled to the tribe, himself or to the press. |  |
Historian Examines Animals' Role in Westward Expansion
The story of westward expansion in the United States is often told from the perspective of the men and women who crossed the Great Plains in search of a better life in the west. But a historian at Missouri University of Science and Technology is bringing to light the role settlers' animals played in the westward migration of the mid-1800s.
Dr. Diana L. Ahmad, an associate professor of history at Missouri S&T, discusses the relationship between pioneers and their stock -- mainly oxen, mules, horses and cattle -- in an essay published in the summer 2012 issue of the Great Plains Quarterly. She notes that the westward travelers' success depended greatly on their interactions with the animals.
Dr. Diana L. Ahmad, an associate professor of history at Missouri S&T, discusses the relationship between pioneers and their stock -- mainly oxen, mules, horses and cattle -- in an essay published in the summer 2012 issue of the Great Plains Quarterly. She notes that the westward travelers' success depended greatly on their interactions with the animals.
Bronze Age pottery from Scilly could be earliest British depiction of a boat
More than most archaeological periods from pre-history, Britain’s Bronze Age is constantly being re-assessed as archaeologists and historians find new evidence of its richness and complexity.
Now the boundaries of what we know about this increasingly sophisticated period are being pushed even further by a small pottery sherd which is currently on display at the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall. The piece of pottery was found during archaeological excavations of a Late Bronze Age roundhouse on St Agnes, on the Isles of Scilly, in 2009, and some archaeologists believe it clearly shows etched lines that resemble a sailing ship. |  |
Herders, not farmers, built Stonehenge
The ancient builders of Stonehenge may have had a surprisingly meaty diet and mobile way of life. Although farming first reached the British Isles around 6,000 years ago, cultivation had given way to animal raising and herding by the time Stonehenge and other massive stone monuments began to dot the landscape, a new study finds.
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Life-bearing planets theory widened
Underground water could greatly increase the chances of planets harbouring extraterrestrial life, scientists believe.
Taking into account sub-surface habitats broadens the range of places life-sustaining planets can occupy, a study has found.
It means there could be around seven times more life-bearing planets among the stars than is currently believed.
Taking into account sub-surface habitats broadens the range of places life-sustaining planets can occupy, a study has found.
It means there could be around seven times more life-bearing planets among the stars than is currently believed.
Remote control super-cockroach could be the 'James Bond' of the future
Researchers have shown off a 'cyborg' cockroach they can control remotely.
The team have been able to accurately steer it to follow complex shapes on the ground. Now they hope to fit it with video cameras and other sensors, so it can crawl into buildings undetected, and even search earthquakes for survivors. 'Our aim was to determine whether we could create a wireless biological interface with cockroaches, which are robust and able to infiltrate small spaces,' says Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work. |  |
'Cyberbee' created with a tracking chip to track down deadly zombie parasite
Scientists are attaching radio sensors to bees in a bid to find out how and when they get attacked by a deadly parasite.
The Apocephalus borealis parasite attaches itself to bees, and then forces them to leave their hives, head to the outside world, and 'dance' erratically in front of streetlights. After an exhausting dance, the bees plunge to the ground dead, victims of a disease which is decimating colonies in America. So staff at San Francisco State University are now attaching radio sensors - the size of a speck of glitter - to the insects, to monitor their movements. |  |
Desert diversity cut by 'human activities'
Humans may be destabilising desert ecosystems across the world, according to a new study.
Analysis of the human impact on dryland ecosystems suggests it is "drastically changing" mammal communities. The scientists believe that activities such as overgrazing livestock lie behind increasing local extinctions and a reduction in diversity. The work will help to inform future conservation efforts, said lead author Ms Maria Veronica Chillo. |  |
Yangtze River Runs Mysteriously Red
A stretch of China's longest river has abruptly turned the color of tomato juice, and officials say they don't know why.
Residents of the southwestern city of Chongqing first noticed that the Yangtze River, called the "golden waterway," had a spreading stain on its reputation yesterday (Sept. 6). Though the bright-red water was concentrated around Chongqing, Southwest China's largest industrial center, it was also reported at several other points along the river, according to ABC News. See photos here |  |
Yangtze finless porpoise: China's national treasure disappearing fast
It's been an hour and the group of volunteers aboard the rickety fishing boat are still yet to spot a Yangtze finless porpoise, known as jiangzhu or "river pig". Thirty years ago, when they numbered 2,000, the mammals could be seen from the shore here dancing on Dongting Lake in the sludge-coloured waves. Now there are about 85 jiangzhu here. As Xu Yaping, the patrol's chief, peers through the haze, and coal barges and dredgers churn the lake, the chance of encountering this ancient creature seems remote.
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Japanese River Otter Declared Extinct
After not being seen for more than 30 years, the Japanese river otter (Lutra lutra whiteleyi) has been declared extinct by the country’s Ministry of the Environment, which also last week declared several other species extinct.
Once numbering in the millions, Japanese river otters—a subspecies of the European or Eurasian otter (L. lutra)—were overhunted for their fur, most of which was sold to foreign traders, and further suffered when their habitats became developed and polluted. The animals grew to about a meter in length and subsisted mainly on fish and shrimp. |  |
Pressure in Mount Fuji is now higher than last eruption, warn experts
The pressure in Mount Fuji's magma chamber is now higher than it was in 1707, the last time the nearly 4,000-metre-high Japanese volcano erupted, causing volcanologists to speculate that a disaster is imminent.
The new readings, taken by the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, reveal that the pressure is at 1.6 megapascals, nearly 16 times the 0.1 megapascals it takes to trigger an eruption. This, lead volcanologist on the case Eisuke Fujita told Kyodo News, is "not a small figure". Researchers have speculated for some time that the volcano, located on Honshu Island 100km southwest of Tokyo, is overdue an eruption. |  |
British set to embark on an Antarctic mission to sample ancient buried lake
After 16 years of planning the countdown is on for one of the most ambitious scientific missions to Antarctica. In October a 12-man team of British scientists, engineers and support staff will make the 16,000 km journey from the UK to go deep into the heart of the frozen continent to collect samples of water and sediments from an ancient lake buried beneath three kilometers of ice. Their quest is to reveal vital secrets about the Earth's past climate and discover life forms that may live in subglacial Lake Ellsworth on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
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Scientists could find alien life within 40 years, says royal astronomer
Martin Rees, former president of the Royal Society, said evidence of whether beings exist not only beyond earth but beyond our solar system, could be found in that time, a newspaper reported.
Lord Rees said he believed that astro-physicists could be able to view images of distant planets outside the solar system as soon as 2025. This could potentially lead to the discovery of some form of life on them. When asked what changes could be expected in science in the next 40 years, he said understanding more about the "origin of life, the place where it exists, and whether aliens exist, is going to be crucial", the Daily Mail reported. |  |
Computing using water droplets
Forget optical computing or quantum computing: researchers at Aalto University have successfully used water droplets as bits of digital information.
Using what they term 'superhydrophobic droplet logic', they've built a memory device, as well as devices for elementary Boolean logic operations. Their invention's based on the discovery that when two water droplets collide with each other on a highly water-repellent surface, they rebound like billiard balls. "I was surprised that such rebounding collisions between two droplets were never reported before, as it indeed is an easily accessible phenomenon," says Henrikki Mertaniemi... |  |
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