Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.
In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane. |  |
Dark energy hints hidden in cosmic voids
IF YOU gaze long enough into the void, the void might begin to speak to you. Giant regions of near-empty space known as cosmic voids could help us get a handle on dark energy, the mysterious stuff that is speeding up the expansion of the universe.
If gravity were the dominant force at work, the expansion would be slowing down, as matter gives in to the pull of other matter. But more than a decade ago, supernovae studies revealed that the expansion is speeding up. This suggests the vacuum of space-time must have an inherent energy that is repulsing gravity. |  |
Capturing living cells in micro pyramids
A field full of pyramids, but on a micro scale. Each of the pyramids hides a living cell. Thanks to 3D micro- and nano scale fabrication, promising new applications can be found. One of them is applying the micro pyramids for cell research: thanks to the open 'walls' of the pyramids, the cells interact. Scientists of the research institutes MESA+ and MIRA of the University of Twente in The Netherlands present this new technology and first applications in Small journal of the beginning of December.
Most of the cell studies take place in 2D: this is not a natural situation, because cells organize themselves in another way than in the human body. |  |
Distant Dwarf Planet Secrets Revealed
Orbiting at the frozen edges of our solar system, the mysterious dwarf planet Makemake is finally coming out of the shadows as astronomers get their best view yet of Pluto's little sibling.
Discovered in 2005, Makemake—pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh after a Polynesian creation god—is one of five Pluto-like objects that prompted a redefining of the term "planet" and the creation of a new group of dwarf planets in 2006. Just like the slightly larger Pluto, this icy world circles our sun beyond Neptune. Researchers expected Makemake to also have a global atmosphere—but new evidence reveals that isn't the case. |  |
Two Old Kingdom engraved blocks return home
On Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs handed over two Old Kingdom sandstone engravings to the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA), which were for decades in the possession of a New Zealand photographer.
The blocks depict two scenes; one shows the lioness goddess of war Sekhmet wearing the Cobra crown, while the second is a hieroglyphic text uncovering a title of an Old Kingdom king saying: "King of Upper and Lower Egypt and the core of the two lands, Horus." |  |
Monthu Temple reveals new pharaonic secrets
A French archaeological mission from the French Institute for Archaeological Studies have unearthed a yet unidentified royal statue of a New Kingdom king during routine excavations at Monthu Temple, northeast of Karnak Temple in Luxor.
The statue is 125 centimetres tall and made of black granite and depicts a standing king wearing short dress with hands aside. Christopher Tiers, head of the archaeological mission, said that early studies of the statue suggest that the artistic features of the depicted king confirm its royalty. |  |
Jesus was born years earlier than thought, claims Pope
The 'mistake' was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus or in English Dennis the Small, the 85-year-old pontiff claims in the book 'Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives', published on Wednesday.
"The calculation of the beginning of our calendar – based on the birth of Jesus – was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who made a mistake in his calculations by several years," the Pope writes in the book, which went on sale around the world with an initial print run of a million copies. "The actual date of Jesus's birth was several years before." |  |
Mars is safe from radiation – but the trip there isn't
You needn't fry on Mars. Readings from NASA's Curiosity rover suggest radiation levels on the Red Planet are about the same as those in low Earth orbit, where astronauts hang out for months on the International Space Station. A Mars visit would still be dangerous though, due to the years-long return trip.
Unlike Earth, Mars has no magnetosphere shielding it from solar and galactic radiation. But it does have a thin atmosphere, and readings from two of Curiosity's instruments suggest this provides some protection. |  |
In Space, Flames Behave in Ways Nobody Thought Possible
Recent tests aboard the International Space Station have shown that fire in space can be less predictable and potentially more lethal than it is on Earth. “There have been experiments,” says NASA aerospace engineer Dan Dietrich, “where we observed fires that we didn’t think could exist, but did.”
That fire continues to surprise us is itself surprising when you consider that combustion is likely humanity’s oldest chemistry experiment, consisting of just three basic ingredients: oxygen, heat and fuel. |  |
Young children that attend daycare regularly 50% more likely to be overweight
Young children who attend daycare on a regular basis are 50% more likely to be overweight compared to those who stayed at home with their parents, according to a study by researchers at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Centre. "We found that children whose primary care arrangement between 1.5 and 4 years was in daycare-center or with an extended family member were around 50% more likely to be overweight or obese between the ages of 4-10 years compared to those cared for at home by their parents," said Dr. Marie-Claude Geoffroy, who led the study. "This difference cannot be explained by known risk factors such as socioeconomic status of the parents, breastfeeding, body mass index of the mother, or employment status of the mother."
Implant lets the blind read Braille with their eyes
Blind people could soon be able to read street signs using an implant that translates the alphabet into Braille and beams an image of the Braille directly to visual neurons at the back of the eye.
The implant is a modified version of a class of devices called retinal prostheses, which are used to restore partial sight to people with retinitis pigmentosa. A degenerative eye disease that kills the photoreceptor cells in the retina, RP tends to affect people in early adulthood and can lead to blindness, but leaves intact the neurons that carry visual signals to the brain. |  |
Parrots Imitate Individuals When Addressing Them
Whether living with pirates or in the wild, parrots have exceptional abilities to mimic the sounds they hear. One species, the orange-fronted conure, may have evolved this ability in order to communicate with specific individuals in other flocks, according to research published November 21 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Thorsten Balsby from the University of Aarhus, Denmark and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen.
|  |
How scientists hope to raise Lonesome George from the dead
The death of Lonesome George led the world to mourn the extinction of one of the Galápagos Island's unique giant tortoise lineages. Less than six months later, scientists reveal he was probably not the last of his kind after all.
Oh, the irony. For more than 40 years and the whole of my lifetime, Lonesome George had been in captivity, removed from his native island of Pinta in the north of the archipelago in 1972 and transferred to the Charles Darwin research station on the central island of Santa Cruz. Conservationists (and George?) had hoped to locate a Pinta Island tortoise female – either on his island or perhaps in a zoo.
Oh, the irony. For more than 40 years and the whole of my lifetime, Lonesome George had been in captivity, removed from his native island of Pinta in the north of the archipelago in 1972 and transferred to the Charles Darwin research station on the central island of Santa Cruz. Conservationists (and George?) had hoped to locate a Pinta Island tortoise female – either on his island or perhaps in a zoo.
Dogs learn to associate words with objects differently than humans do
Dogs learning to associate words with objects form these associations in different ways than humans do, according to research published November 21 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Emile van der Zee and colleagues from the University of Lincoln, UK.
Previous studies have shown that humans between the ages of two to three typically learn to associate words with the shapes of objects, rather than their size or texture. For example, toddlers who learn what a 'ball' is and are then presented other objects with similar shapes, sizes or textures will identify a similarly-shaped object as 'ball', rather than one of the same size or texture.
Rainforest Insects Hear Like Humans
Deep in the South American rainforest, katydids perk up their tiny ears to listen for the clicking of bats. Apart from being on the insects' forelegs, those ears are remarkably similar to our own, new research shows. And by imitating the tiny structures, researchers speculate, engineers might create microscopic acoustic sensors.
Mammalian ears have three distinctive features: a tympanic membrane, or eardrum, that vibrates with incoming sound waves; three delicate ear bones that transmit the vibrations into the inner ear; and the cochlea, a fluid-filled coil of sensor cells that respond to vibrations at different frequencies, arranged from high to low like the keys on a piano. |  |
9.2-Million-Year-Old Rhino Skull Preserved by Instant 'Cooking to Death'
Less than 2% of Earth's fossils are preserved in volcanic rock, but researchers have identified a new one: the skull of a rhino that perished in a volcanic eruption 9.2 million years ago.
The find is described in a paper published Nov. 21 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Pierre-Olivier Antoine and colleagues from the University of Montpellier, France. The fossil, found in Turkey, is thought to be that of a large two-horned rhino common in the Eastern Mediterranean region during that period. According to the researchers, unusual features of the preserved skull suggest that the animal was 'cooked to death' at temperatures that may have approached 500° C, in a volcanic flow similar to that of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Italy in 79 A.D. |  |
Ancient dung heaps are genetic time capsules
DNA extract from ancient latrines has "opened the door" to identifying the plants and animals that existed in northern Australia's remote Pilbara region more than 30,000 years ago.
Significantly, says co-author Daithi Murray, of Murdoch University's Ancient DNA Laboratory, the genetic material has been collected from what is believed to be the oldest sample yet uncovered in Australia's arid environment. |  |
Seal diet provides clue to disappearance of Norse from Greenland
Greenland’s Viking settlers, the Norse, disappeared suddenly and mysteriously from Greenland about 500 years ago. Natural disasters, climate change and the inability to adapt have all been proposed as theories to explain their disappearance. But now a Danish-Canadian research team has demonstrated the Norse society did not die out due to an inability to adapt to the Greenlandic diet: an isotopic analysis of their bones shows they ate plenty of seals.
“Our analysis shows that the Norse in Greenland ate lots of food from the sea, especially seals,” says Jan Heinemeier, Institute of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University.
“Our analysis shows that the Norse in Greenland ate lots of food from the sea, especially seals,” says Jan Heinemeier, Institute of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University.
Animal vision evolved 700 million years ago
Gaze deep into any animal eye and you will find opsin, the protein through which we see the world. Every ray of light that you perceive was caught by an opsin first. Without opsin there would be no blue, no red, no green. The entire visible spectrum would be.. just another spectrum.
But opsins haven’t always been the sensitive light detectors that they are today. There is one critter, obscure and small, carries opsins that are blind to light. These opsins aren’t broken, like they are in some cave dwelling species. They never worked to begin with. They are the relics of a distant past, a time in which our ancestors still dwelt in darkness. |  |
Mystery Mammal Survived Dino Extinction
A molelike mammal nicknamed the "grave robber" survived the event that killed the dinosaurs, new research finds.
Necrolestes patagonensis, whose name translates in part to "grave robber," was among the mammals that lived through the dinosaur mass extinction. The new study finds that the creature lived 45 million years longer than paleontologists realized. Necrolestes was first discovered in fossil form in the Patagonia region of South America in 1891, but little was known about the animal, study researcher John Wible, a mammalogist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, said in a statement. |  |
No comments:
Post a Comment