Building Stonehenge: A New Timeline Revealed
Ancient people probably assembled the massive sandstone horseshoe at Stonehenge more than 4,600 years ago, while the smaller bluestones were imported from Wales later, a new study suggests.
The conclusion, detailed in the December issue of the journal Antiquity, challenges earlier timelines that proposed the smaller stones were raised first. |  |
Bowerbirds Use Geometry to Woo Females
Sometimes love is an illusion. Especially if you're a bowerbird.
These crow kin from Australia and New Guinea are known for constructing elaborate edifices to woo mates. But males of one species, the great bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus nuchalis), go a step further: They use a trick of architectural perspective to boost their allure, and will stick to their own scheme even if it falls short with the females. |  |
Writing Messages With Water
Scientists have used nanotechnology to create “selectively wet” materials that can be used to write long-lasting messages with water.
The concept, called "hydroglyphics," was exhibited by scientists at Harvard who recently teamed up with a group of Merrimack, N.H., high school students and faculty to make an educational demo. The demo, appropriately entitled "Hydroglyphics," helps people visualize the difference between water repelling and wetting surfaces. |  |
Device harvests energy from train tracks
There are more than 140,000 miles of train track in the U.S., many of them laid across lonely stretches of land with nary a power line in sight. Thankfully, there’s a new gadget to harvest energy from vibrations generated in the track by passing trains to power signal lights and other track-side devices.
The energy harvester could save more than $10 million in trackside power costs in New York state alone, according to its inventor, Stony Brook University professor of mechanical engineering Lei Zuo. It would also reduce carbon dioxide emissions there by about 3,000 tons, he added. |  |
3D-Printable Gun Part Fails on Sixth Shot
A "Wiki Weapon" project took its first steps toward making a fully 3D printable gun by test-firing an assault rifle made with just one 3D-printed part. On the sixth shot, disaster struck for the gun.
The AR-15 assault rifle snapped in two when a Wiki Weapon project member tried to check it on the sixth shot, according to a blog post spotted by Wired's Danger Room. That failure during the Dec. 1 test reflects the challenges of making working gun parts from the materials currently available for 3D printing — a technology capable of turning computer designs into real objects by building them up layer-by-layer using plastics, metals or other materials. |  |
Bluetooth Stickers Track Your Stuff
Can't find the keys -- or the family dog? A new project can help track them and other easy-to-lose objects using Bluetooth-enabled buttons.
A group of Bluetooth gadget designers is looking to make Bluetooth "stickers" -- stiff devices about the size of a U.S. quarter -- that users can stick to their wallets, kids' shoes, pets' collars and other objects. The stickers are designed to communicate with a smartphone app, called Stick-N-Find, that has several settings to help people find their stuff. |  |
Shape-Remembering Hydrogels Are the First Step Towards a Real-Life T-1000
A team of researchers at Cornell University, led by professor Dan Luo, has developed a new kind of hydrogel made from synthesized and interwoven DNA, like a microscopic bird's nest. In the presence of H2O the hydrogel forms and holds a pre-determined shape. But in the absence of water, the material flows like any other liquid. If that sounds familiar, you've probably seen Terminator 2.
The researchers aren't entirely sure why the material behaves this way just yet, but they think that the forces responsible for holding its shape are so weak that surface tension and gravity are enough to cause it to collapse. |  |
Voyager spacecraft finds solar system is bigger than thought
Are we there yet? If you're Voyager 1 and you're looking for a spot beyond the end of our solar system, the answer is no.
NASA officials have been saying for months that Voyager 1 is almost there when it comes to interstellar space as it continues the longest road trip in the history of mankind. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 took off 16 days apart in 1977, and Voyager 1 is now about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun. On Monday, project officials said new information sent back from the ship yielded a surprising resul. |  |
At last, how many alien civilizations are there?
During the space age, 1961 was a special year: the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit Earth, while the American astronomer Frank Drake developed the now famous Drake Equation. This equation estimates the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy, supposing our present electromagnetic detection methods.
|  |
Thousands of Earth-sized planet candidates discovered
Could there be extraterrestrial life in our own Milky Way galaxy?
NASA’s Kepler mission, using an orbiting telescope equipped with a 95-megapixel camera and 42 charge-coupled devices, discovered that worlds, one-half to twice the size of Earth, exist in our galaxy.
Kepler is the first mission with the potential to identify Earth-sized planets that exist near the habitable zones of their stars, a landmark in astronomy because the finding could lead scientists to discover that, indeed, life exists in other places besides Earth.
NASA’s Kepler mission, using an orbiting telescope equipped with a 95-megapixel camera and 42 charge-coupled devices, discovered that worlds, one-half to twice the size of Earth, exist in our galaxy.
Kepler is the first mission with the potential to identify Earth-sized planets that exist near the habitable zones of their stars, a landmark in astronomy because the finding could lead scientists to discover that, indeed, life exists in other places besides Earth.
Virgin spaceship aims to be science lab
Sir Richard Branson wants his tourist spaceship also to become a high-altitude science platform.
The billionaire's rocket plane will carry six fare-paying passengers just above the atmosphere to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. But the vehicle has been designed so that its seats can be removed easily and the space filled with science gear. Passenger flights should begin in 18 months or so; research sorties could start soon after. |  |
$12.8 billion budget approved for European Space Agency
MILAN — Science ministers from the 20 member states of the European Space Agency on Wednesday approved a budget of €10 billion ($12.8 billion) over the next three years, coming close to the agency's request despite the continent's economic woes.
The budget includes funds for the eventual transition over the course of the decade to the Ariane 6 rocket, a more flexible launch system than the current one that would allow the space agency to launch small, medium and large satellites.
"Today, the Ariane 6 is born," ESA spokesman Franco Bonacina said.
The budget includes funds for the eventual transition over the course of the decade to the Ariane 6 rocket, a more flexible launch system than the current one that would allow the space agency to launch small, medium and large satellites.
"Today, the Ariane 6 is born," ESA spokesman Franco Bonacina said.
Why Africa's lions are rapidly disappearing
The lions that roam Africa's savannahs have lost as much as 75 percent of their habitat in the last 50 years as humans overtake their land and the lion population dwindles, said a study released Tuesday.
Researchers at Duke University, including prominent conservationist Stuart Pimm, warn that the number of lions across the continent have dropped to as few as 32,000, with populations in West Africa under incredible pressure. "Lion numbers have declined precipitously in the last century," the study, published Tuesday by the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, reads. "Given that many now live in small, isolated populations, this trend will continue. The situation in West Africa is particularly dire, with no large population remaining and lions now absent from many of the region's national parks". |  |
Cigarette butts help urban birds ward off mites
It's not just people that have a penchant for cigarettes. Birds living in urban environments often use cigarette butts to line their nests. Unlike in humans, the cigarettes seem to have a beneficial effect – they cut the number of parasites in the nests.
Nicotine-based sprays are already used on some crops to repel insects. To see whether cigarette butts might have a similar effect in urban birds' nests, Constantino Macías Garcia from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City and colleagues lured parasites to these nests. |  |
The Deep Sea Mystery Circle – a love story
Introduced to life under the sea in high school through snorkeling, Yoji Ookata obtained his scuba license at the age of 21. At the same time, he went out and bought a brand new NIKONOS, a 35mm film camera specifically designed for underwater photography. He devoted all his spare time – aside from his day job – to perfecting his art of underwater photography. Then, at age 39, he finally made the transition. He quit his office job and became a freelance underwater photographer.
But even for a man who spent the last 50 years immersed in the underwater world of sea life, the ocean proved infinitely mysterious. While diving in the semi-tropical region of Amami Oshima, roughly 80 ft below sea level, Ookata spotted something he had never seen. And as it turned out, no one else had seen it before either. |  |
Have venusian volcanoes been caught in the act?
Six years of observations by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express have shown large changes in the sulfur dioxide content of the planet’s atmosphere, and one intriguing possible explanation is volcanic eruptions.
The thick atmosphere of Venus contains more than a million times as much sulfur dioxide as Earth’s, where almost all of the pungent toxic gas is generated by volcanic activity. Most of the sulfur dioxide on Venus is hidden below the planet’s dense upper cloud deck because the gas is readily destroyed by sunlight. That means any sulfur dioxide detected in Venus’ upper atmosphere above the cloud deck must have been recently supplied from below. |  |
Do not Miss Geminids Show
The Taipei Astronomical Museum has announced that the Geminids are expected to show a wonderful meteor shower, which will be at its peak on Dec. 13-14. It shall be noted that this meteor shower is going to outshine every other meteor showers taking place this year.
Things will get more beautiful, as the moon will not be present on above mentioned dates. The Geminids are said to be one of the meteor showers which is quite prolific in nature. If to agree with the museum officials then the meteor shower is going to produce 120 meteors in an hour. |  |
Swimming robot reaches Australia after record-breaking trip
A self-controlled swimming robot has completed a journey from San Francisco to Australia. The record-breaking 9,000 nautical mile (16,668km) trip took the PacX Wave Glider just over a year to achieve.
Liquid Robotics, the US company behind the project, collected data about the Pacific Ocean's temperature, salinity and ecosystem from the drone. The company said its success demonstrated that such technology could "survive the high seas". The robot is called Papa Mau in honour of the late Micronesian navigator Pius "Mau" Piailug, who had a reputation for finding ways to navigate the seas without using traditional equipment. |  |
New contender for oldest dinosaur
Palaeontologists have found what is likely to be the oldest known dinosaur, filling in a yawning evolutionary gap.
A study in Biology Letters describes Nyasasaurus parringtoni, a new species from 10-15 million years before the previous earliest dinosaur specimens. It walked on two legs, measured 2-3m in length with a large tail and weighed between 20 and 60kg. The find suggests that many millions of years passed between dinosaurs' first members and their dominance on land. "It fills a gap between what we previously knew to be the oldest dinosaurs and their other closest relatives,"... |  |
No comments:
Post a Comment