SCIENCE NEWS


10 years later, life on Mars is still science fiction

The Associated Press -- 7 AUG 06

It was a science fiction fantasy come true: Ten years ago this summer, NASA announced the discovery of life on Mars. At a Washington, D.C., news conference, scientists showed magnified pictures of a four-pound Martian meteorite riddled with wormy blobs that looked like bacterial colonies. The researchers explained how they had pried numerous clues from the rock, all strongly supporting their contention that microscopic creatures once occupied its nooks and crannies.

Russia launches European telecommunications satellite

The Associated Press -- 7 AUG 06

Russia launched a telecommunications satellite early Saturday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Russian news agencies reported.

Woods Hole researcher discovers oceans of life

By Phil McKenna, Boston Globe Correspondent -- 7 AUG 06

As each new set of figures appeared on his computer screen, Mitchell L. Sogin experienced a roller coaster of emotions. First, overwhelming joy that he and his colleagues had made a discovery that would change how scientists view ocean life. Then, self doubt as he questioned whether the numbers were too good to be true. Finally, as the researcher later recalled, ``I realized it all made sense."

Astronomers Say Universe May Be Bigger and Older

By John Johnson Jr., LA Times Staff Writer -- 7 AUG 06

New findings from an Ohio State University team of astronomers are raising the possibility that the universe is larger than previously thought. Using new measurement methods, the team found that the Triangulum Galaxy is 3 million light-years away, not the 2.6 million that had been accepted in the past.

Shuttle, Station Missions Ahead Are Most Challenging Ever

By NASA RELEASE: 06-288 -- 7 AUG 06

Program managers and the six-member crew of the next space shuttle Atlantis flight will participate in a series of media briefings Friday, Aug. 11, at the Johnson Space Center, Houston. With the remaining shuttle missions, NASA will embark on a series of flights as difficult as any in history to complete the International Space Station.

County history society vaults toward future with curator

Palm Beach Post Local News -- 6 AUG 06

PALM BEACH — The Historical Society of Palm Beach County doesn't have a museum yet but it's had a collection for 60 years and now that collection has an anthropologist. While construction workers continue restoring the 1916 County Courthouse in downtown West Palm Beach Steven Erdmann has been at work amid the orderly clutter of the historical society offices in the old Paramount Theater building on North County Road.

Stars align in Ellensburg

The Olympian -- 6 AUG 06

ELLENSBURG It's Woodstock without the music. About 700 gatherers set up a makeshift village at 6 300 feet in the thin mountain air of the Cascades where they live for three days.

Space Shuttle Rolled Out to Florida Launch Pad By Irene Klotz - 3 AUG 2006

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis was moved to its ocean-side launch pad early on Wednesday, as NASA readies itself to resume construction of the International Space Station later this month. Twice thwarted from being rolled out by overnight thunderstorms earlier this week, the shuttle began an eight-hour crawl to the launch pad at 2 a.m. (0600 GMT)......READ MORE!

Worker Ants Store Fat To Share With Colony Members During Times Of Need
In a fascinating new study from the September/October 2006 issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, Daniel A. Hahn (University of Florida) explores the ability of ants to store excess fat and pass it to colony members through lipid-rich oral secretions or unfertilized eggs. For perennial organisms, such as ant colonies, investing heavily in nutrient stores when food availability is high is a potential bet-hedging strategy for dealing with times of famine. Read More

Skin Cancer Rare -- But More Deadly -- In People With Darker Skin
New research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) shows that dark-skinned people--commonly thought to be "immune" to most skin cancers--are more likely than whites to die from skin cancer and its related complications. Read More

Marine 'Dead Zone' Off Oregon Is Spreading
A hypoxic "dead zone" has formed off the Oregon Coast for the fifth time in five years, according to researchers at Oregon State University. A fundamental new trend in atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns in the Pacific Northwest appears to have begun, scientists say, and apparently is expanding its scope beyond Oregon waters...... Read More

Helium Atoms Sent By Nozzle May Light Way For New Imaging Approach
A newly devised nozzle fitted with a pinhole-sized capillary has allowed researchers to distribute helium atoms with X-ray-like waves on randomly shaped surfaces. The technique could power the development of a new microscope for nanotechnology, allowing for a non-invasive, high-resolution approach to studying both organic and inorganic materials...... Read More

Why fast-spinning young stars don't fly apart
25 JUL 2006

Young stars are loaded with energy, and they can spin around in half a day or less, compared to the 28 days it takes our more mature sun to make a revolution. Read More

Next space shuttle readied for August launch
24 JUL 2006

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA moved space shuttle Atlantis from its hangar on Monday to the massive Kennedy Space Centre assembly building where it will be attached to a fuel tank and twin booster rockets in preparation for launch next month. Read More

Titan's pebbles 'seen' by Huygens radio
An unexpected radio reflection from the surface of Titan has allowed ESA scientists to deduce the average size of stones and pebbles close to the Huygens' landing site. The technique could be used on other lander missions to analyse planetary surfaces for free. Read More

Actions Speak Louder in Words
If you've ever tried to speak to someone who doesn't share your native tongue, you could probably intuit a bit of what they were saying just by how they said it. Anger, happiness, and even confusion traverse the language barrier quite well. Now a new study shows that emotions aren't the only information that piggybacks on our speech: We subconsciously convey important details about the objects around us just by verbally describing them. Read More
Space Shuttle Experiment Shows Live Cells Influence Growth Of Nanostructures
Far above the heads of Earthlings, arrays of single-cell creatures are circling Earth in nanostructures. The sample devices are riding on the International Space Station (courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico, NASA and US Air Force) to test whether nanostructures whose formations were directed by yeast and other single cells can create more secure homes for their occupants Read More

Models Show One Nearby Star System Could Host Earth-like Planet
The steady discovery of giant planets orbiting stars other than our sun has heightened speculation that there could be Earth-type worlds in nearby planetary systems capable of sustaining life. Now researchers running computer simulations for four nearby systems that contain giant planets about the size of Jupiter have found one that could have formed an Earth-like planet with the right conditions to support life. Read More

Bubbles Go High-tech To Fight Tumors
Bubbles: You've bathed in them, popped them, endured bad song lyrics about them. Now, University of Michigan researchers hope to add a more sophisticated application to the list—gas bubbles used like corks to block oxygen flow to tumors, or to deliver drugs. Read More

Astronomers Discover Six Planets Orbiting Nearby Stars
A team of astronomers searching the galaxy with powerful telescopic instruments has found six new planets orbiting nearby stars. This increases by more than 25 percent the number of planets astronomers have discovered outside our solar system, to a total of 28 planets. All 28 have been found within the last five years. Read More
Shanghai company starts small with hydrogen-powered car
SHANGHAI — It's a dream that's been pursued for years by governments, energy companies and automakers so far without success: Mass-producing affordable hydrogen-powered cars that spew just clean water from their tailpipes. Read More

Scientists Look to DNA To Crack the Neanderthal Code
Modern humans may have overcome Neanderthals, but they have yet to figure them out. Now a multimillion-dollar project to decipher the genetic code of Neanderthals may help explain not only why humanity's closest cousin became extinct but also which genetic features have made Homo sapiens so successful. Read More

Recurrent Eruption: Explosive stellar saga
Imagine the blast of a nuclear bomb as heavy as Earth and you'll get some idea of the energy unleashed in each of the six thermonuclear explosions that have ripped off the outer layers of a dense, nearby star in the past 108 years. Read More

Chaotic Chomp
It's hard to imagine a simpler two-player game than Chomp. Start by laying out a rectangular array of cookies. The players take turns picking a cookie, each time removing the chosen cookie and all cookies above and to the right of it. Each move is like taking a square or rectangular bite out of the array. The loser is the player forced to take the poison cookie—the one in the lower left-hand corner. Read More
Reason eyes are transparent becomes clear
It is the transparent part of the eye, but for scientists, its origin was anything but clear. Now researchers have pinpointed why the cornea, the thin covering that allows light into the eye, is completely see-through. The discovery could lead to potential cures for eye disease and possibly even cancer.Read More

Deadly fish virus spreads in Northeast
A deadly virus found in two fish species in the northeastern United States last month appears to have spread to two more species, scientists said today.Read More

Top predators key to ecosystem survival
Top-level predators strike fear in the hearts of the animals they stalk. But when a deer is being mauled by a wolf, at least it can know that it's giving its life for the greater good.Read More

SpaceX rocket failure traced to bad nut
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. - The maiden launch of a private rocket bankrolled by a millionaire entrepreneur was doomed by leaking fuel that caught fire seconds after liftoff, a government review board said Tuesday. Read More

RFID Chips Could Help Surgeons Avoid Leaving Sponges In Patients
The same technology that prevents thefts in clothing stores could also help surgeons keep track of instruments and gauze sponges during medical procedures, according to a preliminary study at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In the study, researchers used tiny chips called radio frequency ID tags attached to surgical sponges to locate the sponges in the body before the operation ended. Read More

ESA: Cluster hits magnetic bull's-eye
PARIS, July 18 (UPI) --

The European Space Agency says its four spacecraft constellation Cluster has located an area where the Earth's magnetic field was spontaneously reconfiguring. Read More

Robots are becoming part of everyday life
NEW YORK, July 18 (UPI) --

The advent of robots is no longer an idea of science fiction, but is quickly becoming an intrinsic part of our daily lives. Read More

Study connects the quantum dots
CORAL GABLES, Fla., July 18 (UPI) --

U.S. scientists say they've determined quantum dots can one day replace conventional organic dyes in biomedical applications.Read More

Two U.S. hospitals test West Nile vaccine
NASHVILLE, July 18 (UPI) --

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has reportedly become the second U.S. hospital testing a new vaccine for the potentially deadly West Nile virus.Read More
Radiation Redux: Forest fires remobilize fallout from bomb tests

Sid Perkins -- 15 JUL 2006

A sensitive instrument installed in the Canadian Arctic to monitor fallout from modern nuclear tests has detected small amounts of radioactive cesium produced by bomb tests decades ago. The material, which during the Cold War was spread across northern latitudes by high-altitude winds, is still being redistributed far and wide by forest fires, researchers say.....READ MORE!
Physicists get serious about invisibility shields

Peter Weiss -- 15 JUL 2006

First, a disclaimer: Invisibility cloaks like Harry Potter's are nowhere near becoming reality. Nor has anyone unearthed proof that the infamous Philadelphia experiment—in which U.S. Navy scientists in 1943 supposedly made a destroyer and its crew vanish—really took place. Stygian crystals, said to confer invisibility in Star Wars films and books, remain figments of writers' imaginations. And not one invisibility shield yet exists, not even a mouse-size one, as best anyone can tell.....READ MORE!
Intel's Core 2 Duo lives up to hype Independent chip reviewers across the Internet unveiled the results of their tests of Intel's upcoming Core 2 Duo processor for desktops, or the chip formerly known as Conroe. For the first time in several years, Intel has a clear performance lead in a wide variety of benchmarks for office applications, games and other software...... Read More
Space Shuttle is Returning!
The US space shuttle Discovery on Saturday undocked from the International Space Station and embarked on its two-day return flight to Earth. The undocking manoeuvre, which occurred around 400 kilometres above the Earth and north of New Zealand, was broadcast live by NASA Television and proceeded without complications, NASA said........ READ MORE

Bigelow's Baby Breezes Along
The mission of Bigelow Aerospace's revolutionary prototype space habitat launched Wednesday has gone smoothly through its first day in orbit. The program's founder said the success achieved so far has been an exhilarating experience for his team before they set off to begin a comprehensive testing regimen on the inflatable space station pathfinder. The craft - called Genesis 1 - marks the birth of Bigelow's grand commercial space adventure that should culminate in the construction of the industry's first private space station by 2015. Read More