February 2008 - Posts
Discovery Channel |
Click for video: A scene from the first installment of the Discovery Channel's
"Human Body" series shows how bones and muscles work together for survival
during a tornado. Click on the image to watch a video clip.
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Did you know that your bones are stronger, pound for pound, than concrete? Or that in an emergency, your muscles could be three times stronger than you think they are? "Human Body: Pushing the Limits," a TV series premiering Sunday on the Discovery Channel, delivers those insights and more by analyzing the extraordinary feats of ordinary people, with virtual X-ray vision.
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This week we exploded five of the myths surrounding last week's spy satellite smash-up, in a report from NBC News space analyst James Oberg. The first myth-buster was that the missile intercept really wasn't a "shootdown," in the sense of a rifle shot that brought down a bird, but was a messier breakup of both the target satellite and the missile interceptor.
Oberg's No. 4 myth was that the Pentagon was actually aiming directly at the biggest potential hazard on the satellite, a tank filled with half a ton of frozen hydrazine fuel. He said it was "hard to imagine" how the warhead's guidance system could have spotted the target on its blobby view of the satellite.
Now Oberg says he'd like to expand upon that remark, based on feedback he's just received from the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency. It turns out that the SM-3 missile changed its flight path to get as close as it could to the tank. The feedback came from a high-level official, who provided information on a not-for-attribution basis because the official was not authorized to respond publicly. Here's how Oberg summarized the response:
"Actually, while they did not 'aim at the tank' in their gunsight, the Navy space sharpshooters really did target for the tank's known location within the satellite's structure. According to a Missile Defense Agency response to questions from msnbc.com, 'The [warhead] seeker computes an aimpoint on the target’s image that it sees as they come together (quickly), and moves to maximize hit effectiveness. The kinetic warhead (kill vehicle) then sharpened the aim at end game as noted above to move to a sweeter spot on the target.'
"This implies an amazing degree of real-time pattern recognition by the warhead's guidance system. This is a BIG WOW to me. ... I stand corrected, and impressed."
On another point, there had been reports that only 17 pieces of debris from the satellite were still being tracked - but today, veteran satellite tracker Ted Molczan reports on the SeeSat-L discussion board that 42 pieces are on the list. Oberg also notes that the Federal Aviation Administration's warning about falling satellite debris is effective through March 9.
Ironically, the smash-up of one spy satellite has forced a delay in the launch of another spy satellite. So there's no question that the orbital debris is having an effect on the space environment. To claim otherwise would give rise to Myth No. 6.
NIST |
Atomic clocks can be as
small as computer chips.
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It took astronomers 5,000 years or so to figure out how leap years work - and with every technological leap, we're becoming increasingly dependent on ultra-precise timekeeping.
As a result, even tiny leaps in time are becoming just as important - and just as controversial - as leap days and leap weeks must have seemed back in the days of Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII.
We have Julius and Gregory to thank for Friday's leap day, the extra day that's periodically tacked onto the month of February.
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 Microsoft Research |
The galaxy M81 makes its
appearance in a screenshot from
the WorldWide Telescope. Click on
the image for a larger version.
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After weeks of rumblings in the blogosphere, Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope was brought out in the open for the first time today, at the annual TED conference in Monterey, Calif. The software program knits together terabytes of online data into a seamless, zoomable experience - and lets users create their own guided tours of the deep sky.
Even though the free program was demonstrated today, it's still said to be in private alpha mode, which means it could be several weeks before you can try it out for yourselves.
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AP |
Thousands of robots are already on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, but what happens when you hand the robot a gun and turn it loose?
Some researchers fear that giving military robots autonomy as well as ammo is the first step toward a "Terminator"-style nightmare, while others suggest that in some scenarios, weapon-wielding robots could someday act more humanely than humans.
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Michael Farmer |
Meteorite hunter Michael Farmer kneels at the rim of a crater in Peru.
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Five months after a meteorite made an international splash in Peru, experts are suggesting explanations for some of the space rock's effects - for example, the sickening odor villagers smelled at the crash site, and the bubbles that were seen emanating from the water-filled crater left behind. But a study due to be presented next month also raises fundamental questions about the event. In fact, an international research team declares that the impact "should not have happened" at all.
Yet another study sets forth a mystery surrounding two other meteorites found in Antarctica a couple of years ago. The rocks don't match any other class of meteorite - so where did they come from?
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ESA / MPS / DLR / IDA |
Pictures from Europe’s Venus Express orbiter are providing new insights - and raising new questions - about Venusian weather systems that are fueled not by water, as on Earth, but by sulfuric acid.
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Now it can be told: At the time that Virgin Galactic was rolling out the design for the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, the spaceship’s designer, Burt Rutan, was so ill he couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs. In the wake of successful open-heart surgery on Feb. 7, Rutan reveals what was ailing him and says he’s feeling better every day.
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About three dozen skywatchers in western Canada went out to see Wednesday night's total lunar eclipse and got a surprise bonus: the fireworks show created by the Pentagon’s shootdown of a falling spy satellite.
Other aftereffects, including what may have been the plume created by the satellite’s burning fuel, were seen back in Hawaii - near where the missile was launched for the orbital interception.
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STScI / NASA |
Pluto and its satellite
Charon are the larger
objects in this Hubble
Space Telescope image.
Two even smaller
satellites, Nix and Hydra,
can be seen to the right.
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How do you define a planet? Officials at the International Astronomical Union thought the matter was settled more than a year ago when it drew up a definition of planethood that separated little Pluto from its eight bigger siblings and put it in the dwarf-planet category. Boy, were they wrong.
Many astronomers say the definition that the IAU came up doesn't adequately reflect the diversity of worlds we see even in our own solar system - and arguably, might even exclude Jupiter as an official planet. Now a replay of the "Great Planet Debate" has been scheduled for August. Pluto may remain in the pint-size pigeonhole - but the other planets, in our solar system and beyond, would get their own pigeonholes as well.
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Science / Comstock / Corbis |
For weeks, science-minded activists have been urging the presidential campaigns to stage a debate focusing on science and technology issues - and they finally got their wish over the weekend. Sort of.
Not a single presidential candidate was in sight at Saturday's event, organized as part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting. Instead, the advisers on technology policy for Democratic hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama took turns answering questions about what their bosses would do if they were president. The face-off was far too sedate to be called a debate, but in some ways it was an eerie reflection of the bigger, bare-knuckled battle for the Democratic nomination.
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Salvatore Di Nolfi / Keystone / AP |
An onlooker watches an element of the Compact Muon Solenoid being lowered into
its underground cavern at the Large Hadron Collider on the French-Swiss border.
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The most anticipated date in physics is the day the world's biggest particle-smasher, Europe's Large Hadron Collider, goes into operation. That day had been set for last November, but a magnet mishap and other factors forced a delay until this spring. The final piece of one of the collider's mammoth detectors, the Compact Muon Solenoid, was lowered into its underground cavern just last month. And now the big day is likely to come in June or July rather than May.
The fact is that officials at Europe's CERN particle physics lab don't know to the day when the world's biggest physics project will be ready for prime time. However, they do know the day for the big celebration.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech / Cornell |
NASA's Spirit rover captured this view looking northward from the north edge of the
Home Plate plateau, where it will be spending the Martian winter as a stationary
"weather station." Click on the image for a larger version.
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Life on ancient Mars just got tougher.
Not only was Martian water highly acidic in ancient times, but it was also extremely salty, researchers reported today in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Don't expect to be eating cloneburgers anytime soon. At $13,500 per head, cloned cattle are just too expensive for the dinner table. But the great-grandchildren of clones? Those may well be on their way to the menu, and we might not even know it.
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Twentieth Century Fox |
Hayden Christensen portrays a man who finds he can teleport to the Great
Pyramids and other exotic locales in the science-fiction movie "Jumper."
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Everyone knows Anakin Skywalker can't really teleport himself to the Great Pyramids of Egypt, even though Anakin ... er, Hayden Christensen ... does just that in the movie "Jumper," opening Thursday. But isn't it possible to go through a wormhole in the space-time continuum? Wellllll, maybe - if you've got a galactic black hole's worth of power. Such are the issues that come up when science meets fiction, at the movie theater as well as in the classroom.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech / CfA |
This false-color image from the Spitzer Space Telescope shows
the main cloud of the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming region.
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One of our galaxy's closest star-forming regions provides the canvas for a glittering baby portrait from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. In the infrared image, infant stars nestle within the folds of a dusty hydrogen cloud around Rho Ophiuchi.
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One of the top scientists on the Cassini mission for Saturn is taking on a Hollywood film odyssey as well: The Space Science Institute's Carolyn Porco, who leads Cassini's imaging science team, says she'll be serving as a scientific consultant for "Star Trek XI," due for release this Christmas. "My hope is that we will see what's real and true on the big screen!" she told me in an e-mail.
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The four top presidential candidates - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democrats, Mike Huckabee and John McCain for the Republicans - have been invited to discuss science and technology issues at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on April 18, according to the organizers of Science Debate 2008. If the event actually occurs, it would take place four days before Pennsylvania's presidential primary.
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Getty Images |
It's usually not a pretty sight when religious belief and evolutionary theory mix, but that's what will be happening over the next few days in hundreds of locales around the country and around the globe, under the banners of Evolution Weekend and Darwin Day.
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Phil Walter / Getty Images |
After weeks of delay, the crew members of the shuttle Atlantis are finally ready for their voyage to the international space station this week - a trip primarily aimed at giving science a big orbital boost. Thanks to the Internet, you can go on your own virtual voyages across the universe from the comfort of your own computer. Here's a selection of online destinations:
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Richard White |
Hot on the heels of see-through frogs, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have bred see-through zebrafish that put tumors and stem cells on display as they grow. The transparent lab animals already have started to provide insights into how cancer spreads - and how it can be treated - in not-so-transparent human beings.
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NASA / ESA / ESO / CXC / Penn State |
This Hubble-Chandra image highlights the X-ray halo surrounding the elliptical galaxy NGC 1132. Click
on the image for a larger version.
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The Hubble Space Telescope has added a new view of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1132, filling out our picture of a huge depository of dark matter that may have coalesced from smaller galaxies – or somehow formed in isolation as a "lone wolf" in the cosmos.
Elliptical galaxies tend to look like unremarkable fuzzballs, but there's something special about this one: It has an impressive halo of X-ray-emitting gas - which shows up in shades of blue and purple in this image, a composite of Hubble's visible-light view and a false-color view from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
Based on how the X-ray halo is gravitationally bound to the galaxy, astronomers figure that there's enough dark matter within NGC 1132 for a whole cluster of galaxies.
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President Bush’s final budget proposal puts America’s biggest science projects back on track, as expected, but the big question is whether Congress will gut those projects like it did last year.
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I'm working on my own big science project this week, and that means postings to the Log will be reduced. But I'll send along a daily list of highlights from the Web to tide you over:
AP |
Official groundhog handler Bill Deeley holds
Punxsutawney Phil on Feb. 2, 2006.
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Groundhogs have their day in the sun on Saturday, when Punxsutawney Phil, Grady, Jimmy, Sir Walter Wally and other furry rodents across the country are dragged out to judge whether there will be six more weeks of wintry weather. If the weather is sunny enough on Feb. 2 for the groundhogs to see their shadow, they supposedly pop back down into their lairs and wait out the prolonged chill.
Is there anything to the purported predictive power of Groundhog Day? Not much.
But is there anything at all to the idea that animals can "predict" the weather? You bet.
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