Neutrinos – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:48:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.3 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Neutrinos – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Glacial Lava & Artificial Intelligence | SciByte 110 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/47007/glacial-lava-artificial-intelligence-scibyte-110/ Tue, 26 Nov 2013 21:34:18 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=47007 We take a look at lava under Antarctica, teaching artificial intelligence, neutrino data, and greenhouses in the desert.

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We take a look at lava under Antarctica, teaching artificial intelligence, neutrino data, greenhouses in the desert, studying the Moon\’s atmosphere, hope for Kepler, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Eyeing Magma Under the Antarctic Ice

  • Marie Byrd Land is a desolate region of Antarctica buried deep beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet now researchers have shown that molten rock still stirs deep underground
  • Lava?
  • Historic eruptions have punctured the ice sheet, creating a chain of volcanoes amid the ice
  • Only the largest eruptions could melt all the ice above them and poke through to the surface, but even smaller eruptions could potentially cause global sea level to rise, although no one knows how big the rise might be
  • The crust is thinned by the West Antarctic Rift System, a series of giant rift valleys beneath the ice sheet
  • \”Data in the Data\”
  • Erupted lava from underground magma chambers has burst through the ice repeatedly over geological history as the plates moved over the top
  • No one knew whether magma was still stirring until seismic monitoring stations were installed on the ice between 2007 and 2010.
  • Researchers built the stations to essentially to weight the ice sheet to help study the shifting crustal blocks of the West Antarctic Rift System
  • One way to do that is to measure how the Earths crust responds to the weight of the ice, and would depend on weather it was hot and fluid or cool and vicious, but seismologist found another use
  • They noticed a series of small earthquakes, mainly occurring during two “seismic swarms” in January and February 2010 and March 2011
  • These earthquakes were unusual: The ground was shaking much more slowly during the quakes (2-4/sec) than one would expect from the plates grinding against each other (10-20/sec)
  • The Earthquakes
  • Researchers looked at two different types of waves that come in-the P wave, which is the primary wave, and the S wave, which is the secondary wave
  • Calculations revealed that the waves had come from 25 to 40 kilometers below Earth\’s surface and were centered approximately at a point that followed a linear trend of volcanoes to the south
  • The exact cause of these deep quakes is not understood, but they are thought to result from the movement of magma deep below active or soon-to-be active volcanoes
  • Other Data
  • The area showed a slightly higher magnetic field than the surrounding area and that there was a bump in the crust-common signals of magmatic activity
  • Radar mapping also indicated a layer of volcanic ash embedded in the ice, probably from an eruption of Mount Waesche about 8000 years ago-very recent geological history
  • There is no evidence of an actual eruption since then, but, because magma is still moving deep under the Earth, an eruption could occur at any time
  • What About Now?
  • The current center of volcanic activity is covered by at least 1 kilometer of ice, and it would take an exceptionally large eruption to melt all this
  • An eruption could make its presence felt in subtler ways. As fresh snow adds to their own mass, ice sheets flow downward into the sea
  • Melting the base of the ice sheet, an eruption could speed up this flow, potentially raising the level of the ocean. No one knows how significant such a rise might be
  • Any effect on the ice sheet above, and thus any effect on the oceans, would probably be quite small; however, a proper study is needed to find out how significant volcanic activity could be to future sea levels
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | S and P waves | Atkinson Physics
  • YouTube | Mount Erebus: clip from BBC\’s Volcano Live | Clive Oppenheimer
  • YouTube | Volcano: Mount Etna erupts for the 16th time this year sending lava 600 metres into the air | ITN
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Wikipedia | Seismic wave | Usefulness of P and S waves in locating an event
  • Magma Boils Beneath Antarctic Ice | Science/AAAS
  • Active Volcano Discovered Under Ice Sheet in West Antarctica Sci-News.com

— NEWS BYTE —

A.I. Common Sense

  • “Researchers are trying to teach common sense to an artificial intelligence by watching the internet”
  • What they are doing is to let the artificial intelligence browse millions of pictures and decide for itself what they all mean
  • Never Ending Image Learning, NEIL
  • The system at Carnegie Mellon University is called NEIL, short for
  • In mid-July, it began searching the Internet for images 24/7 and, in tiny steps, is deciding for itself how those images relate to each other
  • The goal is to recreate what we call common sense-the ability to learn things without being specifically taught
  • In just over four months, the network of 200 processors identified 1,500 objects and 1,200 scenes and has connected the dots to make 2,500 associations
  • NEIL leverages recent advances in computer vision that enable computer programs to identify and label objects in images, to characterize scenes and to recognize attributes, such as colors, lighting and materials, all with a minimum of human supervision
  • Humans vs Computers
  • Having a computer make its own associations is an entirely different type of challenge than programming a supercomputer to do one thing very well, or fast
  • Humans constantly make decisions using \”this huge body of unspoken assumptions,\” while computers don
  • Humans can also quickly respond to some questions that would take a computer longer to figure out
  • \”Could a giraffe fit in your car?\” | Humans can have an answer without having made the precise calculations that a computer would do
  • Some of NEIL\’s Computer-Generated Associations
  • \”Rhino can be a kind of antelope,\”
  • \”Actor can be found in jail cell\”
  • \”News anchor can look similar to Barack Obama.\”
  • Searches and Categorizing
  • The computers have figured out that zebras tend to be found in savannahs and that tigers look somewhat like zebras
  • A search for \”apple\” might return images of fruit as well as laptop computers
  • The team had no idea that a search for F-18 would identify not only images of a fighter jet, but also of F18-class catamarans
  • As its search proceeds, NEIL develops subcategories of objects
  • Tricycles can be for kids, for adults and can be motorized, or cars come in a variety of brands and models
  • It begins to notice associations – that zebras tend to be found in savannahs, for instance, and that stock trading floors are typically crowded
  • The Future
  • In the future, NEIL will analyze vast numbers of YouTube videos to look for connections between objects
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NEIL: Never Ending Image Learner
  • Carnegie Mellon computer searches web 24/7 to analyze images and teach itself common sense | Phys.org
  • New research aims to teach computers common sense | Phys.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Neutrinos Spotted

Desert Farming

  • A pilot plant built by the Sahara Forest Project (SFP) produced 75 kilograms of vegetables per square meter in three crops annually, comparable to commercial farms in Europe, while consuming only sunlight and seawater
  • This is not particularly a recent publication but was recently found by me and I thought it was interesting
  • The Plant
  • The heart of the SFP concept is a specially designed greenhouse. At one end, salt water is trickled over a grid like curtain so that the prevailing wind blows the resulting cool, moist air over the plants inside
  • This cooling effect allowed the facility to grow three crops per year, even in the scorching summer
  • At the other end of the greenhouse is a network of pipes with cold seawater running through them
  • Some of the moisture in the air condenses on the pipes and is collected, providing a source of fresh water
  • The third key element of the SFP facility is a concentrated solar power plant
  • This uses mirrors in the shape of a parabolic trough to heat a fluid flowing through a pipe at its focus. The heated fluid then boils water, and the steam drives a turbine to generate power
  • The plant has electricity to run its control systems and pumps and can use any excess to desalinate water for irrigating the plants
  • Bonus Effects
  • One of the surprising side effects of such a seawater greenhouse, seen during early experiments, is that cool moist air leaking out of it encourages other plants to grow spontaneously outside
  • Qatar plant took advantage of that effect to grow crops around the greenhouse, including barley and salad rocket (arugula), as well as useful desert plants
  • The pilot plant accentuated this exterior cooling with more “evaporative hedges” that reduced air temperatures by up to 10°C.
  • The Future
  • The fact that this small greenhouse produced such good yields, suggests that a commercial plant-with possibly four crops a year-could do even better
  • Much larger greenhouses are being looked at to test whether or not this could be a long term solution and how much it would take to grow nearly or as much as the imported foods that could be grown there
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Feeding 9 Billion: Turning the Desert Green – Qatar |Journeyman Pictures
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Desert Farming Experiment Yields First Results | Science/AAAS

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

LADEE Starts to Study the Lunar Atmosphere

  • NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) has descended to its planned low altitude orbit and begun capturing science data on the Moon’s ultra tenuous atmosphere and dust
  • The purpose of LADEE is to collect data that will inform scientists in unprecedented detail about the ultra thin lunar atmosphere, environmental influences on lunar dust and conditions near the surface
  • The Mission
  • The approximately 100 day long mission length is dictated by the residual fuel available for thruster firings.
  • By circling in a very low altitude equatorial orbit, the washing machine sized probe will make frequent passes crossing from lunar day to lunar night
  • This will enable it to precisely measure changes and processes occurring within the moon’s tenuous atmosphere while simultaneously sniffing for uplifted lunar dust in the lunar sky
  • These data will lead to a better understanding of other planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond
  • Maybe Solving a Mystery
  • By studying the raised dust, scientists also hope to solve a 40 year old mystery
  • Why did the Apollo astronauts and early unmanned landers see a glow of rays and streamers at the moon’s horizon stretching high into the lunar sky
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | NASA Ames LADEE Mission Animation: Science Collection / Orbital Variation / Lunar Atmosphere |NASA Ames Research Center
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA\’s LADEE Probe Starts Science Study of Thin Lunar Atmosphere and Dusty Mystery | UniverseToday.com

The Return of Kepler?

<img src=”https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/226xvariable_height/public/kepler-2nd-light_12x12_300_22nov_2.jpg?itok=VdzrPlp-\” width=250 align=right>

  • The Kepler Space telescope may soon start searching the sky again.
  • A new mission concept, dubbed K2, would continue Kepler\’s search for other worlds, and introduce new opportunities to observe star clusters, young and old stars, active galaxies and supernovae
  • Last Time on SciByte
  • SciByte 94 | Kepler & Ancient Water | Kepler’s Last Dance? – May 21, 2013
  • The Original Mission
  • For four years, the space telescope simultaneously and continuously monitored the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, recording a measurement every 30 minutes.
  • In May, the Kepler spacecraft lost the second of four gyroscope-like reaction wheels, which are used to precisely point the spacecraft,
  • Gyroscope Problems
  • The loss of the additional gyroscope ended new data collection for the original mission, which required three functioning wheels to maintain the precision pointing necessary to detect the signal of small Earth-sized exoplanets
  • With the failure of a second reaction wheel, the spacecraft can no longer precisely point at the mission\’s original field of view. The culprit is none other than our own sun which pushes the spacecraft around
  • Pressure is exerted when the photons of sunlight strike the spacecraft
  • Without a third wheel to help counteract the solar pressure, the spacecraft\’s ultra-precise pointing capability cannot be controlled in all directions.
  • A Possible Solution
  • Kepler mission and Ball Aerospace engineers have developed an innovative way of recovering pointing stability by maneuvering the spacecraft so that the solar pressure is evenly distributed across the surfaces of the spacecraft
  • To achieve this level of stability, the orientation of the spacecraft must be nearly parallel to its orbital path around the sun
  • This technique of using the sun as the \’third wheel\’ to control pointing is currently being tested on the spacecraft and early results are already coming in
  • Initial Test
  • During a pointing performance test in late October, a full frame image of the space telescope\’s full field of view was captured showing part of the constellation Sagittarius
  • Photons of light from a distant star field were collected over a 30-minute period and produced an image quality within five percent of the primary mission image quality
  • Additional testing is underway to demonstrate the ability to maintain this level of pointing control for days and weeks.
  • The Future
  • A decision to proceed to the 2014 Senior Review – a biannual assessment of operating missions – and propose for budget to fly K2 is expected by the end of 2013
  • The K2 mission concept has been presented to NASA Headquarters
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • A Sunny Outlook for NASA Kepler\’s Second Light | NASA

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Operations Temporarily Suspended
  • Science observations by NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity were suspended for a few days while engineers ran tests to check possible causes of a voltage change detected on Nov. 17
  • \”The vehicle is safe and stable, fully capable of operating in its present condition, but we are taking the precaution of investigating what may be a soft short,\” said Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager
  • The electrical issue did not cause the rover to enter a safe-mode status, in which most activities automatically cease pending further instructions, and there is no indication the issue is related to a computer reboot that triggered a \”safe-mode\” earlier this month
  • \”Soft Short\”
  • The team detected a change in the voltage difference between the chassis and the 32-volt power bus that distributes electricity to systems throughout the rover, from about 11 volts to about 4
  • The rover\’s electrical system is designed with the flexibility to work properly throughout that range and more, \”floating bus.\”
  • A soft short can cause such a voltage change
  • A \”soft\” short is a leak through something that\’s partially conductive of electricity, rather than a hard short such as one electrical wire contacting another
  • Soft shorts reduce the level of robustness for tolerating other shorts in the future, and they can indicate a possible problem in whichever component is the site of the short
  • Curiosity had already experienced one soft short on landing day in August 2012, that one was related to explosive-release devices used for deployments shortly before and after the landing
  • It lowered the bus-to-chassis voltage from about 16 volts to about 11 volts but has not affected subsequent rover operations
  • Diagnosis and the Cause
  • Analysis determined that the change appeared intermittently three times during the hours before it became persistent
  • The work to determine the cause of the voltage change gained an advantage from an automated response by the rover\’s onboard software when it detected the voltage change
  • The rover stepped up the rate at which it recorded electrical variables, to eight times per second from the usual once per minute, and transmitted that engineering data in its next communication with Earth
  • The likely cause is an internal short in Curiosity\’s power source, the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
  • The short does not affect operation of the power source or the rover
  • Similar generators on other spacecraft, including NASA\’s Cassini at Saturn, have experienced shorts with no loss of capability
  • Testing of another Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator over many years found no loss of capability in the presence of these types of internal shorts
  • In subsequent days, the rover performed diagnostic activities commanded by the team, such as powering on some backup hardware to rule out the possibility of short circuits in certain sensors
  • Early Nov. 23 the rover had returned to its pre-Nov. 17 voltage level, this reversal is consistent with their diagnosis of an internal short in the generator on Nov. 17, and the voltage could change again
  • Return to Science
  • Science operations were suspended for six days while this analysis took priority when the team made a list of potential causes, and then eliminated the possible causes one by one
  • The decision to resume science activities resulted from the success of work to diagnose the likely root cause of the Nov. 17 change in voltage
  • Activities after analysis resumed included the use of Curiosity\’s robotic arm to deliver portions of powdered rock to a laboratory inside the rover
  • The powder has been stored in the arm since the rover collected it by drilling into the target rock \”Cumberland\” six months ago
  • Several portions of the powder have already been analyzed. The laboratory has flexibility for examining duplicate samples in different ways
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Resumes Science After Analysis of Voltage Issue | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Rover Team Working to Diagnose Electrical Issue | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • Mars Rover Curiosity Sidelined by Electrical Glitch | Space.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Dec 03, 1732 : 281 years ago : Artificial respiration : James Blair was rescued from a fire in a coal mine. William Tossach, a Scottish surgeon, found that “there was not the least pulse in either heart or arteries, and not the least breathing could be observed: So that he was in all appearance dead. I applied my mouth close to his, and blowed my breath as strong as I could… I blew again my breath as strong as I could, raising his chest fully with it; and immediately I felt six or seven very quick beats of the heart.”This appears to be the first recorded use of the ventilation technique since it was commented upon by 16th century Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius, who investigated the effect on an animal upon which he had performed a tracheotomy and related ventilation to heart function
  • The technique is believed to have been in use from ancient times, so Tossach was probably not the first to utilize expired air ventilation. However, he left what appear to be the first clinical description of the procedure in the medical literature, which he wrote twelve years later.

Looking up this week

The post Glacial Lava & Artificial Intelligence | SciByte 110 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Resolutions & Martian Meteorite | SciByte 76 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/29861/resolutions-martian-meteorite-scibyte-76/ Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:25:41 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=29861 We take a look at my version of the best and the worst science stories 2012, the science behind a few new years resolutions, IQ scores debunked, and more!

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We take a look at my version of the best and the worst science stories 2012, the science behind a few new years resolutions, IQ scores, a Martian Meteorite, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

“Best” and “Worst” of 2012

  • Retraction | Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos
  • Back in October 2011, CERN researchers timed the roughly 16,000 neutrinos and said that, on average, the neutrinos made the 450 mi [730 km], 2.43-millisecond trip roughly 60 nanoseconds faster than expected if they were traveling at light speed. (~ 0.0025% faster)
  • By February 2012 there were questions about wiring, GPS satellite timing, or missing suspected radiation should they have been FTL
  • The OPERA team later discovered that a loose fiber optic cable had introduced a delay in their timing system that explained the effect
  • A month later they measured the speed of neutrinos fired from CERN and found that they do indeed travel at light speed, as predicted
  • Some OPERA team members thought the whole episode had besmirched the collaboration’s reputation, and in March 2012, two of the team’s elected leaders lost a vote of no confidence and tendered their resignations.
  • Retraction | Hyung-In Moon
  • The Korean scientist Hyung-In Moon took the concept of scientific peer review to a whole new level by reviewing his own papers under various fake names
  • Peer review is a process in which scientific peers in the same field judge the merit of a submitted journal paper
  • The editors at a Medical Journal grew suspicious when four of his glowing reviews came back within 24 hours, when most reviewers take weeks or months to reply
  • Moon’s research, included a study on alcoholic liver disease and another on an anticancer plant substance
  • He admitted to falsifying data in some of his papers, and 35 of his papers were retracted in 2012
  • Retraction | Cell-phone Cancer links
  • Studies proposing a link between cellphone use and cancer often rely on weak statistics.
  • In 2008, scientists published a paper stating that cellphones in standby mode lowered the sperm count and caused other adverse changes in the testicles of rabbits
  • Although small and published in a rather obscure journal, the study made the news rounds.
  • In March 2012, the authors retracted the paper because the lead author didn’t get permission from his two co-authors
  • According to the retraction notice, there was a “lack of evidence to justify the accuracy of the data presented in the article.”
  • Retraction | Failure is Better?
  • Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel claimed that “failure sometimes feels better than success”
  • It now appears that his research is either mostly or completely fabricated
  • So far, 31 papers have been retracted
  • Another one of his studies that is now under suspicion found that meat eaters are more selfish and less social than vegetarians
  • My # 4 Story | Extremes
  • James Cameron is the first to go alone to Challenger Deep to almost 36,000 feet below sea level, during the Deep Sea Challenge.
  • The Mariana Trench,in the western Pacific Ocean, is deeper than Mount Everest is tall and only two other humans have ever visited it.
  • YouTube | Tiny sub used in James Cameron’s deep sea dive | CNN
  • Apollo 11 & James Cameron | SciByte 40 (April 3, 2012)
  • Felix Baumgartner jumped from a world record 128,100 ft [39,045 m] or just over 24 mi [39 km] and landed in eastern New Mexico on 14 October 2012
  • Baumgartner broke the speed of sound and the record for highest jump that had been set in 1960 by Col. Joe Kittinger
  • YouTube Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall from 128k’ – Mission Highlights | redbull
  • Red Bull Stratos & SpaceX | SciByte 66 (October 9, 2012)
  • My # 3 Story | Dragon Spaceship
  • On 22 May 2012 SpaceX successfully launched the Dragon C2+ with almost 900 pounds of cargo to the international space station in its first official mission in October
  • The pressurized section carried 1,014 pounds [460 kg] of non-critical cargo to the ISS, which included food, water, clothing, cargo bags, computer hardware, the NanoRacks Module 9 (student experiments and scientific gear) and other miscellaneous cargo
  • The vehicle returned with 1,367 pounds [620 kg]
  • On 23 August 2012, NASA announced that SpaceX and their Falcon 9-Dragon system was certified to begin their cargo delivery
  • Their $1.6 billion contract calls for at least 12 resupply missions. The first of those flights was launched on October 7, 2012
  • Mission Highlights: SpaceX’s Dragon Makes History | spacexchannel
  • My # 2 Story | Curiosity Touchdown Confirmed
  • The first-of-it’s-kind landing process included a supersonic parachute and a sky crane that brought the rover to less than 1.5 mi [2.4 km] away from the center of the target landing area
  • Spirit and Opportunity, have found compelling evidence that liquid water once persisted on the surface of Mars
  • With Curiosity scientists hope to determine if other things necessary for life were also present, these building blocks include six elements necessary to all life on Earth: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur.
  • It is also examining the history of the Martian atmosphere, an earlier thicker, wetter atmosphere may have provided better environmental conditions for supporting microbial life in Mars’ early history.
  • Mars Science Laboratory will study the rock and soil record in order to understand the geologic processes that created and modified the martian crust and surface through time. In particular, it would look for evidence of rocks that formed in the presence of water.
  • Curiosity has already found an ancient streambed where water flowed continuously for thousands of years long ago. It has also identified some simple organics on Mars, though researchers aren’t yet sure if the carbon within the molecules is native to the Red Planet.
  • YouTube | Curiosity Has Landed | JPLnews
  • My # 1 Story| Higgs-Boson
  • Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said they used the Large Hadron Collider to detect a particle whose characteristics matched those of the Higgs boson.
  • The Higgs-Boson particle is part of the Higgs field, that is responsible for the mass of all the matter in the universe
  • While we know it is a Boson particle we are still waiting for more details on the characteristics of the particle to confirm it’s the Higgs-BOson
  • More results are expected in March 2013
  • YouTube : The Moment: CERN Scientist Announces Higgs Boson ‘God Particle’ Discovery | linktv
  • YouTube : Peter Higgs rection to the anoucement
  • YouTube : “Peter Higgs’ reaction on the day itself” / Peter Higgs, François Englert | Paul0de0Haas
  • YouTube : Higgs Boson Discovery announcement by Peter Higgs | MuonRay
  • YouTube : The Higgs Boson, Part I | minutephysics
  • YouTube : Higgs Boson ‘God Particle’ – What is it? BBC World News | mangstarrr
  • Social Media
  • DeepSea Challenge @DeepChallenge
  • Red Bull Stratos @RedBullStratos
  • Dragon Spaceship @DragonSpaceship
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • CERN @CERN
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • COTS–2 Press Kit
  • Mars Rover Landing Guru Makes ‘Best of 2012’ List | Space.com

— NEWS BYTE —

New Years Resolutions | Dieting

  • The low down
  • Although cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides and blood sugar all improve with weight loss, with weight regain they all return to pre-diet levels and, in some cases, to even higher levels
  • Maintaining weight loss is just as important as losing weight
  • Even partial weight regain is associated with worsened diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors
  • Significance
  • More than 100 postmenopausal women took part in a five-month weight-loss program study and were continued to br monitor the women for a year
  • During the weight-loss program the women lost an average of 25 pounds
  • After a year, two-thirds of the women had regained at least four pounds, on average regaining about 70 percent of the weight they had lost
  • Women who regained 4.4 pounds or more in the year following the weight-loss intervention had several worsened cardiovascular and diabetes risk factors
  • Women who maintained their weight loss a year later managed to preserve most of the benefits
  • Of Note
  • This study highlights the importance of not just losing weight, but the need to develop effective and enduring strategies so that this weight loss can be successfully maintained long term
  • People should be focusing on being healthy, not skinny,
  • It is important to create strategies for reaching and maintaining a healthy weight throughout their lifetime
  • Start with simple changes such as swapping seltzer or soda, keeping a daily food record, adding a salad to lunch and substituting a second vegetable for half the starch at dinner
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Yo-yo dieting can hurt the heart, study finds | MedicalXPress.com

New Years Resolutions | Exercise

  • The low down
  • Olympic medallists live longer than the general population, regardless of country of origin, medal won, or type of sport played
  • However, those who engage in disciplines with high levels of physical contact, such as boxing, rugby and ice hockey, are at an increased risk of death in later life
  • Life Expectancy
  • Researchers compared life expectancy among 15,174 Olympic athletes who won medals between 1896 and 2010 with general population groups matched by country, sex, and age
  • All medallists lived an average of 2.8 years longer in eight out of the nine country groups studied.
  • Gold, silver and bronze medallists enjoyed roughly the same survival advantage, as did medallists in both endurance and mixed sports
  • Medallists in powersports had a smaller, but still significant, advantage over the general population.
  • While the study was not designed to determine why Olympic athletes live longer, possible explanations include genetic factors, physical activity, healthy lifestyle, and the wealth and status that come from international sporting glory
  • Intensity of Exercise
  • In a second study, researchers measured the effect of high intensity exercise on mortality later in life among former Olympic athletes
  • They tracked 9,889 athletes who took part in at least one Olympic Games between 1896 and 1936 and represented 43 disciplines requiring different levels of exercise intensity and physical contact
  • Two public health experts point out that people who do at least 150 minutes a week [~20min a day] of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity also have a survival advantage compared with the inactive general population
  • They also found that athletes from sports with high cardiovascular intensity (such as cycling and rowing) or moderate cardiovascular intensity (such as gymnastics and tennis) had similar mortality rates compared with athletes from low cardiovascular intensity sports, such as golf or cricket
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Olympians live longer than general population… But cyclists no survival advantage over golfers | MedicalXPress

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

IQ Score is Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

  • The low down
  • After conducting the largest online intelligence study on record a research team has concluded that the notion of measuring one’s intelligence quotient or IQ by a singular, standardized test is highly misleading
  • Significance
  • The study, which included more than 100,000 participants Utilized an online study open to anyone, anywhere in the world
  • The researchers asked respondents to complete 12 cognitive tests tapping memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities, as well as a survey about their background and lifestyle habits.
  • While the team expected a few hundred responses, thousands and thousands of people took part, including people of all ages, cultures and creeds from every corner of the world
  • The results showed that when a wide range of cognitive abilities are explored, the observed variations in performance can only be explained with at least three distinct components: short-term memory, reasoning and a verbal component
  • Of Note
  • Scientists used a brain scanning technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to show that these differences in cognitive ability map onto distinct circuits in the brain.
  • Intriguingly, people who regularly played computer games did perform significantly better in terms of both reasoning and short-term memory
  • Smokers performed poorly on the short-term memory and the verbal factors
  • People who frequently suffer from anxiety performed badly on the short-term memory factor in particular
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Researchers debunk the IQ myth | MedicalXPress.com

— Updates —

Martian Meteorite

  • The low down
  • A rare Martian meteorite recently found in Morocco contains minerals with 10 times more water than previously discovered Mars meteorites
  • The black, baseball-sized stone, which weighs less than 1 pound, is 2.1 billion years old, meaning it formed during what is known as the early Amazonian era in Mars’ geologic history.
  • Officially known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, is the second-oldest of 110 named stones originating from Mars that have been retrieved on Earth
  • This discovery raises new questions about when and how long the planet most like Earth in the solar system had conditions suitable for life
  • Significance
  • Early Mars was believed to be warm and wet, but the planet lost most of its atmosphere and its surface water to become a cold, dry desert that appears today
  • The time from when our meteorite is from is maybe a transitional period in the climate, when Mars was losing its atmosphere, losing its water on the surface
  • The rock is relatively rich in water – about 6,000 parts per million – compared with typical Martian meteorites that contain about 200- to 300 parts per million
  • That’s 10 times more water than other Martian Meteorites
  • It is similar to basaltic rocks on Earth that form in volcanic eruptions
  • NWA 7034, nicknamed “Black Beauty,” also contains tiny bits of carbon, formed from geologic, not biological activity
  • Scientists don’t know why more meteorites like Black Beauty haven’t been found on Earth. + The period of time from which they originated may be relatively short, or most may not survive the trip through Earth’s atmosphere
  • Of Note
  • Because it was so different from other Martian meteorites it took several months to identify, otherwise it would have taken less than a day
  • After the initial battery of tests revealed the rock’s unique nature, meteorite hunters returned to the area where it was found to search for other similar stones
  • Four more pieces, all smaller than the original, have now been found
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Rare Water-Rich Mars Meteorite Discovered : Discovery News | news.discovery.com

– CURIOSITY UPDATE –

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Jan 9, 1998 : 14 years ago : Cosmological Constant : Two teams of international collaborations of scientists announced the discovery that galaxies are accelerating, flying apart at ever faster speeds, by observing distant, ancient exploding stars. This observation – named as Science magazine’s “Breakthrough of the Year for 1998” – implies the existence of a mysterious, self-repelling property of space first proposed by Albert Einstein, which he called the cosmological constant. Researchers in England, France, Germany, and Sweden are among the members of the Supernova Cosmology Project based at Berkeley National Laboratory (headed by Saul Perlmutter) and the High-z Supernova Search Team based in Australia (led by Brian Schmidt).

Looking up this week

The post Resolutions & Martian Meteorite | SciByte 76 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Dinosaurs & Neutrinos | SciByte 50 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/20542/dinosaurs-neutrinos-scibyte-50/ Wed, 13 Jun 2012 06:45:54 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=20542 We take a look at estimating dinosaur weight, pollution data, mosquitos, updates on Venus transit, Neutrinos and more!

The post Dinosaurs & Neutrinos | SciByte 50 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at estimating dinosaur weight, pollution data, exoplanets, mosquitos, Johnson Space Center, Io, updates on Venus transit and Neutrinos, spacecraft updates and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Dino’s on diets?

Image Credit | William Sellers

  • The low down
  • One of the most important things palaeobiologists need to know about fossilised animals is how much they weighed
  • In the past scientists have used several means of estimating dinosaur weight
  • One of those means of estimation include measuring the volume of an artist’s sculpture
  • Scientists have now developed a new technique to accurately measure the weight and size of dinosaurs and discovered they are not as heavy as previously thought.
  • Significance
  • Using lasers scientists have measured the minimum amount of skin required to wrap around the skeletons of modern-day mammals, including reindeer, polar bears, giraffes and elephants
  • This technique showed that the animals had almost exactly 21% more body mass than the minimum skeletal ‘skin and bone’ wrap volume
  • Previous estimates of the giant Brachiosaur weight have varied, with estimates as high as 80 tonnes
  • Applying this approach reduced that figure to just 23 tonnes
  • This calculation method has the advantage of requiring minimal user intervention and is therefore more objective and far quicker
  • This new technique will apply to all dinosaur weight measurements
  • Its primary limitation, for now, is that the specimen should consist of a complete skeleton as possible
  • Of Note
  • In general estimated weights for many species of dinosaur have been dropping since about the early 1960’s
  • The information from these calculations can also be applied to sophisticated locomotor reconstructions, such as the running simulations produced in the past
  • One problem with the technique is that none of the animals used in the laser calibration had the long fleshy tails that dinosaurs have, so this model may be to be altered in the future
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Dinosaurs were lighter than previously thought, new study shows | Phys.org
  • Dinosaurs Skinnier Than Previously Thought | news.Discovery.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Chinese Pollution Data

  • The low down
  • China has said foreign embassies are acting illegally in issuing their own air quality readings and that only the government could release data on the nation’s heavy pollution.
  • China says publishing China’s air quality are related to the public interests and as such are powers reserved for the government
  • According to the latest Environmental Performance Index compiled by Yale University, China ranked 128th out of 132 countries for air quality.
  • Until recently, official air quality measurements from China regularly rated their air quality as good while data from the US embassy in Beijing showed off-the-chart pollution
  • Most Chinese cities base their air-quality information on particles of 10 micrometres or larger
  • Beijing announced earlier this year it would change the way it measured air quality to include the smaller particles experts say make up much of the pollution in Chinese cities, after a vocal campaign
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • China tells US to stop reporting Beijing’s bad air | phys.org
  • China tells embassies to stop issuing pollution data | phys.org

Giant exoplanet imposters?

  • The low down
  • The Kepler spacecraft produces potential exoplanet data by watching for the darkening of a star, but not everything that darkens a star is a planet
  • A new study suggests that there is a one in three chance that it’s not really a planet at all when it’s a giant planet closely orbiting a star
  • Significance
  • Out of Kepler’s more than 2,300 possible planets, only 46 were categorized as very large exoplanets with estimated orbit very close to their star
  • 11 of those systems were already known and the team confirmed 9 more
  • Of the remaining 26 candidates were : 13 unknowns, two failed brown dwarf stars, and 11 members of binary star systems
  • From this the team arrived at the 35 percent false-positive rate
  • While this may seem very significant, scientists don’t consider it a serious flaw for Kepler
  • Even with a 35% false positive rate for very large, closely orbiting exoplanets the percentage is still very low compared to all other transit programs
  • Of Note
  • Short period transiting planets are exotic objects, not expected to be everywhere
  • In addition the false positive rate does not affect any smaller or long orbiting planets
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Some newfound planets are something else | ScienceNews.org

Mosquito



Channel : andrew52987 | Channel : coegatech

  • The low down
  • The collision between a raindrop and a mosquito is analogous to a collision between a human and a bus, except for the part where the mosquito survives
  • Significance
  • What makes the difference is the (relatively) huge, fast drop doesn’t transfer much of its momentum to a little wisp of an insect
  • Instead the falling droplet sweeps the insect along on the downward plunge
  • The drawback is that mosquitoes hitchhiking on water experience acceleration 100 to 300 times the force of Earth’s gravity, so survival is dependent on breaking away before hitting the ground
  • Of Note
  • This effect may inspire engineers designing swarms of tiny flying robots, or interest physicists and mathematicians studying complex fluid dynamics at this scale
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube : Mosquito raindrop BW | andrew52987
  • YouTube : Low Mass Saves Mosquitoes from Death by Raindrop | coegatech
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • How a mosquito survives a raindrop hit | ScienceNews.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Touring NASA’s Johnson Space Center


Image Credit : science.ksc.nasa.gov

  • Of Note
  • NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida has announced that beginning on Friday, June 15 a limited number of daily tours will take guests into the spaceport’s historic Launch Control Center (LCC)
  • This will be the first time in 30 years that the home of 152 countdowns to launch including both Apollo and shuttle programs has been opened to the public
  • The KSC Up-Close: Launch Control Center (LCC) Tour will run through the end of the year. It costs $25 for adults and $19 for children in addition to the regular admission to the visitor complex.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Inside Historic Launch Control Center | Space.com

Jupiter’s moon Io


Image Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech/Bear Fight Institute

  • Of Note
  • A new map of Jupiter’s moon Io has revealed the most comprehensive ever compiled of Io’s hundreds of active volcanoes
  • When studying the layout of the volcanos the distribution of the heat flow is that it is not in keeping with the current preferred model of tidal heating of Io at relatively shallow depths
  • The main thermal emission occurs about 40 degrees eastward of where we would expect with tidal heating
  • In addition that heat comes from Io’s depths along with its shallower reaches
  • The study also found that known active volcanoes account for only about 60 percent of Io’s emitted heat
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Jupiter Moon Io’s Volcanoes Revealed in New Map | Space.com

— Updates —

Additional Venus Transit stories and photo’s

Neutrinos

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Shuttle Enterprise’s last landing

Dragon back on the ground

NASA’s Aquarius measuring ocean salinity

Mars Curiosity Rover


Image Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS

  • Of Note
  • With a scheduled landing of Aug 5 and increased confidence in precision landing technology NASA has narrowed the target for its most advanced Mars rover, Curiosity
  • NASA has narrowed the target for its most advanced Mars rover, Curiosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA Mars Rover Team Aims for Landing Closer to Prime Science Site | jpl.nasa.gov](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012–168)

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • June 13, 1611 : 401 years ago : Sunspots : A publication on the newly discovered phenomenon of sunspots was dedicated. Narratio de maculis in sole observatis et apparente earum cum sole conversione. (“Narration on Spots Observed on the Sun and their Apparent Rotation with the Sun”). This first publication on such observations, was the work of Johannes Fabricius, a Dutch astronomer who was perhaps the first ever to observe sunspots. On 9 Mar 1611, at dawn, Johannes had used his telescope to view the rising sun and had seen several dark spots on it. He called his father to investigate this new phenomenon with him. The brightness of the Sun’s center was very painful, and the two quickly switched to a projection method by means of a camera obscura.
  • June 15 1752 : 260 years ago : Lighting and Kites : In 1752, Franklin published a third-person account of his pioneering kite experiment in the The Pennsylvania Gazette, without mentioning that he himself had performed it It was at a later date that he admited to performing the experiment himself. Evidence shows that he was insulated from the kite, while others trying to repeat the experiment were electrocuted in the following months. The entire process, led to the invention of the lightning rod in September of the same year.

Looking up this week

The post Dinosaurs & Neutrinos | SciByte 50 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Meteorites & Lasers | SciByte 38 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/18136/meteorites-lasers-scibyte-38/ Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:43:26 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=18136 We take a look at more Lego’s into space and near space, Venus transit, a meteorite that crashed through a cabin, guiding lightning with lasers, and more!

The post Meteorites & Lasers | SciByte 38 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at more Lego’s into space and near space, Venus transit, a meteorite that crashed through a cabin, guiding lightning with lasers, updates on Encyclopedia Britannica, near-orbital skydiving, check in on the latest news on Neutrinos and solar storms and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Support the Show:

   

Show Notes:

Legoooo’s in Spaaaace … again

  • *The shuttle *
  • Raul Oaidia from Romania launched a Lego space shuttle into the stratosphere on the back of a weather balloon
  • Lego space shuttle model (set number 3367!) and a video camera to capture the voyage
  • Originally he was looking for someone to support project, found a businessman on twitter, who after discussing options decided that a launching something on a weather balloon
  • Launching in Romania required problematic flight clearance and waiting times, while Germany where his father worked had much looser regulations
  • He and his father traveled to Germany to launch the balloon, since that country’s regulations on this sort of project are more relaxed than those in Romania
  • The balloon lofted Lego shuttle flew to an altitude of about 114,800 ft [35,000 m]
  • Lego’s to Jupiter
  • Specially-constructed LEGO mini-figures are of the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno, and “father of science” Galileo Galilei.
  • Jupiter (who was the equivalent of “Zeus” to the Greeks) drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. While Juno was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter’s true nature
  • Galileo Galilei first to point a telescope at the sky to make astronomical observations and discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter – named the Galilean moons in his honor.
  • Juno and the mini-figures are scheduled to arrive in July 2016 and orbit Jupiter for a year (33 revolutions) before intentionally crashing into the giant gas planet
  • Made out of space-grade aluminum the figures, basically the size of the normal LEGO figures, were prepared in a very special way
  • * Lego Station*
  • While the actual Space Station (ISS) took more than 200 astronauts from 12 countries more than a dozen years to build an astronaut from Japan, matched that feat in just about two hours, at least in LEGO form
  • The Lego station would not be able to bear it’s own weight under gravity
  • The Lego station was used as a demonstration for a series of recorded videos aimed at engaging and educating children about living and working in space
  • Building Lego’s in space are much harder to put together in space, to keep the bricks contained it had to be put together inside a glove box
  • Because of the difficulty of putting it together in a glove box, some pieces of the model were launched partially-preassembled
  • In space you have to worry about the little pieces getting loose and becoming either lost or potentially getting jammed in equipment or even becoming a flammability hazard
  • There are flammability concerns about the Lego’s; due to the flammability hazards, the toy bricks could only be exposed to the open cabin air for two hours
  • Other building brick sets that were launched last year, the LEGO space station was part of an educational collaboration between the Danish toy company and NASA
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : Lego Space Shuttle
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Lego Space Shuttle Takes Flight, Returns to Earth Undamaged @ PCWorld.com
  • Astronaut Builds LEGO Space Station Inside Real-Life Space Station
  • What would you like to see in space? @ microblade.blogspot.com

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Venus Transit

  • The low down
  • Transits of Venus are when it passes in between the Earth and the sun and are among the rarest of planetary alignments
  • Between each occurrence is happens at uneven occurrences at 121.5, then 8 then 105.5, then 8 years again. So only four times every 243 years and only in early Dec or early June
  • Only six Venus transits have occurred since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874
  • The last transit occurred in 2004
  • Observations
  • Your location north or south on Earth slightly affects the apparent path you see Venus taking south or north across the Sun
  • The transit this year will last about 6.5 hours and will be visible from more than half of the Earth’s surface; northwestern North America, Hawaii, the western Pacific, northern Asia, Japan, Korea, eastern China, Philippines, eastern Australia, and New Zealand.
  • The Sun will set while the transit is still in progress from most of North America, the Caribbean, and northwest South America
  • It will also already be in progress at sunrise for observers in central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and eastern Africa
  • No portion of the transit will be visible from Portugal or southern Spain, western Africa, and the southeastern 2/3 of South America.
  • Significance
  • Edmund Halley first realized that transits of Venus could be used to measure the Sun’s distance which established the absolute scale of the solar system from Kepler’s third law
  • Accurately timing the transit from the surface of the Earth past a certain degree of accuracy due to atmospheric conditions and diffraction
  • The Venus transits in 1761 and 1769 were still able to give Astronomers their first good value for the Sun’s distance.
  • * Of Note*
  • The next pair of Venus transits occur over a century from now on 2117 Dec 11 and 2125 Dec 08.
  • Mercury, the other planet with an orbit between the sun and Earth undergoes transits about 13 or 14 transits of Mercury each century, and fall within several days of 8 May and 10 November
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE : 2012 Venus Transit Map @ skyandtelescope.com
  • IMAGE : A line plotted of the transit as seen from Earth’s center, with Universal Times @ skyandtelescope.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Transit of Venus: June 5–6, 2012 @ skyandtelescope.com
  • 2004 and 2012 Transits of Venus @ nasa.gov

The sky, well a meteorite, fell in Norway right into a cabin

  • The low down
  • Norwegian family arrived at their holiday cabin in Oslo recently for the first time all winter, to discover that a meteorite had apparently fallen through their roof
  • Significance
  • No one is sure when the meteorite actually crashed through the cabin’s roof, because the cabin had been closed during the winter.
  • Although it is thought is may have fallen during a wave of meteor sightings over Norway on March 1
  • The 1.3 pound [585 gram] meteorite was found split in two
  • Cross-section’s of the meteorite show that it contains bits of many different particles that are compressed together
  • Identified as a rare type of breccia meteorite, which is a conglomerate of smaller fragments of minerals
  • These type of meteorites indicates that another, larger meteorite smashed rock on another planet before being propelled into outer space
  • * Of Note*
  • Meteorites rarely fall in populated areas
  • According to Views and News from Norway, only 14 meteorites have been found in the Scandinavian country since 1848
  • Photos and Video of the meteorite in local news site
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Meteorite smashed through Oslo roof @ newsinenglish.no
  • Norwegian Family Finds Meteorite Crashed Through Their Roof
  • Fikk meteorittstein gjennom taket i kolonihagen @ vg.no

Directing lightning with lasers

  • The low down
  • New research has shown that brief bursts of intense laser light can redirect lightning
  • Significance
  • Researchers in France have successfully directed coaxed laboratory-generated lightning into striking the same place, not just twice, but over and over
  • The researchers pulses of laser light, femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) long to create a virtual lightning rod out of a column of ionized gas
  • It has also been confirmed with other experiments that a femtosecond laser could produce an ultra-short filaments of ionized gas that act like electrical guide
  • Further studies revealed that these filaments could function over long distances, potentially greater than 164ft [50 m]
  • The research team sent a laser beam skimming past a spherical electrode to an oppositely charged planar electrode
  • The laser then stripped away the outer electrons from the atoms along its path
  • The resulting plasma filament channeled an electrical discharge from the planar electrode to the spherical one
  • The researchers then added a longer, pointed electrode to their experiment
  • With no laser the discharge obeyed normal rules and always struck the taller, pointed electrode
  • Then researchers used the later the discharge was redirected, following the filaments and striking the spherical electrode instead, even when they turned it on after the initial path of the discharge began to form
  • Multimedia
  • An illustration of how lightning occurs when two streamers meet. @ Wikipedia
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Laser lightning rod: Guiding bursts of electricity with a flash of light @ physorg.com

*— TWO-BYTE NEWS — *

Encyclopaedia Britannica, in print no more

  • The low down
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica has been in print since it was first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768.
  • Significance
  • It was announced on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 that after 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print, instead focusing on its online encyclopedia
  • The President of Encyclopaedia Britannica said “This has to do with the fact that now Britannica sells its digital products to a large number of people.”
  • The final hardcover encyclopedia set is available for sale at Britannica’s website for $1,395.
  • * Of Note*
  • The top year for the printed encyclopedia was 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold
  • just six years later in 1996, that number fell to 40,000
  • The company started exploring digital publishing in the 1970s.
  • The first CD-ROM edition was published in 1989 and a version went online in 1994.
  • They made the contents of the website available for one week
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : Totally Digital: The Encyclopaedia Britannica Now
  • Social Media
  • Encyclo. Britannica@Britannica
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Last entry for Encyclopaedia Britannica book form

Skydiving at the orbital extreme

*— Updates — *

Neutrinos loop back around again

The Sun will not sit quietly

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • March 26, 1859: 153 years ago : Vulcan Discovered? : In 1859, Lescarbault, a French medical doctor and amateur astronomer reported sighting a new planet in an orbit inside that of Mercury which he named Vulcan. He had seen a round black spot on the Sun with a transit time across the solar disk 4 hours 30 minutes. He sent this information and his calculations on the planet’s movements to Jean LeVerrier, France’s most famous astronomer. Le Verrier had already noticed that Mercury had deviated from its orbit. A gravitational pull from Vulcan would fit in nicely with what he was looking for. However, it was not consistently seen again and it is now believed to have been a “rogue asteroid” making a one-time pass close to the sun. [Or this is the non-prime universe and it was destroyed, que Bryan crying out in anguish]
  • March 25, 1970: 42 years ago : Concorde Flew : In 1970, the prototype British-built airplane Concorde 002 made its first supersonic flight (700 mph; 1,127 kph). A few months earlier, the French prototype, Concorde 001, had broken the sound barrier on 1 Oct 1969. Mach 2 was achieved by Concorde 001 on 4 Nov 1970, and by Concorde 002, a few days later on 12 Nov 1970. The combined number of supersonic flights by the two aircraft reached 100 by January of the following year, 1971.

Looking up this week

The post Meteorites & Lasers | SciByte 38 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Neutrinos & Leap Year | SciByte 35 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/17493/neutrinos-leap-year-scibyte-35/ Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:24:58 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=17493 We take a look at the “are they / aren’t they travelling faster than the speed of light” Neutrino’s, the science of leap year, and more!

The post Neutrinos & Leap Year | SciByte 35 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at the “are they / aren’t they travelling faster than the speed of light” Neutrino’s, a Legged Squad support robot that is both awesome and frightening, the science of leap year, tornadoes on the sun, space craft updates and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

*— UPDATE — *

Neutrino News

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Legged Squad Support System (LS3)

*— TWO-BYTE NEWS — *

Science of Leap Year

  • The low down
  • A day, defined by how long it takes for a star to appear in the same place again, is 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.
  • During that time the Earth has moved forward one day in it’s orbit of the sun in order to keep up with this so that the Sun appears the in same place you have to add about 3min 56 seconds, and that’s where 24 hours comes from.
  • Earths orbit is not precisely circular, it is actually a eccentric circle
  • Average Year is 365.242374 days long, that’s 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 12 seconds
  • Significance
  • Adding a day every fours years makes the average 365.25, which gets closer than the calenders 365
  • Leap year are there to keep the calender aligned so that roughly noon on Dec 21 (solstice) the same point on the Earth is tilted towards the sun.
  • To get even closer every 100 years is not a leap year but every 400 years is a leap year.
  • * Of Note*
  • Related to the Year 2000 computer program, many programs would have calculated leap year incorrectly
  • For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Similarly, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be.
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE : Gregorian Calendarleap solstice @ Wikipedia
  • Social Media
  • Twitter Results for [#LeapYear](https://twitter.com/#!/search/leapyear)
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Earth’s Orbit Creates More Than A Leap Year: Orbital Behaviors Also Drive Climate Changes, Ice Ages @ ScienceDaily
  • How could the year 2000 be a leap year when 1900 was not? @ HowStuffWorks.

Solar Tornado

SPACECRAFT UPDATE - Solar Dynamics Observatory

* SPACECRAFT UPDATE - Opportunity*

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Mar 06, 1869 : 143 years ago : Periodic Table : Dmitry Mendeleev published his first version of the periodic table of the elements. He was a Russian chemist who developed the periodic classification of the elements. In his final version of the periodic table (1871) he left gaps, foretelling that they would be filled by elements not then known and predicting the properties of three of those elements. The Periodic Table | SciByte 10 (Aug 3, 2011)
  • Mar 06, 1950 : 62 years ago : Silly Putty : Silly Putty was introduced as a toy by Peter Hodgson, a marketing consultant, who packaged one-ounce portions of the rubber-like material in plastic eggs. It could be stretched, rolled into a bouncing ball, or used to transfer colored ink from newsprint. The original discovery was made in 1943 by James Wright who combined silicone oil and boric acid at the laboratories of General Electric. He was researching methods of making synthetic rubber, but at the time no significant application existed for the material. However, it was passed around as a curiosity. Hodgson saw a sample and realized its potential simply for entertainment and coined its name for marketing it as a toy. Its popularity made him a millionaire.

Looking up this week

The post Neutrinos & Leap Year | SciByte 35 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/15611/moons-here-there-scibyte-28/ Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:27:59 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=15611 We take a look at how not only Exoplanets but exomoons, Lunar minerals, dogs socialization, and what Russia is now saying about Phobos-Grunt!

The post Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at how not only Exoplanets but exomoons, Lunar minerals, dogs socialization, neutrinos, hangovers, Opportunity rover, what Russia is now saying about Phobos-Grunt and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

The Exoplanet and Exomoon News keeps coming

  • The exoplanet low down
  • The Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network (HATNet) Project, one of the goal of the HATNet project is to detect and characterize extrasolar planets using the transit method
  • I believe the HATNet network telescopes are now deployed in : Budapest, Hungary; Arizona; United States, Negev Desert, Israel; New South Wales, Australia; Gamsberg, Namibia; Santiaho, Chile
  • As 2011 ended, there were a total of 716 confirmed exoplanets and 2,326 planetary candidates
  • Four more planets have already been discovered this year, not by Kepler but by a ground based telescope network who has already discovered 29 other extrasolar planets
  • All four are ‘hot Jupiter’ type planers with ‘years’ from 1–5.5 days long. In comparison Mercury takes 88 days.
  • SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program will take a look at the exoplanets discovered by Kepler in the continuing search for alien radio signals
  • Based on early Kepler data, the new estimates for the number of exoplanets have billions of planets in our galaxy alone
  • They now have can now focus on systems with planets
  • * Of Note for Exoplanets*
  • Runs Linux : The ground based exoplanet searching network, HATNet, is controlled by a single Linux PC without human supervision.
  • Data for the HATNet is stored in a MySQL database
  • SETI has even joined in the exoplantest search, and has seen a few ‘interesting’ signals, but are most likely interference from the Earth
  • The exomoon low down
  • Current technology may be able to detect Large Earth-size moons
  • There are currently three different mechanisms that scientist believe would cause an Earth sized moon
  • form together with it’s planet in the accretion disk
  • massive impact, like the theory of our moons formation. Estimates currently say might be as frequent as 1 in 12 could be formed this way and are expected to only contain roughly 4% of the total mass of the planet
  • an Earth sized object would also be captured by a gas giant. Simulations show that around 50% of captured objects would survive
  • Such moons could be detected using the detected wobble of the star, this has already been measured with planets of similar size. There already simulations for trinare stars which could be altered to analyze a sun-planet-moon scenario.
  • The first exoplanets discovered were found around a pulsar, causing cariations in the regular pulsations.
  • Pulsars often beat thousands of times a minute which makes them extremely sensitive to gravitational affects of planets and possibly moons.
  • In the past few years it has become possible for direct imaging of planets, although planets near Earth sized is likely a few fear off, possible upcoming missions may make that possibility a reality.
  • Direct imaging may be no more than a slightly offset center of a dot, or a barely oblong circle indicating a possible moon.
  • * Of Note for exomoons*
  • There are no moons in our own solar system of the necessary size for detection by typically used technology, the largest moon in our solar system (Ganymede) is only 40% the diameter of the Earth
  • Using technology for use on pulsars a planet a mere 0.04% the mass of the Earth has been discovered.
  • The same technology that could be used to detect exomoons could also be used to detect unique data signals that would indicate Saturn-like rings around stars.
  • Significance
  • Each year the technology for discovering exoplanets increases, we are now entering the ability to detect exomoons.
  • The possibilities of seeing details in other solar systems will increase our understand of how solar systems and planets form.
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE : Artist impression of an exomoon orbiting an exoplanet @ universetoday.com
  • IMAGE : Habitable zone depends on the mass and type of star @ physorg.com
  • IMAGE : Habital Exoplanets Catalog @ i.space.com
  • Social Media
  • HEK Project @HEK_Project
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • The Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler
  • Forget Exoplanets. Let’s Talk Exomoons
  • Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network
  • HAT-P–34b – HAT-P–37b: Four Transiting Planets More Massive Than Jupiter Orbiting Moderately Bright Stars
  • Exomoons? Kepler‘s On The Hunt
  • Wanted: Habitable moons
  • The Hunt Is on for Habitable Moons Around Alien Planets
  • Wanted: Habitable Moons
  • Four new exoplanets to start off the new year!
  • First Four Exoplanets of 2012 Discovered
  • Astronomers have discovered the first four exoplanets of 2012
  • Analysis of the First Kepler SETI Observations

Lunar Minerals found

  • The low down
  • When the lunar samples first returned from the Moon there were subjected to rigorous study and considered extremely precious.
  • In the hundreds of pounds of lunar rocks astronauts brought back three minerals were unique to the moon: armalcolite, pyroxferroite and tranquillityite
  • Armalcolite and Pyroxferroite were both found on Earth in the 70’s
  • Tranquillityite had previously been found in certain meteorite, but not naturally on the Earth.
  • Tranquillityite is shaped like tiny needles that have been pounded flat and are unusually small, less than the diameter of the thickest human hair (about 150 micrometers )
  • Tranquillityite develops during the late stages of crystallization of molten rocks in oxygen-poor conditions
  • Significance
  • Tranquillityite has just been found in Australia
  • In fact it has now been found in six widely scattered sites in Western Australia suggests that it might be more common than thought in igneous rocks
  • The identification of all minerals found in the Lunar samples brought back from the Moon during the Apollo program lends credence to the impact theory for the Moons creation
  • * Of Note*
  • It’s not surprising that tranquillityite hasn’t shown up until now as it is unstable over the long term at Earth’s surface
  • In addition tranquillityite can easily be mistaken for another similarly colored mineral
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Third lunar mineral – Tranquillityite found in Western Australia
  • Rare Moon Mineral Found in Australia
  • Rare Moon Mineral Found on Earth
  • Pyroxferroite @ midat.org
  • Armalcolite@ mindat.org

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Dogs know when your not looking

The low down

  • An new study proves what all dog owners already knew
  • The study shows that dogs will follow the gaze of humans, even on television screens, and can recognize when they look to one side or another, not even something primates can do
  • Significance
  • In this study 22 different dog breeds were used, all performed fairly similarly
  • A stranger on a TV screen would say “hi, dog!” in either a high- or low- pitched voice and either looking at the screen or down.
  • In any instance the person would then look at the pot that contains a toy for 5 seconds
  • When the person on the screen avoided eye contact and spoke in a low voice the likely hood that the dogs would look at one pot over the other was a statistical wash
  • When a high pitched-pitched voice was used the dog looked at the person on the screen 69% of the time.
  • Future studies could compare different dog breeds and various ages with each other as the next stage in the experiment
  • The results from this study were also nearly identical to those seen in 6-month-old human infants
  • Some researchers even say that dog social skill can reach the level of a two-year-old human, missing only language
  • In another study done in 1994 a 19-year-old apprentice working at a chimpanzee center was assisting in a study on primate behavior that he claimed his dog did. he was told to prove it
  • He devised a simple experiment in his garage hid treats under cups when a dog wasn’t looking then either pointed or simply looked at the cup containing the treat
  • * Of Note*
  • In studies analyzing the ability to follow a person’s pointing finger or the direction of his gaze, dogs perform better than primates
  • However dogs are less likely to inhibit a learned response than primates
  • There are research teams that suspect that horses and domesticated cats may also be able to read human intent, since they too have lived closely with us for many years.
  • Both children and animals are more likely to respond to a high-pitched voice, which explains why we naturally tend to ‘baby-talk’ animals and young children
  • This experiment also gives you a scientific excuse to do this the next time you get funny looks from people
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • In the Eyes of a Dog
  • Can dogs tell when we’re talking to them?
  • Dogged
  • Dogs read our intent too: study @ PhysOrg.com
  • Can Dogs Read Minds? Not Exactly @ DiscoveryNews.com
  • How Specific Are The Social Skills of Dogs? @ scienceblogs.com
  • Monday Pets: Biological Evidence That Dog is Man’s Best Friend @ ScientificAmerican.com

Neutrinos strike again!

The low down

  • Physicists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing now argue that Neutrino’s could not travel faster than the speed of light, as it would not only mess up Einstein’s theory of special relativity, but also the last of conservation of energy and momentum
  • Significance
  • Both studies claim that the particles, called pions, could not possibly have had enough energy to give rise to the faster-than-light, or superluminal, speeds indicated by OPERA.
  • The new team of physicists calculate that achieving the velocities measured required pions with energies 20 times greater than their offspring
  • The team says that the IceCube detector at the South Pole has measured these neutrinos to energies more than 10,000 times as high as OPERA’s neutrinos
  • They also say with a neutrinos near zero, but not zero, mass there should be a limit to how fast they can travel.
  • Social Media
  • Alcoholics Anonymous @AlcoholicsAnony
  • * Of Note*
  • One Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist has said that results are not impossible but if they turn out to be accurate "I would say to Nature, ‘You win.’ Then I’d give up, and I’d retire.”
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : Science in Action: Fast Neutrinos
  • Social Media
  • CERN @CERN
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Neutrino parents call into question faster-than-light results @ ScienceNews.com
  • Pions don’t want to decay into faster-than-light neutrinos, study finds @ news.wustl.edu

The anti-alcohol drug that lessens hangovers too?

The low down

  • Scientists have been surveying herbal compounds that supposedly have reduced alcohol affects
  • Once such candidate was from the seeds of the Asian tree Hovenia dulcis, first said to be an excellent handover drug in 659 [That’s 1,352 years ago]
  • The team of scientists focused on one ingredient of the Hovenia dulcis tree, called dihydromyricetin, or DHM, on rats, which responds to alcohol in similar ways as humans
  • Significance
  • Rats given the equivalent of 15–20 beers in under two hours tolerated the alcohol better, with a stupor lasting around an hour, with DHM the stupor lasted only 15 minutes
  • A dose of DHM also helped ease hangover symptoms, reducing anxiety and susceptibility to seizures
  • Althought these results are promising, it still won’t allow you to drink like you were breathing air, as alcohol has many affects on the brain and DHM seems to only curb some of these affects
  • * Of Note*
  • The most promising result is that rats given access to alcohol gradually start consuming more, while rats drinking DHM-laced alcohol did not increase consumption
  • This seems to indicate that DHM might be a promising weapon to use against Alcohol addiction
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Drug gives rats booze-guzzling superpowers @ ScienceNews.com
  • Herbal drug reduces the effects of alcohol @ Medicalxpress.com

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Opportunity Rover gets ready for hibernation

The low down

Phobos-grunt round 342

* Last time on SciByte*

  • SciByte 27 (Jan 5)
  • SciByte 23 (Nov 30)
  • SciByte 21 (Nov 15)
  • SciByte 20 (Nov 8)
  • The low down
  • Phobos-grunt is currently projected to land on Sunday, January the 15th
  • After 19 attempts over 51 years, Russia has yet to have a fully successful mission to Mars.
  • Also one of five high-profile failures for the Russian space program in 2011.
  • The Russian chief of the Russian space program has hinted that the recent unlucky Russian space program may be the fault of ‘foreign power’
  • Significance
  • The last Russian Program Chief was fired after three navigation satellites were lost during launch
  • Russian Space Program Chief says that the vessels setbacks have occurred flying through Russia’s blind spot where they can not see or receive telemetry readings
  • The current Program Chief does admit that the mission was risky and underfunded, with original designs date back to the Soviet Union
  • He also admits that the launch window was limited and if they didn’t launch during the window, they would have to write off $160 million / 125.5 million Euro’s / five billion rubles
  • * Of Note*
  • This won’t be the first time that the Alaskan radar station, last November it was blamed for the failure of the Phobos-Grunt by un-named retired Russian General (previously in charge of Russia’s early warning system)
  • HAARP does perform active and passive radar experiments on the ionosphere
  • However, personnel at HAARP said a full-power blast would have kissed the Phobos-Grunt rocket with the equivalent of pointing a 60-watt light bulb at it from about 69 feet away. [about 1.03 milliwatts of radio energy per square centimeter ]
  • One communications satellite that failed, broke into fragments and a 20inch [5-centimeter] fragment crashed into a house in the Novosibirsk region of Siberai, ironically on Cosmonaut Street.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • [Russia hints at foul play in its space failures @ PhysOrg.com(https://www.physorg.com/news/2012–01-russia-hints-foul-space-failures.html)
  • Russian Space Failures May Be Result of Foul Play, Official Says @ Space.com
  • Alaska’s HAARP project blamed for Russian space probe’s failure @ AlaskaDispatch.com
  • Off the Beam: Did a U.S. Radar Research Station Disable Russia’s Phobos Probe? @ ScientificAmerican
  • The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) main websites

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Jan 11, 1922 – 89 years ago – Diabetics live : Before 1922 diabetes typically resulted in death withing months or even days or weeks of a diagnoses. On Jan 11, 1922 a 14 year old, Leonard Thompson, was the first person to receive an injection of insulin. At a mere 65 pounds [29.5kg] and about to slip into a coma he was in desperate need of treatment. Although the first dose had some impurities that led to an allergic reaction further purified injections caused his symptoms to disappear when his blood sugar levels returned to a normal level.
  • Jan 12, 1984 – 27 years ago – Restoring the Pyramids : In the early 1980’s severe signs of decay were seen some of the oldest man-made structures on earth, the Great Pyramids in Egypt. Originally the restoration crews used modern cement to restore the structures and Sphinx was successfully restored. However, the water in modern cement and mortar was causing the adjacent limestone in the pyramids to split. An international panel convened and decided, on Jan 12, that after years of frustration the restoration teams working on the pyramids would start useing the same methods used to create the pyramids to finish restoration. After the switch to ancient techniques restoration continued smoothly
  • Jan 14, 2005 – 6 years ago – Welcome to Titan : The Huygens spacecraft was released from the Cassini spacecraft landed on On January 14, 2005. The pictures is showed on the way down showed pictures which strongly resembled drainage channels, shorelines, and flodded regions. The lander continued to send data for 90 minutes after landing and remains the most distant landing of any man-mane craft.

Looking up this week

You might have seen …

  • Although there was a coronal mass ejection that was once thought to be headed towards the Earth, it was later predicted to only have a glancing blow. Although no increased auroras were seed there were surges in the ground currents in northern Norway

Keep an eye out for …

  • Fri, Jan 12–14 : Mars is near the waning moon before and during dawn

  • Jan 16 : Last Quarter Moon

  • The southern hemisphere should, Keep an eye out for …

  • Jan 14 : Mars is below and to the right of the Mood

  • Jan 16 : Last Quarter Moon

  • Jan 17 : Saturn will be below ant to the left of the Moon, also the star Spica will be to the upper left of the Moon

More on whats in the sky this week

The post Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Spacecraft Updates | SciByte 23 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/14486/spacecraft-updates-scibyte-23/ Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:28:59 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=14486 Find out the latest on Russia’s failed attempt to reach Mars, NASA’s new mission, and we’ll update you on the biggest stories of the month!

The post Spacecraft Updates | SciByte 23 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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Find out the latest on Russia’s failed attempt to reach Mars, NASA’s new mission, and we’ll update you on the biggest stories of the month, including a few updates that could have huge impacts for physics!

Too much out there is just plain distraction, why can’t we have our cake and eat it too? There are a lot of interesting things going on out there in science, but getting to the interesting bits without all the hype you get from major media outlets is a trick we at Jupiter Broadcasting are hoping to pull off.

SciByte will provide you with a treasure trove of small talk for your next cocktail party, the knowledge to show off to friends and family, and provide you the means, with the help of our trusty show notes, to further investigate the things that interest you the most.

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MP3 Download | Ogg Download | HD Download | Large Download | Mobile Download | YouTube

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Phobos-Grunt : Update

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity” Rover : Updates and more

YU55, the molten asteroid : Update

Faster than light Neutrinos : Update

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Super Saturnian storm

Gumby-Bot

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Dec 04, 1819 : 192 years ago : Watermarking – A triple paper was patented in Britain by Sir William Congreve that could incorporate a colored watermark visible when the paper was held up to the light, to make currency harder to counterfeit
  • Dec 6, 1830 : 181 years ago : US Navel Observatory – One of the oldest scientific agencies in the U.S., was established as the Depot of Charts and Instruments in Washington, D.C. Its primary mission was to care for the U.S. Navy’s chronometers, charts and other navigational equipment.
  • Dec 6, 1850 : 161 years ago : Ophthalmoscope – Hermann von Helmholtz announced his invention, the ophthalmoscope, to the Berlin Physical Society. It revolutionized ophthalmology, enabling a view inside a person’s eye to see the details of the living retina, diagnose eye diseases and prevent blindness. Ophthalmoscope Retina from Ophthalmoscope
  • Dec 06, 1945 : 66 years ago : Microwave Oven – The microwave oven was patented.
  • Nov 30, 1954 : 57 years ago : The Sky WAS Falling – In Alabama, USA, Ann Hodges, was bruised on the arm and hip by a meteorite that fell through the roof of her house, smashed the case of her wooden radio and struck her as she lay resting on her sofa. The meteor made a fireball visible from three states, even though it fell early in the afternoon Image Image Image of Meteorite
  • Dec 01, 1997 : 14 years ago : Planets align – Eight planets from our Solar System lined up from West to East beginning with Pluto, followed by Mercury, Mars, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn, with a crescent moon alongside that lasted until Dec 8. The planets also aligned in May 2000, but too close to the sun to be visible from Earth. It will be at least another 100 years before so many planets will be so close and so visible.IMAGE

Looking up this week

  • Keep an eye out for …

  • All this week during dawn hours, Saturn and Spica remain 5 degrees apart all this week, or about half the width of your fist held at arm’s length. IMAGE

  • Friday, Dec 2nd : Moon hits first quarter IMAGE

  • Monday, Dec 5th : Jupiter will be to the lower left of the Moon at nightfall. Only the Moon and Venus outshine it.

  • More on whats in the sky this week

  • Sky&Telescope

  • AstronomyNow

  • SpaceWeather.com

  • HeavensAbove

  • StarDate.org

The post Spacecraft Updates | SciByte 23 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Neutrinos & Tatooine | SciByte 17 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/12956/neutrinos-tatooine-scibyte-17/ Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:02:16 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=12956 We take a look at the so called ‘Tatooine’ planet that hit the news recently, some updates on the supposedly faster than light neutrinos, and much more!

The post Neutrinos & Tatooine | SciByte 17 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at the so called ‘Tatooine’ planet that hit the news recently, some updates on the supposedly faster than light neutrinos, new underwater invisibility cloak technology, maps, Mercury, Tsunami tech, and even take a peek at what’s up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download

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Show Notes:

Why did we bring SciByte back?

Chris:

  • Too much out there is just plain distraction, why can’t we have our cake and eat it too? This is an important mission for us at Jupiter Broadcasting. We don’t want to offer only entertainment, but also information, news, and other things that just make you a treasure trove of small talk at your next cocktail party!
  • I almost see it as a public service too, this stuff is important and it impacts our entire universe!

Heather:

  • There are a lot of interesting things going on out there in science, but getting to the interesting bits without all the hype you get from major media outlets is a trick we are hoping to pull off.
  • The whole scientific method is about investigation and acquiring new knowledge to add to or correct old knowledge. We’ll provide you with enough knowledge to show off to friends and family and provide you the means, with the help of our trusty show notes, to further investigate the things that interest you the most.
“Tatooine” Planet

Faster than light Neutrinos

——————————————- News Byte ———————————————————

Functional Invisibility cloak! using mirage effect underwater

Error in Greenland Ice Map

Planet Mercury Full of Strange Surprises

  • The low down
    • The Messenger Spacecraft orbiting Mercury has completed it’s first Mercury day of orbit
    • That’s 176 Earth days, while Mercury’s years is a mere 88 Earth Days, that’s 2 years / day
    • The first 6 months of data was released including information on magnetic field, Mercury’s
      tenuous exoshpere, and surface composition
    • The surface composition of Mercury is different the other inner rocky planets
    • there are huge expanses of volcanic plain in the surrounding the noNorthern polar region
    • Evidence suggests that it formed during a different time than the other inner planets
    • There are also substantially hier amounts of sulfur and potassium than predicted (both vaporize at high temperatures, so extreme high-temperature events in it’s past are ruled out)
    • Scientists have also discovered vents, measuring up to 25 kilometers (km) (15.5 miles) in length, that appear to be the source of some of the tremendous volumes of very hot lava that have rushed out over the surface
  • Mercury has a weak magnetic field
  • Multimedia
  • Social Media
  • Further Reading / In the News
Japans Answer to another Tsunami mini Noah’s Arks?

The complete Astronaut Dad comic revealed at New York Comic-con
  • A graphic novel that tells a moving, fictional story about a group of backup astronauts in the early 1960s, and the complicated relationships they have with their families.

——————————————–Science Calender——————————————————

Looking back this week
Looking up this week
  • Keep an eye out for
    • This month Saturn sets just before Jupiter rises, and Venus is moving from the morning sky before dawn to the evening sky.
    • This month Jupiter is in opposition (opposite the sun to us), but it makes for good observations
    • Jupiter is roughly 45° up in the late evening skies to the East (height depends on where you are and what time your observing)
    • In the Pre-Dawn hours of the 20–22 you can see the Waning Moon in the SE about half way up the sky, along with the planet Mars
    • You might also be able to see a few Orionid metoers later this week in the SE skies as they peak in the Early morning hours of Saturday Oct 22, waiting till just after midnight might get you rates of up to 25 meteors per hour ( ~ 1/ 2.5 min )
    • The ROSAT X-ray observatory, launched in 1990 by NASA and managed for years by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere within the next two weeks. Current best estimates place the re-entry between Oct. 21st and 24th over an unknown part of Earth. (A Day before re-entry the estimate will be +/- 5 hours)
    • ROSAT re-entry page
    • Check the links for more information and updates, when and where you can see satellites going over head and even ongoing data updates on the chances of Aurora where you live
  • More on whats in the sky this week

The post Neutrinos & Tatooine | SciByte 17 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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