Mayan prediction for end of the world?

_{YouTube channels : NationalGeographic | AP}

• Thanks for making sure I saw this story Michael Henriques
• 6 Maya Apocalypse Myths Debunked
• Magnetic Flip : while magnetic evidence in rocks confirms that continents have undergone such drastic rearrangement, the process took millions of years slow enough that humanity wouldn’t have felt the motion
• Planet X crash : if there were a ( planet / brown dwarf / etc ) that was going to be in the inner solar system three years from now, astronomers would have been studying it, and it would be visible to the naked eye by now
• Galactic Alignment : some worry the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of our galaxy, but there is no alignment in 2012. A type of “alignment” occurs during every winter solstice, when the sun, as seen from Earth, appears in the sky near what looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way.
• End of Calendar : During the 2012 winter solstice, time runs out on the current era of the Long Count calendar, which began on what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period
• Sun to Savage Earth : While the sun isn’t always on schedule; the peak of solar activity this cycle probably won’t happen for a year or two
• Predictions Calendar : The Maya did pass down a graphic end-of-the-world scenario, it was undated
• The low down
• Just 6 square miles (16 square kilometers) of jungle floor the Mayan city now known as Xultun was first discovered in 1915 in northeast Guatemala, and less than 0.1 percent of the city has been explored to date
• Looters damaged much of the ancient city in the 1970s losing much of historical significance; archaeologists still don’t even know how far the boundaries of the town extend.
• In 2010, archeologists (from Boston University) were mapping the city when one undergraduate student while looking into an old trench dug by looters, reported seeing traces of faint red and black lines of ancient paint.
• Paint doesn’t preserve well in the rain forest climate of Guatemala, so it was assumed the find would not yield much information
• In the end the professor decided he should excavate the room looters had tried to reach if only to be able to report the size of the structure along with the paint finding.
• The Murals
• They were shocked to run into a 1,200-year-old 6×6 foot room with a brilliantly painted portrait: a Mayan king, sitting on his throne, wearing a red crown with blue feathers flowing out behind him.
• Other figures in the room are three loincloth-clad figures sit, wearing feathered headdresses and a man painted in brilliant orange wearing jade bracelets reaches out with a stylus
• Unfortunately the name of the king pictured in the mural room has been lost, but the scribe and king are referred to as Older/Senior & Younger/Junior Obsidian
• In front of the mural of the king talking to a kneeling attendant is a plaster bench that resembles those used by Mayan rulers at royal court meetings
• The murals only survived, because, instead of collapsing the room, Mayan engineers filled it with rubble and then built on top of it.
• The Calendars
• Along the north and east walls of the room researchers noticed several barely visible hieroglyphic texts, painted and etched
• The team scanned all of the paintings and numbers, digitally stitched them together, the images were then sent the images to a epigrapher who specializes in studying Maya inscriptions
• Analysis revealed that at least five of the numerical columns were topped by hieroglyphs that Maya scribes once used to record lunar data
• The numbers on the wall were calculations that scribes could refer to, much like those in the back of textbooks, to help them track vast amounts of time
• The books the scribe would have written using these references would have been filled with elaborate calculations intended to predict the city’s fortunes.
• The calendars mentioned are the 260-day ceremonial calendar, the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus and the 780-day cycle of Mars.
• Symbols of gods head the top of each lunar cycle, suggesting that each cycle had its own patron deity.
• Near the calendars is a “ring number”-something previously known only from much later Maya books, where it was used as part of a backward calculation in establishing a base date for planetary cycles.
• These newly discovered astronomical tables are 600 years older than the previous known examples.
• The markings also suggest dates more than 7,000 thousand years in the future
• Of Note
• Until now, Maya astronomical tables were known from bark-paper books, the ‘Dresden Codex,’ created 400 years or more after the ancient civilization’s demise
• Researchers believe that both these calculations and the ‘Dresden Codex’ came from earlier books that long ago rotted away
• This room was likely the ancient workroom of a Maya scribe, a record-keeper of Xultún
• This space is where someone important was living, this important household of the noble class, and here you also have a mathematician working in that space which shows how closely those roles were connected in Mayan society
• It is likely that this type of room exists at every Maya site in certain periods of the Mayan civilization, but it’s currently the only example thus far
• Multimedia
• YouTube VIDEO : Mysterious Maya Calendar & Mural Uncovered | NationalGeographic
• YouTube VIDEO : Doomsday Delayed? New Maya Calendar Unearthed | AP
• VIDEO : History News: Mysterious Maya Calendar & Mural Uncovered | nationalgeographic.com
• VIDEO : Explorers Journal | nationalgeographic.com (vimeo)
• IMAGES : New Maya Mural, Calendars Debunk 2012 Myth | nationalgeographic.com
• IMAGE : Calender | LiveScience.com
• IMAGE GALLERY : Maya Murals: Stunning Images of King & Calendar
• Further Reading / In the News
• Ancient Maya Astronomical Tables from Xultun, Guatemala | sciencemag.org
• Painted ancient Maya numbers reflect calendar reaching well beyond 2012 (w/ Video) | phys.org
• Looting Leads Archaeologists to Oldest Known Mayan Calendar | news.sciencemag.org
• Nevermind the Apocalypse: Earliest Mayan Calendar Found | news.discovery.com
• Mayan Ruins Describe Dates Beyond 2012 ‘Doomsday’ | news.discovery.com
• Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 “Doomsday” Myth | nationalgeographic.com
• 2012 Pictures: 6 Maya Apocalypse Myths Debunked | nationalgeographic.com
• End of the World Averted: New Archeological Find Proves Mayan Calendar Doesn’t End | universetoday.com
• Painted ancient Maya numbers reflect calendar reaching well beyond 2012 (w/ Video) | phys.org
• Maya wall calendar discovered | ScienceNews.org

*— NEWS BYTE — *

A breathalyzer that does more than find out how much you’ve had to drink

_{Credit: YouTube Channel VideoNSF}

• The low down
• Blow into the Single Breath Disease Diagnostics Breathalyzer, and you get tested for a biomarker, a sign of disease
• The unit is about half the size of your typical shoe box and weighs less than one pound
• Lights on top of the box will give you an instant readout
• Green light means you pass (bad breath is not indicative of an underlying disease; perhaps it’s just a result of the raw onions you ingested recently)
• Red light means you might need to take a trip to the doctor’s office to check if something more serious is an issue.
• Significance
• Inside is a sensor chip that is coated with tiny nanowires that look like microscopic spaghetti and are able to detect minute amounts of chemical compounds in the breath
• The nanowires enable the sensor to detect just a few molecules of the disease marker gas in a ‘sea’ of billions of molecules of other compounds that the breath consists of
• The nanowires can be rigged to detect infectious viruses and microbes like Salmonella, E. coli or even anthrax
• Of Note
• Individual tests such as an acetone-detecting breathalyzer for monitoring diabetes and an ammonia-detecting breathalyzer to determine when to end a home-based hemodialysis treatment–are still being evaluated clinically now
• Researchers envision developing the technology so that a number of these tests can be performed with a single device
• It might be possible self-detect a whole range of diseases and disorders, including lung cancer, by just exhaling into a handheld breathalyzer.
• Multimedia
• YouTube : Science Nation – This Breathalyzer Reveals Signs of Disease | VideoNSF
• Further Reading / In the News
• This breathalyzer reveals signs of disease (w/ Video) | cdn.physorg.com

—TWO-BYTE NEWS—

New cancer research

• Cancer Inhibitor
• Bowman-Birk Protease Inhibitor (BBI), has shown promise for preventing certain forms of cancer in clinical trials.
• BBI is derived from the large amounts of soybeans in traditional Japanese diets might underpin low cancer mortality rates in Japan
• The current method of extracting BBI from soybeans is time-consuming and involves harsh chemicals
• Scientists have now found that soybean seeds incubated in water at 122 degrees Fahrenheit naturally release large amounts of BBI that can easily be harvested from the water
• The protein appeared to be active, with tests showing that it stopped breast cancer cells from dividing in a laboratory dish.
• Surviving chemotherapy
• Some cancers are resistant to chemotherapy because they harbor an overactive gene called MGMT, which repairs the cancer cells after chemotherapy damages them.
• To counteract the gene, physicians sometimes add an MGMT-blocking drug, benzylguanine, but is also makes healthy blood and bone marrow cells easy to kill.
• Scientists wondered what would happen if healthy cells had mutated version of MGMT called P140K
• Researchers inserted the P140K gene into the patient’s blood stem cells in bone marrow
• Immediately after a chemotherapy session the team infused the tweaked stem cells back into each patient.
• Within weeks, the stem cells had developed into mature blood and marrow cells, with 40% to 60% of them carrying the mutated gene.
• The chemoresistant healthy cells helped patients undergo the benzylguanine treatments
• Further Reading / In the News
• Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance | phys.org
• A Shield Against Chemotherapy | news.sciencemag.org

M2-F2 lifting body crash of 1967

• The low down
• A Lifting body is a fixed wing aircraft that is designed so that it produces its own lift, where a flying wing has no fuselage a lifting body does
• On May 10, 1967, the NASA lifting body M2-F2 launched
• When attempting roll maneuvers the craft unfortunately had a soft feel, which caused the pilot to overcompensate trying to bring the plane under control
• This lead to “Pilot induced oscillations”, and while the pilot did eventually get control, the aircraft crashed when the pilot saw a rescue helicopter that seemed to pose a collision threat
• While trying to land in a lakebed, altitude was very hard to judge and the aircraft hit the ground before the landing gear was fully deployed and locked
• The pilot actually survived and recovered from the crash, but lost vision in his right eye due to infection
• Significance
• Portions of the video from that flight from the ground video of the oscillations and the pilot camera were seen in the TV movie The Six Million Dollar Man
• A brief shot of a later HL–10 model was also seen as it released from its carrier plane
• Of Note
• The M2-F2, was reborn as the M2-F3, and was later given to Smithsonian Air and Space Museum You can see it hanging there now.
• Multimedia
• YouTube VIDEO : M2-F2 03 | knightwizz
• YouTube VIDEO : The Six Million Dollar Man TV Intro | The1970sChannel
• Further Reading / In the News
• A Crash Made Famous on TV | blog.nasm.si.edu

Light from another planet

• The low down
• In 2004, scientists discovered one of the first known stars to host an extrasolar planet, 55 Cancri, via radial velocity measurements
• Infrared light from ’Hot Jupiters" has been seen from Spitzer, Hubble and Kepler telescopes
• Spitzer became the first telescope to detect light from a planet beyond our solar system, when it saw the infrared light of a “hot Jupiter
• When a telescope gazes at a star as a planet circles behind it, the planet disappears from view, the light from the star system dips ever so slightly, but enough that astronomers can determine how much light came from the planet itself
• The information does however reveal the temperature of a planet, and, in some cases, its atmospheric components
• Other current planet-hunting methods obtain indirect measurements of a planet by observing its effects on the star.
• Now for the first time that same method has been used to detect light from a “SuperEarth”
• At about 8.57 Earth masses Cancri e is tidally locked, so one side always faces the star
• It was a radius 1.63 times that of Earth, a density is 10.9 ± 3.1 g cm–3 (the average density of Earth is 5.5 g cm–3)
• Further Reading / In the News
• Light From a ‘SuperEarth’ Detected for the First Time | universetoday.com

Eye see you

• The low down
• A handheld computer processes images from a video camera that sits on specialized goggles.
• Lasers using infrared light inside the goggles send that information to photovoltaic chips implanted in the eye, one-third as thin as a strand of hair
• Electric currents from the photodiodes on the chip would then trigger signals in the retina, which then flow to the brain, enabling a patient to regain vision.
• Scientists tested the process in rat retinas in vitro and how they elicited electric responses, which are widely accepted indicators of visual activity, from retinal cells
• They are now testing the system in live rats, taking both physiological and behavioral measurements
• There are several other retinal prostheses being developed, and at least two of them are in clinical trials.
• Those devices require coils, cables or antennas inside the eye to deliver power and information to the retinal implant
• This new device uses near-infrared light to transmit images, thereby avoiding any need for wires and cables, and making the device thin and easily implantable
• Further Reading / In the News
• Solar-panel-like retinal prosthesis could better restore sight to blind | phys.org
• Retinal implants could restore partial vision | sciencenews.org

The water of Earth

• The low down
• Although oceans of water cover about 70 percent of Earth’s surface, these oceans are shallow compared to the Earth’s radius
• This illustration shows what would happen is all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball
• Further Reading / Media
• All the Water on Planet Earth | Astronomy Picture of the Day; nasa.gov

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Opportunity Rover

_{Credit: marsrover.nasa.gov}

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Solar Storms & Private Space Flight | SciByte 30 (Jan 24, 2012) – Opportunity Rover
• Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 (Jan 10, 2012) – Opportunity Rover gets ready for hibernation
• The low down
• On Dec. 26, 2011 Opportunity rover was parked on a northward tilt of about 15 degrees so it would be angled toward the winter sun low in the northern sky during the Martian winter
• While stationary it used the spectrometers and microscopic imager on its robotic arm to inspect more than a dozen targets within reach on the outcrop
• In addition radio Doppler signals from the stationary rover during the winter months served an investigation of the interior of Mars by providing precise information about the planet’s rotation
• Significance
• On May 8, 2012 NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity drove about 12 feet (3.67 meters)
• Scientists plan to look back at it’s winter resting location with its panoramic camera to acquire multi-filter imaging of the surface targets it studied on Greeley Haven.
• The rover team will also check that the power supply still looks sufficient with the rover at a reduced tilt.
• The next goal is a few meters farther north on Cape York, at a bright-looking patch of what may be dust, since the scientists haven’t been able to see much dust in Meridiani, they are looking forward to investigating it
• Of Note
• Unfortunately unless wind removes some dust from Opportunity’s solar array, allowing more sunlight to reach the solar cells, the rover will need to work during the next few weeks at locations with no southward slope
• The rover used its rear hazard-avoidance camera after nearly completing the May 8 drive, capturing the view looking back at the Greeley Haven.
• Multimedia
• Opportunity: All 167,448 Raw Images | marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
• [Press Release Images: Opportunity | marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov](+ [Press Release Images: Opportunity | marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov)
• IMAGE : Opportunity rear hazard-avoidance camera May 8, 2012 | marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
• Social Media
• Spirit and Oppy @MarsRovers
• Further Reading / In the News
• Opportunity Rolling Again After Fifth Mars Winter | marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
• Opportunity rover rolling again after fifth Mars winter | phys.org
• MarsQuest Online

Curiosity Rover

• Last time on SciByte
• Spacecraft Updates | SciByte 23 – NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity” Rover : Updates and more[November 30, 2011]
• Curiosity Rover | SciByte 22 – NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity” Rover [November 22, 2011]
• The low down
• Curiosity rover is on it’s way to Mars but it can still send home photo’s of itself
• The image above was taken by the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on April 20
• The color image was planned and was used to confirm that MAHLI is operating as it should
• Visible are two green dots (reflections of the camera’s LED lights),
• Visible are reflections of the camera’s LED lights (two green dots), out-of-focus cables
• Social Media
• Vote for the Curiosity Rover to Become a LEGO Toy
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Curiosity’s Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) Acquires Test Image En Route to Mars | NASA.gov
• Take a peek inside Curiosity’s shell | phys.org
• Where is Curiosity Now? | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SpaceX Dragon

_{Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems}

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Egyptian Astronomy & Smog | SciByte 45 – SpaceX Dragon flight delay [May 8, 2012]
• Mining Asteroids & Shuttle Discovery | SciByte 44 – SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket [May 1, 2012]
• Solar Storms & Private Space Flight | SciByte 30 – SpaceX Space Station resupply mission resceduled [January 24, 2012]
• The low down
• SpaceX’s upcoming Dragon mission to the ISS was delayed again, but there is hope
• One of the key pre-launch requirements for its mission to the ISS was the completion of software validation tasks for the spacecraft’s approach and berthing with the ISS has been passed
• The milestone means the latest launch date target of May 19 now holds a large amount of confidence.
• May 19 was the latest date to be selected, partly due to the need to avoid a conflict with the upcoming Soyuz mission to the ISS.
• This also gives engineers additional time to work the software – or “docking code”
• There are still a long list of requirements during the first days of the flight that are required to be allowed to approach the space station
• If the May 19 launch is again delayed for some reason, a backup plan is to lift off on May 22
• Social Media
• SpaceX @SpaceX
• Further Reading / In the News
• SpaceX’s Dragon debut to the ISS passes software validation process| nasaspaceflight.com

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

• May 16, 1866 : 146 years ago : Rootbeer : Charles Elmer Hires a pharmacist from Pennsylvania formulated the eponymous Hires Root Beer. Some say Hires discovered root beer on his honeymoon in New Jersey where the woman who ran his honeymoon hotel served root tea. Hires thought that “root beer” would be more appealing to the working class. Originally, Hires packaged the mixture in boxes and sold it to housewives and soda fountains. They needed to mix in water, sugar, and yeast.He became a millionaire just for selling drinks.
• May 18 1980 : 32 years ago : Mt. St. Helens : Following a weeklong series of earthquakes and smaller explosions of ash and smoke, the long-dormant Mount St. Helens volcano erupted in Washington state, U.S., hurling ash 15,000 feet into the air and setting off mudslides and avalanches. The eruptions caused minimal damage in the sparsely populated area, but about 400 people – mostly loggers and forest rangers – were evacuated. The explosion was characterized as the equivalent of 27,000 atomic bombs. The cloud of ash eventually circled the globe

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …

• Venus will be moving lower in the west every evening as twilight fades, as it prepares for its June 5 rendezvous with the Sun

• Annular Solar Eclipse of 2012 May 20 | NASA.gov

• Google Maps and Solar Eclipse Paths | NASA.gov

• Further Reading and Resources

• [Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast: May 14–20, 2012] | universetoday.com](https://www.universetoday.com/95150/weekly-skywatchers-forecast-may–14–20–2012/)

• More on what’s in the sky this week

• Sky&Telescope

• SpaceWeather.com

• StarDate.org

• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au

• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org

• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz

• AstronomyNow

• HeavensAbove

The post Mayan Calendar & Cancer Research | SciByte 46 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/13146/planets-brains-scibyte-18/ Tue, 25 Oct 2011 21:26:04 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=13146 We take a look at water around distant stars, baby planets, the teenage brain, vaccines, satellites, and even take a peek at what’s up in the sky this week.

The post Planets & Brains | SciByte 18 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at water around distant stars, baby planets, the teenage brain, vaccines, satellites, and even take a peek at what’s up in the sky this week.

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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• Ready Player One
• Steve Jobs

Show Notes:

‘Oceans’ of Water Around Distant Star

• The low down
• Eta Corvi, approximately 60 light-years away in the northern sky, and found signs that comets could be pelting the alien system
• Astronomers used Spitzer’s infrared detectors to analyze the light coming from the dust around Eta Corvi.
• Certain chemical fingerprints were observed, including water ice, organics and rock, which indicate a giant comet source
• Water molecules come in two “spin” forms, called ortho and para, in which the two spins of the hydrogen nuclei have different orientations. By comparing the relative amounts of ortho and para water, astronomers can determine the temperatures under which the water formed.
• The ratio of ortho to para water observed in TW Hydrae’s protoplanetary disc is low enough to point to the presence of cold water vapour.
• Significance
• Our current planetary formation models have recently included what is called Late Heavy Bombardment. Where we believe that comets disrupted by a change in orbit of Jupiter and Saturn caused Kuiper belt objects to swing to the inner solar system depositing the water in our oceans
• Eta Corvi system is approximately 1 billion years old, which would place it in the right time period for such a comet storm
• There’s enough water in the planet-forming disk around Eta Corvi to fill several thousand Earth oceans
• Multimedia
• VIDEO: Comets Donate Elements of life @ space.com
• Artist’s conception illustrates a storm of comets around a star near our own @ space.com
• Artist’s impression illustrates an icy protoplanetary disc @ esa.int
• Social Media
• Twitter account for Spitzer Telescope @NASASpitzer
• Twitter account for Herschel Telescope @ESAHerschel
• Further Reading / In the News
• Spitzer Space Telecope
• Signposts of Planets Conference
• Herschel Observatory Detects ‘Oceans’ of Water Around Distant Star @ UniverseToday.com
• Herschel detects abundant water in planet-forming disc @ esa.int
• NASA’s Spitzer Detects Comet Storm in Nearby Solar System @ spitzer.caltech.edu

Baby pictures of a Planet

• The low down
• The first direct image of a planet in the process of forming around its star has been captured by astronomers
• If this is a planet, it’s at a temperature of about 440–1340 F / 226–726C, and has a mass roughly six times that of Jupiter, or about 2000 times the Earth’s mass.
• Images have revealed that the forming planet sits inside a wide gap between the young parent star and an outer disk of dust.
• At two million years old LkCa 15 b is the youngest planet ever found, about 5 times younger than the previous record holder
• Astronomers were able to combine the power of Keck’s Adaptive Optics with a technique called aperture mask interferometry, so that the mirrors canceled out the starlight
• Significance
• Planatary formation models have two ways for a gas giant to form, core accretion and the gravitational instability model. The observations of this proto-planet favor the 2nd.
• Gravitational instability model: A large mass of gas and dust in the outer part of the disk suddenly forms into clumps as big as a modest-size planet, drawing in neighbouring gas and dust to form a giant planet in just a few hundred years.
• Multimedia
• Artist’s conception of the view near the planet LkCa 15 b. Credit: Karen L. Teramura, UH IfA
• The transitional disk around the star LkCa 15
• The location of LkCa 15
• Social Media
• Twitter account for AstronomyNow @astronomynow
• Facebook account for W.M. Keck Observatory
• Further Reading / In the News
• Keck Observatory
• Youngest Planet Seen As It’s Forming @ KeckObservatory.org
• Youngest planet imaged as it forms @ AstronomyNow.com
• LkCa 15: A Young Exoplanet Caught at Formation? @ cornell University Library
• The first direct image of a baby planet being born! (maybe!)(but probably!) @DiscoverMagazine.com

Teen brains’ growing pains

• The low down
• Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a standardized measure of human intellectual capacity that takes into account a wide range of cognitive skills
• IQ is generally considered to be stable across the lifespan, with scores at one time point used to predict educational achievement and employment prospects in later years
• Researchers tested 33 normal children, first between the ages of 12 and 16, and then again four years later, using both IQ tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which measures blood flow in the brain.
• Verbal IQ, measured by language, arithmetic, general knowledge and memory tests
• Nonverbal IQ, measured by solving visual puzzles.
• While the teens were in the lab, structural MRI brain scans measured particular brain regions.
• Four years later, the team invited the teenagers back for a redo
• Significance
• Overall, IQ scores held steady: Average IQs were 112 in 2004 and 113 four years later.
• About a third of the teenagers had meaningful changes in IQ, and a handful showed dizzying climbs or plunges.
• One such plunge was 18 IQ points — which would be enough to demote a person from genius status to merely above average.
• The retest also turned up an IQ gain of 21 points — which would elevate a below-average person to above average.
• Some people who scored high the first time around scored even higher later, and some low scorers scored even lower.
• The team suspected mundane explanations such as differences in the teens’ levels of concentration at the time of each test. But the brain scan data argued otherwise.
• The IQ changes were accompanied by changes in the brains’ gray matter, which is made up of nerve cells.
• This would be encouraging to those whose intellectual potential may improve, and would be a warning that early achievers may not maintain their potential.
• Multimedia
• Location of brain regions where grey matter changed @ LiveScience
• Activations in the regions identified @ LiveScience
• Social Media
• Twitter account for Education Week @educationweek
• Twitter account for Nature News&Comment @NatureNews
• Further Reading / In the News
• Verbal and non-verbal intelligence changes in the teenage brain @ Nature.com
• Study: Adolescents Can See Dramatic IQ Changes @EducationWeek
• Study: Teens’ IQ may fluctuate over time @ USA Today
• Teens’ IQs Can Fluctuate, Study Suggests @ LiveScience.com

*— NEWS BYTE — *

First Wide-Scale Malaria vaccine shows promise

• The low down
• The first vaccine against malaria to undergo wide-scale testing shows that youngsters who got it were about half as likely to come down with the disease over a 14-month follow-up period as were those who didn’t receive the vaccine
• The malaria vaccine also reduced cases of severe malaria — the kind that can result in hospitalization.
• Severe malaria in the two age groups combined, among those getting the experimental vaccine, was reduced by about one-third, slightly less than the researchers anticipated.
• Random thing to note
• Measles continues to show up sporadically as unvaccinated people traveling to other countries unwittingly bring back infections
• Pre-vaccination days in the 1960s, the United States could expect hundreds of thousands of infections and thousands of people hospitalized
• Social Media
• Twitter account for New England Journal of Medicine @NEJM
• Further Reading / In the News
• Malaria vaccine yields protection @ ScienceNews.org
• First Results of Phase 3 Trial of RTS,S/AS01 Malaria Vaccine in African Children @ New England Journal of Medicine
• Measles cases up in U.S. and Canada @ ScienceNews.com

The War of the Worlds

Stream the entire radio broadcast:

• The low down
• Performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938
• The program starts with an introduction from the novel, describing the intentions of the aliens and noting that the adaptation is set in 1939, a year ahead of the actual broadcast date
• Only notices that the broadcast was fictional came at the start of the broadcast and about 40 and 55 minutes into it
• Many missed the repeated notices that the broadcast was fictional, dialing in about 15 min into the program (after the notices) when a more popular program ended it’s first comic sketch and the 1st musical number began
• Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a “sustaining show” (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program’s realism
• After the play, Welles informally breaks character to remind listeners that the broadcast was a Halloween concoction
• Significance
• Within one month, newspapers had published 12,500 articles about the broadcast and its impact
• During this period, many newspaper publishers were concerned that radio, a new medium, would render them obsolete. They may have taked the oppotunity to embellish the story suggest that radio was dangerous.
• Contemporary news articles indicate that police were swamped with hundreds of calls in numerous locations, but stories of people doing anything more than calling authorities mostly involve only small groups.
• In Concrete, Washington, phone lines and electricity went out due to a short-circuit at the Superior Portland Cement Company’s substation. Residents were unable to call neighbors, family or friends to calm their fears. Reporters who heard of the coincidental blackout sent the story over the newswire, and soon Concrete was known worldwide
• Many listeners sued the network for “mental anguish” and “personal injury.” All suits were dismissed, except for a claim for a pair of black mens shoes (size 9B) by a Massachusetts man who spent his shoe money to escape the Martians. Welles insisted the man be paid
• In February 1949 a Spanish-language version The broadcast set off panic in Equador. Police and fire brigades rushed out of town to engage the supposed alien invasion force. After it was revealed that the broadcast was fiction, the panic transformed into a riot.
• National Public Radio aired a remake on the 50th anniversary of the Mercury Theatre play in 1988. It starred Jason Robards, Steve Allen (who as a youth listened to the 1938 broadcast), Douglas Edwards, Scott Simon and Terry Gross. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for “Best Spoken Word or Nonmusical Recording”.
• Multimedia
• The War of the Worlds (Original 1938 Radio Adaptation) [Audio CD]
• The War of the Worlds (Special Collector’s Edition) (1953)
• Further Reading / In the News
• @ Wikipedia
• Voice of Reason: ‘War of the Worlds’ Truths and Myths @ LiveScience.com
• Radio Beat: Oct. 30, 1938 – The broadcast that scared a nation
• The War of the Worlds Download – Internet Archive

UPDATE

ROSAT Sattelite

• The low down
• The 2.7-ton ROSAT Satellite, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday (Oct. 22) at 9:50 p.m. EDT (0150 GMT Sunday, Oct. 23)
• Most likely met a watery grave during its weekend plunge to Earth, a fall from space that ended over the Bay of Bengal in the northeast Indian Ocean
• Officials estimated that up to 30 pieces totaling 1.9 tons (1.7 metric tons), consisting mostly of the observatory’s heat-resistant mirrors and ceramic parts, could survive the fiery trip and reach the surface of the planet
• Based on ROSAT’s orbital path, these fragments could be scattered along a swath of the planet about 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide
• Multimedia
• Initial reports said ROSAT fell sometime during this track
• Social Media
• @ROSAT_Reentry Twitter feed
• Further Reading / In the News
• ROSAT re-entry page
• ROSAT Satellite has Re-Entered; No Reports of Debris @UniverseToday
• Defunct German Satellite Hits Earth in Fiery Death Dive @ Space.com
• German Satellite Fell to Earth Over Indian Ocean’s Bay of Bengal @ Space.com

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back this week

• Oct 27, 1780 : 231 years ago – First U.S. astronomy expedition: Four professors and six students left on a three week expedition to record a solar eclipse from Penobscot Bay in Main. Although the U.S. was at war with Britain, the British officer in charge of Penobscot Bay permitted the expedition to land and set up equipment to observe the predicted total eclipse of the sun. Unfortunately saw a thin arc of the sun instead of its complete obscuration by the moon.
• Oct 28 1868 : 143 years ago – A patent was registered for a machine that let legislators vote with a turn of the switch and a patent era was born then Thomas Edison applied for his first patent the “Electrographic Vote Recorder.” U.S. Patent No. 90,646 He would eventually hold over 1,500 patents
• Nov 1 1879 : 132 years ago – There was light! Edison signed the patent application for his electric lamp U.S. Patent 223,898. In the next few weeks, he also filed for patents in Britain, Belgium, Italy and France, as referred to in a Correction dated 18 Dec 1883, in which Edison requested that the U.S. patent be limited so as to expire at the same time with whichever of the foreign patents had the shortest time to run.
• Nov 1 1884 – 127 years ago : Greenwich Mean Time : In 1884, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted universally at a meeting of the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC, USA. From then the International Date Line was drawn up and 24 time zones created.
• Oct 28 1894 : 117 years ago – A patent was issued for inserting paper into a machine that recorded the time when a lever was pressed recording the time employees started and ended thier work day and Daniel M. Cooper of Rochester, N.Y. received the first U.S. patent for a time clock (No. 528,223).
• Oct 29, 1998 – 13 years ago : John Glen returned to space at the age of 77, 36 years after his first orbit round the Earth.

Looking up this week

• You might have seen …

• Spectacular Northern Lights Display Leaves Skywatchers Spellbound

• A dazzling aurora light show amazed skywatchers across North America, from Canada to Arkansas, and other northern regions Monday night (Oct. 24), painting the sky with striking green and even rare red hues

• Auroras are caused when charged solar particles hit Earth’s atmosphere, causing a glow as the particles collide.

• Unfortunately for sky watchers, the geomagnetic storm appears to be in decline and no further significant space weather is expected at this time

• Keep an eye out for …
• The constellation Andromeda’s main figure is two streamers of stars that form a long, skinny V. It is high in the east and northeast at nightfall, and climbs directly overhead by midnight.
• Wednesday, Oct. 26 – New Moon (exact at 3:56 p.m. EDT).
• Thursday, Oct. 27- Jupiter rises around sunset and is in the sky all night, ’s brightest for the year, too, far outshining all the true stars in the night sky. Look for it low in the east as night falls and arcing high across the south later on.
• Friday, Oct. 28 – look for the thin waxing crescent Moon very low in the southwest; Venus will be to its lower right (separated by roughly a fist-width at arm’s length )
• Dusk Oct 28–29 ~30 min after sunset looking to the SW You will see the cresent moon, the red star of Antares and you might even get a peek at Mercury and Venus low on the horizon

• More on whats in the sky this week

• Sky and Telescope
• AstronomyNow
• SpaceWeather.com
• HeavensAbove
• StarDate.org

The post Planets & Brains | SciByte 18 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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